Big Media's College Football Lust

0:07Welcome to the sports media podcast. I'm your host Richard Deitsch. My producer is James Jackson. This is our usual Saturday roundtable and we have the regulars Austin Karp, sports media writer for sports business journal. Chad Finn is the sports media columnist and general columnist for the Boston Globe. John Lewis is the founder and editor of Sports Media Watch. Welcome, fellas. Thanks for having me. Of course. All right. We're going to start with college football. We have arrived at week zero. Chad, I know you're – I mean, you've been waiting for week zero for how long? Forever? Zero. All right.

0:50There's a lot of great preview content out there. You know, check wherever you, you know, are interested in this stuff from the athletics to the ESPNs to SBJs to on three. You know, I'm not going to list everybody, but there's an inordinate amount of college football content. Seems like Texas, Notre Dame, Oregon, Ohio State and Georgia in some form are your top five at least preseason. Indiana sits up there to some interesting things. Notre Dame guaranteed a playoff spot as long as they're in the top 12 this year in the final rankings. I think that's new. And all four power conference champions will automatically qualify.

1:28For the purposes of this podcast, though, this is a media podcast. So we're going to get all my guests to sort of offer me their thoughts on what they're thinking about for this season regarding a media perspective. So let me go to you, John Lewis. Big picture. What are you interested in from a media perspective in terms of this upcoming college football season? Well, I mean, I guess the place you have to begin is College Game Day. And obviously they're starting this now full season without Lee Corsair. Remember last year, the story at the start of the year was Lee doing his final show. They are fully into their new era.

2:07And whether or not this will last, I think it's a good question. Now, what do I mean by that? I'm not saying Game Day's in any trouble. But obviously there comes a point where either people are going to get tired of a certain aspect or they're going to love it. Like with TNT, when they had Charles at the very beginning, you know, there was a point at which, OK, is this just going to keep on going or are people going to get tired of it? And they didn't. They just kept enjoying Chuck's antics year after year after year. I think this will be interesting to see if the Pat McAfee stuff starts to grate or if it starts to become institutionalized.

2:50Right. There's always that point with a big personality, even with Corso, even. Right. I mean, there's an alternate reality where people just kind of tire of what Corso was doing in 1997. But they just kept on going. So I'll be intrigued to see if there's any pushback. You kind of see it on social media, but you can't really trust social media that much. But you're starting to see a little bit of where McAfee's overexposure is starting to grate a little bit. And so this will kind of give me a good gauge as to whether or not this has real staying power or if it's just a fan. It's interesting. One of the – I don't know who's typing there, but see if you can type less a little bit in terms of the sound.

3:35um the um the one thing about college game day that like is going to be very um is going to be very um inside baseball-ish is that they are changing their lead producer i think this may have been awful announcing who broke this if i'm wrong about this i apologize but jim gallero has been a an espn producer for college football for a long time their lead producer um is no longer producing that show uh matthew garrett um is now expected to take over of game day i wouldn't expect much changes in terms of the visual product but that is interesting when a when a top producer changes um all right austin john brought up an interesting point um the my only thing about what he said about mcathee is i um i don't maybe there's still more time before either happens institutionalized or you know it starts getting grading i feel like mcfee's still very fresh on that show um so i don't expect that but you know i feel like in terms of college football in terms of media stuff the you know the game day versus what fox puts on in pregame is always kind of uh is always kind of an interesting story and more maybe than many other sports sports austin the The college football morning show really does set up the day.

4:54There's a million of them in the NFL. I don't know if any of them, even if Fox leads in terms of viewership, I don't think any are like the destination show. But like in college football, it's different. Those are institutional. I'm using institutional again. Those are big-time shows that really set up the day. So, again, I filibuster my way into you. What are you thinking about for the start of the season? Well, first off, yes, I do think that Pat McAfee should sometimes be institutionalized. but we don't know. Ouch. That was Austin Carp who said that. He's, uh, he, he's bringing in the people.

5:27He brings in a different audience. He brings in a younger audience. I had Reese Davis on my podcast this week and he talked about it. He loves him. He loves the energy that he's bringing to the show and he loves what he's done just over these couple of seasons. Is there a chance of overexposure for Pat McAfee? Absolutely. If you're going to have him doing an alt cast for every single thing under the sun that ESPN does. Yeah. That could potentially be a problem, but, um, I'm trying to get back to your original question now, Richard, because it took so long to get done. Yeah, yeah. So that's my fault.

5:57Now, basically, just broadly, like, what are you thinking about? So obviously, John was thinking about studio shows. Are you thinking about games? No, game day owns Saturday mornings. Absolutely owns Saturday mornings. Like you said, there's nothing else. You're not going to NFL Network or Fox or CBS or ESPN. You're not really competing. Yes, there's Fox NFL kickoff and, you know, leading into what they have, which is a great game at noon. But people are really just putting on game day and seeing what's going on there before any game goes on. Storyline, I'm just seeing whether the expanded CFP, whether that continues to drive increased interest in the sport overall.

6:32That's interesting. Who's got the dog in the background? That's me. I'm sorry. That's all right. Don't apologize. Now, that's the kind of Nat sound I love. I have no problem with the dog. There's nobody that comes by the house all morning until we come on, Richard. and then boom, someone comes to drop off a leaflet, I'm sure, and now he's gone. Yeah, but I love dogs. That's fine by me. All right, so Chad, one of the things that's been a bit of a storyline at ESPN is, and their executive at Burble Locked. Who said no? Is that Winston?

7:08I may have lost Austin there. Sorry, I'm back. Is your dog named Winston, Austin? He is named Winston. You could hear that? Yes, I did. I thought I put it on mute. No, we're keeping it. We got to keep that too. This whole podcast has gone off the rails, but I love it. I love it when it goes off the rails. All right, so Chad, back to you. One of the things that Burke Magnus and other ESPN executives have talked about is that they think maybe college football, not maybe, they think college football talk has been undersold over the last couple years, and you're seeing them amp that up. McAfee is obviously a massive figure now on that network.

7:40They brought in Josh Pate, Bussin with the Boys. they're obviously unquestionably trying to attract the audience that loves college football. And in many ways, that's males between the ages of, you know, 18 to 40, probably skew more South and Midwest than the East and West Coast. And so I thought that was, that's interesting to me and something I'm paying attention to, just that ESPN in particular, they're outside of the games. It seems like to me they're amping up their college football talk. Agree? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, they've added a little bit more to their streaming this year that they've really emphasized.

8:19I think the appeal, the people they're trying to appeal to here, there's a lot of overlap with the audience from McAfee, too. You know, going back to what we were talking about before. I mean, they're desperate, as a lot of long-established media companies are, to get younger audiences and younger male audiences. And McAfee's numbers sure seem to be giving them what they want, given what they're willing to pay him. And that overlaps with the college football stuff, too. I do not to go off on too much of a tangent about him, but I do wonder if there is a saturation point that comes, whether it's with college football or with his, you know, Monday night countdown doing the all cast when the Mannings aren't around this year, if he's on too much.

9:12But, you know, right now it seems like they're perfectly content to make him one of the faces of college football as they ramp up college football coverage and to spread him around to wherever else they think he might help, too. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't I don't like him at all, by the way. Yeah, I actually – I like him. I do like him, but I will say I like him in doses more than five-hour stretches. I don't think that the – I think it's easy to see online a lot of like the McAfee fatigue, but until the numbers tell me otherwise, that's where I sort of am not sure about it. I will say this – You think he's calling it Lake Ontario or Lake America?

10:01You better call it Lake Ontario. Come on, man. I don't know, man. Respect. Respect for history. Fucking A. All right. Well, John, you know what's interesting, John, to me? And I got a little sense of this when I was at Sports Illustrated and traveled to a couple of famous college football hotbeds, particularly the most memorable one for me is when I went to LSU and saw and embedded with CBS while they did LSU Alabama was for a story on Vern Lundquist. And the thing that really kind of blew me away as a Yankee, as a Northerner, was just how big these television people were on college football campuses.

10:44Like Vern Lundquist at the time was whatever, late 60s, early 70s, was like a rock star. So I can't even imagine what it must be like when McAfee, Herbstreit, Reese Davis, go to these college campuses um and i was pretty surprised at that and maybe that's just me being a new yorker where you know if michael k walks down the street no disrespect to michael k but like he's just another new yorker to me um so john but and the reason i'm bringing this to you john is because you're you know you're in you're in illinois you're you're in a place i know the align i'm not the biggest college football team of all time but it is a college football it is a big college sports town.

11:22And so I don't know. Is it do you if you're not from the South or the Midwest, do you maybe just how do I say this? Are you maybe discounting college football's popularity because it's not in front of you the way it is if you're in one of these towns? Well, you shouldn't ask someone who's in any way remotely tethered to Illinois football about the popularity of college football. Look, there are places where it matters deeply, right? You know, Florida State, for example, as bad as they've been. But the fact of the matter is that realistically, it is a regional sport. It might be the biggest regional sport.

12:08You think so? You don't think it's a national sport now? Well, if you're in enough regions, then you're national, right? But the fact is, it is regional in terms of it's not the same where Chad Finn is in Boston. No, nobody cares. Yeah. And it's probably not even really the same on the West Coast. But it's big enough in enough areas of the country that I would I would call it a national sport. It's just a national sport where the interest is regionalized. Right. NASCAR is a regional sport. It is. It is Charlotte and Greensboro and that particular area. College football is regional too, but there's enough popularity for it that even as a regional sport, it is a national sport, if that makes sense.

13:00It does. All right, Austin, let me go to you. um very big uh kind of uh broad question here what do you think of the number one booths in college football so that's the fowler herb street you know holly road booth you go to fox and it's uh gus johnson joe clatt uh i think it's jen chaff still etc you know nbc that's the no eagle booth um just broad off the top of your head thoughts about the number ones that are right now in college football are you asking me to rank them or no i'm asking you just for extemporaneous thoughts on what you think of them i think it's stable first off and i think they're all incredibly good and they bring obviously their own unique voice unique talents unique mixture and all that and it's definitely a little more stable than the nfl situation we're heading into which seems like it's a you know it's tryout time and musical chairs for every single network i don't have that feel at all in college it feels like it's very stable where it's at while herb street may be done maybe after this year with Thursday night football, I get no sense that he's getting close to being anywhere done with, with college football and he's going to be sitting there for a long time.

14:11And, you know, Noah Eagle, I mean, if he's doing this, what, as long as, I can't remember who told me this, John, it may have been you. If he's doing this as long as Al Michaels did football, I'll be in like my nineties when he's done calling games. So he's also got a long road ahead of him. John, let me go back to you. Has the big 10 is the big 10 right now, in your opinion, a better deal than the SEC? No. Okay. No chance. Why? Because the SEC dominates every single week in the ratings. The Big Ten really ultimately, they may have the teams, but they're not the conference, right? And college football, frankly, is more relevant.

14:49In the regular season, there's more people watching, I would imagine, if you added all these windows together, any given 330 window on any given Saturday than most national championships. So the SEC, to me, you know, that is, I don't, you know, the Big Ten could win the next 10 national titles, and I think it's going to be a while before the SEC is not the number one conference in terms of viewership. And, you know, the Big Ten screwed up its media deals, and not necessarily in a bad way. Usually I would say that if you spread the wealth, it works out, and you end up with more money, and it's better than if you have only one partner.

15:27but I think for college football and the allegiances and it is such a regional sport those allegiances matter and being able to say this is where you get the SEC and it's just ESPN and ABC that's better than all this you know diffuse stuff with the Big Ten and of course the SEC even with its additions even with Texas and Oklahoma and and those are a stretch let's be completely honest Texas and Oklahoma are a real stretch when it comes to the SEC But it's still regional in terms of where the teams are. You're asking me to believe that when Lauren Betts and UCLA won that national title earlier this year, that that somehow is a Big Ten national title.

16:07And I just don't believe that. Well, I mean, yes, I understand you're an old school guy, but the reality is they are now in the Big Ten. Well, hey, they can be in the Big Ten all they want. They're still a Pac-12 team to me, and I think that's the way a lot of people see it. I'm just looking forward to Cal and Stanford bringing it home for the ACC John the game always delivers Chad let me go to you the this really just like this is like kind of I think even this week maybe all people were chattering about this how do you feel about ESPN deciding not to have its you know bottom line scores bottom line score bug I like scores floating on the bottom.

16:53I know our buddy Andrew Martian wants clean screens, so he's very much in favor of reducing this. But call me old school, but I like it. I like the update on the bottom. It's not bothering me if it takes a little bit away from my screen. How do you feel about it? Yeah, I'm kind of in the middle on that. I don't mind it if it's kind of basic, but when you get to a point where it's taken up a bigger portion of the screen than the bottom line and you're getting like the third running back for Iowa State has three carries for five yards. That's a few steps too far, but it just comes from everybody trying out to do each other with that sort of technology over the years.

17:35I like it. I like simplifying a lot of this stuff. People probably have their phones out anyway where they're tracking what they want to track, so it's not really that necessary anymore. So I think it's kind of a wise step by them. All right. You convinced yourself. What about you, John and Austin? Any thoughts on that one? Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with it. I mean, I think the bottom line, man, it's such a journey with this ticker. If you go all the way back to the days, the early days, it was so simple. And I honestly think the ticker genre began to decline once cable news took it over. Right. And that was when it just kind of became a bunch of superfluous information.

18:18It was no longer, hey, listen to me. Yeah. I mean, I think I'd seen earlier this year where CNN, now they have their little prediction market sponsorship, and they had a segment at the bottom of the screen. It says, prediction, will Rihanna play the Grammys? And it's like, that's enough. We need the screens to be clean because we're here to watch sports. I want to see every single possible inch of play. And by the way, if we're doing this with the bottom line, let's do it across the board. If you remember about 10, 15 years ago, ESPN debuted on college football, a score bug that was a tiny little box in the corner.

18:57Very, very tiny little box. And that was a period of time where you had a lot of minimalism in sports graphics that we've gone away from. Let's bring the minimalism back. We're getting all these massive, you know, giant TVs. A lot of people can probably read even a small graphic because of the size of the TVs. And in my view, I want to see the actual field of play. That goes all the way, not just the ticker, but these massive graphics that you see all over the place. Like half the time, you'll see a game in a box and then there's an ad or a split screen in another box. Just give me as much of the screen for the actual competition as is possible.

19:35the uh austin did you weigh in on that i did not but i'll keep it short like less is more i don't need my screen looking like the side of a stock car okay all right fair fair enough i'm at least on that on that end um it looks like i am uh i am old school on that draft kings 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.

20:20New 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. The crown is yours.

20:57in 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. Drink up, baby! Fantasy Football Happy Hour is here to get you wins and have some laughs. Matthew Berry here and my podcast Fantasy Football Happy Hour has the sleepers, bust, and start-sit advice you need to win your league. We're diving into the tape, we're crunching the numbers to bring you sleepers, bust weekly start-sit advice.

21:29Whether you're defending a title or desperately avoiding last place, I've got you covered every single weekday. The bar is open. It's Fantasy Football Happy Hour with Matthew Berry wherever you get your podcasts.

21:43One of the things that, again, it's a little esoteric. I'll stick with you, Austin, here. One of the things that I do find when I watch college football is I always find the announcers, by and large, really give the coaches the benefit of the doubt. I would even maybe get to the point where they really kiss the asses of a lot of coaches, maybe more than any other sport. And my thought on that is, and, you know, having talked to many broadcasters over the years, is like the coaches are the institution. The coaches are the ones that are going to be there every year where, you know, once upon a time is where players leave every four years.

22:15Now players may leave literally after a year. But even with the deification, Austin, of like of NFL owners and some NFL coaches, I don't know. There's something when I watch a college football game, man, it just feels like they got up. And I'm not trying to put everybody in this tent. Obviously, every broadcaster is an individual. But by and large, I do feel like the broadcast industry that does college football gods up these guys a little bit. Am I on to something or am I a little off base? I'm not going to say you're wrong. I think that they definitely show a lot of deference. But it also gets to there are way more coaches that are going to be colleagues of these folks potentially.

22:53because we're seeing more and more and more college coaches come and do, you know, from game day to ACC huddle or whatever it is, Big Ten Network. There are so many opportunities out there for coaches now that I think a lot of these analysts, producers, whatever have you, don't want to shake up the apple cart a little too much. Let me, I want to finish up with you and John on this, Dustin. I can go to you first, John. Historically, there have been some giants when it comes to the teams that all of us watch, the viewership giants, Alabama and Ohio state, you know, historically seemed to me to always be the top two teams.

23:30You obviously then have Notre Dame, Michigan, Georgia had its run, uh, for a little bit. Oregon has been in some, um, it's been certainly been in some championship games that have drawn, uh, that have drawn massive numbers. Uh, generally speaking, John, what are the, what are the power television teams? Or what should the power television teams be in 2026? I mean, I think the normal ones that you mentioned, the ones with established histories, but you can also add, obviously, all the Lane Kiffin stuff. He's the guy now in college sports as far as individual people who move the needle. So, yes, LSU would be a strong draw anyway, but LSU for certain.

24:18Don't forget, I mentioned them before. If Florida State ever gets back to competence, they've always been a significant draw. Yep. You know, I think ultimately, you know, Miami made the national title game last year and that had 30 million viewers. I know everyone thinks about Indiana as being their story so compelling. And I think Indiana was the driving force. But I also think, you know, hey, the U is back. The dogs agree. They all want you to be back. So, you know, look, I think Miami being strong is also good. And the main thing to me, more than anything, obviously, is going to be if you're talking about the playoff, it's going to be the quality of games, even more so than the teams involved.

25:09But as far as the actual individual teams, the same ones as usual, add in maybe FSU and Miami in terms of returning to glory, which of course Miami did last year. And then you can, you can throw in the Kiffins of the world too. Austin, you just did this piece sort of examine this a little bit, right? For SBJ. Yeah. I mean, John hit it on the, on the head with Florida state. Like we did a study with play fly looking at kind of predicting who the top 25 most watched teams are going to be. I mean, your usual suspects are up top Ohio state and, you know, Notre Dame's and Georgia's and Texas's, but there are, you know, five teams that made that top 25 list that are not in the top 25 right now.

25:46and Florida is among them. And, you know, we talked earlier about things that I'm following for, you know, college football in general. It's having the Indianas and the Miamis of the world be attractions because that, I think, is one benefit of NIL. You're not just – I mean, how many years in a row did we see the same final four for football there with Alabama and Ohio State? It was just – it was getting kind of boring. Getting new blood in, you know, leveling the field a little more, I think, creates a little more entertainment for fans when you can have an Indiana and a Miami in a championship game uh and Chad I'll finish up with you if you are listening to this early on Saturday morning um your upcoming game is North Carolina versus TCU in Dublin 12 p.m on ESPN um there are a lot of people Chad I am positive who are actively rooting against Bill Belichick Schadenfreude is a massive one with him.

26:41I don't know enough about North Carolina's roster other than just my very surface reading that it seems like they're better than they were last year, but they're not favored to win their conference or anything like that. Can you imagine if Belichick gets it handed to him again for a second year? One, I would be fascinated with the coverage. I think the coverage would be very harsh outside of the networks that air those games. but that's you know it's I'll be watching that game less because I'm interested in UNC and TCU and more because I'm fascinated by how the broadcasters talk about Belichick you yeah well I mean we touched on this right how they talk about coaches in general they're not going to criticize them if the team stinks I think Rich the question really is not whether they're going to be better but whether he makes it through the season And that's what the, you know, the fine bombs of the world and, you know, people really dig down deep on what their roster looks like and the talent that they've brought in are extremely skeptical that this is going to go right this year.

27:47If it ever does, if he sticks around, it's just there's a lot of factors, but it's a different world than what he's used to where, you know, he dove in when Saban got out because of NIL. He's got to deal with all that. He's got to deal with, you know, one of his right-hand men over the years, Mike Lombardi, not being there and being engulfed in a scandal. And he's a very unpopular figure as it is. But he was the guy that was bragging about the roster, the 33rd team they were calling it last year, bragging about what they were going to put together, an NFL factory. I think, logically, as great a coach as Belichick has been for nearly, what, 40 years going back to his assistant days.

28:33It's really hard to see this going well on any level. First of all, what's crazy is a couple of things just on that. One, remembering when he first got hired and like the overall like excitement from the fan base and just like a lot of the administrators sort of just, you know, kissing Bill's ass, et cetera, et cetera. And there was legitimate excitement. But also there for the opener. Yeah. And then also the behind the scenes of just how it all came to be and how sort of like It was a bit of a power struggle from some who did not want to bring him in and others who did. And now, you know, after whatever they were, 4-8, if it does go south, man, that has to go down as one of the worst college football hires in history, certainly modern history, which is incredible to think about given that Bill Belichick certainly has the right to claim himself as the greatest NFL coach of all time.

29:23Well, nobody wants him to get it right more than, I think, well, besides the folks at Chapel Hill, ESPN. There was that one game that did anything of no against TCU. That was a Labor Day Monday game. So that kind of buoyed it a little bit in terms of audience size. But after that, man, it was a free fall. North Carolina was more of a CW team than an ESPN team. Yeah, I know. What's funny, Austin, about that is like and how fast this changes. I mean, all of you are on my podcast. Remember, like we did three straight weeks of Colorado, the greatest college football television team of all time. But at least they strung together four really strong audience numbers there, four or five.

29:58It was one and done for Bill there in terms of being a draw. Yeah, no, it's great. And actually, the Colorado game changed Fox's ratings that year when they basically went all in on Deion and basically set up shop in Boulder. All right, John, we'll move on to another topic. Yeah, my apologies to the audience. I've done smoother topics than that one, but you can't be Jordan all the time, right? Sometimes you're Kelly Olenek. So, John, let me go to you. There was a massive WNBA viewership number from last – was it this week or last week? Sunday. Sunday. Okay, thank you. Where Fever Sky – do you have that in front of you?

30:40Was it 3.2 million? It was 3.31 million using NBC's combined Nielsen and Adobe Analytics figure. Okay. So let me ask you that. That, because you, to me, are literally my keeper when it comes to WNBA viewership. Nobody in the country has better viewership data on historical and WNBA than you do. So where does that rank all time in terms of WNBA games, and what was your reaction when you saw that one pop out? Well, first of all, I wanted to point out on behalf of Chad that Kelly Olenek did swing a game seven in the second round of the playoff. Good Canadian boy. We love it. Yeah, but as far as what you're asking, the fact is this is officially, if you use the combined NBC, Nielsen, and Adobe figure, it is the third largest audience ever for any WNBA game behind inaugural weekend games that aired on NBC.

31:34Obviously, I'm sure you've seen the pushback against the NBC combined figure. NBC's been releasing these combined figures for a full decade. But as streaming becomes bigger and bigger and NBC acquires more and more rights, it's becoming a bit of a narrative now, a bit of a story. So that's something to keep in mind. The Nielsen-only number, by the way, was still pretty big, 3.09 million. Wow. NBC only uses the linear, so there's no streaming included in that for their Nielsen numbers for now. Interesting. Okay. Austin, let me go to you on another viewership number of note to me. I saw Mike Mulvihill of Fox Sports send out that, according to Nielsen, 44 % of the audience for last weekend's Indy race in Washington had not watched any Indy car prior to that Sunday.

32:26Obviously, that viewership number did well, but that's a really fascinating stat in that it is very rare, I think, to just get total casuals to a sport in those kind of numbers to check it out. By the way, I don't think there's going to be any carryover at all. I mean, if 1 % of that audience who checked it out for the first time stays, that would be a big win. But if nothing else, pretty fascinating. And if you're Fox, then you justify all the hullabaloo that you did for that Washington race. How did you see that one? First off, it was a really strong audience. I thought it was a great job by Fox to get that done, even if it's a one-and-done, which it feels like it's going to be a one-and-done type race.

33:05I don't think you can shut down D.C. like that all the time in the height of tourism season. But you can't change Lake Ontario's name. Anyway, awesome. Yeah. Oh, my God. Don't get me started, Richard. Needling. You're needling. I am. I apologize. Go on. But, yeah, I thought it's a great exposure for a sport that needs it. It does continue to need it. And Fox has done such a good job putting every race on broadcast. They've been a good friend of the series. Obviously, they're an investor, so they have an equity stake there, and they have an interest in making sure it succeeds. But, yeah, you probably had to tell a lot of people, wait, this isn't Formula One.

33:39You had to explain to them what the difference is between IndyCar and F1 and that this is actually something different and, you know, call it AA, AAA of open-wheel racing, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, no, I mean, again, very, very impressive number. I'm with you on that. All right, Chad, and this for you, the Pro Bowl is done. Now, again, I don't think any NFL fan is going to care about this at all. Like, it's pretty much an unwatchable game. But as John and Austin can tell you, Chad, like the reality is that thing still drew even in its like weakened state. It still drew like it still beat the IndyCar race we just talked about.

34:14Do you know what I'm saying? It's still maybe, John, as I'm talking here, you can pull up the last Pro Bowl rating. But was it four point nine or two million? Yeah, two million. One. The last one was the last one was a tank. The last one was tank. What was the one before that? Four point seven. Okay, so the larger point is, like, if you got$4.7 million for any viewership on a weekend, you would be psyched. But the game is a disaster, Chad. I mean, I think it certainly has run its course. What do you think about, one, that decision by the NFL? And two, is there something that they could replace that with where they come up with their own version of Home Run Derby?

34:48Let's forget about an all-star game at this point. Oh, you mean like flag football? Yeah, could they come up with something that's like they just – they create this thing that feels like an event the way MLB did a great job with creating Home Run Derby? Yeah, I don't know what it is because they've kind of tried. They had a beach football game once upon a time that Patriots running back Robert Edwards ruined his career playing in that. That was the end of that. They do the flag stuff now. We'll see how much they want to promote that. But, yeah, I mean, just the ratings, you know, they really fell off huge last year.

35:25But, you know, I was looking at Sports Media Watch earlier and John's site, and I think the high was 13.4 million in 2011. So that's a huge decline over 15 years. And you think about why that happens. Well, the purpose of an all-star game in general has kind of gone away with everybody being able to see whatever game they want on their phone whenever they feel like it across all sports. And then you add the element of injury risk in the NFL. It just kind of makes sense. It wasn't all-stars in the end. They killed the brand. Well, Shudder Sanders is a tipping point. Here in New England, it was Mac Jones in 2021.

36:05But, yeah, the best players weren't in it either often. Does anybody like my idea of having NFL players versus YouTube influencers in a touch football game? Only if it's tackle. Only if the influencers are like Rich Evans or Mike Stilklauser or something. Neither of you know who that is. I don't. Mr. Beast. They're like 40 - or 50-year-old men who talk about bad movies. By the way, can you be – Austin, I'll go to you as our Sports Business Journal person. Can one be an influencer at any age? Can you have a 71-year-old YouTube influencer, or must you be in your 20s or early 30s? By the word definition.

36:47What do you think? Can I take it? Yeah, you can take it, because Austin somehow did not hear that question. Go ahead. Austin's gone. Austin left. He's in the chat. Go ahead. So I'll say, I think you can be an influencer at any age, but what does it mean to be an influencer, right? So the two people that I mentioned before, kind of as a joke, I don't really see them as influencers. They're YouTubers. They've been around for 15, 20 years talking about movies, talking about popular culture. I don't really see them as influencers. So influencers to me, that's more like people who are coming in to promote a product to you.

37:23And they – I think you can be that at any age. But frankly, if we're talking about the purpose that it's usually done for, you do kind of have to be a bit younger. Yeah. By the way, Austin did have a hard out on this one. So that is my screw-up. So we appreciate his time. He did have to go, but he was very cool to pop on. All right. One last one. And let me start with you, John. You have seen the Good Good story and Callaway Golf story, I imagine? I have. Okay. All right. So, I mean, for the very, very sort of Cliff Notes version for people, this brand, Good Good, which is very heavy in terms of attracting younger people to golf, creates this ad, and it's just an absolute disaster.

38:19They're trying to spoof a horror film, but in the ad, one of the good, good people who's in the ad who I believe is obviously a big personality and head of their brand ends up pushing another person who's also part of good, good. He pushes this woman on the ground and says, don't touch my driver. Anyway, it's an absolute shit show of an ad. It should have never run. I don't think, again, that they were specifically – these guys were not endorsing violence against women. What I'm saying is the video, you sort of see it. This guy pushes this woman and grabs his driver. It just comes off terribly.

39:04It's just brutal and awful and tone deaf. It's unbelievable that it went through. Callaway Golf had asked them to make the ad. They approved it as well. So you sort of are stunned in terms of how on earth that thing got through Callaway as well. But the reason I'm bringing all this up, John, for the purposes of this podcast is I don't think I've seen a story that like sped as fast as that one did through both social media and legacy media. And what it indicated to me is how quickly as a company you have to get out in front of things and do crisis management and apologies that people believe. And if you're repeatedly apologizing, you're cooked.

39:51And all of these places sort of had to do that multiple times. They've now lost sponsorship with the PGA Tour. Sporting goods stores are pulling good, good stuff off the shelves. So that's really what sort of I was struck with is just the speed of how bad this thing went for all parties. How did you see this? You know, it's kind of difficult for me because I'm not part of the golf media generally. Certainly not part of the golf YouTube media. I would say you're talking about a similar story. I mean, Kelly Tillman, right? All those years ago with Tiger Woods and that and then the subsequent golf week.

40:29I think it was cover. You remember any of that from I remember Kelly Tillman. And yeah, I do remember that a little bit. I don't remember the golf week cover. They had a cover that was just a noose. Oh, yeah. Now it's ringing a bell. Yeah, that's horrific. I do remember that. It's pretty wild. This circumstance to me, you know, you mentioned apologies that people can believe. I am curious. I don't really have a good gauge on the culture anymore. I don't really know. Are we in WOKE 1.0? Are we in MAGA 2.0? I have no real clue. All I know is the way that they've responded to this is kind of the way you would have expected them to respond to it in 2018 or 2019, which is a little surprising because I thought we were in the era now where no one apologizes for anything.

41:18But I do wonder if their apologies will kind of run on deaf ears because they are very, very much. And I'm talking not just about the good, good people, but like Calloway and all these other folks. These are apologies from a very seemingly different era of culture where it's like a big, long string of white text against a black background. And, oh, we're going to do the work. We're going to apologize for the hurt. And I don't know if that stuff resonates with anybody anymore, really across the political spectrum. Kind of feels like that approach almost has been totally discredited. But I don't know.

41:55I mean, I could be way off. I tend to believe that these apologies to me could run on deaf ears. And I really think all they probably needed to do was say, wow, that was really inappropriate and not to our standards we've severed ties and call it a day. I think all this other stuff reads as really performative in a very outdated way. Well, it's two things. Obviously, there's the Callaway part, which hired, I think, these guys to do the ad. um so and again you wonder like how it got through them let alone sort of good good good creating it and then the other thing this is where i go to you chad what what's kind of interesting here is that you know this does involve a massive legacy brand and that's the pga and brian roll up who's a former nfl top guy um was very out in front and said that he was disappointed by good goods initial response to the controversy and then you see the pga tour sort of distancing himself and then like so once like a legacy place like the pga distance itself that that puts it that puts something like this and just into a like a different uh stratosphere because you're not just dealing with like some new age brand you're now dealing with you know the old school legacy pga but again for me and again i'm the first person to admit i don't you know watch a ton of golf um you know Good Good is not pitching me.

43:20It's just I'm not a golfer. It's not my world. But, Chad, I have to admit, I was very surprised at just the speed of all this. And if I'm seeing it in non-golf circles, you know what I'm saying? Your average person who reads the news, wherever they read the news, probably got a whole – probably became aware of this where they probably never before had heard of Good Good and what they do. Yeah, I think that was a case, a big part of this. I mean, they're going to teach us in sports business classes about how not to handle a crisis management situation in the media. One of the things that rubbed people the wrong way was the initial response, which was not really an apology.

44:06It was kind of dismissive. It wasn't signed by anybody. It didn't seem sincere. And I think that amplified the backlash on Gugud right away, and that led to Callaway pulling away from them. That led to the PGA Tour response, which included getting rid of this season's – canceling this year's big break because it involved – And that brings Golf Channel into it too, so that's another legacy place that now becomes involved in this. Yeah, they're just hemorrhaging all sorts of assets and connections. And it's because people part of it is because people didn't really buy their responses sincere at the beginning, which I think there's a lesson there.

44:50But, you know, in this age of people writing stuff like that on AI and thinking you don't really have to apologize for anything anyway, you know, maybe maybe maybe we're turning back toward sincerity on authenticity and stuff like this, hopefully. Chad, if I can ask you, like, because, again, like, where did this run in the Boston Globe? Because that, to me, would sort of tell me something. We ran wire. I'm writing about it from a Sunday media column a little bit, but not as a lead. All our copy editors are huge golf guys, so they were all over it. But I had to – I am not, and I had to do a little bit of homework on what good is and the connection here with Callaway and all of that.

45:35Yeah, there's also probably – we're not going to get into it here, but there's another story, a broader story of just how – So clearly there's spaces in golf now for like these online or digital natives, right, to try to attract younger people to the sport. Because the reality is like your 25-year-old is probably not getting to the sport these days through Jim Nance and CBS. I don't get how the ad got through. I mean, wasn't there one person? Again, having watched it, it's – honestly, it's inconceivable adults. Any thinking adult would have greenlit that. Was it one voice or two voices saying, I don't know about this, guys, that were just shut down and ignored?

46:23I don't know. And again, you're also – you're spoofing something that not every person has seen. So even like the conceptualized of it is just I think not a – you're not spoofing like Star Wars. Do you know what I'm saying? I've seen Obsession a couple times, and I don't even really get the spoof. So there you go. So that's a perfect – that's literally like just sort of nails like that, and then alone like I don't know how you see a dude pushing a woman and like not being like we can never run this. There's just nothing funny here. So again, we'll sort of see what happens. I would not expect the company to fold or anything like that from everything I've read so far.

47:05They do have a lot of goodwill among their audience, and I think probably the play now is just to continue to put out publicly that we apologize. We know we screwed up, and we're going to do better heading forward. And then you try to dial down and lay low for a little bit, and usually there's another controversy that comes around the corner. um but go ahead not to cut you off what is the upside to having all of these other people involved in your brand that you have no control over who are you referring to you referring to calloway you're referring to good good well there's i mean i'm not trying to take money you know food off anyone's table here but like why do we if i'm calloway or the pga tour why do i need a partnership with good good i i mean again to to to to play the um to play the other side on this it's a brand with a significant online following of young people who are interested in golf and that's a very hard demographic to get and unless i'm incorrect on this it's not like any kind of controversial thing like this john has happened before so i guess that would be the if you're callaway or the pga tour your thought would be okay this is a way for us to get um our stuff in front of a 29 year old person then hire them then hire them and then you make the decisions as to what they do rather than, you know, having.

48:30But isn't but like, I mean, that's just, you know, I'm like, I know where you're getting at. But then in that sense, John, I think you have to a lot of the fault here also lies with Callaway. They ultimately somebody Callaway greenlit it, if not multiple people. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I guess I mean, there is there is obviously some truth to that. I just happen to think that this whole business, one, I guess the other question is, has this ever worked yet, this whole business of let's go get some internet influencers and bring them in? I know maybe we're in the early stages, but has it actually worked?

49:06I mean, I don't know. I mean, Chad, your kids know who Mr. Beast is? I think it works depending on – They do and they don't like him. Yes, but I'm saying my point is it depends on who the influencer is, right? I mean like in the sort of self-help-ish space, I mean Alex Cooper is a massive powerhouse and influencer and probably gets brands. Like for instance, NBC used her on the Olympics, right? So you're trying to get her younger audience to sample your Olympic product.

49:43We're sort of doing this in real time, so I'm sure my brain is kind of spinning here, John. But that would be an example. And it'd be interesting to see, like, did you did you think that worked? Because NBC, if you remember for the Olympics, they brought in a shitload of influencers to try to get their audiences to sample NBC's Olympic coverage. Well, I mean, how will we ever know if it worked? Like, I mean, one, it's hard to gauge. I mean, NBC Olympics in particular between the Nielsen changes and the changes NBC has made to its own approach. It's almost impossible to really suss out just how many more people were watching in any particular demographic.

50:17Yes. I mean, do we do we measure it by social media conversation? They do. I bet you they measure it by impressions. NBC. say yeah but i mean yeah i mean hey fair enough uh to me uh i just happen to think that the influencer game is one where there's a lot more uh assumption than hard data but you know hey i'm also kind of out of the loop myself because when you said alex cooper i was thinking about that rocker from the past you know you are out of the loop john um yeah yeah but it's a good story maybe we'll do a podcast on that sort of like um what power does the sports influencer really have or or not i mean in some ways mcafee's a sports influencer right or started as one now he's establishment for sure but um on that point not to tell him that but not to cut you off again but where has mcafee been the most successful for espn college game days exactly sitting on college game day and in a traditional normal sports media role that was held by Lee Corso for 30 years.

51:20And his daily show, they can talk about YouTube impressions all they want. If you look at the Nielsen's, the daily show isn't really that big of a hit. They could probably go and bring Max Kellerman back and say, hey, we'll put this just in back on the air and do it just about as better. Well, but again, not to be McAfee's defense attorney here, but the online route, though, is the way to get younger people into the ESPN ecosystem. So he does provide value on that. Max Kellerman is not bringing in like McAfee's YouTube demo, which I don't know what his subscriber rate is, but it's in the millions.

51:55Right. So that's. But then the other thing, too, YouTube keeps redefining what a view is. Well, yes. Different different situation. I understand that. You know, so I'm not trying to deny the popularity of social. I know it's bigger than TV, but I don't know yet that just because social is bigger than TV, you can make your TV business or your traditional media business, which is the lifeblood of all of these leagues and the networks who cover them. I don't know if you can fuel the linear TV business with influencers. Well, the interesting story heading forward for all of this is YouTube's influence versus like legacy television because a lot of these influencer class obviously have built their audiences on YouTube.

52:41YouTube, I would argue, is the most powerful. More people are watching, right? More people are watching streaming if you include YouTube right now than traditional pay TV. um so but the question right the question is like can you monetize all this stuff the way you used to monetize it in in ridiculously huge sums in the pay tv universe um john good good good conversation for another day for sure john lewis editor and founder of sports media watch austin carp the sports media reporter and writer for sports business journal and chad finn sports media columnist for the boston globe we will of course bring you back again thank you chad thank Thank you, Austin.

53:22Thank you, John. You bet. Thank you. All right. Stay here, guys, as I close us out here. If you enjoy these conversations, we've been doing this now on the weekend for a long time. They've been immensely popular. People like them. So thank you very much for listening. Last couple episodes. Earlier this week, we had AEW's Maxwell Jacob Friedman, better known as MJF, on the art of doing media as a pro wrestler. He was great and always fun to get insulted on your own podcast, but nothing wrong with that. A couple of the fellas here, including John Lewis's guys, we did Who's the Face of ESPN last week.

53:59The answer might surprise you. Jason Hare, the director of The Last Dance on his newest film, Novak Djokovic, The Wolf in Winter. August 20th was the date of that one and highly recommended. If you're into the Premier League, Pierre Moussa, the coordinating producer for NBC's coverage of the Premier League, was on this podcast August 19th. talking about that. And then we have done a ton of stuff on Romo leaving. We didn't even get to new Romo information this week. I'll have these guys on next week or some of these guys on next week, and we'll get to sort of the latest with Romo, particularly as the season begins.

54:32So again, if you like this, please leave us a review and a note. That's how the podcast continues. I want to thank James Jackson for all his hard work. Thanks for everybody to ask for their support. Most of all, thank you for listening. We'll see you soon on the Sports Media Podcast. Thank you.