Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite people in television I've ever worked
Speaker 2: with is Michael moulva Hill Ratings Insights analytics at Fox TV.
Speaker 2: Fascinating Listen Caitlin Clark, NFL college football, the future of
Speaker 2: streaming in sports, all of it with Michael Moulvehill. Before
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Speaker 2: Lowest price is guaranteed. Well, I always try to stay
Speaker 2: away from too many conversations with the suits on the
Speaker 2: fifth floor. You just get in trouble when you're on
Speaker 2: the air and you get in the company of powerful men.
Speaker 2: And Michael Mulvahill, the President of Insights and Analytics at
Speaker 2: Fox across the Board, is one of those powerful guys.
Speaker 2: But he's so disarming first of all, and second of all,
Speaker 2: he's got I mean, it's a perfect title, Insights and Analytics,
Speaker 2: and there's so many things. I don't really talk a
Speaker 2: ton about my industry. If I do, Michael's the guy
Speaker 2: at Fox that I talk to. So there's a kind
Speaker 2: of a myriad of topics here. Let's start with something
Speaker 2: we've never seen before. Caitlin Clark. Now, years ago, when
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods came into golf, there was this sense that, oh,
Speaker 2: golf ratings are going to explode, And my takeaway was, no,
Speaker 2: when Tiger leaves. I mean, three million people take up
Speaker 2: golf a year and three million people quit. It's hard,
Speaker 2: But there are these Caitlin Clark, Michael Jordan figures in
Speaker 2: our life that are just unique and spectacular. Women's ratings
Speaker 2: have been growing. Do you see Caitlin Clark as the
Speaker 2: creator of a new reality, or to some degree she's
Speaker 2: just a spectacular unicorn with her style, tenacity and excellence
Speaker 2: for multiple years.
Speaker 1: That's a great place to start. And first of all,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I really enjoy doing this with
Speaker 1: you from time to time. I also try to avoid
Speaker 1: having conversations with powerful people up here on the fifth
Speaker 1: book Women, I have that in common. Look, certainly, this
Speaker 1: is a unique moment in the evolution of interest in
Speaker 1: women's sports. I don't think we've ever seen such a
Speaker 1: groundswell in interest across certainly basketball, collegiate volleyball, international soccer.
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing is the payoff of literally
Speaker 1: over fifty years of Title Mind and the way that
Speaker 1: that's changed the way that girls have access to sports,
Speaker 1: and the way that both men and women think about
Speaker 1: women's athletics. And it's brought us to this moment where
Speaker 1: college basketball ratings on the women's side are up sixty
Speaker 1: percent across all networks, and Caitlin Clark's game on Sunday
Speaker 1: against Ohio State did almost three and a half million viewers.
Speaker 1: And I think your question is the right one. You know,
Speaker 1: what does this mean going forward and is Caitlin at
Speaker 1: Unicorn And I don't think she is, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that what she is is she's at the four
Speaker 1: front of an evolution in the skill level that we
Speaker 1: see in women's basketball and the players that are coming
Speaker 1: up behind her, whether that's Page Beckers who's coming back
Speaker 1: for another year at Connecticut or Juju Watkins who has
Speaker 1: several years to go at Southern cal and obviously they'll
Speaker 1: be part of the Big Ten next year. I think
Speaker 1: she's just on the leading edge of a new generation
Speaker 1: of players that are elevating the game. I think Tiger
Speaker 1: Woods is an interesting precedent as well. I think you
Speaker 1: could even go back as far as the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: NBA where Magic and then Jordan entered the league and
Speaker 1: they were at a skill level that we hadn't seen before,
Speaker 1: but they just represented an evolution of the game that
Speaker 1: then continued even after they had moved on. So I
Speaker 1: think on once Caitlin moves on to the WNBA, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that we'll see viewership at the collegiate level.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what we're seeing this year, But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a reset back to where we were five
Speaker 1: years ago. Either, I think a a permanent step forward
Speaker 1: has happened, and we're still going to see some pretty
Speaker 1: strong interest in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also think men's and women's college basketball
Speaker 2: ratings will be closer. One to your point, the evolution
Speaker 2: and progress and development of women's basketball. We've got forty
Speaker 2: fifty years of young ladies being encouraged to be athletes,
Speaker 2: and we're seeing the payoff. But I also think there's
Speaker 2: a reality about the NBA in college basketball is unlike
Speaker 2: college football in the NFL, they don't work together. The
Speaker 2: top four picks in this past draft in the NBA
Speaker 2: came from four different leagues. It's too much. It's a
Speaker 2: turnstyle when you add the transfer portal to the one
Speaker 2: and done. If I can't name three duke starters, but
Speaker 2: I can name two Iowa women's starters, that tells you
Speaker 2: what's happening. I would argue the G League.
Speaker 1: I think the NBA.
Speaker 2: Adam Silver has always had a little bit of a
Speaker 2: chip about college basketball. Noways getting paid in college basketball,
Speaker 2: so maybe it's a different vibe. But I think the
Speaker 2: G League was created to give talented basketball players who
Speaker 2: perhaps didn't want to go to college real money and
Speaker 2: real opportunities without having to pass through college basketball. But
Speaker 2: I do wonder, Michael if that's hurt the college game
Speaker 2: and the pro game. I've often said, I know Zion
Speaker 2: for one reason, Duke he goes to the G League.
Speaker 2: He's Jalen Green.
Speaker 1: What do I know?
Speaker 2: I know Jalen Green's talented. I didn't watch him in college.
Speaker 2: I don't think men's college basketball barring a transformational figure,
Speaker 2: and I think Zion was. I think men's basketball and
Speaker 2: women's basketball are going to be semi close here on out.
Speaker 2: Am I wrong on that?
Speaker 1: I don't think you are, And in fact, I think
Speaker 1: when we look ahead to March Madness this year, I
Speaker 1: think the difference in view worship, which is what I
Speaker 1: spend all my time thinking about the difference in viewership
Speaker 1: between the men's national championship game and the women's National
Speaker 1: championship game, I think it's going to be closer than ever.
Speaker 1: You know, last year that margin was I think about
Speaker 1: four million viewers. This year, the women's national title game
Speaker 1: will be on broadcast. The men's national title game will
Speaker 1: be on cable. That makes a big difference. If Caitlyn
Speaker 1: gets to the championship game, and plays a big brand
Speaker 1: name school. I don't know that that necessarily means that
Speaker 1: the women's game is going to outrate the men's, but
Speaker 1: I do think that margin is going to be tighter
Speaker 1: than ever. And I think you're right. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of what we see on the women's side,
Speaker 1: we're seeing elements that we used to associate with men's
Speaker 1: college basketball decades ago. What I mean by that is
Speaker 1: that you've got stars who play four years. Caitlyn Clark
Speaker 1: could have chosen to come back and play a fifth year.
Speaker 1: The nucleus of top teams stays together longer, you can
Speaker 1: build rivalries. If Caitlin Clark plays Angel Reese in this
Speaker 1: year's tournament, again, there's a carryover effect from Sparis Treament,
Speaker 1: and that's become really, really rare on the men's side.
Speaker 1: And I do think that's a little bit And look,
Speaker 1: we're obviously very invested in men's college basketball too, so
Speaker 1: we only wanted to do well. But I do think
Speaker 1: that there are some well established handicaps on the men's
Speaker 1: side that we don't necessarily see on the women's side,
Speaker 1: and it helps contribute to that closing of the gap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember about fifteen years ago, I used to
Speaker 2: get Street and Smith for men's college basketball, and I
Speaker 2: could guess the starting five All American team. And I
Speaker 2: remember a few years ago I got some magazine, maybe
Speaker 2: been seven eight years ago, and the first team All
Speaker 2: American team had two high schoolers. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: Seacrest out, this is way over. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: go online when high schoolers or first team All Americans.
Speaker 2: It's like, I give up. I want to pivot here
Speaker 2: to baseball and Joe a Otani. So a friend of
Speaker 2: mine went to a Padre spring training game.
Speaker 1: Labs.
Speaker 2: Now that's a pretty star filled roster.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 2: He drove into the parking lot. Four minutes later, he's
Speaker 2: in his seat. He went to a Dodger game the
Speaker 2: next day, he said, Colin, it took me forty five
Speaker 2: minutes from the time I pulled into the parking lot
Speaker 2: to get to my seat. It would have been a
Speaker 2: twenty to twenty five minute wait in beer lines. So
Speaker 2: I have suggested that Sho Hee o Tawny. I mean
Speaker 2: he's almost eachy row with power. You know, each row
Speaker 2: was more of a singles doubles guy had some home
Speaker 2: run stick. It was a remarkable player, a fascinating player.
Speaker 2: But now you're talking to the Dodgers the LA market.
Speaker 2: This guy is, you know, six ' five Hollywood looks,
Speaker 2: and he's a power hitter. You know, there's a Paul
Speaker 2: Bunyan quality. We love our Mark mcguires and our Aaron Judge,
Speaker 2: Reggie Jackson generationally, we do you know, Johnny Bench, We.
Speaker 1: Love those guys.
Speaker 2: I have suggested they're going to average fifty thousand people
Speaker 2: a year now. They already lead Major League Baseball in
Speaker 2: a tenants. It's a beautiful stadium, hard to get in
Speaker 2: and out of, but nonetheless it's a big brand in LA.
Speaker 2: What what do you think he does for baseball? Dodgers
Speaker 2: already popular? But it does matter, Michael, as you know,
Speaker 2: outside of the NFL, and perhaps even in the NFL market,
Speaker 2: size can matter, stars matter. How do you view Otani?
Speaker 2: Does he elevate the sport or just the Dodgers?
Speaker 1: How do you view it? So there are a couple
Speaker 1: of ways of coming at that. I think it's a
Speaker 1: really fascinating question. I think one of the realities of baseball,
Speaker 1: and we can contrast this maybe to the NBA, is
Speaker 1: that in the NBA stars create brands, and in baseball,
Speaker 1: brands create stars. Right. Lebron James can come into the
Speaker 1: NBA and make the Cleveland Cavocleers a brand, and they
Speaker 1: were one of the top brands in the league for
Speaker 1: a long time. For whatever combination of reasons, it tends
Speaker 1: not to work that way in baseball, and sho Hey
Speaker 1: Otani was never really able to eleve the brand of
Speaker 1: the Angels, even playing alongside Mike Chobt. He's got an
Speaker 1: argument is every day layer at right. So now moving
Speaker 1: to the Dodgers, you're moving into that environment where the
Speaker 1: brand helps make the stars.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Like in baseball, the brands that matter obviously the Yankees clearly,
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, the Cubs when they're good, the Cardinals when
Speaker 1: they're good, they're like, yeah, many maybe Atlanta's in that category.
Speaker 1: By moving to a brand that matters, the brand will
Speaker 1: elevate him a little bit, which is obviously great for
Speaker 1: Shohei Otani. I think it's great for the Dodgers. I
Speaker 1: think their home games this year will take on a
Speaker 1: little bit of the feel of what Laker games feel
Speaker 1: like when the Lakers are good, where it's got that
Speaker 1: celebrity wattage and just the field that comes with a
Speaker 1: big event in LA and that's going to be amazing.
Speaker 1: All that said, you know, the reality is that the
Speaker 1: baseball postseason, more than any other sport, has a high
Speaker 1: degree of randomness. And the Dodgers might have one of
Speaker 1: the best everyday lineups that we've seen in years. They
Speaker 1: could go out and win one hundred and fifteen games,
Speaker 1: and still when we get to October, we're going to
Speaker 1: be holding our breath to see if they can win
Speaker 1: three out of five and get to the next round,
Speaker 1: then four out of seven and get to the World Series.
Speaker 1: You just don't have that confidence that, even when you
Speaker 1: have a super team, that they're necessarily going to advance.
Speaker 1: And that's just sort of a byproduct of the construction
Speaker 1: of the baseball postseason. So I think it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: I think it's great for this city, But as a
Speaker 1: part of the company that's the rights holder to the
Speaker 1: World Series and has been for a long time, I
Speaker 1: think we have to sort of moderate our expectations for
Speaker 1: what Otani can mean, because it's just the nature of
Speaker 1: baseball that you still have a reasonable chance that no
Speaker 1: matter how good the big brands are, there's still a
Speaker 1: path for Arizona and Texas and smaller market teams that
Speaker 1: win eighty seven games to get to the World Series. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think the quirkiness and the randomness of baseball
Speaker 2: what really separates it. It's not as predictable. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's funny the Yankees had finally a really down year
Speaker 2: and people are, you know, driving to the precipice of
Speaker 2: the cliff. The Yankees are done on like folks, They've
Speaker 2: had one bad year in like twelve, like slow down.
Speaker 2: They'll be fine. So I want to talk college football
Speaker 2: in my space. As you know, I was taught a
Speaker 2: rule very quickly in sports radio, and I consider my
Speaker 2: FS one show. It's just sort of a radio TV combo. Right,
Speaker 2: It's a simulcast play the hits, and so I do
Speaker 2: about sixty five percent of NFL. It's the hit and
Speaker 2: during the Alabama and Georgia dominance. And I love college football.
Speaker 2: I think you know that I scaled back for about
Speaker 2: eight to ten years. I felt the sport was very regional,
Speaker 2: and I had said continually, you have to have USC, Texas, Michigan.
Speaker 2: They have to win two. This past year, although USC
Speaker 2: wasn't good it felt much broader, and so I increased
Speaker 2: significantly my college football talk. My guess is I will
Speaker 2: double it this year based on taking the four biggest
Speaker 2: brands of the West into the Midwest, Texas, Oklahoma into
Speaker 2: the best conference or you know, depending on the year
Speaker 2: and the teams the SEC as a company. It has
Speaker 2: been suggested to me, because the ratings were up this
Speaker 2: year in college football, that it could take a precipitous
Speaker 2: jump this year and really stabilize and confirm it is
Speaker 2: the second most watched sport in America. So A is
Speaker 2: it now clearly? And BDU suspect that's where we're going
Speaker 2: with a convergence of big brands and new conferences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not only was viewership up last year, you can
Speaker 1: go a step further. Viewership for college football last year
Speaker 1: was the highest it's ever been. So this is the
Speaker 1: most watched season in college football ever.
Speaker 2: Wow, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: They think that there's been sort of but nationalization of
Speaker 1: interest that will be enhanced by those West Coast teams
Speaker 1: coming to the Big Ten. I think, just from a
Speaker 1: television perspective, a lot of what's changed is that we
Speaker 1: don't do regionalized college football windows anymore, and we haven't
Speaker 1: for some time. So every game is going to a
Speaker 1: national audience, and more and more games are coming to
Speaker 1: broadcast TV. I think Fox has been self serving for
Speaker 1: me to say this, but I think we've been an
Speaker 1: important player in that because we've moved our best games
Speaker 1: to noon, which means you now have great games at noon,
Speaker 1: great games at three thirty, and great games at primetime,
Speaker 1: and so it creates a better day of college football
Speaker 1: and you're seeing more times than with the sport. I
Speaker 1: actually think right now, and I'm like you, I've went
Speaker 1: through a period where maybe it was a little bit
Speaker 1: bearished on college football, really preferred NFL Sundays. I don't
Speaker 1: think there are any better days in sports now than
Speaker 1: college football Saturdays, because you have so many games, so
Speaker 1: much available to watch, so much able to bet on
Speaker 1: if you're a person who's inclined to take a little
Speaker 1: action on some of these games. And I think every
Speaker 1: college football Saturday is now really on par or even
Speaker 1: better than the Thursday and Friday of the first weekend
Speaker 1: of March Madness, which you just think of as a
Speaker 1: feast of all days sports viewing and sports betting. So
Speaker 1: I think college football is an incredibly healthy place. The
Speaker 1: expansion in the Big Ten, you know what it means
Speaker 1: for us, And this is what you were alluding to earlier.
Speaker 1: Now you've got Ohio State Oregon as a game that's
Speaker 1: on the schedule next year. USC Michigan is a game
Speaker 1: that's on the schedule next year. You're going to have
Speaker 1: these interregional rivalries and huge games that weren't previously possible.
Speaker 1: I would imagine most of the people listening aren't aware
Speaker 1: of this. But the way that college football games give
Speaker 1: a signed across the networks is that we literally go
Speaker 1: through a draft, right So in the ten draft box
Speaker 1: has the number one pick, take Ohio State Michigan. The
Speaker 1: networks take turns drafting, and that's how the games are assigned,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit different than the NFL. You
Speaker 1: still do that, Yeah, yeah, it's one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting ectors. When are you doing that?
Speaker 3: What day?
Speaker 1: What we It's a couple of weeks out because now
Speaker 1: that CBS is a partner with us in the Big Ten,
Speaker 1: they obviously get very busy around March Madness, so it's
Speaker 1: going to probably slow the process down a little bit.
Speaker 1: So we're a few weeks away from starting that college
Speaker 1: football draft. But there are games on the draft board
Speaker 1: this year that in the old Big Ten you would
Speaker 1: have thought this is the second or third best game
Speaker 1: in the pool, And this year those games may not
Speaker 1: go till six, seventh, eighth, ninth. I mean, at the
Speaker 1: depth of quality games, the number of games that I
Speaker 1: would feel comfortable putting in a Fox noon window, which
Speaker 1: is our showcase window. There are at least forty, if
Speaker 1: not fifty games like that. I would imagine that. I
Speaker 1: would imagine that in the Disney offices. When the ESPN
Speaker 1: folks look at the SEC schedule now that they've got
Speaker 1: Oklahoma and Texas coming on board, they probably feel the
Speaker 1: same way. I mean, the depth of great games in
Speaker 1: those two conferences is just extraordinary, I think, And look,
Speaker 1: I understand people have there there's a lot of complexity
Speaker 1: around NIL and now there's the possible unionization of college athletes,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of like important issues playing
Speaker 1: out in the collegiate space. But I think, just in
Speaker 1: terms of a television product, college football's never been stronger,
Speaker 1: and I think it's going to be even stronger this fall.
Speaker 2: Obviously, the Dallas Cowboys, when they're viable rate very well
Speaker 2: with the NFL, and there are markets right now that
Speaker 2: are underachieving Chicago, New York. You just wish the teams
Speaker 2: were better. I've always argued it's hard to understand how
Speaker 2: big the influence of the forty nine ers is unless
Speaker 2: you live out west. If the playing in your stadium,
Speaker 2: they've got forty percent of the seats. Other than maybe Denver,
Speaker 2: they're the Yankees of the West coast that they literally
Speaker 2: fill your stadium. So I've always thought the Niners were
Speaker 2: undervalued as an NFL market. San Francisco's obviously a big city,
Speaker 2: and I do wonder about Pittsburgh that was so dominant
Speaker 2: for years, but it's a small city relative to other
Speaker 2: big markets. So if I said to you six best
Speaker 2: if Fox could pick and now these days you guys
Speaker 2: share AFC NFC, if I said to you, all things considered,
Speaker 2: market brand quarterback, can you unveil like the top six
Speaker 2: or seven picks in this league.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting way of framing it, right, because
Speaker 1: there's a very clear top two and then there's a gap,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of an open question as to what
Speaker 1: team might step up and become the third most powerful
Speaker 1: brand because for years, at least on the NFC side,
Speaker 1: it was Dallas and Green Bay. Well, on the end side,
Speaker 1: it's still Dallas. It's probably always going to be Dallas.
Speaker 1: It could be Green Bay again, but I think right
Speaker 1: now there's a little bit of a blank space that
Speaker 1: some team could step into and become that third marquee brand. Certainly,
Speaker 1: it's been Dallas for a long time now, Kansas City's
Speaker 1: right alongside them. I think when we talk about our
Speaker 1: schedule and when we talked to the league about what
Speaker 1: we would like to have for next season, Dallas and
Speaker 1: Kansas City very clearly have separated themselves from the rest
Speaker 1: of the league. And then there are a number of
Speaker 1: teams that have the potential to become that third marquee team.
Speaker 1: Philadelphia definitely is one. Philadelphia was a holding penalty away
Speaker 1: from sending the Super Bowl to overtime two seasons ago.
Speaker 1: They obviously struggled second half of this season, but that's
Speaker 1: a big brand. They've got exciting star players. The market
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia, it's not only is it one of the
Speaker 1: biggest cities in the country, but it rates extremely well.
Speaker 1: Philadelphia contributes more viewers to our national viewership than any
Speaker 1: other city. So if Philly can bounce back from that
Speaker 1: tough second half that they had last year, they're definitely
Speaker 1: eligible to become that third big brand. I think you're
Speaker 1: right about San Francisco. San Francisco's another team was very
Speaker 1: close to winning a championship. Deep and talented on both
Speaker 1: sides of the ball, fun to watch. They play that
Speaker 1: kind of positionless offense that I think is very watchable
Speaker 1: and just fun. So San Francisco is another one. Still
Speaker 1: a lot of built in following for the Packers. They
Speaker 1: looked a lot better in December than they did in September,
Speaker 1: which is what they to be, so they have the
Speaker 1: potential to step up. I think Buffalo is a giant.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting with Buffalo is that not only
Speaker 1: is it the quality of the team and the quality
Speaker 1: of Josh Allen, but there's just a culture around that
Speaker 1: team and the idea of the Bills and Buffalo being
Speaker 1: a super passionate football city that has been at the
Speaker 1: doorstep of a championship a couple times and just never
Speaker 1: quite got there. There, They've got a little bit of
Speaker 1: that Chicagos of the NFL feeling, right where if they
Speaker 1: the big game, that becomes an enormous national story, and
Speaker 1: you could probably put Detroit in that category.
Speaker 2: Two that I was thinking, Mike, Yeah they travel well. Boy,
Speaker 2: the Lions travel like crazy this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think Detroit. Look, I grew up in Pittsburgh, right,
Speaker 1: so I'm very familiar with that team and that city.
Speaker 1: Detroit and Pittsburgh are sort of in similar circumstances where
Speaker 1: they're both industrial Midwestern cities where economic realities forced a
Speaker 1: lot of people to move away.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So you've got a lot of former Pittsburgh's and a
Speaker 1: lot of former Michiganders around the country. And so when
Speaker 1: the Steelers go on the road there's always a lot
Speaker 1: of Steeler fans there because people have relocated. A lot
Speaker 1: of people from Detroit had relocated. I think those teams
Speaker 1: from the industrial Midwest, we think of them as traveling
Speaker 1: well because a lot of people used to live there
Speaker 1: and now they've gone to the Sun Belt and they
Speaker 1: go to the road games.
Speaker 2: You know, TV rights as a whole. I can remember
Speaker 2: reading articles sports illustrated cover articles. You know, when's it
Speaker 2: going to end? You can't pay this much for TV rights? Well,
Speaker 2: now you've got Amazon, Apple on the doorstep of you know,
Speaker 2: either buying networks or buying rights. So the numbers, you know,
Speaker 2: you need content obviously, the cliche contents king it just
Speaker 2: is fill the bandwidth. That's what they do. You know,
Speaker 2: it's interesting. I work in cable. Explain this to me.
Speaker 2: So Cable obviously has been eroding for several years, for
Speaker 2: about a decade, talked about for about six seven years,
Speaker 2: but you know, about ten years ago people started. People
Speaker 2: within the industry didn't talk about it publicly. They try
Speaker 2: to keep it secret, but it started happening. But yet
Speaker 2: the ability by Fox to team with YouTube create streaming
Speaker 2: eventually here is stemming some of the losses. My show,
Speaker 2: for instance, we were up twenty five or something percent
Speaker 2: this year, and cable is eroding, and I'm gonna throw
Speaker 2: something at you. It's theoretical, and Michael just literally take
Speaker 2: a pinata to it if it's crazy. But I've made
Speaker 2: this argument that if TikTok, because of government regulations, was
Speaker 2: regulated to a level that only two things could be
Speaker 2: on it, culinary stuff and pet stuff, and it lost
Speaker 2: seventy percent of its audience. But culinary and pet videos
Speaker 2: where all that was allowed or all that flourished, that
Speaker 2: it would be an incredibly dynamic platform for those two
Speaker 2: right industries. Well, television now cable TV is sports and politics,
Speaker 2: Linear TV sports and politics. So people say cable's dying,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, no, yes it is, but it's overwhelming.
Speaker 2: We don't share it with anybody. We share it with
Speaker 2: Trump and Biden for five Otherwise, television's now dominated by
Speaker 2: the industry I grew up in, so that as the
Speaker 2: platform may be dissolving or shrinking or regressing, it's now
Speaker 2: wholly owned by two factors, of which it should be noted, Fox,
Speaker 2: between politics and sports, is well suited to flourish. So
Speaker 2: when you look at the cable erosion, they've been talking
Speaker 2: about newspaper erosion forever. New York Times is more powerful
Speaker 2: than ever in my opinion. Mean, they bought the Athletic
Speaker 2: which was for four or five hundred million dollars. I
Speaker 2: don't know how to position it or if you can
Speaker 2: talk about it too much, But what do you make
Speaker 2: of the cable erosion? But some of those losses appear
Speaker 2: to me beings are stemmed by sports gambling, the increased
Speaker 2: dominance of sports by YouTube and relationships. Talk me through
Speaker 2: how you view that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, That's an incredibly rich topic, right, and that is
Speaker 1: what everybody in our business spends a lot of our
Speaker 1: time thinking about, is how how is that cable business changing?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to our revenue streams, what's going
Speaker 1: to mean to sports rights going forward? I think if
Speaker 1: you want to understand our business, a good place to
Speaker 1: start is to simply understand that for the entire time
Speaker 1: that you and I have been doing what we do,
Speaker 1: sports content has in some way been subsidized by non
Speaker 1: sports fan who pay for cable TV, and so for
Speaker 1: the last forty years, while media has changed incalculably, what
Speaker 1: we've always seen in sports is a rising number of
Speaker 1: PATV subscribers, more people paying for content, and so the
Speaker 1: pool of money available to us in sports has just
Speaker 1: grown and grown and grown. Nobody our age or younger,
Speaker 1: has ever really known what it means to be in
Speaker 1: a contracting sports economy. Well, now, because of that what
Speaker 1: you're describing where people are getting out of the cable bundle,
Speaker 1: entertainment viewers are figuring out that they can get the
Speaker 1: content they want from streaming platforms, and so fewer and
Speaker 1: fewer non sports fans are paying for sports content. That
Speaker 1: era of subsidization is either coming to an end or
Speaker 1: it's already over, and that pool that we have to
Speaker 1: pay for sports rights is going to contract, and it
Speaker 1: forces all of us to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: disciplined in our deal making and in the way that
Speaker 1: we consider rights opportunities. But what's also interesting there is
Speaker 1: that as that number of people that are subscribing to
Speaker 1: cable TV shrinks and it goes from nearly one hundred
Speaker 1: million to now closer to seventy million, you know, I
Speaker 1: believe that most of the people that are getting out
Speaker 1: of the sports, that are getting out of the PayTV bundle,
Speaker 1: they're not really big sports fans. They're people who are
Speaker 1: subscribing to cable for entertainment content. Now they're getting their
Speaker 1: entertainment content from Netflix and from Prime Video, Disney Plus.
Speaker 1: And what that means is that your number of cable
Speaker 1: subscribers is going down, the revenue associated with those subscribers
Speaker 1: is going down. And yet because those people that are
Speaker 1: leaving the bundle aren't sports fans, the people that are
Speaker 1: left behind are spending more of their time on sports
Speaker 1: and on twenty four hour news. And so here we
Speaker 1: are for this year to date, FS one viewership is
Speaker 1: up seven percent, right, may not sound like a lot,
Speaker 1: but when you're in an environment of declining subscribers, to
Speaker 1: have any growth is pretty noteworthy. Your show is growing,
Speaker 1: Nick Wright show is growing. We see shows on ESPN
Speaker 1: still growing. If you talk about live events, NFL, college football,
Speaker 1: we talked about women's basketball earlier. NASCAR has been up
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. There's a lot out there
Speaker 1: that's growing. And so sort of the paradox of it
Speaker 1: is that the viewership for sports in many many cases
Speaker 1: is going up, and yet because that subscriber base as eroding,
Speaker 1: the revenue associated with sports TV is going down. And
Speaker 1: so there's a little bit of a decoupling between popularity
Speaker 1: and revenue generation. And I think it's very confusing to
Speaker 1: people because you're constantly reading about record ratings for the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl, record ratings for college football, and yet we
Speaker 1: and companies like ours don't necessarily have the same The
Speaker 1: revenue streams that we draw on to make these deals
Speaker 1: aren't as powerful as they were even just a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. So that's a transformational change. It's I
Speaker 1: think it's it's a major adjustment for people who do
Speaker 1: what I do and who have only ever known and
Speaker 1: expanding sports economy, and it's going to affect all of us, right.
Speaker 1: It affects what's available to spend on rights, it affects
Speaker 1: what's available to spend on talent, it affects people like
Speaker 1: me right, like, we all are going to have to
Speaker 1: sort of redemonstrate and re establish our value because we
Speaker 1: can't just rely on the rising tide of growing cable revenue.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a long explanation, but that's probably
Speaker 1: as best as I can put in.
Speaker 2: So if I'm Lachlan Murdoch, what you're telling me is
Speaker 2: I've just got to make really smart choices and in
Speaker 2: some instances I have to let some stuff go. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to do NFL college football. We've always had
Speaker 2: a history of NASCAR World Cup. Love to have the
Speaker 2: World Series, but it probably means we're not going to
Speaker 2: bit on the NBA. I mean, right now, Bang for
Speaker 2: the Buck are women's It's basketball is the best value
Speaker 2: in the world of what ratings to you know, what
Speaker 2: we paid for it doesn't that just come down to
Speaker 2: like any business, I don't want to simplify it, but
Speaker 2: I'm a simple guy that you just have to make
Speaker 2: more prudent choices, you've got to let stuff go. I
Speaker 2: mean like baseball is a great example. Like if we're
Speaker 2: losing one hundred and twenty million, we just can't do
Speaker 2: that anymore. We'll just take fewer game. Doesn't it come
Speaker 2: down to just choice. We're not getting out of the
Speaker 2: sports business, but we may just get out of some
Speaker 2: of the sports businesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a matter of discipline and priorities, right,
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to recognize that our priorities
Speaker 1: are not going to be the same as another company's priority.
Speaker 1: So it's not just that's certainly not to single out
Speaker 1: the NBA or any property, but there are going to
Speaker 1: be things out there that one company will decide isn't
Speaker 1: essential for them, and another company is going to believe
Speaker 1: it absolutely is essential for their planning and for their strategy.
Speaker 1: You know, we certainly we were born to do football, right.
Speaker 1: Sports was created when we got the rights to the
Speaker 1: NFL starting with the nineteen ninety four season, and I
Speaker 1: don't think we've ever really moved off the idea that
Speaker 1: our identity is wrapped up in the game of football,
Speaker 1: and that's very much where we want to be. You know,
Speaker 1: just recently we did an analysis where we found that
Speaker 1: a majority of sports viewing across the entire calendar year
Speaker 1: is now viewing of football. Right, So, across the twelve
Speaker 1: months of the year, I think fifty two percent of
Speaker 1: all sports viewing is NFL college football, and you can
Speaker 1: throw a little bit of spring football in there too.
Speaker 1: I think when we talk about the power of sports
Speaker 1: on television, what we're often really talking about is the
Speaker 1: power of football. Right Football has become sort of a
Speaker 1: stand in for the strength of the sports business in general.
Speaker 1: So from our perspective, we really identify with football. That's
Speaker 1: what we build our brand on, very much aligned with
Speaker 1: the fortunes of the game. What's good for football is
Speaker 1: kind of good for Fox, and that's probably where our
Speaker 1: investments are going to continue to be predominantly. And again
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that there aren't other sports that aren't
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable, but I think another company might value them
Speaker 1: differently than we would.
Speaker 2: You know, baseball, hockey, and the NBA are increasingly international,
Speaker 2: global sports, whereas the NFL is wholly domestic, although they
Speaker 2: are pushing to be in Europe, but it's on their terms.
Speaker 2: I've said this about the NBA. I love international players
Speaker 2: because they play against older men when they're younger. They
Speaker 2: come in battle tested, mature. Like when you and I
Speaker 2: travel to Europe, you know, we tend to be more focused.
Speaker 2: We have an itinerary who we stay on it. We
Speaker 2: just don't add live like we do here in the States. Right.
Speaker 2: So the players come over, they bring a family member
Speaker 2: to they sleep, they play basketball, they train their very far.
Speaker 2: They're very mature. I think European kids, you know, they
Speaker 2: smoke a little earlier than ours. They drink with their
Speaker 2: parents when they're fifteen. It's a different lifestyle, of different culture.
Speaker 2: My mom told me a lot about that. As a
Speaker 2: British mother, I wonder about the NBA. I think international
Speaker 2: sports make the sports better, but not necessarily from a
Speaker 2: rating standpoint, as viable to the networks, Like I think
Speaker 2: the NBA. The ability for Wenby at seven to four
Speaker 2: to come down. He's got handles, he can break a
Speaker 2: guy off the dribble and hit a three chet Hongren.
Speaker 2: It's insane. I mean, these guys were all back to
Speaker 2: the basket guys ten years ago, twelve years ago. Is
Speaker 2: it possible that the globalization of sports, though it could
Speaker 2: be good for revenue and shoe sales and the aesthetic.
Speaker 2: The quality is not necessarily great for domestic ratings.
Speaker 1: It's an open question, right, and I wouldn't dig in
Speaker 1: too hard or take too firm of a position on it.
Speaker 1: But I think think you are onto something that's pretty
Speaker 1: interesting because I just personally, as a fan and a viewer,
Speaker 1: I think Wemby is incredibly compelling and incredibly entertaining. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see what he can do for the
Speaker 1: next ten years. But to sort of go back to
Speaker 1: where we started, I think there's a lot of value
Speaker 1: in a kid from Des Moines, Iowa who plays for
Speaker 1: the Iowah haw Guys for four years. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: just know that brand, and we know that conference. You
Speaker 1: sort of know what it represents. And when she when
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark goes to the professional level, she brings the
Speaker 1: benefit of those four years of playing for a really
Speaker 1: well known American university with her. So I wonder about
Speaker 1: that too. You know, we're not that far off from
Speaker 1: an era of basketball that will be post Lebron and
Speaker 1: post Steph and the dominant players, it seems are going
Speaker 1: to largely be players who learned the game and grew
Speaker 1: up outside of the United States, And as I say,
Speaker 1: I'm not taking a position that that's necessarily bad for
Speaker 1: the game, but I think it's an open question. It's
Speaker 1: going to be fascinating to see how accepting broad American
Speaker 1: audiences are to.
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Speaker 2: If I have a couple good rants next week, I
Speaker 2: know you're the president of Insights. Could I be like
Speaker 2: a VP or something? If I'm insightful? Is there a
Speaker 2: way to get into that club? Do you have like
Speaker 2: people under you that are also insightful? What's going on?
Speaker 1: Everybody who works for me is insightful. I just rocked
Speaker 1: write their cotails, right, I just did I say what
Speaker 1: they tell me to say.
Speaker 2: Well, he's one of our favorite people. Michael mulva Hill
Speaker 2: follow them on Twitter, President of Insights and Analytics at Fox.
Speaker 2: This is so much fun, I know, this is the
Speaker 2: world you live in. But I do think there's an
Speaker 2: increasing interest in this. And for instance, when Eric Shanks
Speaker 2: or a Lachlan Murdock or a head of a department
Speaker 2: comes to you, are you giving them things that are
Speaker 2: happening now? Are you giving them trends? Are you looking
Speaker 2: around corners two and three years out? Like, what is
Speaker 2: your timetable? If Shanks comes to you and says, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: we're negotiating this college football. Because so much of our
Speaker 2: business is fluid, how far do you look in advance?
Speaker 1: Well, look, the answer is all the buff right Like,
Speaker 1: we're trying to anticipate what's going to happen in the
Speaker 1: next six months, and we're also trying to anticipate what's
Speaker 1: going to happen on a five ten year horizon. I
Speaker 1: think that media is changing, obviously, it's evolving all the time,
Speaker 1: and it changes so rapidly that there is a limit
Speaker 1: to how far you can even how far out and
Speaker 1: you can even try to look. I think the extent
Speaker 1: of our attempted vision right now is probably the term
Speaker 1: of the NFL contract. Right Like, this is the first
Speaker 1: year of what could be as much as an eleven
Speaker 1: year deal. And I don't know that it's really beneficial
Speaker 1: for us to try to anticipate what's going to happen
Speaker 1: beyond that. But we are trying to think about what
Speaker 1: might happen on a three year horizon, a five year horizon,
Speaker 1: especially as a lot of viewing is moving two streaming
Speaker 1: platforms and maybe more sports rights will be going to
Speaker 1: streaming platforms. So I would say we're typically thinking in
Speaker 1: a window of anywhere from the next three days to
Speaker 1: maybe the next five to seven years, and beyond that.
Speaker 1: Somebody smarter than me can think about what the future
Speaker 1: beyond seven years looks like. And it's hard enough just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out next season.
Speaker 2: In the place of a lack of leadership, college football
Speaker 2: to some degree does feel ruled, not controlled, but certainly
Speaker 2: somewhat correoed graphed by networks. They don't have a president.
Speaker 2: It's a seven billion dollars a year business. They have
Speaker 2: no presidents. Why boxing died? I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2: I have no problem with Fox, CBS, NBCESPN saying, guys,
Speaker 2: you don't even have a schedule maker, nothing centralized, nothing's unionized. Here.
Speaker 2: We're going to kind of push in the direction I
Speaker 2: don't think a fourteen to sixteen team playoff eliminate most
Speaker 2: of the bowls make December in the first week of
Speaker 2: January because it's kind of been a dead time in
Speaker 2: college football. You play the Big Ten Championship game, then
Speaker 2: we all sit around and watch the Sun Bowl. I
Speaker 2: got nothing against Elpaso. I've been there three times, but
Speaker 2: it's like this is there's a wide open spot real
Speaker 2: estate here. People are on vacation, you know, people are home,
Speaker 2: like they're just sitting at home for weeks in December
Speaker 2: early January. Is it possible looking ahead, this college football
Speaker 2: playoff will not be twelve teams. It could be sixteen,
Speaker 2: multiple buys, twenty four or do you think the framework
Speaker 2: of twelve feels like the future or the near future.
Speaker 1: Look, I think that you can make an argument for sixteen.
Speaker 1: I think it would be tough to go any bigger
Speaker 1: than that. And I think even at twelve, it's difficult
Speaker 1: to find a place to land all those games. It's
Speaker 1: difficult because of NFL competition, it's difficult because of the holidays.
Speaker 1: It's difficult because the athletes are student athletes, right These
Speaker 1: kids have to go back to campus and take final exams.
Speaker 1: So I think there are logistical challenges just in landing
Speaker 1: a twelve teen playoff maybe aren't widely appreciated, and they're
Speaker 1: only going to become more difficult as you add more teams.
Speaker 1: But just in terms of you know, viewership, potential, public interest,
Speaker 1: competitive intrigue, for lack of a better word, like the
Speaker 1: idea of going to a sixteen team playoff, I think
Speaker 1: there's certainly enough the interest to support it.
Speaker 2: Sure, Michael, always a pleasure, A good forty to forty
Speaker 2: five minutes for our audience. I'm headed out of town
Speaker 2: Chicago for the weekend, which is my favorite American city.
Speaker 2: Now people can see behind you Beverly Hills, the trees,
Speaker 2: all that stuff. I you know, Big ten offices there.
Speaker 2: You like Chicago?
Speaker 1: I love it, Love Chicago, and we love the Big Ten.
Speaker 1: We love our partners there.
Speaker 2: I love it so much. Well, I'll raise a pint
Speaker 2: at butch McGuire's for you this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we appreciated making an old style. We love that Chicago.
Speaker 2: I will I will great talking to you.
Speaker 1: Great seeing you. Always enjoy it and thanks for having
Speaker 1: me on. Let's do it again soon the volume.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 2: take a moment rate and review