Did CBS Sports telegraph the fate of Tony Romo; ESPN's terrible decision on Damien Woody, and Jimmy Traina makes a surprise appearance on the podcast

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1:56Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Deitch. My producer is James Jackson. This is our usual Saturday Sports Media Roundtable.

2:08I'm excited about this one because I think we're going to have a good conversation. Chad Fent of the Boston Globe, long-time sports media writer and general columnist. John Lewis, a regular on this podcast, founder and editor of Sports Media Watch. Welcome, John. welcome chad thank you john all right i will get to damian woody um which really pisses me off that that i i'm as i get older maybe more crankier guys i like i get i just annoyed as hell when people who are professional people who do things the right way either end up getting fired or a contract can't be worked out. And man, that again, just, I know ESPN's had endless layoffs, but something about that one pissed me off.

2:55We will get to that in a bit, but first I want to start with probably the biggest sports media news of the week and a lot of people trying to figure out the tea leaves on this one. And that's Tony Romo and that situation. We have covered this over the last couple of weeks on this podcast where the story advances is that CBS had its annual media day this week. All three of us have been there in the past. I was not there this year. Chad Finn was not there this year. John's in the middle of the country, doesn't always make it, but we're all familiar with this. And usually at these media days, what they do is they announce all their different NFL crews.

3:33They announce if anything's going to be changed this year. And generally speaking, it's really one big PR festival. It's a chance for you to talk to all their talent, their affiliates get to talk to their studio shows and their game analysts. And it's usually a endless amount of positive press that comes from it. But this one was different, of course, because of the situation with Tony Romo and CBS Sports president David Burson said a couple of things that really stood out to me. If you're going to sort of parse the language one on the Romo thing, he said, it's an evolving situation and we are still assessing there is no timetable or final decision at this time.

4:12So that's not saying he's coming back at this date or anything like that. That means really that the status is, there is no status. The other thing he said that really struck with me was that he said, we have to consider the impact on our image and our brand. That's very important to us. The focus should be and needs to be on our presentation and this great product and not on any others. Fortunately, we have a deep bench and everybody is stepping up. all that said chat i'm gonna start with you the one thing i didn't see from david burson was an over the top unequivocal we're gonna bring tony back we still believe in tony um once the legal situation sort of resolves itself um as long as we can make that work he's he's still our guy you know i'm saying again i i'm not i i don't think i would go 100 and say like Romo's gone, but I have to be honest with you.

5:10If I was reading the tea leaves on that, on David Burstyn's comments, I would move the needle more towards Tony Romo not being back than Tony Romo being back. How did you see it? Yeah. I'm with you. There's, I wrote last week about how I thought they should actually not necessarily move on from Romo, although it's probably how it would play out with a buyout, but take this opportunity to improve their number one team because we know what his path has been since he got there a decade ago. Huge phenom at the beginning, right? Very familiar with the players, predicted plays, which got him instant buzz.

5:50He was really good at it, kind of the easygoing nature, people like that. As he got further away from playing, he didn't seem to pick up the prep, And so it felt like his broadcasts were off the cuff. And you could tell Nance, who's, of course, the ultimate professional, would kind of get frustrated with that sometimes. You could just see little inklings of it. And Romo got a talking to a couple of years ago by Sean McManus, the former chairman of CBS Sports, and got better. And then he regressed again last year. And this, it's really cynical, but it's probably true. This could be an opportunity for CBS to make an upgrade in a spot where I think they felt like they've needed one for a couple of years now.

6:38John, I want to go to you. And I think it's important to point out for listeners that Tony Romo has a court date on September 21st. It's eight days after CBS's first NFL telecast. And I would think however that legal proceeding plays out, that obviously will have an impact on the long-term prospects for Tony Romo at CBS. I don't know the Wisconsin law well enough to know that if things can get postponed or inevitably what could happen. But that's obviously a very, very big date. And I think CBS would react accordingly. But I did want to get your comments, John, on what I started with and what Chad just commented on.

7:18And that was how David Burson, the head of CBS Sports, approached this. Yeah, I mean, I think it is very fascinating, right? Because I've been on this podcast and talked about the simple fact that there's a long history of DUI in this industry. I'm not trying to minimize it. There's a lot of mainstream people who have been arrested for DUI and it did not meaningfully impact their careers. Jalen Rose was in an act, you know, he actually went to jail for it, right? He served an actual sentence and came back and his ESPN job was still there waiting for him. Charles Barkley also served time. If you remember that ridiculous tent city thing they were doing in Arizona, Charles had to spend time in there and came back and his job was waiting for him.

8:01In the event that, you know, Romo, as you said, this court decision, you know, let's say it goes worst case scenario for him and he ends up having to have a similar outcome, I don't think his job's going to be waiting for him. And I don't necessarily think that that's because views of DUI are any different than they were 15 years ago. I think it's because they're probably looking for an out, which is how these things typically go. Now, the real question to me is, how much can you really look for an out when we're talking about someone who's making$18 million a year? Can you use this to get out of that?

8:38Is a DUI sufficient to get out of those financial obligations? Because the other thing for CBS, you know, I know I've kind of lost all track of time myself, but this first Super Bowl rotation is already over. Next year, CBS, which is at the front of the line in that rotation, has the Super Bowl. And so they're going to need to make a decision on the long term future pretty imminently. It's a great point and well worth mentioning that CBS has the Super Bowl in 2028. All right, Chad, let me run a couple of sort of scenarios that I thought was interesting. I talked to a number of agents and just some like sports television executives who've been in the business for a long time just to – so I was really curious sort of how they saw it.

9:22generally speaking the agents saw that they didn't believe romo would come back and that the um they would sort of be in the process of like figuring out a um you know sort of a legal process that would be a settlement so you know tony romo would we'll get in their sort of mind romo's getting paid it would really just be a question of like how much he would get paid and you know the the CBS and Romo do their best to negotiate a settlement. They maybe agree not to say bad things about each other, and you sort of try to quietly get out. A couple of the sports television executives sort of mentioned that it might not be as sort of easy as you think, and don't necessarily go to social media where everybody's trying to fire everybody.

10:13And the thought there was that there's no guarantee, first of all, that J.J. Watt is going to come in and be like an absolute slam dunk number one analyst. So I thought that was interesting, and I'm not sure anybody's really thought about that part yet. What if Nance and J.J. Watt just don't click? Or what if J.J. Watt is okay but not transcendent? So then that gets to sort of the thought, well, okay, if that's the case, do you try to go off the board and get a Greg Olson and try to slot somebody in that way. But again, if you do that, how much money are you paying Olsen? And are you now going to be on the hook for both Olsen and Romo's salary?

10:56And the executives were saying, there's not endless money at the end of the day. You do have to be sort of fiscally smart. So I did talk to some executives who kind of thought, all right, you know what? They thought CBS would try to salvage Romo in some capacity and that he would be back. They weren't necessarily saying like back on the number one team, although I think that was my tea leave reading. So I just wanted to run those two by you and John. So what do you think? So like on the agent side, they were like cut and dry, like they're going to settle. This thing's done. And then there were some television executives who are like, it's not so easy to cut and dry.

11:35And you've invested a lot in Romo. And to sort of throw them out really changes too much of your scenario. Now, this is independent of how you feel about Romo as an analyst. I've, you know, again, I'm someone who flagged way for Romo for a long time. I think at one point I did call him the greatest football analyst ever. I was incorrect. I think he's good, but I probably over-skied myself there. He's not even the best. But, you know, it's interesting, Chad, because I do think he – I still like Romo as an analyst. And if you believe that at CBS, I think that would be worth trying to figure out.

12:13Again, how do you sort of how do you read the agent and executives I talked to? How do you see that? Well, the executives are trying to save money, right? That's what's on their mind. I mean, Romo's in middle of a 10 year, 180 million extension. I think he signed it in 2020. So what's that 90 million around there left? If he got a buyout, you know what? He got 50 million. I don't know. but these are the conversations they have to be having at CBS. As far as Watt goes, I think it's really going to click. I think it's going to go really well with Nance. And, you know, Nance isn't going to undermine anybody, but if they shot him full of truth serum after working with Watt for a bit, I think he would probably prefer that to what he's had with Romo the last couple of years.

12:58I saw Watt a few times last year where I was really paying close attention of the broadcast because he had the Patriots game in week three against Pittsburgh, and then he came back for one of the games against the Bills later in the year, the second time they played the Bills. And first, he was really fortunate to work with Ian Eagle, brings the best out of anybody, no matter what sport he's doing. He's one of his great talents. The other thing is Watt made a huge leap in his first year in the booth because he had been in studio before. He made a huge leap in like that 12-week gap between the two times I really paid close attention to what he was doing because I had to write about it.

13:39And I think he's going to be great at this. He's a really personable guy. He's candid. He's recently removed from the field. It feels like it would be certainly a longer road for him to get to a number one booth if something like this hadn't happened. But it's clear just from what they did with him last year, putting him on the number two booth, that they really believe in him. And I think he's seizing this opportunity. He's going to make them make a very difficult decision. What about you, John? Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, right? You make a great point. We don't really know how J.J. Watt is going to do in this role.

14:17And, you know, as you were speaking, I couldn't help but wonder why does anyone need to be transcendent in this role? Why do we need another John Madden? obviously be nice to have one, but why do we need one? You know, there used to be a time you had, you know, Bob Trumpy, you had, you know, I mean, I'm trying to remember the name. Mike Patrick's partner at ESPN was also part of NBC's lead team. Paul McGuire. Thank you. Paul McGuire. Apologies to Paul McGuire for not remembering his name, but you had these analysts who were not massive TV stars, but they got, they got the job done. You know, in other sports, Like, you know, you don't have to have a major superstar in the booth, in my opinion, especially, you know, I mean, Fox is paying, what, 30-something million dollars a year for Brady.

15:09That doesn't bring them more games. It's not like there's no tangible benefit. I think things have gotten really out of control in terms of, on the NFL side in particular, the analysis game. We have gotten way beyond the point of put on your best possible broadcast. Everyone is going for put on the greatest broadcast anyone's ever heard of in history. And frankly, I think a lot of short-sighted decisions are being made. I'll just say this, and obviously this is not going to happen. I don't necessarily think that Charles Davis couldn't have been a number one guy on the NFL. I mean, he's got the skills for it.

15:50He's just not a superstar. Yeah, but I don't think you need a superstar on every single number one team. You just need to get the job done. Yeah, I think everybody on this podcast likes Charles Davis. Gentlemen, I'm going to do something that I can't remember ever doing before, but we have someone who has just popped into this podcast. I'm kind of a sports media celebrity. jimmy treyna is making a surprise appearance on this podcast just 24 hours or so after he made i mean what is a monumental announcement that he is leaving sports illustrated after 20 years to head to i don't believe he said officially yet where he's going what we do know is that he's going to a place where he will continue to podcast and continue to cover media i'm bullshitting here of course i do happen to know where he's going jimmy welcome to the sports a real well a re-return welcome to the sports media podcast and how are you feeling after 24 hours of of you being you know sort of a social media celebrity uh i i love how you you're so like wrestling ww we focus that like you wanted me to come on like you know like someone coming out of the back and doing a run-in i mean the wrestling in you we don't have the production capabilities to even pull anything like that off i know such a shock though that i'm on um how am i feeling i'm feeling great i'm feeling great i um overwhelmed by the response i um you know the most important thing for me in this situation is having people follow me somewhere else and I was shocked at how many people said they would so that is a good thing I've heard from people in the business who said they'd still love to come on the pod even though it's not a quote I'm going to be a sports illustrated podcast so that made me feel good and I think really it's just because I've been doing this for so long I think when you have longevity that's a big thing in this business so So I would say the best thing that I have going for me is that I was doing this for like 20 plus years.

18:16Why was this the right time for you to depart Sports Illustrated and head to a new venue? You have other guests right now. They are at the edge of their seats waiting for these answers. Okay, because I just feel like an asshole if you have other guests sitting here and you're just talking to me because that's just rude. We'll eventually get to John and Chad. And John and Chad, if you have questions for Jimmy, train him, please. I have no questions for Jimmy. i'm a little annoyed i didn't get to weigh in on you will be jimmy jimmy you eventually will get to you on roma follow the script what was your question what was your question why was this the right time for you to leave sports illustrated after two decades and head to a a job to be named soon yeah it's a startup um it was the right time it was probably it probably would have been the right time maybe a year or two or three ago because of the way consumption of sports media and all media has changed and I for a long time was of the belief that it was just maybe people 12 to 30 who would spend all day scrolling on their phones and I when I say scrolling I mean instagram reels i mean tick tock i mean youtube i mean youtube's a whole separate conversation of how big youtube has become in this business um but i've realized i would say i've realized in the past year that is a dumb mindset if you think it's just 12 to 30 year olds i mean i've said this before to people over the last couple weeks my dad is 83 when i go see him on sundays he's scrolling through facebook reels my uncles are in their 70s they're scrolling through instagram reels and i I know me, all of my friends are late 40s, early 50s.

20:04We're all scrolling on Reels and TikTok and YouTube all day. So the business has changed. I hate that it's that way. I hate that it's so hard to get people to read a column. I hate that we just read tweets and don't click into stories. I hate that people don't go to their web browser and go to SI.com or The Athletic or wherever and read. But you'd be fooling yourself. I mean, and a big part of this, too, was I was I have been writing a daily column five days a week since 2007. Wow. There were mornings I would wake up, stare at the blank space and figure out how I can, you know, end things basically.

20:48So this podcast just went very dark all the sudden, Jimmy. Well, I was going to say something. But so it was time. It was time for a change. And with all this going on in the overall business, things happen at SI that made me think maybe it's time to go. Then I had this company pursuing me at the same exact time and saying all the right things and offering all the right things. So it was time. Okay. Very quickly, you'll still do a podcast and you'll still cover national media? Yes. I'm going to do a pod three days a week. there will be the regular interview pod that I've done since I took over the SI Media podcast from you.

21:34There'll be a pod every week with the Joe Bucks, the Jim Nances, the Chris Russo, Scott Van Pelt, blah, blah, blah. There'll be a separate pod with me and Sal Licata, which we have done a segment on my podcast for like five or six years now. So we usually do like 20 to 30 minutes. So So we'll do 30 to 40 minutes maybe now. And there'll be a third pod that I think will be like a wild card. It could be me just going through sports media news, like doing an episode on the Tony Romo situation. It could be a second interview. And it will be national. It will be national all the way. And the other thing that I'm really looking forward to is this company is giving me sort of an open path to doing what I want.

22:23So I don't have to do a sports interview if I want to have a non-sports person on. Nice. So, yeah, if I want to have, I don't know, a stand-up comedian on. Right. Great. You know, I can do that. They're fine with non-sports. So I'm looking forward to that part of it, too. All right, last one. And then I do want to get you to weigh in on David Burson's comments about Romo. Sure. Both of us, upon leaving Sports Illustrated, had to live with the very frustrating fact that we did not get the media feed for the podcast that both of us built up. So obviously I started this thing. Without sounding like an asshole, I built it up.

23:06Pretty good audience. You then took it over and expanded it for sure and did an amazing job in a different podcast. And Jimmy and I always will go back and forth with each other, but that's not something I joke about. did an amazing job with that podcast. Um, and, uh, I mean, I got great. But my point is, I told you this on, I understand that it's their intellectual property and they do own it, but it, there is something that I think is so unfair that you don't, you're not getting this podcast. And I thought the same thing when, um, it was different management group when they didn't give me the podcast, um, after having blood, sweat and tears did for as many years as I did.

23:48You know, life is so crazy sometimes because, you know, I found out. I think I want to say maybe Tuesday that I wasn't going to be able to get the feed.

24:02Wednesday, I sort of announced that I'm leaving Sports Illustrated and that people are going to have to follow me somewhere else. And then Wednesday afternoon, that story broke about Daniel Jeremiah. and how you know i guess because of the es espn buying the nfl network his podcast which was very very popular and did very well yes the sticks um his podcast ended i guess the nfl kept the feed and out of nowhere with i think the last episode they said he did was june i could be wrong on that I think that's what they said. I could be wrong. And then some AI podcast comes up in his feed yesterday, pissing off all the people who subscribe to his feed.

24:48So and I'm sure when I took your podcast over, there were people who, when the first episode came out, heard me instead of you and were pissed off. So I think taking a feed and giving it to someone else is very dicey. And I think that unfortunately, the way it's set up from a legal standpoint is you only get the feed if the company wants to do it as a goodwill gesture. They have the legal right to not give you the feed. I can't sue. I can't do anything. It's their feed. It's whatever. I thought maybe the fact that, you know, there are a couple of big companies. I know, you know, the ringer gave Rosillo his feed.

25:27I know obviously Barstool gave, you know, Alex Cooper, her feed and look what happened there. So again, if a company gives you a feed, it's because it's a goodwill gesture. And yeah, and shout out Barstool and the ringer for doing that. That's that's how it should be done, I think. All right. Anyway, I'm going to bring Chad and John back here in a second. And by the way, speaking of like reading, go click on Sports Media Watch in the Boston Globe. and read stories there, please. We've all been there. You stop listening for a second to jot down a note and suddenly you've missed the most critical part of the conversation.

26:02That's where Plod comes in. Plod is an AI-powered note-taking device built for real-world conversations. With the hands-free NotePin S, one tap captures everything so you can stay fully present. Afterwards, Plod's AI automatically generates structured summaries, key insights, and action items. Don't let important details slip through the cracks. Get 10 % off at plaud.ai slash podcast with code podcast. That's plaud.ai slash podcast with code podcast for 10 % off. 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.

26:42We're diving into the tape. We're crunching the numbers to bring you sleepers, bust weekly start-sit advice. Whether 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 Barry, wherever you get your podcasts. Lastly, Jimmy, were you at the CBS Media Day? You were. Right, right, right. So you actually were there. So you make sure to be an even better guest right now. How did you read, Chad, myself, and John just sort of weighed in on how we read Burstyn's comments. And like the Cliff Notes version is like nothing he said would have been great for Romo because he didn't go over the top, you know, and say he's our guy or anything was much very corporate.

27:27I'm sure lawyers looked at that statement and it was like, you know, we have a reputation PR to protect blah, blah, blah, blah. How did you read that one? How did you read what he said? I thought it was very telling that he made it a point to talk about them being embarrassed. I have heard from sources before NFL Media Day that CBS was beyond livid about this. And because of the embarrassing factor, you have your number one NFL analysts or the NFL. It's the only thing people care about on network television where they get 30 million viewers a week at 425. and they got him with the, you know, surveillance video, not surveillance, body cam video, open bottle in the seat, apparently.

28:20Now, that can maybe fly at Fox. I mean, they'd probably give him a promotion. That's not flying at CBS. Just not. And I can tell you that from what I've heard, what really did not help Tony on any level whatsoever was that video coming out. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, he David Burson started his comments by saying it was a legal matter. Can't discuss it, which everyone expected because Tony has a hearing on September 21st. So you're not going to hear anything from CBS until that hearing takes place on September 21st. So he came out. He said, you know, I know you're all here for Tony. You want to discuss Tony?

29:07We can't do it. Legal matter, legal issue, nothing we can say. Please don't ask. And then he talked about the company being embarrassed. And I thought, yeah, that's that's telling right there. I like personalizing executive. It's not it's not there's no easy solution here because, you know, you're you're. No matter how you go, there's a lot of ways it could go wrong. What I'd like to know is, and this is like a Mike McCann special. So if there is a morals clause in Tony's contract and he gets found, you know, drunk driving, bottle in the car, intoxicated, whatever. And CBS says, OK, moral clause, we're cutting you.

29:51It's over. Does Tony have any leg to stand on legally? Will it be a lawsuit? Yeah, yeah. If you're Tony, do you want to do a lawsuit or do you want to just take the firing, try to get to Netflix or try to get to Prime after this year? Like, you know, you got to consider those things. Yeah. I mean, again, having not seen the contract and I don't believe any reporter has seen Romo's contract for sure. There would be – and again, Mike McCann is the best at this and he's a lawyer. No one here is not.

30:25There would be a settlement for sure. there's no way Tony Romo's walking away with no money. Usually what happens is they find a number. They agree probably not to blast each other in public, and you walk away with whatever dollar figure happens, and then maybe there's an extended period of time where you can or cannot work for somewhere else. But there's no way Romo would just leave, Jimmy. Even if the contract has that clause, he is in a position where you'd have enough lawyers to, I think, push that far enough where I think CBS slash Paramount would want to settle before really going all in.

31:04I mean, again, I don't know if they – it could be in the contract. You get a DUI, you get arrested, you're out. Yeah, we're speculating too much because we know it's in the contract, so it's like whatever's specifically there. All right, I'm bringing – I got to bring Chad and John back in, Jimmy. All right, just – you mentioned the merger. That's a factor in all this too. Yeah. By the way, will you stick around? because I want to use your – all right, excellent. All right, Chad and John, are you guys asleep or are you still here? That's all right. You should apologize to him. I did. You should.

31:37All right, John, let me go to you. What they did announce, and I'm very happy for the guys, Ross Tucker will be doing games with Ian Eagle as the number two at the beginning of the year. Ross Tucker worked with Jimmy and I at SI for a while. When he started – Jimmy, you can correct me if I'm wrong. Was he going to Harvard or Princeton? This was not some famous offensive lineman. He played in the NFL for a little bit, but he was a guy who really just grinded and grinded and grinded. And now to get up to the number two position is unbelievable. He went to Princeton, a little fun fact. He went to Princeton and was roommates with Kyle Brandt.

32:13Jimmy, is that your phone? No. No. All right. Anyway. Well, that's rude also. Now you owe me an apology. So you owe all three of us an apology. Terrible. Ross Tucker went to Princeton and was roommates with Kyle Brandt. They were both on the football team. Okay. Oh, interesting. All right. Good try. All right, John, what do you think of Ross Tucker? Have you gotten a chance to hear him at all? And I think as Chad said earlier, anybody working with Ian Eagle is going to be excellent just because Ian Eagle is such a pro. Yes, well, that was one of my employees calling in. So I'll use the opportunity to promote another one of my employees, Armand Brody, who wrote an article about Ross Tucker for the site today.

32:50You know, Ross Tucker is certainly, as has been said, kind of under the radar. And I find it fascinating that they moved him to the number two team because they didn't just move everybody up a spot, which would have been, you know, a huge disruption. Instead, they go with someone who was on, I think, that number six team that doesn't even work a game every week with Tom McCarthy. And he's more than good enough to, you know, to satisfy the needs that CBS has. but these are going to be big games. What's the first game he's doing? I think it's like the Bills in week one. I mean, I think that, yeah, they think they have, they don't have the Bills home opener, but they have, I think the, because Amazon, I think has that day, but they have the Bills first game, whoever that is.

33:34And that is a huge game, right? That's, that's Bills and Texans. There you go. Highest profile teams in the NFL. And, you know, one of the things that Armand mentioned is really Ross Tucker is kind of in that Charles Davis, Bob Trumpy vein. right and he's someone who has done a lot of stuff in this business in a lot of different roles very versatile i think there's room for people who are students of the game of broadcasting to kind of get a little bit more of that exposure right i mean tucker's filled in on the dan patrick show hosting he has a very versatile skill set i think that's a good thing to have in that role uh charles davis who i've been mentioning a lot i mean he's done sideline reporting on nba games before i mean These are folks who are really in it for broadcasting in a way that a Romo isn't, in a way that a Tom Brady isn't.

34:26They want to be versatile, fully developed broadcasters across multiple skill sets. And I think that could be even just that alone could be something that brings a fresh approach. And certainly I think it means that CBS has a bit of a proven commodity. They know what they're going to get here. Chad, one of the things I like about Ross Tucker is that I always like the guys who do radio as well. I've heard him on Westwood One do games because I think that you really got to know your stuff to prep for radio. Have you heard or seen Ross do games, Chad? Do you have any thoughts? Yeah, of course. He's done a few Pats games.

35:04He played for the Patriots. Heard him a lot on the radio. He does Eagles, I think, preseason games and stuff. He's got all kinds of things. this podcast. Sounds a lot like Judge Reinhold, so I can't get past that sometimes, but he is good. I'm surprised that he kind of leapfrogged up, but it seems like they wanted to keep a couple of their booths together. I know they like Archulet and Spiriditas together. I'm going to miss the Jason McCourty-Charles Davis pairing that they had. I think they were with Catalan, but I thought those two guys as in a three-man booth really played off each other. Jason's up now with ESPN has a bigger role there.

35:46But it, it surprised me a little bit, but I don't, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. Just I thought they were going a different direction. Yeah. Jimmy, let me go to you. We'll move on to, Can I weigh in on that real quick? Yeah, go ahead. Because this came out of going to CBS media day on Tuesday. and I wrote about this so it proves no one reads anymore because the three of you didn't see this a big factor in this is Ross Tucker told me him and I have called at least 20 games together on radio so I think that was I know for a fact that was a huge role in the decision CBS made in putting Ross Tucker with Ion as the experience they had together It's good intel.

36:32I'm on vacation, so I have an excuse. Chad and John do not, though. I actually read it. I just didn't retain it. And in fairness, in fairness, the column by Armand does mention that very information, and it cites you specifically, Jimmy. Oh, look at that. Jimmy gets cited. Old school. We like that. And Armand, of course, is a regular on this podcast, so great job by him. All right, Jimmy, I'm going to go to you. I referenced this. I don't think you heard this, but I referenced this very, very much at the top. So the Damian Woody news really pissed me off. I get like all of us on this podcast, we have seen an endless amount of people get laid off from all different places, including places we've worked at.

37:12So I get that's part of it. And this is not a layoff. This is a decision not to come to a contract. My guess would be that Damian Woody and his people had a number in mind. ESPN didn't want to get up to that number, and that's it. or it was like we're not going to renew this guy. Anyway, every time I've seen Damian Woody, Jimmy, on television, whether it's Get Up, whether it's on one of these NFL studio shows, the guy is just like a total professional, smart, like educates you, not a screamer, not a hot take artist. And to me, it's so frustrating that a guy like that isn't going to continue on ESPN.

37:56He like literally he just did his job correctly, but maybe because he doesn't go viral all the time. Like like like his value gets diminished. I don't know. I just that one ticked me off. But how did you see it? Well, two things. I mean, I thought I thought the timing I didn't understand because they just had layoffs. Why wasn't he just part of the layoffs? Maybe maybe the contract extends into the end of the year or something like that. I don't know. No, but when you have a single layoff like this after layoffs, it makes it worse. Well, of course, I mean, Marchand had a good piece. It's not – I don't know if it's termed as a – I mean, maybe you're going to say it's the same thing.

38:34I don't know if it's termed as a layoff versus a non-renewal. Same thing to you? Maybe it is the same thing. Yeah, I mean, listen, I know this from SI. You know this from – they have budgets. Usually a lot of these places, the budget starts with the football season. and not January 1. Maybe they were over. I don't know. Contract. I will say this, and I don't want this to sound like, I don't want this to sound cold. Like, I don't want to see anybody getting laid off ever. It happened to me. It was horrific. I understand the ESPN gets a ton of shit about all this, but if you think about it, I feel like, and the three of you can let me know if I'm out of line here, but like, I still think they have like a million NFL analysts.

39:15Well, yeah, of course they have a million, but they also have a million NFL hours that they do. Right. But I'm saying I'm not going to get on ESPN for like not employing enough people. Like they, they're in a, I mean, they have, I put on first take only on Wednesdays when Mad Dog's on. I'm like every week there's like a different NFL person. I'm like, where are all these people coming from? So I think they employ a ton of NFL people. So I would imagine. Plus the NFL network stuff now. Right. Right. And I, you know, to be honest with you, and let me know what you guys think, I thought there'd be a way bigger bloodbath for NFL Network talent.

39:56I know there was behind the scenes, but they kept a lot of NFL Network people. I mean, and I get the vibe that ESPN doesn't know what they're doing with NFL Network, but maybe I'm wrong. Like, here we are, like, three weeks before the season. Like, I don't know what's going on on Get Up. I mean, Good Morning Football, like, who's going to be where? and they're just cross-flexing people. It's weird. Chad, Damian Woody played in your parts for many, many years. Is he one of the Patriots on the Wall of Fame? Is there even a Wall of Fame in New England? No, we're not the Bills, man. Oh, sorry. I didn't know what the Super Bowl is up here.

40:33Anyway, a very prominent and excellent Patriot. So you have seen him. I don't even know if he – maybe he started in the Boston area before he got national. He went to BC. Yeah, you're a good guy to ask this. And you maybe even wrote about it because he's got the BC connection. Yeah, I'll probably have a note about him Sunday. I'm kind of with Jimmy. I mean, I really like him, and Woody's a really good guy. He's like how he is on the air. He played at Boston College, played for the Pats a bit before leaving for the Jets, and went back to school to get his degree a couple years ago up here. He's just a really smart, hardworking guy, and I think that reflects on how people regarded him at ESPN.

41:13But honestly, I'm more bothered by Ryan Clark and Kyle Ravitch, you know, the way Ryan was treated on his way out. And he's somebody who I thought was an outstanding analyst. He had one of the best moments under pressure on ESPN, I think I've ever seen during the DeMar Hamlin game. And Ravitch had been there 33 years. I know baseball isn't what it used to be for them, but kind of the ultimate company guy. And, you know, he's finding out from somebody else that his job is gone. I actually talked to Ravich a day or two before that happened and for a different story that I wrote. And he was, you know, he was kind of frustrated with how things went down with Linda Cohn.

42:01So I think a lot of the longer term people there were recognizing that this was not going to be good for a lot of them. But Woody had been there 15 years. He was good at it. But honestly, some of the other departures the last few weeks have bothered me more. It's interesting. Yeah, the Woody one bothers me more than Clark. By the way, Linda Cohen, a guest on this podcast, July 30th with Neil Everett. That's a free promo there. Oh, you cannot, Jimmy. Let's get to John Lewis. and then we will get to you. You're going to have three podcasts for you to be in charge of. Not this one. John, I don't know.

42:40Is anybody going to support me, John Lewis, on this, on Damian Woody going down? Well, yeah, I mean, the thing that I honestly wonder, was Damian Woody, because everyone here was talking about what a good guy he is. Is there room for people who are good guys? That was my question, too. Great point. I mean, the fact is he doesn't say anything controversial. There's no one can aggregate something Damian Woody said because it was this controversial statement. You're not going to put a Damian Woody quote or a picture of him on social media and have, you know, 50 to 100 people criticizing him from one direction or the other.

43:17And frankly, it feels as if that is not what certain executives in this industry and at ESPN want. Thank you. That's much better stated than I did. All right, Jimmy, please. No, I just want to piggyback on what Chad said. What I find very interesting about the Carl Ravitch situation, again, we're in this. This is what we do for a living. So we sort of think, oh, everyone knows everything. What fascinated me about the Carl Ravitch situation is how many people don't understand that ESPN does not have postseason baseball. Like those games are on peak. Yeah. Because I saw a lot of like, oh, who's going to call the playoffs?

43:56It's like they don't have the playoffs. So, you know, that's a, you know, not a great sign for Major League Baseball and NBC. But I was shocked at how many people still think ESPN has postseason games this year. Yeah. You know, I like I want to I try to say this. I think anybody listening to this podcast knows this. Like I get these are first world problems. And we were talking about people who earn millions of dollars compared to the average American household, which is massively struggling right now. Like, I get that. So like we're all aware of like the context we're talking about. That said, I do still think that if you put in the amount of years that like a Linda Cohn or a Carl Ravitch or Damian Woody or whoever, the exit should be better or there should at least be much more respect for institutional knowledge.

44:39And that's what gets back to what John said. And that like, if you're not someone who's going to get aggregated, it does feel in 2026 that your value is so much less, which is just, you know, it's very frustrating. I realized that is the reality of the day, but, but it is frustrating. Um, all right. I want to do Fox and their NFL, um, game coverage announcements. Um, I'll start with you, Jimmy Burkhardt, Brady, Andrews, Rinaldi. They're opening week one, Philly, Washington. Then the Davis Olsen, Pam Oliver group. They have Falcon Steelers week one. Got Adam Amin, Drew Brees, Christina Brink, Kenny Albert, Jonathan Vilma, Megan Olifi, Kevin Kugler, Moose Johnson, Allison Williams, Chris Myers, Mark Schlereth, Jen Hale.

45:25If I'm missing anybody from that group, my apologies. I will say this, Jimmy, this is interesting to me. I don't know if you've gotten this, but I have talked to Fox PR people over the last couple of months, many, many times. And my God, They have pushed Drew Brees to me a lot, just in terms of like, look at what we've done. We've improved him. He's he should give him a, you know, a different look. And I agree. I thought Brees, Brees, different kind of thought process. Now you think of him in terms of a broadcaster. But, you know, at the top, the big story for Fox, I think, is probably going to be the same big story that it was last year.

45:58And that's people seeing, you know, does Brady continue and improve? And where do you think of Brady in relation with Aikman, Romo, Collinsworth, Herbstreit? I actually think the big story for Fox this year is going to be, this is definitely going to be the last year of Greg Olson on Fox. Fair enough. Because you're going to have the opening at CBS. Now, who knows if they're going to want to, I mean, I don't think they're going to want to bump JJ once he's in that role. So maybe CBS isn't as much of a player in this, but Herb Street's contract is up after this year on Thursday night. and I would be shocked if you didn't have a new Thursday night booth.

46:37I agree. And I think Olsen obviously would be highly sought after by Amazon. They have the money. So my guess is going to – my guess would be this is the last time you see Greg Olsen on Fox this season. As for Brady, obviously big improvements in year two over year one. I still – my biggest frustration with Tom in year one and year two is I want to just see a little more personality, a little more entertainment. It doesn't all have to be X's and O's. That's what JJ has going for. JJ came out in week one and made an office reference. He did a snip, snap, snip, snap. Let me see something from Tom that's not so robotic in terms of personality.

47:21Doesn't have it in him. There's no there there. You would know that way better than all of us. That's for sure. But, you know, you know, it'd be fascinating. Imagine. Well, I don't know. I don't want to say that. No, say it. Go, please. Now I'm on the edge of my seat. You just gave us. You don't want to say it. I don't know how much of it is. I'm curious to know if it's like Fox's people or if it's Tom's people. But like, I feel like someone's keeping him a little buttoned up. I think, again, Chad, I want to go to you because you would have. There's nothing there. You would be the Brady expert.

47:57I think some of it has to be that when you're that famous and you are that famous for a long time, it is very – unless you're a comic, it is just very hard to be – Relatable. Yeah, or just that open. Like you're just – you're too famous. Like if Taylor Swift started doing stand-up, I mean I think it would be awesome. But I just – I don't know how many people would be throwing themselves in the ring there just because she's so famous. I don't know. Chad, are you saying like personality-wise he can't do it? Or is it just because the fame, how you process Brady is always going to be different? It's the same thing, really.

48:34When he got super, super famous to this, it's like the one level, right, where he comes in 2001. He'd been the Michigan quarterback, has a storybook for a season. They won three Super Bowls in four years. A couple of years after that, he's pretty much as famous as any athlete in America. he's dating Giselle and he was a guy who was pretty grounded and down to earth when he got here and he's just in this world now that isn't really real like all this fanatic stuff the Logan Paul stuff he's pushing crypto he likes all the worst things sometimes and it feels like he's what his dad even said this that it's going to be really hard for him when he stops playing And it feels like he's still searching for that thing to fill the void of playing quarterback in the NFL for the majority of his life.

49:31He runs the Raiders. He's got the number one Fox job for$375 million. And it doesn't seem like it's enough. And with the personality thing, I think he's gotten out of touch with just like what a normal person is. And also he has to feel guarded because he's so famous that anything he says that's remotely controversial is going to be picked apart. So just it sucks, but it just feels like something was lost along the way. Because when he when he got to New England 26 years ago, you know, he's about the most grounded kid you would meet. I think he's still be grounded. I think I actually think a lot of it is just how you process it.

50:08I mean, Tom Brady, at least from talking to people on the crew, could not have been more relatable to the people on the crew. But I just think it's always nice. Yeah, he's pleasant. It's the fame. It's the fame that we process. By the way, Jimmy, that Logan Paul, Tom Brady, WWE thing is just horrible. Terrific. Yeah, terrible. Can I throw a question at the three of you about this? No, let me get John on Fox, and then you can throw your question. John, anything in the Fox announcements on their NFL team stand out to you? Well, honestly, I haven't even seen it. Maybe I'm out of the loop. Where did Fox put this out?

50:41They put out a release. Two weeks ago. Yeah, two weeks ago, but I wanted to refer back to it. Again, there's not many changes. There are many changes. from yeah i'm trying to think are there any no trying to i'm trying to think if there's anything any change lower level maybe you're right was meyer slurred gen how that was a team last year too right okay yeah so maybe no changes um so yeah john they put it out two weeks ago basically with the first week assignments well yeah if it's this guy if it's exactly the same as it's been the past few years i mean what is what's really supposed to well i think it's i think jimmy nailed it i I think it's paying attention to Greg Olson this year, just given the contractual opening with Herbstreit and obviously the Roma situation.

51:25I mentioned it before, the fact that this first Super Bowl rotation is almost over already, even though it's four years now, the longest of all of them. But Fox is right up, not necessarily imminently, but two years from now, Fox has the Super Bowl again. It's going to be Brady again. We're talking all this Brady stuff. that first year was so awkward, so uncomfortable. He improved a lot in his second year. But, you know, you talk about Romo. Everybody was convinced that Romo was the second coming until he wasn't. All of these things now with Brady, you know, the weird deviation from the personality he had built for himself, which is so similar to Belichick, right?

52:06Belichick built up this personality and then started doing all sorts of things to undermine it. I'm not saying that anything over the next two years is going to happen that would put Brady in the position that Romo's in but I don't know I think to me anytime you go with these big personalities in the booth they're not all going to be John Madden where John Madden was doing the game on Sunday and then the rest of the week he was in his car or the bus I should say driving to the other game and he did not have the ability to do anything weird or untoward he was just a guy who did the game did the advertisements and traveled and that was that we didn't need to know anything more about him we never had any not that there were body cams back then but we would never have had body cam footage of john madden we would but different era though social media i mean just we're just we don't live in that world right that's true and the kind of personality that john madden had probably is not something that could exist in this era and the point that was made before about Brady kind of falling into the trap of all this viral stuff.

53:12Tom Brady, 20 years ago, or maybe 30, 40 years ago, he retires and then he writes a book, right? Memoirs of an Opinionated Man, right? That's what Bill Russell wrote, right? That's what he would be doing. And the next one of these guys who writes a book, whether it's Brady or LeBron or whoever, I'm going to be pretty shocked. That's just not the way it happens anymore. Jimmy, you can go back to what was your question? Yeah, but don't you guys think that it really does – at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if Brady's good. Fox just wants Tom Brady. They don't care if he's good. Exactly. And they would never fire Tom Brady.

53:46Like, they're not moving Tom Brady to a number two crew. Like, they don't care if he's good or bad. They just want to be in the business with Tom Brady and in a weird way because of all this stuff we're sort of crapping on. Like, Fox loves that he's at Fanatics Fest for three days. They love that he's going to do a WWE match with Logan Paul. we think it's ridiculous but i bet fox loves it and i bet fox doesn't care if he's getting praise about being a great analyst because he's tom brady and that's why i so i like i somewhat agree with that with the i do think they want to be good and they are in the business of tom brady and he was he got a lot better last year yeah so that's that's a win for them but i don't they would not i mean if tom brady was you know joe montana level you know when he was on nbc way back in the day.

54:31Like he wouldn't, they wouldn't keep him for 10 years if he wasn't a good analyst. At least I don't think so. The big problem they're always going to have, and they've had it since day one, is the number two guy is better than the number one guy. That's a big issue. It is an issue. Yeah. Although I wonder, I'm not sure Fox exec, I mean, Fox executives probably have to dance around that, but I don't, I think they believe Brady is their top guy. Like any, maybe even better than awesome. Upgrade to a high efficiency furnace just in time for winter. Right now at four seasons, Replace your old furnace and AC and get up to$5 ,000 in rebates on a qualifying HVAC system.

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55:42We'll walk you through every step of the process. No pressure, just support. Call or visit coastivoney.com for a free consultation. Coast I've Only Law, we get you. All right, last one. We'll end on this. uh john lewis i'll start with you um nba came out with all their um sort of highlighted games from opening day nbc universal carrying a triple header on nba opening day on october 20th which i love i think that's really smart and then the christmas day games came out with um the spurs and knicks in the in the 12 o 'clock spot i want to get your take on that john lewis i i know the knicks have done well in that spot, but man, I would have brought that later.

56:28But I think the signature game, if I'm just looking at the schedule and the timing, it's Sixers-Lakers at 5, which is obviously LeBron's return to LA. We have the Heat and Celtics there. We got the Thunder-Timberwolves there in the late game as Nuggets-Warriors. John, anything big stood out? I think the thing that stood out to me on all that stuff, the tripleheader's cool. I would have moved the Spurs-Knicks a little further down in terms of in the afternoon, but I don't know. Maybe that's just me. How did you see all this? Well, I think the reason Spurs-Nix is on at noon is to get a head start on the NFL.

57:00Ah, okay. That makes sense. You know, in the era where the NFL is on for the entire day, there's only one usable hour where the NBA has the day to itself, and that's noon to one, right? I know they also have, like, I guess 1130 to 1 a.m. on the back end of it. But, you know, noon to one is really the best period for them. And last year, the number one game of the entire season was Spurs-Thunder 230 on Christmas. The number two game was Cavs-Knicks noon on Christmas. I'm talking regular season only, obviously. LeBron played in prime time and Steph played at 5 o 'clock, and those windows were not as strong as Cavs-Knicks or Thunder-Spurs.

57:42So I think the NBA kind of looks at that and says, okay, what is our best matchup? It's not LeBron at this stage of his career. It's definitely not Steph, who, by the way, the Warriors are on at 1030. They haven't been on in that late-night window on Christmas since before they were winning championships, right? So the NBA pretty obviously understands the Steph era is not continuing the way it was, and the LeBron era is also kind of fading. Your top matchup is the one that was just the most watched NBA final since 1998, at least officially, we know all the Nielsen stuff, which is Spurs-Knicks.

58:17and you're going to put your best matchup in what is your freest window. The thing about holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, I truly believe the audience is biggest during the daytime. I don't think, I mean, if you look at the NFL Thanksgiving numbers, that prime time game, I know the NFL is experimenting with a big one this year, Sheets Bills, but that prime time game has always kind of been pretty weak compared to the afternoon ones. So I think as a general rule, how do we spend holidays? we're most active in the morning on Christmas morning and, you know, maybe into the afternoon and then everyone's kind of conked out by prime time.

58:53So I, I, as, as being a smart move from that perspective, especially since you get a nice clean hour, no NFL. And if the game is good enough, maybe people stick around a little bit. And I like that point, John, it's pretty smart. Chad, will you be at the heat Celtics on Christmas day? You get, you get a chance to see Giannis versus Tatum. uh most likely not um got to run that one by the the boss of this house uh what we you know what we've learned from the schedule drop so far and uh is that the jalen brown to the sixers is a regional story here in boston the league doesn't care at all we thought that was going to be one of the uh christmas game or maybe well no it is they got big sixers lakers is the five o 'clock game on christmas yeah we were talking six or celtics the oh i see i got you okay right right right well Well, that's, I mean, LeBron returning to L.A.

59:46is, that's, you know, you got to put that on a high-profile window. Yeah, we just figured it would be on one day or the other, and they got the heat on Christmas, and Celtics got the heat on Christmas, and they opened on the Sixers at 3 o 'clock. Jalen Brown's rivalry with Celtics, no offense to the great people of New England, that is a regional story. Yeah, it may not be by the time he gets done trashing them here over the course of the week. Okay, fair enough, yeah. Yeah, it's going to be a Damian. Woody won't have a chance to talk about it, but some of those other guys. So, again, do you like I John didn't really get into this.

1:00:21I'll ask you this. I like this triple header on opening day. I think might have been from John's site, like the first time, first time since 2011, since that the season starts with three nationally televised games. That's Celtics-Pistons at 3, Sixers, LeBron's debut with the Sixers against the Knicks at 7. That's a great game. And then Thunder-Spurs at 9.30. So we're now living in this eventized Netflix era. And I think if you're the NBA, I mean, the NFL can do anything it wants. It doesn't really need anything. But if you're the NBA or MLB or NHL, you've got to make days feel huge. And I thought the NBA did a really good job this year with their opening day.

1:01:04Yeah, I thought NBC did a great job of that in general with the NBA. And, you know, those Peacock 2-2 degree with the little bit lesser broadcast. But, yeah, that opening night schedule, they do make it feel like an event now. And it's Netflix-ized for sure. But I do think NBC is at the forefront of doing great work with this sort of thing. I think they have with baseball too. Jimmy, you have anything? Go ahead, John. I just wanted to give, you know, the poor NHL needs to get some credit here because they are the ones who started that opening day triple hitter. That's true. Yeah, fair, very fair.

1:01:43Jimmy, do you have any thoughts on NBA? You know, all along I would have liked to have seen Spurs-Knicks at 5, and I would have put Sixers-Lakers at 8 o 'clock. Interesting, okay. It's hard to dispute anything John said. Yeah, because that's going against that monster NFL game. Right. Once the NFL comes in, they're dead. so I get what they're doing and John's point was excellent on that I do want to have all you guys back we're not going to do this we're in an hour at this point I got to give my guy James Jackson a little bit of a break but I do want to have you back Jimmy you're well I mean you might be too big at that point with your three podcasts a week but if you're gracious enough to come back I'm really interested in talking about ESPN and college football because I think more than any year in the last however number of years they're really going all in on amping up more college football stuff, including the Josh Pate hire and busting with the boys.

1:02:37Obviously, they've always been a big college football network with Game Day and the SEC and et cetera, et cetera. But it's interesting. It's interesting to sort of see the strategy in motion. All right, anything else we need to talk about before we get out of here? Jimmy, is there anything? And when will the formal... I believe, actually, the story itself has been broken of where you're going to, but when will you formally make that announcement? it i the details are not out there i think i believe the details we are taping this on thursday and i believe the details are out there well what's out there is that i'm going to a startup media company i'll be joined by sal lakata and john jostremski but that's what's out there as there's no that's those are the details that are out there not nothing more than that i do um again i would say you should check your algorithms because i believe more is out there am i correct about this like am i or is it uh well i know where i'm going so i don't need to check yeah well i know that oh you're correct all right just so we know it's front office sports ryan glass beagle has broken some of this but if i'm looking at this okay i'm trying to do this in real time okay maybe it doesn't look like the name of where you're going to is out there yet okay so my my apologies to you jimmy behind it right yeah every time i come on you got to apologize it when will that when will that detail come now i said or a middle to next middle of next week i think okay what happens if someone breaks it before you and your compadres can get that out then someone breaks it before me and my compadres can get out i mean um i wrote about this today it's so inside nerd loser but i'm i'm fascinated and this is coming out saturday so maybe yes we We still won't know.

1:04:24Will more people on Thursday night watch the Twins Phillies Field of Dreams on Netflix, which is a debacle with their baseball coverage, or Steelers Packers on NFL Network? Keep in mind, ridiculous 7 billion viewers for the Hall of Fame game last week. That was NBC. This is NBC Network. But I'm fascinated to know what will have more viewers. I'll go to John. I mean, you know, I've got to go to John Lewis first on this as the foremost expert in the country. on this i i will say that um there you know again as i'm checking in real time is that game there was some weather potential issues right so we'll presume that the game will happen john what do you think on who's who watch who watches more between the field of dreams game and uh and the nfl also we'll just have to trust netflix on the i don't know if that's a nielsen rated one or netflix is going to give you its own its own 70 2.7 million 2.97 million for opening night Giants-Yankees.

1:05:22I would say the NFL is absolutely going to crush it, but go ahead, John. If Field of Dreams does not comfortably beat that NFL game, it will be a viewer team. You've got to keep in mind, we're talking like, remember, the$7 million is just for the Hall of Fame game. It's not for every preseason game. Yeah, that's fair. The preseason last year averaged $2.2 million, I think, across all of the telecasts, so that includes the broadcast network games. Maybe that might have just been NFL Network alone, but I think it was all of the preseason games. Jimmy, you said this game's on NFL Network? Yeah. Oh, I take it back.

1:05:57John is correct. The Netflix game's going to crush this. Come on, distribution alone. The Minnesota Twins? It's a national – it's Netflix. It's a national distribution. They got 2.7 million for opening day and probably turned off a million of those people with their telecast. All right, John, keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, I mean, I do truly believe that if the Field of Dreams game does not, I mean, it's tough because this is the third one. It's been a few years. Obviously, the first one was a huge hit. I think over 5 million, maybe even close to 6 million. Second one was not as big a hit, around 3 million.

1:06:31Both of those on broadcast TV. Maybe the interest level is completely dissipated in this, right? There's no novel. Those two games, not to interrupt, those two games were on Fox. Yeah, they were on broadcast TV on Fox. So, you know, you're going to take a hit, but you've got to keep in mind, preseason on NFL Network, one, there's a bunch of other preseason games. So that's going to draw viewership away from NFL Network. If you were to ask me, will more people watch the NFL preseason tonight than Field of Dreams, probably when you add up all the games. But if you're talking just that one game on NFL Network, my belief is it would be a very poor performance for Field of Dreams if it did not finish by at least 10 % higher than that NFL Network game.

1:07:14Chad, what about you? Will the people of America be rushing to watch Royce Lewis play tonight?

1:07:24Did we lose, Chad? I thought you meant Royce White for a second. I was going to say, did that happen already? It's a totally different podcast. Not that this is anything anybody should judge anything by ever. Did you say Royce White? No, it's Royce Lewis, and then Jimmy makes a Minnesota political joke. I did a Twitter poll asking my followers what they're going to watch. 500 people voted. 32 % for Packers-Steelers, 27 % for Twins-Phillies. Don't go by that, but that's what the poll says. interesting i just think if you have the minnesota twins on netflix and you got 2.7 million for opening day i don't even i don't think you get close to two million viewers aaron nola versus tash broadly oh my god i could feel the viewers it might be a big draw this it's about the location right and yes it's yeah it's nostalgia and it's netflix and i i think jimmy's out of his mind it's the nfl network it's but we'll see well i will report back on this all right uh john John Lewis is the founder of Adder Sports Media Watch.

1:08:25Chad Lewis is the fine sports media columnist for the Boston Globe. Jimmy Trena is heading to – How old is Chad Lewis? What kind of – Why did you say Chad Lewis? I should have said Parkos. Chad Finn. Did I say Chad Lewis? Yeah. Absolutely terrible. No one holds me on the bullshit. That's why I got to come on. Yeah. First of all, Jimmy, you got to move your hand so we can muzzle in your audio. Yeah. Second of all, yeah, I've let this podcast go off the rails. Let me do it again. John Lewis is the founder and editor of Sports Media Watch. Chad Finn is the fine columnist for the Boston Globe. Jimmy Trena, well, still with Sports Illustrated based on the taping of this podcast, but soon to be at a startup with John Jaskrimski and Sal Akata.

1:09:10The startup has not formally been announced. We do know that Jimmy will be doing a podcast three times a week, one of the traditional big interview, one another sports one with salicata and then a wild card where it could be anybody from larry david to tom brady to jacob feldman it could be i mean it could just be it could be anyone it might do it i've had one of those people and it wasn't jacob feldman yeah um all right anything uh john and uh john and chad you want to promote anything before i get us out of here Well, the SMW podcast has a few guests coming up. We had Tony Reale. We had Noah Eagle.

1:09:53We had Mark Jones. So those will all be coming up in the next few weeks. I do have to say I envy Jimmy being able to interview non-sports folks as well. I'd love to get, you know, anyone from any show in the 1970s who wants to, you know, do a sports media podcast. It could be Little House in the Prairie. It could be, you know, what was it? It's good times. Any of you out there want to do a sports podcast, I'm out here. Okay. All right, Chad. Well, he beat me to asking Sally Struthers to come on my podcast. This is the most 1970s-like references we've had on a podcast in a long time. It's probably not going to help my demos at all.

1:10:34All right. And Jimmy, of course, you'll be following his every move on social media. It just let people know the old feed is gone. The SI media with Jimmy train at SI that's got, you're going to have to sign up for a new feed. Yeah. And I will help promote that on this one. By the way, I would assume sports illustrated is going to continue the media podcast in some form. I mean, there's a lot of followers on there. There's a lot of, there's a lot of subscribers. They'd be foolish not to. I think it's best if I don't comment. Okay. Fair enough. Um, all right. You've heard from our three panelists, uh, previous podcast guests on, on this podcast.

1:11:08um john lewis armand brody and derrick futterman were on we talked about um the nfl uh not leaving cbs or fox anytime soon those two companies coming out with mentioning uh that they're not gonna um do the early renegotiation stuff like that we also took a little bit of time to talk about espn's college football roster um we've done multiple stuff on romo including august 1st linda cohen and neil everett were on this podcast july 30th um trying to think about this derrick Gray, that fine Fox Sports broadcaster, was on this podcast July 14th. And then if you head back to the archives, you can get UConn coach Gino Ariema was on last month.

1:11:50I appreciate his time. That was a fun one to do. Reviews and star ratings are always welcome. Jimmy Trana knows all about that. By the way, shout out to Jimmy Trana's Reddit group. I enjoyed reading their discussion about Jimmy's move, and good to see all the support. And generally, actually, I've gotten some nice comments on this. There's a couple people. There's two people on there who really do not like me. But everybody else, thank you very much. I appreciate the nice words. I want to thank James Jackson for all his hard work. Thanks to Odyssey for their support. And most of all, thank you for listening.

1:12:25We'll see you soon on the Sports Media Podcast.

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