The Sporting Class: The Truth Behind the NBA Ratings Decline

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

I'm not going to eat a little Caesars because I love Eugene Levy's eyebrows.

Right after this ad.

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Ramy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champion, Orton, Alcoholic by Volume 40 by Remy Control, USA Incorporated in Europe, New York, 1738, 1738, Centaur design.

Please print responsibly.

Different vibes I'm getting from you guys right now.

John has been singing.

David is frantically trying to disentangle himself from a coil of wires.

Well, no, I have a system before I start recording something, and I was unable to do it because I got distracted prior to recording, so I'm not on my spot.

My chair isn't the right level.

My IFB is in the wrong side of my jacket.

And there's no table for my water.

So

I'm not feeling great at the moment, but I'm going to

start again.

You're going to soldier through because that's the kind of guy you are.

Well, when you're award-winning, you got to soldier through.

Are we celebrating ourselves here?

I think it's worth mentioning.

We are.

I don't even know if John knows because we sent him a text and he didn't even respond.

This is how this sausage is made.

We win awards for the sausage, and John doesn't even respond respond to the text in which we say, Guess what?

Our sausage just won the best sports business sausage award.

What was the runner up?

It's a great question.

Some there were a bunch of good shows, actually.

Oh, don't be deprecating.

Did you just suggest that not defecate on the show?

No, deprecate.

Thank you.

You want to get that?

That does bring us, though, to the

origin of the name of our show,

which is,

I am always a little startled to remember that we are named after the dog show, which also just happened.

Well, it's a play on words in that we are here conducting a discussion about the business of sports, which you could argue probably happens in sports management classes around the country, and you might call that the sporting class.

And it happens that it coincides with a classification of dogs that are by far the most wonderful dogs.

The sporting class, the beagle, the hound, the blue tick hound.

That's the cuddliest group.

It's the best group.

And

so

we're, and sporting class is the best in class.

So it has all those associations.

By the way,

I do believe I came up with a name.

So I get to say how, what it, what it, what it represents with the cooperation and collaboration of my two friends.

There was no cooperation or collaboration.

There was not.

I just said that.

I don't know why.

I just showed up here and I was like, I guess this is

true.

But I told you, but I told you.

And everybody here's what we'll do, Dave.

And we had a great picture of me and you with two dogs.

With two dogs.

And I had a beagle, and I forget what dog.

What do you mean?

I had you had a like.

Were you guys did a photo shoot?

No, it was a drawing.

A drawing that never found the light of day because your representative wanted you to be in it and there was no reason for it.

Which is a good idea.

I want to find out what that picture looks like.

We'll put that on the YouTube channel.

It's pretty good.

I'm jealous that I didn't get illustrated with Monty the Giant Schnauzer or whatever the f it is.

You have to pick a sporting dog, right?

With a sporting glass.

So you said a Beagle's taken.

Beagle, you had a collie, more court collie.

So what's on the table for me?

Australia.

Everything out.

The field.

Hound.

Ooh.

Massive hound.

Ooh.

You know know what I mean?

Of course.

Those eyes.

Those ears.

Those ears.

I don't like dog shows, don't like dogs.

And I did not want to be the double entendre of the dog situation.

And John was resolute.

It's out of all the decisions he makes during the course of his career, it's as though he latched onto this like a dog to a bone.

No, no, it's like a dog to a bone.

Wow.

Thanks, John.

Nicely done.

Nicely done.

Well, you know, there are, it's not the first thing.

Anybody who works for me would tell you that I frequently suggest that there is one answer to a question, and that's the one we're going to coalesce.

And so the issue was that we're a with.

Yes.

We're a with?

We're a with.

We work with him.

Ah.

The thought was when this was happening, it was for him.

And I tried to explain the dynamic was that we were becoming a with.

And John was not yet prepared for the with.

Well, just not on the naming.

Like we're the pips.

Well, no, no, just on the naming of it.

You were the pips, yes.

Gladys Knight is Gladys Knight and the Pips.

I did not make this.

It's a sporting class.

We're all sporty, right?

And Kyle is an excellent choice.

Yeah, I.

Classy, excellent.

That's right.

Thank you, John.

David has rescued various people from the bottom of wells.

Metaphorical.

Metaphorical.

Metaphorical.

I went to the Javits Center, by the way, not for the proper dog show, but for a Meet the Breeds event.

I had a Sunday, and I had Violet, who is almost five, and I took her to go see and meet the Breeds with a friend and his kid.

My favorite part as you go down this giant cavernous convention hall is they have all the posters, John, and they say, here's the blue tick hound or whatever.

Here's the whatever, the lasha opso.

And each of them, they have a format.

Each of them has three adjectives.

It's like friendly, dedicated,

smelly.

But they're all positive adjectives.

And so you have to read into which ones mean this dog is a dick.

And so it's like insistent.

Yappy.

Yappy.

Is that positive?

I doubt yappy is one of the four edges.

Is that a pejorative breed?

I think yappy's a little pejorative.

Has a system for an IFB.

The Yappy, I think, has the connotation of a little annoying.

You wouldn't say that dog is yappy.

Right.

My cousin is yappy.

It's not a positive thing.

Detail-oriented.

I've been called yappy.

I was in grade school, middle school, high school.

It does not completely strain credibility that in your life at some point, somebody might have suggested you are yappy.

It's a size issue, though, John.

I was going to say, among the other connotations of yappy, is it's like a little dog.

Yep.

Like couldn't hop on a curb.

kind of a thing.

I mean,

it's like a chihuahua.

A chihuahua is yappy.

A teacup, what's it?

A teacup something?

A teacup.

That's a breed, right?

Teacup.

Where do the dogs defecate at the Javits Center?

Just to bring this back to.

Is there, because I took the bar at the Javit Center.

It's a very

bar exam?

Yeah, that's at the Javit Center, not with dogs around.

And I'm picturing sort of there's bathrooms, and I recall that because you had to have a proctor go with you were you to do that back in those days

or a proctoratologist.

You're saying

that we'd cheat like on what the the rule against perpetuities is.

You're saying a handler had to walk you to the bathroom.

Well, that's not a good way to put it, Pablo.

I don't think you want a handler to watch you walk you to the bathroom.

Is that enough?

Who is a proctologist?

Coca-Cola.

Coca has jumped in.

No, no, I wasn't.

You're threatening that we're not going to win a second consecutive best sports business award.

Where else are you going to get this kind of breakdown of the English language on a sporting show?

I'm ready to start.

You're ready to yap.

I think we should do one of my favorite exercises with you guys, which is a bit of press release post-mortem.

The Super Bowl has been declared the most watched Super Bowl, and therefore the most watched anything in, I guess, American history, human history.

Single event.

Single event.

The numbers, despite the blowout, just to give you guys the scene here,

Fox set a Super Bowl viewership record, according to various releases, of 126 million viewers for the Eagles-Chiefs matchup, passing the record of 123.7 million set last year for Chiefs 49ers.

And there are some...

bits of fine print underneath how he got to this number, but is that number correct?

Is that a fair announcement?

Boy, I hope, John, you follow my lead here and agree with me.

There's no way to prove one way or the other that that is the correct number.

I'll start with that macro statement and let's see if we're still together.

It is accurate that that is

not an exact measurement.

They're not looking at literal signals.

They are in some cases, but some of this remains a sampling technique which estimates the number of people who watch.

Is who I think is directionally correct?

I do.

Do I think it's possible it was the most watched in the United States Super Bowl ever?

I assume it wouldn't surprise me if that's right.

And when somebody said it's the most watched single event ever, it's the most watched domestic event ever, right?

Yes.

The U.S.

Super Bowl

is a fraction of the worldwide audience for the World Cup final, which is billion something.

It reminds me of that famous New Yorker illustration of the view from 8th Avenue.

Steinberg.

It's just called

View of New York.

Hi, John.

You may not be surprised to learn that I walked into David's house and are you okay with me saying this?

It seems late now, doesn't it?

I walked in and...

Yeah, I'm actually going to ask, I'm actually going to instruct you as an employee that you must now disclose

the rest of this anecdote.

I've sniffed it out like a bloodhound, and this illustration choice, by the way, bloodhound would be a good choice.

But you're familiar with this illustration, it's basically it shows

the world beyond uh Manhattan, basically.

View of the world, and it's basically New York.

You've seen the image,

it's basically whatever is over there, the world's over here.

And I walked into David's abode, and I saw that, and I was like, Oh, you have a print of this, and he said great picture.

Uh-huh, you fed that.

Yes, that is from the cover of the New York, New Yorker magazine.

It's a Stahl Steinberg is the artist.

And it's a beautiful thing to look at.

But

you have the one.

Are you not?

Okay, now, are you worried about being robbed now for this?

No.

No, but that it's so there's not, there are a few different sizes of the original, but I do have

one that I'm very proud to have acquired

back when my remuneration more reflected my skill level.

And

it is a piece of art that has stood the test of time, mostly because I love to live with it, but also because it is an iconic symbol.

It's hard to find.

The point being that when it comes to ratings and America versus the world, everything else is over there.

We here are measuring our own.

Well, that's always how it is.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

I don't think I just was clarifying

that

it

remains an overwhelmingly domestic event.

I want to get to why this number has some holes we can poke at here, right?

Because before, remind us, guys, before Nielsen, I believe

before,

I guess from 2017 to 2020, Nielsen was measuring out-of-home viewing separately, right?

And then there was a change, John.

This was,

we've talked about this before, but just to remind people what happened, what did happen?

Well, a slightly, and we've talked about this before, this is consistent with what I've said before, which is, remember, the companies doing the ratings are in business with the companies televising the event.

They both have

interest in the numbers going up and being as big as they can.

And it's been harder and harder to measure because people no longer just tune into one of the broadcast networks and watch.

They're in bars, they are in airports, they're in restaurants, they're at viewing parties, they're watching on Tubi, they're watching on Fox Broadcast, they're watching on their computer.

So it's harder to measure, but it also gives you more places to go in and make an estimate to add up to a bigger aggregate number.

Now, again, do I think that's specious?

No, it's just not exact.

And anybody who thinks that anybody knows that it was 137.7 million people watching between 8 to 8.15,

it's a directional number.

But it happened, David.

The numbers started being counted out of home viewing.

Nielsen didn't track it, didn't include it in its estimates until mid-2020.

Not coincidentally, by the way, when viewership in the industry they were measuring plummeted because of the pandemic.

It felt like a stimulus package at the time for those who are closely watching.

But underneath this umbrella of Fox set this record, it's not, of course, as John was alluding to, simply Fox.

It's all these properties, including fast channels, which...

seems to be another development in what we're counting here.

So remember, Fox was the one company that chose not to go streaming.

They didn't invest a dollar the way many of the other big cable companies and broadcasting giants had invested.

And so Fox has now announced, and you saw in the earnings call, John, that Murdoch said, listen, we're now leaning into streaming.

Now we see a path to profitability, so we're going to do it.

And the Super Bowl was on Tubi this year.

And in that 126, 27 million is around 13 and a half million people who purportedly were watching it just on Tubi.

Every Every year, when a record's set, A, it impacts the advertising rate.

And this year was a record sold out, and it was 8 million per 30.

I think it's 8 million in change.

It's around that for a 30-second ad.

And so, as the numbers go up, you get to charge more.

There's a waiting list.

The companies, when State Farm backed out of its Super Bowl ad because of what was going on in California, Fox resold it in less than a second.

It's like having a waiting list for season ticket holders.

So everyone's incentivized, which is why these press releases don't mean much to me.

And by the way,

the ad rates are going to go up whether ratings go up or not.

With a rating going up, helps.

It go down easily.

They just, the demand is such that if they say next year, it's 8.25.

And if the rating had gone down 3%,

trust me, as an advertiser, if you went in and said, oh, well, I'd like to pay 97% next year of what I paid this year, the answer would be no.

You're going to pay next year eight and a quarter.

And the year after that, it's going to be eight and a half.

And in the decade, it's going to be $10 million for a 30-second spot, whatever happens to the ratings.

One of my favorite through lines in this show is that we always are reminded how there is actually something of a disconnect between viewership, between the ratings, and what the prices you can charge for stuff can be.

So, John, I just want to clarify this, right?

So the way it works is if you have the rights to the Super Bowl, and I presume, were you in those meetings, John, when it came to like, what are we going to charge for an ad slot here?

Did you have the Super Bowl in your?

We had the Super Bowl one time in my tenure.

How did that go?

And it was the Super Bowl that was played in San Diego between the

It was the Super Bowl that the offensive lineman crossed over into Mexico.

Oh, the Raiders.

So that was Raiders

Buccaneers.

Raiders, Buccaneers, because that was John Gruden

with the Buccaneers after he had left the Raiders, correct?

And the Buccaneers spanked them, right?

I don't.

The Buccaneers won 48-21.

Oh, close to this year's coach.

This was 2003, but Gruden was the coach.

Gruden beat the Raiders, correct?

And yeah, we had the Super Bowl.

I cannot remember what it cost at that point

for an ad, but probably less than half of what it costs now.

And you don't really, it's an arbitrage, but you don't ever really have any trouble selling the Super Bowl out.

2.1 million

was the cost of 30 seconds.

Yeah.

But also the rights paid to the NFL for that game

was a lot less than what Fox paid for this one.

But it would still prove my point.

The cost of an ad has gone up four times in, what year was that?

That was 2000.

That was 03, January.

So in 21 years, the audience has not quadrupled.

The cost of those ads has quadrupled.

But the use of the ads has also changed.

One of the big differences between now and 20, 25 years ago, these ads now have lives outside of the Super Bowl.

It used to be they debut during the Super Bowl, and then they'd be shown a couple other times within other shows on different channels.

Now, the release of the ads actually happens.

There's YouTube videos.

The companies are using it in their social media.

Well, every actor you hire to be in it posts it to their channel, which is another different dynamic.

Everybody's also an advertiser and a platform themselves.

And so it's easier to amortize the expense over different silos that exist in these companies.

It's an entire industry now, the Super Bowl advertising, which is why the prices will continue to go up as long as there is demand by companies and there is such demand, which I don't quite get.

I don't really get it.

What do you mean you don't get it?

I'm not going to eat a little Caesars because I love Eugene Levy's eyebrows.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champion, African Alcohol by Volume 40 by Remy Control, USA Incorporated, York, New York, 1738, Centaur Design.

Please drink responsibly.

So can we talk about that, actually?

And by the way, it's funny that there are two separate commercials involving like eyebrows and

mustaches flying off.

I conflated it during a nothing personal episode where I thought it was two sets of mustaches because his eyebrow looks so much like a mustache.

Speaking to the group think, perhaps, of like what people are trying to do here and how it's disappointing to people who were raised on, I don't know, the Budweiser frogs or whatever.

But, John, the idea of advertising, which is again a through line in this topic, like, what are you really getting for your money?

The Super Bowl seems like, as you've said, seems like the last place.

for that challenge to really be

for for that for that doubt to creep in, right?

It's the it's it's the biggest thing we got.

It's the Academy Awards for Designers is what

the equivalent is for the ads during the Super Bowl for advertising companies and for the creatives who come up with ideas.

And the budgets for these commercials are obviously way higher than for a standard 30 or 60 second, even in

the second biggest show, the World Series or the NBA Finals or anything.

And I just have always questioned quietly, but never to my sponsors.

I've always questioned, like, what are you getting exactly?

Well, if you're trying to measure exactly what the return on your invested dollar is for these ads, it's not really how people think about it, right?

I bought a Super Bowl ad one time.

We've talked about this on the show, I think, for the ESPN phone, and that would have been somewhere around 2005.

So we paid a couple of million bucks.

We had forecast to, I think, sell about 250,000 phones, and we sold, I think, about 90,000.

So as a return on investment, it did not work.

It was, do you remember the tagline?

I don't.

I remember the commercial.

It was,

I believe it was Sports Heaven was the premise of

heaven.

You were selling heaven.

And you had, this is funny.

I didn't, I didn't remember.

So this is 06, it turns out.

And there are a bunch of baseball players in it.

Jim Edmonds, excuse me, Torrey Hunter, Juan Pierre, Hudson Street, David Wells, Baron Davis, Stefan Marbury, NBA players, obviously.

Antonio Gates was there, just a bunch of guys.

And what did you get for it in the end?

I think we got about 90,000 people who bought a phone and signed up for a phone program.

And then what?

Well,

the effort to create Sports Heaven on a mobile device

lasted about a year, I think.

Before it became hell.

Well, write-off is what I describe it as a hellacious financial matter.

But

we pivoted pretty quickly and created a very significant mobile business around ESPN Digital.

But we did not manage to

crack into serious market share in the digital foam slash phone plan business.

It's really an amazing thing that I think about how to get into market share.

And we're in a business with DraftKings, who's a sponsor, and they and FanDuel have a lion's share of the market share.

And there's a ton of people trying to get it.

It's the old days with the rental cars, with Hertz and Avis, and people trying to figure out how to get into the top two or Coke and Pepsi.

How do you do it?

What do you do?

And brand awareness is one way you can budget to spend money, not to move phones or not to sell cases of your liquid, but to make people aware of it.

And I've always questioned that expenditure because you want to let people know what you have, but you want to move phones.

You heard what John said.

They wanted to move 250,000 phones, but there are people within Disney who said, let's just get people to know what that means.

Well, it was the introduction.

And it is the best place in the country to introduce a new product.

Oh, yeah.

Steve Jobs did this famously.

Yeah, with the Apple ad that was

like a Kalini Rifen style, you know,

like

commercial.

I didn't, it was widely viewed as a failure.

Was it?

This is 1984.

It was viewed as a failure at the time.

Yeah.

It was viewed as a sort of gigantic expense that kind of fell flat because it was a little too intellectual, a little too highfalutin,

and

people didn't react particularly well to it.

But at least that's my recollection.

I could be wrong.

Wall Street analysts are willing to have one quarter, one earnings period where you can dismiss that it was just brand awareness, these expenses.

They didn't have to actually have any sort of ROI.

But once you get into like quarter two or a year or two of your plan, you better show that you're moving phones or that you're doing something to actually bring in money or else

you're going to lose.

Interestingly enough,

who I'm skeptical about many things, I'm not skeptical about the value of buying an ad in the Super Bowl.

It clearly gets the country's attention for a short period of time.

I read about the ads and a ranking of the ads four days before the Super Bowl.

They now release the ads.

Everybody Everybody pays attention.

You get a lot of digital.

You get a lot of views.

They post a lot of stuff now.

I think it, if you can afford it, it is a great way to announce a new product, a great way to remind people you're the leader, which is why people like Budweiser are there.

It's not a great way to show an next week return on investment in the grocery store or the...

If I played a game with you right now, which I don't think we're equipped to play with our lean, mean staff, but if we showed a video of five ads and had five companies where we blacked out what the company was and you had to match five ads to the five companies, I do not believe you would go five for five.

I don't believe I would go five for five.

And I believe most people would not.

No, no, I think you're right about that.

It is always surprising to me.

I just said that conceptually, I think it's a good thing to buy.

You then are wasting your money when you make a commercial which is completely and utterly undecipherable, where you have no idea what they're advertising.

I was on a long flight, I watched a couple of movies.

Every time I watch a movie, you know, you get served four or five ads.

I got served an ad called Will Be or Wheelby or something over and over and over every time.

Clearly it was effective.

And I have no idea what they were advertising.

It was an app.

It has something to do with transportation, I believe.

But I have no idea.

Do you remember the movie you were watching?

Yeah, I watched a bad, bad, a pretty mediocre movie.

And you don't know the title?

Yeah, I do know the title.

Daddy O, starring Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson.

I liked it.

They were in the cab the whole time.

They were in the cab.

It's all right.

I was very entertained, and I actually watched that on a plane also.

Well, that's only

the same thing.

I don't think it was in the theaters.

I have not seen it on the streaming service.

It was.

It's very inexpensive to make.

I am sure.

Only two actors.

Shocked to hear you guys have different views on the same thing.

By the way,

what this does mean more than anything is we fly too much because I will kid you not, I look at all movies, I go from A to Z, and I've seen every one of them that I want to see.

I then re-watched An Hour of Moneyball again just because it's a great film.

It's ever entertaining and great.

Did not think it would work when I first heard of them adapting Moneyball.

I was like, how are you going to do this?

And they

hit it out of the park, as it were.

It's a perfect really great.

It's a great jealousy toward Billy Bean in owners' meetings after the movie Moneyball was palpable.

Oh, the movie, not the book.

Oh, no one cared about the book.

And no one cared about the movie.

They cared about Brad Pitt.

That's it.

It was insane.

It was, and this was not sort of jocular.

This was real.

Why were they mad?

Because nothing but good.

It's good for baseball.

It was offensive to many in the room that Billy Bean would forever be associated with Brad Pitt.

Was there whole thing like, Billy's not that hot?

Yes.

Oh, no, that was

98% of it.

With all due respect.

With all due respect, how many people, I mean, Brad Pitt would get no roles if he couldn't be hotter than the people he's playing.

No, but he often plays fictional characters.

Also grading on the curve of baseball general managers.

He is Brad Pitt.

No offense.

But not really.

So that's also way overblown.

There was nothing in the movie about Miguel Tejada or Tim Otten.

We're not going to read it again.

But I would like to say that what the owners were happy about in President GM's was that Jonah Hill was Paul DiPodessa.

That made everyone very happy.

God, are we terrible?

It's like a middle school.

It's with a bunch of rich people who own teens, who act like children.

So, speaking, though, of the measurement of ego and other people on the outside looking in, jealous of the handsome and the beautiful and the prom kings, I want to talk about the state of the NBA right now, given that we led with the NFL, which is not in question its supremacy over everything.

Again, the only TV show that all of us watch on a relative basis is the game we just discussed.

The NBA is in a different place.

The NBA has a different problem, John, when it comes to what people are consuming, how they are talking about it, where they are wildly popular, and where they are clearly anxious about where they are not.

So how do you summarize, as Adam Silver gives his own State of the Union this week, it's all-star weekend this weekend.

I'll be headed to San Francisco this week.

What's your view of where they are?

Well, my view

is they are ascendant and the deals they just did

are much, much more important than whatever the regular season ratings are.

We're back to people thinking the ratings are some dramatic indication of the health of the league.

The ratings this year for the NBA are up and down.

They're not, I think, overall, other than the Christmas Games, they're down a little bit.

But so what?

I mean, Adam has to address it, but his league couldn't be more healthy.

They just signed 70, what was it, 76

dollars worth of deals, triple what they got before.

If you could ask any owner, tell me if you disagree with this, David, any owner,

the commissioner, anybody associated with the NBA, would you rather have the ratings go up 20%

or the media rights go up 300%?

They would say, I'll take the 300% increase in media rights.

And I think the league was worth it.

I think the league is fine.

Adam has to answer those questions, but the league is fine.

People are watching the games.

People care.

We're in New York City, of course.

The Knicks are good, which the city is alive when the Knicks are good.

And you go to the garden right now, it's electric.

So I think the league is in excellent shape.

They had to deal with this.

I don't think the fact that the ratings are down 3% for one Sunday or up 2% for one Sunday is particularly relevant.

I don't think the ratings are what is concerning him most when he puts his head on the pillow.

I would imagine the state of the game.

If you ask Commissioner Rob Manfred, that's what he thinks about the most, is what is the game that what is the product that we are giving our consumers to consume and our clients, which are broadcasters and which are sponsors.

And the NBA to me has a game quality problem.

And it also is trying to figure out who's next after LeBron and the whole LeBron going to Luca on the Lakers as sort of a small sample of what the NBA may look like going forward.

Is Luca the person they want?

Is it an international player?

Is it Wemby?

How are they going to navigate a world without LeBron the way they did without Jordan?

It's interesting.

But the Luca thing was, I think, instructive in terms of how the NBA has some clear strengths.

and also some relative weaknesses, right?

So Super Bowl week happens.

Luca, that whole thing takes headlines, right?

Everybody is talking about this.

The oxygen got stolen from the NFL in the run-up to the biggest game in America.

And yet, I think this is emblematic of a concern.

You have lots of people talking about the drama in the NBA, the characters, the play, the theater, meaning play, the theater, not necessarily the play itself, but the theatrics around all of it.

But it hasn't been reflected that level of cultural currency, John, when it comes to actually watching the product, as David said, the actual games.

And that's an internet, social media thing, buzz thing versus product thing.

Well, the product for the NFL is dramatically easier to consume, right?

Lots and lots less games than

the NBA.

The NBA has an advantage in that more people know their players.

They have an opinion about more players.

Their players are more visible.

They're playing in short pants and shirts with no sleeves on them.

So, as opposed to helmets and pads, and you can't really see who they are other than the number and the name for most of the action.

But I think the NBA is playing to their strengths, which is player-driven, and the NFL is playing to its strengths, which

it's the greatest game on television.

It just is.

And by the way, the scarcity makes a huge difference.

Before this was scheming with Matt Coca, as I often do, if I ask you how many

games are in the NBA playoffs versus how many games are in the NFL playoffs, what would be your guess?

Oh, mathematically, like a total.

No, just quantity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, the NFL has six on wildcard weekend.

Then it goes down to four is 10.

And then that's the divisional round.

Plus two is 12, plus Super Bowl one.

So I'm going to say 13 playoff games of the NFL.

13.

And

the NBA has, there's nobody.

Well, you're going to count.

I was just looking at

the distinctual reaction.

But the NBA is a

go ahead and count.

Are you the jelly bean jar guy that you can look at the jar and estimate?

No, no, I asked Matt Coca.

He told me.

So

the NBA is 88.

And the NFL is 88.

88.

Wait, what's that assuming?

Seven game series?

That is sort of an average.

The least game, that's sort of an average.

I think we just counted one last year, 88.

It could probably be 80 to 95, right?

They played all the games.

But a dramatic difference.

Yeah, you can't watch all those games.

If you're watching just your own team,

you can win a Super Bowl with your team playing three times.

The least number of games you could play to win an NBA championship, and this would be if you Moses Maloned it.

Faux, faux, and faux and faux, because you need four now.

It's 16 games.

You have to win 16 games.

You might have to play another 12.

So you could end up playing 28 games, which is more games than any NFL team plays in an entire season.

But, John, you were the person at ESPN who was famous for paying, for increasing the value of this specific package.

Yeah, no.

And did you, did you man wanting more rounds and wanting the first round to go from two of three to three of five, then to four of seven?

Well, the same thing is all true of the NFL.

It just has less of everything.

But yeah, we would want as many rounds in the playoffs, right?

Nobody watched 100 and no game in the regular season had 127 million people watch it, right?

So the games are more and more valuable as you advance to a championship.

It probably is more acute with the NBA, meaning that the

playoff games drive a larger percentage of the value than the NFL postseason would.

That feels right.

And so, yeah, we wanted to press, and the league has responded.

They understand.

And what Adam did, of course, with the in-season tournament is he needs to figure out, and Christmas Day, and he's experimenting this year with the all-star format.

He needs to figure out ways to make more of the huge quantity of games they play stand out in some way.

So you have to watch that game as opposed to, I can look at the Knicks schedule now, and

there's 20 games in the next X number of weeks.

I don't know, four, four and a half.

And I can look at it and find five or six games I'd want to watch.

But nobody, almost nobody, there are a few people, watches every game their NBA team plays.

Lots of people watch every game their NFL team plays, don't they?

I think we bury the lead because Adam Silver, when he was giving his State of the Union, one of the most important economic things that he brought up was the possibility of going to 10-minute quarters.

His desire to make the games two hours for broadcast, two hours for fans, two hours for players.

It would help with every part of making it better for the union in terms of if they could get their same salary to play eight fewer minutes.

It would have issues with the record books, et cetera.

But his claim is that the broadcasters were very interested in the two-hour window the way they are for soccer, and that the two and a half to 240 that is an NBA game now, it felt like he got pushback during negotiations.

And I was surprised by that.

Wait, wait, he got pushback as in they wanted to keep the status quo.

No, meaning that he, like in baseball, when the games went too long, the broadcasters were saying, listen, it's screwing up our windows.

We can't have four-hour games.

And NBA games at two hours and 40 minutes, let's say average, he was basically saying that the broadcasters had given him an indication that a two-hour window would be favorable and better for them.

And I didn't necessarily understand that.

Well, it's a problem.

It's not a big problem for ESPN.

It's a bigger problem for NBC because, right, they're trying to get their local news in and the broadcast networks still care about the block of time.

The predictability of it.

But it's so different now.

It used to be that shows were 52 minutes and that they started at eight and ended at nine on your NBC channel.

But now when you go to episode lengths, we're used to a 42-minute or or a 48 minute or an hour three.

We don't really think about it much.

I certainly don't.

Again, if you if you wanted to decrease, I personally would not change the quarters.

I would change the amount of timeouts and I would change what happens at the end of the game.

They got to figure out a way.

It's worse in college basketball.

You got to figure out a way that the last minute and 12 seconds doesn't take 16 minutes to play.

It's the number one, every non-die-hard, hardcore NBA fan I know, the reason they don't want to watch basketball with me is because the end of the game is.

It's so long and they take so many timeouts and there's so many reviews.

Somehow they got to figure out that the last, it's another great thing that's great about soccer.

There's no way to make the game much longer.

You got to actually play.

To me,

I would say you only get, I'm making it up.

You only get one timeout you can keep to the last two minutes.

That's it.

You don't get to keep four timeouts.

So you can score, call a timeout.

I'd like to know.

It's about advancing the ball.

So the NBA, the reason why you keep timeouts to the end of the day.

No, no, that's part of it.

Is getting into half court.

So if you change the rule that after a basket, that all of a sudden you can take the ball out at half court instead of at the end, that would be.

We'll just change the rule that says you don't get to take it out at half court if you call a timeout.

You can do it either way.

That way, too, which would be a big disc.

I mean, what is the logical reason that I get to trade a timeout for half a court?

The reason is that you have a higher percentage chance.

I know, no, I understand, but what is the logic?

What is the logic of saying, oh, well, if you call a timeout, you advance the ball to half a court.

Why don't you just say you still have to advance it from the other side?

Well, the theory was when there's a stoppage in the game, I get what you're saying, but it's fascinating than Addie Silver's thinking.

I would love to hear you guys' Statler and Waldorf timeouts for many, many more hours.

I do want to get back to what Adam Silver was saying, though, because he sort of diagnosed a particular issue here, speaking to how young people, John, online online are still very into the nba they are following they are debating they are consuming in these bite-sized portions but adam silver said the decline in the young 18 to 34 demographic is because they're not watching traditional cable they're streaming stuff they're doing all of that and that this feels like an economy of how to monetize stuff question at this point it sounds to me like um the preparation to work with your research companies to make sure you're measuring all the other stuff because they're not watching the stuff that the measuring companies.

It's not unlike what we were talking about before.

With the press release.

He is going to work with the companies.

They're going to measure more out of home.

They're going to measure more digital stuff.

They're going to figure out a way to measure the total engagement numbers with the NBA.

They're going to be higher

and problem solved.

His problem there is only PR.

It's not business.

It's only PR.

I had an amazing epiphany the other day.

And it was a bad one.

That my demographic, my age now, there's not one league, there's not one company, there's not one anybody that is gearing anything toward me.

Well, there's a reason for that.

But why?

Because I'm not dying anytime soon.

No.

And I am,

from a measurement standpoint, what about that press release?

David Sampson quotes.

I'm not dying.

You sound now like Les Moonvez, who used to complain, gee, we have such wealth among the people who are 68 years old who are watching our mediocre shows.

I don't understand why people don't value them.

I won't ask you, the Sukh brand, how long have you been using the current deodorant you use?

So this is a whole

different

thing.

So I don't want to answer that, but I totally understand what you're saying.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.

The first one I used was Mennon because my dad used Mennon and said to me that if you don't use Mennon, that you will always smell.

This is a real hole.

And I don't know that he was a paid person for it.

I don't think he was.

And it was a very big moment when I chose to stop using menon which may not exist anymore no no it exists it still exists that's what i use no way

this is making so much more sense now because this show makes so much more sense now as you get

you've made all you've made

you've made all your ad choices already david what what's the last time i'm talking about rule changes i'm talking about advertisements i'm talking about the whole package but no one cares about me anymore asking why no one is targeting you or me i want to be targeting because i'm willing to change I mean, not really, but maybe.

Exactly.

No, no.

You, I'm more willing to change than you, David.

The chance is that you decided a long time ago what kind of ties you buy, what kind of car you buy, what kind of toothpaste you use, and you use the same one every time and you have for the last 20 years.

Is that not mostly directionally correct?

It is directionally correct.

Toothpaste was a bad example because sometimes you asked

directionally correct in the same way that John was like, I think sports are going to be big on phones.

Yeah, exactly.

Directionally, it was right.

But no, it is that you've made your choice.

And why did, I don't know why we're going to use deodorants, but we will.

Why did Old Spice have the huge campaign and the nutty campaign that probably you and I went, that's stupid.

They had it to try to convince young guys to use Old Spice instead of Axe.

That's right.

And Axe, did you ever use Axe?

Never.

No, exactly.

And that's why this is an Axe-free podcast.

That's why they're not targeting you because you're not going to switch.

They got to get the young.

They got to get the young folks, David.

We've already made our choice.

I don't know where we are with time, but I have one more Adam Silver issue that he's got to deal with.

That's an existential.

He's all star weight with time.

He's heading into the all-star weekend.

And I think you may be going to that that or you may not.

Yes, I may already be there.

You may already be there, which is even cooler.

And the All-Star game is something that he's trying to figure out.

They're doing a new change this year.

And I can't wait for us to review it on a future show.

There's four teams now, and there's going to be some sort of tournament style.

Plus, there's a Slam Dunk contest with four guys that no one can name, including the two-time reigning champion.

And Adam Silver, like the other commissioners, they sit around.

And I was thinking of this when Rob Manford was in the box at the Super Bowl next to McCartney or five away.

They're trying to figure out any way to add any sort of valuable inventory.

So, John is saying more playoff games, but that doesn't always work.

So, the NFL says, How about more international games?

And they go package that, which is why they've done more.

Different slots.

They do the 9:30 a.m.

The NFL, the NBA goes to Paris and they happen to bring their top French star.

It was announced this week that MLB is going to open in Tokyo with the Dodgers.

And guess who's starting for the Dodgers?

Yamamoto and Sasaki.

And so what all the leagues are doing is trying to find a different audience.

They're trying to get money in order to access that audience and then take money from that audience.

And eventually you run out, but not yet.

And so Adam Silver, as he thinks about the state of his game, my view that chucking threes is ugly, it really is last on his list.

And the ratings being down, it's second to last on his list.

He's trying to find different revenue streams, which is what all the commissioners are doing.

He's trying to find some non-David Sampsons to consume his products.

He has, I mean, look, they've

clearly signaled that they're interested potentially in starting a league in Europe.

So we should talk about that idea, which smells a bit to me, incidentally, right?

This is Maverick Carter, right?

Yeah, this is a well, no,

it's a couple of different things.

Maverick Carter is talking, I don't,

is Maverick Carter, I think, was working with the Saudis to figure out.

I think he raised $5 billion to create

a competitive non-NBA global basketball league.

Yes, it was.

A live golf of basketball.

I guess.

It's not really the same as live.

I think the idea was to create some teams that would travel and play each other in exhibition games.

Yes, six men, six women.

I'm very skeptical of the idea overall.

I am much less skeptical of the idea of the NBA launching a league in Europe.

I do believe there's a difference between what the NFL is doing with their overseas international games, what the NBA is doing.

The NBA actually is planning to go to Europe.

And when they go to Europe, it will be NBA Europe.

And Europe will care because Europe cares about basketball.

There is no shot.

The NFL already tried to start a league in Europe.

And I think they got a little traction, not much.

I think they get a lot of traction for the traveling, and I don't mean this in any pejorative sense, for the traveling circus.

They're going to take that down to Australia next year.

It'll be a smash.

Are they going to launch an Australian league?

I don't think so.

Ireland?

Are they going to Ireland?

They'll do great, but it is not in advance of a new NFL Europe league.

They might think about a team, but NBA can go to Europe and have a real league.

It puts basketball on the way to being the world's second big global sport.

I heard some people next to me in the lounge waiting area asking what was the largest sport in the world and what was second.

Their answer was cricket.

It's not my answer because it's kind of a cheap thing

where they play in India.

There's a lot of people in India, but it's not the world's second sport.

They play it in about a dozen countries in a serious way.

But basketball will be played at some not distant point in 60, 70 countries in a various serious way.

You say it's not live, and I say what makes live live is when they got some of the top players to go play at live.

They're going to get players at Maverick Carter.

So we say that, be it the money in the NBA is so good.

I would just say that if there were a middling NBA player to even an all-star level player and you offered $100 million per year to play in this Maverick Carter league, that that player would go.

They'll get one and they're going to go all Liv did.

But Liv got

some number of the top 25 players, not marginal player.

I do not believe you might get one.

I do not believe any of the top 50 NBA players will be attracted to the idea of going to play in a travel circuit against other marginal players.

And Aldo went to Saudi Arabia, didn't he?

And didn't make any difference.

On that note,

there's some pun here about dogs and tricks and sports washing.

Getting out of it later.

Yeah, we'll figure that out.

David and John, thank you for

being the best in class.

Good out.

That's good out.

Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Aberoma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller-Howard, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tuminello, and Juliet Warren.

Our studio engineering by RG Systems, our sound design by NGW Post, our theme song, as always, is by John Bravo.

We will talk to you next time.