Are we surprised NFL viewership is up? Plus, the WNBA escapes a mess

0:00Look, you get to a certain age and you want to be a little more serious when it comes to your shirt. Anybody who's worn a dress shirt knows just how uncomfortable it can be and how annoying it is when they bunch up under a sweater. So you must check out Collars & Co., makers of the Dress Collar Polo. Their shirts are four-way stretch, buttery soft polos with firm dress collars on them. So they give you that dress shirt look, but it's an extremely comfortable polo feel. Now these are shirts you can wear with anything. Wear them with a blazer, wear them under a sweater, wear them solo as an elevated polo.

0:33They work for any occasion. Got a date? Perfect. Heading out to golf? Again, perfect. What about going to the office? Same thing. Collars & Co. has exploded into the marketplace. I'm guessing you have seen them. They've gone viral many times on social media. Their collars don't flop down and spread out. They stay firm and sharp all day. They also have an amazing array of sweaters, quarter zips, pants, and outerwear. So if you're looking for a performance dress shirt or a polo that looks great all day, check out collarsandco.com. Use the promo code MEDIA for 15 % off any purchase of$100 or more.

1:12Again, promo code MEDIA for 15 % off any purchase of$100 or more. Collars and Co. DraftKings, an official partner of the NBA, is now available in all 50 states. So wherever you live, follow your favorite NBA stars, get excited about the biggest matchups, and lock in on those buzzer-beating moments. And with DraftKings, it's all in one app. Download the DraftKings Sports app and use code 2400. New DraftKings customers can spend five and get 200 in total bonuses paid within 21 days. New DraftKings customers can spend five and get 200 in total bonuses paid within 21 days. Includes all markets. That's code 2400 in partnership with DraftKings.

1:57The crown is yours.

2:23in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days. One non withdrawable reward redeemable. Terms at dkng.co slash offer. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free to play sports contest availability varies by state.

2:46Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast. I'm your host Richard Dykes. My producer is James Jackson. This is our usual roundtable. Appreciate everybody who listens on the weekend. People seem to enjoy this very, very much. And we have regulars back. John Lewis is the founder and editor of Sports Media Watch. Austin Karp is the sports media columnist and reporter for the Sports Business Journal. Chad Finn, sports media writer, general columnist for the Boston Globe. Welcome, fellas. Thanks, Brent. Thanks for having me. Hello. All right. Hello, Austin. So we will, that's the one thing it's like, you know, I should probably, It's so impossible for everybody to say hello at the same time if you sort of say this, but you guys did it well.

3:23I try to be the anchor leg on those things. That's true. Where's your dog, Austin? I need your dog to appear on this podcast. He's at a friend's house right now, but I'll let him know you said hi. Yeah, always. All right, so here's where we'll start.

3:38It's been such a crazy couple of months in sports media. I would say this week is a little calmer if that is sort of possible, but it really has been. So we're not going to lead with Buck and Aikman this week or Tony Romo or something like that. I have two of the foremost viewership experts in the country when it comes to sports media, so we'll lead with that. And that is the NFL viewership. We just got notice from Andrew Howard, who is one of the NFL communication aces, about where things are through week eight of the NFL season. Season to date, games are averaging 18.4 million viewers between TV and digital.

4:15that is the highest average through week eight on record. These records go back to 1988, and it is up 3 % over last year. As you would not be surprised, the NFL games rank, you know, essentially almost all the top 50 is the NFL. Two things that were interesting to me that the NFL sent out. One, 71 games have been decided by one score, eight or fewer points. That's tied with 2022 for the most through week eight of the NFL history. So that makes sense that closer games, bigger viewership. 38 games have featured a game-winning score in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime. That's tied with 2021 for the most through week eight in the NFL season.

4:58So I'm going to start with you, John Lewis. Again, I know that some of this probably the new metric, the new like sort of, you know, out of home and everything else is sort of going to rise stuff a little bit. But again, through week eight, these guys are up and they have some things to, I think, put out to the public. And also, the schedule does seem to be backloaded a little bit to me. So I would expect that the NFL viewership will go up, but I want to go to you and Austin on this to start with because you are the experts. Go ahead, John. Well, I can't say I'm surprised. You've got to remember before the season, Atlas Intel projected that the NFL was going to be up this year.

5:32But look, no, it's been a really strong recovery for the NFL. That's the thing that's most fascinating, right? because you start out and let me actually restart because i'm speaking for the wrong microphone okay so just count yourself down and just well you just answer the question for me okay so do i start over or do i just keep going just go five four three two one and start over all right five do i do i redo the atlas intel joke or is that just a moment yes redo the redo it all right five four three two one well i can't say i'm surprised the nfl's off to this start because, of course, Atlas Intel projected that would be the case before the season started.

6:11But look, here's a simple fact. The NFL has had a very strong recovery. Remember, it started down 13 % in week one. That was because of the double-double header. I mean, it wasn't a real authentic double-digit decline, but they dug themselves that hole and got out of it pretty quickly. By week five, viewership was up. Viewership is still only up slightly. It's up 3%. This is not some kind of massive gain. But considering they were down 13%, that's not too bad. And they've had some help along the way. Obviously, it is very helpful to have ESPN not doing those double headers on Monday nights. That helps.

6:49But the fact is, Prime has been really impressive so far this year. They've been pretty impressive on the NBA side, too. So something's brewing at Prime because they've got a really strong start pretty much across the board here with the NFL and NBA. And obviously CBS continues to benefit. I was thinking about it the other day and I was thinking, well, why has CBS been beating Fox the last several years? Because for a long time that was unheard of. And that's because Fox has the Cowboys and CBS has the Chiefs. And the Cowboys will always be a draw. They'll always be a team that matters, but they won't always be a team that's good.

7:27And the Chiefs with last year being a notable exception they're good every single time out and so uh that is a huge advantage for cbs to have with what had been a very weak afc package for years so uh nbc is doing okay they're not i don't think they're at the same level of highs we've seen elsewhere and of course espn and abc have been helped out a lot by getting rid of those uh those double headers i i did again looking at the fox schedule i do um i do think that they're probably going to get a little bit of a jump now starting at this point in the season. But you're right, John. I mean, like they have, I assume they have a lot of Eagles games.

8:02I don't have it in front of me. So like some of the teams are going to have to at least be semi-competitive for them to be in a good place. Go ahead, John. I was just thinking to myself, we talk so much about the AFC, excuse me, the NFC East every year. Well, every year it feels like the NFC East, even though obviously they've had a Super Bowl champion, there was an all NFC East, NFC title game a few years ago, but it feels almost like most years the nfc east is known by the underachieving and not just of the cowboys at a certain point that's going to hurt you if you're fox those are your top teams well the one thing with the eagles i mean no jalen hurts just changes that team i mean yeah hopefully i'm a big fan of jalen hurts as a quarterback so hopefully people realize just how great he's been but that you know it does hurt that's a big television team for them i know everybody mentions the cowboys but the eagles are a massive tv team and if they're not competitive like you know week 12 week 13 week week 14, you're definitely going to be hurt if you have them in national windows.

8:53All right, Austin, your top line thoughts on where we are NFL viewership through week eight. Well, I think John was very good on hitting the big salient points there. That ESPN switch of not having the double headers early in the season, that's huge. And so when ESPN is out there and they're playing, viewership is up 20%, 20 plus percent, you're talking about a comparison of like 12 games versus seven or eight games, something like that. Let's see how that really shakes out in the end. CBS on a record pace. We talked about Fox having a good back half of the schedule. I want to see CBS also maintain that with what they have in the back half.

9:24But some of the teams we just mentioned, just look at this coming weekend. You got Eagles and Giants. That's a 1 p.m. game. Cowboys, a 1 p.m. game. Chiefs, a 1 p.m. game. So that's a very interesting 1 p.m. slot here on week nine. Some of these teams, though, that NFC East is tough. That's where you make a lot of your money. You're not going to see a lot of flex of the Eagles into Sunday night football or wherever in the back half because I don't want to watch that team. I don't think anybody wants to watch that team right now. But ESPN, they gave them a really good schedule. Look what they have in week nine.

9:53They got two six and one teams here. Yeah. I didn't mean to interrupt you to say I'm really curious about that viewership. That could be a big number for the for the for Monday Night Football. That could be a really strong number. So ESPN, they did them right this year on that Super Bowl season. But remember what we kind of talked about coming into this season, And the NFL was leading the charge talking about we're not really happy with some of the methodology changes that Nielsen made. We think it might negatively impact us. Some of that had to do with them coming off a really strong year last year.

10:22But here we are. We're halfway through the season. And yeah, John said it's not that big of an uptick, but up is up. And let's see if they can maintain that at the back half now. All right, Chad, I'm going to throw you a Boston bone here. the packers and patriots are playing sunday november 8th 4 25 p.m on fox and what does that mean i believe that means tommy brady will be calling the patriots are we calling tommy now yes i call him tommy uh yeah i mean it's his first time back here um it's uh something Patriots fans have anticipated because it was supposed to happen. I think there was a Patriots-Dolphins game at one point that didn't end up being particularly interesting that they thought he might come here to do but didn't.

11:14But the anticipation is to hear him talk about Drake May, which he really hasn't a lot, and to get his evaluation of that. But beyond that, he's really improved as a broadcaster. I think he's, especially over the last year, has found the niche of what he does, what he can do that a lot of other people can't, which is break down quarterback play, instantaneously tell you what the guy's seeing, what he should be seeing, where he should have gone with the ball. And he does it concisely now, which he was overstuffed with information when he started. He spent that hiatus year talking to everybody he could, people that worked with Madden, Romo, Aikman, every Collinsworth, every broadcaster he could think of that he respected.

11:58And so he came into the job and just had too much in his head about how to do it. And he's pared that down to what he does well. And as he's done that, he's really, I think, risen up the draft board of the top color analysts now. Chad, I'm going to stay with you. If you were Fox, how much would you do on Brady's New England career? How much do you weave that into the broadcast versus what is in front of you, Packers-Patriots? Well, it's pretty interesting because Gronkowski's getting into the Patriots Hall of Fame this weekend. and he's Saturday, but they're going to have something for the 2016 team.

12:40And obviously the studio program will do a lot with that. With Brady, I imagine it's interspersed a couple of times, but not too much into the actual game broadcasts. They've been interesting with how they promoted this week, where they've really emphasized him coming back. They had him go on cow herd. But, you know, as we all know, Brady's not the most available of the color analysts. And they haven't done anything with that where I thought maybe this would be a week that they did so like they did before the Super Bowl. But it's going to be a bit of a mystery, I think, coming in about how he feels about certain things.

13:17Will you be at that game, Chad? No, I do it remotely because I got to write about the TV broadcast a little bit, too. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Especially this week. Yeah, yeah. So, Pete, check out the Globe on Monday, the Boston Globe, for Chad's take on Tom Brady, which is a significant game on the television schedule. All right. I want to make a shift to the WNBA. We are a little bit obviously past the finals. An amazing story. Golden State Valkyries in their second year of existence win the WNBA title. It went to seven games, which is a win for the league just to be able to showcase the game seven.

13:55We have talked on this podcast before about all the nonsense that went down with game six, a total screw up by multiple factors, including the league, but they get bailed out because the dream wins game six. And then we have a game seven. John Lewis, I'm going to start with you. The WNBA finals game seven draws 3.3 million or so on USA Network, CNBC, and Peacock. That was a very good number. And I think probably better than me and you expected. So full marks to USA Network on that. The seven game series averages is a little under 2 million across everybody who had NBC, USA, CNBC, sci-fi, etc. I think after all the talk, John, about game six and all the sort of negative talk and rightly so, the WNBA has a really good viewership story to tell at the end.

14:46And it shows you one of the best moves that that league made was two years ago when they went to games, when the board of governors said, let's go to Game 7 here. That turned out to be such a huge thing, and they get a good viewership story in the end. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think any time Game 7 carries a certain resonance to it that Game 5 just doesn't. Now, look, I think all of us who watch sports, would I prefer best of five in the first round of the NBA playoffs, for example? Yeah, I would. but we know that game seven has a certain ring to it uh this was interesting because uh this is gonna maybe it's somewhat of faint praise it's it's certainly if you wanted to say well that's not impressive you could say it but this is the first wnba finals the first one ever to average more viewers than any championship series of one of the big four sports so in this case it's just won, and it's a really low-rated one, but this finals did outrate or have averaged more viewers than the 2007 Stanley Cup final, Anaheim-Ottawa.

15:53Now, that was a horrible Cup final, right? The only interesting thing was when they had Don Cherry on NBC because they were trying to make, who was it, Brett Hull into their version of Charles Barkley, so they brought Don Cherry to get out for a game. That was a horrible Cup final, did terribly. The games were on versus the first two games, but still, that to me is somewhat of a milestone. I don't think you could really, even with all the Nielsen changes I've ever thought, maybe unless Caitlin Clark and the Fever were there or something, I don't know, that any WNBA finals would beat any Stanley Cup final.

16:28So to me, I think that is, you know, that's meaningful in its own way. I mean, if you want to downplay it, that's fair. But I think that's fascinating to me. 3.3 million on a college football Saturday. Not that competitive, right? One of the most interesting things in college football right now, ABC is not airing that many SEC games. That's fascinating to me. And ABC was weaker with Miami UNC. And NBC was strong with Ohio State USC, but not as strong as ABC would typically be with an SEC game. So the competition wasn't as bad. Didn't have to face game seven of the World Series, which was very important.

17:06But all in all, this is a league where 449 ,000 people watched the winner-take-all finals game in 2019, right? Yep. I mean, this is one of the biggest jumps in viewership that I've seen any league have relative to its previous baseline. Austin, what were your impressions of when the final viewership numbers came in? I think it was a really strong number for Versant, and this is year one of this. So remember, this is a long-term deal like the NBA is. And John kind of alluded to this in our last talk about the NBA Cup doing well on Prime Video and the NBA doing on Prime Video. And Thursday Night Football doing well on Prime Video.

17:45But what has that taken? It's taken a number of seasons for that to continue to climb. And fans continue to discover, like, I know Thursday Night Football is on Prime Video. Now, it's going to alternate a little bit, but people will get used to USA Network has the WNBA. It's the home of the most WNBA games, so on and so forth. What surprised me or what stood out from the Game 7 number in particular is that 35 % of that audience was not on USA. That was from a combination of Peacock, Sci-Fi, and I'm guessing mainly Peacock. So you got younger, more tech-savvy fans probably tuning into Peacock to get that game.

18:20That's a big chunk of the audience. That's not like NFL, which has something like closer to 11 % or 12 % watching Sunday Night Football on Peacock. That's a big, big streaming number for that game seven. So that's something I'll continue to watch across all of these, you know, Versant slash NBC properties that are using Peacock for their streaming. Chad, I want to ask you a question that's sort of more on the journalism end. And again, I know I think you coached high school. Did you coach girls high school basketball? Maybe? No, younger. Younger. Okay. But I know you did coach. Do you, one of the things that, that I, again, this is very, very anecdotal, But I did think this year for the WNBA finals, I just saw more content out of those finals than I had ever seen before.

19:02And I don't know if that was a case of people traveling to both cities to do the games. My instinct would be it's just more there are more content creators out there who are like commenting on the WNBA and you have access to their content via social media. But my experience is like I just read a lot about that series. and saw a lot of video takes about that series, which was pretty cool to see. Again, as someone who was covering this back in the Stone Age, it's cool to see how much it's moved up. Did you share my, like, anecdotally, did that track with you? Or maybe it was just, maybe I'm just too deep in the weeds and I was searching out what I could find.

19:45How did you find? It's an honor to talk to a ground floor WNBA person. I know ground floor, but I, you know. You absolutely are. Near the ground floor, that is true. The second floor. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I think so. I mean, it was a little skewed here in New England because Veronica Burton's sister is an NBC Sports Boston host Kayla, who is a division one player herself. And Steve Burton, her father, is a longtime sports guy on Channel 4 CBS's affiliate up here. So there was a lot about them. Shaughnessy wrote about Veronica and the family connection for us. So my perspective was seen through probably that lens through much of the playoffs, especially during the finals in Game 7.

20:29But it does seem like there's a lot of appeal to content creators with this on the valid, authentic side and not the Sophie Cunningham, Caitlin Clark stuff that we all heard throughout the season, but rather basketball stuff. and the same sorts of things you would hear for the NBA Finals. And I wouldn't call it a surprise, but it was a very pleasant thing to have happen as the Finals were playing on. Yeah, I'd be curious to see if the momentum continues into next year, and it should. Kaitlin Clark obviously will always be the league's biggest draw, and she'll be featured obviously in a lot of games.

21:09But there's a potential for Juju Watkins coming into the league, who I think has a chance to be within the Paige Beckers, Caitlin Clark, Asia Wilson, kind of like popularity. Yeah, Sophie Cunningham, got to put her in there too. Like popularity in terms of like the landscape. So they're in a really, really good place. It's that lottery interesting. People are going to watch or maybe care about the WNBA lottery. We never would have talked about that three years ago. I can tell you people where I live are because Toronto's got the second best odds or first best odds for that. John Lewis, I want to end this with you, and then we'll move on to a couple different topics.

21:48Do you think, John, because I know you definitely have covered this viewership, do you see the WNBA momentum helping Unrivaled or any of these kind of winter leagues or these such separate entities that maybe there's no correlation?

22:05Flawless tall boots, chocolatey kicks, retro sneakers, reimagined loafers, and animal prints that drive you wild from heel to toe. The fall trends you're obsessed with at prices you love. All at Designer Shoe Warehouse. Every DSW store is a fall fashion lookbook come to life. So have a little fun with your style. Try something new. Find something that feels unmistakably you. Head to your DSW store or shop dsw.com today. DSW, let us surprise you. Hi, this is Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst, certified financial planner, and the host of the Jill on Money podcast. With the end of the year upon us, it is the perfect time to check in on your finances.

22:48And the Jill on Money show is here to help. Your questions make it possible for me to provide unconventional and entertaining insights on your money, and more importantly, on your life. Follow and listen to Jill on Money wherever you get your podcasts. I think they've been separate. Unrivaled is, you know, really kind of where the WNBA was in terms of viewership. The numbers are low, low six figures. You know, they're not bad for TNT and True TV on a random, you know, winter night when they wouldn't have had anything else. They're not that far off from what they get for, you know, NHL regular season.

23:29But what the WNBA has that matters most is a regular season that takes place at a pretty slow time of year. And that to me is a major asset. Unrivaled doesn't have that. And as long as that continues to be the case, I think, especially if, you know, if Caitlin Clark was in it, maybe if Angel Reese was in it maybe, but it's kind of more along the lines of where the WNBA was two or three years ago. Yeah. Okay. To build on that - Five years ago. Go ahead, Austin. Talking about being during a slow time of year, the WNBA might have even more of the landscape to itself early in the season next year if there's no baseball going on.

24:15Great point. Yeah. I didn't think about that. You might even see more coverage of the WNBA because if there's nothing going on but labor dispute and you want to watch something live here's juju walkins coming out of the gate i i again i don't expect the wma lottery showed it you know it's not going to put up like the most insane viewership number but i will be curious to see and i expect it to increase and i will be curious to see what the increase is because i do have this theory that juju walkins again could be one of the top five kind of viewership draws in the league no one's going to be caitlin but whatever that level is after that i i do think she has a chance to yeah to to be that so i'm just obviously very very curious and also just selfishly because i'm in toronto i i would like the the tempo to win that lottery because to get a generational player in your city would be awesome so um awesome i want to go to you on this because i i read this in sports business journal although i think we'll give our buddy john orand uh the initial uh attribution because i think he wrote a column on this.

25:13But Versant CEO Mark Lazarus discussed the, I'm sort of paraphrasing there, the high prices for the NFL and the World Cup rights could create basically an opening for them as other media companies reassess their sports portfolios and spending commitments. Obviously, Skydance would be one of them just given they're going to have to make some big decisions with that merger with WBD. But what's interesting with Versant, Austin, is they have the WNBA, as we mentioned, Pac-12, Bundesliga, they have golf, NASCAR. And so if you had to handicap it today, do you see them entering the marketplace for maybe for a rights portfolio that we might not sort of have expected them to get?

26:00I think that they could, absolutely. And it's something that Laz has talked about before, and I'm sure he's going to talk about it some more. We have him speaking with both of his brothers at the Media Innovators Conference coming up in two weeks. That'll be fun. Three Lazarus brothers. But are they going to be stepping up for the NFL? I don't know if it's NFL level, but because all of these places know that they have to pony up more to keep the NFL in the long term, it has a trickle-down effect that we've talked about over and over again with some of these other properties, whether it's a Major League Baseball or no Major League Soccer is going to be out there.

26:32And like you just talked about with some of the properties that are already there, Premier League, Bundesliga, Versen has shown an affinity for soccer. Is Major League Soccer something they can actually sink their teeth into and we can get it back in front of fans where it hasn't been for the last few seasons? Sorry, that's just the way it is, Apple TV. But they're going to be players. Laz knows the space, Laz has the connections, and he's going to make a run at some stuff that maybe we're not thinking about. John Lewis, do you see the NHL as a long-term fit for Skydance? Because I do not. Well, it depends on how committed they are to the success of TNT Sports, right?

27:08Because obviously, the NHL has worked out on TNT Sports. It's been a good property for them. It's allowed them to lose the NBA without necessarily losing their relevance in that time of year. I mean, obviously, they're not as relevant in that time of year, but they're not gone. I mean, April, May, and June, they still got a lot of programming from live sports. So I think from that perspective, and I definitely am more of the mind that TNT sports will survive in some form. Okay. Because they kept Craig Barry around. You're not going to do that and then just throw away everything. This is not, we got TNT sports and we're just going to absorb everything they've gotten to CBS sports.

27:49So I think from that perspective, you know, maybe just try to keep things together. It's going to be really interesting these next few years. Yeah, I'm not sure if people understand how up in the air, how much of a jump ball so many things are in these next really to the end of this decade. And I have no idea necessarily what that might mean for a skydance. I think for them, you know, I really have no idea what their strategy is going to be, because I don't really know what this industry is going to look like, what the decisions are going to be with the NFL. Frankly, given all of that, standing pat might be the best decision.

28:24they do isn't there a template for this though 20 years ago like i'm sure you wouldn't have thought that abc sports was just going to go away and be absorbed into espn completely but there we were like when this current nfl setup started abc sports kind of it went away it just became part of espn so there is precedent for that sort of thing happening a revered sports division with so much history just becoming part of something new i will just say i will go ahead john can i jump in yeah how do we now obviously i don't expect this but how do we know what won't be tnt sports if they decide to keep it in terms of that you know it might be yeah i mean there's a lot of precedent for that more so in like the banking space where you see it like you know uh nations bank buying bank of america and taking the bank of america name so it does happen in reverse like that and i will say just this is different than the content because the tnt has done a good job with hockey in terms of presentation that's different the larger question is does the Emerge company Skydance feel it can make money on the property.

29:22And that probably will depend on, like John Lewis said, what their strategy is long term. And then secondly, obviously, what the NHL is looking for in terms of just the money figure. They really did get paid in Canada between Rodgers and Amazon. It'll be real interesting to see where that league positions itself heading forward. John, you had something to say? Yeah, I just have a quick question because we just talked about the WNBA. Now we're talking about the NHL. I believe the NHL is pretty decently far ahead of the WNBA when you put everything together. Oh, yeah. In terms of viewership and stuff like that, for sure.

29:58Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But I also noticed, obviously, that I think a lot of people have noticed that the WNBA is a bigger regular season draw. There's a lot of reasons for that. Time of year, obviously, competition. NHL's not on broadcast TV as much. But is there kind of a threat there? Is there a risk for the NHL? I mean, people have been for years. oh, MLS is going to catch the NHL, and that never came close to happening. Is there any risk? I'm not necessarily saying there is any, but I'm curious to know what you guys think. Is there any risk that the WNBA could catch the NHL? I don't think so, only because the NHL still provides you with such an inventory play if you are interested in that sport.

30:43It's a really good driver in terms of just... quantity and that's value in that the other thing too is and Austin you can weigh in right after me and Chad you're welcome to as well it is really John a stronger regional sport than the WNBA and there is value in that like the reality is like the WNBA I wish I don't know the Valkyrie's local ratings are probably on national the point is like the the NHL is a very very valuable piece to have than like Buffalo or Boston or Chicago, right? And to me, that localized strength, I think still puts them at a different level than where the WNBA is based on their local markets.

31:25Go ahead, Austin, then you can weigh in, Chad, too. Sure. Oh, man, what was I going to say? You guys are making such good points. We were talking about the local strength of the NHL. Well, I was going to say nationally, look at where we are right now on the calendar. I don't think ESPN has a linear TV game this entire month. It is just digital. So in terms of national strength, I mean, this is why they brought on the NHL. They wanted to build that ESPN Plus at the time. So this is kind of built into that, and it was supposed to be a strong digital play. But here we are in the thick of the NHL season and not much of a linear TV presence for that A package with ESPN.

32:01Chad, you could talk to them in terms of the Boston market. I mean, I've seen those numbers. Like when the Bruins are good, those numbers are incredible. Yeah, I mean, that's my point for sure is the regional one, that it just has such an ingrained appeal. We've had seasons here where the Celtics have been the better team and even a championship caliber team, and the Bruins have had the better local ratings. I think there's a loyalty to that league that maybe doesn't always spread nationally into the national viewership numbers, but locally is pretty consistent and pretty strong, especially in the, I don't want to, not the original six markets entirely, but those would be ones that do have that consistent faith from their viewership that they're not going to go anywhere whether or not the team is good or bad.

32:52Yeah, and the one last thing I would add is when it's an original six Stanley Cup, John, and you and Austin know this, like the WNBA can't touch that. Like they're going to six, seven, eight million viewership for a finals and the WNBA, we just saw what its highest viewership is. So I don't think, I don't think that, I don't think the WNBA is catching the NHL in my lifetime. That said, I think both, I think the WNBA will absolutely continue to increase, like no question about that. The more interesting one is where's the NHL ceiling and can it continue to grow? And that's a, and that's a more interesting question.

33:28It's such a great sport to see live, but yet the regular season inventory outside of like your occasional winter classic or some special game never really you know we don't we don't we don't we don't see a regular 2 million 1.5 million games like it's just not the case and i don't winter classic gets outdrawn by the stadium series game this year it's kind of become less and less of a factor my only thought was like okay could like a gretzky figure come in but i don't even know if that would do it anymore You know, like I just I'm not sure about that. Just incredibly strong locally. Like you put you put a Penguins game on against anybody in the Pittsburgh market on Sportsnet Pittsburgh.

34:07You could put the two best teams in the NHL on national TV. Nobody in Pittsburgh is watching that. They're just going to watch the Penguins. And I will say again, as someone who's in an NHL city, there is a great argument to make that their postseason is far and away the most is the best postseason in terms of just viewership. Enjoy. Heart attack every night. Every game. Yeah. Every game. although the nfl probably has the same uh argument to be made as well all right two more things and then we'll get out of here um sneak in one quick thing of the nhl because you made a point about the gretzky they got their gretzky doesn't win he doesn't win for one the best players are all the canadian markets which doesn't help down here and then they all they're all blowing three three three goal leads in the final period you know of game seven or losing in the cup final so that doesn't help and just one more quick thing on this because i thought it was interesting we talked to tie it into the discussion of skydance the nhl clearly wants to stand like a final on broadcast tv this is the final year that it's on tnt they want that on on broadcast it would it would help it would help the league significantly but does skydance want it on broadcast tv because we just assumed this entire time that skydance will want to move everything from tnt over to cbs but they own TNT now they own it and they ever invested in TNT success the same way that Disney is invested in ESPN success so they might not want to put those on on broadcast TV all right I don't know I don't know how much I want to do on this other than a minute or two but if is there anybody on this uh podcast who wants any to offer any thought on live golf being done Austin I'll give it to you i feel like you're the closest to a golf person on this i cannot remember the last time i watched live golf either on anywhere like either digitally or streaming so this means nothing to me but is like is this going to be a loss to some people uh no it's not gonna be a loss to fox carrying it the last couple years and i apologize to those 12 viewers out there who have been watching live golf on an on a regular basis it wasn't a tv property and clearly by the by its demise it wasn't much of an actual property out there in sports you know i i don't know what to compare it to it was an xfl because you know the pga tour is going to take some of the elements that lives started and they're going to incorporate some of that like the nfl did with some of the xfl elements they got big names but they overpaid and the money was just there was just so much money being thrown at these players it was not sustainable in the long term it just wasn't but as far as the tv property nothing yeah i feel for the people who work like in some ways i guess i i mean my limited feelings like if you lost your job i do feel for you but you also know what you were walking into so i don't think fox is going to have problem filling the uh the programming hours that live was providing all right chad i'll go to you on this again i don't want to spend much time on this because if we were if i was going to spend time on this i would kind of do a whole show on this but i have to be i read this in sports business journal and i just like it was an item in like the daily and i just had to laugh ms now's morning joe on tuesday interrupted its coverage of the midterm elections to talk about espn's pat mcafee and joe scarborough saying that pat mcafee is ruining college game day um i don't even know what to make of that combination of joe scarborough by the way joe scarborough i'm not forgetting in 2015 the love affair that you had to hype up somebody.

37:34So let's just say that. But the, I don't, as a host, I'm doing a terrible job. Like, I don't even know where to go. Like, the one thing about McAfee, like that I would say is his base strength is that he has made college game day, generally speaking, fun and interesting. So if you're going to be critical of him, that seems to be the wrong avenue to be critical of him on. But I don't know, maybe I'm wrong here. uh chad what do you think well these are words i probably never would have said before a couple of days ago but i'm with joe scarborough um it uh i've written a couple of times about just how mcafee's sees that show if not that entire network and uh it it certainly appeals to specific demographics their viewership's younger um their numbers are great which they let they're excellent about touting but i feel like there is a tipping point that comes with McAfee that's going to be overexposure and he's going to say or do something that he can't recover from.

38:37He's very thin-skinned. He's one of those guys that tells you how thick-skinned he is and then gets affriended at everything. And I don't know if we start seeing a dip in viewership because, again, those numbers are great, but I do think that there's a point where he's spread too thin there and his appeal diminishes pretty rapidly. I don't know when that comes, but I think it will. All right. Does it do either you or Austin want to jump in on this, John? Just we'll do like just one little quick thing on it. Again, I would say I understand the criticisms of Pat McAfee, but I would just not that I want to be the biggest McAfee defender here, but like he has injected, in my opinion, some significant energy and enthusiasm on a show that I think desperately needed it before he came.

39:23So that would be my argument that college game day works for him. If you want the overexposure argument, yeah, for sure. I think he's like Stephen A. I think he's everywhere on that network. But that college game day strikes me as the spot that actually fits what his ethos is. But Austin, I'll give you it. And then, John, you can follow Austin and we'll get off this topic. I mean, John and I are numbers, guys, and the proof is in the numbers. The numbers continue to set records on college game day. His show continues to be best September, best October, best this month, best year. So we're not even on, they haven't even plateaued yet.

39:56They're still ascending his numbers on ESPN. That's why they're talking about the contract numbers that they're talking about for him. And as long as that's going to continue to go up, they can suffer through Joe Scarborough complaining about his antics. Yeah. John, we'll do the last word on the intersection of Joe Scarborough and Pat McAfee. Yeah, I didn't think it would come to this. when Scarborough Country was leading out of Keith Olbermann all those years ago. Look, the fact of the matter is that, as you say, McAfee saved College Game Day. He did. Whatever you want to say. That show was dealing with a pretty significant challenge from Big Noon.

40:34That challenge is gone, right? So McAfee came in and shored that show up. We see the viewership numbers. I will say, obviously, we all know that it's gone too far in terms of his ubiquity. I think Chad makes some good points about the fact that McAfee, in a lot of ways, is his own worst enemy. He's a lot like Stephen A in terms of he's having all these feuds, but Stephen A loves it. And you can tell that McAfee really hates it. That whole circumstance with Utah the other day was wild. It was just wild. One, I would point out that there's not a single woman in this industry. And I want to make clear that I'm not making a political point because you can include any conservative woman in this industry who's ever been outspoken like Sam Ponder when she got the bar stool still taken off the air.

41:23There's not a woman in this industry who's not dealt with much worse in terms of threat to safety than Pat McAfee did. And if they ever complained about it, people would destroy them for it. Well, if you can't stand the heat, get out, right? And McAfee just going and turning this into, you know, invoking very serious things that have happened in this country because of a few mild jokes in a video. So if he's unable to deal with that, he's going to create a circumstance of backlash. And you know something? I've said this a million times. Don't ever make a bet on where the culture is going because you have no idea.

42:02This culture has these these, you know, not to make a political point here at all, but these have been crazy political swings in this country just within the 2020s. So if you're going to try to make any judgment based on, OK, now we know where the culture is going. You've got to make sure you have something that's durable, that is its own thing, that is authentic to itself and true to itself and not trying to pander to anybody. I think they had that when McAfee initially got there and they moved away from it these last couple of years.

42:58Download today.

43:28with code podcast for 10 % off. All right, last topic is, we're gonna talk about the election. Chad, you're welcome to weigh in, but this again, I feel like is right up Boston and John's alley because this is a numbers thing. So I think all of us saw the primetime viewership for the networks on election night. I saw this from Brian Stelter. NBC averaged 6.52 million viewers. ABC averaged 4.91 million viewers. CNN averaged 3.93 million viewers. MS Now averaged 3.92 million viewers. Fox News averaged 3.88 million viewers. CBS averaged 2.63 million viewers. So there's two things I want to bring up and I'll go to you first, Austin.

44:10One, that NBC number is unbelievable. That's really significantly higher than everybody else. And it sort of tells you that, at least in terms of legacy viewership types of people, that's where they headed secondly never thought i would see fox news below like ms now and perhaps even some of those um uh over the air networks just because like traditionally like i think they would be dominating on election night viewership um and again all of these networks may have been up from 2022 that's not the point metrics of all change and stuff like that the point is what the competition is and then lastly of course cbs like getting left in the dust had you told someone like my mom who was the biggest cbs watcher during like the cronkite rather days that like they'd be behind all these places she would have like her head would have exploded impossible everybody watches cbs in her neighborhood so that has changed and then the other thing is and i don't have the the specific numbers in front of me but all of these like uh digital players who just you know came up with like like the chuck todd's like whatever he was end up doing the Kornacki came all the live streaming numbers like really soared.

45:21And so it shows you just how differently people are watching this stuff. So I want to go to you, Austin, just what your thoughts were on like sort of the major numbers. And then it's very clear that we're seeing in real time, a lot of Americans just saying like, I'm going to watch my election coverage with these streamer digital types. I don't need to go to the big networks anymore. It's pretty fascinating. CBS was a surprise for me kind of taking up the caboose there. It's amazing what happens when Barry Weiss doesn't have the NFL as a lead in to kind of jack up the numbers. But, yeah, I got to imagine that Ellison's going to want to have a conversation with her about that one.

45:57That was coming behind MS Now and Fox News. That's not good for a broadcast TV network. And also Fox News. Anybody who's been looking at these cable TV news numbers over the last decade, Fox News has just eaten CNN and MSNOW's lunch ever since Donald Trump came on the scene. And to see Fox News now really slipping behind these other networks, especially on an election night like that when there was so much at stake on both sides of the aisle, that was quite interesting to see. Yeah. And again, John Lewis, Lachlan Murdoch, I think in terms of Fox's numbers going down, I think he I think he sort of said he believes it's cyclical and it'll go back up.

46:37And maybe he's right. But man, you look at those election night numbers and I'm with Austin, everything he pointed out, the CBS number being that low was stunning. And then Fox just like in a million years, I wouldn't have thought Fox News would get beat by CNN and MS. Now I did like that. I would have never seen that coming. But it was interesting to me. How'd you see it? Well, what was the rating in Tampa for the Rays game three loss? Right. I mean, you know, these networks, Fox News and MSNBC, right? It's MSNBC, right? But Fox News and MSNBC, they are the home team networks, right? Right. For sure.

47:16If I was putting this in my schedule and the Republicans were the road team and the Democrats were the home team, I'd put Fox News in the away column and MS Now in the home column. That's what they are. So I'm not surprised. And we've seen this before when the Republicans have had a bad election night. Fox News' ratings are not as high. And then when the Republicans have a good election night, the numbers are better. It's always better from a business perspective and a political perspective to be out of power. It's easier. You don't have to actually run anything other than the other side being bad.

47:44And so, you know, the next time around, if we come back around, there's the next midterm of a Democratic president. I'm sure Fox will be up. I do think as far as, you know, as far as all of the numbers go, the fact of the matter is that I do agree with the idea that these live streams are becoming competition. I I I can't remember the last time I watched an election night on TV. um i've watched uh you know they had all the all the big internet uh all the big internet personalities who cover elections nate silver and uh some of the lower profile ones did a live stream uh on their various sub stacks they combined all their sub stacks together to form the mega sub stack i guess they they they did their live stream and i watched that i you know to me i don't you You know, I don't need you don't really need someone standing in front of a big board gesticulating wildly like Kornacki or Harry Enten.

48:43You can just have people who are talking in front of a Zoom like we are on this on this podcast recording. And it it's just as compelling. Yeah, I watched some of the CBS nerd cast, which I liked. I thought they did a really good job. I watched the Chuck Todd thing for a little bit. I wish I could remember what that if that actually had a had a name. It probably did. I can't remember what it was. But Chuck Todd was part of that. Exactly. As you mentioned, Nate Silver had a live stream with his group. And then I'm sure there are a lot of these political-based places like the Free Press or the Bulwark who had theirs.

49:28What is fascinating now is, John, you hit on this. the audience is getting more split and split and spit and people will go to personalities that they want to hear from or forecasters they want to hear from independent of production value. That's what's fascinating. You look at CNN, you look at CBS, and they have millions of dollars invested in the studios. And someone like a Chuck Todd or Nate Silver might just have exactly what we have is set up, like a StreamYard or Zoom set up. And people are still coming. In some ways, that i like that because it means that the content of what they're saying is sort of what matters more than the bells in and whistles although the the board that john king uses and steve kornacki uses is fucking cool i do love when they like go deep in accounting stuff all right chad i'll give you the last word uh word on this i know chad as a as a native as it what what are what are people in maine called mainers mariners yeah mainers what the hell else would it be maniacs i like maniacs can we make that stick so you were that's been heard before yeah yeah i was you know living in toronto i was not in any bellwether county right i'm in another country okay yes but you are you were in you know you were in a state where like a lot was on the line so did you uh well i don't know were you someone who was did you watch local were you floating between all these different places we've talked about yeah i uh didn't watch anything early i'd like to know what the numbers were when the news started coming about how it was going and whether what certain outlets saw increases in viewership.

51:08Because that's how I went about it. I didn't want to know anything early. It's hard to be optimistic when you've been optimistic before, and it hasn't worked out the way that you're hoping it does. And I've seen this with Collins, particularly Susan Collins in Maine before. I mean, the last election six years ago when she was against Sarah Gideon, the numbers looked good for Gideon and she had no chance once, you know, once the election, the voting numbers came out. And I just thought with Collins and a lot of other races around the country that there were people, Trump adjacent people that might not be admitting it at this point.

51:48And you were going to see them show up in the voting in Maine again. And it didn't happen this time. And I took that as a pleasant surprise. I thought Jackson ran a great campaign for the hundred or so days that he had it. His personality really came out and he had the right approach to Mainer's frustrations or Maniac's frustrations with her. But in terms of watching it all unfold, I couldn't do it early. I just lost all my listeners from the second congressional Maine district, Chad. Thank you for that. Yeah, getting Paula Page and the House of Representatives. It was, I will say, just I am someone, anybody who follows me on Twitter knows I am like a political junkie.

52:29That was my major in college. You text me about Maine elections more than any of my main friends. Correct, yeah. This is so much, no offense to, you know, the Josh Krulowiczs and Jen Sabatals and Andrew F's of the world at Fox, but this is far more interesting to me than sports media nonsense. So it was a remarkable, remarkable thing to watch. It's just like you've never seen an election like that since, you know, since Watergate, basically post-Watergate. And so it'll change the country dramatically. We'll see sort of how, you know, each party, we can do all four of us can do a podcast on the how the flaws of each party.

53:05And there are politicians and there are flaws for both of them. But it'll be really fascinating to see what shakes of this because we've never we've never seen an election night. I've never seen election night in my lifetime like the one that happened the other day. But the viewership is interesting. And again, for those of you who are sort of political junkies and sports media junkies like myself, the numbers for like the Fox's news and the MS Now's of the world and CNN's is really interesting. and pay attention now six months from now. Because as John Lewis said, he makes the great point. A lot of times, if you're the party out of power, and there's no party out of power now, it's still a Republican, you know, Trump is still the president, et cetera.

53:43But that has historically been true, that if you are a network that's criticizing the current president, you are getting a ton of people viewing because they really want, that's more compelling television for them. I wish it wasn't the case, but it is. And it gets right back to, this is where the sports parallel comes. This is why the embrace debate, conflict sports television works. It's because nobody, you have people, how do I say this? It's easier to do television when you're ripping somebody than to make a thoughtful point. The easiest thing in the world is just to rip somebody. Go ahead, John.

54:14I'll let you finish. For years and years and years, like 20 years ago, Republicans kept saying, well, what's going to happen to Jon Stewart when George Bush leaves? And they kept saying, oh, what's going to happen when he doesn't have George Bush to kick around anymore? And then George Bush left, and it was never really the same again. It just was never the same. And John is still out there. He's still doing the Daily Show, you know. But the fact is, it's that opposition. That's what builds everything. The same thing happened with Fox. I mean, O 'Reilly was never as relevant. Again, O 'Reilly didn't...

54:47Post-Obama. Yeah, he was gone. He vanished off the base of the earth. So, look, the fact of the matter is that that's what happens in politics. And you make the parallel of the sports what's going to happen to some of these guys when lebron james isn't around to kick around anymore too they usually can find a new place but i agree with you like again i have no idea what the viewership is but if you were going to ask me six months from now i would predict that that show the five on fox which is like you know five of them sit around and just yap about whatever the thing of the day is i bet you it goes up and i predict fox and friends goes up in the next six months too we'll see well maybe we'll do this six months from now and see if i turned out to be right or wrong uh but uh regardless of anything else i mean we all know john lewis austin carp and chad finn they they're beloved on both sides of the aisle that's why that's why i like having them we reach across richard we reach across john lewis of course editor and founder of sports media watch chad finn sports media comments for the boston globe austin carp the media writer for sports business journal thank you fellas thank you thanks rich all right stick around here as i do my incredibly entertaining outro.

55:53If you like these conversations, please head to the archives. John Lewis double-guessed this week. We did the broadcast partnership of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman Shattering. So if you want 49 minutes of that with John and Jimmy Traynor, check that out. That was early November. Trying to think what else. Michael Grady was on this podcast. Great NBA play-by-play broadcaster. Check that out. He's good. I like him. He's really good. Peter King was on this podcast promoting his book on October 8th. Proud to be one of the 752 podcasts that Peter King has done on that book. So, I mean, what a moment for me with my own great colleague, Peter King.

56:34Again, head to the archives. Hopefully this stuff you'll appreciate. Thank you for all the reviews and nice notes. That is always appreciated as well. I want to thank James Jackson for all his hard work on this podcast. Thanks to everybody at Austin Be There Sport. And thank you for listening. We'll see you soon on Sports Media Podcast.

56:57at Vistaprint. We know you've got that idea for your business, like the one that nails the trade show, levels up your brand, or makes your team say, we're really doing this. But an idea is just an idea until it's printed on signage, giveaways, custom apparel. Once it's in my hands, on my team, out in the world, then it's happening. It's so happening. Vistaprint has thousands of products, easy design tools, and real support to turn that idea into something possible. Print your possible with code NEW20 for 20 % off your first order at vistaprint.com. There are a lot of reasons Chicago homeowners have chosen four seasons since 1971.

57:34An A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. That's one. Two, BBB Torch Awards for Ethics. That's another. And service around the clock every day of the year. That's a big one. For all your heating, plumbing, and electrical needs, you know who to call. For all the right reasons, call 866-4-SEASONS.