ESPN and a 24-team CFP; What’s next for Netflix and sports; Fox’s Joe Davis previews the World Series

0:00Joe Davis: Coming up on the pod, the future for the 24-team CFP and ESPN. Is more sports the right medicine for Netflix's Woes and Fox's Joe Davis Talks Baseball ahead of the World Series?

0:18Joe Davis: Welcome into the SBJ Sports Media Podcast. I'm Austin Karp. And I'm Josh Carpenter. Austin, what a weekend it was in college football. Well, for one of those.

0:27Matt Fortuna: Five top 10 teams. I feel like we're doing a Tennessee update segment every week now on the show. My Vols just, I mean, dog walked Alabama on Saturday. Something I haven't seen in my lifetime. Pretty good weekend.

0:39Joe Davis: I believe there are other terms we could apply to that win, but that was a nice volunteers victory.

0:44Matt Fortuna: Yeah.

0:44Joe Davis: Well, Josh, another chaotic weekend on the field like you talked about. But the biggest news coming out in college football came off the field behind closed doors. That's right. It's looking like the college football playoff. It's going to be expanding to 24 teams, and it's looking like ESPN is going to have rights to all 23 of those games. To break it all down, we're bringing in the newly minted SBJ college sports reporter, Matt Fortuna. Matt, thanks for taking the time for your maiden voyage on the SBJ Sports Media Podcast. Thanks for having me, guys. It's a very, very quiet time in college athletics.

1:16Josh Carpenter: Can't imagine what we're going to talk about here.

1:17Joe Davis: Yeah, nothing going on. But since there's nothing going on, we're going to have you on anyways. Let's start with this, man. What do people need to know? what's the latest? Where do things stand with this 2014 playoff?

1:26Josh Carpenter: Everything is pretty much agreed to as far as the college football playoff will expand from 12 teams to 24 teams for next season. ESPN will be the exclusive rights holder for the entirety of the new college football playoff. And as we've seen, there are going to be multiple rounds now on campus. The first eight teams are going to get by. First round games will be on campus and the second round games will be on campus as well. Well, the general New Year's Six Bowl lineup will have the quarterfinals, semifinals, and national championship game as well. So it seems like a lot is happening very quickly.

2:01Josh Carpenter: This is obviously just the third year of the 12-team college football playoff, but college football fans have been nothing if not adaptable to the new way in the NIL era. And this is one more example of that.

2:13Matt Fortuna: But Matt, who is this for? Explain it to me like on five. Why are they doing this? By and large, I haven't seen one person, fan, media, whatever, say, oh, I love this, right? I mean, have you? I haven't. So explain to me who this is for, who actually wants this, and why are they doing it? Yeah, I haven't seen anyone be like,

2:30Josh Carpenter: this is the greatest thing ever, right? Far from it. I do think some of the backlash has been a little bit strong. And again, I understand it, right? College football, I think, more than any other sport, is kind of tradition-based. And I think the way we are going to rewire our brains in the college football playoff era, in the 2014 college football playoff era, is certainly a departure from what many of us grew up with, right? And I think you already saw a lot of snarky comments when five of the top seven teams in the AP poll fell on Saturday, and everyone said, well, it doesn't matter, right?

3:01Josh Carpenter: Because in the 2014 playoff, all these teams are still going to be in. There will be implications for seeding. There will be implications for buys, for home field, et cetera, et cetera. As far as who wants this and why this is happening, The power brokers that are in charge of the sport essentially want more access. Like, will they get richer off this a little bit? But this is not like a traditional money play of, oh, look at the windfall. We can't not do this. This is much more about offering 24 teams at least the hope of competing for and winning a national championship. And they're doing that because in this revenue share era, in this post-NIL era, where the costs of rosters are just going higher and higher, right?

3:42Josh Carpenter: Two years ago, Ohio State won the national title with what their athletic director, Ross Bjork, famously told Yahoo Sports was roughly a$20 million roster. $20 million now will barely get you a seat at the table in the Big Ten, and that was just two years ago. So with costs so exorbitant, there essentially needs to be a carrot to incentivize teams, big and small, to continue to invest in their football product. And whether this is spoken or not publicly, I can't help but think seeing what Indiana did in two short years under Kirk Signetti and the money that went into that program and the investment that went into that program is kind of like, hey, guys, it can happen to you, too.

4:20Josh Carpenter: Even if that's not really realistic in most of the schools around the country, I do think that the mirage of hope is a powerful drug. And look, we've seen that in March Madness, right? We all love Cinderella, even though Butler is the only one that ever really had a shot of winning the whole thing. We love seeing those first round upsets. We love seeing those teams make runs to the Elite Eight, sometimes even the Final Four. But at the end of the day, more often than not, it's a blue blood that carries the trophy at the end.

4:44Joe Davis: I need that, Hope. Georgia Tech needs that. Same with Tennessee. He talks about$20 million. Heck, Georgia Tech is closer to$25 million now on its roster, and we're not even in the top 50. How does this impact the big coaching buyouts we see as it relates to the access and the firing of those coaches?

4:58Josh Carpenter: Good question, right? I mean, I think you're seeing right now, like Florida State brought back Mike Norvell this year, even though a lot of people thought he didn't deserve to have another year in Tallahassee. Luke Fickle got a fourth year at Wisconsin. And while they certainly seem to be on the upward trajectory, that was also a conversation that was had among school administrators of like, all right, we just need to invest more into this product. Replacing the coach is not going to really do anything

5:20Joe Davis: if we're not putting more money into these rosters.

5:23Josh Carpenter: There's a reason Jimbo Fisher and Brian Kelly's names keep getting thrown out on all these coaching lists to take over jobs for next year. It's because they're available and because whoever hires them will not have to pay nearly as much because they're still collecting buyout money. In Brian Kelly's case from LSU and Jimbo Fisher's case from Texas A &M. So I do think it's completely changed kind of the money flow as far as the direction it's going in because you could have a good coach, but if he has bad players, that's ultimately what matters most, right? The players win the games on Saturdays.

5:50Josh Carpenter: And I think the emphasis of priority on allocating your resources to the talent that's out there making the throws and the blocks and the tackles has never been higher.

5:57Matt Fortuna: Yeah, I think one thing important too, and Matt, you're kind of swaying me in the other direction a little bit. I'm feeling a little bit better about this. And one other positive I will say, on my end at least, I know the conference championship games are going away. The SEC championship game at a time held a really special place in my heart. I was at the 2012 SEC title game, Georgia, Alabama. I still think it was like that was the national championship that year. Aaron Murray not spiking the ball at the end of the game. The conference championship games have taken a hit in recent years. They're not as good.

6:30Matt Fortuna: They're just commercialized. Just like no one cares. So like to me, if we could trade that for a opening round playoff game at Beaver Stadium, at the Big House, at Neyland Stadium, like I'll take that in its current construct any day, 100 ,000 people rather than this crapshoot. You know, the crowds are going to fall on campus.

6:50Joe Davis: Those first two rounds are going to see packed.

6:52Matt Fortuna: That's the one thing that I really like.

6:53Joe Davis: Yeah. You're not making fans travel maybe as much, especially for those opening two rounds. You've got to keep those on campus because the last thing we want to see is an empty stadium for a quarterfinal game. That is not a good look.

7:03Matt Fortuna: But Matt, do we see, you know, Brett Yormar kind of alluded to like some new tentpole events to potentially replace the conference title games. Anything to that or what might that look like?

7:13Josh Carpenter: As someone who was the Notre Dame beat writer in 2012, it's hard to disagree with your assertion of that year's SEC championship game. I mean, you still hear from Georgia players, Georgia fans who thought that that was it right there. That SEC title game. You know, it's interesting because the SEC certainly, you know, valued their title game, their conference title game more than other conferences said. The Big Ten one, really until they got rid of divisions, was mostly a dud, right? The East beat the West every year and usually by a decisive margin. It was a good game last year with the two best teams in the country.

7:42Josh Carpenter: Indiana and Ohio State were ranked number one and two in the playoff. And the year before when Oregon beats Penn State. And yet, you look at that particular example, was Oregon served, again, the number one seed that year? Penn State actually made a further run to the playoff that year. They made the semifinals, due in large part to play in SMU at home, playing Boise State, which had a bye that week. While there's certainly some pride in winning a conference championship, it's not nothing. The calculus has changed completely. In two years of the 12-team college football playoff, there have been eight buys.

8:13Josh Carpenter: Seven of those teams lost their next game, their first college football playoff game. So they were not exactly—maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's not. But Indiana's the only one that did not seem to have a residual effect of having a buy when eight other teams were playing that opening round weekend. So I think that part of it makes you wonder, like, what are we doing this for? And there's a financial component to it, certainly. $345 million is what ESPN is paying annually for the expansion of the college football player for these extra games. Of that$345 million,$50 million is going to the Big Ten slash Fox to basically make up for the lack of a Big Ten championship game.

8:53Josh Carpenter: ESPN has the other three power conference championship games, the Big 12, the ACC, the SEC. That's a pie of$140 million that is being paid to replace those three games. You could probably do a rough estimate of the math. Is that 70 for the SEC, 35 apiece for the other two, maybe a little bit closer? Not entirely sure on that one, but it's a pool of$140 million. That is what those three games in totality are valued. That leaves$155 million left over because those were just for the media rights. That$155 million is for the stadiums, for attendance, ticketing, the economic impact that these games in Indianapolis, for example, or Atlanta and the SEC are going to lose out on.

9:35Josh Carpenter: Perhaps there are bowl games or other events that could replace them. But I was in Indiana this week doing a couple stories. I had lunch with someone in Indianapolis on Sunday, and he said, you know, I'm really going to miss the Big Ten title game. I said, are you saying that as a fan of the teams that played it every year or as an Indianapolis resident? He said, as an Indianapolis resident, we've never gone after a bowl game or anything else. They did have the national title game a few years ago, But we have not been in the bowl business because we didn't have to. This was our bowl game. This was a big event for us.

10:04Josh Carpenter: We really cared about it. And so that going away certainly will mean something to those communities. I mean, we're here in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC championship, regardless of who was playing.

10:13Joe Davis: It's an event. It's an event for the city. We know it's an event for Atlanta. That was locked in through 2031 for the SEC title game, Mercedes-Benz Stadium. That was a huge, huge event. So like you said, for communities, it's huge. But also, is this a bit of ESPN cannibalizing itself? adding more CFP games while likely eliminating the bowl system where many of those games were owned and operated by ESPN events?

10:36Josh Carpenter: Yeah, that's a good question because certainly we've seen the bowl season, if you will, take a backseat in importance, at least as far as players and coaches are concerned, right? Notre Dame choosing not to go to a bowl game last year after they missed the college football playoff. And what would have been a good bowl game? Because they would have played BYU. And as we saw this past week, that could have been a pretty darn good football game. I mean, the Pop-Tarts Bowl with Georgia Tech in Notre Dame's place last year, outdrew, from a TV rating standpoint, multiple college football playoff games.

11:03Josh Carpenter: I don't think you see the complete elimination of bowl games because it's such valuable TV inventory around the holidays. Whether you care about the teams or not, you're going to have those games on in the background during winter break. If America's proven one thing, it's that they can't get enough football, even if it's not the greatest football, right? They are going to tune in. So I don't think it's the elimination of bowl season. I certainly think it could take on different forms. I think there could be some kind of tournament or something or other with some of the teams that are the first teams out of the college football playoff where they get together and play some games at bowl sites.

11:37Josh Carpenter: I don't know what form that will take on yet, but it's such valuable TV inventory. The worst bowl game still does better than most, if not all, regular season college basketball games on ESPN. And that's something that if you're ESPN, if you're these TV networks, you can't just cut away and make up for. That is valuable TV inventory.

11:54Joe Davis: No, the Bulls are huge during that time of year. All right, Matt, we'll get you out of here on this. What's the next thing that you're paying attention to with regard to the CFP and 24 teams? Is it a sub-license? People need to remember, though, TNT still has three more seasons left on their sub-license. This season alone, they're going to have two first-round games, two quarters, and a semifinal. That runs through the 2028-29 season. So what are you paying attention to next with regard to it all?

12:19Josh Carpenter: The sub-license is part of it. I don't think we'll get clarity on that until we get closer to the actual games because TNT kind of came out of nowhere, at least publicly, when ESPN decided to sub-license those first couple of games to them back in the 2024 college football playoff. I'm waiting for this thing to get officially announced, and there's a lot of I's to dot and T's to cross and things of that nature. As far as, like, what will change and what's next, people might not want to hear this, but it is important. What happens to the Tuesday show? It's chaos enough trying to fill out a bracket every week with 12 teams.

12:51Josh Carpenter: And as we've seen, what's true this week might not be true next week without a whole lot of change in the data points. How much more difficult is that with 24 teams? Are there going to be bigger committees? Are they going to release their top 24 every single week? Or are they going to maybe do what college basketball does? And it's like, hey, here's a mid-season check-in. Here are top four seeds. And maybe that's a wink-wink to this is what we're prioritizing this year. Schedule strength, win-loss record, et cetera, et cetera. That to me is a double-in-the-details moment because everyone watches the TV show every Tuesday, even though they can't stand it.

13:27Josh Carpenter: and it's clearly a product that needs to improve and is going to be more difficult to improve when you're doubling the amount of workload that goes into it when you're doubling this bracket to 2014s will the committee expand i don't know i mean you go back as recently as a year ago i'm out in las vegas for 2025 big 10 media days which we're to still say out loud and can't believe they did it there but the big 10 at that point was all about a 16 team playoff with multiple automatic bids for each conference. And the biggest reason for that stance was we want to take these decisions out of the hands of the selection committee.

14:01Josh Carpenter: Well, it seems like the committee is going to have even more power than ever before now that you're doubling the bracket from 12 to 24. So what's that look like? How does that mechanically play out week after week? I don't know.

14:13Matt Fortuna: Well, Matt, we could probably sit here and talk college football playoff for the next, I don't know, six hours or so. Six months, maybe, yeah. A lot of great intel today. Thanks a lot for joining the SBJ Sports Media Podcast. I'm sure we'll see you plenty down the road.

14:26Josh Carpenter: Thanks, guys. Pleasure to be here. All right, Austin, let's move to some other news in Sports Media Week.

14:31Matt Fortuna: A change at the top of the content ladder at Netflix. Bella Bajaria is out as chief content officer at Netflix. So what does this kind of mean for the future of sports on Netflix as we move forward?

14:43Joe Davis: Well, I don't know how many times we've had to talk about what is Netflix's future with sports. When are they going to do more than just dab? This season's NFL wise in particular, the biggest outlay that they've given to live sports, five games. We still have that Wednesday pre Thanksgiving game coming a couple of Christmas Day games, then a game later in the season. So still plenty of Netflix on the NFL side to come. But what does this mean? Peter Rice is in. He brings a lot of TV sports experience from time at Fox and Disney. He's going to have a big content budget to around 20 billion dollars sports.

15:14Joe Davis: It's part of that, obviously, that includes scripted, non-scripted and everything. But like how much of that is he going to allocate to sports, especially if it's something bigger on the NFL side? Because that ain't cheap and it's going to get only more expensive as this next round of rights comes up. Also, is getting more into the channels business, that's something else that you and I have talked about, been successful for Prime Video, adding things like Paramount Plus or maybe HBO Max to that service. Is that something that Netflix can do? Is that a way to get deeper into the NFL? So think about it.

15:44Joe Davis: If you add Fox 1 to Netflix, if you add Paramount Plus and you add Peacock, boom, there's your Sunday slate, at least, of NFL games. You can get a cheaper way into carrying the NFL just by maybe having those upgrades on your servers. So you're in the Netflix universe, and you can also have an add-on to get NFL if you are a cord never, cord cutter, whatever you want to call it. So Netflix's stock, let's look at it over the last couple months. It has taken a huge hit, especially since they weren't able to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery and that going over to Paramount Skydance. Netflix also this year in particular hasn't been adding subscribers.

16:22Joe Davis: And what do we know is a driver for subscribers, especially with these streaming platforms? It's live sports, live sports. So is that something that Peter Rice is going to want to get into? But a positive for Netflix, the churn rate continues to be incredibly low. People are not leaving that service, even though they may not have as much live sports. Their churn rate is among the lowest in the business of any platform. Maybe Spotify is the only thing that's even close in terms of people not giving that up, keeping their subscriptions going. Let's look forward to those Q4 events that Netflix is going to have.

16:51Joe Davis: We're talking about those NFL games. Also, a really big Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua fight. We've seen what boxing can deliver for Netflix. Some positives there, but Bella Bajaria out. Let's see what Peter Rice does with live sports.

17:05Matt Fortuna: Will be fascinating to see coming up. John Austin, last thing on Netflix. We talked about that churn being relatively steady. What is the one thing that could affect that going forward or could hurt that going forward?

17:14Joe Davis: Whether it's entertainment or sports, content is king. And Netflix hasn't shown, especially on the scripted TV side, that they're being original, that they're having sticky programs that are drawing people in. Yeah, you know, I love the dip in that. I love the gentleman. A lot of people haven't really gone after that stuff. And some of their original movies haven't been sticky. Sports proves that. It draws in the audience, especially your bigger properties there, like an NFL or otherwise. So what might Netflix want to get into to keep that churn rate from ever getting away from where it is now?

17:44Joe Davis: For sure.

17:44Matt Fortuna: We'll be fascinating to see on the Netflix front. Awesome. We've talked a lot of college football. We've talked some NFL. We've talked Netflix. Let's go to the NBA tipping off the regular season this week. I felt like it kind of arrived a little bit quietly, which was surprising to me with the Knicks coming off that first title, you know, in 50 some odd years.

18:02Josh Carpenter: And I know how I feel about starting the season at 3 p.m.

18:06Matt Fortuna: on a Tuesday afternoon. How do you feel about starting the season that early on, middle of the week?

18:10Joe Davis: Well, I'm not sure they were getting a huge audience for Celtics and Pistons coming off directly off the Kelly Clarkson show. There was no pregame show. You just kind of rolled right into it. All right, folks, let's go. NBA season. Here to tip off. The big draw was that 76ers-Knicks game in the early prime time window.

18:25Josh Carpenter: You had the ring ceremony. You had the start of the LeBron era in Philadelphia.

18:28Joe Davis: We'll see how long the era actually lasts. But it was a good game. So much star power there, not just on the court, but you had celebrities off the court. That's how you want to start the season. You had the NBC pregame show. You want to lean into that. That's how you traditionally want to start the season. This was a first for the NBA, having that afternoon window, but a 3 o 'clock Eastern start. That is tough. We've seen the NHL try that in recent seasons, but that's more, they've done it at 5 o 'clock. At least you're getting some people that are done with work. 3 o 'clock, yes, that audience number is going to be above whatever you had in that NBC window.

19:00Joe Davis: But you also had to deal with some of the social media noise around not every affiliate carrying the game. Some places were still showing local coverage or the state fair or whatever it is they were showing. So why put yourself in a position where you have to deal with some of those complaints? Maybe you just stick with the traditional doubleheader to start your season next year.

19:18Matt Fortuna: Yeah, if I didn't work in sports media and if I wasn't in one of those markets with those two teams or specifically a fan of one of those teams, I would have said that 76ers and Knicks was the first team of the NBA. I would not have known that they were starting that game.

19:30Joe Davis: And you want to invest in that being a big tentpole moment because we know football is still going on. And one of the biggest problems that the NBA has starting now is like you're now going to start the season and get into it. And you don't really have anything to elevate the moments. You have maybe the start of the NBA Cup, but nothing really until Christmas Day. That's when people really are paying attention to the NBA. You want to really invest in that opening night. I think you want to start with just that 7 o 'clock game and a doubleheader to start the season. And also, Thunder Spurs, also a great game in that late primetime window.

20:02Joe Davis: The matchup from the Western Conference, rematch from the Western Conference Finals. I thought that was a really good game as well. Otherwise, NBA this season, what am I watching for? And myself, Joe Lemire, he also wrote about this a little bit. More tap to watch. They want to increase discoverability. This is year two of the new media rights deals, showing fans where games are, whether it's on Prime or Peacock, ESPN or ABC or NBC, wherever it's going to be for that particular season. Also continue to pay attention on the local front and the use of more creators to drive awareness, see what they can do with live rights, especially on TikTok.

20:39Matt Fortuna: Been a lot of discussion. NHL just expanded their season to 84 games. Any talk about, and you mentioned a minute ago, the NBA having a very long season and kind of Christmas being kind of the starting point for a lot of people to really start paying attention. Any changes potentially coming on the schedule front for the NBA?

20:54Joe Davis: You know, I talked about this with ESPN's Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson and Tim Legger on that ESPN NBA preview call. And I did it in the context of, hey, baseball's reducing the number of games. Is that something they ever saw the NBA doing? And they were all, Richard Jefferson got very animated about it. Like, no, this is ridiculous. These guys are high-level athletes. They need to stay healthier. They've been doing this 82-game season since the early 60s. Don't be changing now. it's disrespectful to the people that have done this over the course of that entire time since. And it's something that Tim Legler brought up that was interesting.

21:28Joe Davis: Regardless, if you reduce the number of games, players are still going to sit games. The important part is that they are ready in the middle of April for that run, that two-month run of the playoffs. So if you reduce the number of games, you're still going to see the star players fewer times on national TV, even with a reduction.

21:45Matt Fortuna: Got it. Got it. Awesome. Enough football, enough basketball. We've got the World Series on top. Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, certainly the matchup everyone was dreaming of at Fox, you know, when the season started. But you spoke with the voice of Fox, the voice of the World Series, Joe Davis, for the pod this week. Let's take a listen.

22:02Joe Davis: Well, it is time for the Fall Classic. If you've been hibernating, you have two great teams in the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays. So let's bring on the man with the honor of calling the World Series. That's Fox Sports' Joe Davis. Joe, welcome back to the SBJ Sports Media Podcast. Hey, Austin. Appreciate having me, man. All right, Joe, one way or another, you will get to call the first World Series win for one of these franchises. So how cool does it feel before the series even begins that you're going to be part of something so historic for baseball?

22:33Austin Karp: Yeah, it's awesome. And I think that the low-hanging fruit headline is it's, oh, it's two small market teams. But then very quickly after that, it's easy to get excited for this. And it starts with that, that neither one of these teams has ever won a championship. Neither one of these fan bases has ever been able to experience that. And then I know we're going to dive into the styles of play as well. I think that kind of a throwback approach from both sides. There's going to be balls in play. There's going to be havoc on the base paths. Should be a blast to watch.

23:02Joe Davis: Well, let's get right to that. The styles of play that you're talking about. These are two really good baseball teams. If you are a baseball fan, you're going to enjoy watching these teams. So what should people expect? What should people be watching for?

23:12Austin Karp: Yeah, I think you said something important there, Austin, and that's that these aren't Cinderella's. These are the two teams that led the league in wins this year. Milwaukee, the National League, Tampa Bay, the American League. So they've been doing this all season long, and these are perennial contenders, perennial postseason teams even before this. What makes this matchup extra special, though, is that in this era of home runs, power pitching, selling out for home runs and strikeouts, you're going to have the top two teams in batting average facing off. So for the old school baseball fans, this will be super refreshing.

23:44Austin Karp: For the fans of action, I think it's going to be a ton of fun to watch because they get on base. They're among the leaders in stolen bases once they do. There's as much speed between these two lineups as any World Series in recent memory. And then pitching-wise, you've got a dominant bullpen for Milwaukee and a dominant starting pitching staff for Tampa Bay. So yeah, maybe a couple small market teams, but certainly powerhouses when it comes to how well they've played this year.

24:12Joe Davis: You know, you brought up the market size a couple of times right now. We're a sports business podcast. People listening to this generally understand Milwaukee, currently the smallest MLB media market, soon to be overtaken by Las Vegas there. And while Tampa Bay, that's the 11th biggest media market out there, the Rays have been always a small revenue team. But how much does it boil your blood a little bit that people complain that this isn't appealing because it's a matchup of, quote, small market teams.

24:38Austin Karp: Yeah, I mean, I get it, but what are you going to do, right? I think that very quickly you move on to the things we've discussed, where it's like, specifically in my chair, it's not like I'm going in there saying, oh, these are smaller market teams. No, very quickly it's like, okay, you recognize that, and that's not even the first thing I'm thinking about, but you recognize that and you move on to so many great storylines in this series. I think it'd be one thing, like I would rather have this, smaller market teams with amazing storylines, than bigger market teams where you're like, eh, neither one of these teams are very likable, you don't have any personality and the styles of player, blah.

25:17Austin Karp: I'll take this 10 times out of 10.

25:19Joe Davis: You talk about some of the pitching talent that we're going to see. The game one starter for the Brewers, Jacob Mizorowski, the Miz. I need to read this stat first. 1 ,115 pitches this season at 100 miles per hour or faster, including a record 743 pitches at 101 or more. That's more than all Major League Baseball starters combined from 2008 through 2026. So my question though, Joe, what is it like watching this guy pitch? And is he now a leading face of MLB?

25:49Austin Karp: I mentioned, you know, it's this era of power pitching and power hitting. So to be a guy that stands alone when it comes to how powerful he is as a pitcher, it's got to be extraordinary. And he is. I mean, you gave the numbers on his triple digits fastballs. I think Austin, when he got to the big leagues last year, it was that, but it was kind of a novelty act. He was going to light up the radar guns, but he's probably going to walk some people. He tired out as the year went on. Well, he came back this year after overhauling his workout regimen this off season, strengthening his lower half a bunch, a fully formed pitcher.

26:25Austin Karp: I mean, a fully formed ace that cut his walk rate in half. He still have that triple digit velocity. Now, the question will be, how much does he have left in the tank here? Because he's not been particularly good so far in the playoffs. Both the Padres and the Dodgers had him out of there before he could get into the sixth inning. So, you know, from a TV perspective, from a fan perspective, if you're coming out neutrally. I think a Brewers fan, you're hoping he goes nine. You're a Rays fan, you're hoping he's out of there in the first inning. But for all of us that love baseball and seeing the best guys, you'd love to see him put together a start where he gets deeper into the game.

26:59Joe Davis: Hey, man, I'm hoping it's not a Clayton Kershaw type of thing. I got to be honest, where the guy is just so dominant regular season and just has that sort of trouble in the postseason. But speaking about faces of baseball, beyond the Miz, who else these days do you consider the faces of baseball?

27:13Austin Karp: I think Otani is the easy answer. I think nobody has ever done what Otani's done. And look, we saw even just now in the division series and the championship series, it was still burying the lead to not talk about Otani up front, even though he was struggling as badly as he was. Whether good or bad, I think he's still the biggest story in baseball, one of the biggest stories in sports, because he's unique. To look at this series, one of the things that I think is cool about this is that you may not have a bunch of faces of baseball coming in. You know, it's not Aaron Judge. It's not Otani. But you've got guys that are going to be really easy to latch onto.

27:50Austin Karp: I'm sure you saw Junior Kamenaro's home run trot yesterday. A few times. And that's going to play on Luke. He's going to do stuff like that in the World Series. And I think that, as we've seen before, that stage has a way of elevating guys and amplifying guys that in Tampa Bay they know about. St. Pete, they know about Junior Kamenero being a 45 home run guy with all this personality. He does that in the World Series. Everybody's going to know about it.

28:17Joe Davis: And he becomes a face. I love the flair that he brings to the game. I love that he was treating it like it was a Caribbean series or a World Baseball Classic game. He needs to. Show me that enthusiasm. Show me that. That's almost like a touchdown dance. I love seeing that sort of enthusiasm from baseball players.

28:31Austin Karp: Same deal. I think there's been more of an acceptance of that in recent years, Right. Because like the traditional baseball way of looking at it is, oh, you respect the game and you put your head down and you run around the bases. And sure, you don't want to disrespect your opponent, but like let yourself have some fun. And I think that it's now I think we've we've crossed that line where it's now acceptable to go out there and show that you're enjoying yourself.

28:56Joe Davis: Joe, there's an idea knocking around out there, a trial balloon, whatever you want to call it. a proposal to go from 162 games in the regular season back to 154. What do you think about that? Is that something that, you know, should baseball really consider?

29:10Austin Karp: Yeah, I think that it's worth considering, especially when you get to a time where CBA is up and that's the time to have those conversations. The tricky thing always with baseball is the historical component of it, the statistical component of it, which is such a big part of the game and what makes it special. How do you compare 154, 156 to 162? But it hasn't always been 162 either. So we're not talking about going from 162 to 120, where it would change the whole shape of the sport. You're talking about taking a few games off of the regular season, I think could only mean good things for the 156 you do play, getting guys a little more rest, helping keep guys healthier.

29:52Austin Karp: We want the best players on the field. And if that helps to do that, and that helps have guys and teams at their best when the postseason rolls around, it absolutely is worth a conversation.

30:01Joe Davis: You know, Joe, I was on an ESPN NBA media call this week, and Mike Breen, who obviously does the NBA for ESPN nationally, but also calls the Knicks locally for MSG, he paid you an incredibly nice compliment about how you navigate, you know, a similar situation, calling nationally, calling locally. You lead Fox's MLB coverage. You also do the Dodgers in Los Angeles. But Breen said he has watched a lot of baseball and a lot of baseball with you. And he thought you always are calling it down the middle when the Dodgers were in the World Series in particular. So my question, though, is how much does that sort of situation these last couple of years when the Dodgers were in it, how much did that change your prep work?

30:38Joe Davis: When you know one team like the back of your hand, how do you keep things as balanced as possible?

30:44Austin Karp: I appreciate Mike so much for that. I think when it comes to the prep, it's not as much, okay, I got to learn the other team and I already know the Dodgers. In a way, it takes more, not more prep, but another level of thinking to get the Dodger information reorganized in my head to present to a national audience. because it's a totally different presentation than when you're doing a team every day. So I almost have to, when I'm covering the Dodgers in the playoffs, relearn the information, unlearn it, relearn it, to be able to frame it differently, if that makes sense.

31:18Joe Davis: I have some young sons, tweens, teens, whatever you want to call them, and these guys didn't see John Smoltz pitch in the 1990s. They only know John through his TV work sitting next to you. How would you describe who John Smoltz, the player, was to this younger generation? Oh, imposing.

31:37Austin Karp: You know, you hear about the you hear about an ace, right? I think that when you think of an ace, you think of somebody like John Smoltz, the classic pitcher's frame, the power stuff, the imposing look, you know, kind of a grumpy character when he's out on the mound. Somebody you can rely on to pitch you a complete game when you need it. So a classic ace in every sense.

32:00Joe Davis: Not to mention the dominant closer there for a couple of years when he came back from that injury. Yeah, right. He was just lights out in the bullpen for the Braves for that small period. You're also the number two play-by-play voice for Fox's NFL coverage. You're alongside Greg Olson there normally. We've talked a lot on this podcast about the musical chairs going on and the booth space these days. But what makes Greg just a top-tier analyst?

32:20Austin Karp: I love him, man. First and foremost, just his energy, just his zest for life. Every room he walks into, I'd say he's like a walking energy drink. Even though somehow the guy's never had caffeine. He didn't like coffee, didn't take caffeine. I'm like, I need whatever you got naturally. So it starts there. And then his ability to speak smartly from so many different perspectives. It's not just the tight ends perspective. It's not just the offensive perspective. He can talk about it. OC, DC, head coach, front office, analytics department, so many different lanes he can come at. And he's going to do it expertly and he's going to do it full of energy.

33:00Austin Karp: And it's just, it's a treat being with him.

33:02Joe Davis: All right, Joe, we'll get you out of here on this. December 1st, baseball's collective bargaining agreement. That's going to expire between the players and the owners. There are a lot of fundamental issues here that are going to be worked out. I think everyone agrees that missing any games for baseball would be a bad thing. Missing a season would be absolutely horrendous. So how important is it for the sport of baseball in 2026 in this general entertainment landscape to keep the ball going, to keep things going, to keep games going so fans don't move their attention to one of the other 9 ,000 things that are out there?

33:35Austin Karp: Yeah.

33:35Joe Davis: Why do we got to end on such a sour note, Austin? Well, let's turn it positive. How does baseball make this positive?

33:39Austin Karp: No, I'm with you. I'm giving you a hard time about it. I'm with you, though. I think that And baseball is in such a great place. Coming off of the seven-game World Series last year with the stars that we were talking about and Judge and Otani and so many young stars in the game that are easy to latch on to, I think you risk jeopardizing a lot of that and stunting the momentum by missing games. So, yeah, you hope that both sides see that. You know that they see that. You just hope that that is a present thought when they get into the negotiation room and that this does become something where we look back and say, man, remember when we were all worried there was going to be a lockout and hopefully we're laughing on March 27th or whatever it is, getting ready for opening day.

34:24Joe Davis: Well, the World Series is getting started Friday night. Rays Brewers Game 1, you can catch it on Fox. Joe Davis going to be the voice for all the action there of the Fall Classic. Joe Davis, really appreciate you coming on the SBJ Sports Media Podcast. You got it, Austin. I enjoyed it, man. How about Joe Davis? Talk about a career already. his fifth World Series, and he's not even 40 years old. Good for him. Speaking of time, Josh, how about PTI celebrating 25 years on ESPN?

34:52Matt Fortuna: Yeah, PTI going back, appointment television for me in my teenage years growing up. Here in the Charlotte market, a relatively small sports market. We're still obviously a rabid sports fan, but I mean, PTI and around the horn every day on ESPN, five to six o 'clock appointment television. And if one of my teams somehow made it on that right-hand bar on PTI, you know, the show comes on and you start skiing to see if one of your teams is on there. Talk about a day for me. Like, and especially after one of my teams actually won a big game, which didn't happen a lot in my teenage years, I'd be waiting for PTI to come on to see if they would talk about my team on that show.

35:29Matt Fortuna: So congrats to Will Bond, Kornheiser. I don't get to watch it as much these days with a young one at home. I'm sure you were locked in on those guys. and still listen to it. I still do. It podcasts.

35:38Joe Davis: Yeah, like you, I used to DVR it, watch whenever I could, or it was appointment TV back in the day. Now, I listen to it in podcast mode, whether it's that night or the next morning on the ride into work, whatever, but it is still appointment viewing. I love when those two are doing the show. You can tell why they did the show in the first place. The chemistry between them, and it has spawned an entire cottage industry of shows like that. Congratulations to those guys on still doing it.

36:03Matt Fortuna: Yeah, for sure, Austin. Congrats to PTI, 25 years. Hopefully you and I can make it 25 years on this show. I don't know if I still want to be covering sports media in 25 years, but we'll see how things shake out. Austin, a high point for PTI. Let's talk about our high points of the weekend. Who won the weekend for you this past weekend in sports?

36:21Joe Davis: Well, for me, it is college football week seven. And why, you ask? Well, this was such a good weekend for great endings. Close games galore. I'm talking Auburn, Georgia, Notre Dame, BYU, Miami, Florida State, Ohio State, Indiana, Florida, Texas, Utah, Colorado. I can keep going all close games. And fans really responded. 12.8 billion minutes watched across all networks. That is the second best regular season Saturday on record. Shout out to ESPN Research guru Flora Kelly on that stat. But college football continues to separate itself as the second biggest sport in this country. And week seven is another indication as to why.

36:59Joe Davis: All right, Josh, who won the weekend?

37:01Matt Fortuna: Yeah, I'm going to stick with college football. And obviously we talked earlier with Matt Cortuna about the college football playoff expanding to 24 teams. But for me, sticking with that, Michael Braddon co-hosted That SEC podcast and went on with Paul Feinbaum last week to talk about this expansion and really asked, who wants this? And it was sort of a viral interview that went, I mean, everyone was talking about it. Everyone was joking about like, oh, you're going on an SEC and ESPNO network and talking about. I think he used the words disgraceful. Just talked about, you know, no one asked for this.

37:36Matt Fortuna: They didn't consult with players. They didn't consult with fans. Just really like kind of in the midst of this. These guys killing it. And even, you know, some funny back and forth with Feinbaum. Feinbaum kind of looking at him like, well, are you really saying that on the air right now? And then social media is joking about like, well, we may never see this person again. But for me, it was just kind of a, it was a very pointed conversation. It was, you know, some great points that Michael Pratt made. but also it was just a kind of a lighthearted moment in the midst of all this college football playoff expansion stuff so that was that was he won the weekend i don't think he's getting

38:08Joe Davis: invited to greg sankey's birthday party maybe not we'll see you never know we'll see if he makes the invitation well that does it for this week's sbj sports media podcast thanks again to our guests joe davis of fox sports and the newest member of the sbj team matt fortuna we really appreciate them jumping on and as always thank you to our production team of chris mason reginald Walker and AC Wyatt. And finally, thank you for listening. Please make sure to like and subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts. For Josh Carpenter, I'm Austin Karp. Make good choices out there, and we'll talk to you all again next week.