The 2025 Sports Media Year in Review

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0:50Eriq Gardner:Congratulations! You made the varsity, the podcast. My name is John Arano. I am Puck's sports correspondent. I'm the host of this pod. And today, we're going to present what I believe will be the first year in review show for 2025. I convinced three of my Puck colleagues to join me today to come up with the sports media story of the year. We're going to be joined by Julia Alexander, who is one of the smartest minds in the world of streaming. Puck's legal ace, Eric Gardner, he's also going to join us for my money. Eric is the most consequential legal reporter working in media today. And Dylan Byers, who writes Puck's private email in the news business called In the Room, and hosts, along with Julia, the great podcast The Grill Room, also is joining us.

1:39Eriq Gardner:This one is going to really be a lot of fun. But before we get to what I call Puck's super friends, today is Wednesday, December 3rd, and here's what I'm watching. And for me, it's all about the people who run the biggest media companies that carry your favorite sports. Of course, we're in the middle of a huge sea change in terms of how people watch sports. Amazon is no longer an upstart in this space. It is an established company in sports media and has deals with the biggest leagues like the NFL and NBA. Amazon is even considering picking up the rights to next year's Big Ten championship game from NBC.

2:18Eriq Gardner:You also have Netflix, YouTube, Apple. this is a trend towards streaming that has really been happening for a while now. So while that's going on, traditional media companies are going through a bunch of major changes too. Take Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns TNT and TBS and HBO Max, and is the home of popular brands like Inside the NBA. That company is about to be sold to Netflix, or to Comcast, or to Paramount. Those are the three companies that submitted second bids to buy the company. And it appears that Paramount is a favorite right now, but those types of auctions always are really, really hard to handicap.

3:01Eriq Gardner:But the reason I mention it is because this deal will have a huge effect on sports media. TNT Sports, after all, holds a ton of big-time sports rights. Sure, I know it lost the NBA to NBC and Amazon, but it still has baseball through the championship series. It has the NHL, including the Stanley Cup final games, March Madness through 2032. It also has some college football playoff games, college football and basketball as well. Those are the crown jewels on the American sports calendar. So what happens to Warner Brothers Discovery is a big deal in the sports community. Then there's Disney. The Wall Street Journal had a really good story on Tuesday on who was likely to replace Bob Iger.

3:44Eriq Gardner:The Journal story and most of the people I talked to say Josh tomorrow is a front runner. Now, Josh is a guy who runs Disney's parks business, which are doing well for the company right now. Hollywood executive Dana Walden is also said to be in consideration too. But Disney, of course, owns ESPN. And per the story, Disney's head, Jimmy Pataro, was once a candidate to replace Iger, but now he's seen as someone who's just going to continue to run ESPN. And that's where the questions start. Iger is a big sports fan, and he understands the power of live sports, especially in the current media environment.

4:20Eriq Gardner:And he's been a big ESPN supporter as well. Make no mistake, ESPN will be fine. I have a lot of confidence in Jimmy Pataro, who has run the company for more than eight years. And even given Iger's interest in sports, this is a Pataro's shop. It has been for a while. Still, it's a legitimate question to wonder how Disney's commitment to sports will change if Josh DeMauro gets the nod. Okay, now let's get to Puck super friends julie alexander eric gardner and dylan byers well i have been looking forward to this for a long time this is what my hope is this is the very first year in review of 2025 for sports media sports business i'm here with my puck colleagues of course julie alexander eric gardner dylan byers uh and we have all been uh wasting a ton of ink on just the rise of streaming TV is continuing its downward trend.

5:17Eriq Gardner:There's chaos in college. There's sports betting scandals all over the place. This has been a really busy year and a defining year, I think, for sports and sports media and sports business. And so I want to start with you, Julia, your sports story of the year, your sports business story of the year. And I do want to tell the listeners you wanted to do the Toronto Blue Jays and that offended my Oriole fan heart. I couldn't, I had to veto that one. So what is your sports business story of the year? Yes. And as your favorite resident Torontonian, I'm showing up in a Yankee sweater, knowing that we were going to be on Nessun.

5:57Brought some of the heat early. My sports story of the year is also maybe the dominant cultural story of the year. And it's YouTube's inevitability. and YouTube can mean many things. It can mean YouTube TV. It can mean YouTube primetime channels. That's how people are getting their streaming services now. Or it can mean YouTube proper. And I think across the board, YouTube has really shown how inevitable it is to sports media. Start with YouTube TV, whether it was fights with Disney and NBCUniversal, whether it was the fact that it became, I believe, the fourth largest MVPD, still the largest VMVPD, the largest virtual TV service, the fourth largest cable kind of company.

6:41I think the fact that live sports is now synonymous with YouTube TV is a major win for Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, who was really dedicated to this package from the get-go of the product being built. I think if you then move into YouTube and you look at what happened with the NFL and the Sao Paulo game. Whether or not that game put up the numbers that Roger Goodell over at the NFL or Neil Mohan were hopeful for is still up for debate. But I think the fact that it went really smoothly, the fact that you could get alternative streams with YouTubers, the fact that this showcased a new way to engage with live sports, as opposed to just shifting audiences over and engaging with sports in a similar way, really showed how powerful YouTube as a platform could be for younger viewers.

7:29And again, on the YouTube primetime channel's standpoint, you also had this ability to start selling these additional streaming services, bringing in additional content for super fans. And so I think YouTube has always been this dominant cultural force for sports. The NFL has an active channel. NBA commissioner Adam Silver talks a lot about the power of highlights. But in terms of it being the inevitable next wave for how sports rights deals are conducted, for how people watch sports, YouTube is at the top of that chain for me.

8:05Eriq Gardner:Yeah, I certainly have written about YouTube so much more this year than I have in the past. And I do want to fixate on that NFL game and the idea of YouTube. Because if YouTube was really interested in sports, it would have been at the table for the NBA. It would have been a little bit more interested in the F1. There have been a lot of big rights packages that have come up that YouTube has taken a pass on. Is that about to change? What did they learn from Sao Paulo? And what was that? 19 million viewers, I think they got on that one, which is a pretty good NFL number. But what did they learn from that?

8:41Eriq Gardner:Are we going to see them increasingly at the table for rights deals? Or do they not even need that? I think there's two takeaways from a couple of different sports moments on YouTube. One was proving that they didn't need to bid on a lot of sports. And a great example of why they don't need to do that is a different league altogether, which is Bundesliga, this German soccer league that independent of YouTube reached out to a few top YouTubers, so top creators, and said, we want you to be able to live stream some of these Friday night matches because we want to reach younger audiences. And we see this as a marketing potential.

9:19And if you think about how that deal looks for YouTube, they don't have to put any money down to work with Bundesliga on this. They can take these creators and throw those live streams into YouTube Select. This is kind of the premium ad channel. This would make sure that you'd get some really high CPM ads being thrown on top of this type of coverage. And YouTube can kind of say, we now host Bundesliga matches, but we don't have to pay for anything. And so I think if you look at what happened with the NFL and what happened there, the big takeaway is that YouTube can make decisions on what type of sports it wants to invest in at an event level, kind of similar to what Netflix is doing, and it can decide where to take the step back and watch as sports naturally come to the platform and they can better monetize it through its creators.

10:06That to me was the number one takeaway from everything that happened with YouTube. Its advantage, as it has been since the service launched in 2006 is it's independent creators who have connections to audiences that leagues want to participate with and so if it's whether it's the NFL and Roger Goodell says we want to have more games here whether in the future it's kind of more one-off event type gimmicky sports that YouTube wants to bid on in order to have some of those eyeballs exclusively on YouTube I think the main lesson is they don't necessarily need to have it they They need to get people to open the app more on their TV sets, but that can be done through creators without YouTube having to spend money.

10:48Eriq Gardner:I think one of the reasons I love working with Julia is that I come from such a traditional media background and you come from a streaming background. And I want to stick with that Sao Paulo game real quick, because there were a lot of influencers that had their channels that talked, that kind of followed the football game. And from my traditional media background, the numbers that they produced in terms of viewership seemed really small to me. How did YouTube view that? Was that what they were expecting? Is that really the wave of the future? Is the wave of the future just trying to collect 19 million people and have them stay for three hours or whatever the average length of time was?

11:30One of the great mistakes that I think executives made about streaming, which is true with any type of brand new technology that seems to be the revival a lot of executives want for their future businesses, was this idea that streaming and the easier accessibility and availability for a lot of customers would lead to new fans, it would lead to building audiences. when I think the takeaway that we've had from streaming is that you can shift built-in audiences, but it's really hard to build new audiences. I'll give you two examples. I think if you look at the Sao Paulo game, the viewership on that Friday game was equivalent to about a Thursday night football game.

12:13So you were able to shift some of the audience over who were interested, and it might have put up bigger numbers if it was on Sunday, right? It might have put up bigger numbers if it was on even Monday, but this was a Friday game. But I think also if you look at how some of the audiences tuned in for the creators, one of the most popular creators is a guy named iShowSpeed. And he averages about 80 ,000, 90 ,000 viewers per live stream when he goes on. He's got millions and millions and tens of millions of followers. And when he live streamed this game, I think it sat around 60 ,000 to 70 ,000.

12:45So it was a little bit lower than average, but it was about on par with what his audience naturally comes in as. And I think if you're Neil Mohan, the lesson you take away from that is, can we shift creators' audiences into potentially watching more sports? And can we shift sports audiences into spending more time with our creators? That you create this really healthy ecosystem for people who are coming into YouTube and getting exactly what they want out of sports, out of creators, and out of VOD content well after the fact.

13:14Eriq Gardner:all right let's uh let's move over to eric because this is going to uh fit right in not because uh eric's a big fan of my show speed are you eric am i misinterpreting this oh i'm a huge fan okay good good uh your story of the year so i it's a hello netflix and i'm not just talking about netflix here to build on what julia says you know and i'm not just talking about you know how many people are watching sports on Netflix because, you know, it's still small and we still have, you know, the NFL Christmas doubleheader and a few live event pipelines. But for me, it ties into some structural changes that we're seeing.

13:53Every league right now is using Netflix as a stalking horse to raise rights prices. You combine that with, you know, what Amazon is doing and what Apple is doing. And it's clear that it's transforming the whole ecosystem for how broadcast television is playing out. We're also seeing exploding valuations for sports franchises. And a lot of that ties back to the fact that there are these streamers in the game now. And looking forward, I think that we're going to see a lot more international at play. You know, it used to be that, you know, a lot of these telecasts and games were ordered around local fandoms.

14:35But, you know, but that was in an age when, you know, mainly we got to watch our favorite team on the on the local station. Now we're all tuning into, you know, streamers with international footprints. And that, you know, has ramifications, too. It changes the way that the leagues cater to their clients, to the people who are partnering on the media end. And so I think that when it comes to programming, a lot of these leagues are programming less for the average fan out there. And now programming for how this is going to work best for the streamers. And that's just a trend that's going to continue on and on.

15:19You know, it doesn't necessarily matter what the footprint is right this second. What's more important is how it's leading towards a place where there's more private equity involved. There's more, you know, international sports figures involved. And it's, you know, something that's just beginning to build up. And I think it's kind of the transformative moment. We talked about it for a long time. you know Netflix possibly going into the sports realm they always denied it always denied it well now there's no denying that that they're here now so them Amazon and Apple you know completely

15:57Eriq Gardner:changed the game Eric I gotta congratulate you you just talked about Netflix and their strategy you never once used the word event eyes or anything about the event eyes but but Netflix has been slowly doing the Jake Paul boxing matches or the Christmas Day games, and they're picking off seemingly one-off events that they can then build around. Do you see that as being a viable sports strategy moving forward, or do you see them tinkering or tailoring with that? I think it's a stepping stone. I think that they needed to get the live television game right, figure out how advertising was going to work on Netflix.

16:41But, you know, I think, you know, an important moment in Netflix's evolution is how they've incorporated WWE Raw into the platform. I see no reason why they won't be bidding on the NFL when it comes up for a rights package. And like I said, it doesn't even necessarily matter whether they win all these rights things. The fact is that they're there. and the leads can point to you know the possibility that Netflix is there to raise everyone else's price and so you know yeah I think they'll get more involved how exactly they will get involved I think that's still to be determined I still think that they're in there you know go slow like let's let's try things out phase rather than you know let's do everything big splashy like you know a skydance paramount where they have to just throw money at everything It's they want to do it in a smart way, but we definitely know that they're in the sports game now

17:41Eriq Gardner:Dylan before we get to your story of the year I want to want to get your comments on YouTube and Netflix because one of the things that I've noticed this year Especially you know when when Amazon started Thursday night football. I kept writing about like can they handle it? Can they get 15 16 million concurrent viewers and and be able to handle that? But we all remember the Netflix's problems with the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight and how hard it was for people to get in and not have buffering and to actually watch the fight. And I wrote a ton of stories. Is this going to be a problem for the Christmas Day games?

18:20Eriq Gardner:And it wasn't. I mean, are we at a point right now where the streamers are just here? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, if there's a through line to all of this, it's that there's a consensus that sports is the coin of the realm for driving audiences, whether you're talking about legacy media or you're talking about streamers, right? And you can look at the numbers that YouTube did in Sao Paulo and you can say, okay, well, maybe those aren't ideal. But this is a table stakes moment. This is the moment at which everyone's sort of getting buy-in, figuring out how these sports rights work in their ecosystems versus how they worked for some of the older players.

19:07And I don't see anyone deciding that it's not worth it. I don't see Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, anyone saying, OK, wait a second, this is the wrong place to place our bets. everybody is 100 % in. And I think that as consumers, as NFL fans, as NBA fans, sports fans, start to adapt to a world in which they're like, okay, well, I also need Amazon. I also need YouTube. I also need Netflix. You're going to see those numbers come up, I think, in very meaningful ways. I think we're just in a period of adoption, but we're certainly like we're through we've passed the rubicon in terms of um understanding that these are meaningful

19:53Eriq Gardner:assets for these streamers although the one uh red flag that i do see is in my hometown of washington dc where regulators have been making noises about not wanting to see uh sports leave you know quote unquote free tv or uh or linear television and go to services that you know their constituents have to pay for increasingly. Eric, is that a real problem that that league should be considered? Certainly, there's going to be a lot of regulatory action on that, or at least a lot of regulatory noise on that, because, you know, a lot of politicians and regulators see that this is an issue that plays very well with the public.

20:36It also happens to be a concern of, you know, Groups like Nextstar and Sinclair, the ones who own the local broadcast affiliates and giants, they want these games. They want the games to stay on over-the-air television. And so I think in the coming year, we're going to hear a lot about that. I expect that things are going to get a little raucous at the time that the NFL's playoff game plays on Peacock. and a lot of people realize that they can't actually watch it. And it's going to be one of those things. We'll see whether this actually leads to action or whether it's daylight savings time where people will habitually complain about it but nothing will ever actually happen.

21:26It could go either way. But there at least is going to be a lot of noise about this.

21:34Eriq Gardner:My favorite part is when you hear politicians saying, we've got to get it back on free TV like ESPN. instead of going up there, which ESPN obviously is not free TV. Dylan, I want to come to your story of the year, but let's pay the bills first. Let me take a quick break, come back, and then we're going to get your story of the year for 2025.

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22:57Eriq Gardner:Dylan, your story of the year, sports business-wise. It has to be, I don't want to say the rise, because it rose a while ago. I would say the mainstreamification of sports betting and now especially prediction markets. The reason I bring that up, if you go back to what we were talking about before the break, we all agree that sports are central to the media equation, whether you're talking about legacy media, streaming media, whatever. And I like, by the way, that Eric said earlier, talk about regulatory noise as opposed to as opposed to regulatory action. I don't think I don't think there's any quite like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon.

23:34on, they're not here to compete with Nextar and Sinclair. They're here to just wipe them out. And there will be a moment sooner rather than later in which I think that we sort of all accept that mainstream media really is those new streamers that we're talking about. But the question is, okay, so you take sports and how do you use sports as a way to bring people into the ecosystem or keep them in the ecosystem? But the next question, of course, as we know from covering this business is, of course, the question of engagement, time spent. Nothing drives engagement more than people having money on the line.

24:13It is a way to keep people engaged down to whether or not the free throw is going to go in, whether or not the field goal is going to get made, the point spread, every aspect of that. And you put this in people's pockets, and you give them the opportunity to bet on everything for a penny or a dollar or a thousand or a hundred thousand dollars, that is just, that is a whole new era of engagement. There are going to be a lot of problems that come along with that. There are going to be a lot of safety concerns. I think it'll probably wreck some homes, but at the same time, it's going to just, it's going to drive incredible revenue and it's going to be a massive it already is a massive massive business and it's going to meaningfully change how we think about sports and how we engage with sports and indeed we're already seeing the ways in which even the the passive consumer who's just an old-fashioned sports fan who wants nothing to do with betting or prediction markets is already being subjected to blanket coverage of odds and futures, prediction marks, whatever it is, because it's blanketed at ESPN.

25:25It's all over Fox Sports. And so, you know, did Julie and I talk about this all the time on my podcast. There was a time not so long ago when Disney said we want nothing to do with sports betting. We're a family values brand. Now, all of a sudden, it's like a full-scale embrace. And I think, you know, it's interesting, John, earlier when you were talking about some of the stories of the season, and one of the big ones is the sports gambling controversies. And we saw it recently in the NBA with Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier. And it was so interesting, the timing of that, because you had just hosted your event in the arena in New York, and you had just been talking to the commissioner, Adam Silver, about all of this.