The Hollywood Jealousy Draft: What Each Studio Would Steal From Its Rivals

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1:27It is Monday, May 18th. There's no such thing as a fully well-rounded entertainment company. Even the biggest and most successful have strengths and glaring weaknesses. Netflix is the dominant subscription streaming service, but it has no theme park business, no comic book franchises, very little sports rights. Disney has all of those, but a user interface on its streaming service that could be way better and so forth. Hence the Hollywood Jealousy Draft. That's today's show. Lucas Shaw is here and we're going to play a game. We're going to go through each major entertainment company and let them poach one thing from a rival.

2:02the one thing they need the most and that they don't currently have. What would that be for Netflix? For Disney? You just take it. No cost, no regulatory issues, no blowback. Just snap your fingers and it's yours. Today is the Hollywood Jealousy Draft. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is The Town.

2:25Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back, Lucas. How was your experience at the TV up front? Did you get the full funnel experience? I got the full funnel experience, yes. I am now ready to talk about advertising technology with anyone and everyone. They're platforms, man. They're not just a place to put ads. They're a full service, full funnel advertising solution. Yeah. Why didn't you come this year? I decided not to go. My kid had some baseball playoffs and just decided. I've got New York trips coming up that I have to do for Puck. So just didn't go. Yeah. And honestly, I feel great about it.

3:01You are missed, including by random people on the street who listen to the show. Oh, they said, where's Matt? You know, people assume that you and I hang out. We really don't. There was someone who works at like Morgan Stanley, who at almost one in the morning on Friday night, I was coming home from being with friends and he stopped me on the street. And that's where I was. Yes. And you said that I was passed out in a corner of a bar down the street and go find him. Exactly. All right. So we are going to go through the five top entertainment companies right now. Comcast, Disney, Netflix, WarnerMount, assuming this deal goes through, and Amazon.

3:34Apologies to Apple. Apologies to Sony. They are not in the top five here. And we are going to draft items. You can take anything from anywhere. No costs associated with it. No regulatory problems. This is if you were running these companies and you could take one asset from one company, which asset would it be? Craig, do we explain this properly? I think so. I think the one thing to point out is that once something is taken, nobody else can draft it. So if you're Comcast, if you steal DC from Warner Brothers, now DC's off the board and nobody else can take DC. Fine. And then we will assess at the end who got the most benefit from their draft, okay?

4:20Okay, and then you guys are each going to basically bring your picks. You're basically going to be acting as CEOs together. of these companies and you're going to have to argue over which you think is the best choice, but you're each going to provide your selections of what you think each company should steal if they had the opportunity. And if we agree, great. If not, maybe Craig, you decide which is best or, or I think you guys should have to fight it out and land on one. Okay, fine. Um, okay. So I'm going to give the order right now of who goes first. I'm going to honor the legacy companies first and the tech companies are going to go last.

4:49So we're going to, we're going to go Disney, Comcast, Warner Mount, Netflix, and last pick will be Amazon. Oh, great. You, you picked it in the order that I thought through them. So that works for me. Great. So then Disney will be first. So you guys will go one by one. You can each say, if you're Disney and you could steal anything from the other four companies, what would you steal? No, it's not just the other four companies. It's from anyone in Hollywood. You can go after something that's owned by Fox or by Sony. You can get anything. I have a question about this. So if I get that if I give Disney something that I can't give someone else that thing.

5:23But if Matt gives a company something, I also cannot take that true we want one list okay so we have to agree we have to agree okay yeah and if we really don't agree then maybe craig will stage an arm wrestling contest or something great great all right you go first lucas what are you taking for disney if i'm disney i am taking netflix's product and engineering team all right i i actually had netflix's user interface and tech stack similar slightly different yes disney plus still on bam tech same concept same concept but but explain why because disney's biggest problem is that its streaming business is fragmented and confusing they own four or five different services people need to go to one place for sports another for general entertainment another place for family they've been trying to slowly integrate you know first disney plus and hulu they'd like to bring sports into disney plus their you know new ceo josh jamaro's whole thing is one disney which maybe involves having just one front home page for people to go to.

6:24Well, that's what, remember, Ted Sarandos has always said at Netflix, he'll know Disney is serious when the streaming service is just called Disney. Yeah, a couple of choices, right? Disney can either decide it wants to be a specialized premium kids family service or a general service. And it's been sort of caught in between, but whichever way it goes, there should only be one place. You should not go to Hulu and Disney Plus. And by stealing the Netflix engineering team, they are more likely to get there? Yes. I think a team that can figure out how to bring all of that into one place effectively, because most people would concede that Netflix has the best product in the streaming space.

7:00And Disney does not lack for programs that people need to want to watch. Yeah. What about the super app? Maybe they can help Disney achieve this super app that tomorrow wants. Well, it's all the same thing, right? If there's going to be one app that can be the home for Disney, I just think Netflix has generally been able to attract better engineers than Disney because it's Netflix and it's the tech company and it's the leader. And there are a whole bunch of reasons why this has been messy for Disney. But the cleanest way I could think of to simplify all of that was just like, okay, Netflix, your product team now works for us.

7:36And even if they have to start from scratch and take two years, they're going to figure it out. yeah the only other contender i had for disney and something that disney would like to take from another company is perhaps dc from warnermount really they have marvel putting all the superheroes under one roof with the consumer products and integrating batman into the you know marvel stuff you could do crossovers and time lapses and all sorts of things then i think they would they would benefit from that but it's not close you think there would be an antitrust review of one company owning both this is this there's no regulatory review you're forgetting here there's no cost associated and there's no government regulations i'm just teasing i had a different version of that which i it it doesn't compare to getting the whole product i actually had k-pop demon hunters on the list because it was the most talked it was the biggest kids property of last year okay but that's one title yeah but if disney had had it they would have been ready with toys merchandise all this stuff and i think importantly it was very popular globally which is an area of weakness for disney i'm not yeah i wasn't my first pick but i think one title you know who wouldn't want the a new franchise that they could do something with because disney has struggled to create new kids franchises yeah i mean you could argue then that disney would like to take spider man from sony because then they wouldn't have to deal with you know just producing the movies and letting Sony reap all the distribution money.

9:01A valid contender. You can change to that one. I would take Spider-Man over K-pop Demon Hunters any day of the week. Yeah, I would too. All right, let's move on. Craig, what are we doing next? So you guys both kind of landed on Netflix's product and engineering team. Yeah, we agreed. That was boring. Yeah, yeah, we agree on that first one. Next up is Comcast. Matt, why don't you go first this time? All right. If I'm Comcast, I am taking HBO Max from WarnerMount. Just the whole service. Interesting. It does exactly what they need right now. They have a very highly non-scaled service in Peacock that is domestic only.

9:35They do not win the awards that HBO does, and they do not have the programming team that HBO does with the Casey Boys team. And HBO Max is growing globally. So I think that if I was running Comcast and I could take one thing, I would solve the streaming problem with HBO Max. Well, we know that they wanted it, right? Because they made a bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, or at least for the pieces of it. And unlike Netflix, that's the key asset they want. They have a library. They want that service. They need to figure out streaming. I agree with you. I just had a different streaming service, which is, I think that they should have Hulu because I thought they should always have Hulu.

10:12Okay, but what is Hulu? Well, that's exactly it. Domestic only. It doesn't solve the global problem. That's fine for Comcast. Comcast has said it does not want to invest at the level that it requires to compete on a global basis. Okay, but remember, this is a free draft. You get to just take it. Yes, but it's not like you then get to just get it for free forever. You actually have to invest in the product. And I think if you're Comcast and your shareholders are most concerned about your connectivity business and you don't want to have to invest billions of dollars in figuring out how to stream in Asia or Latin America, taking Hulu, which from a consumption standpoint is a bigger U.S.

10:52service than HBO Max, has a big advertising business. You already owned a piece of it. You already have some of your programming on it from long-term licensing deals. It's a plug-and-play solution for them. I don't know. I think Comcast saying that they don't want international is like when guys say, oh, I wouldn't want to date Kylie Jenner. I wouldn't want to date whatever model. She'd be too much of a handful. It's like, of course, you don't have it, so you don't want it, you say. I get it. I just think that Hulu fits. Like the types of programs that work on Hulu fit comcast and the nbc universal programming nicely it's it's the most developed and like advertising business comcast is all about advertising all about sports i just i think it's seamless i get with hbo max it's also good but i think there's not quite as neat a uh a brand fit all right so we disagree on this one the only other one for comcast i had also spider-man from sony just to give them some superhero content because they have none i had harry potter because they already have the theme park rights.

11:51Well, they also have Spider-Man rights east of the Mississippi. They do. For theme parks, that's why there's no Spider-Man roller coaster at Disney in Florida. It would allow them to unify everything and I'm just higher on Harry Potter as a property than you are. You think Harry Potter is more valuable than Spider-Man? I'm going to reach across the Zoom and slap you in the face if that's true. I think it's a discussion. Oh, absolutely wrong. Spider-Man is the number one property, hands down. And it will be forever. Forever? Yes. No properties last forever. You do not have a child. Every kid relates to Spider-Man, and it will always be that way.

12:30Disney owns Spider-Man only west of the Mississippi? For theme parks. Wow. Yeah, there was an old deal where Universal got the license to make theme park rides based on Spider-Man east of the Mississippi. Oh, my God. Wow. that's that's wild it's very bizarre all right so are we gonna have to have craig intervene here no i think this is fine because one you guys are similar you both are basically saying streaming services and two i doubt hulu and hbo max are going to come up again so this is still kind of aligned well wait a second we got to choose one though which one wins matt just wants to be declared a victor yeah i i think it's fine to just keep it as it is hbo max and hulu are both like streaming choices for comcast i think that's fine all right all right not satisfying to me but whatever let's move on next up is warnermount which i hate that that's a name but it's warnermount go ahead lucas you can go first because matt went first last time i'm gonna pull off of the the harry potter illusion and just say if warnermount could take anything they would take universal's theme parks business i had that on my list too this company needs to diversify beyond film and tv it makes almost all of its money from cable networks that are dying its streaming services are okay but second tier the studio business is great but it's not the main business.

13:41It's just too reliant on television. And so the best way to do that, as we've seen from Universal and Disney, is theme parks. I picked Universal because, look, Disney has the best parks business, but they're too wrapped up in Disney IP. It wouldn't work. Universal parks are more flexible. They have Harry Potter, which is part of the Warner family. They have the Nintendo stuff. They could create a DC attraction. It'd be super easy. And it would, you know, make them a big player in the experience economy right away. I 100 % agree with everything you said. And the thing with the Universal parks is like they're only loosely branded Universal.

14:16People don't have a emotional connection to the Universal brand like they do the Disney brand. So you could extricate those parks from Universal and start populating them with Warner Brothers IP. And it wouldn't be that big of a change. just put a Superman Batman overlay on some of these roller coasters. They already have the branding. You can do a Game of Thrones experience of some kind. It'd be, yeah, it'd be a no brainer. Yeah, that makes sense. The only other thing I had was perhaps they would want the Netflix tech stack. But that's off the table. Oh, you're right. That's off the table. Damn it.

14:57I know. Cause I was just going to say whatever the Oracle pixie dust that David Ellison thinks he's going to sprinkle on the water mount service like that's a risk i would just go for the best tech stack but that's already off the table i had a couple others but no you had more yeah well i had i had disney plus also because the hbo max service doesn't really traffic in kids content and the paramount service has nickelodeon but it's sort of underutilized and i think disney plus would do a lot for them so i addressed that but in a different way which was i was like what if they just took chris Melodondry from Universal and said, you're in charge of kids programming now.

15:34Go further. Say you could just take Illumination. Well, that's what, yeah. The crazy thing about Warner Brothers and Paramount is they actually have major kids properties, right? Paramount owns Nickelodeon, which was defining cable network of that age. Warner Brothers Animation's been around for almost a century. They have leaders. You know, Warner Brothers has former DreamWorks Animation guy, Bill Domaschke. Skydance has John Lasseter. But, like, neither company has seemingly prioritized kids programming and kids entertainment and so i don't know whether to fault sort of strategy leadership or just like if they got the infusion of no we're like buying this studio that has been really good and we now care about kids it would help us theatrically it would help because it would it would help us with streaming put illumination on a looney tunes movie i mean they are already working on a barbie movie i don't has that been announced i know that it's happening that illumination is doing a barbie animated movie but they would just supercharge it and any studio would be lucky to have illumination but the other thing i thought of is they need an executive and this is not as big a i i'd go the theme parks 10 times out of 10 but like an executive with actual operating experience to help david ellison run the company because that was sort of like why they brought in jeff shell and they got rid of jeff shell and we all understand why yeah but well you got to name one who would they take i i couldn't come up with the right name i mean who is the best studio operator right now donna langley at universal no but that's a different job that is who is the best we're talking about someone who is like a coo okay not picking the movies in tv correct they they should have that right they have a wealth of creative executives mike de luca pam at like at all the casey bloys all cindy holland all these people well they would argue that they have that already but yeah that's what i'm saying they they need someone who's gonna like figure out help them cut costs and like streamline operations and structure the business and all that stuff yeah well they would say that their coo andy gordon is doing that but right and he has a lot of experience in finance but not as an operator yeah that's true i know uh we still haven't named who that person would be but that's okay this episode is brought to you by peacock presenting all her fault for your emmy consideration.

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19:11So yeah, Holiday Inn. It's a new day and a new stay. Book your next day at HolidayInn.com. What's next? All right, so we landed on the Universal Theme Parks business. So what's off the table so far? HBO Max and Hulu, the Netflix product and engineering team, and the Universal Theme Parks business is off the table. Next up is Netflix. Matt, you can go first. I actually have a bunch of things, but I'm going to go with ESPN. Interesting. I think that that's the missing piece for Netflix. they say they don't want sports rights because they're so expensive you know what they're in at the big table now they can afford it and if they really want a supercharge they should just go right after espn take it from disney and instantly be the number one player in sports i like that i thought you were going to do because when we talked about this before you were talking about just taking like the cbs or fox package for football yeah they could do that too but espn is better.

20:11Going bigger and just saying we'll take the preeminent brand in sports media. Disney has flirted with getting rid of it. We'll take it off your hands happily. You guys don't appreciate what you have. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Exactly. And they would shut down the linear channel perhaps or keep it as a 24-hour stream on Netflix. And they would have not only football, but they'd have college football, they'd have baseball, they'd have NBA, all the stuff that ESPN is. It's the number one aggregator of sports yes they would be inheriting a lot of assets and complications that they have historically said they don't want from a linear network to journalism to all to a web a different website and all of that fantasy sports but i think the core of what espn has those sports rights is value i actually went with a different disney property i went with pixar oh interesting i actually had i had disney's animation unit so i was going a little bigger than that but sure same I mean, look, Netflix has never really, despite Ted Sarandos' ambitions, Netflix has never really figured out kids' properties.

21:13Like, K-pop Demon Hunters, for now, is a fluky aberration. How dare you? Swapped? Swapped came out last weekend, was number one. They have the most popular service. They are a network, but they need to act more like a studio. They do not have multiple ways to profit from their hits. And part of it is they haven't really developed franchises. And the best places to get that have been sort of Marvel and Pixar. And I think Marvel, which skews more broad-based than adult, they don't necessarily need. But the kids thing is really hard. And there are only a few places that know how to do it. And Pixar is one of them.

21:46And so I think that would solve a lot of their problems. I would just go a little bigger and also take Disney animation because then you get Frozen and Moana. I was trying to be more specific. But yes, we can just take Disney animation. You're right. Yeah. And the leadership, you know, above both would go with them. And all of a sudden, you're the number one player in kids programming. So this is basically a question, what does Netflix need more kids' properties and franchises or sports? Yeah. The only other one I had was I thought maybe Netflix could take the Disney cruise line. Because you can't de-brand the theme parks out of Disney, but you could switch over the cruise lines.

22:24A Netflix cruise? Who's going on a Netflix cruise? paint the ships red and replace all the disney stuff on the cruise with stranger things and you know all the different netflix programming i bet someday there will be a floating netflix experiential situation whether they own it or not but disney owns this cruise line and that would be a great business for netflix i don't i don't see it no i had two others i had that Netflix has been interested in DC. They think they can do a better job with it than Warner has done. I actually think that DC would in some ways appeal to Netflix more than Marvel because they would say that Disney has exploited Marvel as well as anyone could, whereas DC, there's upside.

23:12And the other is sort of the murmurs about Casey Bloys and where is he going to go from HBO and is he going to go to Netflix, something like that. There is sort of a, this is more about perception and I don't think it matters as much as the other stuff we've talked about. But if you were to create sort of a subdivision of Netflix that was just like premium HBO style programming to combat this kind of prevailing narrative that Netflix doesn't make good stuff anymore, I think it would kind of help them. I don't know. I think that's the thing they don't feel they need. No, no. I know that they don't think they need it.

23:42That's why. Yeah. And they've resisted sub brands. They've had every opportunity to create sub brands on Netflix and they have chosen not to. Yeah. So they see the algorithm as the sub brand. I disagree with them, but that's what they see. So I don't think they want the HBO style programming. I think that the other thing that they might want is something like to be from Fox. Yeah. Have a fast channel. You know, Netflix does not have a fast business. And as we see the ad businesses powering all of these services, maybe Netflix would benefit from a free ad tier. Yeah. Or maybe it would cannibalize what they're already offering with ads.

24:21Yeah. I don't know that they want all the programming that's on Tubi. But yeah, it's a thought. Maybe. Okay, where are we going next? Craig's got to be the tiebreaker on this one. Yeah. So between ESPN and Pixar for Netflix, I'm going to take ESPN. Between ESPN and Disney Animation. I'm going to take ESPN. I mean, Netflix just has K-pop Demon Hunters. I'm more confident that they can figure that out. Sports is the most valuable thing you can have right now. And Netflix having Monday Night Football every week, Netflix having the Super Bowl, Netflix having the college football playoff, And having ESPN lets them lean into like the podcast style morning talk content, which they also are trying to get into right now.

24:55And having first take and all that stuff now, PTI, that they can run every day during the day for people at home. I think that is exactly what they want to do. You think Netflix should buy the ringer, basically. I know, Lucas, you said they don't have fantasy sports. Well, they kind of do. They have our show right now. How dare you? The fantasy football show. So here's the thing I'd say on that, though, is if Netflix wanted those big sports packages, they would go and bid on them. Right. All of that takes is money. Yeah, that's true. ESPN is renting. They have shown that they want the kids' properties.

25:27They have spent a ton of money and they have not gotten what they wanted from it. Keep in mind, though, this game, there's no cost associated with it. You just transplant ESPN. I'm just I'm just showing I'm just talking about what they have shown that they want. I think they want sports, but they are wary of participating in an arms race that will cause those sports rights to get even higher than they already are. And they're dipping their toe. Eventually, we all know there will be a regular football package on Netflix. Right. But it might not be for 12 years. Maybe not for a while. Okay. So, Craig, you're picking ESPN over Pixar.

26:04I'm picking ESPN. And now last but not least, we have Amazon and Lucas, you have first selection. This is where I went really specific. Because I struggled with Amazon. And I sort of had a tie, so I might change my mind midway. But I sort of did a Shonda Rhimes slash Taylor Sheridan type person. I think they need a showrunner. What are you talking about? That person doesn't exist. You mean one of those? Yeah. Oh, they need a show runner who supplies consistent hits to their demo. They've replaced the executives. What they need is a hit maker. They need steady, consistent programs that people actually want to watch.

26:44They need their version of the Sheridan verse. Yeah. Yeah. I'll buy that. I don't know if that's the one thing that I would take from another company. I mean, they could, again, they could have gone after Taylor Sheridan for the deal that he did with NBC and they didn't. We don't know. Maybe they did. and he chose elsewhere the other thing i thought about was that they would take the the nfl playoff packages that any of their rivals have they already have football yeah but they don't have the playoffs and they really want the playoffs what what what is yours that it's like some big transformation they don't want a theme park business no i think they would want marvel they would want marvel they've had a lot of success with the boys they have that like younger genre demo and they have consistent with Fallout and The Boys.

27:31And if they had Marvel, I think they, and all those shows, and they're doing theatrical movies, I think that would be a game changer for Amazon. Fair. Maybe not as big as Shonda Rhimes. Shonda Rhimes will eventually get tired of this and retire. Marvel is forever. Yes. Look, they bought MGM. They clearly want IP. And I think Marvel is probably an answer for a lot of people. You're not high on it, though. I think it's totally fair. Look, we're basically just like picking off different parts of all this reinforces is that Disney has a lot of stuff that other people want. I know it's funny. This exercise has really made me a bigger believer in Disney because they don't have a lot of weaknesses.

28:15They have a lot of stuff that people would kill to have. Yeah. They just need to figure out how to harness it all is their problem. Yeah. Craig, where does that leave us? uh well selecting between what taylor sheridan or marvel for amazon yeah both of these feel kind of underwhelming i don't know why it's like you're paying for past performance not future these are i agree that's what that's the thing i struggled with with marvel a little bit i mean anyone would take it but just having all those movies on your service 20 20 something years of those movies will be great forever the other thing i had was another disney business that amazon would love is their consumer products business.

28:54I mean, Amazon, the world's biggest shopping site would probably love to control the Frozen and Moana and Disney brand. But they don't need to own it. They can just sell it. Well, but if they owned it, it'd be even better. They could pump it down our throats and have it be the first thing you see when you turn on amazon.com. Part of the problem with Amazon is that they don't, it's, it's the only one of these companies where entertainment is not actually their main business. So we're sort of picking what would make Amazon Prime Video more appealing, but not necessarily what would tie into the larger Amazon corporate mandate.