The Athletic’s Russini-Vrabel Stress Test

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0:43Congratulations! You made the varsity of the podcast. My name is John Aranda, and I am Puck's sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today, I convinced my Puck colleague, Dylan Byers, to join the bot. The Mike Vrabel, Diana Rossini scandal is still in the headlines. So this was really the perfect time to have Dylan, who covers the media business for Puck, talk about how this has exposed tensions between the New York Times and The Athletic, which of course is owned by the New York Times. But before we get to Dylan Byers, today is Wednesday, April 15th, Tax Day, and here's what I'm watching.

1:22I want to focus on the WNBA today. The league just went through a bruising labor dispute. It spent months, a year maybe, getting the worst press you can imagine. Well, the league and the players reached an agreement, as you all know, for a seven-year deal last month. It held its annual draft on Monday, and the new season starts in less than a month. And from my perspective, things really are looking up for the W. you. Monday's draft made for great TV, a crowded room, lots of cheering, and of course I loved it the few times that I heard the crowd boo when an unpopular trade was announced. Now I don't want to overstate this, but that kind of energy really felt like a stamp of approval for a league that just a couple of weeks ago faced the prospect of missing an entire season.

2:11Many questions this week though focused on whether the league's commissioner, Kathy Engelbert, is a long-term solution for the W. Now, I'm not the first to point out that she did not answer those topics very elegantly on Monday night, questioning whether a man would be asked the same questions about his future. Now, for the record, I have asked just about every league commissioner that question. Lots of reporters have. It's pretty standard. Anyway, Engelbert was noncommittal. Three weeks earlier, Adam Silver also was noncommittal to the question of whether Engelbert would stay past 2027, which even among this expected year of growth for the WNBA has given sports business writers a storyline that we're going to wear out over the next few months.

2:56Okay, now let's get to Dylan Byers. Dylan Byers, first of all, thank you for joining the Varsity, my colleague. I can't think of somebody that I wanted to get on more this week than you. I woke up on just a little quick little behind the scenes i woke up on monday morning and this uh diana russini mike rabel athletic new york times story still has legs it's still what when people when my sources call me it's still the what they want to talk about it's still like a uh dominating uh not dominating uh sports media but every single outlet is now covering it it seems to have gained some steam, certainly from the first, you know, last week when the New York Post first broke the news of, or broke the pictures anyway, of that.

3:49So I sent Dylan a text and I said, hey, can you get on? Dylan's on the West Coast, I'm on the East Coast. And Dylan responded, I was going to ask you to come on my pod, because he goes to the grill room, to talk about this topic. So Dylan, I just want to start with you. Just you cover these types of stories all the time. And you're deep into the New York Times and you're deep into The Athletic. What what are some of the storylines in this particular story that you're really focused on right now? Well, I'm not surprised everyone's talking about it in your world. They're certainly talking about it in mine.

4:28And look, whether you're talking about the New York Post or the New Yorker, scandal sells. That's just the dirty little secret of the business. But there are broader storylines at play. I think the number one thing most people want to know is what actually happened here. I think it's very hard for people to accept the idea that these two went off to the Ambiente in Sedona, which is pretty well known. In fact, someone of great notoriety called me who had just stayed there a few months back and said, if you're not going there on your honeymoon, you're going there to have an affair. So I think a lot of people have very reasonable questions about what these two folks were doing on the roof of a bungalow that can only be accessed from the inside at a hotel that only has king beds.

5:16but presumably that is what the New York Times investigation, internal investigation, will unearth. I think for my purposes, what I think about is sort of a broader narrative here about the New York Times. Like, look, this is a one-off. It's nobody's fault at the New York Times, whatever Diana Rossini's relationship with Vrabel is, and I don't know yet. But whatever it is, that's not the fault of the publisher or the CEO or the editor of the New York Times. But the way that they handle it is and the way they've handled it, I think, has rightly upset a lot of the folks at the New York Times. The editor of The Athletic, Steven Ginsburg, came out and said definitively the day that this news broke, nothing to see here.

6:03These photos were taken out of context. He took Diana Rossini at her word and effectively backed her. And while I admire any editor who backs their journalist, there were probably more questions to ask and more evidence to gather before making such a definitive statement. And now that is what has caused The Athletic and The New York Times to go back and reinvestigate this matter. And my guess is when this all comes out in the end, they're probably going to come around to a different sense of what it is that has happened here. But you and I talk about this a lot off camera, John. The relationship between The New York Times and The Athletic is a complicated one.

6:44The New York Times loves The Athletic's business. It loves the fact that by acquiring The Athletic, it can bring in all of these local sports fans and sell them, upsell them on the New York Times bundle. What's complicated about that is that the business of sports journalism, particularly once you get into television sports journalism, is just a different sort of beast. There are different standards. There are different expectations. and the kinds of journalists you need to hire in order to make that happen or the kinds of journalists the Times believed it needed to hire to make that happen are used to kind of just playing a different game.

7:19And I'm not suggesting that, you know, every sports television journalist isn't above board. Most of them are, but there's just different standards. And I think how the New York Times navigates becoming bigger and acquiring other assets where different journalists are held to different standards and have different expectations is going to be one of the challenges for the New York Times going forward. You know, just the way that you opened that answer to me is the issue that I'm so focused on today is that it's a problem for the New York Times. And it is a problem for the New York Times. And I think that what I've gotten from the rank and file that I've talked to, reporters in the newsroom who write for the New York Times, He's like, this is an athletic issue.

8:06It's run by a different management group. They have different standards, as you said. And it was an athletic reporter that was reporting or doing who knows what in advance of the NFL draft. And it wasn't by accident that when the New York Post broke this story, they described Diana Rossini as the New York Times top NFL reporter. And so the relationship between the two, the Athletic and the New York Times, it's really almost totally separate. You have Times reporters. You had Times reporters at the Olympics covering stuff for the Times. You had Athletic reporters at the Olympics covering stuff for the Athletic.

8:53and just kind of like that gigantic gray area there. Because you are right, this is a Times problem. But the fact that it is a Times problem is almost what makes this a Times problem because they haven't been able to integrate the athletic into the New York Times really as much as at least some of the rank and file of the Times wanted. That's right. And to your point, there are a lot of reporters at the New York Times among the rank and file who are saying like, look, what is our brand? And the Times can try and distance itself from the athletic. It can try and say, oh, the athletic's in a silo.

9:31It operates on it, you know, like we're still integrating it X, Y, and Z. The fact of the matter is, is at the end of the day, it's a New York Times property. A.G. Salzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, is responsible for the athletic. Meredith Coppett-Levine, the CEO of the New York Times, is responsible for the athletic. and they can't just like put their problems off on the fact that it's effectively a standalone vertical. Now, there's actually some precedence for this. Back in the first Trump administration, there was a New York Times reporter who had been found to have been having an affair with a government official, not while she was at the New York Times, but rather at outlets before she joined the New York Times.

10:12But it was such a big deal then, and such a big deal to Dean Bacay, the editor of the times at that point that they gave her a second chance. They didn't get rid of her, but they reassigned her. They've effectively moved her off of that beat, moved her to an entirely different beat. She might've even moved cities. It was like a massive career change for her in order to give her a second chance. The idea that Steven Ginsburg, I like that guy. I know him well. He's a very nice guy. But the idea that you would just come forward and be like, nope, nothing to see here. We don't believe it. It's just very untimesian.

10:46And you and I know the New York Times. We sort of, you know, it's an institution and things go through a certain formula. Like you want to issue a statement, it has to run up the flagpole. But it's just a weird look. It's a weird look. And I think as the evidence comes out, I think there are going to be a lot of questions asked about why the Times didn't do that. And just pinning it on it being, oh, The Athletic, it's a different organization. It's not. It's part of the New York Times.

11:15can in your opinion can these two entities uh continue to move forward sort of on the on their separate silos the way that they have been I don't think so and in fact I think we're gonna I I think this is a harbinger of more things to come and I don't necessarily mean with you know alleged affairs or anything like that but part of what part of the negotiation that every media organization is going through right now is they're looking across a new landscape where the most influential voices are what we actually think of as influencers. They have their own followings. They sort of subscribe to their own editorial standards.

11:58In many cases, they've built businesses around themselves where they have sort of their own partnership deals that usually go outside of the bounds of the traditional standards of like the sort of separation of church and state between editorial and business. And there's going to be a sort of point at which it's like, okay, how much, how can we go out and, you know, hire these influencers or acquire these influencers, or even just license their content? Thinking about like ESPN, Pat McAfee, even the New York Times is trying out some of that with like a Pablo Torre. How much can we do? And then how much control do we have over the ethics of that journalism, the business of that journalism, how those people conduct themselves in the wild.

12:40I think for decades, in some cases, centuries, most people came up into journalism with a very strict understanding of what it is they were supposed to do. And the athletic and other verticals inside of the Times are sort of broadening the understanding of what that is. I'm not saying there's a right way or a wrong way. Certainly, the New York Times is going to have to adapt in the new media ecosystem. system, but there's going to be a lot of friction there along the way. And we're seeing it here in a sort of extraordinary case, but we're going to see it in other ways too. I'm going to continue to maintain the difference between The Athletic and The Times.

13:20And so you referenced like the influencer journalism. And then your example for that was Pablo Torre, which is The Athletic, right and it is at times as a times at all gotten into that that that aspect of journalism where they go after an influencer like a pat mcafee type or a pablo tori type yeah well so the the they have this the athletic has this deal with pablo tori which is effectively a license i'm not talking about the athletic i'm talking like like again i'm trying to make that distinction the times I see what you're saying. The Times itself. Yes. No, not to the best of my knowledge. They have not.

14:00You know, I think probably the closest they've come to it, which is to say not at all, is, you know, the occasional like guest guest column in an opinion section. They really they don't do that. The Times really wants to sort of like tend to its own garden and know what's going on and claim responsibility for that. And I suppose, you know, when you talk about the distinction between the Times and the Athletic, you're right. It's like the Athletic sort of affords them the license to experiment in this space. And ostensibly, it shouldn't be that complicated because it's not the war in Iran. It's not COVID.

14:38It's not immigration policy. It's sports. And sports should be easier and lighter. But as we're seeing, sports and sports reporting involves human beings and can often be just as complicated. Yeah. Funny when you're going through that and you mentioned opinion. I think Ezra Klein could be close to doing that. He has his own podcast and gets out there. But it doesn't seem to be a lot. There's also – and this happened before the Times bought the Athletic. You know, they did the deal with BetMGM and, you know, and they cover sports betting and then they do a deal like where that integrates the BetMGM with them.

15:20Seems to be the type of deal that The New York Times would never do. But But The Athletic does. And as I point to that, because I'm like, I just wonder, can like they almost have to be two separate entities moving forward. I mean, how can how can the time subsume that almost? Yeah, you're right. And it's indicative, again, of this sort of broader thing that's taking place in our world, which is. Making money in media, in news media, while adhering to the sort of rigorous standards that we associate with journalism going back for, say, let's call it the last 75 years is increasingly hard. And you need additional sources of revenue if you don't want to be one among the many legacy institutions that is just constantly cutting.

16:08You yourself reported recently on cuts at ESPN. There is not a week that goes by in the world of journalism where there are not cuts being announced, either 1 % to 10 % to, in some cases, like 20 % of these companies. And you have to look for additional revenue streams. But those revenue streams are constantly testing the integrity of legacy brands. and to your point, like again, the New York Times is able to sort of say, hey, look, here's the core product. When you go to nytimes.com, here's what you get and we do not take brand deals. You can't bet on what's happening on the New York Times. You can't even go to a poly market or a calci on nytimes.com.

16:53But over here at The Athletic, things are a little different. Now, look, should they be afforded the license to do that? I think all news organizations have to experiment. I just don't think to the point about everything you're hearing from the rank and file, everything I'm hearing from the rank and file, the expectations around the New York Times are different. And certainly people in the industry do not draw the distinction that you and I are discussing here between the Times and the Athletic. Yeah, they obviously lump it as one there. um from a business standpoint the the times is doing is there anybody doing better than the times right now in the u.s uh as a media business no maybe the journal is a journal closer now the journal is great the times is just a bigger business the journal is great you know it's funny because uh over in my fiefdom here at puck i i write about media organizations and legacy media organizations by and large are struggling in a very big way and that's true whether you're talking about print, digital, television, the Times is the sort of benchmark for success.

17:58The Times is doing very well. The Journal is doing very well, albeit just at a smaller scale. So before we get off this topic, Dylan, let's do sort of a prediction roundup. We're taping this, just so everybody knows, we're taping this on Monday. So by the time people hear this on Wednesday, either Diana Rossini has been fired, she could still be on leave while they're investigating it, or she could be exonerated. We don't know yet. But sort of stepping back from this initial scandal, one year from today, what will the relationship be between the New York Times and The Athletic? How will it be different from today?

18:47Well, I certainly think there is going to be more of a move. I think this is going to catalyze or at least accelerate the process of sort of integrating the athletic more in terms of standards. I think that is just going to be an expectation among the journalists. I think the athletic is a very, it's a very healthy business for the times, but again, it is a times business. And so I think that that integration is almost going to be demanded. And look, I also think that's, I don't, I'm not saying that the rank and file get to run the show and demand whatever they want. What I am saying is I think if you're A.G.

19:26Sulzberger or if you're Joe Kahn, the editor of the Times, you're looking at what's happening. You're looking at how hasty that statement from Steven Ginsburg was. And you're saying, OK, we need to make sure this doesn't happen again. And the way this doesn't happen again is not by deciding that you're going to more carefully review every scandal that happens at The Athletic. It means you're going to start to make The Athletic look a lot more like The New York Times. Yeah, and there's a risk in that, though. The New York Times, they had a sports section, you know, that wasn't well read. It was a reason that they went out and they bought the athletic and the athletic now.

20:01I find it interesting that you brought up Pablo Torre and you brought up Pat McAfee. The Athletic is running in the ESPN-type world. That's right. That's not the New York Times' world. They are going to want to put more standards over there and different standards. What Diana Rossini is alleged to have done would be against any standard anywhere. You don't need to sort of add that standard. I bet you that that's a standard that, you know, you can't do it, you know, if that ends up being being true. But I think they're in a little bit of a pickle because they do want to get more New York Times standards while still competing against the Pat McAfee's and, you know, bringing over Pablo Torrey's and things like that.

20:51In fact, you know, people that complain about Pablo Torre and some of his great things, and Pablo was on this pod and talked about it as well. It's like he's able to go out with certain things that others can't because he's just, you know, he's his own entity. He's that influencer that you talked about. Yeah, and look, I think there's a different expectation inside of The Times. You talk about Ezra Klein. There's a different expectation inside of the Times about what Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan can do as reporters versus what Ezra Klein or Ross Douthat can do as opinion columnists. I'm not suggesting that they won't still want the folks at The Athletic to move in a way that displays sort of greater fluency with the world of sports media as it exists online, that is not so sort of staid and lowercase c conservative as the Times model.

21:48What I am suggesting is that I think it probably has less to do with imposing standards as it does to do with thinking about how they acquire talent, how they look at the television market and say, like, OK, who out there does really great work, has great access, great sourcing? but who can we also trust to sort of like be a professional and meet the expectations that we have, that New York times subscribers have of us, that New Yorkers have of us. And I think maybe they're going to look to some people in the TV world and the TV world historically has been a little looser, a little more unbuttoned is the term I use the other day.

22:26And I think they're going to, I think they're going to think twice about that. And I think they can do that without ruining the product. I think at the end of the day, great sports reporting, great beat sports reporting on various teams. Like you can do all of this without sacrificing the product and just sort of professionalizing it a little bit. Yeah. And Button was the term that you use that I picked up on and you didn't just use it, Dylan. You had an italics, too, which I appreciate. That was a good turn of the phrase there.

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24:23I do want to move on because I think that we, you and I have, like, our beats cross over a ton, as you said. But sometimes there are things that have been happening in the news business that if you hold your breath and wait some beats, it used to be like a year or two. Now it seems like it's like six months to a year and a half. Yeah, exactly. It starts to hit. You started to see cord cutting hit the news networks. But sports is really holding the sports networks and the cable bundle up. So it hit it late. But as it's hitting it, we're seeing some of the effects of it. One of the stories that I've been following that you've been writing about for years now, and it has been hitting sports.

25:14But, you know, Stephen A. Smith gets a$25 million contract. And I forget what ESPN is paying Pat McAfee for his show as well. You know, these big network news anchors are seeing the salaries. They're still very high, but they're coming down quite a bit. Where is the news business right now just in terms of the salary structure? Well, I think it's certainly the moment that I have been writing about in one way or another, certainly for the last five years, probably in some way, shape or form for the last 15 years. Like that moment has arrived. The moment where you take someone of the wattage of like a Gayle King at CBS who is renewing her deal at a pay cut or, you know, Hoda Kotb leaving the Today Show because, you know, she wasn't going to make as much if she stuck around.

26:16These things are real and they're happening now. Now, there are exceptions to the rule. Basically, what's happening in this sort of talent world of television news is a barbelling effect. A lot more people are going to make a lot less money and be expected to do as much, if not more. And then you're going to have a few talents who have sort of inked their contracts at the right time or who are so valuable to the organization. You mentioned a Stephen A. Smith that that's where the money is going to go. But you cover the economics of sports media better than anyone, John. And you know that as the price of NFL goes up, as the price of NBA goes up, as you have to compete with the Amazons and the Apples and the Netflixes and the YouTubes, at a certain point, that money has to come from somewhere else.

27:04And you can't really justify paying people who aren't driving audience. Stephen A. Smith is obviously seen as an asset, as a big asset, and he can drive audience when there's not a game on or a match on. So you can do that. But like the idea of making tens of millions of dollars, that's something that Anderson Cooper got at CNN. I think it's something that Jake Tapper eked out in the 11th hour at CNN. And other people aren't going to make that kind of money at CNN. Now, you talk about a network like Fox News, that the economics are different there because it's much more successful. But by and large, in the cable news landscape, even the broadcast news landscape, those talent salaries are going to come down over time.

27:52You know what's unique about the sports business is, you know, you take the NFL and everybody is spending billions of dollars on the NFL. They're going to spend more coming up. And still, you're seeing these salaries for the, you know, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are kicking up on, you know,$20 million a year to call football games. If you talk to any one of your friends, you know, the presence of an announcer doesn't make them tune into a game or tune out of a game. But what ESPN found out a couple of years ago before they hired Joe and Troy from Fox was that they got the NFL didn't like to give them really good games because they didn't think they had the sort of the production to meet up with it.