What Stephen A Smith's comments (and subsequent apology) about Lane Johnson says about always having a take

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1:58welcome to the sports media podcast i'm your host richard deitch my producer james jackson this is our saturday roundtable and i cannot thank people enough for the downloads on this which have been significantly great so thank you very much we have our regulars or there's sort of two sets of regulars so this is one set of regulars john lewis founder netter sports media watch armand brody with sports media watch as well they're uh uh on-air hosts multimedia uh producer writer obviously as well derek funnerman has all those titles as well at sports media watch check out their work check out all those guys on social gentlemen welcome thanks for having us all right we're gonna start with steven a smith and derek i will get to that puck press puck conference that you went to because you got to swan with the elite and so i want to hear what that experience uh was like at john oren's fancy uh fancy puck uh sports conference but before that i think at this point anybody listening to this podcast would know that steven a smith um on first take this past week made light of lane johnson's decision to retire regarding johnson citing mental health concerns um it's pretty flipping comments and that's me being very very generous on that the pushback and blowback was significant and correctly so.

3:20As always, what happens on these kind of shows, Stephen A. Smith then issues an apology the next day. I think the apology was, by and large, seems sincere, but it goes to the larger issue. And this is what I want to start with you. And I'll start with you, John, that in so many ways, me and you in particular have been writing about this forever. This is the playbook. Say some shit that gets attention, that gets viral. I called it corporate cocaine for ESPN, which it is. And then in this case, sometimes you get, I almost think, prompted by the masses to apologize. But this is going to happen again, whether it's on Smith's show or elsewhere.

4:01That's the only thing I can guarantee. But I thought it was interesting for one reason. And I'm very sensitive to this because my late mom was a psychologist. So this is very important to me. It's a very important topic. She counseled, I've told this on this podcast many, many times, counseled thousands and thousands of people, including people who had survivor guilt at 9-11. Literally went into the city a week or so after, maybe two weeks after that happened and was counseling people. Some of the hardest counseling you could possibly do. So I'm not unbiased here. The topic's important to me. But John, the one only good thing that comes out of this that I was happy about is we are seeing more people today say, this is serious and you got to take this shit seriously, whether it's an NFL person or whether it's just your average person.

4:46So I'm glad Stephen A got this pushback, but I am left with five weeks from now, 10 weeks from now, 20 weeks from now, we're going to be back in the same place. How'd you see all this? Well, one of the things that I've found very interesting about this really insane decade culturally, politically, is all the swings. We can't get more left than America was in 2020, and certainly the ricochet in the other direction in 24, 25. And I think that because the culture war is so unstable, a lot of people make a big mistake when they decide that, oh, okay, this is okay for me to say now. You'd better be really careful because Stephen A might've been able to say that without much pushback a year ago, right?

5:40But the culture is ping-ponging back and forth so much that you'd better actually be your own man and have your own personality and your own views and not necessarily be looking for permission on what you can and cannot say, because that's changing. And I think Stephen A maybe drew, like a lot of people have drawn, the wrong conclusions about some of the things that have been going on culturally. None of this that's been going on, this kind of being insensitive, casually cruel, it's not going to last. And the same way that the opposite of it, six years ago, was never going to last. You'd better be your own man and have your own standard for what you're going to say and what you're going to believe, because then you'll end up apologizing at some point along the way.

6:32Arman, how'd you see it? How'd you see the sort of the whole situation? I saw it as performative, but that's to be expected. I look at this as a case of don't hate the player, hate the game. There was a lot of talk about, oh, Kimberly Martin and some of the other people on the set should have pushed back harder. People don't understand how much control Stephen A. Smith has on that show. Stephen A. Smith runs that show. So if you push back, that's going to be an entirely different discussion. And Stephen A. is so egomaniacal now that he'll embarrass you on air if he feels like you are encroaching into his territory.

7:22So to me, it's sort of par for the course. I was, however, happy about the fact that he apologized. He eventually got it right. It took a while because even with his initial statement, he made it about himself. Well, I've done this and I've struggled with that. No, no, no. Focus on the issue. The other thing I was thinking about is how wonderful it would be if we were 10 or 15 years back, maybe having some sort of an outside the lines segment on mental health in the NFL. Where are we? Because there is clearly something happening in that space based on the response from people on social media. You saw former players, current players calling Stephen A out.

8:13But it would be wonderful if we got a real sense of just how much players are struggling mentally. Because we talk about it, we do PSAs and we do, you know, sort of a 30 second this on this broadcast and, you know, these kinds of things. But to have a really comprehensive discussion about the state of NFL players relative to their mental health. That would be something that I'd be really interested in, but it doesn't seem like that's where we are as a sports media society. And so we're just going to get people saying a bunch of stuff. And then if the pushback is intense enough, they'll apologize like Stephen A.

8:53Smith did the other day. Derek, one of the things I saw, I saw when I was saying that the only thing I could guarantee is that it's going to happen again. I saw you shaking in your head and like the maybe not this specific thing like i don't know how much lane johnson talk will exist and i'm not even gonna make the guarantee that like it's going to be about somebody um dismissing mental health although if i had to guess on a sports talk show somewhere that's going to happen again but it seemed like you're with me on this that like the desire to get attention like is so great even for someone like stephen a smith one of the most famous sports talk people in the entire country.

9:31The desire or the, maybe it's not desire is the wrong word. The setup of these shows is such where attention is the currency always, no matter what. And so you just have to think something like this is going to come up again on one of these shows, whether it's ESPN or Fox Sports or someplace else, because that is the reward ultimately is gained and the monetization is gained, right? From kind of the more outrageous or more viral you could get. That's how you get paid. There's no question that Stephen A's comments were unacceptable. And I think he should have taken the cue that I think Kimberly Martin was clearly trying to give him as he made the comments that he was crossing the line and it was just unacceptable.

10:13And the fact is that Stephen A should have apologized during that segment or at the very least the next segment. And the fact that it took this long to get the apology right, I think is very concerning. And again, you make a very strong point that it's going to happen again. These things seem to be cyclic, where someone makes an inappropriate comment that gets pushed back. And after so much pushback, you are forced to essentially make an apology. But eventually, I think it's incumbent on the viewers of the show to start asking ourselves, is this what we want to accept this content every day? Is this what we want?

10:41Or do we want to expect better? And I think there's been more questions about that as this continues on, this cycle of saying something and getting attention from it. And then the apology itself, by the way, getting the attention too. So the show is kind of benefiting twice because you're getting all the engagement on social media. I mean, the fact is, I hope Stephen A. Smith apologized to Lane Johnson in private. I don't know if we know that thus far. I know he's spoken to some people since and after the fact, but it just seems to be content on content and not everything needs to be content. That would be my takeaway.

11:10It's good, John. I want to So to ask you one thing, because again, me and you have covered this the longest. I've become so cynical about this stuff. And by the way, I would never call for Stephen A. Smith to be off the air or something like that. I'm not a canceled culture person. He absolutely has the right to say what he wants, even if it's something that's offensive to people with mental health stuff, which is generally speaking the entire population. But what never changes is whether it's under John Skipper or whether it's under Jimmy Pitaro. It's the same. Do you know what I'm saying? I think the thing that has made me so cynical is when I hear from an ESPN that we're different because we might have a news department, right?

11:52Or we might have investigative pieces. It used to be with outside the lines. So that makes us different. But in the end, you're not really different. You know what I mean? You've allowed, at least in the case of Smith, essentially total autonomy to pretty much do what he wants short of doing something to get you kicked off the air. So in some ways, it would be even more honorable to own it. It would have been honorable for Skipper to be like, yeah, I love Skip Bayless saying bullshit about people, and we're making money on it. And you don't have to watch it, but there's enough people who watch it where we're going to continue it.

12:27That to me would be more honest than sort of the other stuff. But me and you have covered this a long time, so I wanted to bring that up to you. Yeah. I mean, obviously, ESPN, they put out their a little enterprise journalism release, you know, and look, let's be real. Every single bad thing in this industry is something that originated out of Bristol. You mentioned Skip. I don't know about every bad thing, but certainly many bad things. Yes. I mean, Stephen A. and Skip, I mean, they had them, what was that? It wasn't four downs. That's what they had with Salisbury and John Clayton. Old school, new school.

13:02That's what it was on SportsCenter, you know, half a million years ago. And those were SportsCenters, I believe, that were hosted by like Bob Lee and Robin Roberts. That was a Sunday morning feature, wasn't it? That old school, new school. So they, you know, look, ESPN can, at least back then they were doing some of the stuff that was mentioned earlier, right? They would have town halls. They had trials. Remember the trial of Pete Rose? Yes, I do. They were doing some, they were taking swings in the other direction, right? But they've always had one toe in the mud, at least. And, you know, it's such an interesting thing, too, because, I mean, ESPN, I hope nobody actually believes that ESPN believes in anything, right?

13:48Because ESPN has always just kind of stuck its finger to the wind to try to see where the direction is going. And so now the version of ESPN that exists that is, oh, you know, trying to do the bro culture thing. ESPN, I mentioned before, when the politics and culture were totally different, 180 degrees different in 2020, ESPN was doing moments of silence on the air about a bill in Florida, right? I mean, I hope nobody, whether you are with ESPN presently or against it, or were with ESPN six years ago or against it, I hope nobody actually believes that there's any actual real belief there it's all the most naked possible kind of pandering derek i'm gonna it's very very strongly stated john i'm gonna go to you on our next topic and that's um that's cbs i wanted to talk about jj watt and just to get especially you and armand because i john's talked about this um with austin um on another podcast and austin myself and chad and john have done this to death with the J.J.

14:55Watt, Tony Romo stuff. But I want to get you and Armand, we'll start with here on just the portfolio now that CBS has with the merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery. And the person leading that is David Burson. And I'm sure you guys have done this, John. I know SBJ did this, but we've seen lists of the entire portfolio of sports that they have. And it's interesting. It's not the best set of portfolio set. That's ESPN for sure. But David Burson is now going to be in charge, Derek, of a ton of stuff with some decision making too, because some of these rights deals obviously are coming up and they don't really fit into what CBS Sports at least has done in the past.

15:41So it's going to be real interesting. One, David Burson has to navigate what the philosophy is, what properties he keeps, what announcers he keeps, what announcers he may or may not hire. And so I wanted to get your thoughts, Derek, just broadly, what your thought is on where Burson may take this. $79 billion net debt tells you a lot, in my opinion. I mean, the fact is that TNT Sports was, and I think John Orand of Puck did a report on this the other night and kind of signaled in this direction based on conversations with some people. The fact is that TNT Sports added a lot of rights when it lost the NBA to try to fill gaps.

16:24And I, you know, I think Orand said to keep those affiliate agreements up with the cable distributors. The fact is, though, that it's it feels like the sports department, whatever they're calling it right now, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Skydance Sports. It's just it's overloaded with so many rights, several of which are very valuable. Obviously, you look at the NFL, you look at March Madness, which they've been collaborating on since 2011. You look at UFC. I mean, I think there's going to be some rights that get cut. I'd have to imagine Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League. It's less likely that they're going to stay with Skydance, one or both of them.

16:56I mean, that's areas where you can cut costs. I don't know if the viewership there is commensurate to paying what they're paying, unless, of course, some stuff gets on the CBS broadcast network. And I'd be curious to see if anything, if that can happen during the course of the life of these remaining rights deals. I assume there'd have to be some modifications to some agreements, but it's a loaded portfolio. And the fact is that Skydance is now seeking six billion in synergies. And they're saying a lot of that's going to come from non-labor sources based on a variety of interviews. So I'd have to imagine that the sports department is going to slim down in terms of its rights portfolio long term.

17:30Right now, you brought CBS and TNT together. And I think it's going to look pretty different in the next few years. We'll see where it goes. Derek, before we leave you, you were at the puck. What was the official name of the puck sports conference? In the arena. In the arena. And this was in New York City? Yes. Okay. From what I understand, you were covering this as a media person, correct? Right. Yep. All right. From what I understand, this thing was like a$1 ,600,$1 ,500, like a major expense, right? Yes. And there were a lot of obviously influential people from the business there. Greg Sankey, commissioner of the SEC, Charlie Baker from the NCAA, Adam Silver from the NBA was there.

18:09Charlie Neiman from Prime Video. Lots of insightful discussion. Really good lunch, I'd like to add. And just obviously a good networking opportunity. And there was some news that came out of it. Bella Bajaria from Netflix revealed that Rebecca Lowe is going to be on the Netflix World Cup coverage. Bill Koenig spoke about the NBA's media rights. I believe we had also Matt Strauss from NBC Universal revealing that NBC Sports Network will be on Verizon, which I followed up on found out that's early 2027. So that network will become available there in addition to the other platforms it's already on.

18:41So obviously there were a lot of good discussions. I know there's been some of it released so far through podcasts on the puck platform and just a valuable conference to be at. There were a lot of other media folks there. And yeah, I would just say it was it was worth the day. Definitely worth the day out. All right. I have more on this. Great job by O-Ran, obviously. A lot of stuff came out of there. Amazing. He did very well with it. Yeah. Great, you know, great guest list. I'm sure they all use first names because nobody loves first names more in copy than puck right now. Barry, you know. Zaz.

19:12Zaz. That's not even a first name surname. Matt Bellany, who's very brilliant in his coverage. All those Hollywood people, it's all first name stuff. DraftKings, an official partner of the NBA, is now available in all 50 states. So wherever you live, follow your favorite NBA stars, get excited about the biggest matchups, and lock in on those buzzer-beating moments. And with DraftKings, it's all in one app. Download the DraftKings Sports app and use code 2400. New DraftKings customers can spend five and get 200 in total bonuses paid within 21 days. New DraftKings customers can spend five and get 200 in total bonuses paid within 21 days.

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21:07It's a free range wherever you get your podcast. But here's the most important question, Derek. I have never been to a$1 ,600 conference. No one is inviting me to any of these fancy shindings. So what gets served for lunch? Is it like filet mignon, lobster? Are you walking around swanning with champagne? Is it like Vegas, basically, after you hit it big on the roulette wheel? I believe there was champagne. I'm trying to remember. I certainly didn't indulge during work hours. But I will tell you that I believe the lunch consisted of steak for sure. I believe there was chicken. I want to say mushroom lasagna was also involved.

21:47That sounds cool. It was certainly fancy. There was a good breakfast also. They had some breakfast burritos, some bagels. And then there was a happy hour afterwards. That's kind of my memory of the victuals on site. I feel like when I think of concerts like this, and I love the Maffa Nathans and the guys, I just think of like when you walk in the room, they just hand you a boatload. They just hand you cash in a bag and say, hey, welcome. Here's your seat over here. All right, Armand, after my silliness here, let me get to you. I want to ask you about more of the talent stuff here. Derek gave us, obviously, a background on how he saw what Burson, and Burson is definitely going to have to cut because that company is in massive debt.

22:21Everybody knows that. But the biggest thing when it comes to that company right now, Armand, in terms of on-air talent is I think J.J. Watt. That's really what's the most fascinating thing to me is he's now four weeks in with Nance. Depending on who you read, in terms of our little world here, no one's bashed that crew. But there are some people who've said it's just sort of like, it's okay. It's good. Nance doesn't kind of get Watt's jokes and isn't willing to be sort of silly sometimes, a little too straight-laced. No one has said that it's a disaster, but also no one has said is revolutionary.

23:00I've not heard one person say this feels like this new kind of booth. So it makes me think, Armand, David Burson's going to have an interesting decision at the end of this year. Clearly, Watt's going to do all the games with Nance this year, but they have a Super Bowl next year. And so it really leads me to think, if you're Burson, do you stick with Watt, who's under contract, who's part of your family and paying or do you something do something really bold and go after greg olson or troy aikman or travis kelsey just naming or peyton manning whatever you know i'm saying like do you make the the major splash and i'll be honest with you i have no idea what he's gonna do i really don't what are your thoughts yeah it's it's an interesting situation because economics would say stay with Watt, but how does Watt's contract shift if he's moving from an interim number one to a full-time number one?

24:00There has to be, I would imagine, some big difference there. We know that there's a massive leap you take from being the number two to being the number one, but then you got that Super Bowl hanging out there, and Craig Olson's a lead. Troy Aikman's a lead and their leads now I wrote this in a column the other day about JJ Watt Watt feels like the future but Olsen and Aikman are the now and Jim Nance is 67 years old so this is not one of those situations where we're building a booth for the future this is not Burkhart and Brady where we hope to get 20 years out of this 15 years out of this Jim Nance, this could be the final decade of Jim Nance's broadcasting career.

24:47So we want to get this right. But man, it's an interesting thing. Watt feels like a B to me right now. He feels like a B. He also feels like he's better with someone who's younger and maybe a little bit more irreverent. Hello, Ian Eagle. So what does CBS do? Do you play it safe with Watt? It'll be a solid booth, but not spectacular? Or do you maybe swing for the fences here with an Olsen or an Aikman? The Aikman part is really, really interesting because who knows what Troy's going to do. I think it seems pretty clear to me that Olsen is going to go after a lead spot once the season is over at Fox, but Aikman is any man's guess.

25:32And so you're right. As much as I want to say we have a firm grip on a firm grasp of what's going to happen. It's really hard to tell because this situation is so unique. You know, John, like there's a couple of sort of tells here, at least at the moment. One, Troy Aikman is not like, at least as far as we know, in significant active negotiations with ESPN, where we'll hear something like in the next couple of weeks or so. You know, he was on my podcast and he said that after Joe Buck had signed, he had not had conversations with ESPN. It's very telling to me that they have not re-signed Troy Aikman at this point.

26:11It's like letting a free agent to be in one of the major sports play out the contract. Usually, those guys are not re-signed. They usually go to free agency and then go somewhere else. So that's a tell to me. Secondly, you can call this sourced by industry an industry source from what i understand fox has not started renegotiating with greg olson i know they like greg olson but if you haven't renegotiated yet or if you're not in contract negotiation with greg olson that's interesting you know it means we'll see what happens with greg olson so it gets back to what armand just said the safe play is just a role with nance and what both are under contract you have both they're going to be familiar with the producer and director and you know the stability on the team especially after romo they probably everybody likes jim at cbs he's the voice of the of the network and everybody seems to like jj watt supposedly great guy to work with so it's the question is if you can get in david Burson's head, and I think Armand hit this, is how much is it worth it to have a splashy team for the Super Bowl when you're going to sell that the whole year?

27:28That's how I think about it. If you're presenting to your advertisers, here's our team for our Super Bowl year. Are Nance and Watt sexy enough to make that sell? Or if you went Nance and Aikman, does that sound bigger, bolder, badder? I don't know. What do you say? Well, let's be real. I mean, they could put their their their their lowest tier broadcast team on the Super Bowl and it wouldn't impact anything. Right. You know, it's all kind of just window dressing for PR purposes. But it is important, though. I mean, it matters what your top team is, not necessarily in terms of viewership and the audience and all the tangible factors, but for your relationship with the NFL.

28:14And presentation. You would agree, right? Yeah, it matters how viewers take in the game. It matters how people who write about sports media take in the game. The viewers, you know, there are going to be people this weekend complaining about things Tony Romo says because they don't know that J.J. Watt says it. I'm not going to argue with you on that. There will be people on Twitter who are yelling about Tony Romo. Yeah, so, I mean, look, the fact is that for CBS, I mean, Eggman would be an improvement. I agree with Armand that DJ Watt does not come off to me like an A analyst. You know it when you see it, right?

28:52And Watt, to me, if it was a three-man booth like in the old days, you could have someone like Paul McGuire, who isn't necessarily a sexy TV analyst. You could have him in a three-man booth, but you wouldn't have him in a two-man booth. that's kind of what i see with watt i think aikman to me is someone who obviously would raise the level frankly aikman would come in and nance would have to raise his game that's the kind of analyst that aikman has been at least with joe buck so to me that would be the way to go if that's available you say that fox likes greg olson well you know does fox value greg olson because they may have they have tom brady so yeah they have tom brady but like they haven't necessarily gone out of their way.

29:38For example, you have Tom Brady, yeah. There's maybe one week a year where you could have Olsen and Joe Davis do the late game if you have the Thanksgiving game or something like that. There haven't been those little times where the B team gets a little bit of shine. To me, I don't necessarily think that... I'll put it this way. It doesn't surprise me at all if they haven't started talking to Greg Olsen, because I think they have clearly taken him for granted. If he's available, CBS could go for him too. But the fact is that if they do stick with Watt, that's not the worst outcome in the world.

30:15I mean, it's not like he's bad at the job. And again, it's not as if it'll really matter in terms of the tangible aspects of carrying the Super Bowl next year. Yeah, Derek, I'm going to give you the last word on this. I mean, again, and Derek mentioned this in terms of like the Skydance debt. But if it really goes to every department, it's not really cost smart to bring in some $12 million,$13 million,$15 million analyst if you already have people under contract. That's just adding more. But that's the value proposition of how much a Troy Aikman or a Greg Olson is worth. Derek, you're welcome to comment on CBS2, but I did want to ask you this, and we'll end on this.

30:54Marsha may have put this out there. And if he didn't, I apologize. But it's something I've been thinking about anyway. way. What about if ESPN just really is maybe slow pitching Troy here because they want to go for the dream of the Joe Buck, Peyton Manning slash Eli Manning booth? Well, that would involve ending the Manning cast. Yes, that would involve ending the Manning cast. Yes. And those numbers, I believe, have been down so far this season. I mean, you could also make the justification that perhaps ESPN, you could speculate, is going after Greg Olson. Again, no inside knowledge there, but But, you know, you don't know that.

31:27Could happen for sure. Yeah, you could certainly posit maybe if Travis Kelsey retires, that could be a potential target for ESPN to already employs his brother, who's been doing some games on NFL Network. But again, this is not based on any inside knowledge. This is just speculative. My opinion, though, is that CBS probably would stick with J.J. Watt right now. I just don't see them adding another big-name analyst under a huge contract, especially with all the debt that needs to be cut. I think also there's time for Nance and Watt to grow. I mean, they've been a solid sounding team so far. And while, you know, Watt has probably sounded more like a B than an A at this moment in time, it's very likely that he will sound like an A-level analyst by the end of the year.

32:06And CBS has a Super Bowl at the end of next season. So I don't know if you want to keep going around and changing up your booth, especially the year before Super Bowl. And don't forget, like Tom Brady did a Super Bowl as a rookie in that lead booth, and he sounded decent enough and he's gotten better since that time. So I think we could kind of see the same thing with J.J. Watt. And I know it's been reported. Many people have reported that David Burson is very high on JJ Watt. So I don't see a change being made personally. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, again, if I was going to bet, I would probably take slight.

32:35I would take the bet that Derek said, like my odds would be a little over 50 percent. They keep Watt. But the Olsen one for CBS is interesting. That is something I would at least keep my eye on. But none of us know the finances of Skydance and none of us know, obviously, what David Burson is being asked to do or not do. keep an all mind on all this stuff. Broadcaster salaries are rounding errors compared to the rights deals. That's really where David's going to have to earn his money. And the Olsen thing is fascinating too, because he is obviously he's called Super Bowls. He, I believe, is an A-level analyst at the moment.

33:09It's just where could he go? I mean, does Amazon make a splash there? Does Netflix maybe do a three-man booth with him, Luke Keekly, and Noah Eagle if they continue to go with that pairing going forward for their other games? I mean, there are many questions you could ask about where Greg Olsen could be headed he could be the most intriguing pre-agent on the market i agree and we did see the news that marsh and put out there in terms of uh of the curb street extension with some outs but like and i mean no disrespect to curb curb street as an nfl analyst but it is not close between greg olson as an nfl analyst and curb street it is as armand you're shaking your head it's it's a difference between a toyota and a ferrari it like just let's be honest on this like So I'm very surprised that Amazon wouldn't, I don't know.

33:51I guess I'm surprised that Amazon went ahead when you could talk to a Greg Olson and bring a Greg Olson in, assuming Al's not going to be there. I mean, I don't know, throw a boatload of money to Iron Eagle's contracts coming up. And you're going to have Iron Eagle and Greg Olson as an A booth for Amazon? That's as good a booth as anybody that exists. You're going to get the same kind of press that the Aikman buckets. It's all right. Anyway, you guys will be back many times. We'll be following this the entire NFL season. It's not going away. All right. We'll end on this because this is going to take probably some time to talk to you because it's pretty fascinating.

34:28I'll start with you, Armand, but let me read what Major League Baseball said. So Evan Drellick, good job by him at The Athletic getting all this. Major League Baseball is interested in cutting down regular season games. And so they've thrown out a proposal that they will cut those from 162 to 154 starting in 2029. Within that, they'd also expand one round of the postseason. League would want to introduce a form of reseeding in the playoffs next year as well. The division series would become a best of seven rather than a best of five. League saying that the potential in terms of what they're offering for a 2029 proposal to start would be, I think it's potentially of eight additional postseason games.

35:16the also um they're also like i'm not going to explain the whole thing but the teams would have the option of picking their opponent depending on if they were the higher seed in these rounds the important one here is all this the big proposal is tied to 2029 when the national media contracts are up and so if your mlb what you're looking for is to increase from your 2 billion to whatever the NBA got, whatever the NFL is going to get. UFC is looking for this. A lot of this is clearly just driven by MLB seized the opportunity to get more money from media partners. So, Armand, I'll go to you. There's a lot here that's kind of fascinating.

36:00And I will say the one thing that's really interesting to me just as a media person, I'm sure you and Derek and John agree. If you had a major sport like that where you got to choose your opponent in one or two rounds of the postseason. Do you know how much content that would create for people like us and the ESPNs of the world and the independent bloggers and stuff? It would honestly be incredible if they could actually pull that off. So we'll start with you, Armand. Broad strokes on what came out from MLB this week. So speaking as a fan and as a fan who loves baseball, the idea of a shorter regular season is intriguing to me because as much as i love the sport there are days in june july and august when you're just like and we get to october already yeah so there is and let's face it there is nothing like post-season baseball there's a different kind of drama.

37:00I think hockey and baseball have the most captivating post-seasons of the major sports. There's just something so unique about them both. But the choosing opponents thing is, it's strange to me. It feels like something that's really, really clever, but something that's more for us sports media folks to talk about and debate and have content about than anything else. But I love the idea of more high drama games with stakes. And I also think that's something Major League Baseball is going for here. I will give Rob Manfred some credit. His tenure has been filled with controversy, but between the pitch clock and the ABS challenge challenge system.

37:54He's trying to generate more interest, more juice for the game. I give him credit for that. So as a fan, a lot of this, frankly speaking, it does intrigue me. A lot of this makes me look up and say, oh, that's interesting. I love the division series. I love the LCS. I love the World Series. It's captivating baseball. It's played at the highest level. So I do like a lot of what's been proposed here in this plan from Major League Baseball. I really do. John, I'm going to go to you. Like Armand, I love the pitch clock. I think it's game-changed the entire sport. It's been phenomenal. And the ABS Challenge is awesome.

38:33It just adds another dramatic element. Those are two great changes. They may be Manfred's legacy. I think he's probably going to want his legacy to be this contract coming up. But that's an incredible legacy. In reading from baseball people, they really believe that 154 presents a better media play nationally. Like the scarcity, I know it's only eight games, but the scarcity is more valuable for a national contract. Usually it's the opposite, right? More inventory usually means more money. So from a media rights perspective, John, what was your initial thoughts when you saw MLB put that out? Well, you got to keep in mind, taking a week out of the season means one week less into the NFL.

39:20It means a little bit more flexibility to expand the playoffs. Baseball's in no position to expand the playoffs with a 162-game season. Now you're going into November. You're going to Thanksgiving. If you want best of seven here, best of five there. I mean, I can't imagine they keep the wildcard round at best of three for very long. So there's a necessity to it. The season is already starting too early and ending too late. So that, to me, is the motivation. And there's a simple fact that if the RSNs are going to die and your national RSN is going to replace them, well, now you have a little bit more room to play with in terms of your local rights inventory.

40:04MLB, for decades, benefited from protecting local rights, protecting teams' ability to sell local rights. They were spurning radio 80 years ago to try to protect that in-market, whatever the owners valued, whether it was in-person attendance and so on and so forth down the line. But obviously, writing that has hurt them. I mean, look at baseball's franchise values, right? And look at the estimated franchise values in places like Sportico or Forbes or wherever. These baseball teams, the least valuable baseball team is worth less than the least valuable NHL team, that should never happen. There's no universe where the NHL could even be in the conversation financially with maybe baseball, any franchise, save for maybe the Rangers or something.

40:50So the fact that they're unable to capitalize on the growth in popularity is one of the reasons why we're going to have this lockout coming up. And I think a lot of that has to do with hitching the wagon to in-market rights. And we've seen that that has gone as far as it can go. So I think that's one of the reasons why they might go to 154. But in general, the more inventory, the better, right? But ultimately, baseball already sells so little of its inventory nationally. I mean, I have to imagine that already. I saw a chart on social media yesterday. I can't remember who put it out. So apologies that the baseball playoffs constitute such a small portion of the regular season inventory.

41:34You need more rounds of playoffs. No one wants to hear it. You need even more teams in the playoffs than they've got. People like to say, oh, the NBA has got too many teams. No, they don't. The NBA, because they have so many teams in the playoffs, that's playoff inventory you can use in your media rights deals. And those media rights deals are the lifeblood of your league. Baseball probably needs at least eight per conference. Go in a play-in tournament too. The one thing I would say though, that whole pick your own team thing, that sure just sounds like the Elam ending to me. I'm not interested in it.

42:06All right, Derek, how did you see it? Well, the Major League Baseball Players Association said that the league informed it that those, you know, the proposals, quote, the proposals, proposals are contingent on players agreement to a salary cap, end quote. So again, this is the number one issue and why there's likely to be a lockout. Like I see it as one of these things where a salary cap is going to be in play here. It's the number one thing. And unless the salary cap issue can be resolved in some way or another, none of these other proposals really matter that much. I mean, just on the surface, though, 154 is certainly an interesting number.

42:42It gives you a chance to expand postseason inventory, doing a standalone game or two every Monday. Very interesting as well. We already have Sunday night baseball. You could add Monday night baseball there. Maybe ESPN goes for a year round or close to year round Monday night strategy, similar to what NBC has done. So that's a possibility there. And just the fact of the matter is, though, that player salaries, I have to imagine they would be prorated down to 154. And that on top of a salary cap is just something I can't see players accepting. But it's certainly intriguing from a media perspective.

43:10You get to pick your own opponents. There's a selection show right there. And you can do a big thing on that. Great point. And you have, again, the standalone game potentially on a Monday night, a game or two. I don't know if Monday works better than Friday in terms of the scheduling, but maybe that's something to explore. I mean, certainly some interesting ideas, but again, it all comes back down to that base issue of the salary cap and probably why Major League Baseball and its players are going to be in a lockout coming up in December. At Vistaprint, we know you've got that idea for your business, like the one that nails the trade show, levels up your brand or makes your team say, we're really doing this.

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44:23The sale runs October 19th through 26th. Shop at byrna.com slash protection before these savings vanish into the night. Must be 18 plus. Purchase and shipping restrictions vary by state and municipality. Yeah, I don't think the players are ever going to go for soccer. as the one in union that I think is going to hold firm into the end. You know, John, you said something interesting to me that sort of just stuck out. And that is, you know, these media rights deals are the lifeblood of these sports. But MLB's attendance is excellent. And the in-stadium experience is phenomenal. And if you do lose those eight games, that's a real thing.

44:58You know, that's, you know, like in theory, right? Four less home games for season ticket holders, four less home games for people. um and it was just it just struck me as interesting that like wow they're you know like look how important the media money is where they'd actually you know i'm saying like eliminate four experience home experiences for their fan base which has clearly told them that they love the experience of going to the game well yeah but i mean let's say you're cutting out four day games a year. And then if you put in revenue sharing, that's not going to be as important anymore, because you'll be able to make that up with whatever extra revenue you get from the additional playoff games.

45:42So obviously, more is better financially. The NHL has it right. They went to 84 games. Yeah. Are you going to get better hockey with 84 games? Probably not. And the NHL is one of the only ones that can get away with it because they have this reputation, oh, we're the toughest athletes. So they get to frame the additional games, not as greed, but as showcasing the toughness of their players, which whatever. But the fact of the matter is they have it right. They have it right. And even going up to potentially 34 teams, because these are all TV shows. And the more inventory you have, the more you can sell in these media rights negotiations.

46:24An NHL with 84 games per team and 34 teams. That's an entire additional package that you can sell in your next media rights negotiation. So, you know, it's a tough balance. But the fact of the matter is, there's also a limit to how much you can raise prices. And there is no limit to the amount of money that people are willing to spend on these media rights, at least not yet. Yeah. You know, essentially, before we'll kick out on this. um mike ditka died today uh like a couple hours early before we're taping this um maybe i mean i can sort of talk about this maybe john a little bit armand and derek are younger than us but um john there was a time like in terms of a pop culture figure mike ditka was like everywhere you know like like on saturday night live they did that whole bear skit like it felt like every single week like with george went and like uh from cheers and i don't remember who else played that on set.

47:22Maybe it was Jim Belushi. It wasn't John, but whoever it was. But I don't know if the average 20, 25-year-old can understand in a certain moment of time in the 80s when the Bears had that incredible defense and they went on that win in 86 and William the Frigerator Perry was a cult hero. Mike Ditka was everywhere. Holy shit, was he big for his stretch. So it doesn't surprise me today that people of a certain age are like, oh man, wow, Mike Ditka died. Because you know what I mean? I have no memories of him playing, but I remember him as the pop culture figure because he was a coach. Well, Armand would probably actually know more about Mike Ditka from personal experience than I would watching the NFL at a time when I really wasn't paying much attention to it.

48:08But I will say that Mike Ditka and Dick Butkus were very well known, kind of in that, not quite, But, man, I can't remember his name. And the Brewers are in the NLCS. I can't remember his name. Who is it? Bob Uecker. Thank you. Bob Uecker. Yeah, a little bit like Bob Uecker was, where they were in sports, but then they were in popular culture. So I grew up on Dick Butkus being on Hangtime, right? If anyone remembers that from TNBC. Bob Uecker did all the beer commercials. I think a lot of people remember him from that, right? Yeah. And so Ditko was a pop cultural figure, even if I wasn't really following the NFL.

48:46those days very closely. And so the fact that I knew about him kind of speaks to what you're talking about. But of course, I knew of Ditka as a TV analyst later on. And it's interesting to look back. I think I mentioned it on this podcast or maybe a previous one, that Sunday NFL countdown used to be appointment programming. And probably toward the end of Ditka's run there was the last time that was the case. Because there was a relevance to that show when he was there. uh obviously boomer hosting all the big stars that they had uh and uh there's it's just not replicated really on any nfl studio show since darman you want the last word since you clearly clearly saw or have some takes on dicker yeah i remember the 1-800 collect commercials too with ditka um you know it didn't end well at espn though there were some controversies Ditka was involved with.

49:43He made some statements about there not being oppression in the last 100 years in the country. And he was upset about the Washington football team changing their name. And he made some comments about that and also made some comments about Barack Obama back around 2016 that drew a lot of backlash as well. So sort of a mixed legacy in terms of his media career, but sort of as this embodiment of toughness and masculinity and this indomitable will and spirit. There are very few players slash coaches within the history of the NFL who are more connected with that idea than Mike Ditka. I do also remember when, gosh, it had to be 2007 or 2008, somewhere around there.

50:38They did the Mike and Mike and Mike second Monday Night Football broadcast when they had the doubleheader. They did Greeny and Golik. They had Greeny on play-by-play, which did not work out well at all. And he did the game with Golik and Mike Ditka, and it was what it was. So they tried that as well. But a towering presence as someone who represented was known for representing the toughest of tough people. Yeah, I do remember those comments. I do remember Dick apologized for the oppression one. Certainly, he has his every right to think about what he thought of Barack Obama. But I believe he called him the worst president ever.

51:13Yes, he did. Yeah. With all due respect to Mike Dick, we wish he and his family peace 50 years from now. I'll take that bet on who is or was not. the worst president ever. But he, massive figure, man. And you are correct. When I think of toughness in the NFL, it's like Nitschke, Butkus, Ditka from the old days, Jim Brown. It's like that era always comes to mind. Obviously, guys today are better athletes and incredible specimens. But the NFL was built on that kind of ethos. Like Mike Ditka, in the cold of Chicago, go you see this the white smoke coming out of his mouth kind of stuff and so you know pretty seminal figure um passing today all right before i let you guys go anything i'll go ahead john i was gonna say they all did tv and movies you know jim brown of course correct you know alex caris wasn't alex caris webster yeah yeah and uh there's another one you know i'm having trouble trouble with my names today but the one who did a lot of those uh black exploitation films Fred Williamson?

52:20Yeah. Well, there's a lot of NFL guys who ended up like Matuszak, Bob Golick, Dick Buckus. They all played against type in television, which was genius by them. They all played like the friendly kind of guy you could hang out with when they were known for in the NFL. It's like these tough, mean, angry guys. right i remember dip butkus always seemed to play like a principal or teacher who was like the beloved principal or teacher right when he was obviously the ultimate tough guy um yeah go ahead i was just gonna say euchre is the only one who kind of played two type because mr belvedere was a wise-ass kind of like dad in some suburban neighborhood somewhere well yeah i mean you know mr belvedere is one of the few shows from back then i actually never watched i don't know how I'm not even really sure who Mr.

53:14Belvedere is supposed to be, but I will say. This wasn't exactly Game of Thrones as a Sopranos. You weren't really missing anything. But don't forget Ed Too Tall Jones on Different Strokes. Oh, wow. I did forget that. Derek's like, what the hell are you old people talking about? Get me Stranger Things and, you know, Sidney Sweeney. Yeah, I don't watch that show. I don't watch that stuff. Glenn Powell, go ahead. I have to point this out because don't forget Mike Ditka did a, I think it was a magazine cover. It might've been ESPN, the magazine with Ricky Williams. That's SI with smoking the cigar.

53:49No, was it? No. Yes. ESPN, the magazine, you're talking about Ricky Williams in the, in the wedding dress. Yes. Oh yeah. Okay. That's different. Right. Right. Yes. Well, Mike Ditka, I believe is, was on the cover of SI smoking a cigar with the, with the, cause I worked there at the time that was holy smoke. um which was in he was new orleans coach mate like i think he had moved to new orleans which is a big deal one of the behind the scenes things about si on that one i believe roger federer was supposed to be on the cover and he got superseded by fucking mike dick so if you're a tennis person at si you're like come on can we not get respect for the sport anyway um so yeah mike dick uh passing away uh today on friday october 9th um you guys got anything to promote before we get out of here.

54:36Yes, we just recorded yesterday, October 8th, with ESPN host Steve Levy. So we had a nice discussion with Steve Levy. Obviously talked a little bit about Barry Melrose, who just recently passed away. Talked about his career journey and the National Hockey League coverage that he hosts. So looking forward to getting that up, hopefully, within the next few days. All right, we look forward to that. Catch all the work from Sports Media Watch with John Lewis, Armand Brody, and Derek Futterman. All right, as we close up shop, I want to, of course, thank James Jackson Brawls' work on this podcast. I have a friend visiting me in Toronto.

55:14Shout out to her son Ronan. I know, big fan of this podcast in the Albany area. Leave us a review and a note, whether positive or negative comments. Always appreciate it either way. and thank you for the previous ones for sure. Want to thank everybody at Odyssey for their support, but most of all, thank you for listening. We'll see you soon on the Sports Media Podcast.

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