CBS Sports places Tony Romo on leave

0:08Welcome to the sports media podcast. I'm your host Richard Deitsch. My producer is James Jackson. This is our usual weekend roundtable and we have two regulars back Austin Karp, fine media reporter and writer for sports business journal, Jon Lewis, founder and editor of sports media watch. welcome fellas thanks for having me howdy richard by the way i'm recording this on my own james jackson my producer tells me that he will eventually be here so this will either be a beautiful recording that you're actually hearing now or only austin and john are hearing this recording we shall soon see um all right here's where i want to start um and it's news that um that broke today and it involves Tony Romo.

0:58CBS has placed Romo on leave following his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence. CBS announced that on Friday. If you have, if you're not familiar with this, obviously I think anybody listening to this podcast knows Tony Romo is the lead NFL analyst for CBS Sports, worked with Jim Nance for many, many years. He received three citations from, thank you for the AP on this. He received three citations from the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office after a July 23rd traffic stop. He was seen passing cars in a Gore area, according to the story, performed poorly on field sobriety tests, was taken into custody, booked and released.

1:40Sheriff's Office said Roma had an open container of alcohol in his black Jeep. Court records show Roma was later cited for refusing to take a test for intoxication after his arrest. There is a court appearance scheduled for September 21st. There's also body camera footage which was released. And so, you know, millions and millions of sports fans at this point have seen that. All right, Austin, I want to start with you. This is, to be blunt, a mess for CBS. Um, it's one of their highest, if not the highest on air sports people at their company. And now he is on leave. Um, there's no time limit in terms of how long that leave will be not clear yet in terms of, will they be waiting for that September 21st date?

2:34The only thing that we know in terms of CBS's moves is that JJ Watt, they announced we'll join Jim Nance and Tracy Wilson during Romo's absence. That, of course, leaves a massive crater in the Iron Eagle team. So there's collateral damage on all this stuff. So let me start with you, Austin. Just very, very broad thoughts on the news today that we learned that Tony Romo is now on that we'll call an indefinite lead. Well, first off, folks, get the Uber app, get the Lyft app. Let's not put yourself in a situation like this. It's the easiest solve in modern technology. J.J. Watt, I think, will perform well.

3:16Everyone has loved what he's done very quickly. So I think there's no problem with the fill-in there. But as far as Tony Romo goes, there's going to be a suspension here. There's got to be. There's precedent out there. You look at somebody like Charles Barkley. New Year's Eve 2008, he got his DUI. He got six-week suspension there from TNT. I don't think that six weeks. I mean, the NFL season, six weeks would be an incredibly long time, but I think there'd be some sort of a suspension. You got to send some sort of message here. I don't think Tony Romo is getting another Corona sponsorship deal or an advertising deal, whatever that was.

3:49Remember, he had those back in a couple of years ago where he was a Corona spokesman. But it may put them in a bad spot for this NFL media day. I remember last year at that event, like he and Jim Nance, they hold court at this sort of thing. Everyone gathers around. They talk about playing golf in the offseason and Pebble and all that. It's going to take a completely different tenor now at CBS NFL Media Day. Like you said, it's going to be David Burson having to give statements and Jim Nance is going to have to act and feel differently. And everybody at that day, all the analysts, all the personnel are going to just behaving differently now because of it.

4:26Yeah, just to give a little clarity for the audience. So CBS annually has a media day where they bring everybody in who works for their NFL teams, particularly their on-air talent. And they invite media. You know, I've been there many, many years, not much since I've left New York. Obviously, Austin, I assume, will be there. Maybe John has been there back in the day. and you know you can interview as Austin said like Tracy Wolfson, Jim Nance, Tony Romo, Ian Eagle you know Andrew Catalan whoever their NFL people are and it's very important for them because not only can they get messaging and promotion for their NFL schedule but they invite a lot of CBS affiliates who talk to their analysts and they can get they can get a lot of tape so when you know If you're in Jacksonville or something like that and watching CBS, your local news can run some interview with Tony Romo about the upcoming season.

5:23So it's a big deal for them. It's a big media event for them. They've done it for as long as I can remember. And as Austin said now, the whole tenor of that changes. CBS obviously and their PR department will try to come up with some kind of strategy in crisis management. But if you're inviting reporters into the room, you know all these questions are coming. John, again, I'll go to you now. You don't have to necessarily talk about the CBS media day, but like broadly, your your broad thoughts about the significant news that CBS announced today on Roma. Well, it's interesting to me because there's plenty of precedent for this particular transgression.

5:59It's not uncommon. Obviously, it's it's not something you ever want to see anyone doing, but there is precedent for it. Austin brought up Charles Barkley, and that was a big deal. Charles Barkley being off of TNT for six weeks, including All-Star Weekend, was a big deal back in 2009. But there was also Jalen Rose who was off for a bit. I mean, there's a long list of folks who have been at least arrested for DUI. Even Al Michaels was arrested for it, which was surprising to me. I wrote about it at the time and had completely forgotten that that happened. But he wasn't suspended because his was eventually, he was in the offseason and he planned down directless driving.

6:38So, look, what all is said and done, there's plenty of precedent, but there isn't a lot of precedent for is this altering a career. Even with Charles, that's kind of a blip in his story on TNT. If Romo ends up getting Wally pipped by J.J. Watt, which I think we all kind of now expect to happen, that would be something I could not come up easily with a parallel for. not for DUI. Now, if you go back to maybe 2014 to 2015, Greg Anthony was the number one college basketball game analyst for CBS and got arrested for, let me make sure I get it exactly right, because it's definitely not something you want to bear with me.

7:29I have to edit. But well, he was he was charged with soliciting a prostitute back in 2015. And that was it. He never did another game for CBS again. I believe he still hasn't done another game for them. And his career has continued because he was also working for Turner at the time on their NBA and stayed in that and stayed in that role through the rest of that package. But that would be, you know, kind of what we're looking at in terms of if if this really goes the way we're thinking for Romo. But that would be pretty, I would say, close to unprecedented for a DUI. It's a serious crime, but it's so commonplace that you just don't see that level of consequence for it.

8:15All right. Let me go to you, Austin. John, it's a good explanation just so that we get the adjudication out. But Greg Anthony reached a deferred prosecution agreement. And I think the charge was either dropped or mitigated with community service that he eventually did. So that's how that sort of came about. But John is correct. I believe, unless we're both wrong, I don't think Greg Anthony has ever done games again for CBS. But yes, his career did continue. And you see him, obviously, all the time now on the NBA. You know, Austin, Tony Romo came on like a comet when he started in 2018. And, you know, I raised my hand in terms of I was probably one of the biggest cheerleaders, if not the biggest cheerleaders in terms of national people who write about this stuff, because I really he really did feel revolutionary to me in terms of what he was doing.

9:10He was fresh. He was interesting. Obviously, everybody sort of knows about sort of the play calling stuff before it happened. But, you know, I really enjoyed Romo as a broadcaster. And I still think, I think he's a good broadcaster still. I think it's been very easy the last couple of years to sort of smash him. I don't think he's as bad as his worst critics. But he's also not, in my opinion, now the best NFL analyst. Troy Aikman has, for me, assumed that mantle for sure. And it's quite frankly not close. I bring all this up, Austin, to ask you that, you know, If CBS Sports Management really is not particularly happy with Romo's work, this would be the time that they can at least legally perhaps try to extricate themselves from the contract and whether it's J.J.

9:57Watt or somebody else, form a new number one team. I would be very stunned at that just because it's a lot of money in theory to continue to pay Romo. And these are very, very big positions. And you don't want to you don't want to rush to make a new number one NFL team. And this is CBS far and away. This is the most important property CBS has. Not CBS Sports, CBS, big CBS. So I don't generally think that's going to happen. And you guys mentioned, you know, I think Austin, you mentioned Barkley. And obviously he came back and, you know, now is on ESPN. You have a great career. But I don't know.

10:30I want to sort of throw it out there. Like, is there a universe here where CBS uses this to change, change it up at the top? There is a universe. Do I think it's going to happen? No, I want to start there. But if you're thinking about this contractually, if you're thinking about it legally, if there is some sort of morals clause, which I'm sure there is, in Tony Romo's contract with CBS, and they aren't happy. If behind closed doors, we also have to remember that that deal was signed probably, it was before Paramount's guidance took over that company. Maybe their leadership, maybe David Ellison doesn't like Tony Romo.

11:02Not that he has a say in these sorts of things. But maybe there is discussion, like, is Tony Romo our guy? They're at$18 million a year, which is what Troy Aikman is making for now until Troy renegotiates his deal, which is coming up for this season. And he's going to want a lot, by the way. I don't know that he's going to get Tom Brady money, but he's going to get a lot more. But I'm going on a tangent here. That's all right. If they want to get out of that, there is a pathway there. But Tony's lawyers would obviously challenge that. But even if you try to get out of that deal, Tony's not getting back.

11:33You negotiate a settlement. That means you want out. That means you don't want him as your lead NFL analyst anymore. I don't think it gets to that. I do think that he still does a good job. I think he has that rapport with everybody going on with CBS, with Nance, with Wolfson. I think he's good with the producers. I don't think he's slipped as much as everyone fires at him on Twitter for. So I think he'll get a short suspension. I think he'll be back. And it might be the last bad thing we hear about Tony Romo. I mean, think about it. We haven't really heard. He hasn't done much bad in the past.

12:07This is the first slip up as a player, post career. I think he stays in the long term. Yeah, no, I mean, unless I'm missing something reputationally, he's he's he's had an excellent one. And like in our world, you know, always, always is very, very professional and good to deal with. um john um again i'll sort of i'll ask you sort of a similar thing i i again my sense is that these companies don't um you don't rush to make a move like this big um in a quick amount of time unless obviously the offense is such where like you know you you you have to cut bait you know and i and and this is not you know tony romo should be criticized to the hilt for um alleged of drinking and driving, but there are sort of levels in terms of where a company is going to decide to actually outright dismiss versus suspend.

13:01They do though, John, if Tony Romo does stay, I do think there's probably going to come a point where he's going to have to address this publicly, whether he does it on air during an NFL game or somewhere else. But you do have to let the NFL public, you got to sort of fall on their court and hope they'll forgive you kind of thing, right? Well, I mean, it's so difficult because, I mean, why are we saying that? It's again, I mean, DUI is a terrible crime. It's just that so many people do it. I could reel off a million names. We don't always treat it like the most serious thing. We don't always ask everyone to apologize.

13:38Yeah, I understand. You know, like you and I, obviously, we follow women's basketball pretty closely. I don't remember ever hearing Diana Taurasi apologize for hers or even it being mentioned after the fact. I mean, it's just it's not something where you want to say, oh, these things happen because there's no excuse for it. It's something that results in people losing their lives all the time. But it's so commonplace that I feel like there's some level of selective aspect here because the Internet doesn't like Romo. Right. People kind of looking for a reason. And what's interesting to me, CBS, they're saying Romo will not.

14:16So CBS did something very interesting. they sent out a statement that said Tony Romo will not be on the air until further notice. And then after that, they sent a separate message, J.J. Watt will be filling in. Because the initial message that they sent out, you could read that and say, well, why should we assume Tony Romo will miss any time? There's six weeks between now and the start of the NFL season, right? Tony Romo could take a six-week leave of absence and she'll be back on the air in week one. So the fact that they are moving Watt in, to me, it's a little opportunistic because you could have a five, six-week, you know, even a month-long leave of absence is sufficient to deal with whatever issues are stemming from this, and he would not miss any time.

15:09the fact that they're shifting to Watt tells me they're maybe taking an opportunity to, as Brian Curtis said, take care of, you know, take care of a problem, which is that they don't necessarily have the satisfaction with his performance that they used to. Interesting. Yeah. And I mean, you know, Brian Curtis and Marshan, for sure, I think are probably the two most prominent people in our space who are not fans of Romo's work at all. And you can obviously read their pieces on that. Austin, let me go to you. You know, one thing that, and again, not even close, you know, we're dealing in our little sports media space, and I'll keep sort of repeating that.

15:52This is, you know, this is sort of fantasy land compared to obviously like the real adjudication and getting DUI, which is, again, you know, not to be moralistic, but man, you've You know, people's just families and lives are just changed by that. Diane Interazzi, by the way, I think did get suspended two games to go back to what John was saying. Anyway, like, you know, the point of this podcast, of course, is to sort of talk about the sports media stuff. And one thing, Austin, that obviously, you know, I was thinking about today is, man, if you're Ian Eagle, this sucks. Because you had a great rapport with J.J.

16:26Watt. You are the number two team in CBS, but I think everybody thinks of you guys as a number one team. You just happen to be the number two team at One Network. and now at a certain point at least early in the season you're going to have to partner with somebody else they'll probably that somebody else probably will be coming from a different team i would guess and so like this the romo decision just doesn't affect the romo team it's like the collateral is it's going to affect all these different teams and that was one thing when i saw the cbs uh uh email today i was thinking about was that you know i'm i know again you shouldn't feel sorry for ryan eagle and all timer and he's a professional he'll do great but you know what i'm saying, Austin, like he and Watt like really had something good going.

17:06And now the first couple of games like that, that, that sucks for that group. It does. And it's a domino effect and everybody, and it gets back to this room that we're going to be in for the CBS NFL media day. And everyone's going to get questions. Well, what's it going to be like working with a new analyst? What's going to be like for you? What's going to be like for you? Everyone gets that new question because everyone's got to step up or move around. And there are going to be a couple of moving pieces and it just totally changes what was probably going to be. I don't want to say a ho-hum day.

17:33Maybe people were more asking about the pending acquisition by Paramount's guidance of Warner Brothers Discovery. I don't think anybody really cares about that now. It just totally changed what everybody's going to have to do, what all the communications executives are going to have to be up on and how they're going to handle that and how the talent's going to be handled. Everyone's going to be asked different questions. What's it going to be like? What do you think of Tony's DUI? Everyone's going to get that question. Now all the talent, and it's a lot of them, are going to have to be prepared for that question.

18:05So it's kind of a crash course in PR for these folks and how to handle that during that day and during the course of the six weeks until the season. Yeah, no, the CBS, I can guarantee CBS Sports PR is going through every different scenario. They have a longtime PR person there who's excellent at her job, Jennifer Sabatel. But this isn't an easy one. And I think transparency is the best. You just, you know, you take that whole day and just let people ask questions and say what you're going to say because the question is going to come. The one thing I just sort of push back a little, Austin, is I do think that if you get CBS Sports President David Burson there, the questions probably still will come on this merger just in terms of like, hey, what is – if the merger ever does go through, what's your thought on where this mega company may go in terms of purchasing sports rights, including the World Cup, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

18:58So I do wonder if, you know, if some of those questions will get there. John, I did want to give you that that question as well, just in terms of an awesome given an excellent answer on that. Like everybody's affected by this. You know, this is not just a we got an issue for the number one team now, but it's every CBS NFL team probably in some way gets a little affected by by by this leave. well of course you know and they're already in a state of flux right charles davis having moved on because i mean you know ian eagle worked with charles davis for many years he's not even going to be on nfl he's not going to be available they can't just plug him in because he's doing college football so uh yeah it's going to be difficult but i mean these things happen you go ask uh adam amin everything that was going on last year with mark sanchez yeah you just never know what can happen.

19:48I mean, even with Adam Amin, what he's going to have to deal with this year, his longtime partner in Chicago, Stacey King passing away. I mean, you just never know what can happen. And you have to be nimble as a broadcaster. Ian probably is as nimble as anybody. And so I think, you know, I have no idea who they're going to move into that slot. I really don't. But, you know, it's just going to have to be how it is. And I do think that, you know, the other thing too with the NFL you're talking about this what are we talking about tens tens of millions of viewers here it's not going to be some kind of soft landing tens of millions even for the the smaller game in the in the one o 'clock slot so it's going to be pretty high scrutiny stuff and uh the good thing is that Ian is one of the pros pros in the industry yeah the um so let Let me, I'm just looking at their list here.

20:47Trent Green, McCourty, Archuleta. I'm trying to think of if I'm missing anybody else in terms of who's employed at CBS right now as an analyst, if they're not looking to go outside. You know, one, Austin, one scenario we should, we can finish up the Roma conversation on this part that we probably should address, both you, me, and John, is this. What happens if J.J. Watt comes out in those first three weeks and literally is unbelievable. Everybody on social media, every NFL writer is saying this guy is revolutionary. This is the best broadcast I've ever heard. He and Jim Nance sound like they've been working together for 40 years.

21:28What happens if that scenario happens? First off, I think it's going to happen. I do think people are really going to like J.J. Watt if they haven't heard him before. But having him in that 425 window, I don't have to tell you guys. That amps it up. It amplifies it. That's obviously a huge audience there for any of those CBS national games that they're going to have. I don't think it changes things. And we've seen this before. We saw, you know, over at Fox with Olsen. We know that Olsen probably is still better than Tony, excuse me, than Tom Brady. Tom Brady's getting better, but he is not a Greg Olsen.

22:00So we know that the B is better than the A there. Yep. Now, I think it is a great tryout. It's an incredibly good tryout for J.J. Watt. If I'm his agent, I'm thinking, man, this is the best news I could have gotten. He gets a tryout. If he does well, then he's going to be a hell of a free agent if and when that comes up. What about you, John? Do you see how if that scenario happens? And by the way, I do think there'll certainly be people in our space who are going to write that J.J. Watt is fantastic and he's a definitive number one. I have no idea how the on-air rapport will be with him and Nance.

22:34That you just don't know until they're in the booth together. But like Austin said, I don't have any doubt that J.J. Watt will be received well. But if the scenario happens where it's like, you know, Romo in 2018 or Greg Olson, his first year and people are like, oh, my God, like I've never heard anybody, you know, this good doing this. Do you think that changes the equation at all for CBS if if the public is like, this is the best team I've ever heard? well i don't think you can make a change like this on your number one team out of these circumstances it's just you know that that to me this is the nfl like i said there's nothing bigger in tv these are incredible audiences it's like an it's like an old school oscars every week on that on that 425 window so you're you have to kind of go with what your plan was from the beginning.

23:28To me, the change would have to come in the next year. You need to, you know, maybe you could have Romo finish out this season and then even demote him, right? I mean, there's plenty of precedent for that. You could have maybe Romo and Eagle on that secondary team and see if perhaps maybe Ian Eagle can bring something out of Tony that Jim Nance has not been bringing out. So to me, I can't see you making that change immediately. And I know a lot of people anticipate good stuff out of J.J. Watt. You know, he's just a human being, right? I mean, let's not make the same mistake every single time, right?

24:07Because we have so many expectations. So, oh, this guy's the greatest thing ever. And then he kind of falls off a little bit. It's happened time and time again. And it's really hard for people to maintain the same level of quality over the course of, you know, years, over the course of roles. And the bloom eventually comes off the roads for everybody. Yeah. And I got to raise my hand because I'm fairly certain I wrote a sentence once that I thought Roman was better than Matt. And that was probably me getting a little ahead of my skis for sure. All right, John, I want to you guys are welcome to make fun of me for that.

24:44but I have to accept it. John, I want to get to, Austin has commented about this on this podcast, but I have not had a chance to ask you this. LeBron James, as most, I think, any sports fan in the United States of America knows, is playing for the Philadelphia 76ers this year. And the league was waiting for that decision before it finalized its 2026-27 schedule. I don't think there's any doubt that the Sixers will have the most national windows when it comes to television. But I wanted to get your assessment of this because when Austin and I were kicking this around, not only obviously will Philly be of interest, John, and we were talking about this, but the Eastern Conference now really has changed in terms of that's the television conference now.

25:32LeBron on the East Coast means you get to see LeBron early. You don't necessarily have to wait for those 10 o 'clock games. So I think that helps their viewership on some of those primetime windows. Like I, there's a lot going on with LeBron to Philadelphia in terms of TV and who better to ask than you about this. Well, you know, I appreciate the compliment. I will say I think NBC, I think NBC will definitely get a lot of them for their Sunday night basketball. That's for sure. I do think let's not overstate how much LeBron moves the needle now. Now, LeBron moves the needle a lot for a 41 year old player.

26:10and the fact that he is still so relevant in 2026, you could go back when they won the title LeBron with the Cavs a decade ago. Nobody would have thought LeBron would still be a factor in 10 years, right? So the fact that he's still relevant, the fact that he's still, people still care so much about where he plays is incredible. But if you go back to this past season, there was one Laker game in the top 30, right? When all was said and done, you go through all the games, the NBA Finals, All-Star Game, et cetera, there was one Laker game at the time. That's not to say that he doesn't move the needle, because he clearly does.

26:50But the days where, oh, man, no LeBron, no Steph, no chance, those days are kind of over. You don't need LeBron. You don't need Steph. It's nice to have them. But, you know, they're not the be-all and end-all. Now, that's not to say this isn't great for the league. It is, as you said, getting LeBron back in the Eastern time zone. All these years, there was a period of time where you had LeBron, Steph, and Kevin Durant, the three most famous players of their era, all playing in the Pacific time zone. LeBron in LA, Steph in Golden State, and Kevin Durant in Phoenix. That was not good for the league.

27:26Now you have LeBron in those 8 o 'clock windows. And I mentioned Sunday Night Basketball before. Not just that. How about those coast-to-coast Tuesday windows? He has the 8 o 'clock slot and then the 11 o 'clock slot. Now you can put LeBron in there. And the other thing, too, the thing that's so great for the league right now is the sheer number of marquee matchups. Obviously, the Knicks are the defending champions, right? So a Sixers-Knicks matchup isn't just, oh, let's see LeBron in New York. It's the championship challenger versus the standard of the league, right? That means more than it otherwise would.

28:02Sixers, Celtics, obviously LeBron's rivalry there, Jalen Brown's return. And then all the, you know, potential finals previews against San Antonio, against OKC. I mean, there's just a ton. I mean, even against Miami and of course Cleveland, you have a bunch. So it helps the league out a great deal. The NBA, when it was OKC Indiana a couple of years ago, coming out of that, there was not a lot of juice. The results of last season, plus this offseason, has created a number of matchups that at least from this vantage point, July 31st, not even August yet, at least from this vantage point, has created a number of matchups that I think are very tantalizing to national TV.

28:41John, do you have a guess in terms of what the marquee Christmas Day game will be? I tend to believe that the NFL competition is tough. There's only one game that doesn't... Because of the NFL competition, the noon window and the 10-30 window are the only ones where any portion of the NBA is not facing the NFL. And so I kind of wonder if noon will eventually become the main window for the NBA on Christmas. But the NFL did not leave much room for the NBA. It really does. It doesn't leave any room for the World Series or for the college football playoff. They always go out with their best possible matchups.

29:23They put Packers beers in that one o 'clock window. That's not a coincidence, right? that's as strong a matchup as the NFL can offer. Two out of three weeks last year, I think, they met in December, and both of them were really, really strong. I don't know if I'd put Sixers-Knicks in that slot opposite that, but Sixers-Knicks to me is, that would be the marquee slot in my opinion. And if they want to keep it at noon, the Knicks have had that noon Christmas Day slot for five straight seasons. They like the Knicks there. Awesome. Let me, I know we did, we've done a lot of this. We've done a ton of ESPN layoffs on this podcast, including you, but let me just like ask you like really quick, like, and this happens, you know, this happens in terms of people having the chance to work out their contract, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

30:12But did you have any just very brief thoughts about Carl Ravitch continuing to be on air with ESPN for a number of dates while obviously everyone in the universe knows that the company has laid him off? you know when you and I talked about this last time he was my most surprising dismissal it was only taught by my surprise seeing him on TV it was very confusing as I'm sure it was to Andrew Marchand and the folks and Jimmy Trainers of the world that really covered the talent side of the business but the man loves to do baseball he's going to do the Little League World Series still he just wants to call baseball and he'll see out the rest of his deal he's a pro and it was his decision I don't know if his agent was advising him otherwise, but yeah, it was, it was surprising to see normally in this sort of situation, you're not even offered that sort of scenario.

31:03And if you are, you generally aren't taking it, but this is what he wanted to do. The guy just liked to call baseball and he's still one of the best in the business. I actually like it a lot. And like ESPN, as I've said on this podcast now, a thousand times, like deserves your criticism for everything. They could not have fucked up a lot of this stuff more, but actually like this, like, They made their decision. I'm with Austin. I think Ravitch being laid off is a terrible decision. But if the guy's still under contract and wants to work for you, put the person on air because that's a quality person doing this.

31:38And at this point, you're not dealing with the person doesn't know what's happening. Like that was the Ryan Clark issue. Like to actually have the guy on air, you know, during a week where you're going to lay him off. It's just that's just preposterously terrible business. but in this case I think it's good and I give ESPN a lot of credit for just being like okay yeah it's not the most common scenario ever but Ravitch is excellent at what he does and we're going to put him on. John did you have any thoughts on Carl Ravitch continuing on at least for a little bit? It was more than a little bit surprising.

32:13I thought that there was no real precedent for this in the layoffs era of the past 10 years but it actually has happened. Alan Bestwick and Dr. Gary Punt were laid off back in 17 and still did IndyCar for ESPN. In fact, Bestwick, I think, did it another year. So I'm not really sure how that worked out. But Mark Stein and some of my readers helped me remember some of these. Mark Stein kept working for ESPN after being laid off for a few months. So it's happened. I think it's trust, right? They trust Carl Rabbit. They know he's not going to screw them. You know, when UBS when UBS laid off Howard Beale, remember, he went a bunch of crazy.

32:56Right. I don't expect I don't expect Paul Ravich to. Yeah. After the Ned Beatty speech to go on television and lose his mind. I agree. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you have to you have to trust. You have to trust in 33 years. He built up a lot of trust. And maybe maybe this is his payoff for it. You would think maybe his payoff for it would be not getting laid off in the first place. but getting a chance. And I do wonder, will they give him a send off? Right. Linda Cohen got a send off because she left of her own. If she'd been laid off, she wouldn't have gotten a send off. I wonder if maybe, you know, when Carl does his final game, will he have an opportunity to say goodbye to the viewers that a lot of other people, you know, I mean, you're talking Jason Stark, Don Clayton, Ron Jaworski.

33:42A lot of people never got a chance to say their goodbyes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think some of that will depend on how important it is to the on-air talent. But, you know, I think there's, I think that's good when you allow someone to do that. And you made the important point. Like, I don't think Carl Ravitch is going to just go rogue and go off on the network on it. So first of all, like, it's really not even anything you really have to worry about. I mean, in a world where everybody can get their own YouTube channel, do you know what I'm saying? You can just go off on your employer like the next day.

34:11You don't necessarily need to do it on the airways. All right, Austin, two more quick ones here. and then I'll get you both out of here. I read this in SBJ, Austin. In fact, your work. DirecTV and Everpass have a new multi-year deal that keeps DirecTV for business, distributing Sunday ticket to bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's a pretty big deal to me because we often think, ah, the people who watch the NFL, like they're watching at home, but no, like go down any major or minor city in the United States and you will see people watching all this stuff in bars or restaurants.

34:48And how do they do that? Well, they generally speaking, do that through the fruit, through this particular pack. Yeah, obviously this is different than residential. That's still on YouTube TV. It doesn't affect you in your home. But yeah, this is all those bars, restaurants, casinos, what have you with multiple TVs that has to be done through a commercial relationship. And forever it was, you know, direct TV distributing a lot of that. They have over 300 ,000 locations across the US. That's huge, huge business for them, especially, you know, They got out of the residential side because there was a lot of cord cutting.

35:19That bar business turned out to be more business for them than even the residential side, I think, if you projected it out. But people don't really know the Everpass name yet. That's an NFL-back, Redbird-back, TKO-group-back group that kind of got all the streaming rights for the NFL business at bars and restaurants. And they wanted to get all these bars and restaurants to do streaming. They wanted everyone to get on board, get with the future. And they were, I think, trying to cut out DirecTV for business on this front. But I don't think that they were able to get critical mass of bars and restaurants to agree to that.

35:57So this extension with DirecTV, it's a multi-year deal. Not only sees DirecTV for business stay in business for Sunday ticket and a lot of other packages for a couple of years, but they're going to serve as an agent for Everpass, which means DirecTV working for the NFL, essentially, to get their customers, these bars and restaurants on board with the future, with going away from satellite technology and getting into the streaming business. So don't write off this company Everpass. It's still going to be around. It's still got a lot of heft behind it. But for now, they're going to work in tandem with DirecTV to get this done.

36:33John, do you think like the measurements gotten a lot better? But like, am I incorrect to think that they still really have cannot measure out of home that great and that so many people who watch sports, whether they're at an airport or a hotel or a casino, we're never really getting the accurate count. Well, that's the great irony of this era, right? The ratings are all kind of inflated while being undercounted. We know the comparisons are all inflated, right? When they say, oh, this is most watched ever. And well, okay, there's a lot more stuff being tracked now than there was 20, 30 years ago.

37:06But at the same time, do I think that any of these numbers are actually reflective of the sheer number of people watching? No, I don't. I think you could probably see, I mean, even more viewers for these things. I mean, do I think Game 7 of the World Series last year had only 27 million viewers? No, I think it probably had well over 30 million. I think the NBA Finals, do I think it was only, and I put it in quotes, only 20 million. It's probably closer to 25, 26. Maybe it was closer to 30 million on average. I mean, who knows, right? Because ultimately, it is very difficult to measure any viewing, much less the kind of gatherings that we've seen, whether the World Cup or the finals in New York.

37:52There's a lot of people who are not being tracked by traditional Nielsen measures. So even as every single one of these comparisons, in my view, is very misleading, that I do believe that people are getting the wrong idea from all these record quotes, air quotes I'm using, of course, these record numbers. I do think people are getting the wrong idea. But I also think the actual viewership figures themselves, I mean, you're probably coming up short. In some cases, 10, you know, 15 million viewers maybe for NFL games. Correct me if I'm wrong, John, but you have to be able to register the volume of the game, it, the noise of the sound of the game has to be on for you to be able to register out of home at a bar, restaurant, sort of.

38:41Yeah, no, that's exactly it. A lot of people don't know that. And the fact is, too, you know, how in the world do you in a bar context, for example, how do you figure out, OK, maybe one game has a sound on, but more people are paying attention to another game, right? I mean, there's all these various, you know, nuances to it. And it's a very difficult thing to try to do. I know before Nielsen was doing it, it was Tunity Analytics. You remember them? Oh, yeah. And, you know, I mean, ultimately, I think only a company like Nielsen that's pretty well established can continue with it because I think anybody else trying to get into it, it's so inexact.

39:23I just don't know how you could how you could successfully do it. Um, uh, last one, um, last one from me. And that is, um, I wanted to get John's John. You were at the WNBA all-star game, correct? Yeah. I caught the fever literally and figuratively. Okay. So we'll, we'll, I want to, I'm curious just like sort of how you sort of, sort of the media and I will, I want to give a shout out though, um, to, uh, I highly recommend the no off season podcast, which is the athletics women's basketball podcast. They do a great job. I recommend it just regardless. But their last couple of episodes have been phenomenal.

40:00There's obviously a lot of things going on with the WNBA, a lot of issues, some good faith, some bad faith. They had a really good podcast on the suspension, and rightful suspension, by the way, of the Seattle Storm co-owner who got five games for interacting with those fans. But it's an excellent podcast. And really, if you're interested in the WNBA and learning more about it, especially all the stories that exist, like support places that actually invest the resources to cover it right and are not just covering the controversy of the moment. And then obviously moving on to the next controversy of the moment in the sports or political arena.

40:40But but John, so you were there in Chicago. And at least from my outsider perspective, like it seemed like far and away, like the biggest kind of activation WNBA All-Star game ever. It seemed like there were panels and just media everywhere. What were your, you know, if you can give us like a quick two or three minute snapshot of what you saw there. You know, it was interesting. So I was I was actually based in the in the hotel where I think the whole league was like when I was checking in. Like right after I checked in, the first person I saw was Kathy Engelberg. So, you know, I was right in the center of where the league was.

41:17But that whole area didn't really seem to have a lot of activation. Like Indianapolis last year, the city was, you could feel the WNBA's presence everywhere. At least where I was, I didn't see any, you know, giant logos or anything like that. Maybe all that was in the loop, but this was a little bit, a little bit away from all that. Kind of where Wintrust is, right? So Wintrust, it was very spread out too. Last year, the All-Star game was all at Cambridge Fieldhouse. This was Wintrust Arena and the United Center and the Obama Center as well for Media Day. So it was kind of hard to get the sense that you're talking about.

41:53So I can't say that I personally felt like this was, you know, that this took over Chicago. I could not tell from my vantage point. All I will say, though, is that arena at the United Center was way more energetic than last year. And last year was energetic. Last year was a good, solid crowd, very well attended, very raucous at times with the chanting, pay them, pay them. I don't remember, but pay the players, something like that at the end of the game. But this crowd was like, I mean, this is not a typical all-star crowd. I've done three of these now, two in the WNBA, one in the NBA. And this was by far the most energetic all-star game crowd.

42:36at the power. So it was a lot of really good energy, which is kind of ironic because, you know, the WNBA, there's so many, you know, so many opportunists, right? Kind of circling around this league, trying to use it for their own ends in terms of, you know, whatever culture war stuff they're on about. And, you know, ultimately, you would think that the energy was much more negative than it was, but no, it was pretty positive energy across the board. Austin, you saw the WNBA All-Star viewership numbers, and you actually put out a great chart going back to 2017 on those numbers. And to me, the takeaway is you don't need to be a genius to be a takeaway.

43:21The growth in the league is absolutely massive. The growth has been sustained. Kaitlin Clark turbocharges the viewership anytime she's around. So you have to actually – you've got to give her viewership flowers because no one else in the league can do that. But the league still is drawing, like as they did even in the All-Star game that Caitlin wasn't there. Yeah, of course the viewership dropped, but look at the viewership in 2025 compared to 2017 and it's not close. So multiple things can be correct here, right? Caitlin Clark, absolutely face of the league, but also the growth of the league actually continues as well.

43:57Yeah, it's a rising tide that has raised all ships. She obviously raises it to a different level, but it doesn't drop back to what it was before. These last three years that she has been part of the All-Star Game, all above 2 million, two of the three above 3 million, you didn't even get above 1 million. You have to look back to 2005 to the last time they did it before she came into the league. And the All-Star Game had only done above one million twice in its history before she joined the league. So she has just so changed the face of the WNBA and pushed the WNBA itself to the tip of the spear in terms of women's sports out there and what it can do on national television.

44:36Numbers are up across the board the first half of the season, 12 percent for the league. You know that you got the injection of NBC that has helped, even though it's been like four games or so. But bringing on another broadcast partner, we saw that what that did for the NBA as well. I think the USA games are performing well. But, you know, just getting back to Kaitlin, 29 games during the first half of the season topped a million viewers. Half of them, just around half of them, were for the Indiana Fever. So that team is just, that is the draw right now for the league. John, I'll give you the last word on this.

45:06Well, yeah, but the other side of that, and of course, there is no denying Kaitlin Clark's impact on this. None. He is by far the biggest run on the history of basketball. But the other side of that is, are you telling me that, what, 14, 15 games that did not involve Caitlin Clark and over a million viewers? There you go. There you go. If you go back, you know, just go back to 2023 when the Aces and Liberty met in the finals. Very highly, high-profile finals. Highest-profile finals in a long time. Not a single game of that series got a million views. In fact, not a single WNBA game from 2008 when Candice Parker played her first game until Caitlin Clark's debut had a million viewers.

45:45So the fact that you have, you know, I mean, that's the thing that's most amazing for the WNBA. Now, when you see one point two million viewers for Valkyrie Storm. That is you're not fazed. That's an ordinary number. It's like, OK, yeah, if you go back two or three years, if you had gotten nine hundred and fifty thousand viewers for a winner take all game in the finals, that was a milestone. And so, you know, there's no denying Caitlin Clark's impact at all. And I would attribute a lot of this, obviously, to her. But if you're trying to argue that it's only when she plays that the WNBA does far better than it ever did, well, that's almost as ridiculous as trying to pretend she's had no impact at all.

46:31The fact is that I would credit her for the incredible uptick in WNBA viewership for games she doesn't play. I would credit her, at least in large measure, for that. But the idea that it's only fever games, when we're seeing a league, I'm old enough to remember when 600 ,000 viewers for a game on ABC was, oh, okay, that's pretty good. like you would write about that like in a positive way because typically for the wnba you were seeing 200 000 300 i mean there was a time when 300 000 viewers for a game was a better than normal performance so the idea that the league could be where it is now where you can just you know see a million viewers for a game not even involving caitlin clark and it's just kind of nondescript is incredible.

47:29There's really not a ton of parallels. I just feel like if this happened for the Arena Football League or something, this is astonishing, honestly. Yeah, I mean, in addition to everything else, her impact as a viewership draw is just an attendance draw. It's just incredible. Last thing I'll say to you, Richard, WNBA this weekend, across Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, you have six WNBA games on broadcast TV. Wow. Incredible. What a change from like, you know, 10 years ago or five years ago. Unbelievable. Austin Karp is the media writer for Sports Business Journal. John Lewis is the editor and founder of Sports Media Watch.

48:11You can catch all of their audio work on their various different nothing. What a stumbling thing. What I'm really trying to say is both of these dudes have podcasts. Listen to both of them. They do, you know, similar shows as we do here. If you are interested in these, and by the way, thank you. I should formally say thank you, Austin. Thank you, John. As I, as I continue on with this very shitty ending. Thank you, Richard. This is the ending of endings. I've done better. I've done better, but we continue. If you stay on as like, as I close the show out previous, if you want, if you enjoy these kinds of conversations, head to our archives.

48:49You just had Linda Cohen and Neil Everett together. They were phenomenal. And, did not hold back their thoughts on the ESPN layoffs. So check that out. That just came out earlier this week. Have done a number of shows on the ESPN layoffs. Austin has been part of those, as well as LeBron to the Sixers, but I was glad to get John's thoughts on that. Jimmy Train was on this podcast on July 18th. We had a lot of different topics on that. Derek Ray was the guest on this podcast on July 14th, the fine Fox Sports soccer broadcaster. And Gina Arama on July 6th. The UConn women's basketball coach was unbelievable, and can't thank him enough for coming on and giving his thoughts on various women's basketball topics.

49:27I want to thank James Jackson for all his hard work on this podcast. Thanks to everybody at Odyssey for their support. Most of all, thank you for listening. We'll see you soon on the Sports Media Podcast.