Soccer’s American Dream

0:04Andrew Marchand:Congratulations! You made the Varsity Podcast. My name is John O 'Reilly and I'm a sports correspondent and host of this pod. And today, my friend and former podcast partner Andrew Marchand returns to the Varsity. Andrew's, of course, the senior sports media columnist at The Athletic and he hosts a great podcast at andrewmarchand.com. Andrew's also a big soccer fan, so we're going to focus today on the World Cup and where soccer in the United States can go from here. But before we get to Andrew, today is Sunday, June 28th, and here's what I'm watching. Sports documentaries. I wrote a story in my private email last week about the shrinking market for sports documentaries.

0:48Andrew Marchand:TV networks and streamers still want these docs, but they've become much more selective about what they actually want to pay for. And this marks a really big change in the sports media space, because coming out of COVID, when streamers needed inventory, sports docs saw something of a gold rush. Back then, streamers didn't have rights to a lot of live events, so if it wanted to attract NBA fans, for example, the low-cost way to do that was through buying, say, the Rights to the Dream Team documentary. Don't have F1 rights? No problem. Just run Drive to Survive. And then we had a glut of these types of shows.

1:27Andrew Marchand:Fly on the wall, all-access documentaries that covered just about every single sport. It's apparent that oversaturation and price inflation has recalibrated the whole business. Now, the prices for documentaries have all but cratered. I was told that some docs that used to go for$7 or$8 million are now getting$2 million. But the bottom has not fully dropped out yet. Ben Stiller, he got a lot of airtime during the NBA finals for his work on a Knicks doc that's going to appear on HBO. And just a couple of days ago, Netflix premiered a doc on Martina Navratilova and Chris Everett. But the current phase of the streaming wars is all about cost control, and companies like Netflix are learning that in some cases it's cheaper to create shoulder programming with de facto studio shows than with a mid-level documentary.

2:16Andrew Marchand:Okay, now let's get to The Athletic's Andrew Marchand. Andrew Marchand, thank you for joining again this is like this is your type of show because you're a big soccer fan uh you are almost uh you i believe intramural all-star at ithaca college back in the day in in soccer all i won a championship as a freshman kind of same period as carmel anthony at syracuse winning the national championship a lot of people make that comparison uh the world cup has taken over the States. And of course, we're seeing like, you know, packed stadiums, fun atmospheres, crazy TV ratings. Everything seems to be going well.

3:03Andrew Marchand:Give me your overall, not just with Fox or with Telemundo, but your overall view of how the World Cup has been playing in the U.S. so far. Yeah, it's been a big success thus far. lead up. There's a lot of talk about the prices and they are crazy. And then the political climate, it's kind of the case, as I think you pointed out, in all World Cups, that's always a thing, Olympics. And it's gone really well. I mean, the games have been great. US has done well. And it's just wall-to-wall soccer. And it's really been, I think, what's been the best part And social media is kind of terrible overall. But to see all these different people from different countries come to the United States with their traditions and kind of be, it feels like embraced by everybody, has really, really been fun to watch.

4:05So I think it's been a little bit more than soccer.

4:08Andrew Marchand:yeah watching some of my social feeds watching the guys going to mexican restaurants and getting free chips and salsa yeah that was was uh i could watch that forever and then i think there was also one i saw some uh some some brit i think was in philly trying a cheesesteak for the first time and it was it was just like those are those are great videos that really do kind of just show the promise of the World Cup. It is a relentingly positive story right now, I think, for FIFA, for the World Cup, for U.S. soccer, for everybody that's associated with it. But we're journalists, so let's harp on the negatives.

4:51Andrew Marchand:What could they do better? What is not going as well as planned in your mind? Yeah, I think the hydration breaks are terrible. I don't think anybody likes that except for... Hydrate. By the way, hydration breaks. Are they here for good, you think? I'm working on something maybe for a story. I would say that they probably are. You look at these things, usually when they have a chance to make more money and they introduce them, they don't go back. The Euros, which come every two years between the World Cup, they've already announced that they will not have the quarter system. but the World Cup, FIFA says we're not making any more money.

5:35Well, yeah, but next negotiations, if you have commercial breaks, which has always been an issue for soccer because it's continuous play, I think it will be in there. I do have an idea for one of these streamers who have so much money, say we will make our bid. We do not want hydration breaks unless the heat is too high and you have to do it. we want continuous action we think that's better for fans I think that'd be very popular if a Netflix or somebody did that and said look we're making our bid we want the World Cup we want it without hydration breaks we're making our bid without hydration breaks we don't control FIFA but that's our preference and so I think that would be a very popular thing to do I think most people who like soccer who know soccer know that the flow of the game is not ruined but it just doesn't feel right.

6:30I know in most, if not all, American sports, we have TV timeouts. We just blatantly call them TV timeouts. Now they've called them match breaks. First was hydration breaks. They're trying to figure out a name for it. But they're TV timeouts in dome stadiums. There's no hydration issue.

6:50Andrew Marchand:I do have to say, as an American that's used to those breaks, breaks the the hydration breaks don't bother me that much in fact it it is a good break for me to get up and go to the go to the refrigerator it's a it's a break you know it's a i can understand internationally where you know soccer is a game that's that's just played continuously like soccer rugby all of the all the international sports you know there are there are no breaks i i can understand outside of the united states where it's like you know hair on fire like what are we doing here but within the u.s i other than from people like you like big soccer fans like you're a hardcore soccer fan so of course you hate the hyper hydration breaks but for more casual soccer fans or for u.s sports fans it it the it does fit into a certain rhythm i think for uh for the u.s i would say that when you have organizations like fifa or any of the leagues that we cover regularly in the US.

7:53A lot of times they'll say, we're doing this for the fans, we're doing that for the fans. And really they're doing it for the money. They're not doing the hydration break for

8:00Andrew Marchand:the fans. Yeah, no doubt. Exactly. So I guess what you're saying, if FIFA is a steward of the game, then there should not be hydration breaks unless it's 100 degrees. And that caused, there's an issue that people need water after 20, 25 minutes. And the one thing about it is soccer is the only sport that you don't regularly, you know, you're able to drink water or Gatorade or whatever. You know, every other sport, you can come out, there's you know, so that is different. I mean, but that also makes it special. You can get a little water, somebody gets hurt, they bring a little water on the field, you know, generally during a game, but that's what makes it, because it's endurance, you know, they've added more subs, there used to be fewer substitutions, now you're up to five subs.

8:48Again, those are fine. But it just, so you ask for a negative. It's a major negative, though. It's just the flow of the game. And I also would argue that in a streaming world, soccer has had the advantage of not having timeouts, that you're in and out within two hours if there's no extra time, which in the group play that we're just completing, there's no extra time. So that's really good. Once you add hydration breaks in, John Strong, Fox's number one play-by-play announcer, he has his saying at the end of halftime, 45 minutes down, 45 to go, he loves to say. But it's never 45. It's always 50 minutes down.

9:32And who knows how much time is to go. And so I don't know. I just don't know extending that time, making the games longer in a streaming world. I just think it's a huge advantage that we pointed out in the old podcast. Two hours, you're in, you're out with soccer. now you're extending that to more than two hours again it's not way over two but still it's um there's an extension to it so which i don't think is as good let's jump topics uh for a second let's

9:57Andrew Marchand:the world cup in 2030 the next one it's going to be i think spain portugal morocco those rights in the u.s are still uh up for grabs and a lot of markets but specifically in the u.s will there be will there be hydration breaks as a part of of that um that renewal those i hope not i hope not i would tend to think there will be yeah i mean i don't know once you once you introduce them and yes people don't like it but there haven't been protests the ratings have been good i think fifa is going to a quarter system here for its biggest event in the world. That's a shame. This is what happens. Like you said, there are no protests and people aren't turning it off at the hydration breaks and not watching.

10:48Andrew Marchand:The ratings are going up and the attendance is going up, even with these hydration breaks that are lining the pockets this year of Fox for hundreds of millions of dollars, I guess. And, you know, next year it'll be it'll be lining the next go round. It'll be lining the pockets of FIFA. World Cup 2030, four years away. Really, the cool thing about the beat that we cover, you know, the sports media beat is who knows what it's going to look like and who's even going to be around in 2030. We're talking now with Roku and Fox as sort of an entity going forward, which even six months ago, we, you know, would have been almost an impossibility to conceive.

11:35Andrew Marchand:Right now, like, the streamers are building out their ad tiers. The streamers have buckets of money lining their pockets. And the streamers love big events. And you can see from, you know, every single market that this is in, the World Cup is a big event. And I find it very difficult to see a traditional linear TV company like an ESPN or like a Fox coming in unless they start partner with one of the streamers to say, we'll give you a broadcast home as well for some of the bigger matches. How do you see this moving forward? This seems like a streamer event. I mean, we've talked about this a number of times.

12:18What do streamers really want? They want the biggest events. they want global. There's basically nothing more global than the World Cup. The Olympics can rival it, but I'd say the World Cup, when you look at most popular sport in the world, you'd have to say is soccer. And so it works in so many different markets. So I just think it makes a lot of sense. Netflix has the Women's World Cup next year. They have to be a contender for the men's. We talked a lot about YouTube. Globally, could it work for them? Maybe. That's one. Apple, which domestically has kind of been a no-show so far in terms of major sports.

13:06They've done F1, MLS, and weekday doubleheaders with baseball, but they haven't really gone and hit a home run. So could they be in play for the World Cup? It gets into what any cue seems to want, owning a full event. It's something that would put it on the map even more so. But I also would say that if you're FIFA and these entities, again, you're stewards of the game, it's working pretty well with Fox in terms of your viewership, in terms of availability. and you know you could argue the players I just said I got to also put Amazon Prime Video in there of course as well you know could they could they get it you know I think the streamers are very much in play I'd be I would not shocked but surprised if they did not get it one of them

14:07Andrew Marchand:yeah it's so easy to say that you know FIFA just wants the biggest bid because what if the biggest bid comes from, you know, DAZN or something that's not establishing? DAZN, yeah, what happens? Well, what happens? You tell me. If DAZN gives the highest bid, would they take it? No, I don't think so. I think that there does have to be a balance between having full coverage and getting money. So like if, for instance, Fox comes in with the biggest bid, they'll get it. If Netflix comes in with the biggest bid, they'll get it. I wonder if Apple comes in with the biggest bid, they're the smallest of the streamers, they're more boutique.

14:53Andrew Marchand:I mean, they've set themselves up as sort of like the HBO of streaming, which is not a mass market. Is that something that FIFA would say, yeah, we want to do that? Apple, it's a big brand name. It's not DAZN, but that's what I don't have. So you don't think they would do Apple? I think they'd do Apple. I think there's a potential they would say, you don't have enough subscribers. You're just not there enough. What happens if the World Cup doesn't resonate in the US market?

15:29I guess that's possible. yeah look I think when you talk MLS type deals MLS for those who don't know all their rights are with Apple so the only way to watch MLS is with Apple there's a few games on Fox but every game is on Apple you just need Apple and you're good if you talked about doing that type of deal with the NFL I think it would work I think would it work for the NFL as well as broadcast no but would people find it? Would people pay for Apple to watch the NFL if they didn't have it? I do. And could you see a major subscriber difference-making boost with an event like the World Cup? I think you could.

16:14Absolutely, yeah. So I guess that's the equation that how much is that worth for someone like Apple?

16:20Andrew Marchand:We're in total agreement on that. It would be a great deal for Apple. Of course, why wouldn't it be a good deal for Apple? But would it be a great deal for FIFA? like like and and that would that would mean well money money talks hydration money talks so but what about the next what about the next world cup and the next world cup and like if if if viewership keeps sort of dropping maybe i maybe i i would say though like again world cups like the nfl i think if you could do i don't see why you would but you could do something different and still would work now Would you get the same audience? Likely not.

16:58It would take time to grow. But then the equation is, I'm getting this much more money, and all right, I'm going to take a little hit on the audience, but I'm getting this much more money. And so is that worth it for me to do anyway? Again, it's... I think Apple is not... I wouldn't like... Again, if Apple... Let me put it this way. If Apple were to get it, I wouldn't be shocked. They have not done anything huge yet. They've done some smaller deals. This would be different. Now, the other question about it, and we've had, this is like the overarching question, all this stuff, AI and all these companies have other things on their mind.

17:35Amazon Prime Video is really the one that is the most in cost with sports and really has a plan. So they're the ones that I don't think are going anywhere, but the other ones, are they more interested in AI? Are they more interested in other things? I don't know, maybe.

17:53Andrew Marchand:yeah that was i i had a a good uh letter to the editor in the from the cheap seats in in my private email they were talking about youtube spending all this money on on data centers and it's like the the idea of of them actually getting big into sports you know and and and and and in a big meaningful financial way you know that's not a priority for for the company right now it's a priority for certain aspects of the company, but for the overall alphabet, Google, not necessarily. The other thing that I think is interesting is if you listen to Hans Schroeder talk from, he's of course the top media guy at the NFL, and he talks about when he brings up Netflix or Amazon, he's like, look, the reach that these provide, it's almost broadcast-like, not quite broadcast-like, But if you believe that they're going to continue to increase their subscribers and increase their viewership, you know, it's – and in a different way, they go international, too.

18:53Andrew Marchand:So it's even bigger than an ABC or NBC or Fox that's out there. And so that means that an entity like FIFA, to me, would certainly be looking at a Netflix or an Amazon Prime or even an Apple in there. But because nobody's talking yet, negotiations, as far as I know, haven't even started yet, but that's not going to stop us from making a prediction. World Cup 2030, what are we going to be watching it on, in your opinion? Who would you call the frontrunner right now? I would say Netflix. I'd say Netflix. I mean, they're the ones that, who are, they have the Women's World Cup, the global, owning an event, water cooler, just kind of goes into what they did.

19:48That said, though, I think with the new players, you can't really predict fully. I know you had a good private email about YouTube after not getting the NFL. What does it mean for them? But could they say, hey, you know what? Let's put our money into soccer. We're so global. This will help us. They don't have that subscription model. They have YouTube TV, but they're not going to put the games on YouTube TV, too much small of a base. It doesn't really work into what they're doing. So could they make it free? I don't know. I'd say, like we said at the top, the streamers are the ones that I foresee.

20:22And then on top of that, I would say that, you know, I would say, I don't think you count out the Foxes or NBC or maybe ESPN, although I think they have sights set on other things, CBS and Paramount. You can't totally count those players out. I mean, they're not done with this business either. So I wouldn't totally count them out, but I would say for this event, the global reach, it feels like a streamer event.

20:54Andrew Marchand:Yeah, I'm going to count out ESPN. I think ESPN has been walking away from soccer a little bit. One thing that I am curious about, because who knows what's going to happen? Like I said, Fox and Roku, who knew that they were going to get together? But if you have Paramount and Fox working to keep the World Cup on traditional television and then use Roku, use Paramount Plus to have some games out there as well, could they have a bid that could match something that comes from a Netflix or an Apple or something along those lines? But I would think that if it's going to stay on traditional linear TV, regular TV, I would think that some of the networks would have to partner up on that.

21:42Yeah, maybe. I mean, look, the Roku deal is very interesting for what that means for Fox and distribution. And I think the idea that Fox was going anywhere kind of takes a slap in the face with the Roku deal. I think they're here to stay. And now they've moved up in terms of where they are in the digital landscape. if that goes through fully. And so, look, I wouldn't count these other places out. I think, you know, we've talked about this on your podcast a few times, also on mine, is that, you know, the NFL hangs over all these things for the networks. They want to stay in the NFL business. That's number one by far.

22:21Number two is college football, but still a little bit farther down. And then there's a big, steep slope for what's next. NBA is already set for 11 years. And so, yeah, I mean, I think, look, Fox is the incumbent, definitely has the relationship and has some advantages. They also have a pretty good deal right now. And I think that those rights are going to go way, way up.

22:44Andrew Marchand:And they're also treating the World Cup very well, which gets us to the next topic. We're taping this on Friday right around noon, right before we started to tape. Mike Mulvihill, the great researcher over at Fox, put out a tweet saying that, according to Nielsen, there's just about 10 ,000 people who have watched every single World Cup game. And are you one of those 10 ,000? I'm one of them. No, I don't know. I've watched every game. And I think I missed a midnight or two that they had a couple games at midnight. Although I did work out in the morning and then have it on tape. but I think I might have missed a game or two, but I've hit most of them.

23:30Also, Mike Mulvihill, president of Fox's Insights and Analysis or something. You're just like a researcher. I mean, Mike, I don't think has a huge... You have him like as like a researcher. That's a little bit of a bigger title. I don't know if Mike... Some people, I don't know if Mike gets upset about titles, but some people do get upset about the title. So just put some respect on his name. Mike Mulvihill is like a social media maven as well.

23:53Andrew Marchand:You don't usually see the president out there on social media. Maybe that's why I said researcher. He might be a researcher by the time he's done with social media. I did say great researcher. I didn't tell you. So it wasn't just any old researcher. You did drop a grade on him. True. All right. Well, if he works his way up, one day he'll be president of Fox analysis.

24:23Andrew Marchand:analysis give us your review uh of uh fox's presentation i give it a 6.5 out of 10 uh mixed bag uh the by the way when i when i went to the university maryland that would have been a d 6.5 out of 10. 65 percent not really a d that's how i look at it it may be a maryland i think i have a grade on a curve it's more like a b minus b minus okay yeah i guess i see what you're saying i see your point though but i think if i said eight out of ten or 8.5 out of ten you'd say that feels a little higher um i haven't you know i'd give them about about a i think my overall grade is about a b so i'd give them you know eight eight you're known is when people get yeah when people look for their classes you're known as an easy professor more easier professor than me to get good grades by the way i have been filleted for saying that that i thought that uh nbc did a good job for the us open golf the the amount of emails that i that i got i saw that yeah you you yeah i saw that in the cheap seats the other day so fox look overall I think it's been pretty good.

25:32The Zoltan and Alexei dynamic has been a big point of contention. I think the studio is part of it. I mean, the games are really more important. So overall, the game broadcasts have been pretty good. I would say Ian Dark is my favorite in terms of the play-by-players. Stu Holden, who's their number one game analyst, has been the top analyst, so he's in the right spot. And then, you know, middle depth is okay. They get a little deeper down the squad, not as great in terms of the games you're getting and the excitement level and the naming of the players gets a little weaker as deeper down the broadcast lineup you go.

26:23For some, not all. I don't want to just say everybody. But yeah, and then the presentation, I think they've gotten more into the nuance, which is very important to me. I know it's like you could say, well, you're a big soccer guy. No, you want to know about the game. I thought they're the second U.S. game. They did a really nice job of combining the nuances of what's going on in the upcoming game, along with the atmosphere, that game day type atmosphere outside the stadium where it gave you a real big time feel. And so I think the one thing they've gotten a little better as the tournament's gone on is just treating the fans sophisticated.