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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Scott Sasha, I'm Evan Nobie Williams, and I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Barr. The band is back together. This is the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast, where we explore the big

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Speaker 1: money issues in the world of sports. Today, we begin

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Speaker 1: with the latest chapter in the saga of Antonio Brown.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, it was quite a weekend for the NFL

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Speaker 1: wide receiver now. At first he was cut by the Raiders,

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Speaker 1: then snatched up by the New England Patriots. Word of

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Speaker 1: that came out Saturday, followed by a video Brown posted

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Speaker 1: on YouTube declaring himself free from Oakland. H okay uh.

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Speaker 1: There were reportedly several suitors are Brown, but right away

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Speaker 1: all over to Twitter and the rest of the Internet,

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Speaker 1: there were speculation about a clear front runner. The same

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Speaker 1: team that signed Randy Moss, Corey Dylan Albert, Haynesworth, Josh Gordon,

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Speaker 1: and Chad Ocho Cinco would end up grabbing Brown. Brown's agent,

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Speaker 1: Drew Rosenhaus, spoke about the decision Center day with the ESPN.

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Speaker 1: There were several teams interested. The Patriots are obviously a

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Speaker 1: very solid, strong organization. They do things the Patriots way.

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Speaker 1: They expect everybody to be accountable they don't make any

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Speaker 1: exceptions that. I've discussed this with Antonio and he wants

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Speaker 1: to be a patriot. Now. I've had a lot of

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Speaker 1: people come up to me and asked me, did he

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Speaker 1: really plan this or did he just luck box himself

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Speaker 1: into this? You gotta plan this. Do you see the video?

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Speaker 1: It was like he had a production crew at his house,

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Speaker 1: so many camera That was a nice piece of work

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Speaker 1: by Antonio Brown. I don't know if he had to

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Speaker 1: work that hard to get himself out of the raiders

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Speaker 1: and somehow give up thirty million dollars, but it worked

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Speaker 1: because he's where he wanted to be. He's where everybody

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Speaker 1: thought he would wind up. And the interesting discussion I

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Speaker 1: think Mr Novi Williams, fresh back from Boise and Lake Tahoe,

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Speaker 1: is that there was no doubt there's this there's this

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Speaker 1: aura of the patriots. The patriot way you have Belichick,

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Speaker 1: you have craft, you have to come in and conform,

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Speaker 1: do your job. Sounds perfect for Antonio Brown. It almost

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Speaker 1: seemed parody. You know, when this whole Antonio Brown fiasco started,

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Speaker 1: it feels like months ago, but probably only a couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks ago. You know, people were already joking. You

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Speaker 1: know this is gonna end with him on the Patriots somehow,

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Speaker 1: And there's some added you know, humor as long as

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Speaker 1: you're not a Steelers Steelers fan, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: you know, the Patriots were very interested in Brown in

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Speaker 1: the off season and and the Steelers specifically took a

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Speaker 1: worse deal from the Raiders so that he was not

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Speaker 1: playing against the team that they expected to be one

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Speaker 1: of their biggest rivals in the in the a f C.

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Speaker 1: So you know, this whole thing comes full circle. It

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Speaker 1: blows up in the Raiders face obviously, um and then

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Speaker 1: he ends up on the team that the Steelers specifically

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Speaker 1: did not want him to play on when you're looking

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Speaker 1: good and bad. I mean, it's more than just he

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Speaker 1: now winds up on the team that they thought would

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Speaker 1: be arrival, which by the way, didn't look like a

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Speaker 1: big rival last night. But they gave up The Raiders

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Speaker 1: gave up third and fifth round draft picks to the

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Speaker 1: Steelers to get them, and god knows what was Tom

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Speaker 1: Brady a sixth round pick. The Patriots seemed to turn

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Speaker 1: third and fifth round picks and may think, wow, it's

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Speaker 1: only a third and it's only a fifth. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: no no. In the NFL, those become starting guard, starting tackles,

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Speaker 1: starting linebackers. Those are valuable commodities in the NFL. And

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Speaker 1: you wonder why one team has the perception that it

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Speaker 1: does on the East Coast and why the other team

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Speaker 1: on the West Coast has the reputation it does. You

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Speaker 1: can't just give this stuff away, yeah, I mean, and

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Speaker 1: we can also, I mean, just to fill listeners in.

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Speaker 1: And since the last time we talked, right, they had

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Speaker 1: Antonio Brown had a major fight with Mike Mayock that

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Speaker 1: the GM of the Raiders. Uh. He posted the fine

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Speaker 1: uh letter on his Instagram. He was apparently consulting with

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Speaker 1: instrument social media consultants this process. And then over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: you know, the two big pieces of news. He was

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Speaker 1: fine two fifteen thousand dollars, which avoided thirty million dollars

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Speaker 1: in his contract, and then he was released the same day,

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Speaker 1: and the Patriots and him the same day also, right,

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Speaker 1: all this kind of felt like a faded company. I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: you know, is there a less way that a takeaway

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Speaker 1: that's bigger than just Antonio Brown? Is this a playbook

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Speaker 1: that we may see again? The whole thing seems so bizarre.

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Speaker 1: And when we ask about, you know, what was this planned?

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Speaker 1: I can't believe that this was. You gotta remember, this

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Speaker 1: is the business of sports, and in the business part,

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Speaker 1: you gotta get paid. Antonio Brown walked away from thirty

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Speaker 1: million dollars. I know, he's got to guarantee. What is

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Speaker 1: it about mine? More so, you got about a nine

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Speaker 1: million dollar bonus with with the Patriots, and you know

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Speaker 1: the possibility to get more. That is walking away from

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Speaker 1: a lot of money that he he will not see again.

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Speaker 1: Half half Eddie, That's what it was. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: walked away from that. And see there's a part for

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Speaker 1: me first of all. But there's a part of this too,

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Speaker 1: and that that I just don't understand. Remember, after all this,

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Speaker 1: he has the big fight and and then all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden he makes this tearful apology, very emotional apology

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Speaker 1: to his teammates, and and he goes on and this

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Speaker 1: and that, and now you think everything's patched up, and

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Speaker 1: the Raiders are saying, Okay, he's not gonna be suspended.

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Speaker 1: He's gonna play now. And then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the rarest of the rare sensible

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Speaker 1: Twitter rare the rarest of the rare. And you know,

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Speaker 1: we like to sometimes chat about Amy Trask on this show,

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Speaker 1: but it is always nice to sort of get and

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Speaker 1: she obviously tied to the Raiders with the CEO of

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Speaker 1: the Raiders, but she did include the and maybe there's

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Speaker 1: something wrong with this guy, like, you know, do we

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Speaker 1: have to care about the person here? Is it possible

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Speaker 1: to get a football player but somebody's support the person

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Speaker 1: because something's not right here? Maybe the guy needs help?

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Speaker 1: And is that the football team you I don't see

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Speaker 1: Bill Belichick being all Cudley Cudley saying, oh, let's get

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Speaker 1: him the support he needs. I don't see that. But

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Speaker 1: what is that part of the equation at a time

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Speaker 1: when we're talking about mental health of athletes? Does he

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Speaker 1: need help? I don't know. Yeah we can, we can,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. But if you're if you're signing him,

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Speaker 1: is that something you look into? It is certainly worth asking.

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Speaker 1: And I'm also curious if if player contracts start to

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Speaker 1: shift a little bit after this. I mean, there was

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Speaker 1: some you know, people were asking questions about why the Raiders,

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Speaker 1: you know, are allowed to avoid thirty million dollars of

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Speaker 1: guarantees for a guy who has an argument with his

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Speaker 1: boss and and maybe shows up late to a couple

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Speaker 1: of practices. Um I do wonder if if we may

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Speaker 1: be entering kind of a new phase of the way

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Speaker 1: teams and players relate to each other where money can before.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the the guaranteed quote unquote guarantee contracts in

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Speaker 1: the NFL are all. You know that there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of a lot of shin anigan's there. They're not actually

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Speaker 1: guaranteed in the full way portions are, but this was

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Speaker 1: a portion that was the rentally guaranteed that suddenly disappeared,

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Speaker 1: you know, before the season even started. Um So, I

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Speaker 1: do think we may be entering kind of a new

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Speaker 1: unprecedented erra where you know, guaranteed money isn't necessarily guaranteed

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Speaker 1: and players kind of see a way through social media

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Speaker 1: to get their way out of deals that they don't like.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, there's got to be a clause in

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Speaker 1: that contract where I mean, it was a big fight,

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Speaker 1: I mean it almost you know, he wanted to some

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Speaker 1: nasty and nasty words and and it's like now, in

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Speaker 1: the real world, if you did that to your boss,

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Speaker 1: your superboss, you know. That's to get up and look

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Speaker 1: outside the studio right like Bloombridge right over there. You

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Speaker 1: want to try Yeah, yeah, that and this will be

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Speaker 1: my last broadcast. Thank you. It's I don't understand, it's

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Speaker 1: just just just I hate to say it, but Scott,

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Speaker 1: you might be onto something. I don't know where every

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Speaker 1: was going with that. I was pushed back on that

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Speaker 1: for a second, though. I agree. In the real world,

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Speaker 1: if you routinely show up late or refuse to bring

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Speaker 1: the equipment needed to your job to your job, you

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Speaker 1: can get fired. And the Raiders always had the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to cut Antonio Brown at any moment. But guaranteed money

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Speaker 1: feels like guaranteed money. If you have a signing bonus,

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Speaker 1: that's thirty million dollars to play for your team, and

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Speaker 1: you sign, you get that money. In businesses, you better

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Speaker 1: established a culture. You want sustain success. You better established

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Speaker 1: a kind of culture. The Spurs have it, the Patriots

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Speaker 1: have it. They can take this risk. The Spurs took

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Speaker 1: Dennis Rodman way back when. There will always be malcontents

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Speaker 1: in sports. How do you deal with it? Do you

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Speaker 1: give them support? The support system to the coaches and

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Speaker 1: the owners have the support for each other and then

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Speaker 1: you can probably find a way to navigate. Well, sorry

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Speaker 1: to sound like goody two shoes, but I hope everybody

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Speaker 1: comes out ahead and all of this, and let's move

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Speaker 1: on to the next topic, TV writings. We have where

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Speaker 1: that networks could begin including out of home audiences in

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Speaker 1: their measurements as soon as next year. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: for years I have been mystified that we put man

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Speaker 1: on the moon, and yet it seems as if we

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Speaker 1: still can't count the number of people who are tuning

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Speaker 1: into sporting events. But it looks like finally and NBC

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Speaker 1: has this out of home measurement to have their own,

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Speaker 1: But it looks like Nielsen is finally going to include

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Speaker 1: the folks who are watching. Let us just using his

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Speaker 1: example the Super Bowl, because everybody likes to know the

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Speaker 1: total viewership number there how many people are in hotels, bars, restaurants,

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Speaker 1: and it's a sizeable number. It could boost the total

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Speaker 1: audience by what tent depending on the depending on you

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Speaker 1: and the advertisers. Sure would like to know how many

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Speaker 1: people are watching and where they are. But we're just

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Speaker 1: kind of really getting around this in the TV world.

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Speaker 1: Still mystifies me. Yeah, this the change, which I mean

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Speaker 1: outside of the super Bowl, which is to me, really

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Speaker 1: the only TV event that I think your average person

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Speaker 1: really pays attention to these numbers at all. I feel

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Speaker 1: like this just makes the job harder for comparisons. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's so much about in the business of though. If

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Speaker 1: I'm an advertiser and I'm representing brands and I'm representing companies,

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Speaker 1: I need to know how many people are watched. But

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Speaker 1: you already know that. You just get it from multiple sources.

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Speaker 1: You get you get the TV number from Nielsen. You

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Speaker 1: probably get your out of home number from a different company.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like advertising the network that I'm

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Speaker 1: paying to give me an accurate out of home number.

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Speaker 1: I'd like a nice third party, a nice universal third party,

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Speaker 1: to tell me what it is. No question that having

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Speaker 1: Nielsen do all of this in a reliable way in

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Speaker 1: one one stop shop is nice for but the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: Can't imagine already know this doesn't seem like you even

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Speaker 1: let's take Nielsen. They were a little like Kodak being

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Speaker 1: slow to digital, Like, hey, can I go get another

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Speaker 1: canister of film and bring it to the photo mat?

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Speaker 1: Remember you dropped it off in the little that's far. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it just seems like this is your business. You should

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Speaker 1: be at the forefront. Somebody should have been at the

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Speaker 1: forefront of this total audience measurement. Yeah. So and so

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Speaker 1: people understand that the total audience is now you know,

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Speaker 1: included hotels, bars, you know, your ten friends come over

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Speaker 1: to your apartment to watch a football game. This is

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing that that Neilson is going to

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Speaker 1: start including in total now. Yeah, but this used to

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Speaker 1: be all nice and neat because back in the day

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Speaker 1: you only had the television set and right after Ironside,

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Speaker 1: then you just go you went on in. It's right,

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Speaker 1: and you measure me any idea. Ironside didn't I didn't

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Speaker 1: think I didn't need it, but I just wanted to

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Speaker 1: make sure and appreciate. Uh. And it was nice and neat.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that was it. That's that was the only

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Speaker 1: way you had it. And then you filled out a

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Speaker 1: diary and then you were good to go. Now it's

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Speaker 1: it's totally complicated. So maybe that's part of the reason

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Speaker 1: why you were saying right from the beginning. This also

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Speaker 1: this also means that comparisons are now essentially like we're

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Speaker 1: entering a new era where like they're the idea of

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Speaker 1: NFL ratings are down three this year, you know, and

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Speaker 1: DA playoffs, like all those things essentially go out the

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Speaker 1: window because Nielsen is now using a metric it was

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Speaker 1: not using as of your Bloomberg needs to know how

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Speaker 1: many people are watching Bloomberg TV on their gas station

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Speaker 1: pumps and in the elevators. You know what, I caught

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Speaker 1: myself for watching TV while I was pumping gas, and

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh man, they got me. And then I

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Speaker 1: remember when this idea first came out. I'm thinking, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I am not going to get caught up in this,

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Speaker 1: And there I am, all of a sudden there, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm watching a promo for Kelly and uh and Ryan

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Speaker 1: Man all of a sudden on TV. And it happens

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Speaker 1: so before you before you transfer the next Rockford Files,

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Speaker 1: you know that, Oh my god, it's my head, James,

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Speaker 1: come on all right? Finally, Uh, Antonio Brown wasn't the

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Speaker 1: only person who got the boot over the weekend. This

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Speaker 1: one puzzles me. The Boston Red Sox are saying goodbye

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Speaker 1: to a big name in their front office. You brought

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Speaker 1: it up because Dave Dombrowski has ties to the Tigers.

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Speaker 1: That is that why you were like, let's talk about Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't listen. I don't understand you. You put together

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Speaker 1: a World Series when the World Series last year and

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Speaker 1: then you boot him out the door? What did someone

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Speaker 1: getting mad because they lost to the Yankees Sunday and

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Speaker 1: then that's it. No, I'm gonna thank my good friend

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Speaker 1: Barry Bloom for some of the numbers they are. Let's

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Speaker 1: see here, Barry, Barry, there two million dollars well above

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Speaker 1: the two oh six luxury tax threshold. So as a

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Speaker 1: repeat offender, they have to pay a fifty tax on

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Speaker 1: the thirty six million dollars. They were above that threshold.

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Speaker 1: So you know, if you're going to spend that much money,

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Speaker 1: I don't in baseball, you you kind of gotta make

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Speaker 1: the postseason to miss everything and spend that kind of

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Speaker 1: money where you're just tax on top of tacks. Your

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Speaker 1: owners want to see some r o I return on investment,

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Speaker 1: and the return is the consistent postseason performance of time

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Speaker 1: went by the way, it's a little easier to make

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Speaker 1: the postseason than it was a decade. To put that

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Speaker 1: in perspective, two forty million dollar payroll. The Tampa Bay Rays,

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Speaker 1: the team that is sitting in the wild Card right now,

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Speaker 1: nine games ahead of the Boston Red Sox in the standings,

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Speaker 1: million dollar payroll right, so so they are making the

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Speaker 1: playoffs on a quarter of the salary that Dave Dombrowski

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Speaker 1: got to to get the Red Sox back to the playoffs.

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Speaker 1: I understand why in that world, and and the Red

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Speaker 1: Sox are like the Yankees, right the expectation is championship

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Speaker 1: every year, right And if the Yankees were seventeen games

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Speaker 1: out of the playoffs spot at this point in the

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Speaker 1: year and somebody got fired Mr, I think I think

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Speaker 1: there would be I think there would be some understanding there. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, people have asked, and I think this is

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Speaker 1: an interesting question. I mean, at this point, the season's over,

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Speaker 1: the Red Sox are not making the playoffs barring some unbelievable,

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Speaker 1: you know, crazy late season heroics. So why do this

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Speaker 1: now as opposed to letting him right out the season.

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Speaker 1: But again, I feel as though when you're the Red Sox,

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Speaker 1: the fact that you won the World Series last year

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Speaker 1: and the team stinks this year, that doesn't buy you

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Speaker 1: all that much. We're gonna give a little glimpse behind

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Speaker 1: the curtain here and and Ben, it's maybe a good

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Speaker 1: time to kind of show people a little bit of

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Speaker 1: business of sports. Why do you do it now instead

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Speaker 1: of letting him ride out? We cannot say the person's name,

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Speaker 1: but let's just say someone who was looking for a

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Speaker 1: major league baseball job contacted us last year and was

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Speaker 1: wondering if perhaps in our discussions with the owners whoever

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Speaker 1: we talked to, and he happened to name a few

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Speaker 1: that we wouldn't let it be known that he wouldn't

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Speaker 1: mind having a conversation. So the earlier names are in

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Speaker 1: or or openings, because the earlier the better. Even if

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Speaker 1: it's just sort of a whisper, a hint that this

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Speaker 1: could be happening, I'm interested in top of mind. It's

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Speaker 1: better for everybody to know that's available. This is a

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Speaker 1: cruel reminder that it's a business and it's all that

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Speaker 1: we try to do it every week. I want everybody

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Speaker 1: to remember every single thing that occurs. I want people

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Speaker 1: to remember this is a business no different than the Walmart.

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Speaker 1: This is a business and a cruel one too. Man. Well,

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Speaker 1: Mr Dombrowski, I hope you land on your feet some

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Speaker 1: of the snap waker. Sorry. This is the Bloomberg Business

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Speaker 1: of Sports podcast on Michael barn Along with Scott sash

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Speaker 1: Nick and Nevin Williams. We are here each and every Monday,

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Speaker 1: Wednesday and Thursday we explore the world of money and sports.

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Speaker 1: Join us again at the end of the week when

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Speaker 1: we speak with the biggest and brightest in the sports

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Speaker 1: business world. I'm saying nothing. You're listening to The Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Business of Sports on Bloomberg Radio around the world and online.

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Speaker 1: Where are you getting your podcast