CBS moves forward without Romo; the NBA adds an opening day game; and what to make a of potential 20-team CFP

0:00Coming up on the pod, CBS highlights its NFL coverage, Sands-Tony Romo, the latest on CFP expansion, and the NBA schedule has LeBron and the 76ers in the spotlight.

0:18Welcome into the SBJ Sports Media Podcast. I'm Josh Carpenter. And I'm Austin Karp. Austin, it's nice that we could actually catch you a day in the studio. You were in New York for CBS Media Day around the NFL. You're about to take off and go to London, Iceland, Scotland. We can't all be traveling experts like you are, but hope you have a good time. I'm a world traveler, Josh. But the first question I get when I bring up that itinerary is, are you bringing your golf clubs, especially when you bring up? I hope you are not. You know my golf game. Yeah, you should know that I will not bring my golf clubs anywhere.

0:48I don't even like to bring them when I go golfing. I just want to drive the cart around. But it'll be a really good trip. And we'll talk about it on the flip side. I'll give you all the highlights. Yeah, I've never played golf in Scotland. I guess one of us will have to take that plunge here in the next couple of years. I nominate you on that one. You get up to wherever you would like to take your golf clubs. We'll try to do it maybe next year. Austin, but, you know, speaking of traveling, you were at CBS's NFL Media Day this week in New York. Everyone was there. You know, David Burson was there.

1:16Bunch of media there. Tony Romo was not there. I don't think anyone really expected him to be there. What was the mood like there in New York without Romo following David Burson's comments? And it's like, what are people feeling in the room up there that's going to be the future for Tony Romo and for CBS? Natasha, it was still a relaxed vibe. And it's probably because they had decided this beforehand. None of the talent was going to be asked too much or anything about Tony Romo. And that kind of got off right at the start. There were two kind of elephants in the room. One, the pending merger between Paramount Skydance, obviously CBS Sports' parent company, and WBD.

1:49That's on hold. They said they're not going to be talking about that. Then David Burson goes into his opening comments, gets right into Romo. calls it a developing situation. They're still assessing everything that's going on. The line that really stood out to me from David Burson's comments was that the image of CBS, CBS Sports and the parent company, that is paramount to them. No pun intended. That was pretty telling. Yeah, it was pretty telling that this is a serious thing and obviously it's not a good look. And, you know, I was polling a couple of other reporters in the room, just like, what do you think's going to happen here?

2:19What do you think? And almost to a person, they were like, we don't see how Romo makes it out of this. We don't see how Romo sticks around with the network. Obviously, nothing has been decided yet at CBS. That seems to be the feeling. I know our former colleague, John Oran, he wrote the same just hearing and talking to media executives that it's going to be tough for Romo to be around. And look at this year, all of the talent that have contracts coming up. Their deals are up. J.J. Watt, who was in the room and is taking over that number one role. His contract comes up over at Fox. Greg Olson, his contract.

2:49Herbstre over at Amazon. Aikman. Aikman. Bucket. Lott coming. Brady's the only one pretty much who has a deal after this season. There's going to be a lot of musical chairs going on. But within the room, it did seem pretty lit. J.J. Watt seemed cool as a cucumber. He gave me some good advice on not to take my kids to the Dells water parks in Wisconsin. He says go to Disney instead. So thank you, J.J., for that piece of advice. And talking to Ian Eagle, everyone just seemed like it's business as usual. Let's get to it. And I think that's what David Burson and company wanted to accomplish. Like, we have a job to do.

3:21Let's get to the NFL season. and let's move forward. I think a lot of people were happy, a little bit of surprise, but happy to see Ross Tucker get that number two booth with Ryan Eagle. And, you know, this isn't going to be something new for Tucker and Eagle. They've done games on Westwood One together on the radio side. They've known each other for years. I think that is going to flow also relatively seamlessly out there. But this is J.J. Watt's moment going into the season. Let's see how he does on the number one booth. So my question, I guess, is what happens to Tony Romo? Like everyone's talking about him not going to CBS and maybe that's a given at this point.

3:52that he doesn't go back to CBS. But like, what does Tony Romo do now? He's been in our consciousness now for 20 plus years, both as a player, starting quarterback for the Cowboys, and then basically coming straight out into retirement, he joined Network TV and not that long ago was seen as the best analyst in the game. There's a reason CBS gave him so much money. So like, it's been a pretty quick, surprising turn for me. And like, I don't think we're just going to see him disappear and not be anywhere as a game analyst next year or the year. And you're right, he reset that market. You know, he's making around$18 million a year.

4:22That really set the market for everybody in terms of analyst dollars out there. It's looking at what Aikman gets, something similar at ESPN when he moved over from Fox, all these huge salaries now. But let's play out that scenario where he doesn't return to CBS and they have some sort of negotiated settlement, whatever that looks like. Yeah, I think he does pop up somewhere. He is still a good analyst, not nearly as good as Aikman. I think Aikman is still the best in the NFL side. And he's probably slipping behind Brady. That's how much Brady has climbed up the ranks and how well he has done in just the first couple of seasons.

4:53Does he swap places with Greg Olson? Fox having that NFC package, it would make sense to me to slot him in there on that number two team at Fox. And maybe you get some Cowboys games in there. He's not going to be on the top team with Brady there, but I think it would make sense. I don't personally don't really mind Tony Romo as an analyst. I still think he's pretty good at his job. There would be some demand out there for him. A lot of the movement. If Olson goes somewhere, you have Breeze there already on the Fox side. But one thing I do know is that Jerry Jones likes having former Cowboys call his games.

5:22And those are big time national games. It's why you see some places like ESPN get to Cowboys games because Jerry likes having Troy Aikman call those sorts of things. So whoever is going to be looking at him, whether it's Thursday night or otherwise, there might be some options out there for Tony Romo if if the relationship with CBS comes to an end. Well, speaking of Fox, I mean, we talked a lot about their kind of broadcaster situation at CBS and what's going on there. Some big news late last week. It's been almost a week now, but Lachlan Murdoch on Fox's Q4 earnings call basically said that over the past year, there's been a general assumption, I would think, that the NFL is going to reopen these media deals early and go before 2030.

6:00But basically, Lachlan Murdoch said last week, at least on Fox's part, that wasn't going to happen. Put the kibosh on. So what's the reason for that? Like, why are they deciding now to not? Let's go back. It's not just Fox's decision. This is the NFL. It's both of them deciding. Let's go back a little bit. Like, you know, people thought that this might get done this year. And then that really slowed. The first network that was probably going to go on that would have been CBS because they had the change of ownership with Paramount Skydance. Skydance buying Paramount. I had opened that up. But the NFL really hasn't taken care of that.

6:29They haven't really exercised that publicly yet. And David Burson kind of addressed that. Talked about how the relationship with the NFL is good. They continue to talk to them. But for the Fox portion of it, still early in that deal, probably like year three or four or whatever it is of these new NFL rights deals that were struck. And yeah, Murdoch doesn't see a need to do that. But it also needs to be understood, like the relationship between all of these companies and the NFL, the relationships are still good. The NFL wanted to test the waters, like, can we get this done early? And it sounds like they may have to wait until next year or even into 2028 to maybe get those deals done.

7:03The networks are still going to want to buy out that optionality and get to the end of these deals as was intended in 2033 so they can stay in business with the NFL and really see what their business models look like going into the next decade. Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. I think a lot of the talk around the NFL came out of the NBA TV deals that were signed last year. And that kind of, I won't say reset the market, but it certainly did something to the market. Roger Goodell himself floated that possibility of NFL going around. Again, NBC on its number two NBA package, whatever, is probably paying more for that than CBS pays for its current NFL deal.

7:35So the NFL, whatever happens, is going to be in line for a massive uptick. But remember, for companies like Fox, for NBC, this next NFL rights deal is going to take up a huge chunk of whatever content they are paying for over the course of a given season. That means less on the entertainment side. That doesn't bother Fox as much anymore because they're just in live sports and news. But for NBCU, you're talking about a big outlay towards sports, which really affects the entertainment division and what they're able to spend. All right. That's enough about the NFL, Austin. Let's transition over to college football.

8:08We're only a few weeks away from the season starting. A month from this week, Tennessee will roll into Bobby Dodd and beat Georgia Tech. Sure, sure. You keep talking that trash, Jeff. Speaking of Tennessee, we need to talk about CFP, which we'll be a part of this year. Expansion is a big, hot topic right now. 20 teams is the number that's being floated and circulated and talked about throughout the conference media days and everything. And part of that is the media deals that these conferences have. And specifically, the SEC is a big point of discussion. Their deal with ESPN, I think it's locked in through 2034 at this point.

8:37Yeah, that's when the deal is. But there is, our colleague Ben Portnoy reported this week that there is kind of a provisional look-in period for the SEC in 2030. Any possibility that they might look to redo those deals? I got to think that they're going to look at it. But these two sides, SEC and ESPN, let's be clear. They also both have look-ins here. Okay. It's not just the conference side. It's not just the network side. Yeah, they'll want to take a look. But these two sides are, first off, the numbers are great. SEC is just crushing it. Especially when they got all of the rights in-house. They started with the SEC network launch in 2014.

9:11They had some of the games. Then they took that old CBS deal. Now they have everything here. So you're talking about the SEC network. You're talking about the SEC football package. There's a lot going on here between those two sides, and they're very ingrained. They'll take a look, and maybe it's like the ACC. They took a look last year. The deal made sense. They extended it through the end period of that. I think that goes through now 2036 and gives everybody a guarantee on what that will look like. I do think that they're going to stay in business together. But in a couple of years, we'll take a look.

9:38And I'm sure CAA, which is advising, I believe, the SEC and the CFP on their deals. To your point, I mean, the SEC has continued to be king on viewership. SEC games were, what, eight of the top 10 most viewed college football. It seems like every Saturday in the fall, you can really look at 12 o 'clock, 3.30, 7.30, and the SEC has some big, big games. Why are we talking about it? It's because all the powers that be, the 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame ADP of Aqua, they're talking about already going to 20. We just started with 12 teams, by the way. It's exhausting. It's exhausting.

10:12But with all these teams investing all this money in their rosters, some coaches want a little more guarantee. Like, hey, we have a better shot at the postseason. That's where a lot of this is coming from. So the latest chatter, Josh, is what? Around a 16-team format. And you would have four play-in games for four final spots called a 20-team playoff. To your 20 teams. It's an interesting approach, but it would also keep ESPN as that lone rights holder of the CFP. Right now, they have rights to that through the 2031-32 season. If the CFP were to expand beyond that to an actual 20 teams, if that's how it was interpreted, or 24 teams, that's what opens it up.

10:49Everyone can bid on it then. That's maybe how Fox Sports gets in. The Big Ten would have to support this 20-team model. And with the relationship that the Big Ten and Fox Sports have, I don't think that they're going to want to support this. They want to find a path for Fox Sports to be involved. And I don't think ESPN is going to consider it right now. Sublicensing to Fox, maybe that's what has to happen. Maybe it's part of this 16 plus play-in sort of thing. Maybe they come to an agreement where Fox can sublicense some games, some important games too, especially as you get into the semifinal.

11:16And we'll see if they want to sublicense the final round. We will see what happens on college football. Speaking of ESPN, let's go to the NBA real quick. We finally seen some TV schedules out there. opening night, Christmas Day. I don't know that there are any big surprises there. You've obviously got the Knicks involved heavily, Knicks 76ers and LeBron on opening night. You've got a Knicks Spurs rematch to kind of lead things off on Christmas Day, an NBA Finals rematch. I think you said earlier, five straight years, the Knicks have been kind of the lead. I think eight of the last 10 years, they've had that noon spot.

11:49So the Knicks and the NBA, they love opening up Christmas Day at noon with the Knicks. You'll see an NBA Finals rematch. Couldn't ask for anything better for Christmas Day. Yeah, of course. That's going to be a huge number. The Knicks may have even led the numbers last year. That sort of rematch, especially if the teams are performing well, when Benyama's healthy and everybody's healthy in the Knicks. Yeah, I think that'll do impressive numbers. And I'll get back to Christmas, Josh, but I want to talk first about, you know, opening day, opening night. It's opening day now because for the first time you're going to have three games.

12:16We've seen the NHL kind of try this. They have like a 5 o 'clock game for the opening day. Yeah, the Hurricanes are opening up at 5.30. I'm not sure the league is a big fan of that, but now we're going to see with the NBA all three games are going to be on NBC. You're going to start with Celtics, Pistons. That's a three o 'clock start on a Tuesday. That's rare, right? But what has NBC proven, especially on the streaming side, because this will be shown on Peacock, you've seen it during the World Cup. You've seen it during the Olympics. If it's an important enough event, if it's crossover type event, people will find it and stream it.

12:45And that's what they're hoping for. But this is going to be on NBC broadcast as well. And the numbers that you're going to get for a Celtics Pistons game is still going to outdraw. whatever soap opera or local tv programming we may have had at three o 'clock on nbc so i think the affiliates will still be happy getting that sort of number and i get that but to me it just undercuts the value of an opening night a little bit it just feels sleepy like a three o 'clock game that feels like something you see on an undercard it's another king day they always play the afternoon game but this is opening night these numbers are always for opening day open night are always among the most watched of the season let's see what the test goes i get it but i still feel like opening night, and same with the NHL, like you've got your best teams going head to head.

13:25It needs to feel big, and it just doesn't feel as big being in the effort. It also takes away from maybe the complaints of like, oh, why is there a random game on Peacock for the NBA? This is taking one of those games maybe and throwing it on a broadcast TV network. You're going to get the exposure that you wouldn't have gotten by having it exclusively on Peacock. But I love, love putting 76ers, Knicks to open it up. LeBron in his new digs, the Knicks, unveiling their banner. That's probably going to be a very, very large number, maybe among the best for opening night in a while. Yeah. Any surprises around Christmas Day?

13:55Five games, again, going up against the NFL. They kind of touch them all a little bit, right? You've got the Knicks, you've got the Spurs, you've got Curry in the nightcap, you've got LeBron going up against the Lakers. Your usual suspects are Curry and LeBron. I guess what surprised me, the Heat. The Heat taking on the Celtics. I don't know if that's the team I would have wanted there. I think they're counting on Giannis being healthy. And that being the draw, him being on a new team, what that looks like, new dynamic there, whether the Heat are really competing in the East at that point. Another one was no Cooper Fled, no Mavericks.

14:27He was a stud last year. If everyone's saying he's the future face of the NBA and all that, where is he on Christmas Day? It was kind of surprising that maybe it wasn't Mavericks and Thunder in that 8 p.m. ABC ESPN window instead. You got T-Wolves, and I guess they're still counting on Anthony Edwards kind of being one of the faces and putting on another MVP-type performance. Because the T-Wolves, three years in a row, they've been on Christmas Day. People apparently like watching Anthony Edwards still. I think I would have put Cooper Flagg there. It also goes to show the top three picks, they were all lauded from the NBA draft this year as being generational talents, perhaps.

15:03But again, we talked about it at the time. These are not big markets. You had the Wizards, and you had the Jazz, and you had the Grizzlies. These are not your typical NBA Christmas Day games. Those players are really going to have to cut through the noise and have really big rookie seasons if any of them want to be playing on a Christmas Day in the future. And one last thing I'll say about Christmas. I was wondering who the NBA would put LeBron and the Sixers up against in that window. I thought it could be the Cavs, take him home, that sort of thing. It's the Lakers. No surprise. You want to get the Lakers on Christmas Day.

15:32Luka's still a draw as long as he's still playing. I don't know how they're going to be performing without LeBron, but Luka's still a draw. But the Lakers, a lot of drama going to be going on. They're sold. They got sold this week. Very surprising move. Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, who had been mentioned as potential bidders for a Las Vegas NBA franchise, they come in$12 billion for the Lakers from Mark Walter, who bought the majority stake only a year ago at around a$10 billion valuation. So Lakers changing hands again. On the media side, we also know that the Lakers RSN, that's been for sale for, it feels like around a year now, and no movement there.

16:07I wonder if this is part of it, if Iger and Kushner want to take on the RSN as well, or they continue to maybe keep that up for sale. All right, Josh, another big move on the PGA Tour side. Will Dang, who was a longtime media executive with the NFL under Brian Rolap, is going to be going to work for him at the Tour. What does the move mean for golf? It's a big move by the Tour and by Rolap. I mean, they bring in Will Dang again. He was at the NFL for 11 years and so worked really closely with Brian Rolap on basically all of their media strategy. and now he's going to be doing the same thing at the PGA Tour as the Tour kind of really hits a really important stretch.

16:42And obviously they've got all these big changes that are coming up starting not next year, but in 2028. And behind all that, you've got their media deals are currently through 2030. It seems like they're going to kind of stand pat on those media deals through 2030. Even with the changes to the championship. Even with the changes, it sounds like they're going to kind of stand pat on those, but they're still going to be going to market in 2028 for these media deals and what they're going to look like. So Will Dang brought in to really head up that media strategy and what that looks like going forward.

17:10Look at how the NFL has transformed from a media property in the last 11 years in the time that he was there. All these extra streaming games and different platforms and things of that nature. So I would expect big things from him and Ponte Vedra coming up in the next couple of years. Awesome. Yeah, Austin. You look at both Will Dang and Brian Rolap, two SBJ 40 Under 40 honorees over the years. We did kind of profile some of those media executives who were honored as 40 Under 40 winners in this week's magazine. I would urge everyone to go check those out. Anyone notable they should go read about?

17:41Of course. A couple of folks I talked to on that front. Amazon Prime Video's Charlie Neiman, who's been on this podcast, incredibly smart. And we talked about his days dating back to when he was a Duke water polo player, going to YouTube and creating stuff there on sports and really getting into sports with Prime Video before they had just about anything. So he has really seen the evolution there. So definitely check out his profile. Also, on the Disney ESPN side, we have a couple of folks. Jimmy Zazowski, who does a lot of the platform distribution stuff, kind of took over a lot of the work that had been done by Justin Connelly over the years.

18:14But he's been at Disney for a while behind some of the biggest distribution deals that ESPN has going on. And our lone 40 under 40 Hall of Famer this year, that's Charalyn Aguiar at ESPN. Her title, too long for me to even get into here. Let's start with CFO and then a whole bunch of important roles that she does for Jimmy Pitaro and the crew there. But she's on that senior staff and a key voice at the table for Jimmy Pitaro, who just raved about what she brings and how she challenges him at the table. And he wants that sort of voice. And she fills such an incredibly important role at ESPN. Great stuff there, Austin.

18:50One quick hitter I just want to talk about before we kind of wrap things up today. The Phillies fan who won the auction to go into the booth last week. Honestly, we're here in August now. It's one of my favorite moments of the year. I mean, it kind of went viral, and I saw a bunch of posts about it, but I hadn't actually listened to it. And once you actually click in and listen, we are headed to the third inning Phillies on top 2-1, and we're pleased to welcome Louis Kolb from Medford Lakes, New Jersey. He is our Phillies fantastic auction winner. He outbid the competition to spend an inning and do some play-by-play in the booth.

19:25And, Louis, welcome. You spent your life as a firefighter, police officer? Neither of those things. Just guessing. Now delivers. Swung on and missed. He got him. Andrew Pater picks up the strikeout, and that'll do it for the Nationals. No runs here in the top of the third. We go to the bottom half. Phillies lead it 2-1. And basically the level set for everyone. This Phillies fan, you know, won an auction to go in and announce an inning with the Phillies last week. And the guy, if you go and listen to it, it sounds like he's been doing it for 40 years. He's a guy off the street. He's done some PA announcing, I think, in his past, but never really done anything formal.

20:06And if you go and listen to it, it was one of the more kind of heartwarming, just fun. There's so much negativity in sports and this and that, people fighting over this and that. It was just such a fun six or seven minute clip to just go and watch this guy off his couch. Sounds like he's been calling the Phillies and Major League Baseball for decades at this point. I love that story. To me, it's going to be one of the fun stories of the year. Well, Josh, what would you call if you could call any game out there, any sport? If I could bid and call any sport, you know, I'm a golf guy. I would probably bid to call maybe a few holes at St.

20:42Andrews at the Open Championship. I'm a history guy too. I love the history around St. Andrews being the home of golf. I love Scottish golf, just that country. Like, I haven't played at St. Andrews, but I've been there on a Sunday when no one, and just walking around that. It's just a, it's a spiritual experience. And so to get to call, you know, some golf that we've seen Jim Nance do it, you know, CBS has never had the rights to the open championships since he's been doing it. But every year he'll go when it's at St. Andrews, you'll see Nance over there doing some work overseas for like sky sports and the like, just so he can like, that's a bucket list thing for him.

21:17So it's fun to see. That's probably what I would do. I thought you were going to say you want Ken Burns to pull you into his next civil war doc. That's where you want to opine on battles going on in Tennessee in early 1860s. What about you, Austin? What would you call? You know, I would have loved to have been on a call for something like that eight overtime Georgia-Georgia Tech football game from two seasons ago. I would have lost my voice. I did lose my mind, but I would have lost my voice. Was that Panthers legend Haynes King? It was Panthers legend Haynes King. He kept us in it as long as he could.

21:44That guy will be a Georgia Tech legend forever. It sucks he got injured here in that Hall of Fame game. They had to bring in another quarterback, so he's going to be out for a little bit. But I hope he does stay on with the Panthers for a little bit. But something a little more personal that I would have loved to call is like my son's fourth grade, you know, in-house basketball league. There is so much comedy that goes on at these youth sports games. I would like to just go back and call the tape because there are just there are some really great moments as a parent. Well, we just signed my four year old up for for fall soccer coming up next month.

22:15So I will let you know how that goes. That does it for this week's SBJ Sports Media Podcast. I'm Josh Carpenter. And I'm Austin Karp. A big thank you, as always, to our production team of Chris Mason, Reginald Walker, and A.C. Wyatt. Finally, thank you for listening. Please make sure to like and subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts. Make good choices out there, and we will talk to you all again next week.