00:00And how important is streaming now to really the networks and also to the National Football League?
00:06You know, it's for the networks, it's really important, you know, as people continue to drop their cable subscriptions and
00:17pick up streaming.
00:18It's important that the networks, whether it's NBC or Disney or Paramount, that they reach an audience through streaming.
00:27You know, my daughter loves Grey's Anatomy.
00:32She doesn't know that it was on television Thursday night at nine o'clock.
00:37All she knows is she wants to stream it when she wants to on her laptop.
00:43So if you're not reaching that audience who consumes their content through streaming, you're missing out on a huge part
00:51of the viewing audience.
00:53I think Netflix now is number one in terms of the percentage of people who are watching media.
01:01And for the leagues, it's another outlet to get more rights, get more money in rights fees.
01:09We and NBC were doing Thursday Night Football, paying about $240 million in rights.
01:21We both ended up dropping it.
01:24Fox picked it up for about $400 million in rights.
01:29And the next deal was with Amazon for Thursday Night Football for a billion dollars.
01:34So they have the balance sheet and they have the production budgets and the content budgets to pay appreciably more
01:45than the broadcast networks can.
01:49Christmas Day Football used to be on Fox and on CBS.
01:54Yes, the two afternoon games are now on Netflix because Netflix came in and offered twice, actually more than twice,
02:02almost three times what CBS and Fox were spending.
02:09So broadcast television is still really important to the leagues.
02:15They like the exposure it brings.
02:19But streaming is a huge factor in sports.
02:23And the big question now is when the media deals for the NFL are up in a few years,
02:29you know, is one or one of the streamers going to go after Sunday Night Football or Sunday Afternoon Football?
02:39It's going to be fascinating to watch, Dan.
02:42I have to ask you, your dad's show, ABC's Wide World of Sports, could that make it today, Sean?
02:49Do you think that a show like that with all the vehicles and all the areas that people can go
02:55to to get their sports?
02:56Because that was really kind of a one-off for its time.
02:59And it was really like, really the benchmark show on what shows are today.
03:04But could a show like ABC's Wide World make it today?
03:08Probably not, Dan.
03:11I know ABC tried to reinvigorate it a couple of decades ago.
03:17The problem is what people want to watch now on television is live sports.
03:23And what made Wide World of Sports so great is that they would have all these taped events,
03:29whether it was car auto racing or whether it was wrist wrestling or lumberjack competitions or skiing from Europe.
03:42There just isn't a large enough audience to generate the amount of revenue necessary for paying for those events.
03:52So you'll still see, you know, some of those events on cable television.
03:57But Saturday afternoon, where Wide World of Sports lived for decades, is live sports now.
04:04And that's what people want to watch.
04:06They want to watch live sports, which is the content that generates the largest audience for people.
04:12Sad, but, you know, when people come up to me and they know who my dad is, that's what they
04:18say.
04:18They say two things.
04:19One, they say 1972 Olympics with the, you know, the horrible Israeli terrorist situation.
04:28They mention that.
04:29And they mention the ski jumper on Wide World of Sports who went off the rails.
04:36That's right.
04:37Spanning the globe.
04:38I'll never forget that line.
04:39And I'll get agony of defeat.
04:41No question about it.
04:43Hey, Sean, less than a minute here.
04:45Monday Night Football, is it what it used to be?
04:52Not so much when you compare it to an era where there were only three broadcast networks.
04:59No streaming.
05:00No Fox network.
05:02Now, with all the different vehicles, it's still a huge happening.
05:06And I think ESPN does an amazing job on their presentation.
05:11So it's not quite what it used to be in a much smaller universe.
05:17But, man, it is still a force of nature.
05:20Sure.
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