YouTube’s NFL Discipline & NFL Partner Math

0:00It's always amazing to see how quickly your child grows, and I'm not just talking about their height. From those early babbles to full-on storytelling, getting to watch how their ideas, creativity, and confidence develop over the years is honestly pretty incredible. Sometimes they surprise you with what they come up with, and LEGO bricks can be right there with them through all of those stages. It's not just a toy, it's a full creative building journey that keeps evolving as they do. Lego sets play starts as early as one and a half with Lego Duplo, the bigger bricks designed for little hands that are just starting to explore and build.

0:35Then around age four, kids transition to the smaller Lego bricks, and suddenly you're watching real structures take shape, real ideas form, and their imagination really take off. They begin with simple stacking, but over time they grow into full-on creators, building worlds, stories, and things you never would have expected. That's the kind of magic of Lego bricks.

0:56Rich Greenfield:You're not buying a phase. You're starting a journey. Learn more and start building today with Lego bricks.

1:08Congratulations. You made the varsity the podcast. My name is John Arand and I am Puck's sports correspondent and those in this pod. And today, Rich Greenfield joins the varsity. Rich is a superstar analyst for Light Shed Partners covering media and technology. I've known him forever, love talking with him. But before you get to Rich, today is Wednesday, June 10th, and here's what I'm watching. Pity the poor NCAA. The NCAA suspended Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Soresby for gambling on college games. Not just gambling on college games, he gambled on Indiana games while a member of Indiana's team.

1:45If ever a suspension was warranted, it was here. Well, on Monday, a Texas judge gave the football player a temporary injunction, and now it looks likely that he's going to suit up for Texas Tech this season. The kid's attorneys convinced the judge that he would suffer an irreparable injury if he can't play this fall, and the judge agreed, marking the NCAA's latest court defeat. The NCAA is going to appeal, but there's a real question about whether an appeal could even be heard before the season. I mean, Swordsby's definitely going to play. His lawyer is Jeffrey Kessler, and he, of course, was very happy with the ruling.

2:23He argued that the NCAA did not consider Soresby's well-being when it ruled him ineligible. Gambling addiction is a mental health issue. The NCAA should support those mental health struggles, not punish them, Kessler said. Again, the judge agreed. But the whole NCAA just seems so toothless right now. It wants to have rules. It just can't enforce them. In a statement, the NCAA said that it's deeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching, and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome. And it's right. If the NCAA can't punish a kid who bets on his own sport, what on earth can they do?

3:03Not much, it seems. Okay, now let's get to financial analyst Rich Greenfield. Rich Greenfield, first, thanks for joining the show. Great to see you, as always. Let's just get started really quickly with the NFL, something that you've written a lot about, something, of course, I've written a lot about. There hasn't been a lot of movement, it seems, because there really hasn't been a lot of negotiations going on about the NFL reopening its broadcast deals. From where you sit, what's your perspective of what's going on right now with the NFL and the broadcasters?

3:39Rich Greenfield:Well, look, I think what's probably the most interesting development over the course of the past month or so was YouTube. After what appeared to be an incredibly successful game down in Brazil last year, John, that I'm sure you covered a lot, it was certainly surprising to see YouTube. Yes, they still have Sunday ticket, but out of broadcasting linear live games on their own was certainly not something we expected. And, you know, Netflix came in and appears to have outbid YouTube, which it's hard to imagine outbidding YouTube, given the scale of what Google is today. But obviously, financial discipline, you know, it is not a, you know, they don't have a dual revenue stream model the way Netflix does.

4:24Rich Greenfield:You know, they were putting it for free on YouTube. So certainly seeing Netflix's greater interest in more games, I think that might be the single most interesting thing that's happened. And so, sure, we were at this point where everyone was talking about is an NFL renegotiation? Are they going to try to remove the option that all the major players have after the 2029-2030 season? Are they going to try to remove that option and extend everyone out to 2033? Well, what's interesting now is that the Netflix deal goes through 2029. So this wasn't just a one-year deal. The deals they recut with NBC and Fox, that was for a year.

5:07Rich Greenfield:These are now multi-year deals, and it ends in 2029. And so it feels to me like the NFL is sort of saying, hey, you can roll the dice, take your chances on what happens. If you don't renew between now and let's just say the end of the current season, sometime fall, winter of 2026, If you don't renew, who knows what might happen in 2030. We might repackage the – we might recompose the packages. We might create more of an event package for Netflix. Maybe YouTube comes back. I think my guess is seeing the excitement over sports, and you think about what's happening in New York right now with the NBA championship, Like the excitement around sports, how big a deal, you know, you think about what's going to happen with UFC 250 next weekend and what that means for Paramount Plus.

6:06Rich Greenfield:Like the excitement around sports and the importance of sports to both linear television and to streaming. It's hard to imagine the NFL not trying to lock in their partners. Actually, I should say it the other way around. It's hard to imagine the current partners not trying to lock the NFL in for as long as humanly possible. this is why it's so great having you on this pod because there's so many areas that i want to mine from from that answer and let's start with youtube because that really was youtube was uh uh the front runner for for months and and many people thought that the youtube was going to wind up with you know it's just five games but you can see where it's going to end up growing as you said It goes into the end of the weekend.

6:56What does this deal or this lack of a deal mean for YouTube and sports? What should some of the other sports leagues like Major League Baseball or National Hockey League or some of the other bigger sports leagues take away from this? Is it reason to be concerned that YouTube maybe isn't as fully into it as we had once believed?

7:20Rich Greenfield:I mean, they're spending a heck of a lot of money on Sunday tickets. So it's a little hard to, you know, say that just because they didn't bid on a five or they didn't win. They bid. They didn't win on a five game package. And look, I do think that the NFL clearly has a strong interest in developing multiple partners, you know, new partners. You know, the only way you generate, you know, the way sports rights work, right? You need more bidders than packages. And so there is no doubt in my mind that the NFL is, you know, just like they built up Amazon for a number of years before they got their Thursday night package.

7:55Rich Greenfield:I have to believe that the NFL is very interested in building their relationship with both Google, YouTube, as well as with Netflix. And remember, they've sold a huge package to YouTube. They had not sold a huge package to Netflix. It was two games. Now it's five games. It'll be four games after that. But, you know, like I still think that there is a real desire to have as many players with rights as possible to create that tension. Again, you need the tension, whether it's for a renewal in 2033, you know, what happens in 2033, or if the options are not sort of optioned out between now and the next couple of years.

8:34Rich Greenfield:You want to have more bidders because you want to really rethink what happens in 2030. And I think, you know, everyone just sort of looks at it and says, oh, you know, why doesn't everyone just wait? You could. I think the risk is what if the packages look different? What if Sunday becomes one bidder or what if, you know, how could you take games out and create more of an event package? Like if you think about it, John, Netflix is clearly telling you they like events. They don't want a traditional linear package. Could you have two opening day games? Could you have two Thanksgiving, two Christmas, maybe two wild cards?

9:13Rich Greenfield:Like, how could you recompose packages just because the packages look like the way they do now does not mean that's where the packages will look in 2030 and beyond. And I think that's the ultimate leverage that the NFL has is fear of change. And if I'm a broadcaster or a broadcast partner, I should say, I probably really like what I have now. And the last thing I want is anything to change. This is working pretty well. I love that answer because I've said for a long time, these packages were 50 years old. They were built for broadcast television with three channels, essentially. And eventually they did Monday night and eventually they did Thursday night.

9:55And eventually they created some more. But why not say, OK, we're going to parcel out and you want big events? We'll give you the Dallas Cowboys. And Netflix can be the Dallas Cowboys channel or something along those lines. And certainly in streaming is possible.

10:11Rich Greenfield:You can really rethink what this looks like. And just because, you know, if you think right now, there's effectively five major packages right now and you have five major bidders. You know, yes, Netflix has a few. But like, you know, sure, there's like one game on Peacock. But, you know, essentially, virtually everything is on either broadcast TV, a little bit on cable, and then you obviously have the Amazon games on streaming. But, you know, I think the NFL, you know, for all the sort of attacks they got from a regulatory environment, and I'm sure we're going to hear more of that nonsense on the June 10th hearing in front of Congress.

10:50Rich Greenfield:The reality is there is no league that has put as many games on broadcast TV and is a believer in broadcast TV as the NFL. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I think the question is, if I'm the broadcast networks, I need the NFL. The entire broadcast model relies on the NFL. There is no model. I can't imagine CBS, NBC, ABC. These businesses don't exist the way they do if they don't have NFL rights. They're going to want to recut these deals sooner than later. And my guess is before the end of 2026, you see these deals get recut in some form. Now, you talked about the risks that the broadcasters have if they wait until 2029, which is when the outs are in their deal.

11:42There currently is a risk, too, though, right? If the NFL comes in and says, OK, we want, you know, a billion dollars more a year. Where's that coming from? I mean, they're maxed out, or they appear to be maxed out. The NFL would say they're not, but they're maxed out with advertising. They're maxed out certainly with affiliate fees that they're getting from cable and satellite. There is a bit of a risk for the broadcasters if they do bad deals now in the third year of an 11-year deal.

12:17Rich Greenfield:Look, the word maxed out is an interesting term. I know. I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't. You know, I laugh when I when I look at like late night television that loses money. I look at news operations that lose money. I look at, you know, primetime programming that loses money like there. There are many, many places to cut expenses or sorry, redirect spending towards the one thing that truly matters, which is the NFL. Now, look, this is a balance. And I do believe that the NFL is only going to do something that over time is a win-win for their partners. It doesn't, you know, destroying your partners doesn't create a great long-term business.

13:02Rich Greenfield:And so there is certainly a balance. But, you know, when you hear, you know, obviously Major League Baseball is renewing in 28. You know, there's been lots of people showing interest in that. You know, you've got the NHL talking about an early renewal now. I mean, I think in many ways, if the NFL doesn't try to go out and, you know, sort of buy out those options, which I think was sort of my gut was probably they knew by putting the options in this sort of was a possibility. And so, you know, look, maybe it doesn't happen in 26. Maybe it's a 27 event. I'd be very surprised if by 27 this didn't happen just knowing.

13:40Rich Greenfield:But, you know, again, John, the way this ultimately or historically the way this works is you recut the deals, the costs go up, and then obviously you need to, if you're a broadcaster or a cable provider, you then have to work with all of your partners, you know, all the distributors, whether that's Charter, whether that's YouTube TV. And you need to basically alter those deals to afford the step up in cost. And my guess is that continues to drive the pricing of all of these bundles higher and higher. Sure, it leads to more cord cutting, which I'm sure we'll get to. But I think that's the way this ends up happening is that ultimately it gets passed on to consumers in that the bundle keeps getting more expensive.

14:26who is right now sticking with the nfl and and just going to the linear tv networks traditional broadcasters who's best situated uh for renewing the deal and and growing with the nfl right now

14:45Rich Greenfield:i mean look i i think all of the partners you know obviously are going to need to renew i mean i i guess i'll take the inverse of your question it's obviously for fox which is that was going to be the second part of the question yeah i mean i guess you're good at this rich i appreciate it i would reverse the question i mean you know when you look at the size of companies like disney or comcast amazon um certainly paramount where you know i think in paramount's case sure a billion dollars but you know a billion dollars a year, let's just say if that was the number, half a billion dollars a year, whatever the number ends up being, in the scheme of the size of the transaction of trying to buy Warner Brothers, seems like a rounding error to protect the value of the entire company.

15:32Rich Greenfield:Because, you know, again, you have a massive number of cable networks. I don't think any investor is going to believe that those cable networks can sustain themselves if the NFL is leaving in 2030. And so I would expect companies like Paramount to absolutely have major incentive to renew. If you're Fox, sure, this is harder. There's no doubt about it that it's harder. On the flip side, I don't think there's any other company in the space that's doing better right now than Fox. I think Fox 1 has been a real surprise. I think Fox 1, not trying to do anything beyond provide an alternative to the big bundle.

16:15Rich Greenfield:And Fox 1 leveraging Amazon. Now they're on Roku. They're launching on primetime channels in front of the World Cup. Like, I think the reality is, is Fox 1 gets stronger and stronger. It actually, you know, Fox is overall positioning to absorb higher costs. And look, maybe they'll have to give up on other programming. Like, you know, I don't know what happens to MLB or other programming if NFL costs go up. That's obviously the big unknown, right? It's like, how do you balance the portfolio? They're the smallest, which I'm sure you're pointing out. But I would also think Amazon's in an interesting position, right?

16:51Rich Greenfield:Because Amazon is sitting there. They were the incremental bidder that probably helped drive costs up the last time. Does Amazon want to raise costs unless it really believes there's someone, you know, that's coming in that's going to unseat them? And again, the challenge with companies like Amazon is Amazon, if they didn't have the NFL, they're going to be fine, John. Like the story that we're talking about for the last 10 minutes for all of the broadcasters and cable network companies, that doesn't apply to Amazon. Like if Amazon literally didn't have the NFL, I don't think any investor would care about the Amazon.

17:26Rich Greenfield:Like the Amazon story doesn't get worse without the NFL. Yes, it hurts their advertising business. And, you know, I'm sure Prime will suffer. But there's no investor buying or selling Amazon because they have or don't have the NFL. That puts Amazon in a very different place than everybody else. You know, Rich, you talked about YouTube as having fiscal discipline and not doing that deal. I've been marked by the fiscal discipline that all of the streamers have showed because I've been covering this stuff for decades. And the TV network executives get in competition with each other and they want to get it and they quote unquote overspend or spend more than they want to.

18:09Rich Greenfield:Look at NBC and the NBA. Right? I mean, you can't actually make the math work, right? And look, I've said this multiple times. ESPN did not need the NBA. I'm very happy for Adam Silver. He did an amazing transaction. But if I were Disney, ESPN gets its, you know, literally ESPN gets its affiliate fees because of the NFL, not because of the NBA. Yes, they couldn't build ESPN Unlimited. They couldn't build a year round streaming service without having more sports like the NBA. But they certainly didn't have to have it the way they have to have the NFL. And so, you know, I do think that there is a really important differential between the broadcast, the legacy broadcasting cable partners and the streaming companies where this is interesting.

19:02Rich Greenfield:It helps them build an ad business. There's you know, there's no way Amazon or Netflix are building advertising without having the NFL. That is very clear that you need that to scale it up to the levels they want to scale up to. But it's not, and this is critical, it is not existential to either Netflix or Amazon. They will both survive and flourish as companies with or without the NFL. That's very, very different than the others.

19:38the other thing with with the streamers and you mentioned this as well netflix wants big events uh youtube i don't think we really quite know what youtube wants amazon is very happy with thursday night football is happy with one package Will it try to get two packages? I don't know where that would make any sense for Amazon.

19:59Rich Greenfield:I disagree with you on YouTube a little bit. I do think that there is a very clear goal for YouTube, which is YouTube wants one thing. They want you watching YouTube on the big screen. And they now have more than 50 % of watch time is on TV devices. Not sessions, but total watch time is on the TV. So when you put things like a football game, an early NFL game on YouTube and make that the only place to get it, I mean, sure, you could watch it locally on your broadcast TV, but make it someplace where you can get it. You're unlikely. Yes, you could have watched on your phone. But my guess is most people, if they didn't already have YouTube on their TV or if they didn't hadn't used it, this was a reason to log into YouTube on their big screen and watch that game.

20:50Rich Greenfield:And so if I'm YouTube, I want to do everything in my power to get more people using that YouTube app on the big screen. And if I have to pay for a football game and then afterwards, oh, I can watch, you know, I can watch this podcast or I can watch, you know, I can watch the town. I can watch the varsity like I can watch all of these different things on my big screen. I think it's building habit. And I think, yes, it's an expensive way to build habit, but it's a really smart way to get people who are not used to YouTube on the big screen to use the big screen. One more quick YouTube question. Earlier, you referenced last year's game in Brazil, where it got, I think, like 19 million viewers, right around 20 million viewers.

21:33You described that as a big success. I don't know if I put big in there. You described it as a success. It certainly wasn't a failure. 20 million people watching is a respectable number. I thought the number was going to come out to be a lot bigger. Right.

21:50Rich Greenfield:You could have said, hey, why was it not 50 or 60 million, given that there was no paywall? It was literally available on every device on planet Earth. Why was it not multiples of that? Well, this sort of gets back to what we talked about before, habit. You know, John, I think if If you had me on three years ago, I'm sure you did. We probably talked about the Amazon deal in year one. Didn't look so good, right? Like numbers were sub 10 million. We were like, ah, this, you know, I remember talking about it on the Light Shed podcast. We were like, this is like not so great. It's down a lot from where Fox was.

22:29Rich Greenfield:And, you know, now several years later, the numbers are huge. And this sort of gets to why I was surprised YouTube didn't step up and win this package again this season is that I think you need to build habit and, you know, one game once versus, you know, if you had gotten into a habit where there's, you know, three, four, five games in a season and you're tuning in YouTube, my guess is those numbers would start to trend in a much bigger direction over time. That would be my suspicion is that it takes time for people to get comfortable with where the games are. That's certainly what you've seen with YouTube.

23:08Rich Greenfield:I'm sorry, with Amazon, with Netflix, you've only got the one day and everyone is home from, you know, no one's working that day. It's a holiday. Like, so again, I do think that some of this is a, you know, a building of comfort with the platform for consumers. All right. So my get out question with the NFL, you described that what's going on in dc as silliness which uh i agree i i miss misguided there doesn't seem to be a lot of teeth right now in 2026 uh but but there is some sort of movement there's more there's more uh there are more hearings than we've ever seen with uh with with sports um how much of a red flag is this for the NFL?

24:00Rich Greenfield:I mean, I don't know. I look at it and I go, you know, there's no league that has as many games on broadcast TV as the NFL. You know, if anything, other leagues have put a far greater percentage of games, not just on, I mean, forget about broadcast, but on cable TV. And you think about, you know, what's fascinating to me, John, is the reach of Amazon, the reach of Netflix, and the reach of YouTube all now dwarf linear television. Like there's, you know, the number of people with ESPN is what sub 70 million homes now, you know, people with cable television. And so the reality is, is like, in many ways, these streaming platforms actually offer far greater reach.

24:50Rich Greenfield:And, you know, I also think about it from the consumer standpoint. Nobody's signing up. I mean, I'm sure there's some, but I don't think most people are signing up for Amazon to get the NFL. I think the reality is people have Amazon Prime for shipping for whatever reason. And they're now getting the NFL, they're getting NFL Thursday Night Football for basically for free or included. They're not signing up for Netflix to get two NFL games on Christmas Day or now this season five. I still don't think they're signing up for Netflix for that. They're signing up for Netflix to watch a ton of content and they're getting five NFL games for free.