Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

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I do want to acknowledge, David, that the real star of this show, The Sporting Class, has been John Skipper's voice.

It does a lot. I would not have said such a thing.

Because of the tone or the content?

Well, we can get to the content, but it is the draw, an allegedly weaponized draw that allows John to be every man and also the epitome of the subject of a rich guy's OnlyFans, which is what I call the sporting class in reality.

He's liked more because of his accent?

Absolutely.

I'm just channeling someone that almost no one who listens to this will remember, Senator Sam Irving, who was on the Watergate Committee and used to start at least one question a day with, Well, you know, I'm just a dumb country lawyer. But where I come from in North Carolina, We would just call that common sense. Well, I'm sorry that my distinguished friend from Florida does not approve of my method of examining the witness. I'm an old country lawyer, and I don't know the fine ways to do it. I just have to do it my way.

It It's how you live your life. It's done well for you.

It's all I got. It's all I got. David Samson. Rich Little's got a lot more. This is it.

David, by contrast, has the voice of a president who is demanding that people break into a certain hotel, maybe.

To just not get caught. Yeah. That's a very big difference between me and others.

We gather because a subject that we have covered more exhaustively and more deeply with more personal knowledge than any other sports business concern in our industry, has come to a tentative finale, a conclusion, which is the NBA rights deal has not been officially signed, John, but now we can talk about it with more clarity.

We can. I'm just laughing about it being a tentative finale. Wouldn't again that be an oxymoron?

You could have a firm finale, which is what you've known this deal to be the whole time.

Not the case. In fact, we have no finale yet. Tent to We have what appear to be pinned down. I read in something this morning, which would mean that the deals are agreed to and that lawyers may be taking a last look. We do seem to know from the reporting that there will be five day period of time. We don't know whether it started yet or not or Warner Brothers Discovery to look at whether they might try to assert a match. I'm using assert deliberately simply because it's, as we've talked about before, David, it's not a simple, oh, we're matching. They have to match some set of terms and conditions. I think it's pretty clear now the NBA would prefer to have the partners they have agreed with. And I don't know what your point of view is about or what you know about whether things have started or not started. You think the clock has started?

So the NBA board of governors actually approved the media deals, and that means there's no more lawyer tinkering. They've been delivered to Warner Brothers Discovery. This matching period, they have five days to match, and that's in quotes. I put it in quotes because it's not simply writing a memo, Dear Adam, we match. Here's our 1.8 billion. See you later, Amazon. We're back, baby. It doesn't work that way. Legally, the way it works is they have to go provision by provision and show how what they are offering, what Turner is offering is offering is equal to what Amazon is offering. You don't just erase the word Amazon and write the word Warner Brothers Discovery. It doesn't technically work that way. That would be a funny way to do it. If that were the matching. But no, you actually have to have a proposal that you give back to the MBA that says, Okay, we've matched this deal, and here's how it matches. What you heard Adam Silver do in his press conference this week was say, I'm not going to for our money than we did always on the money. Because when you must have league rights, the league gets to assert their leverage by naming a price. Other than with the NFL, we generally would get it down some, but then we'd also get a lot more a lot more assets for that. We wanted the WNBA, but I did not negotiate it separately.Here's the accounting in fall. The league currently has media deals with ION, CBS, and Amazon, as John indicated, on top of the ESPN Agreement. The deals, including the ESPN Agreement, are worth $60 million, as presently constituted. When all these agreements are reached, however, the WNBA's average annual TV rights fee, this all via Sportico, will be worth at least $260 million. And so multiples, David. Multiples, multiples, multiples. And your suspicion, based on just the framing of your call line is unabated.This just continues the narrative. That's a great narrative that the WNBA is this league where Kaitlyn Clarke is, women's sports, women's basketball. It's having a moment. Let's make the moment last. And the way we're going to fake it till you make it is we are going to pin a number that is the same multiple that the NBA got, when there's not one underlying reason that the WNBA would have gotten the same increase that the NBA. I can't think of one business principle where with the performance of the WNBA would indicate that they should have that same increase that the NBA had. Can you?You could poke some holes in this than I would if I was you. But the ratings are up more for the WMBA than the NBA.The percentage basis? Yes. Wmba was a slash, but okay.The attendance at the games is going up.Total number of games, total number of people is a fraction of what the NBA gets.It is, but I would guess if you- I'm not trying to be against the WMBA.Please don't paint me in a misogynistic light. I'm merely saying that, A, you've got an incentive for... You have knowledge of how to be right on this argument we had and to make me look bad. B, you also have a job where you are selling media rights to a women's league. So this is very beneficial.We should disclose that, that John is a part owner in a new women's basketball business.Which is an awesome league, actually. And he didn't invite us, Pablo. We are not part owners. I noticed. We did not get that email. I noticed. It must have gone to our Metalog Media email address.I was hoping to be the Jim Dolan of John Skipper's 3 on three women's basketball league, and I am not.In a couple of years, you can buy a team. So far, you can't.Because he owns them all. No, it's not true.And he's my boss, which is a real- It's not true.A real double buying for me. But it is correct that I should disclose that I am an investor in Unrival, the three-on-three women's- And do you think that Unrivaled benefits from this number that the WNBA had got? It certainly continues an excellent narrative that- The Dural is getting Duralier.Hold on.I just got hit in the eye with his tonic spray.Yes, that's why I should disclose that. I should disclose that.But the point being- I'm not trying to catch you. No, no, no.People who listen to the show previously know all of this already. It's been previously disclosed. But the point is that John has been pouring over these numbers. He has them at the ready. David, despite Kaitlyn Clarke, despite these percentage increases, despite the atmosphere of these games, which is probably different to a casual consumer, you're saying, and yet the way you get to these numbers is... It seems almost offensively anti-mathematical to you.It is exactly that. It's exactly how I would put it. It's not based on reason, and I'm fine with it. There's a lot of ego premiums in the world of sports and in the world of business, so I'm perfectly fine with that. I just don't like when things get mislabeled. I don't like when somehow we're confusing the WNBA today's increase as though it's merit-based versus being on the tail of the NBA. There is obviously better health in the WNBA today than yesterday, of course. But to say that it merits the same type of attention that the NBA gets is not proper.Well, nobody's saying it has thus far merited. We just pointed out that it's getting somewhere between 2 and 3% of the money. Is it worth? Would I sitting at ESPN, think that the package is worth that two and a half %? Yeah, I would. If you said you could buy for 97 and a half % of this money, you could have just bought the NBA. I would have said, no, I'd prefer- But I'm asking you to do it differently.Would you have paid $200 million as a stand-alone company in the open market without getting NBA games? Would you have spent $200 million on the WMBA?You buy a really expensive bicycle and they want to sell the warranty. You have to decide if it's worth it or not. All three of the new partners decided it was worth it.You think they had a choice?I don't think. Nobody ever told me I couldn't get an NBA deal, and apparently TNT got an NBA deal without buying it.You were the A deal. We were the A deal. That shows where the W- That's right.That's where we put that big value in the A deal. Exactly.You can be fooled by his draw all you want, and he's I'm never going to admit any of this, and it's fine. It doesn't bother me anymore. I used to not sleep after we tape these shows on a Wednesday.I am happy to hear that you're sleeping.Perfectly well.But there is one more thing I want to find out about today because there is this clause that I want to cite to The Athletic that, There is an agreement between the League, the WMBA, and the media partners to revisit the rights deals with good faith talks after three years. That could replace them to reflect the League's growth. And so, John, what does that sentence indicate to you?What I think it means to me is that the WNBA on the trajectory their own, were hoping to get paid for a continuation of that trajectory with more money, and that the partners decided there was a limit to how much they were willing to pay, but said, You know what? If it blows up the way it's blowing up and it's going up 100% every year for the next three years, we will have a good faith discussion about what that might mean for our rights payment.There is no greater legal eyewash than the two words good faith.Hard to disagree. It often makes people feel good to get it in a deal, but your lawyer will always tell you, on faith, that it actually means nothing. It mostly means bad faith is what it actually mostly means.Unless it's said with a draw, in which case you're like, Oh, this faith does sound pretty great.Comes with tonic.Now, I have to say in the contracts that I had good faith things written into, they have sometimes been cited and sometimes been used, but they If you go to court, it'll have no legal bearing.David is just going to chuckle at the very idea that faith in this world.That's a headline. It makes me laugh.David Samson, John Skipper, two very different types of lawyers. Thank you for helping me find out a lot.Yeah, I'm a non-lawyer. That's a type, all right? That's a type. I'm a non-lawyer lawyer.Thank you.This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Art Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

for our money than we did always on the money. Because when you must have league rights, the league gets to assert their leverage by naming a price. Other than with the NFL, we generally would get it down some, but then we'd also get a lot more a lot more assets for that. We wanted the WNBA, but I did not negotiate it separately.

Here's the accounting in fall. The league currently has media deals with ION, CBS, and Amazon, as John indicated, on top of the ESPN Agreement. The deals, including the ESPN Agreement, are worth $60 million, as presently constituted. When all these agreements are reached, however, the WNBA's average annual TV rights fee, this all via Sportico, will be worth at least $260 million. And so multiples, David. Multiples, multiples, multiples. And your suspicion, based on just the framing of your call line is unabated.

This just continues the narrative. That's a great narrative that the WNBA is this league where Kaitlyn Clarke is, women's sports, women's basketball. It's having a moment. Let's make the moment last. And the way we're going to fake it till you make it is we are going to pin a number that is the same multiple that the NBA got, when there's not one underlying reason that the WNBA would have gotten the same increase that the NBA. I can't think of one business principle where with the performance of the WNBA would indicate that they should have that same increase that the NBA had. Can you?

You could poke some holes in this than I would if I was you. But the ratings are up more for the WMBA than the NBA.

The percentage basis? Yes. Wmba was a slash, but okay.

The attendance at the games is going up.

Total number of games, total number of people is a fraction of what the NBA gets.

It is, but I would guess if you- I'm not trying to be against the WMBA.

Please don't paint me in a misogynistic light. I'm merely saying that, A, you've got an incentive for... You have knowledge of how to be right on this argument we had and to make me look bad. B, you also have a job where you are selling media rights to a women's league. So this is very beneficial.

We should disclose that, that John is a part owner in a new women's basketball business.

Which is an awesome league, actually. And he didn't invite us, Pablo. We are not part owners. I noticed. We did not get that email. I noticed. It must have gone to our Metalog Media email address.

I was hoping to be the Jim Dolan of John Skipper's 3 on three women's basketball league, and I am not.

In a couple of years, you can buy a team. So far, you can't.

Because he owns them all. No, it's not true.

And he's my boss, which is a real- It's not true.

A real double buying for me. But it is correct that I should disclose that I am an investor in Unrival, the three-on-three women's- And do you think that Unrivaled benefits from this number that the WNBA had got? It certainly continues an excellent narrative that- The Dural is getting Duralier.

Hold on.

I just got hit in the eye with his tonic spray.

Yes, that's why I should disclose that. I should disclose that.

But the point being- I'm not trying to catch you. No, no, no.

People who listen to the show previously know all of this already. It's been previously disclosed. But the point is that John has been pouring over these numbers. He has them at the ready. David, despite Kaitlyn Clarke, despite these percentage increases, despite the atmosphere of these games, which is probably different to a casual consumer, you're saying, and yet the way you get to these numbers is... It seems almost offensively anti-mathematical to you.

It is exactly that. It's exactly how I would put it. It's not based on reason, and I'm fine with it. There's a lot of ego premiums in the world of sports and in the world of business, so I'm perfectly fine with that. I just don't like when things get mislabeled. I don't like when somehow we're confusing the WNBA today's increase as though it's merit-based versus being on the tail of the NBA. There is obviously better health in the WNBA today than yesterday, of course. But to say that it merits the same type of attention that the NBA gets is not proper.

Well, nobody's saying it has thus far merited. We just pointed out that it's getting somewhere between 2 and 3% of the money. Is it worth? Would I sitting at ESPN, think that the package is worth that two and a half %? Yeah, I would. If you said you could buy for 97 and a half % of this money, you could have just bought the NBA. I would have said, no, I'd prefer- But I'm asking you to do it differently.

Would you have paid $200 million as a stand-alone company in the open market without getting NBA games? Would you have spent $200 million on the WMBA?

You buy a really expensive bicycle and they want to sell the warranty. You have to decide if it's worth it or not. All three of the new partners decided it was worth it.

You think they had a choice?

I don't think. Nobody ever told me I couldn't get an NBA deal, and apparently TNT got an NBA deal without buying it.

You were the A deal. We were the A deal. That shows where the W- That's right.

That's where we put that big value in the A deal. Exactly.

You can be fooled by his draw all you want, and he's I'm never going to admit any of this, and it's fine. It doesn't bother me anymore. I used to not sleep after we tape these shows on a Wednesday.

I am happy to hear that you're sleeping.

Perfectly well.

But there is one more thing I want to find out about today because there is this clause that I want to cite to The Athletic that, There is an agreement between the League, the WMBA, and the media partners to revisit the rights deals with good faith talks after three years. That could replace them to reflect the League's growth. And so, John, what does that sentence indicate to you?

What I think it means to me is that the WNBA on the trajectory their own, were hoping to get paid for a continuation of that trajectory with more money, and that the partners decided there was a limit to how much they were willing to pay, but said, You know what? If it blows up the way it's blowing up and it's going up 100% every year for the next three years, we will have a good faith discussion about what that might mean for our rights payment.

There is no greater legal eyewash than the two words good faith.

Hard to disagree. It often makes people feel good to get it in a deal, but your lawyer will always tell you, on faith, that it actually means nothing. It mostly means bad faith is what it actually mostly means.

Unless it's said with a draw, in which case you're like, Oh, this faith does sound pretty great.

Comes with tonic.

Now, I have to say in the contracts that I had good faith things written into, they have sometimes been cited and sometimes been used, but they If you go to court, it'll have no legal bearing.

David is just going to chuckle at the very idea that faith in this world.

That's a headline. It makes me laugh.

David Samson, John Skipper, two very different types of lawyers. Thank you for helping me find out a lot.

Yeah, I'm a non-lawyer. That's a type, all right? That's a type. I'm a non-lawyer lawyer.

Thank you.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Art Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.