MLB All-Star Ticket Prices, Seahawks Sell for $9.6 Billion, Soccer TV Rights Fees Drop & Ohio State

00-11:  MLB All-Star Ticket Prices Soar
11-24:  Seahawks Sell for $9.6 Billion 
24-35:  Bundesliga TV Rights Fees Decline
35-46:  Ohio State Football and Jeremiah Smith's Value

#mlb #mlballstargame #ticketprices #nfl #seahawks #seattleseahawks #bundesliga #ohiostatefootball #buckeyes 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the bottom line on sports. He's Jeremy Pink. I'm Jean-Jacques Taylor. And this is a show about the intersection of sports and money. You know, we always like to kick it off with a number, this week's number. $1,166 is what, my friend?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

That is the cost of in the secondary market of buying a ticket to Tuesday night's all-star baseball game.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Okay. Once upon a time, I'd have been like, wow, let me spend it and get in there once upon a time. Right now, I would not pay. Okay, I have a question for you after I say this. I would not pay $200 to go to the baseball all-star game. Because I no longer care about baseball like that.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Right. I'm more just dumbfounded by who would spend that kind of money on a ticket.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Well, I I I guess if you one, you have to be a baseball fan. Two, maybe your guy is in the game. Three, maybe it's on your bucket list of things to do. That's about all I got for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

I was just thinking. Just off the top of your head, with no with no real thought. How many how many all-stars can you name? I don't care what league. Just how many all-stars can you name?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I can probably get, if I thought about it, eight to ten. How about you?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

I'm thinking about it. And I'm at about four. Maybe. Maybe. There's Jacob Letz from the Rangers. There's Carl Schwarber.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Kyle Schwarber from the Phillies.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Schwarber from the Phillies. Bryce Harper from the Phillies.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah. Pete Crow Armstrong from the I would have never I'd have never thought of here.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yeah. Shohe Otani. I should have, but I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Uh Shoe Otani's Paul Skeens.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Okay, I guess if I put if I started writing them down, I'd have got this.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, you'd get there at eight to ten. That's five.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Did I say Cody Bellinger?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

No, you didn't. Junior Calanaros from uh never, never would have. I don't even know who they're from Tampa. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Uh let me see. There's somebody else I would have gotten. Oh, Freddie Freeman. I would have guessed him.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Freddie Freeman, yeah, he's there.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

And now I'm about exhausted on my list.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

But that's I don't know any pitchers.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Show Shohei Otani. You know, would have although he didn't play, but he's he was there. Now I didn't did you watch any of the All-Star game?

unknown 2:52

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Hell no. Did you watch any of the home run derby? Hell no. This is kind of my point, which is who's paying for this? You know, there's there's a guy there there's a there's a tick tack TikTok account that I used to that I saw a few years ago. I don't I don't look at TikTok anymore. I sometimes look at Instagram reels. And the guy's account is pretty, he goes into these grocery stores, and his his basically his premise is this. He goes into a grocery store, picks up some bizarre food product, he just looks at it, he looks at the camera and says, Who's buying this? Right? I like that. And I I I look at these all-star tickets and I go, listen, paying a couple hundred bucks for them, I I can see it, but 1100 bucks for an all-star game ticket seems excessive to me. But the only thing that I can think of is that people are you can basically watch or see anything you want at any time. So the premium for an in-person experience has gotten so high that the price of every sort of, even I would call this a minor major event, even a minor major event like this, the cost of attending it is through the roof. I that's all I can think of that's happening.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yeah, if it's you know, the problem is with the secondary market, like if you can't figure out how to get tickets through the box office at face value, it's just hard to go because everything's overpriced and overmarked. Um, you know, if if I paid $250 for face value for seats, I'd probably have good seats and I'd be cool. But I wouldn't, but those same seats on the secondary market might go for three, four, five thousand dollars. And I'm just like, nah, I'm out of that.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

You're getting nothing. So yeah, and what's what's what's amazing to me is that that's roughly the same price as a lot of the World Cup quarterfinal ticket game uh tickets went for.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Bro. The World Cup semifinals in Dallas was uh France and Spain. And I thought long and hard about how I could get sixteen hundred dollars out of the account without my wife knowing because she was not going to approve that expenditure, right? Right, and uh my personal money, believe it or not, has been tied up with my kid.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

That's shocking, that never happens, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yeah, and so I was just like I thought long and hard about how to do it, and then at the end of the day, I said, eh, I just watch it at the crib. I would fine with that.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

I would have paid, especially if I could go with my son, who's a huge soccer fan, I would have paid uh $1,600 each to go to watch France and Spain, no doubt in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Although it was it was a crappy game, but but it was yeah, that the uh the other semifinal, Argentina and Spain, was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I mean Argentina and England, Argentina, England, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Friend of mine, huge English fan, and once they go up one-nothing with about 56 minutes left, I go, bro, and he's sending me all these messages. I go, bro, number one, Argentina's been coming back in every game they've played. So who really cares? Number two, they got messy, and number three, let's just see how England plays for the next few minutes. And right after that, I sent him a text. I go, matter of fact, I put that on Twitter. I said, to steal a hockey term, Argentina's been buzzing for about 10 minutes. At some point, my friend, they're gonna score. And about two minutes after that, they scored. And then I went upstairs to do something, man. I came back and they were up two to one. I was just like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, I I I texted my son, who's a huge so so you know that uh, you know, both of my kids were born in in London, and my my kids and I were both dual, you know, British and American.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

So they so they could each play for the uh he could uh English basketball teams.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

He could easily, yeah. Um if he was probably six inches taller, yeah, but he could. Um but the uh um and I texted him, I said, because it it's the big thing in England is about the World Cup is when they win it, there's a thing, there's a slogan that says it's coming home, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Oh, where it belongs.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yes, and so so I just I just wrote my son who was at work because you know I was sort of you know, I sort of, you know, I work on my own and I work in my home office and everything. So I had the game on and I was doing other things, and I was just texting him, it's coming home. That's it. And uh and then he didn't respond because he's got a real job and can't respond to text. Right. And then 10 minutes later I wrote, Well, maybe not.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Nah, man. It was uh uh but so you know to get back to baseball, I don't know, man. You know, I like baseball has tried to get me back because for a winning, I just swore off of it. That three-pitch outcome thing, I couldn't stand it. It's very boring, but they tried to liven it up a little bit with pitch clock and making the bases bigger so they can steal more and the games man, but it's a lot more fun, and I'm not breaking any news here when your team is good. The Rangers the Rangers are not the Rangers, as I say this, they're in first place.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

But yeah, but the American League American League's a trash heap, so being on top of a trash heap doesn't mean much.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Um they're not this year, they're not an aesthetically pleasing team to watch. Right, so they're boring, uh-huh, and it's just like, yeah. And you don't have any belief that they can sustain anything. So I'm not I have no emotional investment in them. And so if I did, I'd probably follow baseball more. All I know is the Yankees and the and the uh Rays are the only two teams worth a poop in the American League right now.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

That's that's basically right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Because I was shocked that nobody else, I I looked at the standings about three weeks ago. I go, oh my God, there's really two teams and everybody else sucks.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, and there's two teams, and then everybody else is kind of all within like four games of one another, five games of one another. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Um so baseball doesn't do much for me right now. Um, you know, if you're a Dodgers fan, uh life is good. Um, I don't even know who else is doing anything in the American League. Are the Brewers good this year?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

No. No, I mean they're not bad.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

I mean, I think there's only it looks like the Rays are the only team that's halfway decent because the Yankees have had have done really like your boy from the uh from the uh with three names from the Cubs, he seems to be like the most exciting player this year, even though I can't remember his name.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, I you know I'm gonna get the guy from the Rays. The guy from the Rays, if you've ever seen him play.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Is that the guy who got hurt last year?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Junior. Uh, did he get hurt? I didn't I didn't hear that. Junior, I can't think of his lines. It starts with a C. I'm gonna I'm gonna botch his last name, but um has one of the most you know who you know who what his bat reminds me of? You remember Eric Davis of the Reds many years ago? He was one of my favorite players. If you watched him hit and you slowed it down, you watched the ball somehow jump off his bat. Right. And it was it just it just made a different sound and it made a different movement when it was off his bat. That's what this guy looks like to me. He's a lefty, though. That's what he looks like to me.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

He's and he's he's got like you know 28, 29 home runs already. And he's does he? He's the best player on the he's the best player on arguably the you know, one of the certainly the best team in the American League.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

I thought you were gonna say the best player on the pitch.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Anyway, bottom line for me on these tickets uh who's buying these things? That's my bottom line.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Bottom line for me is I can't believe anybody spent $1,100 to go to the baseball all-star game. I know it's economy must be better than I've been told.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, it's in it's in Philadelphia. So you you wonder if you know it's a good location. You got some, you know, you got fans off all up and down the northeast to you know go to Philly for uh to watch it, don't I?

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Right. Yeah, um big news in the NFL, and there hasn't been much NFL news this week. The Seattle Seahawks went for nine billion dollars, 9.6 to be precise. That's a big number. You know, everything relates to the Dallas Cowboys because they are America's team. And there was a few years ago, people would ask Jerry now. Jerry has sworn he he'd never sell a team, and I believe him, uh, because does he need any more money? He likes the fame that comes with owning the Cowboys, not the money that he could reach. Um, but it was uh somebody said, Hey, would you sell for 10 billion? Because that was a big number. He said, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. So if the Seattle Seahawks sold for 9.6 billion, I feel confident the Dallas Cowboys would go for 20.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Well, so what I did is I looked at the like a recent sale. So the Broncos in 2022, four years ago, they went for 4.65 billion. Okay. So it's double. Yeah, so it's basically that's about almost a 20% gain per year, right? So basically, what it means is that in four years' time, if the you know, value of the franchises go up consistently or at that same level, you're right. Uh the Seahawks would sell for nearly 20 billion dollars.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Which means the Cowboys would be two and a half times. You have to bump up the Cowboys another.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

I would say, I would say the Cowboys in four to five years could go for, yeah, right, 25 billion if it continues this way. It's it's absolutely remarkable. And hold on a second. Do you remember when Donald Sterling was forced to sell the Clippers? I remember that. And what's his name? The the Microsoft co-founder, right? His name escapes me for a second. The Microsoft co-founder bought it for, I think, two billion dollars or something. Steve Ballmer. Balmer, Steve Ballmer bought it for like two billion dollars. And there was this hand-wringing, and this is the dumbest thing you could make. And how could you possibly spend that much money for a franchise? Um, very brand, very smart move.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Well, check it out, man. You know, some of these franchises don't change hands very often. Like the Cowboys were purchased for 140 million.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Jerry bought the Cowboys for 140 million? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Now, the way he bought it literally is he was in the midst of selling his oil and gas company just because somebody wanted to buy it, and he literally took all the cash from that deal and plowed it into the Cowboys. And so I was gonna ask you this because you you're a lot more familiar than me. Um, how do these good deals get done? Is this guy writing a check for 9.6 billion, or has he got to put 20% down, or has he got private equity money?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

In general, he's got he's he's he's generally it's generally a consortium of investors who put up the money and whether they as long as they can show the cash to the NFL, they show the cash to the NFL. So you've got the guy who's you know, it it's unclear exact, he's the lead investor for sure in this, right? Um, is a guy named Vin Vinod Kosla, who was one of the found, I think he's the founder of Sun Microsystems, a big uh Silicon Valley company.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Um and yeah, so he puts together, it's him and other investors, they put together, you know, essentially a bid, and then then everything's in, then they're vetted and they're checked out. And there can certainly be some debt on this, but there's there is going to be a certain amount of cash requirement up front, and then also you have to have qualified owners to make sure that they you know can repay because the last thing they want is anybody to default on any franchise.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

So well, we I talked about the Cowboys, but how about this? You know, the Colts haven't been sold since they were purchased for 19 million.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Now imagine the right, and that includes the move from Baltimore to Indianapolis.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Wow, because they stayed in the family.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Oh, because it's the Ursay family, right? Because Jim Jim, so Jim Ursay just passed away though in the last year or two, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Um, you know, the 49ers haven't been sold. They're they they were bought for 13 million uh in the 70s.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah. When did when did Jerry when did Jerry buy the Cowboys? 1989. Oh, it's more recent than I thought. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

No, 1980. How about Paul Brown or Mike Brown now? 1967, they bought the franchise. This is what trips me out. They're always trying poor. They bought the franchise for 7.5 million. Right. And they could sell theirs. If Seahawks got 9 billion, they could sell theirs for 8 billion.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

The Browns franchise? Oh no, the Bengals. Sorry, the Bengals. The Bengals, yeah. The the right right. The Browns came over to buy the Bengals. Uh easily. Easily.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

They could easily I think maybe they're just not liquid. They got a bunch of assets.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

No, I just no, no, I just don't think they pay. I just think they're cheap. You know, there's two. Yeah, there's certain there's certain owners that are just they're just not they're just not paying. They're cheap.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah, it's it's for them, it's all about the uh it's uh I think it's just about keeping the money. You know, bringing up the Bengals, when the Cowboys entered the league, they were part of the marketing agreement like everybody else. We get a marketing deal, everybody gets one 32nd of all the marketing money that we all get. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

And then the Cowboys looked at the books after about two or three years, they're like, hey, we're generating, let's say, $100, and the Bengals are generating like five. Why are we why are we splitting with them?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Well, that's the way we've always done things.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah. Well, this is this is what is not to talk politics, but this is a this is a political issue because the amount of money collected in federal tax money by certain states, like where I live in New York and New Jersey, um far greater than the amount of federal tax money that these states receive. And the states that give the least amount of money are the ones that receive the greatest amount in terms of percent.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, and so so there is in its it's it's a whole political divide, and as the the debt continues to spiral out of control in this country, I think that's gonna be an issue. But anyway, we don't want to talk politics here. But the uh um do you think that so so the main driver of growth of these franchise values is television, no question about it. And uh and I don't see that slowing down at all. I I really don't see it slowing down.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

It's not gonna slow down as long as the top hundred shows every year are 90 NFL games.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

It's not everybody else is gonna have a problem, but the NFL? It's uh the only problem the NFL will have, and people have mentioned it. Uh, I believe Dan Patrick has mentioned it once or twice. Some other prominent people have mentioned it. Like you're getting away from like football used to be this is what we do on Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, scarcity, there's becoming less of a scarcity of product.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

And if somebody who spent, you know, basically, you know, your whole career in broadcasting, you know, what does it mean when you start, you know, now now they got a Wednesday game this year. You know, like do you want a game every day of the week? Um, you know, say Saturdays used to be sacred for college football, they're no longer sacred. Fridays used to be sacred for high school. That's yeah, that's really, you know, it's only a matter of time until somebody offers them enough money to start playing then. Well, you're starting to spread it out too much.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, you're starting to see college play on Friday nights now, too. And you're starting to get every once in a while there's a meaningful college game on Friday nights. Yeah, yeah. No, I I think these franchise values are going to continue to go up. I was reading somewhere, there was a prominent Wall Street analyst who basically said that Fox, the Fox network, was essentially, and they mentioned another network, and I think it was CBS, although I can't remember for sure. He said that Fox and CBS are essentially not really television networks. Certainly it was Fox. So let's just say Fox. Fox is not really a television network, it is a distributor of NFL football. That's what it is. Yeah, that's what he said the value he that's what the value of it is. And even if you look at kind of the deal that's uh you know, Paramount uh buying uh Warner Brothers, and there was talk, maybe, maybe they spin off CNN, they can't spin off CNN, according to a couple of analysts, because CNN is one of the few channels that is a live channel and it's a linear channel and it's you know live news channel, um, that if they didn't sell CNN with the other sort of entertainment pack, other entertainment channels, they wouldn't get any money for the entertainment channels. So they kind of have to keep CNN. So what you see is not to talk to the business that I was in for a long time, but what you see is that anything live events related, and this is not, you know, this is nothing new, whether it's live sports or live news, that's what works on linear television. It becomes really, really important. And it also is the one of the only ways to aggregate a huge audience in one spot. It's why you see Netflix, you know, doing some of these, you know, the boxing matches. Netflix did the home run derby uh this week, you know, and so live events is the really the only thing that's aggregating a large audience in a single spot, and the NFL is the best that does it, and the franchise values are going to benefit tremendously from this because that's not going away.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

No, it's just a matter of do you have enough friends and homeboys and associates to buy a team? Because anybody would want to buy a team. Question is why do people sell teams?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Right. And and you you and you see it like look at the last look at the last two of the last three sales. Uh Dan Snyder was was essentially forced to sell the commanders, right? And the Seahawks were basically it was part of Paul Allen's trust or part of all Allen's will to make sure that the Seahawks were sold after he uh you know after he passed away. So they go for reasons like that, not much for anything else.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Ain't nobody just like, hey, let's just sell the team.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, or you get or somebody gives you an offer, and you go, you know, if somebody gave me an offer of my house for 20 million dollars, I'd be like, okay, it's all yours. I'd I'd move tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Yeah, but see that that that gets to the point where we said some people are in it, they've already got as much money as they could spend in a lifetime. So money doesn't change them. Yeah, what changes them is the fame. The you know, nobody Mark Cuban was a billionaire, nobody knew until he became a sports owner.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

And now everybody knows him. But they know him because he was a sports owner, even though he's not anymore. And so I think you get intoxicated by the fame and respect of course you do. That gets from owning a team, not the cash.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, I I used to when I when I was uh not doing something related to this, not exactly the same. I used to call it a it's called a vanity premium that you could put on certain media properties and certain sports properties. And that's essentially what you're describing here. There's a there's a vanity premium on all of these things. And and that's number one. And number two is there's only 32 of them. Yeah. You know, it's it's not like there's 132 of them, there's 32 of them, and it's not like they're making more of them. So it's a finite number, um, it's a vanity, there's a vanity premium on them, and it occupies in terms of aggregating viewership on television in one single time slot, does that better by far. In fact, it does it better than anything, and so there's a huge value to it. So, bottom line for me on the Seahawks at 9.6 billion is buy nice or buy twice. In other words, it's an old, old, old saying, which is you know what? Do you have an opportunity to buy an NFL franchise? Just buy it. Okay, don't buy a you know third-tier soccer team in no no no in in in Germany. Buy if you have the opportunity to buy an NFL team, buy it because it's going up.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah, let's you and I get together, see how much money we can put together with our friends and colleagues and associates, and maybe we get a season ticket to us to a couple to a couple games.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Maybe we maybe could afford two tickets to one game, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

So bottom line for me, hey man, if you can afford to buy an NFL team, I'm kind of like Jeremy. Go put your nickels together, rub them together, and go get that thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah, right. It's the old that's have you ever heard that saying before? Buy nice or buy twice, you know? But I agree with that. Yeah, so like you know, so in other words, like if you buy a pair of shoes, buy a decent pair of shoes. Because if you don't, if you buy a cheap pair, you're gonna end up buying a you know, buying a new pair in six months.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

I'll tell you a quick story about that. My mother, uh, when I was graduating from college, gave me a pair of uh loafers, because that's what I liked at the time. And she told me that she didn't tell me it like that, but she told me like that, where she said, Hey, I'm gonna go get you a really nice pair of shoes. Uh da da da. And she said the same thing. She says, You should always buy nice shoes because they'll last longer. And then for the rest of her life, for my birthday every year, she'd buy me another pair. She'd she'd say, Okay, what kind of shoes do you want? And she'd buy me another pair of really nice shoes, which is how I became a shoe a holic.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Oh, that's great. I didn't I didn't know that. That's a great story.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

These are the kind of stories you get on here where we share a little bit about our personal lives in the midst of talking about sports and money.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

There you go. There you go. Buy nice or buy twice. All right.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Moving on to our favorite topic of uh the last month soccer, football, the real football. Uh, we just we talked, we spent a little bit of time talking about the World Cup uh semifinals where you'll get Spain versus uh Argentina. Should be a fantastic game because Spain's only giving up one goal the whole uh tournament, I believe. And Argentina doesn't like to doesn't like to play until they get behind by a goal. So should be uh should be a riveting game uh if they'll come to play and not play not to lose. Uh but in uh as an offshoot of that, the Bundesliga, the German league, just sold its rights to USA network USA. And who else? Who else got that deal?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

They got Fandango.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah, that's why. Fandango are the ticket people.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah. Um, although we're trying they're trying to do some live, they're trying to do some live streaming. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Do people go to the movies anymore?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah, I don't even know.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Um, but anyway, I was uh I was only surprised by that because when I think of the big five soccer leagues, I think of the Premier League, and then I think of uh La Liga with Real Madrid and Barcelona. And for me, I think of the French because you got Mbappe over there. And then I get to the I really, if I'm being honest, I probably then think Serie A and then the German League.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, they're about the same. Uh no, I think the Bundesliga is better. The Bundesliga is bigger, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yeah, but again, now I'm a little bit deeper in soccer than most folks. I don't know anybody in the boom in the Bundesliga other than um uh Bayern Munich, Munich, and Bayern Leverspeaking or something like that. Leverkusen, yeah. Leverkusen. And there used to be a green team that had the Volkswagen on as their logo. Yeah, I don't I I know I didn't spend a lot of time in the Bundesliga when I played FIFA. That's the problem. Um video games, yeah. Like I don't know who's gonna watch it. I mean, I don't know that people get up to watch the Premier League, but obviously they think somebody will.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, people watch, people watch a Premier League. I I think the uh what I what I thought was unusual about this deal, or maybe not. I thought the so two things about it. One is that it was going to USA network primarily, although that's going to be streamed on Fandango, but I think like six people streamed into Fandango in the United States. Um, so USA Network is a linear cable channel, traditional cable channel. So it's going there. It's moving from ESPN Plus, which is essentially a streaming.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Yeah, I didn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Right. And ESPN Plus was paying from what I've been able to deduce, $30 million a year for the rights. And the Bundesliga sold the rights to USA and Fandango over the next five years for $20 million a year. So their rights fees actually fell 33%, going from 30 to 20 million. Uh and so what that indicates to me is a couple of things. Number one, um, pretty surprising that ESPN, that the Bundesliga is going from a streaming service to a linear channel. That's the first thing, primarily, even though it's going, you know, Fandango has a little bit of streaming, but primarily going from uh streaming back to linear, uh, which I thought was pretty pretty unusual. Maybe not, but it's it's just something to consider. Um and secondly, that the rights fees fell. And I think that's an indication that there is really only a handful of properties out there that are commanding a premium, that even sports now is becoming a winner-take-all market, kind of like a market near and dear to you, publishing. Publishing is a winner-take-all market for a lot of books. There's you know, a handful of authors who sell almost all the books, and then there, you know, then there's hundreds of other authors who sell very few.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

And that would be me.

unknown 29:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

And I think, and I think uh uh and I think you look at a league like the Bundesliga now, and live events command attention and command a premium up to a point. But right this is not one of them. And so I think you've got the NFL, college football, the NBA, uh, the WNBA managed to increase its fees dramatically, but they came from a very low base. Uh major league baseball uh on a national level has been able to keep its fees up on a regional level, has it. Um, so I I you know I think there's gonna be some properties that are gonna emerge as big valuable properties, kind of like I have the World Cup has emerged as a big valuable property. Yeah, and and I don't I don't think the Bundesliga is gonna be one of them. And but that because it's a live event, they're live sports, some of these linear channels are going, hey, we have live events, we can charge money you know to distribute these live events.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

I was uh I was thinking Dortmund. That's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Oh, Dortmund, yes, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

And then my uh my green team is Wolfsburg.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah, I didn't even know Wolfsburg. Yeah, well, uh Volkswagen used to have a special car that they that cars called Wolfburg Edition, Wolfsburg Editions. Well, so there you go. You should you should as a former Carmen Gear owner, or maybe a current Carmen Geo owner, for all I know, you should you should know that about Volkswagen.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Bro, I thought long and hard about getting another one. I'm the only doofus that showed up at campus as a freshman with a Carmen Gear.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Uh it was it was great, but it, you know, and I did not take into account what maintenance would cost, even though it was a Volkswagen, because it was not a stick, it was a it was in between the automatic and a stick, and that just meant everything was hard. And uh last I saw it is in my ex-wife's backyard.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Oh, that's right. It was a semi-automatic, that's right. I forgot about that. I remember that. Oh my god, I forgot it was a semi.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

If it had just been a stick, I think it had been okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah, well, but since it wasn't. But I used to drive that brown rabbit around, you know, the Volkswagen rabbit that was a stick that used to also I vaguely remember that that also used to break down all the time.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

So I don't know, maybe it was just a Volkswagen, but yeah, but uh, you know, I think um I think you're right, man. Some properties will be hot, but I think what has to happen is you you have to understand where you are in the in the in the deal. You can't be thinking you're a hot property and then find out you're not, and you know, you know, try to hold people to a uh well, the NFL is getting this much, we should get this much.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah. I think we I think what's also USA might be thinking is they do get uh a decent number of Premier League games that are running on the USA network because it's a part of a broader deal with NBC. Right. And they could maybe cross-promote Bundesliga to the English Premier League audience. Maybe they see some sort of affinity there, maybe they could grow the audience. I don't know. Um, that's let me ask you this. That's how I would think as a programmer.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Um what do you think that means for the uh major league soccer's next deal? Like, I don't think this helps them. Because I don't think the reason I don't watch Major League Soccer, and I don't mind being corrected, I think the the talent level at the Premier League is so high, watching MLS feels like watching minor league soccer to me. I totally agree with you, and I think even though even though Messi's in the league, I'm just like, you know, and so I have no interest in watching it. Even though Dallas has had a team and I'm a soccer guy, Dallas has had a team for 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Yeah. I I think the um is I I don't even know where is MLS still on Apple right now? I'm not even sure. I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

I have Apple and hell, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah. Um yeah, so so but but the point being it's a good it's a good point. The MLS is such a non-entity, uh, with the exception of it gets a lot of fans to show up. You know, it does well from a you know you get a loyal fan base, yeah, but you get people to show up. So so maybe that's why people are spending eleven hundred dollars on all-star game tickets. They're spending money on experiences. Maybe experiences have such a high value, uh, but no one's really watching MLS. Well, that's not no one, but it's it's not doing you know big numbers on uh in television right now. Does I think it does I do I think it hurts or helps the MLS? I don't think it really matters. I think the uh MLS audience, at least the audience that I recall, the ML MLS audience is a lot younger and it's it's a slightly more valuable audience. Um but I but but again, it's it's again one of the minor properties. It's not one of the major marquee properties, and it which which I think is is, you know, I think the Premier League is encroaching on becoming a major property in the United States. It's not quite there yet, but it's close. And I think the World Cup has become a major property in the United States. So maybe the halo effect of those two properties will help the MLS. I think that is more likely scenario than the Bundesliga hurting it, because I don't think anybody knows anything about the Bundesliga in the United States.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Bottom line for me, I guess I was uh this time or a year from now, maybe I'll know 10 teams in the Bundesliga instead of three.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

But bottom line for me, I can tell you with almost absolute certainty that I won't watch a Bundesliga match on USA, and I certainly won't watch one on Fandango.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Maybe I'll take a team in the Bundesliga.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Maybe I'll do that.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Take Wolfsburg, you know, in honor of the Carmen Ghia.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

You know what? Uh I'll I I'll take that under advisement.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

And that takes us to uh what is typically our favorite part of the show, talking a little bit about Ohio State. Uh and this week uh in Ohio State News, it's only it's only news like we all knew Jeremiah Smith made a lot of money. Uh his NIL valuation according to On3, uh, the website that follows this sort of thing, is 5.5 million, which is uh uh fifth in the uh amongst top 10 about college athletes. I was surprised two basketball players in there, third amongst college basketball, college football players. Do you know the other two?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Maybe Arch Manic?

SPEAKER_02 35:48

That's a great guess, but Arch, Arch, according to this list, is no longer even in the top 10.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Oh, because Arch took less money this year. I think that's why. Is it Dante Moore, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Dante Moore? Is it uh they're both at five million?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

So Dante Moore. It's gonna it's gonna be some obscure quarterback who I don't know. Yeah. Why did you say that? Uh just it just is Sam Levitt or some obscure quarterback that I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

You're right. It's uh Darien Mensah.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Oh, right, of of uh Miami, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:24

I don't even know where he came from. Where'd he come from?

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I don't know. I don't know, but but he's he's getting a lot of preseason hype this year, too.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

So he's played at where was he before? Was he he's played at uh he was at Tulane in 23-24, yeah. And now he's at the U.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

That's right. I should have known that he was at one of my alma maters, he was at Duke last year. That's right. That's right. He's a good player, he's a good player. I remember him from Tulane. Tulane was good a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

All right, well, you know, this is all I'm gonna tell him, Darren. Real top, there's a big old difference between Tulane expectations, Duke expectations, and the you.

unknown 37:12

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Especially when they started paying you six and a half million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, but but I but I you pointed out to me because you kind of said said told me, you sent me that you know Jeremiah Smith was five and a half or five, whatever with five and a half million. There were a lot of basketball players on there. I was shocked, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Um, but I shouldn't be because I will spin the bag on one basketball player because one basketball player can transform an entire program.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Uh, where one football player, unless he's the quarterback, uh, you need a bunch of guys to play football. One guy, I don't care who it is. One guy, if the rest of your team stinks, not gonna get it done.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Well, you you have one you have a quarterback, but you also need to have like a decent coach, too. In basketball, you just need one one or two guys who are better than everybody else, and you'll you'll make it into yeah, you'll make it into the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Uh but um what kind of year do you think Jeremiah's gonna have?

SPEAKER_00 38:17

You know, it's because I know you're down on the quarterback. That's why I asked you to do that. I'm not I'm not down on the quarterback. What I think's gonna happen is Ohio State's gonna lose a couple of games, and they're gonna try to blame somebody, and they're gonna probably blame the quarterback, and they're gonna bring the other guy in. What I just I I so there's two issues. There's there's there's a couple things to consider about uh Jeremiah Smith this year. Number one is will he have the equivalent of a Mecca Gbuka on the other end in Chris Henry? And the answer is he might toward the second half of the season. Maybe not towards the first few games of the season, but he might toward the second half of the season. So I think that will help his numbers out. Because right now, he's not he's getting double-teamed every single time he he gets out there.

SPEAKER_02 38:59

And there's definitely as a freshman, he caught 76 passes, 1,300 yards, 17.3 a catch, uh, 15 touchdowns, averaged 82 yards a game. As a sophomore, 87 catches, 1,250 yards, 14.3 per catch, 12 touchdowns, but he averaged 95.6 yards a game.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah. Um, so yeah, they get they're gonna have to uh that's because they let the but if you look at Carnell Tate, that's because you know they they would not let uh Jeremiah Smith go go deep. So Carnell Tate was was a beneficiary of that. So if there's another receiver, like I I said Eggbuca, but that was a couple years ago. It's if Carnell Tate, uh yeah, I think he'll I think he has a chance to get some big numbers up. The the other thing, too, is I think Ohio State's gonna be trailing a lot this year, a lot more than they're used to. So they're gonna have to pass a little bit more. So I think his numbers, I think his numbers will be up from a absolute number of catches and total number of yards. I don't believe his yards per catch is gonna move very much, though.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

I'd agree with that. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Uh, but uh, you know, he's one of the most exciting players in college football. Uh it'd be interesting to see how Ryan Day gets him the ball. Um, you know, because you all the great receivers get double teamed. So the fact that they're double teaming him, I don't care. You think they didn't double team Gary Rice? You think they didn't double team Randy Moss? That's true. So the OC's job, whether it's Arthur Smith, whether it's Ryan Day, whatever, is to create ways for him to get the ball. And to uh have your quarterbacks understand that sometimes it looks like he's covered, but he's not, throw it to him.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Yeah, and it's and it's the offense has to be bold.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

They can't put it.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

You know, and it's the the reason they won the national title in you know two years ago is because uh Will Howard threw a 40-yard completion to Jeremiah Smith on the critical play against Notre Dame. Yeah, they were bold, and Ohio State's offense was timid last year. And they have to be bold.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

I hate that.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

And they have to be bold, and the beneficiary of a bold offense is a wide receiver like Jeremiah Smith, in theory. So maybe he will have a breakout. He's already had a breakout season. Maybe he will have an even an even better season this year. Uh, do you think he would have stayed at Ohio State had he known that Darien Mensa was going to be the quarterback at the EU?

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Yeah, I think so. You do?

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Yeah, uh, I think he made a good choice. Uh he turned down more money to stay at Ohio State. I think that was good.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Uh for him, I think it's, you know, how can I be the best NFL receiver I can be? Ohio State's always gonna give me a chance to be in the hunt. Right. You know the surroundings, you know the you know how everything works. Uh you've already got money, so you know, already, if you've made the money he's made, the money that some other team is going to offer him is not changing his lifestyle. Because okay, you're making five, what are they gonna offer you? Six, six and a half, another million and a half does not change your lifestyle. So you might as well stay. It's not like those big major players where you're making 400,000 and somebody says, well, here's 800 or here's a million. Okay, that changed your lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

So if you jump, okay, I I get it, it makes sense to me. But if you're already making, and if you know, if you're making one and somebody offers you four, that's a big difference. You can change it. But the difference between five and six is negligible if you're in a good situation in a good spot.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

How are you feeling about so how you how are you feeling about uh Julian Sand this year?

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Oh, I think it'll be fine. Um I think it's a lot. I I worry a lot more about Arthur Smith. I ain't never liked nothing he ever did in the NFL. Hopefully, it's a Matt Patricia situation where I go, wow, I was I was wrong on him. I'm so happy to be wrong. Uh now the good thing is Arthur Smith has always done a good job with the running game. So maybe he'll figure out a way to maximize the running game. I think saying it's fine. I think saying it's good. Uh he's just, you know, this will be his second year at Ohio State, so he should be a little bigger, a little more durable. But man, it doesn't none of that really matters because when you're Ohio State, um there's going to be based on the schedule this year, it's gonna be four or five games where you got to go make a play. If you make a play, you'll have a great season in four of those games. If you make one, you'll have a great season. If you only make a play in a couple of them, uh it'll be a sad season.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

It's it's it's more than just making a play. The coaches have to put him him in a position to make a play, and that's what they didn't do last year.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

Yeah, they got scared. So I hey that was old Ryan Day. When they won the championship, as you said, they didn't play scared. Before they'd always played scared in big games.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

It was old, it was old Ryan Day in the last two games of the season. It was it was remarkable, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Yeah, all right. Thanks for ruining my evening. I was feeling great about this. Uh but when I play uh college football EA 27, Ryan Day is always very aggressive. I don't know why that is.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

But just just remember there's another school in the Big Ten that is having issues with its athletic director this week, and we're expecting some news, and we're having some news on the athletic director this week. So we could always be in that, we could always be in that you know, kind of mess of a uh program there.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yeah, that uh bays and blue collar.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Yeah, I mean that that dumpster fire of that poop sheet dumpster fire of illegality or whatever you want to call it, my you know, they've they've they have more scandals in the last two years than they have wins against Ohio State this century, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

So I like that. I like that. Uh uh hey, please uh we can always use your help. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Uh five stars only. If you're not gonna get five stars, don't you bother, okay?

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Yeah, fair enough. One other thing is that we have some some folks reach out to us this week. Uh you can email us, bottomlineonsports at gmail.com, bottomline on sports at gmail.com. You can reach out to us too. We had uh an ex in an NFL, a dad of an NFL player reach out to us this week, um, which was nice, um, among others. So, but yeah, you can reach us on email as well.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

All right, he's Jeremy Pink. I'm Jazak Taylor. We'll talk to you next week on the bottom line on sports.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

All right, see everybody next week.