Latest / Best of the NFL Podcast Network / The Season with Peter Schrager: Michael Mulvihill, President, Insights and Analytics, Fox Sports

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The Season with Peter Schrager: Michael Mulvihill, President, Insights and Analytics, Fox Sports · Best of the NFL Podcast Network

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Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
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Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, Everybody, Welcome to
0:24
Speaker 1: the Season with Peter Schrager, our week three edition of
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Speaker 1: the regular season.
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Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four. Got a really cool.
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Speaker 1: Guest up ahead, Mike moulva Hill, who is the president
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Speaker 1: of Insights and Analytics.
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Speaker 2: At Fox Sports.
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Speaker 1: I've grown to really love Mike and his insights over
0:41
Speaker 1: the last several years of getting to know him. He's
0:42
Speaker 1: a really cool guy, big horse racing fan. We're not
0:45
Speaker 1: going to get into that. We're going to talk more
0:46
Speaker 1: about behind the curtain of what you are seeing on
0:51
Speaker 1: television every single week and how decisions are made as
0:54
Speaker 1: far as which games go where, when they are placed,
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Speaker 1: which broadcast crew is calling each game, and Mike gives
1:01
Speaker 1: us some really really interesting takes on football as a
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Speaker 1: whole that's come up in a second. I wanted to
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Speaker 1: start the podcast though, talking about young quarterbacks, their feelings,
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Speaker 1: their emotions, our feelings towards them. Why do I say
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Speaker 1: that two interesting things happened on Sunday that it becomes
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Speaker 1: rele towards our approach to talking about young quarterbacks and
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Speaker 1: the way young quarterbacks develop, and the first one of
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Speaker 1: them was Bryce Young being absolutely brutal again in a
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Speaker 1: terrible loss to the Chargers that was seen by about
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Speaker 1: one percent of the country Chargers fans, Panthers fans, and
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Speaker 1: nobody else because it was a game he couldn't watch.
1:44
Speaker 1: It was horrible quarterback play from Bryce Young and horrible
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Speaker 1: offense from the Carolina Panthers for the second straight week,
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Speaker 1: and if you're going back to last year, really for
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Speaker 1: the eighteenth or nineteenth straight week. And you know, the
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Speaker 1: news came out on early Tuesday morning that Bryce Young
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Speaker 1: was being benched, and I think our initial reactions was like,
2:08
Speaker 1: how the hell can you bench him?
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Speaker 2: This was a first overall pick, And in fact.
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Speaker 1: I've done the research, he is the only first overall
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Speaker 1: pick to be benched within the first two weeks of
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Speaker 1: his second season. If he was starting in week two,
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Speaker 1: it sounds like it's in the weeds. But basically it's like,
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Speaker 1: this doesn't happen. It's unprecedented in a sophomore season. You
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Speaker 1: become the starter if you're a number one overall pick
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Speaker 1: and you're given the reins and let's go.
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Speaker 2: They put in Andy Dalton and.
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Speaker 1: The initial reaction from a lot of people was the
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Speaker 1: owner is an idiot, the team has failed him, They've
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Speaker 1: done this thing wrong, and how is that beneficial for
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Speaker 1: anybody putting in Andy freaking Dalton. And my take is this,
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Speaker 1: You've got fifty two other people in that locker room,
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Speaker 1: and fifty two other men who play professional sports and
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Speaker 1: have their own stories, and a lot of.
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Speaker 2: Them are veterans.
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Speaker 1: I'm looking at Jadavian Clowney, I'm looking at Derek Brown,
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Speaker 1: one of the great defensive tackles in this league, and
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Speaker 1: they're at practice every day. And it does not benefit
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Speaker 1: Dave Canalis, the head coach.
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Speaker 2: In any way to.
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Speaker 1: Do this unless it's the only way to be competitive
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Speaker 1: and it's the only way to keep the trust of
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Speaker 1: that veteran locker room. I would have to imagine that
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Speaker 1: Andy Dalton is out playing Bryce Young every single day
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Speaker 1: in practice. I would have to imagine that the rest
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Speaker 1: of the veterans in that locker room and the other
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Speaker 1: young players too, are looking at this and saying, we
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Speaker 1: cannot compete with that guy. And if you're a fan
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Speaker 1: of the team, the products has been so bad over
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Speaker 1: the last two seasons that this drastic measure has to
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Speaker 1: be taken if it gives them even a slightly more
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Speaker 1: competitive chance on Sundays. Maybe it blows up in the face,
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Speaker 1: maybe the Raiders win forty two to nothing this weekend
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Speaker 1: against the Carolina Panthers. But I could assure you David
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Speaker 1: Tepper does not want to bench Bryce Young. I could
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Speaker 1: assure you Dave Canalis does not want to bench Bryce Young.
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Speaker 1: I could assure you Dan Morgan, the general manager, does
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Speaker 1: not want to bench Bryce Young. And I can show
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Speaker 1: you Brent Tillis, who is one of the new executives,
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Speaker 1: there is in no way going into this season saying
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Speaker 1: I hope we bench Bryce Young in the second week.
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Speaker 1: This measure is so extreme and is so against the grain,
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Speaker 1: and is so unpopular that it tells me things are
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Speaker 1: as bleak as they seem. And they had to do
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Speaker 1: this to a salvage the season, be salvage the locker room,
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Speaker 1: and see salvage any chance of even being competitive at
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Speaker 1: this point. Now, as for Bryce Young's feelings, I don't
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Speaker 1: know that. It certainly doesn't help him being shelved and
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Speaker 1: embarrassed in this way, But does it help him being
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Speaker 1: behind center and losing by twenty thirty points and making
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Speaker 1: careless mistakes and being under durest because I don't know,
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Speaker 1: I don't think that helps him either. So he'll take
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Speaker 1: a step back and he'll watch now if you listen
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Speaker 1: to this podcast, we had Dave Canalis on the head
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Speaker 1: coach in July, and his big take with Bryce Young
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Speaker 1: was that he's gonna love him up and he's gonna
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Speaker 1: make sure he knows he's loved and he's going to
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Speaker 1: coach him up and make sure he gets everything he needs.
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Speaker 1: X's and o's wise. That's what he did, which you
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Speaker 1: know Smith when he helped resurrect his career in Seattle,
5:24
Speaker 1: and that's what he did with Baker Mayfield when Baker
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Speaker 1: was signed to a one year deal for four million
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Speaker 1: dollars last year. So Canal has spent all summer, all spring,
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Speaker 1: in the early part of the fall with Bryce Young,
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Speaker 1: loving him up, coaching him up, and he believes that
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Speaker 1: his best option is to shelve him and bench him.
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Speaker 1: That tells me that it had to be done, that
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Speaker 1: there's a lot more there that we don't know, that
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Speaker 1: things are even worse than what we see on Sundays.
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Speaker 1: I am telling you, if you're a coach, who prides
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Speaker 1: himself on being a quarterback guru and being able to
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Speaker 1: resurrect anything and being able to get the most out
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Speaker 1: of someone. To bench that young player in the September
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Speaker 1: portion of the season tells me that this is an
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Speaker 1: extreme move that they felt had to be done to
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Speaker 1: salvage the rest of the team. Remember, it's not just
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Speaker 1: the quarterback you have to worry about. There are fifty
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Speaker 1: two other alpha males in that locker room. There's a
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Speaker 1: fan base in that building, and there is an overall
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Speaker 1: effort and competitive side of this game that maybe they
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Speaker 1: felt the best option was to just put.
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Speaker 2: Out Andy Dalton, who we know what we're getting. Andy's Andy, Like,
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Speaker 2: you know what you're getting.
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Speaker 3: I'm not.
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Speaker 2: He's not winning any awards in All Pro Awards. Now.
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Speaker 1: Look last year Joe Flacco won Comeback Player of the Year.
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Speaker 1: Maybe Dalton does that. I don't foresee it. I don't
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Speaker 1: think the Panthers are going to rattle off seven wins
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Speaker 1: or anything. But I do think it tells you something,
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Speaker 1: and it's not just immediately how stupid everyone is. These
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Speaker 1: are smart people and they see it every single day
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Speaker 1: and they see what a lot of us didn't because
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Speaker 1: we didn't watch it on Sunday on tape on Monday morning.
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Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of the decision. I would have
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Speaker 1: love to have seen Bryce thrive this year because I
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Speaker 1: think he's a great kid and who knows, maybe he's
7:10
Speaker 1: got a bright future ahead of him. But for the
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Speaker 1: Panthers to make that decision, it wasn't a popular one
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Speaker 1: and it certainly wasn't one that they desired. It tells
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Speaker 1: me that they had to. The other young quarterback that
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Speaker 1: I would focus on is Will Levis. So Levis is
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Speaker 1: coming into his first time full time starting season and
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of hype around him.
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Speaker 3: Here.
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Speaker 1: He had this great win on Thursday Night against the
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Speaker 1: Dolphins last year, and he's this alpha male, same type
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Speaker 1: of deal Bro's bro Whole deal made a knucklehead play
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Speaker 1: in Week one, and then in week two, they're playing
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Speaker 1: the Jets and they're winning and they're marching and they're
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Speaker 1: they're looking to put a field goal up to go
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Speaker 1: up ten nothing on the Jets.
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Speaker 2: And get a win.
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Speaker 1: Here he throws another bone headed interception or a bone
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Speaker 1: headed turnover, and on camera, Brian Callahan is caught saying,
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Speaker 1: what the bleep are you doing? And screaming at Levis,
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Speaker 1: they would go on to lose, and instead of us
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Speaker 1: as a media as a whole talking on Monday morning
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Speaker 1: about what happened to the Titans, how did they let
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Speaker 1: Brayleen Allen run through him? How did they let Breese
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Speaker 1: Hall catch that pass? Or even better, like, let's talk
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Speaker 1: about the positives of what Will Levis did a deep
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Speaker 1: pass to Calvin. All anyone wanted to focus on was
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Speaker 1: Will Levis's feelings and Brian Callahan being caught, you know,
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Speaker 1: trashing him, calling him a you know, what the blank
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Speaker 1: are you doing on camera? And Ryan Fitzpatrick, who I
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Speaker 1: think I respect as much as any X quarterback in
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Speaker 1: the league, as he played for everyone, He's seen it all.
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Speaker 1: He had thoughts on social media, didn't like it, didn't
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Speaker 1: like how we were treating the young quarterbacks, like what
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Speaker 1: are we doing here?
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Speaker 2: My take?
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Speaker 1: And I would talk to FITZI about it, like it was.
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Speaker 2: A moment Callahan lost his cool.
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Speaker 1: He too is a quarterback guru, was hired to nourish
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Speaker 1: and build up Will Levis, and in that moment, I
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Speaker 1: think he was really frustrated. And I would say, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was his reaction, and it was caught on camera,
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Speaker 1: what the blank are you doing?
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Speaker 2: Because I could assure you he likely.
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Speaker 1: Spent a lot of time during the week saying you
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Speaker 1: cannot kill us with plays like this, and showed the
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Speaker 1: one from.
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Speaker 2: Week one over and over and over again.
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Speaker 1: And sure enough, as clear as the day is long,
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Speaker 1: he does it again, and Brian's reaction was a visceral
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Speaker 1: one of.
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Speaker 2: What are you doing? Come on, You're better than that.
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Speaker 1: He would later come out and say he's got to
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Speaker 1: be smarter about thinking about what's on camera, but he
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Speaker 1: does not regret his reaction and his feelings to that reaction. Again,
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Speaker 1: we are quick to bash the coach, bash the adult,
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Speaker 1: and say, let's treat these kids with kids glove. Will
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Speaker 1: Levis is it adult himself, and he is the quarterback
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Speaker 1: of an NFL team. I think Will Levis would tell you,
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Speaker 1: although he doesn't love being shown up by his coach,
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Speaker 1: he's got to be better than that and he shouldn't
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Speaker 1: do that. It's interesting how we talk about these young
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Speaker 1: quarterbacks because I think in the same breath that we
10:07
Speaker 1: want to throw out that Ryan Leaves a bust and
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Speaker 1: JaMarcus Russell was a bust, and this guy was a
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Speaker 1: Buss and yet in twenty twenty four, I think we're
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Speaker 1: a lot more sensitive to these quarterbacks, and maybe in
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Speaker 1: some cases we shouldn't be. Maybe Bryce Young had to
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Speaker 1: be benched, maybe Will Levis had to be yelled at.
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Speaker 1: And that is my sermon on this beautiful Wednesday morning.
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Speaker 1: Our guest is Mike Moulva Hill. I had talked about
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Speaker 1: him already. I think you're really going to enjoy this.
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Speaker 1: Let's get to the interview from the season with Peter.
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Speaker 2: Schrager with no further ado.
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Speaker 1: One of the smartest men in sports television and a
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Speaker 1: guy who's insights I not only read week to week
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Speaker 1: on his Twitter feed, but I also seek out proactively
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Speaker 1: because we're colleagues at Fox Sports. I think he's one
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Speaker 1: of the most brilliant guys in our industry, and he's
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Speaker 1: a great dude.
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Speaker 2: His name is Mike Mulva Hill.
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Speaker 1: He's the president of Insights and Analytics at Fox Sports,
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Speaker 1: and I am thrilled to have him on the season
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Speaker 1: with Peter Schreeger. Mike, good afternoon from your old home,
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Speaker 1: New York City.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me on.
11:21
Speaker 3: We've been talking about doing this for a while, and
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Speaker 3: I'm excited to get into it with you. I got
11:25
Speaker 3: an extra ice coffee with me today to try to
11:27
Speaker 3: keep up with your energy level. We'll see how that goes.
11:30
Speaker 3: But yeah, I see you've got one too, and just
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Speaker 3: anxious to dive in and talk about what we're seeing
11:35
Speaker 3: so far this season, all.
11:37
Speaker 1: Right before we start your job, because I think a
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Speaker 1: lot of people see what you tweet and it holds
11:42
Speaker 1: a lot of weight.
11:43
Speaker 2: And then you speak at these conferences.
11:44
Speaker 1: But like your job, if you were to give an
11:46
Speaker 1: elevator's speech to a college student who you meet and say, well,
11:50
Speaker 1: you've got a really cool title, you work at a
11:52
Speaker 1: really cool company.
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Speaker 2: What is your job exactly? What would you say you'd
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Speaker 2: do at Fox Sports.
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Speaker 3: I think a lot of people wonder what exactly I
12:00
Speaker 3: do at Fox Sports, so I will try to explain it.
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Speaker 3: I think the elevator pitches. I use every source of
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Speaker 3: data that's availed to us, which often means Nielsen TV ratings,
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Speaker 3: to come up with strategies that will grow our audience,
12:13
Speaker 3: get more people watching games on Fox, and hopefully just
12:16
Speaker 3: make us a more efficient company.
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Speaker 1: Okay, And in that purview, you deal with not just NFL,
12:23
Speaker 1: but you're talking women's volleyball, and you're talking college hockey
12:27
Speaker 1: and whatever we have on FS one in the middle
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Speaker 1: of May, like you're overseeing all of it as far
12:32
Speaker 1: as giving your insights and your analytics to the executives
12:35
Speaker 1: who make those programming decisions.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, trying to write. I do that for both the
12:39
Speaker 3: sports side and the entertainment side. We try to act
12:42
Speaker 3: as almost an advocate for the audience and an advocate
12:46
Speaker 3: for sports fans. Right the fans are telling us every
12:48
Speaker 3: day with their remote controls what they like and what
12:51
Speaker 3: they don't like about what we're putting on the air.
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Speaker 3: We try to listen to that via the ratings, and then,
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Speaker 3: as you say, communicate to the most senior people in
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Speaker 3: the company what's working, what isn't, what we think could
13:02
Speaker 3: be working better. And we work with our league partners
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Speaker 3: at the NFL, collegiate conferences, Major League Baseball, and all
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Speaker 3: our other content partners to just try to come up
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Speaker 3: with the smartest way to grow the popularity of their events.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so ten years ago you'd go by Nielsen ratings,
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Speaker 1: which might be archaic. Now, what types of tools do
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Speaker 1: you have and which types of metrics do you guys
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Speaker 1: use now in a twenty twenty four landscape.
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Speaker 3: Well, we still use the Nielsen ratings very heavily. We
13:30
Speaker 3: rely on that data a lot. It's probably the most
13:33
Speaker 3: important source that we have because it's still the currency
13:35
Speaker 3: of our business, right like, all of our advertising is
13:38
Speaker 3: bought and sold based on the data that we get
13:40
Speaker 3: from Nielsen. But we're also looking at other sources. Lately,
13:44
Speaker 3: we've become really focused on using Google Search trends, right Like,
13:48
Speaker 3: we can look at Google Search activity city by city,
13:52
Speaker 3: team by team, athlete by athlete and try to get
13:55
Speaker 3: a very real time read on what fans are most
13:58
Speaker 3: interested in. So when we sit down and do our
14:01
Speaker 3: NFL map every week and figure out what game is
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Speaker 3: going to go into every market in the country, a
14:06
Speaker 3: lot of cases we're looking at Google activity in a
14:09
Speaker 3: particular city just to see if one team or one
14:12
Speaker 3: game is popping over another game. And because that Google
14:16
Speaker 3: data is so real time, it's so immediate and current,
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Speaker 3: we're probably actually leaning on that more than we're leaning
14:24
Speaker 3: on our ratings history. Google has become a really important
14:28
Speaker 3: source of information for us that's fascinating.
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Speaker 1: So you'll see what people are searching online Is that
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Speaker 1: how they do it or is it they have a
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Speaker 1: more comprehensive algorithm.
14:37
Speaker 3: No, it's really just as simple as what are people
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Speaker 3: searching for on a market by market basis, and Google,
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Speaker 3: to their credit, makes that data freely accessible to anybody
14:46
Speaker 3: that takes the time to look at it. So we're
14:49
Speaker 3: looking at that not just for guidance in our sports decisions,
14:53
Speaker 3: but we're trying to use it as a measure of
14:55
Speaker 3: awareness of entertainment programming. We use it to try to
14:58
Speaker 3: measure interest in current news events, whether that's the campaign
15:02
Speaker 3: or the conventions, the debates. It's a really good real
15:05
Speaker 3: time measure of what people are actually interested in right now.
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Speaker 3: And as I say, it's become a key source of
15:12
Speaker 3: information for us.
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Speaker 1: So I would imagine Google is very very active on
15:17
Speaker 1: Gordon Ramsey, Joel McHale, Rob Low and cooking shows.
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Speaker 2: Are we in? Does that sound accurate or No?
15:25
Speaker 3: That's right, and we charged job to get even more
15:27
Speaker 3: active on those terms.
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Speaker 1: Right, big fan of it, and I'm excited for the
15:32
Speaker 1: McHale show that's coming out.
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Speaker 2: The crime what is the crime scene Kitchen? I saw
15:36
Speaker 2: the bit he did with Edelman this week and I'm like, Yep,
15:38
Speaker 2: I'm in. I love it big.
15:39
Speaker 3: Joel Mcheal guy, we love that. Please keep promoting Fox
15:43
Speaker 3: entertainment shows on this podcast. We encourage that.
15:45
Speaker 2: We will do that. We will do that.
15:47
Speaker 1: I don't have much history with Chicago Fire or the
15:50
Speaker 1: NBC shows. I am a Fox guy through and through,
15:52
Speaker 1: and I rock with the masked singer as you know.
15:56
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into football. It's very early on.
16:00
Speaker 2: We're just two.
16:00
Speaker 1: Weeks in, but every year is different as far as trends,
16:04
Speaker 1: as far as what we're seeing. What are some takeaways
16:08
Speaker 1: audience wise, just two weeks into this current NFL season.
16:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I think that the primary takeaway is that
16:16
Speaker 3: the league has come back at least as strong as ever,
16:19
Speaker 3: if not stronger than ever. And we hear a lot
16:22
Speaker 3: about changes in our business and the fact that people
16:26
Speaker 3: are cutting the cord, maybe getting out of their cable packages,
16:30
Speaker 3: moving more of their viewership to streaming platforms, and all
16:33
Speaker 3: of that is real. And yet even as people move
16:36
Speaker 3: out of their traditional cable bundles, the audiences for the
16:41
Speaker 3: NFL and for college football just continue to grow. The
16:44
Speaker 3: resilience of those properties is pretty remarkable. So we're two
16:48
Speaker 3: weeks into the season, the average audience for all NFL games,
16:52
Speaker 3: not just on Fox but across every carrier is up
16:55
Speaker 3: eight percent. The audience share that we're seeing is amazing.
16:59
Speaker 3: You know, if you look at all games, all networks,
17:02
Speaker 3: the average share of men ageat into thirty four that
17:07
Speaker 3: are watching a typical NFL game is sixty six percent.
17:11
Speaker 3: So sixty six percent of all the young men that
17:15
Speaker 3: are watching TV at any particular time are watching an
17:18
Speaker 3: NFL game. Maybe even more amazing, the share of women
17:22
Speaker 3: eighteen to thirty four for a typical NFL game is
17:25
Speaker 3: a fifty. So while we think of the of the
17:28
Speaker 3: NFL and we think of football as being a traditional
17:31
Speaker 3: male vehicle, that female audience becomes more important to us
17:35
Speaker 3: all the time. I think if you go through television history,
17:37
Speaker 3: you're just not going to find that many shows that
17:39
Speaker 3: are doing a sixty six share or a fifty share.
17:43
Speaker 3: You really have to go back to, you have to
17:44
Speaker 3: go back decades to things like I Love Lucy Max Shard,
17:49
Speaker 3: Theater Mash, you know, shows that just come from a
17:51
Speaker 3: different era of media consumption. That's the stranglehold that the
17:55
Speaker 3: NFL has on the audience. And yes, we're only two
17:59
Speaker 3: weeks in, but it just shows no signs of slowing
18:03
Speaker 3: down or reversing. I think the degree to which the
18:06
Speaker 3: NFL bell sort of towers over everything else on the
18:09
Speaker 3: TV landscape just becomes greater and greater each year.
18:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's that stat we get every end of the season.
18:15
Speaker 2: It's like or at the end of the year.
18:16
Speaker 1: Like eighty eight of the top one hundred shows or
18:20
Speaker 1: NFL related like that only gets bigger and bigger, and
18:23
Speaker 1: the pie, if you will, only gets to be gobbled
18:26
Speaker 1: up more and more by the NFL. Can you can
18:29
Speaker 1: you share us with some of those analytics and metrics
18:31
Speaker 1: historically over I guess the last calendar year of just
18:35
Speaker 1: how dominant football is and then NFL. Yes, But then
18:39
Speaker 1: when you add in college football, I think that gets
18:41
Speaker 1: an even bigger share of the top one hundred shows.
18:43
Speaker 2: Right.
18:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. There are a lot of ways that
18:47
Speaker 3: we can parse the data to try to make that
18:49
Speaker 3: argument about the power of live sports. But I think
18:52
Speaker 3: one that tends to be really understandable to people and
18:56
Speaker 3: gets a lot of pickup in the press is that
18:58
Speaker 3: look at the hundred most watch shows of any given year,
19:02
Speaker 3: and so last year, ninety three of the hundred. Most
19:05
Speaker 3: watch shows on television were live sports events, and the
19:10
Speaker 3: vast majority of those were NFL games. In fact, it
19:14
Speaker 3: may even be the ninety three were NFL games and
19:16
Speaker 3: a few more were other sports events. So if you
19:20
Speaker 3: were to go back twenty or thirty years, that number
19:22
Speaker 3: of the top hundred that comes from live sports, it
19:25
Speaker 3: used to be like twenty of one hundred. Right now
19:27
Speaker 3: it's virtually everything. And I think that has to do
19:31
Speaker 3: with the fragmentation of the entertainment audience, the fact that
19:34
Speaker 3: some of that entertain entertainment audience has gone to streaming,
19:39
Speaker 3: and I think there's something going on there where sports
19:42
Speaker 3: and especially the NFL has become really the only thing
19:47
Speaker 3: that still brings people from all walks of life together
19:51
Speaker 3: in real time. Right Like when I was a kid, Yes,
19:54
Speaker 3: the NFL did twenty five million viewers a week, but
19:57
Speaker 3: there were a lot of TV shows that did twenty
19:59
Speaker 3: million viewers a week, and we all watched the same TV,
20:01
Speaker 3: We listened to the same music, we saw the same movies.
20:04
Speaker 3: People were sort of more engaged in community based activities then,
20:08
Speaker 3: whether it was a school board or a bowling league
20:10
Speaker 3: or their church and all these things that sort of
20:13
Speaker 3: used to bring people from different walks together have fragmented
20:18
Speaker 3: or declined in popularity, and there's been this decline of
20:21
Speaker 3: what we sometimes call the monoculture. And in a lot
20:24
Speaker 3: of ways, that's probably a good thing, because it means
20:26
Speaker 3: that people are getting what they want rather than just
20:29
Speaker 3: getting what happens to be available. But it leads us
20:32
Speaker 3: in a circumstance where the only thing that still kind
20:35
Speaker 3: of represents that monoculture, the only thing that can get
20:38
Speaker 3: twenty five million people to pay attention to the same
20:41
Speaker 3: thing at the same time, is sports, and it is
20:44
Speaker 3: the NFL. And it leaves our business in a really
20:48
Speaker 3: unique position, and I think it gives the NFL more
20:51
Speaker 3: cultural influence and currency than ever before. And it also
20:55
Speaker 3: is really powerful to our business partners, our advertisers who
20:59
Speaker 3: are looking for simultaneous attention, right, how can they reach
21:03
Speaker 3: the most people at the same time. It really is
21:07
Speaker 3: nothing else that delivers that simultaneous audience on the scale
21:10
Speaker 3: of the NFL.
21:12
Speaker 1: So in a cord cutting streamer world where I don't
21:15
Speaker 1: know what streamer this show that everyone's talking about is
21:19
Speaker 1: on and I've got to find it all, we know
21:21
Speaker 1: that someday at one pm Eastern, there's going to be
21:23
Speaker 1: Fox and CBS games kicking off, and that is a
21:25
Speaker 1: ritualistic thing. And if you go online, if you live online,
21:28
Speaker 1: which so many people.
21:29
Speaker 2: Do, the conversation usually circles around.
21:33
Speaker 1: Whatever's happening on the football field or what the broadcast
21:36
Speaker 1: is saying about that game.
21:37
Speaker 3: Right, And you know, I sometimes like to say that
21:40
Speaker 3: television used to be America's biggest stage, and increasingly it's
21:44
Speaker 3: become America's biggest library. You know, it's a place that
21:47
Speaker 3: you can go to anytime and get any TV show
21:50
Speaker 3: or movie that has ever been made and watch it
21:53
Speaker 3: at your convenience. And so as you go from that
21:56
Speaker 3: stage model to a library model where all that on
22:00
Speaker 3: demand consumption is happening, the thing that still kind of
22:03
Speaker 3: represents TV as America's biggest stage is sports and news
22:07
Speaker 3: like those are the only things that you feel like
22:09
Speaker 3: you have to consume it in real time. If you're
22:11
Speaker 3: not seeing it as it happens, you're left out of
22:13
Speaker 3: the social media conversation. You're left out of what we
22:16
Speaker 3: used to call water water. Now it's like text message dialogue.
22:21
Speaker 3: You've got to see it as it happens. So as
22:23
Speaker 3: the rest of the business has become focused on on demand.
22:26
Speaker 3: I can watch anything I want, anytime I want. Sports
22:30
Speaker 3: really stands alone as the thing that you're compelled to
22:32
Speaker 3: see in the moment that it's happening.
22:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I want to go binge the West Wing,
22:37
Speaker 1: I can do that tomorrow. If I want to go
22:39
Speaker 1: find out what's happening in you know, the Texans Bear
22:42
Speaker 1: Sunday night game, I have to watch it live. That
22:44
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense that that does work out
22:47
Speaker 1: if you think about the way people consume right now.
22:49
Speaker 3: It's really why the entertainment business has become so challenging,
22:52
Speaker 3: right because when you make a new TV show, you're
22:55
Speaker 3: competing with every TV show that's ever been made. When
22:59
Speaker 3: we play a football game at one o'clock on a
23:00
Speaker 3: Sunday afternoon, we're really just competing with other football games
23:03
Speaker 3: that are on at the same time. So we get
23:06
Speaker 3: to cot with what's happening in the moment. And on
23:08
Speaker 3: the scripted side, the entertainment side, they're competing with the
23:11
Speaker 3: best that the medium has ever delivered. And that's a
23:13
Speaker 3: really challenging circumstance.
23:16
Speaker 1: This is why I love having you, and I never
23:17
Speaker 1: thought of that, like I could watch any episode of
23:19
Speaker 1: Friends I want at any time.
23:21
Speaker 2: I just have to have the right app if I
23:24
Speaker 2: want to see what Caleb Williams is doing.
23:26
Speaker 1: This week to bounce back from Sunday Night's game, Like,
23:28
Speaker 1: you have to watch it live and the conversation's over
23:30
Speaker 1: by the morning, So you really, if you want to
23:32
Speaker 1: be a part of it, you have to actually sit
23:35
Speaker 1: and watch it and get through it good insights. So
23:39
Speaker 1: we've had Mike North on several times on this podcast,
23:42
Speaker 1: and he is, amongst other things, he works in the
23:45
Speaker 1: broadcast group at the NFL. He also is part of
23:48
Speaker 1: the group that creates the schedule, and he's taken us
23:51
Speaker 1: from the NFL's vantage point on how they pick which
23:55
Speaker 1: games when and what they weigh in as factors. And
23:58
Speaker 1: he always talks about how the networks play a key role.
24:01
Speaker 1: The teams in the clubs, they'll send some things like hey,
24:03
Speaker 1: we've got a concert this week, we can't have a
24:05
Speaker 1: home game that week, or we'd really.
24:07
Speaker 2: Like to be home this week because of X, Y
24:09
Speaker 2: and Z. And then there's the network side of it,
24:12
Speaker 2: the media partners who.
24:13
Speaker 1: Are all paying big checks to have NFL games broadcasted.
24:18
Speaker 2: But we've never spoken to someone from.
24:20
Speaker 1: The network side of it on how they compile their
24:23
Speaker 1: preferences and make their lists. You're part of that crew
24:25
Speaker 1: at Fox who does so. And Fox makes their list,
24:28
Speaker 1: and NBC makes theirs, and ESPN and now Amazon and CBS,
24:32
Speaker 1: we all put together, here are the games that we'd
24:34
Speaker 1: love in our wish list. Can you take us behind
24:37
Speaker 1: the curtain a little bit? And how you guys decide
24:39
Speaker 1: which games you request to the NFL be broadcast on Fox?
24:44
Speaker 3: Sure? So you know, Mike North and his team are
24:48
Speaker 3: among our closest partners, if not our closest partner. We're
24:52
Speaker 3: engaged in kind of a never ending conversation with them
24:55
Speaker 3: about what's working, what we could do in future weeks,
25:00
Speaker 3: what we want to do next season, like that dialogue
25:02
Speaker 3: really never ends. In fact, even earlier this morning, we
25:05
Speaker 3: were already texting about things that might be in play
25:08
Speaker 3: for a future week this season. So that's a very
25:12
Speaker 3: very close relationship. And what we do and what all
25:15
Speaker 3: the networks do, is we do submit a list of
25:17
Speaker 3: our top fifty games for the upcoming season, usually fifty games,
25:23
Speaker 3: and we submitt that usually after the NFC Championship game
25:28
Speaker 3: and before the Super Bowl.
25:29
Speaker 2: Of the previous year, right before free.
25:33
Speaker 1: Agency, before the draft, you're like, we want these two
25:36
Speaker 1: teams next.
25:36
Speaker 3: Year, we'll submit that list, will have a pretty in
25:40
Speaker 3: depth conversation prior to the super Bowl, and then between
25:43
Speaker 3: the super Bowl and the release of the schedule, there
25:47
Speaker 3: is just an ongoing conversation about what if we got
25:50
Speaker 3: this game rather than that game, or what if there
25:52
Speaker 3: is a major move in free agency, what might that mean?
25:56
Speaker 3: And that's come up a lot in recent seasons, whether
25:58
Speaker 3: that's quarterbacks that their retirement is in question or Aaron
26:03
Speaker 3: Rodgers coming from Green Bay to New York. There's always
26:07
Speaker 3: some pivotal player whose future is still in question post
26:11
Speaker 3: Super Bowl, and we have to kind of talk that
26:13
Speaker 3: through when we put together our top fifty list. You know,
26:16
Speaker 3: something that's very much on our mind is that this
26:18
Speaker 3: is still primarily an NFC package, Right So we know
26:22
Speaker 3: that we're going to have at least eight Dallas Cowboys
26:25
Speaker 3: games every year. We know we're probably only going to
26:28
Speaker 3: have one Kansas City Chiefs game, So for us to
26:31
Speaker 3: put seven Chiefs games in our top ten doesn't make
26:35
Speaker 3: a lot of sense, right, Like, we kind of have
26:37
Speaker 3: to take into account that we're mostly going to showcase
26:40
Speaker 3: NFC teams, NFC brands. So we'll put a couple of
26:43
Speaker 3: Kansas City games in our top ten that we really
26:46
Speaker 3: really want, but we'll focus the top end of our
26:49
Speaker 3: list more on that collection of eight or nine Dallas
26:52
Speaker 3: games this year, it's nine some years, it'll be eight
26:55
Speaker 3: that we know we are going to get, just per
26:58
Speaker 3: the terms of our contract. So it's not necessarily a
27:02
Speaker 3: totally straightforward ranking of these are the top fifty games
27:06
Speaker 3: in exactly our order of preference. It's informed a little
27:09
Speaker 3: bit by the fact that, you know, we do want
27:12
Speaker 3: to acknowledge that we need to fire one really big
27:15
Speaker 3: shot with the Chiefs, and we know that we're going
27:18
Speaker 3: to have a deeper pool of Dallas, and so we
27:21
Speaker 3: tend to have just a little bit more NFC and
27:23
Speaker 3: a little bit more Dallas at the top of our ranking.
27:26
Speaker 3: And then the league takes our list, and they take
27:28
Speaker 3: lists from all the networks, and they have that incredibly
27:31
Speaker 3: challenging job of trying to serve the interest of all
27:34
Speaker 3: these partners. You know, what Mike's team has to do
27:36
Speaker 3: is they have to try to satisfy the biggest media
27:40
Speaker 3: companies in the world, who are collectively paying over ten
27:44
Speaker 3: billion dollars a year to have access to these games,
27:48
Speaker 3: and it's really really challenging to make sure that everybody's happy,
27:52
Speaker 3: or at least everybody's equally unhappy, and that's sort of
27:55
Speaker 3: what Mike and his team have to do. And as
27:58
Speaker 3: we engage in that conversation with them, we're always really
28:01
Speaker 3: mindful of the fact that we're not the only partner, right,
28:03
Speaker 3: Like they have to balance everybody's needs. We have to
28:06
Speaker 3: sort of acknowledge that we're not the only network that
28:09
Speaker 3: wants Kansas City San fran We're not the only ones
28:11
Speaker 3: that want Dallas Philly. Everybody's looking for those games.
28:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of Kansas City, San Francisco, that one that's obvious,
28:18
Speaker 1: that one's going to be Burke, Cart and Brady. But
28:21
Speaker 1: you know, as we started this week, it's week three.
28:23
Speaker 1: You know, we came after the Sunday games and I'm
28:25
Speaker 1: looking at the schedule and I'm like, Wow, Fox has
28:28
Speaker 1: Saints Eagles and Ravens Cowboys. Those are both worthy games
28:33
Speaker 1: to put on national TV. When do you guys start
28:35
Speaker 1: having the conversations in picking which broadcast.
28:39
Speaker 2: Crews are going to which game week to week?
28:42
Speaker 3: So we will do a preliminary map for the first say,
28:47
Speaker 3: third to half first half of the season before any
28:50
Speaker 3: games are played, so we've got an early read even
28:53
Speaker 3: before any games kickoff. And then as we go through
28:56
Speaker 3: the season, we'll do a map two weeks in advance
29:00
Speaker 3: of every game, and then we'll do a final map
29:02
Speaker 3: one week out. And then even after that final map,
29:06
Speaker 3: our affiliates around the country have an opportunity to come
29:09
Speaker 3: back to us and say, hey, you assigned us Green Bay, Tennessee,
29:13
Speaker 3: and what we actually want is Philly, New Orleans. So
29:16
Speaker 3: the stations have a role to play there. The league
29:19
Speaker 3: has a lot of input that they give us, and
29:22
Speaker 3: we adjust the maps on a rolling basis throughout the year.
29:25
Speaker 3: And it's not my job to assign a crew to
29:30
Speaker 3: each game. That happens within the production unit, but we
29:33
Speaker 3: do start having conversations about that in some cases three
29:36
Speaker 3: or four weeks out, and it changes all the time, right,
29:39
Speaker 3: It's very fluid. Sometimes we think that the Burkhart Brady
29:44
Speaker 3: Aaron Rinaldy crew is going to go to a certain game,
29:47
Speaker 3: and then the next two weeks of results are so
29:50
Speaker 3: different from what we expected that we have to very
29:53
Speaker 3: quickly move them to something else. So that's not uncommon
29:56
Speaker 3: at all. And even though that choice doesn't really sit
30:00
Speaker 3: with my team, we're talking with production all the time
30:03
Speaker 3: about how we think the maps are going to ligh
30:05
Speaker 3: out and what right game for a certain crew might be.
30:08
Speaker 1: Can I go back and get behind the curtain to
30:10
Speaker 1: giving Dallas Cleveland our Week one game for Fox? And
30:14
Speaker 1: I say hour as an employee with Fox, I think
30:17
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of games on and you guys
30:19
Speaker 1: put Brady and Burker. Obviously Dallas is the big draw,
30:22
Speaker 1: but Cleveland out of the gates, and of course they
30:24
Speaker 1: disappointed us and not putting up a fight. But in hindsight,
30:28
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, there was a lot of science behind
30:30
Speaker 1: that decision. Does Cleveland rate well nationally? Is that kind
30:33
Speaker 1: of the reason behind that because Brady didn't really have
30:35
Speaker 1: any connection to the Browns.
30:37
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think there are some teams that are a
30:39
Speaker 3: little bit more popular nationally than they're on the field
30:43
Speaker 3: performance might suggest, and there are some that are not
30:46
Speaker 3: as popular nationally as they're on field performance might lead
30:49
Speaker 3: you to believe Cleveland is one of those teams that
30:54
Speaker 3: they're coming from a relatively big market. They obviously have
30:57
Speaker 3: a lot of history, They have a very passionate fan base,
31:00
Speaker 3: Their local ratings are always among the biggest in the country,
31:04
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of migration and in a lot
31:06
Speaker 3: of migration over the last say fifty years from the
31:10
Speaker 3: Rust Belt through to the sun Belt, right interesting. So
31:13
Speaker 3: when you're looking at those AFC North and NFC North markets.
31:17
Speaker 2: National teams interesting.
31:19
Speaker 3: Punch above their weight nationally because not only do they
31:22
Speaker 3: do a big number in their local market, but there
31:25
Speaker 3: are a lot of former Pittsburghers in the sun Belt.
31:28
Speaker 3: There are a lot of former Clevelanders, a lot of
31:30
Speaker 3: people from Detroit who have moved elsewhere in the country,
31:33
Speaker 3: and so those northern teams they tend to do a
31:35
Speaker 3: little better than you might think because a lot of
31:38
Speaker 3: their fans have just gone to other parts of the country.
31:40
Speaker 3: I was really happy to have that Dallas Cleveland game
31:43
Speaker 3: for Week one. Wish it had been more competitive. I mean,
31:46
Speaker 3: that game opened as the betting line on that game
31:48
Speaker 3: opened as a pick, and obviously it ended up tilting
31:52
Speaker 3: very much in one direction, so it could have been
31:54
Speaker 3: a more competitive game. But definitely no complaints about starting
31:57
Speaker 3: the year with the Browns fan base.
31:59
Speaker 1: And the ratings were incredible, So your science and you're
32:03
Speaker 1: backing behind that worked out.
32:05
Speaker 2: Look. We had John or Ran on.
32:06
Speaker 1: Before the season started just to kind of give a
32:09
Speaker 1: big picture thought about the way the broadcast is going.
32:11
Speaker 1: You know, he's one of the leaders in the space
32:12
Speaker 1: as far as journalism goes with sports media. He had
32:15
Speaker 1: a take that he thought ratings might take a real
32:18
Speaker 1: dip because there's going to be such a fervor around
32:20
Speaker 1: the election. We're two weeks in and that hasn't necessarily
32:23
Speaker 1: been the case. What's your read on it as we
32:26
Speaker 1: head closer to November.
32:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, my read on it is that former President
32:32
Speaker 3: Trump has dominated the news cycle and dominated the headlines
32:38
Speaker 3: for nine years like no other person in our lifetime
32:43
Speaker 3: ever has. And the result of that is that I
32:47
Speaker 3: think everybody in the country pretty much has their mind
32:50
Speaker 3: made up about one of the major candidates in this election,
32:54
Speaker 3: and there's nothing that's going to happen that is going
32:58
Speaker 3: to move his supporters off of him, and there's nothing
33:01
Speaker 3: that's going to happen that's going to persuade his detractors
33:04
Speaker 3: that they actually like him. So everybody's mind is made
33:07
Speaker 3: up about one of the candidates there's just not that
33:10
Speaker 3: much persuasion to be done, and the news stories from
33:14
Speaker 3: the campaign aren't hitting in the same way. And what
33:16
Speaker 3: we're seeing in cable news ratings is that, yeah, they're
33:19
Speaker 3: up a little bit over last year, but if we
33:21
Speaker 3: compare them to the last two presidential years, Sunday afternoon
33:26
Speaker 3: news ratings are down versus twenty twenty. They're down even
33:29
Speaker 3: by a little bit more versus twenty sixteen. The campaign
33:33
Speaker 3: just isn't having the same impact that it did four
33:36
Speaker 3: eight years ago. And I think what we're going to
33:39
Speaker 3: see for the next seven weeks, honestly, is that Fox
33:42
Speaker 3: and every other network that's heavily invested in football is
33:46
Speaker 3: going to make a ton of money selling political advertising
33:50
Speaker 3: without the downside of any negative impact to our viewership.
33:54
Speaker 3: So I think it's all upside for us on the
33:55
Speaker 3: advertising side, and we're not really seeing any negative impact
33:58
Speaker 3: to the viewership.
33:59
Speaker 2: Dude, fascinating.
34:00
Speaker 1: So I have a friend who works in local syndication sales,
34:03
Speaker 1: and he said the greatest thing that happened to them
34:06
Speaker 1: was buy In dropping out and Kamala entering the fray,
34:09
Speaker 1: because suddenly there was a whole new host of ads
34:12
Speaker 1: that they can run and they're going to sell all
34:14
Speaker 1: these different ads, so you don't think of those things
34:16
Speaker 1: that you're just a consumer of television.
34:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, you know. On the collegiate side, we
34:21
Speaker 3: made a decision this year to draft the number one
34:26
Speaker 3: game in the Big Ten on November two, so that's
34:29
Speaker 3: three days before the presidential election, and when the time comes,
34:32
Speaker 3: we'll be able to choose between Ohio State, Penn State,
34:35
Speaker 3: or Oregon Michigan. We used a very high draft pick,
34:39
Speaker 3: so the Big Ten games are assigned via a draft
34:42
Speaker 3: rather than the conference asign.
34:43
Speaker 2: Also very cool to picture. Is that televised? Why is
34:46
Speaker 2: it not?
34:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a fun process. Probably not as good of
34:51
Speaker 3: a TV product because you might think, but it is
34:54
Speaker 3: a fun thing to participate in. A big reason that
34:57
Speaker 3: we took that date as high as we did was
35:00
Speaker 3: because of the election and because of the campaign money
35:02
Speaker 3: that's going to be flowing into our business in the
35:04
Speaker 3: days leading up to election day. You know, we wanted
35:07
Speaker 3: to make sure that we had an opportunity to not
35:10
Speaker 3: just have a great game, but have Penn State coming
35:14
Speaker 3: from probably the decisive state in this election, just a
35:17
Speaker 3: couple of days before everybody goes to the polls, so
35:21
Speaker 3: those campaign considerations do play a part in us deciding
35:25
Speaker 3: what games we really want to have.
35:27
Speaker 1: So interesting, So a couple of years ago we had
35:31
Speaker 1: the Arrabias. Last year we had the craziest Thanksgiving slate
35:35
Speaker 1: you could imagine. We had a great game on Thursday,
35:38
Speaker 1: we had Ohio State Michigan. On Saturday, we had an
35:40
Speaker 1: incredible game on Sunday. What's this year's Thanksgiving weekend looking like?
35:44
Speaker 2: On Fox?
35:45
Speaker 3: So the Thanksgiving game is Giants Dallas, which we had
35:48
Speaker 3: that game two years ago and it did forty two
35:51
Speaker 3: million viewers to the most watched NFL regular season game
35:54
Speaker 3: in history. Not sure the Giants are going to be
35:56
Speaker 3: as strong by Thanksgiving this year as they were two
35:58
Speaker 3: years ago, but that's kind of a bulletproof window, right,
36:02
Speaker 3: no matter what the matchup is. The Thanksgiving game Troit
36:06
Speaker 3: game more now than ever, and the Dallas game has
36:09
Speaker 3: always been part of everybody's Thanksgiving celebration, but it's just
36:13
Speaker 3: a part of the holiday. So you know you're going
36:16
Speaker 3: to do a gigantic number. You're going to draw in
36:18
Speaker 3: people who don't necessarily watch the NFL every week, and
36:22
Speaker 3: you have a high level of confidence that having that
36:24
Speaker 3: late afternoon game on Thanksgiving is going to be the
36:27
Speaker 3: most watched game of the entire season. Saturday, we have
36:30
Speaker 3: Ohio State Michigan. Michigan obviously already has one in the
36:34
Speaker 3: lost column, but because we've now gone to a twelve
36:37
Speaker 3: team playoff on the collegiate side, I think that Ohio
36:40
Speaker 3: State Michigan game is still absolutely very meaningful when we
36:43
Speaker 3: get to the last weekend of the year. We just
36:46
Speaker 3: now have opened up Friday nights for college football on Fox.
36:49
Speaker 3: We had a good premiere last week. I think we're
36:51
Speaker 3: going to be even a little bit better this coming Friday.
36:54
Speaker 3: And when we get to Thanksgiving weekend, we're going to
36:57
Speaker 3: have Utah in the Friday night window. That's a game
37:01
Speaker 3: that I think will either be to lock up a
37:03
Speaker 3: playoff spot or potentially Utah look to put themselves in
37:08
Speaker 3: position for a buy in the playoffs. So we like
37:11
Speaker 3: what we have for Friday. And then the doubleheader that
37:13
Speaker 3: Sunday sits with CBS, so they'll probably have there's no
37:17
Speaker 3: probably about it. They certainly will have a bigger audience
37:19
Speaker 3: on Thanksgiving Sunday than we will. But we have Seattle
37:23
Speaker 3: Jets as probably our League game for the single header,
37:27
Speaker 3: so it's a great four days of football. And I
37:30
Speaker 3: think what we like is that in opening up that
37:33
Speaker 3: Friday night and using it now as a college football
37:36
Speaker 3: showcase window, we want to try to create circumstances where
37:41
Speaker 3: football just takes over television five nights a week. Right,
37:44
Speaker 3: the Amazon game is always going to be the most
37:46
Speaker 3: watch show on Thursdays. We want our Friday night college
37:49
Speaker 3: game to regularly win Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday are
37:54
Speaker 3: taken over by football as they always have been, and
37:56
Speaker 3: then Disney's going to control Monday Night. And we want
37:59
Speaker 3: to give fans an opportunity to just be completely immersed
38:02
Speaker 3: in football five days a week, all through the fall.
38:05
Speaker 2: And we are.
38:06
Speaker 1: And I've got a couple last question. This is actually
38:09
Speaker 1: an incredible interview, and I think it's just like behind
38:12
Speaker 1: the curtain for so many diehard NFL fans who obsess
38:15
Speaker 1: over which broadcasters are calling their games, what channel is
38:18
Speaker 1: it going to be on, and when is the game
38:20
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, there's there's a math and a
38:22
Speaker 1: science behind all this. Last week it was the only
38:26
Speaker 1: time this week. We're gonna this season, We're gonna get
38:28
Speaker 1: this and Scott Hansen at Red Zone was having a
38:30
Speaker 1: field day with the Decca Box. But there was ten
38:33
Speaker 1: different games in that early window, and there were fans
38:36
Speaker 1: of it who loved it.
38:37
Speaker 2: To me, as a.
38:38
Speaker 1: Consumer, it was too much like I like to spread
38:41
Speaker 1: them out a little bit as a network.
38:43
Speaker 2: Is there an advantage to that a disadvantage of that?
38:45
Speaker 1: And I know CBS had that four o'clock window, really
38:49
Speaker 1: and we had a couple of games on Fox unfortunately
38:51
Speaker 1: the Rams and Cardinals was a blowout.
38:53
Speaker 2: But like, what do you view it as.
38:55
Speaker 1: As as someone who's an executive who looks at this
38:57
Speaker 1: stuff for a living.
38:58
Speaker 3: We love it. I wish it was like that every week?
39:01
Speaker 2: Talk about it?
39:01
Speaker 3: Why?
39:02
Speaker 2: Why?
39:02
Speaker 3: Okay? So the reason we love it is that the
39:06
Speaker 3: number of fans that are watching via Sunday Ticket or
39:10
Speaker 3: via red Zone or Game Day on NFL network, that's
39:13
Speaker 3: a relatively small number of people right probably fewer than
39:17
Speaker 3: ten percent of all viewers are watching in one of
39:20
Speaker 3: those ways. For the most part, people are just turning
39:23
Speaker 3: on their local Fox affiliate, their local CBS affiliate. They're
39:27
Speaker 3: watching the NFL in the same way that they did
39:29
Speaker 3: thirty or forty years ago. That's the majority of our audience.
39:33
Speaker 3: So if mostly they're going to be watching on their
39:36
Speaker 3: local TV stations, we kind of want to set up
39:39
Speaker 3: a model where, for the most part, people are going
39:43
Speaker 3: to get their local team at one o'clock, and then
39:46
Speaker 3: they're going to get a big game at four twenty
39:49
Speaker 3: five on either Fox or CBS. This week it was
39:52
Speaker 3: Cincinnati Kansas City, and then the whole country gets a
39:55
Speaker 3: special game in primetime on NBC. If you can have
39:58
Speaker 3: that progression of local game it's a big four to
40:01
Speaker 3: twenty five game to big primetime game, that's probably the
40:04
Speaker 3: best model for the average viewer that's watching on a
40:08
Speaker 3: traditional TV station. If you take some of those ten
40:11
Speaker 3: one pm games and push them into the late window,
40:15
Speaker 3: all that means is that you've got fewer markets that
40:18
Speaker 3: are able to see Joe Burrow against Patrick Mahomes at
40:22
Speaker 3: four twenty five, right, So we don't want to minimize
40:25
Speaker 3: the number of people that can see the big four
40:27
Speaker 3: to twenty five game. If my favorite team is playing
40:30
Speaker 3: in the league window and I don't get to see Mahomes,
40:33
Speaker 3: that means I'm probably getting a game at one o'clock
40:35
Speaker 3: that I don't care as much about as I care
40:38
Speaker 3: about Burrow versus mahomes, So you're just trying to maximize
40:42
Speaker 3: the number of markets where you can go. Twenty local
40:45
Speaker 3: teams are playing at one, We're going to get a
40:47
Speaker 3: matchup of premium brands and marquee quarterbacks at four twenty five,
40:52
Speaker 3: and then you're going to have the whole country focused
40:54
Speaker 3: on the NBC game in primetime. That's kind of the
40:56
Speaker 3: way that we like to see a play out.
40:58
Speaker 1: And it's only one time though this whole season. Now
41:00
Speaker 1: there's gonna be bie weeks and all this stuff. Is
41:02
Speaker 1: that something where the networks go to the league office
41:05
Speaker 1: and say, hey, more of than or is that something
41:07
Speaker 1: you guys just sit on your hands and you're just
41:09
Speaker 1: you take what you're giving.
41:11
Speaker 3: There's not that much we can do about it, right Like,
41:13
Speaker 3: everybody's got to have a bye week. I mean, there's
41:15
Speaker 3: obviously a player safety consideration in that. So there's nothing
41:18
Speaker 3: we can do about the bye weeks. And the league
41:21
Speaker 3: has just evolved in such a way that a game
41:24
Speaker 3: is now going to Thursday night every week. Sometimes two
41:27
Speaker 3: games are going to Monday night. The inventory that's available
41:30
Speaker 3: to Sunday afternoon just isn't as much as it used
41:32
Speaker 3: to be, so it's pretty rare. As you just said it,
41:35
Speaker 3: there's only one time this season that we have this
41:37
Speaker 3: many games at one o'clock. And it's just kind of
41:39
Speaker 3: a byproduct of the league taking more games from Sunday
41:43
Speaker 3: and putting them on Thursday, putting them on Monday, putting
41:45
Speaker 3: them in Europe, putting them in Brazil. Right Like, there
41:48
Speaker 3: are just more mouths to feed, and it lessens our
41:52
Speaker 3: ability to have that many games at one o'clock on
41:54
Speaker 3: a Sunday.
41:56
Speaker 1: My last question, there's always is like things that pop
41:58
Speaker 1: up on Instagram and it's like the Cowboys are Forbes is,
42:01
Speaker 1: you know, wealthiest franchise And there was one that came
42:04
Speaker 1: up and I don't know this source. I wish I
42:06
Speaker 1: had it, but it was like mahomes Kelsey read Swift,
42:12
Speaker 1: the Chiefs have overtaken the Cowboys as like the most
42:15
Speaker 1: desired or most watched team or the most hated teams
42:18
Speaker 1: something like that.
42:18
Speaker 2: Let's put Cowboys in Chiefs in one tier.
42:21
Speaker 1: As a network executive and as a network one of
42:24
Speaker 1: those next tier franchises that garner the biggest audience or
42:28
Speaker 1: Google search trends that you've been analyzing, and it doesn't
42:31
Speaker 1: have to be one team that's saying, hey, there's a
42:33
Speaker 1: number three. What's that next tier of just big brand
42:37
Speaker 1: franchises that really touch the entire country.
42:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say right now, the second tier is
42:44
Speaker 3: San Francisco, Okay, Green Bay and Pittsburgh, right intro teams
42:50
Speaker 3: with long histories, with very very well established brands, Teams
42:55
Speaker 3: that win more than they lose. You know, Pittsburgh, it's
42:58
Speaker 3: been a while since they made a deep playoff run,
43:01
Speaker 3: but they still win more games than they lose basically
43:03
Speaker 3: every season. San Francisco has been knocking on the door
43:05
Speaker 3: of a championship for a while. Green Bays had success
43:09
Speaker 3: basically for as long as I've been in this job.
43:11
Speaker 3: So it's you know, passionate fan base, long history of success,
43:17
Speaker 3: and current success, even if that current success isn't necessarily
43:21
Speaker 3: at the super Bowl level, but at least at a
43:24
Speaker 3: level of being competitive every week and then on that
43:26
Speaker 3: top level, as you say, it's Dallas and Kansas City
43:29
Speaker 3: have really separated themselves from everybody else thinking about this
43:32
Speaker 3: on the way in today. Actually, I don't think there's
43:34
Speaker 3: been a team that has as much charisma and personality
43:39
Speaker 3: and appeal to casual fans as the Chiefs, probably since
43:42
Speaker 3: the eighty five Bears. I don't know if you think
43:44
Speaker 3: of one that's had more cultural impacts since then. But
43:47
Speaker 3: the difference between the eighty five Bears and the Chiefs
43:50
Speaker 3: is that the eighty five Bears blue teams out every
43:52
Speaker 3: week and the Chiefs don't do anything but play one possession.
43:55
Speaker 2: Games, no doubt.
43:56
Speaker 3: And so the difference between the Cowboys and the Chiefs
43:58
Speaker 3: right now is that Cowboys have been playing a lot
44:00
Speaker 3: of lopsided games both last season in the first two
44:03
Speaker 3: weeks of this year, and the Chiefs it seems like
44:05
Speaker 3: every time they play it came back, it comes down
44:07
Speaker 3: to a last possession.
44:08
Speaker 1: I think the term i'd use for the Chiefs is
44:10
Speaker 1: cultural zeitgeist.
44:12
Speaker 2: There's like four quadrants.
44:14
Speaker 1: There's man, there's woman, there's old, there's young, and then
44:17
Speaker 1: there's everything you could even talk you know, the Taylor
44:20
Speaker 1: Swift element, yes, but there's also like the hardcore football them.
44:24
Speaker 2: Chasing history with this three peet.
44:26
Speaker 1: I think they hit every piece of the grid, and
44:29
Speaker 1: then to your point, they play in these.
44:31
Speaker 2: Incredibly dramatic, nail bier games.
44:33
Speaker 1: They hit everything, and they're also darn fun to watch
44:36
Speaker 1: because they seem like they love playing the sport and
44:38
Speaker 1: they love each other.
44:39
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's a team that's had.
44:41
Speaker 1: So much fun playing football and been so much fun
44:42
Speaker 1: to watch over the last three four decades. And the
44:45
Speaker 1: sixties Packers predate me, and the seventies Steelers predate me.
44:49
Speaker 1: But you're right, I think eighty five Bears with the
44:52
Speaker 1: Fridge and McMahon like, I don't know the early nineties Cowboys,
44:55
Speaker 1: but that was even just a little window of a
44:57
Speaker 1: couple of years, you know.
44:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just wish that when they played those games
45:01
Speaker 3: on CBS at four twenty five, that they blast teams out.
45:04
Speaker 3: I'd like to see them win some games by thirty
45:06
Speaker 3: on the other network.
45:07
Speaker 2: Let's go, dude. I appreciate you coming on.
45:10
Speaker 1: If there's any other comments you'd like to make, now
45:13
Speaker 1: is your time, because I feel like we have a
45:15
Speaker 1: different audience than are usual in the ratings bubble audience
45:19
Speaker 1: that we might have anything else you'd want to share
45:21
Speaker 1: as far as insights, key learnings, takeaways, or things you
45:24
Speaker 1: would watch if you're a fan of the game and
45:26
Speaker 1: you haven't looked at it from that analytical vantage point yet.
45:29
Speaker 3: No, not really I mean, I think we covered a
45:31
Speaker 3: lot of ground. I don't expect the average football fan
45:34
Speaker 3: to care about ratings or TV viewership, right. It's only
45:38
Speaker 3: interesting to a small percentage of football fans, right, And
45:40
Speaker 3: I get that. I think what we want people to
45:44
Speaker 3: understand is that the reason the numbers are as powerful
45:47
Speaker 3: as they are is because of what we talked about earlier,
45:50
Speaker 3: that the NFL really does bring people together. It offers
45:53
Speaker 3: a kind of social cohesion and connectivity that nothing else does,
45:58
Speaker 3: and that's incredibly valuable. And as a company that tries
46:01
Speaker 3: to be a steward of the product, I think all
46:04
Speaker 3: of us that try to be stewards of not just
46:06
Speaker 3: the NFL but all the sports that we do, we
46:09
Speaker 3: really have to be mindful of the idea that what
46:11
Speaker 3: makes this whole business work is that we're providing something
46:15
Speaker 3: that brings people together and helps people have meaningful connections
46:19
Speaker 3: and experiences at a time when those connections are harder
46:22
Speaker 3: and harder to come by. So I think, you know,
46:24
Speaker 3: we have to think about the game on the field,
46:27
Speaker 3: we have to think about player safety. There are so
46:30
Speaker 3: many things that we have to have top of mind.
46:32
Speaker 3: But I think at the very top of our mind
46:34
Speaker 3: has to be the fact that what underlies this whole
46:38
Speaker 3: business is the ability of sports to bring people together
46:42
Speaker 3: and provide connections that matter and give us shared experiences
46:46
Speaker 3: when there are fewer and fewer of them to be had.
46:48
Speaker 3: And as long as we sort of have that at
46:51
Speaker 3: the forefront of our thinking, I think we're just going
46:53
Speaker 3: to continue to be successful.
46:54
Speaker 1: Dude, Can I tell you something like just hearing you
46:56
Speaker 1: talk that way and what sports brings and this communal feel. Now,
47:00
Speaker 1: I go on NFL Network every morning, but those Sundays
47:04
Speaker 1: on Fox at eleven a m. And I step on
47:07
Speaker 1: there Eastern and I'm with Edelman, and I'm with Vic
47:09
Speaker 1: and Carissa and I'm with Woodson, and it's like we
47:12
Speaker 1: feel like we're doing TV for each other and we're
47:14
Speaker 1: having fun. And Fox lets us do that, which is great.
47:17
Speaker 1: But the amount of feedback you get from people who
47:19
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily tweeting or live reporting on every word that said,
47:24
Speaker 1: like that just watch it because it's comforting. Like I
47:27
Speaker 1: think there's something really to that, and I love the
47:29
Speaker 1: fact that you embrace that, and I think you're right
47:31
Speaker 1: on Sundays, not that this is replacing any you know,
47:35
Speaker 1: spiritual or faith based thing, but there is a communal
47:38
Speaker 1: feeling that we get on Sundays watching the NFL that
47:41
Speaker 1: I don't think we get many other places in society today.
47:44
Speaker 3: We don't get it in any other places, and so
47:46
Speaker 3: that's what we have to preserve. And you guys get
47:48
Speaker 3: to tee it up every Sunday. You're the first voices
47:50
Speaker 3: that a lot of people hear when they come to
47:51
Speaker 3: the NFL on Sunday, so it's an important way to
47:54
Speaker 3: kick off the day.
47:55
Speaker 2: Mike. I appreciate you taking the time. You're a busy man.
47:58
Speaker 2: This was awesome. We're gonna have you on again.
48:01
Speaker 1: I so appreciate it and enjoy that beautiful Los Angeles weather,
48:04
Speaker 1: my man.
48:05
Speaker 3: Thanks enjoy Brooklyn. We miss it there and happy to
48:09
Speaker 3: come back anytime. Love to do it again. Thanks for
48:11
Speaker 3: having me on.
48:12
Speaker 2: You're the best.
48:12
Speaker 1: Mike mulva Hill a purely brilliant, beautiful mind when it
48:18
Speaker 1: comes to this stuff. He's the president of Insights and
48:20
Speaker 1: Analytics at Fox Sports.
48:22
Speaker 4: Guys, more to come on the season After this, I
48:39
Speaker 4: thought that was really interesting.
48:40
Speaker 1: Mike moulva Hill a great guest, a great colleague at Fox.
48:45
Speaker 2: Gosh.
48:45
Speaker 1: I got emotional at the end. I got like goosebumps
48:47
Speaker 1: him talking about like the congregation of football and we all,
48:52
Speaker 1: we all have this one central piece to our weekends,
48:55
Speaker 1: and it is watching the NFL.
48:57
Speaker 2: And right on, dude, right.
48:58
Speaker 1: On, it's time for delivering results. Presented by Uber Eats.
49:02
Speaker 1: Each week, I present a team or a player I
49:06
Speaker 1: believe deserved the award for delivering results.
49:10
Speaker 2: And the player that I would like to shout out
49:13
Speaker 2: this week is Raiders rookie brock Bowers. Yeah, brock Bowers talk.
49:19
Speaker 1: Brock Bowers leads all tight ends in the NFL through
49:23
Speaker 1: two weeks in targets, catches, and and yards.
49:27
Speaker 2: And he is a rookie. He's right out of the gates.
49:30
Speaker 1: Is it presumptive or too soon for me to say
49:33
Speaker 1: he's already one of the best tight ends in football.
49:35
Speaker 1: Probably there's a good group there and that tight end
49:37
Speaker 1: university every year. But gosh, was brock Bauer's dominant in
49:41
Speaker 1: that game against the Ravens. Nine catches, ninety eight yards
49:45
Speaker 1: on nine targets. Every time Minshoot throw them the ball,
49:48
Speaker 1: he caught the ball and the Raiders came way back
49:51
Speaker 1: from ten points in the fourth quarter to beat a
49:54
Speaker 1: team that was playing in the AFC Championship Game a
49:56
Speaker 1: year ago in their building. Brock Bowers delivered, and he's
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Speaker 1: almost anything for a game day. A lot of giorate
50:17
Speaker 1: games up ahead in week three. We've got Saints versus Eagles.
50:20
Speaker 2: I love that one.
50:21
Speaker 1: We've got Cowboys versus Ravens. I love that one. And
50:25
Speaker 1: you got a sneaky Sunday night interesting one with now
50:28
Speaker 1: the suddenly resurgent Falcons playing the Chiefs in Atlanta. Bunch
50:33
Speaker 1: of good games, bunch of good action, and we'll have
50:36
Speaker 1: a bunch of good conversations about it next week. Let's
50:40
Speaker 1: get after it, guys. Thanks for listening to this week's
50:42
Speaker 1: episode of the Season.
50:44
Speaker 2: With Peter Shrake.
51:03
Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
51:06
Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
51:10
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.