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Show.

With the Stugatz Podcast.

There's a lot we have to get to today, John Skipper and David Samson. David has already vowed to make fun of John's shirt.

How do you not? He's the CEO of our company, and he's in some sweater with a big hole in it. And I simply asked him, Are you aware we're going to be on camera today and you have a hole in your sweater?

It's in the back.

That is the millipolous tone of John Skipper, President Head of Metallark Media. That was the agitation of David Samson. I am Pablo Torre. We have sports business topics that I actually want to explain to me, and I don't want to dally too long on the various holes in our logic or our shirts. Number one is this Mark Cuban's story. The news came out, and people, I assume, have heard this part, that Mark Cuban is selling the team that he is, however, retaining control of basketball operations, which no one's ever heard of before. The team was valued, reportedly, at like $3.5 billion, and he's selling it to the Adelson family, which I urge you to Google because there's a lot there I can't recap right now. John and David have unique insight into the story. David has particular insight into the background mechanics of how this story is going, what does what I said sound like to you?

Poppycock, because it was wrong on myriad levels. I've tried to talk a little bit about this previously, but I think it's important for all of us at this table to realize that Mark Cuban selling the Mavericks is a really big story, not only because of what the Mavericks are being sold for, but also because of the way it came out in the rumors that Mark Cuban could sell a majority of his team and still maintain control. I have been very out front saying that does not happen. You do not get someone to buy into your company. If someone wants to buy Metallark, they're not going to say, Well, John, keep going. Maybe you get a six-month or a nine-month or a one-year, a bridge. But many companies, it doesn't work that way. From my standpoint, I was concerned that all these NBA insiders were teaching the public that the Mavericks at three and a half billion, which is incorrect. The reason that's incorrect is it happened with the Marlins. The numbers are always reported wrong. Numbers are reported as enterprise values because it sounds very sexy to have Mark Cuban getting three and a half billion dollars, but there's debt on the Mavericks.

You subtract the debt from that three and a half billion dollar number, which is also inflated. That's the number Cuban would get if he owned 100% of the team, but he's keeping part of the team. That's even less money that he's going to get. Paying taxes on that, even less money he's going to get. Why is he doing it when he doesn't get to keep control. He's cashing out at a number that seems low.

But wait, on the control part, I want to clarify this. I'm reading this USA Today article from late November, and it says that Cuban could keep the title of governor and maintain a rule in basketball ops.

He cannot. That, again, is being reported and I don't know how. The NBA, when there is a change of control, like an MLB or any sport, there's only one person from every ownership group who is deemed to be in control. That person has to own a certain percentage, generally 15%, and that person is, from League standpoint, gets to vote. Everything on the CBA gets to vote on expansion, gets to vote on the TV deal. You can't not have majority be the main owner, which is what the Adelsins will do, and not have that control. So Cuban Selling gives up that control.

The mechanism for that, David, is the League has to approve the deal. There is no reason for the League to approve a deal that is contra to those strictures and appropriate governance, right? Exactly. They would never- You can't have a minority owner being the one who gets to decide.

Big issues. They would never do that. The reason they would never do that is it's the same reason why, and it just came out because it was initially reported incorrectly, Miriam Adelson has nothing to do with the Mavericks. It sounds counterint, because that's all you're reading, is that Miriam Adelson is buying the Mavericks.

Yes, the largest donor to Donald Trump's presidency, etc, etc.

Well, that whole family.

Is- I know. They're extreme.

-is more than just Trump.

Again, Google them.

Yes. But actually, she's not the name that you're ever going to hear again. She will never be at a meeting. She'll never be at a press conference. It's her son-in-law, actually. Not even from a daughter from Sheldon, might I add, funny, because there's been a bunch of marriages and a bunch of... It happens. But it's the young man, the 40-year-old or 41-year-old man who is actually the governor, who is actually the one in charge from the NBA standpoint. That's what the other owners will be voting on.

Do we know that person's name?

Peter Delmont. I don't like mispronouncing last names, but I'm super bad at it. Normally, Cocoa would be like, You're telling me who.

And in fact- -this is a name of French derivation? Is this like Philippe de Monde? It could be, maybe-Vicom. Vicom who- So they could be maybe-Viacom.

Viacom, who.

Was from the French part of the Upper.

East Side. It's Patrick du Mont.

Patrick Daumont. He is surname French, first name Irish, I guess.

He married one of the daughters of Miriam Adelson. The point is, when the NBA chooses, the NBA gets involved in this much like baseball. Mlb wouldn't allow Derek Jeter to be the control person of the Marlins because he wasn't putting enough money in. They control all that.

John, as President of ESPN, you, of course, knew Mark Cuban, you know Adam Silver. These headlines about this sale, maybe the most famous owner in sports. What was your.

Reaction to that? He is one of the faces of the NBA, right? And has frequently been among Adam Silver's members-only media committee. I think he was on the media committee when we did the last deal. So yeah, I'm surprised. I've only known Mark to be thrilled at being an NBA owner. He's been a very involved NBA owner, often on the court helping the referees figure out what they should do. I, however, am stuck on another point, which is had I married an Adelsen daughter, I could now be running The Mavericks.

Yes, that is true. It's not too late. Never give up hope. I should say that Mark Cuban was not allowed to be an MLB owner. He did not have 23 votes. He wanted to buy an MLB team. There was a conscious effort made by all of us at the time to not allow him and by telling him he would not get the votes. Because? Because he is such a obstructionist.

He violates the unwritten rules of baseball ownership.

And basketball.

So Silver-He's, I think, the most fine individual ever, is he not?

I can't imagine Adam Silver is despondent to have Mark Cuban out of his inbox.

He is out of the frying pan into the fire of the Adelsen family's politics, which will conflict with generally what the NBA's values are.

Yes, they're brand.

I'm surprised at the timing of this. Again, I would have thought Mark was very emotionally tied. He may have reasons to do this. He certainly is making a nice profit. But again, think that right now the NBA is negotiating their new deals. As I've said many times, I think the NBA is going to do great. That doesn't sound like a deal with great new long-term money locked in. Why are they only worth, and you're suggesting they're worth less or.

For marked purposes- Their being valued is under three and a half billion. Why? Can we just do some quick math back to the envelope?

Please, it's playing contextualized what three and a.

Half means. What is the annual broadcast fee that you paid to ESPN? Do you remember?

You mean the annual fee that ESPN paid to.

The NBA? Correct. And to the NBA.

A billion? I do happen to remember 1.346 billion average every 10 years. I'm going.

To round it to one and a half billion, if you don't mind, for purposes of this conversation.

Yeah, what's a couple of.

Hundred mil between friends? I mean, just between friends. So one and a half billion per year. Now there's going to be a new deal. Let's say it's worth double, three billion. Would you be willing to say that it could be a double? Or do you think it'll be even more?

Well, what matters is the overall. They're going to end up with more partners than they have now. They're going to end up, in my opinion, with somewhere between two and three times the money they get now.

Because of broadcast partners in television, but also then the tech companies.

That by the number of teams. There are in the NBA, as we all know, is it 32?

I.

Can cut this out. We can make.

It 30. Because the math is easy with a $3 billion divided.

By 30 would be a.

Hundred million a piece, I believe.

Yes. So with 30 teams in the NBA- There are literally 30 teams. 30 teams. If it goes up by three billion, do you think it can go up by three billion dollars per year? Yes. You do. That the increase is going to be three billion per year. Yes.

Which would be $100 million per team.

You're not impacting it. My point, thank you, is very simple that when you're selling a team, the fact that Cuban knew about the Wright's deal, that Wright's deal is baked into any enterprise value already, there is no really tremendous difference in what the sale price will be. What Adelsins are doing, are they doing the gambling play? What Cuban is doing? Is he doing the estate planning play? Is he doing the politics play?

Just to be very clear, though, you are saying literally what's a couple hundred million.

Between friends? That's exactly right. What John is saying is with a new deal coming, why would he sell now? He knows the new deals coming. He knows exactly what the terms are because Adam Silver, as Commissioner, his job is to tell the both union and the owners to forecast what revenue is for salary cap purposes. It's not like it's coming out of the clear blue sky.

Right. Though they, of course, don't know it exactly yet. They're in the middle of deals. In fact, I don't think they can even have negotiations yet with anyone other than ESPN and TNT. I'm sure Adam is giving them counsel. Here's where I think we can end. It's probably very close to accurate, but they don't know. But now I'm stuck on another thing, which is why would Mark Rubin sell to the Adelsons? He happens to actually generally be very progressive in his politics. So why would he choose to sell now? I can't. What?

Well, hold on.

By the way, while you're doing math, David, all it matters to get somebody to pay six billion instead of three and a half is to find the person who will pay six billion, right? Do you.

Think the math- Do you think he didn't look for that? Do you.

Think that he purposely wanted to- No, if Mark is too smart, he certainly would have.

But he's just- This is what the Mavericks are worth.

But let me lay out some of the other contributing variables, perhaps, in this developing public theory, right? So, Du Mondt, by the way, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation.

This is a casino- Probably just sent his resume in, add the the best qualifications, the best guy for the job. What a coincidence that he would just be the son-in-law.

One wonders if the.

Casino-i was the stepson, by the way. Stop looking at.

Me that way. I know. I was waiting. I was waiting for the joke. God, damn.

It's unreal.

Well, in your case, you were qualified, and he may be as well.

But Patrick du Mont, my point being there is that this son, via legal means, is in this casino dynasty, right? There's this theory about, Okay, Mark Cuban, there's a play here with Texas and gambling. Furthermore, the political stuff that John was alluding to, does Mark Cuban want to run for President? Mark Cuban has come out and said he does not. But he's also leaving Shark Tank after filming one more season, apparently. There's just some stealth that's not exactly adding up.

Seems impossible you could go from being a guy on Shark Tank to the President of the United States. That couldn't.

Happen, could it? Not in anything other than a fantasy world. The reason why owners sell, he won a championship. He has a new arena that he has to get done because they're old American Airlines Center there. They need a new arena. The team loses money. Even rich people don't like writing checks every year. He's accomplished what he wanted to accomplish since he bought the team. I get it. He's not a young man. He's not old, but he's owned it for, I want to say, 22 years, something in that range.

He's 65. Damn.

Wow. Looks good for a 65-year-old man.

I would have taken the under.

Well, there's been a little, I think there's been a few visits to the pimple popper. But I am absolutely respectful of his decision to do it because there's so many financial reasons. He also is retaining a piece of the team, so he gets a piece of any upside if a huge change happens in Texas, which I don't see happening so fast where gambling is legalized. Because Kubik came out and said, I want to do the Venetian in Dallas, the Venetian, the hotel in Vegas. It's right next door to the Circa. And the question is, are you waiting to take advantage of that? Maybe he is, but at 20 %, he's certainly not going to be in control, on the board of governors, control of the team, basketball operations, none of that's.

Going to happen. None of that. Okay, so that is news that I think I could use the idea that, okay, he's not going to be in the board of governor's meetings making the calls on the maps. But I want to get to John, this larger picture of three and a half billion dollars, give or take, being a disappointing valuation. Because look around at what teams have been going for. I'll pull up some of those comparable valuations. But the most recent one, David, is which one?

You can.

Go to- Indianapolis.

The Indianapolis Pacers. Yes, that's the one. They just had a 20% sale to a guy named Stephen Reyes. Stephen Reyes is a last name that some of you may know. There's a Reyes involved in the Washington Commanders with Josh Harris. There was a Reyes involved with me and the Marlins, the dad, Norman Reyes. These are his sons. And these are the Reyes who actually sued me.

They went off the Reyes.

It went off the rails. I'll tell you that. It certainly did. And the Pacers valuation, you're right there.

From- I'ms just a lawsuit between friends. I'm still playing hurt.

What's a lawsuit between friends for a couple hundred million? That's right. Stephen Rales, Indiana Pacers, three and a half billion.

That was the valuation. It certainly is least counterint, if why a team in Indianapolis would be worth the same as a team in Dallas, which is what? The fourth largest city in the country, fast growing, diverse market. So here's the.

Theory that I think you'll agree with. In the NFL are valuations of teams based on location. I actually find that valuations of teams, because of the fact that they share all the revenue, which is something that you've talked about on the show, which is that the future of the NBA could very well be that it's national revenue based, not local revenue based. Therefore, you've got a smaller collar of valuations of teams because they're dealing from the same revenue base, which is in large part based on the national broadcast revenue. Interesting. I don't find it as crazy today as I would have 20 years ago to think that the Pacers could be worth what the Mavericks are. But today I find it much more reasonable and possible.

The Pacers look very good Monday night. They did.

But again, it never came up in the sale of a franchise.

They're getting the Haliburton premium.

The Haliburton bump. Yes.

I love that you're bringing your sports knowledge and your holy sweater to this. But no, I do not in any negotiation. Someone had written that the Cuban knows the Mavericks aren't going to win in a few years, so we would sell. None of that really is part of.

The equation. I should point out that to the Adelson family, the Haliburton bump, given that political circle, might be a very different reference as opposed to Tires. But, John, if I were to tell you the Suns and the Mercury and Phoenix went for four billion dollars to Matt Ispia, would the Maves at three and a half be shocking to you? You would say.

I don't know if it's shocking. I am surprised that it doesn't at least start with a four.

Yeah. What we don't know about the Sons deal versus the Maverick deal, because the Sons deal is now public, we don't know exactly all the assets that are included in the Maverick's transaction. But what we did know about the Sons, A, remember that deal? That was a distressed deal with speed. They needed someone to close really fast because it was the Sarver situation where Adam Silver needed to get him out. Now, if there's an acute reason to get Cuban out, we don't know it, we haven't heard it, we're not.

Speculating about it. It is another theory, though.

Is that a theory that's been-Well, it's.

The theory of why is a rich guy giving up his favorite thing while also leaving the TV show that to make him famous? Is it President? Is it something from his past coming back? We don't know. But certainly this is all in the bucket of speculation.

I think that when people are not on TV, they fantasize about what it will be like. When they're not famous, they want to be famous. But then when you are famous, you realize, Wow, I still am just like everybody else. While Mark Cuban wanted to be famous and got famous and is rich, being on Shark Tank, by the way, he's done it. I'm not sure people are reading a lot into that. I don't think it's a huge deal that he's leaving Shark Tank, I don't think he would have to sell the team to run for president. Just put it in a trust the way Woody Johnson did with the jets when he was the ambassador to England. You're not forced to sell anything just to be president.

Nothing to disagree with there.

Try as hard as you may try.

There's.

Going to be more, Pablo.

Well, there will be more. There will be more. I should point out that there are things in Mark Rubin's past, like this thing from September 2018, if you remember the controversy internally with the Mabs. Mark Rubin paid $10 million to women's leadership and domestic violence organizations under this agreement with the NBA because of the harassment scandal and the improper conduct stuff that happened in the front office.

Thank you for bringing that up because people never wanted to talk.

About that. He was crying to Rachel Nichols on ESPN after that whole thing.

He was Snyder before Snyder was Snyder, except he had the ability to actually have plausible deniability saying, I don't know. I went on record at the time saying, Mark Cuban is such an involved owner that it is very difficult for me to believe that he doesn't know what's going on in this company.

I would suggest that Daniel Snyder is in a whole category by himself and would reject that Mark Cuban is much like Daniel Snyder, including he actually won.

Is he? All of that is true?

Daniel.

Snyder, who, yes, was facing investigations by, I believe, the state, federal, NFL-level simultaneously, half-dozen.

Of them. Congressional hearings.

Certainly a tonnage that Mark Cuban, despite his wattage, does not quite match up to. But I want to get to other conspiracies, because, John, I bring this conspiracy to your doorstep. Because College Global Playoff Committee, of course, was the big story this week. Fsu is out. Alabama is in. Texas is in. Ron DeSantis now is at the table, threatening all sorts of things. The main conspiracy here is that, of.

Course- I'd like to see Ron DeSantis play Michigan. He was a.

Baseball player. Yeah.

I know he was.

He was decent.

He was a follow-up person. He's ashamed now of actually having gone to that elite- That's right. -out of the institution. But he's not ashamed to put a million dollars in the state budget to help Florida State sue, which is a laughable response, but probably popular with FSU graduates. I think this is a bit of a travesty.

Well, the ESPN conspiracy, John, again, you presided over the.

Network while the- So the ESPN conspiracy is silly.

But the conspiracy.

Is not a conspiracy.

It's got to be true. I want to teach the.

Controversy here. But true in how... I was there and was the most interested party for 13 years of my employment. They picked, in almost every one of those years, four teams to play in a playoff. They never asked me my opinion. I never offered it to them. The idea that there's some secret calls made from ESPN into the 13-member room is just silly. I saw some guys talking about ESPN block this because they want F. S. U. To go to the SEC conference. It's absurd. The ESPN has no reason to want to punish F. S.

U. Did you watch the Selection show when you were president of ESPN and see, Oh, those are the four teams?

I got a call before it was announced telling me who the four teams were.

I love it. That's what you get for your half a billion dollars annually for broadcasting. A call two minutes before. This playoff is you get the special call, like the rock got about Osama bin Laden's assassination.

By the way, if I actually had input into it, I would never have created a four-team playoff. I would have created an eight-team playoff, how five college commissioners went into a room and came out with, Oh, we're going to leave one of our champions out of this. Makes no sense. This is finally coming home to root for them.

Yes, for the.

First time, really. I just believe the introducing the new element of, Oh, if you have injuries, I don't know, if your coach gets COVID, suddenly you can't appear. What if the player had gotten hurt in practice leading up to the game?

Stop getting all of us distracted by what you're saying because what you're not saying is that ESPN having Alabama and the SEC in the championship game is better than having Florida State and the ACC in the game. That is indisputable.

That doesn't mean that A is greater than B and B is greater than C.

Are you doing transit property? A is greater than B, B is greater than C, so A is greater than C. That is not true.

Stop.

The SAT practice test and speak to incentives. John, you know how David's brain works?

Incentives are king. David believes that any time anything happens, it happens because it benefits somebody financially.

Can you imagine thinking that? I must be out of my mind to.

Think that. I'm just telling you, I was there. We tried hard to influence things. We did not get to pick Alabama being in and F. S. U. Being out. I will guarantee you that nobody at ESPN called and said, We're going to pay you less money, or, You have to do this for us.

They didn't. Is there a change in the SCC broadcast partner next year?

So next year, ESPN takes over the only game they did not have, what was the CBS 3:30 Windows?

Which had been a big thing for CBS. They've had it for 24 years or something.

They cried at the end of the broadcast, basically.

That's how big it is. At CBS, where once in a while I am, the SCC, it's a big deal to have.

That game. It's a very big deal to have that game. They had it for $55 million, and ESPN is now paying $300 million.

Now, given that they're now paying $300 million, do you agree that having the SCC represented in the CFP... Who broadcast the CFP? I can't remember.

Espn, of course.

Oh, no. Hold on. They do the CFP and they have the SCC. I'm just telling.

You, we could go all in all.

But let's not. Let's bring Florida State in. Let's go. I'm happy to move on, John. I just don't believe you. We will move on. I just don't believe you. It's fine if you don't want to sell out. No members of the committee ever contacted you?

Nobody ever asked me my opinion of who should be in the four.

He's answering in a way.

But can I-.

I don't know. You actually are wrong. This is my telling you. I know you're telling me that this is how it worked to the Marlands, but I.

Know better than you do. I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm talking about this year. This year.

I have no idea. Maybe since I left, they become corruptible.

Let's get that bullet quote. Let's circulate that on TikTok. I want to, though, understand the magnitude.

Of- They haven't, by.

The way. No, I believe... Look, we had a selection committee member on Pall the Torrey Finds Out, John Ersheil, who spoke to the true mundane nature of this exercise that said, I want to be realistic about acknowledging the magnitude of incentive. Keep aside the frost-Nixon vibe you guys have right now, and get to the question of how much more helpful is it to have Alabama in a game versus Florida State without a quarterback, but maybe even with a quarterback? What's that difference like?

It's better.

It's the difference of a 13-point spread versus a two-point spread. It's the difference in a game where Alabama has a greater following. I'm sorry to all the Siminals out there and the FSU people, many of whom I know and love, Alabama is more both positive and negative. More people have an opinion about nick Saban in Alabama than do about FSU.

Though the difference in fan base between Florida State and Alabama is not vast. I mean, Florida State is one of the teams you would like to have in. I mean, it's ironic. I think they overthought it. I mean, for a minute, let's just get to what we can. I think they overthought it. I think they thought exactly what you thought, David, meaning, but I think it happened in that room. I don't think ESP in college. I think the people in that room went, Oh, my gosh, we want the best possible tournament. We want the four best teams. We're looking at the Florida State team that didn't look very good against Louisville. We're afraid that what's going to happen is what happened last year. Of course, what happened last year? Was it Michigan who got beat.

By TCU?

Forty-five points or something. I have to agree with John here.

I think that what John is saying is exactly how it happened.

So they were.

Motivated by money. Yeah. And remember, they're going to be going to market here very soon. So I think they went, We do not want that to happen.

Wait, what do you mean by that?

The College football playoff deal with ESPN is coming up. They're, in fact, talking about having a rotation the way the Super Bowl does, right? Smart moves.

We're going to.

12 teams next year. Which is quite smart.

If you go to 12 and rotate, you're going to.

Bring in way more revenue. And once again, they picked the wrong number. They're going to go from 4-12. They should be going from 8-16. The point of the whole thing is to create games that create value. Why you want to give four teams a buy? I don't know.

I should point out in defense of the committee who has been the punching bag that you guys can agree on is that on the rules, on the rulebook, there is this clause that talks about if a player or coach is missing that affects their performance going forward, that is a consideration. That's always been a rule. It was cited before decision was made. For that reason, I was unsurprised by it. However, I do want to get to this other conspiracy about Ron DeSantis. Because the other thing, of course, is that... I mean, Donald Trump tweets on truth social about how, Let's blame Ron DeSantis for F. S. U. Being left out. Ron DeSantis is now full-throatedly saying a million dollars. And to you guys, well, to others, there is the Disney connection.

Not to me, but yes. So the Disney connection is this, for those of you not in Florida, in which I'm not anymore, but it's a pretty big deal, DeSantis and Disney are at war. Desantis is the governor of Florida. Disney does a lot of business in Florida, in Orlando. And there are a lot of benefits that Disney gets to being in Florida. And Ron DeSantis would get rid of some of those corporate benefits, to which I would assume you'd appreciate some of the things he's trying to do to level the playing field for the corporate welfare. And so the thought is that it is a FU to DeSantis by keeping F. S. U. Out of it by the Disney Company. And to that I say horse hockey and you say.

Same thing. It's bullshit. Right. Having said that, I also would quarrel a little bit. Desantis does not really care. He picked a fight with Disney for political benefit. I don't think he picked a fight because Disney is getting benefits that other people shouldn't get. Oh, I totally agree. He thought that he was going to ride this, I'm Mr. Anti-woke to the Republican nomination. That has proven to be a very ineffective strategy. Most of the country does not believe that woke versus anti-woke is our most important issue right now. And it's proved to be a big failure, and I wish him continued bad luck.

Well, the Santis has actually not one thing has gone well in his campaign. I can't think of one thing.

That he's set up to do. No, his campaign is now leaking. Maybe this year actually was not ideal for challenging Donald Trump, you think.

And it really, well, he initially thought, I mean, now we're completely off the subject. But the whole purpose for DeSantis was this is the exact time.

To challenge Donald Trump. We are, though, off the rails, which actually does, in this case, again, mean talking about lawsuits.

Don Libertard. David Samson, weirdo.

Because he was not.

The fun.

Substitute teacher who'd wheel out a TV and play a VHS tape or Armageddon in science class. He was.

The weird one.

Who would eat an egg salad sandwich while flipping his toenails into the trash can and rambling about.

Ronald Reagan.

Stoogards.

And the guy.

Kept talking about how his ass was smooth.

Smoother than a newborn's cheek. He wouldn't stop bragging about his bare buttocks to me.

This is the.

Don.

Libertard Show.

With the Stoogards. I want.

To get to another topic related to the NCAA, which is the NCAA getting woke because they're now trying to pay players in this roundabout way that I don't understand. So there are these headlines about how Charlie Baker, who replaced Mark Emerett as the President of the organization, is now talking about a new subdivision inside of Division One athletics that allows schools to put money into a fund that would eventually.

Compensate athletes?

Maybe they could. So I truly don't understand what this story is. So I need you guys, David. Please begin what's going on here.

I'm going to summarize this very quickly and very easily. However, you can... Suggestible piece. What the NCA is trying to do is make sure that they stay relevant and that they can maintain some control over college athletics. And what they want to avoid is any group of people basically separating themselves, like in England with the Super League. Remember that whole Super League that disappeared across Europe for football and soccer? Yeah, across Europe. The thought is some of the schools may want to be out of the NCA. As John Skipper on this show has said, Makes perfect sense. Why have an NCA? So what they did is they said, Hey, we have an idea. You make rules on your own. If you want to opt into this new division, you can set aside money to pay to players and we'll have a few regulations on how to do it. But basically you're on your own. Brilliant. I love it. Except what you're doing is you are basically categorizing and cataloging your own demise.

I believe they're creating the subdivision of authorized cheaters, right? They basically said instead of our trying to figure out rules about how to do the NIL thing. Yes. We'll just allow you to do whatever the hell you want to do. So we, the regulatory agency, will give up our actual reason for being because what we care most about is that we be, not that we do anything. This just proves that the the NCAA is an organization, which does, in my opinion, not need to exist.

But do you not agree that you want the schools to have the power? Do you not want the schools to have the individual power to do what they think is right or what they want to do for their athletes?

I don't know. They're clearly not going to decide what is best for anything other than getting really good football players to come to their school. This appears to be the NCAA saying, We will sanction you, taking a bunch of money, putting it in a fund, and bidding against each other for the number one rated quarterback.

Prospect ticket. But that's happening now with NILs.

I got it. So all they're doing is they're abrogating their own duty to provide some level of regulation to be a governing body that actually can prevent the greatest, hainess crimes. This just means that they're mostly worried now about the power conferences leaving the- It's going to create greater inequality. -and all this is going to do, why wouldn't you, as one of those schools, go, Well, what do I need the NCAA to do that? We could do this ourselves.

I should point out that Matt Rule, Coach of Nebraska now, said that a good quarterback in the portal costs 1-1.5 to 2 million dollars right now. There are some teams, he says, that have paid 6-7 million for individual athletes, which is a lot and is a function, by the way, of a market forming in the absence of a market.

It is a market. We said, maybe on this show, but certainly nothing personal, you want free agency in college? You've got it. Nil is free agency in college. Now we're surprised that there is a actual dollar amount. Just like in every sport, there's dollar amounts assigned to positions.

I think it's a fact that on the first day this year you could go into the portal that seven % of all the players on Division 1 rosters went into the portal. Yes. One out of every 14 players.

The Heisman finalists, the quarterbacks are all transfers. They've all gone through the portal because they found a market value that they wanted to realize.

Isn't that your dream? I may be misunderstanding you this whole time. Don't you want players to get paid the most they can?

I'm not against payers getting paid the most.

They can. Therefore, these college players, they enter the portal, they don't do it because they don't like the dormitory food.

They do it for a variety of reasons, which is led at the top of the list by money. Right.

Number one is money. That's great then. You should be happy.

I'm not unhappy. I'm just suggesting that the NCAA laying out this proposal is fairly preposterous.

Well, what they're trying to do, I thought, is give power back to the schools because what the are complaining about, including nick Saban and others, is that with all this NIL, the boosters and the companies who are paying the NILs are taking control in a way that we want to have. The only way that we can have the control is if we have the right to pay players, because now that toothpaste is out of the tube, players are getting paid. So they want to be able to pay the players. That's really.

All this is. I'm not against that either. My point is then why do you need the regulatory agency to tell.

You- Yes, what are you.

Regulating anymore? Yeah, what are you regulating?

What's your job? Well, the regulating sign stealing and Jim Harbaugh. There's that. But the details on when these players can actually get the toothpaste out of the escrow fund.

Whatever this is. They're able to get it now from NIL.

No, but in this proposal, when can they access it?

To what extent- This is not a today proposal. This is like LivPGA announcing their merger, and then here we are eight months later, and we don't know if we're even one second closer to what happened.

I agree, because in the article that this came out, it says, The proposal is a culmination of a months-long review. By the way, at the NCAA, they're capable of having a month-long review to decide what to have for lunch. There are schools. I remember when Syracuse got sanctioned, and it was four years after the offenses, and they had a championship taken away and Jim Boeheim went from having 900 wins to having 700. What takes so damn long?

He did not lose 200 wins.

Huh?

Jim Boeheim.

Lost 200 wins?

He may not have- -lost 200 wins?

I may be wrong on the number, but it was, I believe, north of 100 games. He was.

Forced- That's very- We're going to have Koko fact-check that, as he also has already fact-checked me by pointing out that schools, this is the rule to answer to my question, schools would determine when athletes receive the amount, which for four-year athletes will total at least $120,000, and then you got to buy title nine, which means 50% of the investment goes to female athletes, which I guess is cool insofar as the NCAA is realizing.

It's cool, but it probably is not going to be popular with the athletic directors who are mostly interested in bringing in a $6 million quarterback. They're going to have to pay a lot of field hockey and crew members a lot of money. They're going to find a way around it. Yeah, they're not going to get back from that.

It's not going to be 50-50. It's not going to happen. There are ways to get around it. The Title IX violations, if you run into company, which that's what a school is, you want to give six million to your football quarterback. You don't want to give six million to your field hockey, soccer, volleyball, and water polo players. Right.

It's that you don't. It does feel like the NCAA is creating in lieu of a coherent policy here, just as John put it, an excuse to survive. I point out that John had the number directionally correct. It was 101 wins.

That Jim Bayhine had to win. Exactly north of one hundred.

That is true. And south of 200 by about 100 %.

Speaking of people losing large numbers of stuff, Elon Musk was on stage with Andrew Ross Orkin at this conference. And I bring this in as a story because this has to do with, I guess, the very basic premise of what advertising is, and also the fact that X, Twitter, as it was called, and I still call it, is a place where sports media is uniquely concentrated among all the social media platforms. Just to recap, Elon Musk told Bob Iger to go fuck himself on stage.

Not to his face.

But he said it directionally towards Bob Iger and everybody else who he claims is trying to blackmail him, that's his word, blackmail, because they are withdrawing their advertising from the platform formerly known as Twitter. He believes it's a free speech thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you guys work in the business of all of this. You're familiar with all of these premises and some of the people. Linda Yacarino, by the way, is the person responsible for selling ads for Elon Musk. And she's her own character, who is very funny to contemplate. John, what was your reaction to this cast of people getting involved in this way?

Well, I'm assuming that Bob and Elon will have to fight after Elon fights Mark Zuckerberg. I'm assuming his next fight will be with Bob Iger.

Brazilian.

Jiu-jitsu. I don't know why Elon would suggest this has anything to do with free speech. You have every right to advertise on a platform or not advertise on a platform, and a number of advertisers have decided his behavior is so bizarre and so ridiculous.

Yeah, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory has been the.

Latest recently. And including his very unfortunate quote about replacement theory. It's a reasonable decision to make that I'm not going to advertise on your platform. I don't know what... Elon clearly doesn't understand how business works. He's an idiot and a genius.

I don't disagree with what you're saying other than he does understand business. He has built a business. He runs a business, a very large business. I believe he may be the richest person in the world.

He.

Is, sometimes. Or certainly.

In the country. It depends on where the Tesla stock is.

Exactly, depending on where the Tesla.

Stock.

Exactly. My take on this was a little different in that what bothered me about it was not it's his company. When you spend 44 billion on a company and you want to not have advertisers and you want to say FU to people, that's the very definition of many people's dream, which is to have FU money, and that's what he has. He has every right to do it. What I didn't appreciate about the way he did it is that it made it sound as though what he's doing on that app is right and that the things he's saying he believes in, as opposed to having the right to say them. I was bothered more by that nuance that are there really people who believe and is he one of them? What he spews? Or is he playing a character? Or is he just a crazy man? My takeaway is that there's a screw loose with him and that he may actually believe what he says. -wow. -that bothered me.

The most. -that's a far out theory.

Very far. I'm on a limb here, so save me if you can with your second hole, which just happened, by the way. It's now a second hole. I don't know if you.

See that. I'm not paying any attention to it.

It's in the back.

It's not in the back. It doesn't bother me. I'm a humble supplicant.

I should point out that Elon Musk is an increasingly humbled CEO of this company because he's about losing $75 million in advertising revenue because all these major brands, Disney, Apple, IBM, paused their campaigns. Because of all of this stuff, which, regardless of to David's inquiry, regardless of the motive, it feels desperate. It all feels quite desperate the way that he is.

Operating now. What if he's doing it to go to a subscription model and he's going away from an advertising model and he doesn't care? What if the fact of the matter is that he doesn't the... How much money do you think they spend advertising on X? If you had a guess. Who? The total amount Bob Iger spends to.

Advertise on X. I actually have no idea. But I suspect it's a small seven-million-$10 million?

$10 million? I doubt it. Me too. That would be eight figures. I would say maybe it's a $5 million deal, and that would be a pretty good spend. Elon Musk gets to say, Go f yourself, and loses $5 million. The stock goes down a 30-second, and he loses $200 million. I just think that people are missing the math a little bit on this.

You probably just proved your point. $75 million, he has a billion for every million he has lost on this. It's the definition of you money.

Then, therefore, that's how I came to my conclusion that I was more upset that he may actually believe what he says or that other people will then listen to him and believe it too. That's what bothers me more than him saying F U to.

Bob Beiter. Right. My personal theory is simply that Elon Musk's brain has been eaten by the Internet and specifically the platform that he purchased for $44 billion that is now hemorrhaging money.

Are there other people whose brains are impacted by Twitter that you're aware of? Who actually pay attention to what's written about them or said about them, and it impacts their behavior and thought process and business, would he be the only one, Elon Musk?

He would not be the only person in sports media or at our company. But I should point out that this woman, Linda Yacquareno, John, who has to be the corporate face of a guy who is the anti-corporate face of all of these insane people. What's it?

Well, it proves that he is a genius and an idiot because many people thought Linda Yacquareno was as good as there is in selling advertising in the traditional broadcast media. She did a great job- You.

Knew of her before all of us.

She was very good at this. I assume she knew what she was getting into, and that she is somewhere in a dark room going, I know I'm going to make a lot of money doing this, but I'm not sure how long I can stand to deal with this guy.

She'll.

Deny that tomorrow in a press release as she must. But she's actually quite good at what she does, and he is making her job impossible.

It's sad. It seems- Do you think.

She's on commission? Pardon? Do you think she's on commission?

I would assume she's on commission, but I would assume that he made her for her to leave and go there.

Few MGs.

-he made her an overwhelming offer. Good for her. She has earned it. But she now is dealing with somebody who will make her.

Job impossible. The way I look at it is she's the one who has to shovel the shit behind the elephant, right? The elephant's out there. That's Elon Musk. And she's the one behind it with the shovel.

Or the shovel. Or she's actually.

The shovel. She may be the shovel. And you know what? You get paid to be the shovel. I don't believe that she's in a dark room despondent. I believe that she was sitting there rolling her eyes, and then they go after and talk. And he says, By the way, your bonus just went from $8 million this year to $13 million. Are you okay with that? And then people decide whether they are.

So can I ask a question that I think gets to the reality, though, of this? We've all expressed our philosophical objections to various things today. But if you're one of these companies that pulled advertising from X, how do you contemplate when to put it back in? Is this a forever decision or what does it take to.

Come back? I have an agency that gives me metrics that I'm not no longer appealing. I'm trying to find a demographic. That demographic does not exist on Twitter anymore. Contrary to what many people think, there's a whole world outside of Twitter. If you're trying to get to the 18-54s or the men, the women, there are a ton of people, depending on where you are politically, where you are with money, they exist in tons of places. Disney didn't cut its ad buys. They're just reallocating them.

Right. Twitter's never been a primary ad buy for almost anybody. There is not near the effort- Scraps.

It's a thing they do just to say they do it.

It is not- It's not-It's an interesting notion you brought up that he might pivot to, because I think he's suggested it before he might pivot to a.

Subscription service. Well, he does now with Twitter Blue, which is I pay a monthly amount. And the reason I do is I like having more than 2.80, and I like.

Being able to edit. What is it? For only fans? This is Twitter Blue?

I do not show my feet.

He does that for free.

Exactly. But to the point, I also would like to not be undermined by the algorithm, which punishes people who don't pay the protection, mafia-style fee that he demands.

I'm good with it. Protection money, that's also as old as the Hills.

I should point out that what I've learned today as we get to now the end of the show and I want to figure out what you guys are thinking about, what I've learned today is that hundreds of million dollars between friends mean nothing, and that five million is, quote, scraps. I will bring these quotes to my next contract negotiation. But David and John, what are you both thinking about this week?

Well, you said David and John. Who would you like to start with?

I would like to start with David.

What I'm thinking about this week, Pablo, is the NBA in-season tournament and how wrong I was where I thought that no one would care about it. I saw passion on the court. I am so excited that Vegas got the semifinals. It's going to be a great final when it happens tomorrow. My view is that Adam Silver knew exactly what he was doing. While I was cynical, has created something that he can monetize because when you make games, regular-season games, Matter and Count, add elimination games, add money to players, you are doing something good. I give Adam Silver a lot of cred, and I've been thinking about that because I don't always, but today I am.

What's on my mind is a subset of that, which is those spectacular courts, which made a lot of people crazy. I thought they were very cool. It also was a brilliant way to signal that this game is different. What he has done is brilliant. He's taken regular-season games. You forever hear people talking about there's too many games. They can't change the number of games. Right, David? Because the owners want the games in the arenas. They want the revenue. So that's not going to change. They're the broadcast partners. So he has now taken a subset of those games that don't matter. And I say that in air quotes, they do matter. But he's made them matter more. He's made the ratings go up. And he depended upon the fact that players, when they get on the court and they're playing for something and they are playing for money.

Half a million dollars.

In a championship.

Each to win. Yes, each.

Sorry, each. Which is most players are not Giannis.

What is interesting is that the player who may have responded the best is the League's marked player, LeBron James, who is going to manage to maybe win a championship this year. I don't think it'll be at the end of the year, but he has now got himself in the semifinals.

Yes, as of recording time.

Lebron James- I was trying to go evergreen there. I know. But tomorrow, it's Friday, and that's because it's Thursday or the semis.

The Saturdays. We're way behind the curtain now, David. Okay, that's right.

All that said, I would also say that what Adam Silver is going to do here, correctly and smartly so, he's going to package these again as part of the new deal. And the biggest worry they had is it would take away from the trophy at the end, the NBA trophy. Are people going to respect this? Do they want this? It turns out if you pay players money in season and keep the NBA Finals as the NBA finals, you can do both. And that's fantastic.

And by the way, they'll solve the problem with the name, which is unremarkable. Now the in-season tournament will become.

The-capital One tournament.

Oh, God. -or it will become the Amazon tournament.

-the Bifo-Radies tournament. -or it.

Will become the Duke's and Mayo's tournament. -it will become somebody's tournament. -as it should? And it's a good idea.

Yeah. This was a thing that was declared essentially a doomed premise at the outset. I'm curious about beyond the… By the way, I think the courts are like… They're a visual thing where you walk by a TV and you're like, What's happening there? Now you're wondering, asking, What is the in-season tournament? But in terms of why it's actually worked to you guys, the biggest strategic win that Adam Silver proved is half a million dollars per player is enough. Is that it?

The second one, half a million dollars and?

A championship.

No, not to me. A trip to Vegas.

Oh, God.

Just laugh as you want. You would be shocked the way players want to.

Go to Vegas. It's interesting. It's true. But that's what we're thinking about. That's a happy thought. David and I are on the same page.

Yes. We are definitely not on the same page. I can't sit next to him for.

Another minute. Esthetic endorsements from the guy with two holes in.

His shirt. Can I talk to someone about this? No. I'm buying you a sweater.

Okay.

I'm okay with that. And then I'm expressing it.

I'm okay with that. Give me some of my money back.

What's a couple of sweaters between fronts?

I want a lot less.

Fun, man. I want more money, not.

Less, John. Okay. A lot more.

Thank you, Pablo.

Thank you, Pablo. Wait, we were done.

Before that, I hope. Now we're done.

Okay, fine.