The Varsities: Sports Media’s 2025 Superlatives

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1:18Andrew Marchand:Congratulations! You made the varsity of the podcast. My name is John Orand, and I am Puck's sports correspondent and the host of this pod. Today, my buddy Andrew Marchand joins the pod. Marchand is a sports media reporter for The Athletic, and he hosts a twice-weekly podcast that you can find at andrewmarchand.com. And today, we're going to hand out our sports media awards for 2025. The varsities. We're going to honor executives, talent, and stories of the year. We agree on some, disagree on others, but we have a lot of fun doing it. Before we get to Andrew, though, today is Sunday, December 28th, and here's what I'm watching.

2:01And for me, it's all about ratings.

2:04Andrew Marchand:Or more specifically, Amazon's ratings. Amazon Prime carried its final Thursday night football game on Thursday, the Broncos and the Chiefs. We haven't seen the final numbers yet. They'll come in later this week. But Amazon already knows that its performance this season will end up as the most watched Thursday night football season ever, nearly 15 million viewers. Now, when you listen later in this pod with Marchand, you'll know that I really don't care about that, not one bit. I mean, Nielsen changed the way that it counts viewers in such a way that it benefits live programming like the NFL. So of course, Thursday Night Football is up big.

2:45Andrew Marchand:It has to be. It better be. But my interest in this story has to do with Amazon. When they got Thursday Night Football, Amazon's executives told me to use this experience in England as a guide. Amazon showed growth every season with the Premier League. And that was its goal with the NFL. And the numbers, they show that it's happening. Amazon has posted double-digit year-over-year viewership growth since becoming the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football way back in 2022. So even taking into account the Nielsen changes, Amazon Prime has seen growth every year. I mean, it helps that the NFL has seeded Thursday Night Football with great matchups.

3:32Andrew Marchand:Personally, I think Amazon's package of games is second only to Sunday night football in terms of quality. Still, regardless of any of the reasons why Amazon may be showing growth, the basic fact remains that this trend towards streaming is real. It wasn't so long ago that sports leagues and conferences were wary of the streamers. They were seduced by all the money, of course. YouTube, Apple, Amazon, they all have really deep pockets. but they were concerned that sports fans were still in the cable bundle and not ready to migrate. And the technical issues also caused some angst, delays, lags, all that stuff.

4:12Andrew Marchand:Those concerns, they seem antiquated now. We don't know yet if any of the streamers will be interested in all the games. They aren't volume businesses yet. But we now know that sports viewers will find these games wherever they are. Okay, now let's get to Andrew Marchand. I can't think of a better person to come in for the very first ever Varsity Sports Media Awards than Andrew Marchand, who is, of course, the great media writer with The Athletic, andrewmarchand.com, a podcast that comes out twice a week. Andrew, thank you for indulging me in the Sports Media Awards for 2025 and looking forward to 2026.

4:57Yeah, my pleasure. Happy holidays to you and everyone watching and listening. Really appreciate me on.

5:03Andrew Marchand:All right. First, first award, we're going to go, we're going to get right into this. The overhyped story award for 2025. And I have four in this category that I want to go with. Okay. One is the MLB media deals. You and I wrote a ton on the MLB media deals. Ultimately, it was a third package. It was ESPN Sunday night package that included the home run derby and the first round of the playoffs. It was a significant deal, but it wasn't as though the Fox deal was up. It wasn't as though the Turner deal was up with the playoffs. So that's number one there. number two tv ratings there's been you've been actually good about this but there has been so much talk on tv ratings and nielsen changed the way that ratings are counted so everybody is up so all these breathless stories about leagues being up i found that to be an overhyped story another one inside the nba and the move over to espn i thought that was an interesting story i thought it was an overhype story.

6:10Andrew Marchand:I, just in terms of, you know, uh, and look, live games are what really matter here. And, uh, the, the idea that a studio show is really gonna, gonna ramp that up. I found that to be an overhype story. And the fourth one in this category, college football chaos. Uh, we wrote about, we wrote about it all the time. I had Eric Shanks at, uh, our conference back in October. And he came up and he was like, everybody talks about college football chaos, but our viewership is through the roof. Outside of the NFL, it still is the most popular programming that's out there. So all this reporting about all the college football chaos, at least from a media standpoint, is a little overblown.

6:56Andrew Marchand:I'm leaving it to you, Andrew Marchand, to pick the winner. Well, to me, the most overhyped is the least interesting, and that would be the ratings increase. So I don't know how much time you want to spend on it. I think the big thing that people, I think the general public, even though you've written about it, I've written about it. You know, Nielsen, which is the arbiter of the ratings, has changed how they conduct their methods. and I'll let you, if you want, you can bore everyone with the details of that. But basically that has added 4%, maybe 5 % to most ratings. That doesn't mean that the ratings haven't been good because you look at something like the NFL on Thanksgiving, where for their late game between the Cowboys and the Chiefs, they got 57 plus million people, which they actually did even better with the old rating system, which was kind of an odd thing.

7:55But I'd say that was the most overhyped, really not that big a deal in a lot of respects because I always say this. I don't need to know that this Super Bowl upcoming on NBC in February does$120 million or$130 million or$110 million. It's$100 plus million at least, probably$115 plus million. That's a lot of people, give or take, whatever you want to do,$5,$10 million either way. And so I don't think that's as big a deal. Look, I think the one, I don't know, the MLB deal you said was overhyped. I agree with you. Again, general public probably thinking, comparing to the NFL and the NBA deals, which was for their top properties, those deals were not for MLB's top properties.

8:42So when you look at the money, they're different. I do think with ESPN opting out in February, the acrimony between ESPN and MLB, Rob Manfred said in a memo to the league's owners that was obtained by my colleague at The Athletic, Evan Drellich, said that ESPN's a shrinking platform. And then eight months later, they do the deals. They're with Netflix, NBC slash Peacock, and ESPN. So I don't know. I feel like that was a big story. But if you ask me, number one, I'd say in terms of overhyped, I'd say the ratings.

9:16Andrew Marchand:Yeah, surprise, surprise. guys, ESPN ends up doing a deal with MLB. That does include a weekly game, albeit not a Sunday night baseball game, and the MLB.tv. For me, the big baseball story is everything is being set up for 2028. The local rights are being set up for that. All of the national rights are coming due, and that's where MLB is really trying to break the bank. And I think that the one potential problem that I see with them is that the NFL is going to open up its deal next year or the year after. The way that these networks are looking at baseball now is, look, the playoffs own a slice of October.

10:04Andrew Marchand:But if you're ESPN, you're making these decisions based on distribution reasons. and they're set in October because they have college football. So is Fox. So is CBS for that matter. And so there's a needle to thread there for Rob Manfred. I'm still bullish on baseball, but the 2028 is going to be the big deal for them. Yeah, I would say that when you look at the forthcoming deals, the NFL is a must-have for everybody, especially the people who already have it espn slash abc nbc fox cbs amazon prime video wants more uh netflix gets in here on christmas day for the last two years youtube did a game this year um and so you look at it and there's no doubt the nfl's current deals are for 11 years 110 plus billion dollars.

11:05That's what it'd be, everybody, like in Boston. And you look at it, they're going to, however, maybe they don't actually opt out. They have opt outs with all the networks at the end of the decade on these 11 year deals. They're at least going to threaten to opt out if they don't actually do it. And what's going to happen when they threaten to opt out? Well, they're going to get more money. How much more? Is it$500 million a year more? Is it$250 million a year more? Is it a billion dollars a year more? Well, that's money that they don't necessarily have to spend on Major League Baseball. That said, I think baseball will have a big market.

11:43I think baseball is much more popular than sometimes it's given credit for. And they do have local markets. They have an issue that they have to figure out that when you look at the decade of the 2030s and you look at where MLB can be very instrumental, it's solving the punnage issue of streaming. It's solving when you have, you know, all these games. I mean, that's the problem with the leagues as compared to the NFL. The NFL has scarcity. They keep spreading the games out, but still the season's only 17 games per team, the regular season. That makes every week important. And so it's just, they have a tremendous system for viewing, be it by traditional TV or streaming.

12:28And baseball has to figure out that, But I do think they will have a big market. It's just the question is, how much money will these places have left over and the incentive to, you know, is baseball a must-have like the NFL? I'm not positive it's a must-have. It's a very much like-to-have, maybe a must-have, but a very much like-to-have.

12:50Andrew Marchand:I like how you did B as in Boston, an ode to Nesson, which is running this show. And I just want to tell you that my ratings, Andrew this year up up up a ton up a ton so I appreciate that yeah I've heard that but a lot of people think that's because of Nielsen and the rating system I've just you know we we oh Dean on baseball let's get to this the the the winner of the overhyped story award is certainly TV ratings and and and and the increases there but we spent a lot of time talking about baseball and the baseball deal. Let's go. That's one of my under the radar stories of finalists for under the radar.

13:33Our next, our next award category here for me, the Netflix and baseball deal is one that

13:41Andrew Marchand:flew under the radar for me. Uh, not necessarily because of the, um, the field of dream games or the opening night game, or even the home run derby. I think the deal that they did for the world baseball classic in Japan hasn't been written about a ton. And I think that is going to be, that's going to be where they really test the waters because Netflix comes out and they're trying, they're trying to be an international, a global stream. Well, they are a global streamer, but the rights that they're trying to grab are global. And I think as they test out the popularity of baseball in Japan, which for the last world baseball classic, when Japan won was what was through the roof, the World Series with Shohei Otani.

14:24Andrew Marchand:Those numbers are very big. That, to me, is an under-the-radar story that hasn't been written about a ton. Others in the category, F1 going to Apple. I think we've talked all the time about F1 being a – the NFL is fine and these small little sports leagues are fine, but there's a middle class that is not going to find linear TV deals and F1 fell into that middle middle class and it went over to Apple uh and the last one is IndyCar Fox buying IndyCar uh is uh you know they they are an example of a sport where you know a linear TV network decided to take a chance on them and and buy them and that's a sort of a path forward there those are my three under the radar stories which one do you pick as the winner of the varsity award well first off can i interest you in a subscription to either the athletic or andrewmarchian.com for my twice weekly podcast but i don't think these are totally under the radar personally um but uh look i think again if you ask me yeah the indycar one is probably the one that's most under under the radar also the least interesting one in my opinion um because Because, look, I think, let me make that issue a little bit more.

15:47I think Fox's game plan, which we talked about for a long time on the old podcast, and you've written about a lot, and I've written about, their game plan has been the best. I said, I think during this year, this past year, that they won the first battle in the sports streaming wars. They mostly stayed on the sideline. Now they just started Fox 1. IndyCar is another example of them feeling like they can grow with the sport, getting a percentage of that entity. And that could be, you're right, that could be under the radar, but something that, again, they just have done a really good job of being disciplined in their plan.

16:25I think the most interesting one is Netflix. You know, Japan is a market that they want to get more subscribers in and to get the World Baseball Classic, which is a big deal. MLB has done a good job. In America, it's growing. Around the world, it's already a big, big deal. Japan has won many times. And obviously with Shoei Otani and what they've done with the Dodgers, the ratings are through the roof, so that makes sense. And that's where you see long-term where Netflix and baseball could find a pathway because of the international market. I think the interesting thing with Netflix is that when you make these deals, and this was the problem for MLB when they went into the market with these deals, you're trying to either figure out a way to be able to get the events and sell them through advertising or affiliate fees.

17:21And how many people are you bringing in? Well, in Japan, in theory, most everyone, I think there's some crazy number watched WBC in the World Series. Let's just say it's 30%, 40%. It might have even been higher. but if Netflix everyone's going to need your subscription then you get them in the door and then they start loving Netflix and you can see that's a grand plan so I think that's probably the most interesting of your under the radars but I think IndyCar would be the winner of the coveted under the radar award from Puck and the Varsity, I know that's a very one that people have wanted to win for years and years since they were children, they dreamt of that

17:59Andrew Marchand:Andrew Figverese, I think he'll he will be accepting a, what should I give him an actual trophy? Well, the only thing is under the radar, then is it that, you know, they should be their PR should have gotten that word out there. Why was that so under the radar? Absolutely. I find that a unique deal because you're seeing this like with leagues, like, you know, the ESPN has taken stakes and, you know, Paul Rabel's PLL, the lacrosse league. And that's, that's a way forward for these small rights deals. or these small leagues that, that, you know, might not be getting a big rights deal. So they, they get in with, with some of these networks and it, and I, IndyCar is sort of the biggest one of those rights deals to, to do that.

18:46Andrew Marchand:And I just, I found that to be a unique deal that again, we did write about a lot this year, but it still fell a little bit under the radar in my opinion for the, for the, the overall media marketplace. Andrew, Let me take a quick break and let's come back and we're going to, this is your wheelhouse. We're going to get into the announcers and the best announcers coming up.

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20:12Andrew Marchand:Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts. The best announcer out there. That's sort of so broad, Andrew. Let's just talk about the NFL and let's talk about the number one announce announcers and let's break it up we have play-by-play and we have analysts and so let's start with play-by-play you have Mike Tirico Joe Buck Kevin Burkhart Jim Nance Andrew Marchand who is the top varsity announcer winner for the for the varsity media awards yeah it might go I an eagle which you didn't even put on the uh on the radar. I had to just stick with the number ones, just the number ones. Did you put Al in there?

21:00You know what?

21:00Andrew Marchand:I need to put Al Michaels. My apologies to Alana Russo and Amazon on that. He's not getting it. Just put him in there, Al, for, you know, maybe all time you put Al Michaels. Not at least all time. Joe Buck. Yeah, Joe Buck is the winner. Buck, you know, I thought this would be the case when he went from Fox to ESPN, that he'd grow in popularity because, again, he has scarcity now. He's basically almost retired because he works the NFL season and is off the rest of the year, although he only won baseball game, and then go back to parenting. And so I'd say Joe Buck is the best. We'll probably dovetail into the analyst, but I just think him and Troy Aikman, they've been doing it more.

21:48They've had a longer run than anybody. That includes Summerall and Madden of anybody in the history of the NFL boots. And it's just such a comfortable, easy listen. He has such control of the broadcast. And it just shows through. He's done a trillion games on the highest of levels. And so I think you can't go wrong with Joe Buck. It's just a relaxed, easy, big-time feel and listen.

22:17Andrew Marchand:Let me push back a little bit on that. My problem with Joe Buck is on Monday nights, I'm a Manning cast fan. And so I'm typically watching Manning cast. So I don't have the broad. So people know this is John's MO. So he's like, my problem with Joe Buck. And then he immediately says, I don't watch. But go ahead. I think that Mike Tirico on Sunday Night Football has turned into an elite play-by-play announcer. I think that he has a voice that matches what's happening on the field. He has a memory recall of players and what's happening and going back. He has apparently good producers as well. Joe Buck, when I hear him, you're right.

23:03Andrew Marchand:It's a big game voice. It's a comfortable voice. We've been listening to him since the mid-1990s, for goodness sakes. But I think Tirico is right there. yeah look my upcoming podcast is about this in the year of mike tariko he's going to do his first super bowl he's going to host the winter olympics he'll be the main voice on nbc slash peacocks nba playoffs this year i'm sure he'll probably uh you know he does all the golf etc um so yeah you can't mike tariko that was a tremendous hire back in what 2016 2017 by nbc uh he succeeded Bob Costas on the Olympics. He replaced Al Michaels on Sunday Night Football and waited his turn because they wanted to do that a little quicker than COVID happened and he was patient.

23:54And so, yeah, you can't go wrong with Tariqo. I would say, look, this is, we're grading at the highest level here. So I think you nailed it. He's on top of everything. He knows the rules. He picks up things very quickly and very confidently in real time. does he have the voice of a buck maybe or jim nance i don't know if he has that type of voice necessarily um but uh that's kind of your only demerit that you get with him but he's just on top of everything and i guess i always say this and this isn't uh it doesn't sound very complimentary but it's meant to be the first job no no it's not about you although maybe it could apply to you but really not actually is a compliment.

24:36The first job is not to be annoying. Again, I know that sounds like a really, like not really great or nice thing perhaps to say, but when you're watching a game, you don't want someone to distract from you. And so if someone's too over the top, some people might love, you know, Kevin Harlan or Gus Johnson style, but others might say, you know, it's a little too much for me. I don't want to be screamed at for three hours. And so the thing about Tirico is he has command. It feels big, but it also, like, I think it's hard not to, it's hard to dislike Mike Tirico as a broadcaster to me in the booth in his work calling games.

25:16And so that's what, so I mean that as a compliment. He's not distracting in any way in terms of what he does in the booth. He doesn't try to be too funny. And he also just is, he's on top of everything.

25:32Andrew Marchand:So we have a push here in my view. We have Tirico and Buck. Andrew Marchand is with Joe Buck. I'm with Mike Tirico. Let's go to the analysts now. We have Chris Collinsworth, Troy Aikman, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, and Kirk Herbstreit. What say you, Andrew Marchand? All right. The winner is Greg Olson. Greg Olson's the best going. so you have your true winners i actually you know what i want to go here your true winners are ian eagle and greg olsen uh look i could go buck over eagle it's very close on football i mean eagle's the best on basketball but uh it's close on football i might still stay with buck on football um so give it to one of the number ones i think olsen is he's he's probably the best i mean if if you're gonna put to just you again you left kirk herbstreit out um as a number Oh, you did?