Netflix’s NFL Booth & CBS’s Romo Conundrum

0:04Congratulations! You made the varsity, the podcast. My name is John Aranda and I am a sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today is a treat. Given everything that's been happening with Tony Romo and Ryan Clark and Pat McAfee's pending deal, I asked Gideon Cohen to come onto the pod. Now, I've known Gideon for a while. He's a great talent agent who is now a senior executive at Athletes First. And he has a really smart and experienced look at the business. But before I get to Gideon, today is Wednesday, August 5th. And here's what I'm watching. Today, I'm focused on the Big East Conference, which has a new commissioner.

0:43Tim Brosnan, a former baseball executive, is going to replace Val Ackerman as commissioner. And I think it's a great choice for the Big East. Brosnan, he's an experienced and well-connected executive who helped turn Major League Baseball into a powerhouse, at least in business terms. Tim's a Big East guy. He went to Georgetown and he helped that school set up an NIL collective. But what really interests me is how Brazen sold the committee on his vision. He's going to bring more of a business sense to the conference. Take the Big East tournament, for example, held in Madison Square Garden every March.

1:19That's a prime example of a tentpole event that the rest of the business really sees as undervalued. There's no reason that the Big East tournament can't be eventized, to steal a word from Netflix, into something bigger. And that's something Brosnan oversaw at baseball and is a blueprint that he can use here. Anyway, I'm really bullish on this choice for the Big East. As for now, let's get to Gideon Cohen. Gideon Cohen, thank you very much for joining the pod. I wanted to get you on this pod for a while because you have a lot of clients and you deal with all of the streamers and you deal with all the networks.

1:53And we just seem to be at a point in time where the middle class for on-air talent seems to really be getting squeezed. And we're at the, I don't know if it's a tail end, but the whole cord cutting era continues to run a pace. It's been going on for about 10 years. And you end up with media companies that are in sort of cost cutting mode. And so you have needle movers on one end, like Stephen A. Smith or Pat McAfee that command huge contracts. And then you have fill-ins on the other end, sort of almost newer talent. And it really has seemed to have led to a point where that middle class of on-air talent really is getting squeezed.

2:36As somebody that is in the trenches and dealing with this day-to-day, is that an accurate portrayal of what's going on? It is. You know, look, there's no way to sugarcoat it. There's a lot of anxiety right now. I think if you're a, you know, quote unquote, middle class network talent, if you're a talent who's at a local sports network, anything related to cable, I think there's obviously a lot of uncertainty. I've been doing this for about 25 years and obviously I've seen many different iterations of the business. When I first started, it was like a feeding frenzy. If you were a host or anchor or reporter, you had new cable networks popping up, you had regional sports networks popping up.

3:23And I think some of these regionals would hire like eight to 10 on-air talent. So the market, you know, it's kind of this supply and demand thing. There was a ton of demand and really not enough supply. So again, when I began, we would really sign people that we thought were talented, but it was more of a question of where do you want to go? What regional do you want to go? What city do you want to go to? And frankly, there were many options for those people. I think now cutting back a lot of studio shows across the board, obviously the situation with the RSNs, there's a ton of uncertainty and the rank and file are the ones who really get squeezed in all this.

4:05You know, I'm so glad you brought up the regional sports networks because I had a story in my private email, The Varsity, last week that talked about right around 2013, about 13, 14 years ago, you had Fox launching FS1, launching an entirely new sports channel. You had NBC rebranding its own sports channel. You had CBS Sports Network. It was rebranding. And all of these national networks started, were out there trying to get as much talent as they could. And what better way to get talent than by going to ESPN and pilfering some of their talent? As you mentioned, there's also the RSN aspect and all the RSN studio shows, pre-games, post-shows, you know, the announcers sort of at the game.

4:55Did that create a market that was artificially high? And so, of course, we're going to get to where we are now. I don't know if anybody really could have foreseen this falling off a cliff. I mean, obviously, we've known for several years about cord cutting and some, I will say some RSNs in particular, operated from a very antiquated sense of comfort. They felt like everything was just going to continue as it was. And I was always shocked in speaking to them because it's like, all right, you're going to ignore what's happening digitally. like you're not going to pour resources into that. You're basically just going to go with this model of like pregame show, halftime show, postgame show, you know, the same exact, like some of these rundowns were the same as they were 10, 15 years ago.

5:45There was very little innovation. So I think if you, I was always blown away when I would speak to general managers of regionals, I'm like, do you guys not see this coming? Like how, how can you not see this coming? And so obviously that just, a lot of talented people got laid off. And that flooded the marketplace. And now there just aren't the same amount of those specific kinds of jobs. I think a lot of networks have determined that studio programming is extremely expensive. It might not be worth it for them to hire multiple camera crews, stagehands, lighting people. I mean, these are all union jobs.

6:27So the costs are astronomical. And so from a dollars and cents standpoint, studio shows being eliminated has really cut the market in a dramatic way. And on top of that, you can tell from this show, which it's on Ness and Marquis, Sportsnet LA, among others, I'm at my house in DC, you're at your home in Connecticut, and we're able to talk and do it this way and viewers coming out of the uh the pandemic have the the made made the statement that they don't really care that much about quality of video i mean they want higher quality video but if it's that they're more interested in the information i think that's a the main message that's sort of gotten out to a lot of these media executives is like care less about this digital studio with the bells and whistles and care more about getting Mina Kimes talking from her, you know, from her, the front steps of her house or something along those lines.

7:26Yeah, it's become much more about the personalities you can engage with than, oh, wow, like, you know, the quality of this highlight package. Because most of the time, people have seen that highlight package already. I have a 13 year old and a 10 year old. And, and, you know, by the time I wake up in the morning, they know everything that's happened in sports because they've watched highlight reels that I haven't watched. I'm like, how do you know all this? I was with you last night. You didn't watch the game. I watched the game, but you already know more than I do. And so I think the more you can engage with people online, Mina Kimes is a great example.

8:0320 years ago, you couldn't engage with Mina Kimes. You couldn't get her real-time thoughts on things. And that's really where the emphasis has gone. I'm always very surprised when I walk into a big network and I just see like all these, like a massive amount of, of space, a lot, you know, all this equipment, all these bells and whistles. Meanwhile, there are influencers and content creators that are making millions and millions of dollars that literally use their iPhone. So again, like I understand, you know, what we're trying to do here from putting the best quality product out there. And if you're a place like ESPN, of course, you know the the live events are going to be extremely significant you're going to put your best people on those but but i will say when it comes to the studio shows there clearly has been a resetting of the market and unfortunately for someone like me who represents talent that has that has affected talent quite a bit and i don't really want to take the conversation this way but you just did say something that's like been one of my bugaboos about you know what are we going to do about the these kids these kids are growing up and they're not sports fans i i my kids are now grown and out of the house but they are they are avid sports fans they just consume it a lot differently than than you and me and and and that's that's something that that's been difficult to to realize you know the idea of i'm following the same team but i'm following it from from social media is so much different than the way i grew up and certainly the way you grew up Yeah.

9:36And, and, uh, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to call myself old by any stretch of the imagination, but I would never say that. Never. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. But, you know, like my 13 year old, my 10 year old, even the, even those two, there's a gap in terms of how they look at, um, viewing sports, engaging with their phones, engaging with social media, which I think is fascinating, right? Like every year, every day, things get different in the way people consume content. And so my 10-year-old is like obsessed with, you know, like for him, it's part of life. You know, the iPad is part of his life.

10:15And so as you look at sports being broadcast, content being created, there has to be a real emphasis on like, okay, when this 10-year-old is, you know, 21, 25, making a living, that's who we're trying to get. and it's only going to keep getting more and more complicated and interwoven with social media as time goes on. I want to take back that example of, and I'm going to give you three different scenarios here. One is I am a veteran on-air talent that just got laid off, say like, you know, moral ravage type. One is I'm, you know, I'm sort of well established. I'm like in my thirties and, and, and, and I'm out there looking for work.

11:04And one is I just graduated from college and I'm trying to get out there. Your, your advice to them, would it, would it, would you give different pearls of advice to each of them? Or is it, is it all the same about what you said earlier embrace digital embrace social embrace sort of talking onto an an iphone like give me your your the type of advice that you would give to people that would look for this type of work you have listen if somebody if somebody was in college or even in high school and they were interested in the media i would say they need to start creating content like tomorrow and figuring out a way to start creating content tomorrow.

11:46It takes a very long time to build a following, first of all, takes a very long time to build a revenue stream. I mean, it could take five or 10 years, but you need to get a head start if that's what you want to do with your career. So I think it's different for somebody like that versus the second person, sort of the mid-level person that you mentioned. I do think the overarching theme here, though, is that you have to have some sort of a presence digitally if you're going to survive in the business right now. I also think you have to have some sort of a presence traditionally, by the way. I think it's a combination of both.

12:26I don't think you can lean into either one necessarily and say, this is the way I'm going to go. Obviously, there's still an insane amount of credibility that you get from being on ESPN, of CBS and NBC and Amazon. Those just give you a layer of credibility. Even if you look at like what, you know, some of the more successful content creators like Dude Perfect have been able to do. You know, the deal they did with Amazon was groundbreaking. And so I think you need a combination of both. But if you're somebody who all you've done is traditional media, all you've done is host shows, you have to figure out a way to develop your digital profile.

13:06otherwise you're going to have a very hard time having a long-term future in the business. Now for somebody like, you know, an elder statesman that's been doing it for a long time. I mean, it's, it's, there's no question it's a challenge. The good thing for somebody like, like Carl and, you know, I don't want to talk about a specific situation because I really just don't know, but you have to, you have to use your the profile that you've built with the people that would appreciate that. So when I say that, I'm talking about network executives at the highest level that might say, well, Carl Ravitch is a respected host and play-by-play voice, and he makes our network better if we put him on X, Y, and Z.

13:48That's kind of the strategy for someone like that versus someone just graduating from college. you know what's wild to me gideon is the the way that you answered that question is you shouted out espn and cbs and nbc and then you used without taking a breath amazon in that in that same uh in that same sentence there to you as somebody who places talent at different places there really is not a big difference between traditional broadcast and some of these bigger streamers obviously there's a difference in terms of their business models but i think that in the sports ecosphere the sports media ecosphere amazon is is just as big of a player now as any of the traditional networks you know i think that's pretty obvious and having having rights deals and rights packages with the nba and the nfl has put them in that category um so yeah i think a hundred percent they're to me they're lumped into that conversation they're not just like oh it's a streamer and, you know, it's, it's completely separate.

14:54Like there were Knicks playoff games on Amazon Prime this year, you know, and much to the chagrin of, of people who, you know, needed to flip around between Amazon Prime and, you know, direct TV stream and YouTube TV. But the reality is like, that's a, that's monumental stuff. When you can have, when you can have post-season games on a streamer, to me, it's, it's in the conversation as mainstream. you uh made a little bit of news this week when netflix announced their uh nfl um talent that they're going to use uh moving forward you had a couple of uh people that that they're gonna have um have in there um was that negotiation how was that negotiation with netflix sort of like a new entrant you know that we talk about eventizing on this pod all the time How is that different from traditional linear television, some of the old broadcasters?

15:49Yeah, I mean, I think obviously with Netflix, it's a limited series of events. So for, you know, you alluded to the news that came out about the broadcasters, and we represent Nick Foles, Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Eagles, and Clay Matthews, Super Bowl winning linebacker, multi-time Pro Bowler for the Green Bay Packers. both those guys are going to be incredible. And I think everyone's going to be like, wow, what a breath of fresh air when they see them. And by the way, I give Netflix and their executives a ton of credit for taking a chance on guys who've never done it before. I mean, Clay and Nick have never done it before.

16:26And look, due to a lot of circumstances, they got those opportunities. One of those circumstances being that other networks are becoming much more hesitant to allow their talent to work with Netflix because to what we just were talking about with Amazon, like Netflix is gobbling up rights. They're stepping on their territory. And so the pool that you have of people to choose from for these events is very different than if you were at ESPN or an NBC. So it's an amazing opportunity for Clay and Nick. It's a limited amount of games that are featured in this package, which, you know, again, like some guys don't want to do, especially guys like Nick and Clay, who have made a ton of money in their playing careers, they don't necessarily want to leave their families for 20 weeks a year, or, you know, from Friday to Sunday, like weekends are big for these guys.

17:22So it presented an amazing opportunity for both when you're looking at the limited amount of days that a package like that would require. So help me as I look at this. When Netflix was making their decisions, what is their sort of elevator pitch for their show? How is their show going to be different than NFL Today or Fox NFL Sunday? well it's being produced by a major network so i think it's possible that it wouldn't be that different frankly um you know obviously you're going to have the um you know the netflix uh you know pixie dust thrown on it whether that's burt kreischer or will ferrell or michael buffer you know i was at the i was at the home run derby in philadelphia a couple of weeks ago and um i gotta say being there with michael buffer announcing the you know the two finalists in the home run Derby like that was incredibly cool um and and obviously that was that was a Netflix event so they're going to put their stamp on things one way or the other whether people like it or not and the reality is like no one's not going to watch uh the first game of the season in Australia because Will Ferrell might show up for two minutes on on the pregame show right so I don't know Burt Kreischer going shirtless might keep might might keep big people turn off the TV.

18:43That might happen, I think. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of layers to burn, I guess. But, you know, but it's, yeah, it's something where you just, this is kind of part of it. Netflix is an entertainment company and this is the way they want to do it. And I give them credit for wanting to be a little bit different. Why do things like you're going to copy the NFL today? You know, you're going to copy some of these shows that have been doing it for, you know, 30, 40 years, like that would make absolutely no sense. So they're trying things and some of them work, some of them don't, but it's a work in progress.

19:19And I think they're smart enough and successful enough to figure it all out.

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20:44Come find your sacred yes with me. Follow and listen to For the Love wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so all things being equal, from salary-wise to, you know, to job-wise, you know, the amount of games that you have to work. Does broadcast still carry a prominence to you, or is the line so close that it doesn't matter anymore? It sounds to me, from the way that you've been answering already, that there is no line, that working for Netflix and hitting a different audience is just the same as working for CBS. Am I hearing you correctly on that? I still think there's a level of prominence to working with any of the traditional networks, CBS, NBC, Fox.

21:32If you're going to be on ABC for the Super Bowl, that is still an elite level of exposure. And at this point, obviously, Netflix and Amazon don't have the Super Bowl. They might someday, but as of now, they don't. And so I think those networks are still giving you the biggest reach possible. Obviously, if you're somebody who's going to watch on Sunday NFL Ticket or NFL Red Zone, which is hosted by our client, Scott Hansen, those games are all looped in from the broadcast networks. And so until that changes, they're still going to be just simply by how the numbers are, an elite level of viewership.

22:16Let's go on to another different topic, sort of the story of the day, which is late Friday, Friday news dump Tony Romo was suspended by CBS Sports after a week of drip drip drip headlines of after he was arrested for DUI and I think it was a Wisconsin is somewhere somewhere in the north I forget exactly where but that then the the video of the rest of the arrest came out then the allegation that he had an open container in the car came out and then CBS had in CBS's defense, they really had to suspend him at some point to let this play out. As somebody that represents talent, how would you how would you react to that?

23:01Like what's take me through through your your thought process if this if this was one of your clients in a similar position? Yeah, and I'll start by prefacing this as athletes first doesn't represent Tony Romo. I have no specific knowledge of what his specific contract says. Every contract is different. Things have been negotiated in there that, that, you know, I'm not privy to that. Most of us are not privy to all I can go on is what has been made public, you know? And I guess the first thing that jump jumps out at me is like the body cam footage, you know, the fact that like, you know, that everybody has seen.

23:41My entire Twitter feed for like three days was body cam footage of Tony Romo. And so we're in a different age where people are going to evaluate things very differently. More people are aware of incidents like this than ever before. And I know a lot of reporters over the last couple of days have talked about morals clauses and contracts. Just about every contract, at least any substantial contract has a morals clause, which covers in most cases being arrested, bringing your employer into a bad public light. And at that point, if you violate that portion of the contract, a network typically has its discretion to do something about it, whether doing something about it is suspending the talent, firing the talent.

24:32Again, that's up to their discretion. I think discretion is a very, very key word here. Because contracts are contracts, like, you know, if you're just going by the contract, yeah, sure, they have every right to, to do what they want to do. But it is at their discretion. So if they decide that they don't want to do something, you know, obviously, they've, you know, Tony's taken a leave, you know, We don't know how long that's going to be, but it is at their discretion. And I would look at like, you know, if you're talking about a star quarterback in the NFL and that quarterback gets arrested for the same exact thing that Tony Romo did, would they be suspended?

25:18Would they have their contract terminated? I think we both know the answer to that. So ultimately, it's up to the employer to make that call. I could do something to violate, let's say I get arrested for DUI. My employer could certainly decide to terminate me. What I think would happen in that case is we'd have a conversation. He would hopefully give me the benefit of the doubt and want to know all the circumstances, investigate on his own, and then make a decision. Obviously, in this case, David Burson's a smart, thoughtful, caring person. He's a great human being. And I'm sure he values the relationship with Tony quite a bit.

26:01CBS treats talent very well. They look at it as a family. And so I think all that plays in. What no one really knows is the context. There's been a lot of things reported, but we really don't know what's happened behind closed doors over the last few years, besides what's been reported. And so I think because we don't know that, it's very hard to really take a guess at what would happen here. But as an agent, you fight for your clients to get the best possible language to protect them should a situation like this come up. And again, you just hope that your relationship with the network, the talent's relationship with the network would give the talent the benefit of the doubt.

26:46So take me through what your role would be as an agent in this circumstance. It's plainly obvious to me that Tony Romo is suspended until the court date comes, and then they'll make a determination. That's, I think, mid-September. There'll be a couple of games into the season by then. are you saying like okay we'll revisit are you are you calling and sort of lobbying every day you do i mean your job is not to necessarily be a pest but you do have to advocate for your client like what would what would your blueprint be in this type of case if that was your client i think for i mean look first and foremost it goes without saying that you want to make sure your client is okay right like you want to make sure that there's like this is a this is a uh you know, criminal case.

27:36And so that's a very serious matter. And you want to make sure that, you know, first of all, from a safety standpoint, your client's okay, mentally that they're okay. And then you want to just have conversations with the network, understand where they're coming from. I mean, look, when you're talking about contracts and very specific language, especially when it comes to morals clauses, that's for people that are way smarter than me. That's for a lawyer that, you know, there's lawyers involved. There's people that, you know, that are employment lawyers that really understand kind of the depth of that language and what the actual laws are.

28:10So I think my guess is that there's a lot of deliberation going on between all the CBS executives, the Skydance executives, and they're trying to figure out what their strategy is with legal teams and potentially with Tony's representation and legal teams. But it is a very tricky legal issue, which, again, I am not smart enough to figure out myself, but I would do the best that I can to help my client present the best case. If that's lobbying, if that's maintaining the relationship with the network, then that's exactly what I would do. This is why it's so hard to handicap, because you referenced David Burson.

28:54He's, of course, the president of CBS Sports. and they have going back to the sean mcmanus days they've treated cbs sports like a family and that the people that are there and everybody says that but cbs like i talked i talked to you and your compatriots other agents they always describe cbs as a great place for for talent that they they really do sort of treat them that way and so in one sense i can see uh david burson wanting to to step up and saying okay you know what what can we do to help tony how can we keep him and put him back in because he is well, they do, despite a lot of the negative press that Tony Romo gets, he is well liked among, among casual sports fans every time they, they trot out those, those, but at the same time, you have Paramount that just took over CBS and they're in the midst of trying to buy Warner Brothers Discovery and they have a boatload of debt and they're, they, they need to cut costs and you have an 18 million dollar a year uh number one uh nfl analyst that you could perhaps a slide jj watt in there instead you know and and save yourself you know i i don't know what jj watt makes but let's say seven or eight million dollars a year you know first for a company that wants to cut costs that that seems like a a no-brainer too but it's hard to see what's going to win out at the end to me yeah like listen well first of all you shouldn't be talking to other agents.

30:20I'm the only agent that knows what he's talking about. But second, I regret it every single time getting. I would too. The again, it comes down to the context, and it comes down to the history. And it comes down to things that are, again, we're not necessarily even thinking about that go just way higher than just like, like an OWI or whatever it was called. You know, it's, it's, it's well beyond that. I mean, this is, there's, there's, there's legal implications, there's financial implications. But what I said earlier about the discretion, I think is really the key and not enough people are really talking about that.