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It's a pretty perilous time to go out.

But you have the possibility of displaying to the broadcast partners that they might make the same or maybe even a little more money with your games not on.

And they're in a difficult market right now because baseball has done a lot of good things the last couple of years that I've liked a lot.

I like that a small market team won, and it's a fun team.

But...

The NFL and the NBA are necessary for the sports media companies to have to forestall distribution agreement trouble, right? And it's not clear if baseball can do that.

But from the standpoint of just standalone games, do you disagree? Maybe I have it wrong, but I thought that playoff games were far more profitable than a regular week four game.

Yeah

... and the people who ran it, Alan Rothenberg, Don Garber, Sunil Gulati, did an unbelievable job.

It was a great tournament, but we were not [laughs] prepared to compete on the world stage.

Now, the country's embraced it.

Everywhere you go, everybody's watching the World Cup.

I'm going to my place I go get my protein shake after I work out, and these guys are, like, putting up a television in this little, tiny store.

I'm like, "What are you doing?" They're like, "World Cup.

And for those who don't know, John, what happened? How do you explain this at a party? [laughs] What happened?

We talked to John Skipper, who was president of ESPN at the time, and how he dealt with Jim Gray for the interview.

I think that the first time that I heard about the idea of potentially having LeBron announce his decision on the air was from a query in Bill Simmons' mailbag.

However, it was not a query that we really pursued in any significant way.

The trail to the decision really started through a phone call from Ari Emanuel, who said, "I was at the Laker game.

I was sitting, talking to Jim Gray, and we have a great idea for you, and that is LeBron should announce his decision as to which club he's gonna go play for on ABC." First thing I said to Ari was, "Yes, I'd be interested.

If you have LeBron, and he says he will do it, we'll talk about doing it.

But if we do it, it's gonna be on ESPN." And I have never actually understood why there was so much aghastness.

It's funny you should mention that, because John Skipper actually said that Jim Gray was kind of the biggest controversy in all of this.

We talked to John Skipper, who was president of ESPN at the time, and how he dealt with Jim Gray for the interview.

I think that the first time that I heard about the idea of potentially having LeBron announce his decision on the air was from a query in Bill Simmons' mailbag.

However, it was not a query that we really pursued in any significant way.

The trail to The Decision really started through a phone call from Ari Emanuel, who said, "I was at the Laker game.

I was sitting, talking to Jim Gray, and we have a great idea for you, and that is LeBron should announce his decision as to which club he's gonna go play for on ABC." First thing I said to Ari was, "Yes, I'd be interested.

If you have LeBron, and he says he will do it, we'll talk about doing it.

But if we do it, it's gonna be on ESPN." And I have never actually understood why there was so much aghastness.

It's funny you should mention that, because John Skipper actually said that Jim Gray was kind of the biggest controversy in all of this.

So can you explain, John, what this story is actually about, as you have personally negotiated these deals before with Goodell?

Well, I would first of all suggest Roger Goodell was never a punching bag.

Um, he's always had quite a bit of power.

It happens that in the existential transformation of media from analog to digital, that sports has become the most valuable content that there is, and the NFL is the most valuable sports content.

So I don't know if it's kissing a ring or punching a bag.

It is, "I want to get close to the people who will enable me to have some portion of this content that is the most valuable content in the world." And the NFL is in an advantageous position that they have way more bidders for that content than they do have that content, right? Other leagues have more content, less bidders.

So you of course, I guess it's a version of kissing a ring.

Why not?

It's funny, and so it's content.

Well, one thing you wanted was you wanted to have whatever people were talking about, right? Tonight...

Basically, sports, the draft is on ESPN because it's the thing that's most important.

I don't know, it doesn't aggregate bigger than all of the games being played, all the hockey games and baseball games and basketball games, but you love the event where you control the narrative.

But that's not a reason to keep the draft.

The stipulated reason to keep the draft is to create balance in the league.

You have a bad year, we're going to give you the league's best player.

I'm

To that point, John, I think you do raise an interesting sort of comparison, though, because if nothing else, the White House now is even more deliberate in staffing its press area with friendly entities.

I think that it's hard not to associate this with what's going on politically, which is why this has become a big deal.

I don't find what she did personally, and you won't find anybody any more woke than me, I don't find that what she did was particularly offensive.

The woman has a track record.

She's been covering this team for a long time.

She creates relationships with management players.

And for her to simply say something that seemed pretty non-controversial to me, it was sort of like a schoolteacher telling a ninth grader, And I don't mean that to be derogatory.

And you took advantage of that smartly, very smartly.

And so, John, what was your reaction when you saw this latest development in that case?

My reaction was that Johnny Infantini and FIFA finally found a United States government that would descend to their level of corruption and ill-gotten gains.

And why else is there this bro-ish relationship between Johnny and Donnie? And why else? And by the way, it's yet another coincidence.

Ghislaine Maxwell gets moved to a minimum security prison.

It's just a coincidence.

So it's just a coincidence that the Justice Department decided, and I believe they put out a statement, this is no longer a priority for an administration which wants to do nothing except work for the American people.

It is a serious abrogation of the United States' role in the world.

It's accurate,

And the question of when John Skipper was president of ESPN, how many carriage disputes did you have to navigate?

We never had a carriage dispute if dispute as defined as not reaching an agreement, it goes public and you come off the air.

Disney had such a formidable lineup, buttressed overwhelmingly by ESPN's sports portfolio, that made it pretty unthinkable for anybody to take ESPN off.

I believe it still is.

It still is destructive to any distributor who tries to take ESPN off, as I believe this is.

I spent the last Thursday and Friday at the University of Iowa, was at the journalism school, creative writing school, and asked and was shocked when I asked for a show of hands on who has YouTube TV.

So one thing I discovered was its subscribers are overwhelmingly young.

Why wouldn't this be a strategy for Hulu to try to get in the conversation and overtake all of those platforms?

And

there were some allegations.

But he's been consistent about saying that for years.

He's been on the wrong side from the

start.

Well, but you've got the conflict, Dave.

You've been on the wrong side.

But that's

So, John, this... argument this seeming consensus among the players with the fans noticing oh wait a minute hold on so the league's highest paid player is on a three-year deal worth about seven hundred thousand dollars total i mean this is part of why unrivaled was formed i want to disclose that again this is not immaterial to the debates um so how do you begin to think about this out loud

Well, I think it's understandable and comprehensible why the NBA players are anxious to get paid more money.

What they do, only 300 people in the world can do, right? They play at the highest level.

They look across the arena, across town, and see their male counterparts making money $60 million a year, an individual player.

Contracts, $400 or $500 million.

They then use faulty reasoning to look at their attendance, to look at their number of fans, social followers, and go, well, we're a substantial minority fraction of what the NBA is, so the salaries should correlate to that.

And it has almost nothing to do with the ratings.

because it has a deleterious impact on your business and on the way your business is perceived.

So how do you begin to think about this out loud?

Well, I think it's understandable and comprehensible why the NBA players are anxious to get paid more money.

What they do, only 300 people in the world can do, right? They play at the highest level.

They look across the arena, across town, and see their male counterparts making money $60 million a year, an individual player, contracts $400 or $500 million.

They then use faulty reasoning to look at their attendance, to look at their number of fans, social followers, and go, well, we're a substantial minority fraction of what the NBA is, so the salaries should correlate to that.

And it has almost nothing to do with the ratings.

That is the most specious thing Logic going on.

However, if you're the WNBA or really the NBA, you don't really want unrivaled around because it has a deleterious impact on your business and on the way your business is perceived.

There's a lot

here.

Look, I would suggest that it is often the case that high-powered executives think that they need to accumulate more scale.

They really want to accumulate more power also.

They want to be in other businesses.

They have a certain kind of business hubris that they've figured out things so far, so they'll figure out things later.

And they then end up with a bunch of MBAs and McKinsey folks who come in and say, here's how we'll make it work.

You need a

There's a lot

here.

Look, I would suggest that it is often the case that high-powered executives think that they need to accumulate more scale.

They really want to accumulate more power also.

They want to be in other businesses.

They have a certain kind of business hubris that they've figured out things so far, so they'll figure out things later.

And they then end up with a bunch of MBAs and McKinsey folks who come in and say, here's how we'll make it work.

You need a

Jim McKay.

But we had decided long ago, at the company, we had one sports brand.

And it was highly advantageous as we were competing with the company that owned AOL Sports and Sports Illustrated and CNNSI and, and this Turner and...

Uh, this is, this, the idea of having multiple brand names for a single genre is baffling.

And it usually has nothing to do with the fact of anything other than these Sports Illustrated people don't want to sublimate their name to AOL, nor does AOL want to sublimate their name.

(laughs) Somebody at the top of an organization needs to say, "We have one brand name for sports." In our case, it was ESPN, and we were always fortunate to compete against people who had multiple brand names.

But the difference, to be clear, right, if you're a consumer, what ESPN+, which has always existed as ESPN standalone app, what it did not give you was the stuff that you get as a fan of certainly live events through your cable subscription.

Well, all the best...

Of

course.

I'm skeptical of bells and whistles.

You know, you'll be able to sync up your bets you've made on this game and see on the screen whether you're winning or not.

That is of fairly de minimis interest to most sports fans.

Again, people have been talking about camera angles, special mega-cats for a long time, and mostly people care about the game as it is played and produced on a linear network.

I mean, that is why sports retain so much of its value.

And I got nervous because if people start paying attention to that, there's going to be a bit of a kick

You get personalized SportsCenter and all such other

stuff.

Of course.

I'm skeptical of bells and whistles.

You know, you'll be able to sync up your bets you've made on this game and see on the screen whether you're winning or not.

That is of fairly de minimis interest to most sports fans.

Again, people have been talking about camera angles, special megacasts for a long time, and mostly people care about the game as it is played and produced on a linear network.

Was there a white whale for you in terms of As the president of ESPN, the guy who made billion-dollar decisions, is there someone that you wanted to hire as a special contributor that you couldn't get? And he's already laughing.

What was it when you were in charge of it? How different was it?

Well, for most of the years that I was at ESPN, it was in New York City at Radio City Music Hall.

And I thought a very smart decision to take it out to fans elsewhere.

To me, the draft is an astonishing phenomenon.

it is not in and of itself particularly entertaining.

And I know that the commissioner, Roger himself, has said that, gee, maybe they need to speed this up a little bit.

But it is one of those things that is tediously fascinating, right? You sort of like – it's not interesting to watch, but it's hard to quit watching, particularly if you care about a team.

He's a deeply respected person with all the institutional memory, with more institutional memory than anybody else in his business.

What was it when you were in charge of it? How different was it?

Well, for most of the years that I was at ESPN, it was in New York City at Radio City Music Hall.

And I thought a very smart decision to take it out to fans elsewhere.

To me, the draft is an astonishing phenomenon.

it is not in and of itself particularly entertaining.

And I know that the commissioner, Roger himself, has said that, gee, maybe they need to speed this up a little bit.

But it is one of those things that is tediously fascinating, right? You sort of like, it's not interesting to watch, but it's hard to quit watching, particularly if you care about a team.

question.

But I don't know that that is happening anytime soon.

Doesn't feel like it is.

I agree with you that, of course, it depends what team, but I would assume if the Yankees were sold... you would be close in a step transaction to $10 billion at some point.

Yes.

I would think the same thing's true of the Knicks at some point and the Dodgers and the Cowboys.

So I don't actually see for the major franchises in the major leagues in this country, I don't see, has there been anybody sold for less money than anybody paid before? In the last 30 or 40 years, has anybody lost money on the team?

But Dolan can't get any wanted to work with him.

I would argue that he still is a dissenter.

But I don't know that that is happening anytime soon.

Doesn't feel like it is.

I agree with you that, of course, it depends what team, but I would assume if the Yankees were sold.

you would be close in a step transaction to $10 billion at some point.

Yes.

I would think the same thing is true of the Knicks at some point and the Dodgers and the Cowboys.

So I don't actually see for the major franchises in the major leagues in this country, I don't see, has there been anybody sold for less money than anybody paid before? In the last 30 or 40 years, has anybody lost money on the team?

But Dolan can't get any wanted to work with him.

How jealous did that make you as a president of

ESPN? It did make me jealous.

We wanted it.

It also made me angry at the time because we, at one point, made a very strong push to buy the tournament.

Literally cannot remember.

If I do remember, I don't mind mentioning the name because it was a reasonable guy.

But there was somebody who was in charge of selling the tournament at the time.

We'll go down to 32 teams, and we'll just make it the best of the best.

How jealous did that make you as a president of

ESPN? It did make me jealous.

We wanted it.

It also made me angry at the time because we, at one point, made a very strong push to buy the tournament.

Literally cannot remember.

If I do remember, I don't mind mentioning the name because it was a reasonable guy.

But there was somebody who was in charge of selling the tournament at the time.

With a

John, how does that statement land with you as the guy who was ostensibly making those

calls? Well, I...

was there i got more complaining from baseball than anybody else i frequently asked what percentage of the highlights own sports center are baseball and the answer was never the answer i would have expected given the tone of the ah it's minimal coverage we're never owned take a random sports center from baseball season and it is full of baseball highlights and there was never any direction from me.

I can't be aware of what direction would have been before me or after me.

I know I can before me.

There was never any direction to do less baseball.

If anything, I called several times and fussed that we had the top 10 highlights and all 10 of them were baseball.

I

John, how does that statement land with you as the guy who was ostensibly making those calls?

was there.

I got more complaining from baseball than anybody else.

I frequently asked what percentage of the highlights on SportsCenter are baseball, and the answer was never the answer I would have expected given the tone of the, oh, it's minimal coverage.

We're never on.

Take a random SportsCenter from baseball season, and it is full of baseball highlights, and there was never a any direction from me.

I can't be aware of what direction would have been before me or after me.

at the financial