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Oh my God, you guys are my favorite. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Rich Eisen. I know what I'm talking about.
That's the headline. The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Dan Schwartzman. OMG. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.
Oh my gosh. And now sitting in for Rich, it's Dan Schwartzman. Our number three Rich Eisen Show on this Friday, the last Friday of 2024.
How crazy does that sound, by the way? New Year's coming up next week. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich. Honored to be here for a second straight day.
And that's crazy Art Martinez. Last Friday of 2024. Where has the year gone? Oh my gosh.
Gone so fast. Where has 24 years, now 25 years gone since the whole Y2K thing. Will the computers blow up? They weren't programmed to hit 2000. Remember that?
What happens? 1999, we have a program and they weren't programmed to hit 2000. We were all afraid. We were all afraid that the world was going to fall apart. And they had that patch, I guess, and it all worked out. And here we are. 25 years later. 25 years have gone by.
Oh my goodness. Time flies, man. It's crazy how quickly the years go. Yeah, you ain't lying. Like you look at this year, it's like exactly where did 2024 go? You know what it is?
I'll tell you the problem. I've realized why it is, right? Most people, we live paycheck to paycheck or close to it, right? So you kind of live life on two week cycles. And it's not like you enjoy the next four summer months. It's like, okay, well, I got to make it to the next paycheck in two weeks. Before you know it, the months go by because you're just thinking, okay, I got to work hard the next two weeks to get the paycheck. Two more weeks at the paycheck. Two more weeks at the paycheck.
You know what I'm saying? Maybe I'm being very simple here, but I really think that's what it is. You live life looking ahead to the next time you get paid. And when you do that, the year goes by very quickly because you're not exactly enjoying the time in between the paychecks as much as maybe you should.
I know that sounds terrible, and I honestly believe that's what it is. Because most people don't have the luxury to sit back and say, yeah, you know what, say I'm going to blow $1,000 doing this or that. Yeah, tomorrow I'm just going to go on vacation because I can, you know? When money's not an issue. You actually enjoy life to where you can do what you want. We are a slave to getting paid. It's all about balance.
It's about balance. We are a slave to money. So you need money to survive, and that means you have to wait to the next payday and figure out how you're going to get there. And when you're figuring out how you're going to get to your next paycheck, the problem is you've not enjoyed those days in between, regardless of beautiful weather, where you live. It's about getting through the weeks to get to the next payday. And then when you see that money in your account, you say, ah, okay, so maybe enjoy a day or two.
But then you start paying your bills, whatever you have to pay, and next thing you know, you're back in the same predicament of saying, I've got to make it to the next payday. How do I do it? I didn't pay that bill.
I don't want to go to the mailbox and see if I get a notice. You know what I'm saying? You don't want to do that. I got news for you. I got good news for you.
What's that? The Mega Millions jackpot is $1,000. $1.22 billion drawing tonight.
I have even better news for you. Your chances of winning are one in 302 million, which means you got a chance. You got a chance. I'm going to buy, what is it, two bucks a ticket, I think.
Yeah, two bucks a ticket, yeah. I'll take 20 bucks and buy 10. There you go.
Why not? And we'll go to Europe together. I'll buy Europe with that. There you go.
But think about this, though, Art. If you buy the ticket, at least you have a shot. If you don't buy a ticket, you don't have a shot. You have no shot, yeah. You have no shot. You can't win if you don't play. I mean, frankly, you don't have a shot because, again, your odds are one in 302 million. But guess what? Somebody is going to win. Lightning strikes, doesn't it?
It could be you. I think you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning twice in your life than winning Mega Millions or Powerball. But it does strike. That's the whole point.
It does happen. Somebody is going to win either tonight or at the next strong or the next strong. You're going to win forever without not having a winner. The guy who won that $2 billion in LA, you think he had a chance?
I doubt he thought he was going to win. And then imagine sitting there, you pull up the numbers, you look at your ticket, and you're like, holy beep, I won. That's got to be the most ridiculous feeling in the world. I just want to know the euphoric feeling that you get when you watch that you've gotten all the numbers, literally. And then you get the IRS bill.
You're feeling depressed again. No, you don't. Because you know what? If you win $1.22 billion tonight, right? You get the cash payout, which is like $600.
You know what? $549, $549.7. OK, $549.7. OK, so you walk away $300 million. Guess what? It's not $1.22 billion, but you know what? You've just gotten yourself $300 million after taxes, for being clear. At least. At least. If you can't make ends meet on that one, that's on you, Art.
Exactly. Listen, you take $50 million. $50. Buy what you want. Nice little house, couple of cars, take care of your family.
Or you party like your Motley Crue, back in the 80s. And there goes the money. But no, but seriously, if I won $300 million, at least, free and clear, I would take $50 million, buy a nice place here in the States, buy a nice place overseas, and what I mean nice is you can buy a nice $10 million place here and overseas, buy yourself a nice $10 million place here and overseas, buy yourself a $1 million worth of cars, take care of your family and friends, right? And you still have $250 million sitting in the bank. Say you can earn 5% interest on $250 million. Oh my gosh, it's enough to retire on. Art, you're making $1 million just on interest.
Oh yeah. A month. A month. A month, right, because let's see, 5% of $250 million is $12.5 million a year. That's $1 million a month. Man, you still have $250 million in principle sitting there in your bank.
You're set. You're not even, exactly, you're set for life. Unless you're the biggest idiot in the world and you just, for some reason, decide you want to spend $300 million by buying 100 private islands, that's on you. But you still got the property. But right, you can always sell the property, that's true. So I'm just saying, I would not complain, even though the tax man would get half of my winnings for doing literally nothing, I would still be very happy if I, look, if I won the $20 million opening, like think about it, right, the $20 million opener when they start the new jackpots. You walk away with, say, $7 million, you should be able to live the rest of your life on $7 million.
It's not going to be as comfortable as $300 million, but you're still going to live in a nice place and you could even live off the interest of $7 million. Unless you're a complete fool. You're going to be in a lottery, period. How about that, Art? That'd be nice.
It would be nice, though, to win tonight. But I will go out and spend $20 and get 10 numbers, and as I walk around with a ticket in my pocket, I will feel like I have the winning numbers and start spending money in my head. That's what happens. You ever do that?
Uh, no. Like, if you have the ticket in your pocket, you're like, oh, man, you know, I feel like a winner here. And you're like, well, I would buy this, I would buy that. Would I show up for work on Monday?
Would I give two weeks notice? What would, you know, in my mind, I would always do that, forgetting that it's a 1 in 302 million chance to win. In my mind, I've won.
It's the craziest thing. And that's why I hate playing, because it's like, I feel like I've won. I start spending the imaginary money in my head, like what I do with it. And then, of course, you don't get one of the numbers correct. Not even close, right?
That's what always happens to me. With the LA Rams. With the LA Rams. Wearing those great goggles. And Adrian Peterson came within, I think, 9 yards of tying it.
Didn't get it. Well, Saquon Barkley here, through 15 games, has rushed for 1,838 yards. So, if he was to break this record, he needs to step it up in this last game. Right now, he's on pace. Even with the extra game, he is on pace for 2,083 yards. Although, I do think when O.J.
went over 2,000 for the first time, I think he did that in 14 games. Right. So, it's hard for Dickerson. Now, Dickerson said this when asked by the LA Times. Is he rooting for Saquon Barkley to break the record? He said, quote, I don't think he'll break it, but if he breaks it, he breaks it.
Do I want him to break it? Absolutely not. I don't pull no punches on that. But I'm not whining about it. He had 17 games to do it. Hey, football is football. That's the way I look at it. If he's fortunate to get over 2,000 yards and get the record, it's a great record to have.
Now, I'll tell you something interesting. Again, Dickerson needed two more games to break the record. Right?
Because O.J. did it in 14. Dickerson did it in a 16 game season. Right. So, does he have the legs to stand on and complain if Saquon Barkley does it in 17 games?
Probably not. But I do understand. Like, I always find it interesting when a player is like, yeah, I'm pulling for this guy to break my record.
Why? It's your legacy. Like, Eric Dickerson hasn't carried a football in like 30 years.
Right? Like, why would Eric Dickerson want somebody to break his record? Like, when you open a record book and you see the name Dickerson there, you want to stay relevant. There's your relevancy. Like, why would you want somebody to break your record?
It's like what happened a couple of weeks ago. Brett Favre was at some, like, autograph signing show in, where is it, Michigan or something? And Mark Gastineau, the former Jet Grade, I think Gastineau's a Hall of Famer. But Gastineau, yeah, he was a tremendous player. Gastineau confronted Favre, and it's on video because they did a documentary on the New York SAC exchange, and Gastineau confronted Favre angrily because... As well he should. As well he should, right.
And we'll get to that. But it's because Favre kind of went down to give Michael Strahan... Kind of went down. He took a dive.
He clearly took a dive. He went opposite the entire blocking scheme, let's not forget. Pretty much right into the arms of Michael Strahan, and with that SAC, Strahan broke Mark Gastineau's single season SAC record. I think Gastineau had 22 in a season, and that was 22 and a half for Strahan because he's at 21 and a half.
Now, it became moot because TJ Watt a couple years ago, he got 22 and a half SACs in a season legitimately, not without any quarterback that we know of taking a dive. So Gastineau confronted Brett Favre for doing that. He's pissed, and I understand why, because he worked for that record, right? He got the record. He had held that record for decades, and for him holding an NFL record, doing something no one else had done, meant something to him. To where he didn't think it was good sportsmanship for Brett Favre to allow his record to be overtaken cheaply by taking a dive so his buddy Strahan would hold the record. And by the way, Strahan has acknowledged years later that it's kind of hurt the record.
It's tainted. It's tainted because people will say Favre took a dive. Now, Favre has never come out flatly and said, yeah, I went down on purpose, so Strahan would get the record. He's never said that, but if you watch that play, it is more than fairly obvious that's exactly what happened there.
He clearly went down. You know, Bubba Franks, I think, is a tight end, is blocking one way, the offensive linemen are blocking one way, and Favre rolls out the opposite way of the scheme. Now, Brett Favre has been a veteran of the league for a long time at that point. I don't think he had called the wrong play in his mind and completely screwed things up. No, he clearly went, and then he sees Strahan coming at him, and he falls down, and Strahan just sits on him.
That was it. Sack record done. Again, T.J. Watt had 22.5 sacks a couple years later, so Gaston's record would have been broken, but you know what? It would have stood for another 10 years. Yeah, at least. At least 10 years when T.J. Watt did it.
And what was that, like 2022, whatever it was. So I understand the anger. I'm not sure I would have confronted Favre about it years later. I would have. I would have. Ah, what's the point?
In the day and age of social media, you can just post about it, right? You really need to confront the guy. And then apparently Gaston's wife had to come back and apologize because... Of course, that's what wives do.
Yeah, right? She felt it was kind of inappropriate to confront him at an autograph signing show and do it that way. But kudos to Eric Dickerson. Like, why would Eric Dickerson be happy that Saquon Barkley could potentially break his record? Love Eric Dickerson. I've always loved him. Love Dickerson.
To me, he is... I mean, what a career. Pure running back. I mean, pure running back. Guy rushed for 1,800-plus yards his rookie year. His first two years in the NFL, Dickerson had 4,000 yards rushing. Right around that number.
Think about that. He had like 4,000 yards rushing his first two years. 1,848 and then like 2,105.
Whatever it was. He almost had 4,000 yards rushing through the first two years of his career. Half the time it takes the average guy to get to 4,000 yards.
Yeah, I was a teenager watching him play. Now, Barkley has had a tremendous year and if he does in fact get the record, he probably should overtake Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen for MVP. They're not doing anything we have never seen before, right?
They're having great years, but we've seen great years like that. If Barkley gets over 2,105 yards, he will hold a legitimate NFL record and probably should be rewarded with an MVP. Who are the Eagles playing? So the Eagles, the next two weeks, are playing Dallas and the Giants. Oh, man.
He could do it. Yeah. Dallas' rushing defense is horrible. Now, the Eagles are preparing Kenny Pickett to play potentially against Dallas on Sunday because Jalen Hurts is still in the concussion protocol. So you can look at that two ways.
One is... He's going to get more carries. Well, right. He might get more carries, but the other way to look at it is the threat of the Eagles beating you passing the football may be less with Kenny Pickett, of course, than Jalen Hurts. So defenses may be playing the run strictly and saying, if we're going to lose this game to the Eagles, Kenny Pickett's got to beat us, not Saquon Barkley. You see what I'm saying? Oh, you mean stack the box.
Stack the box. If Kenny Pickett throws for 400 yards and beats us, by all means, kudos to him, we don't think he could do it. But do the Cowboys have the personnel to do that?
Depends on injuries, I guess. But look, Saquon has obviously stayed healthy this year. And if you look at his performances against those two teams already, against the Giants in October 20th, he had 17 carries for 176 yards in a touchdown. So he dominated them the first time around.
Now Dallas, which was a blowout win for the Eagles, so he didn't play as much, he had 14 carries for 66 yards. So yeah, that's not domination. But again, to do that in only 14 carries is domination. Unless they're blowing out the Cowboys. It doesn't matter. If they're blowing out the Cowboys, he's still going to get his carries. Well, but you got to think about this though. Should the Eagles care about a record or should they care about making sure he stays healthy for the playoffs?
That's a good question. He's already carried the football 314 times this year. So if you want to put that in perspective, he's never carried the football this many times in his career. In 2022 with the Giants, he had 295 carries.
He's also had 31 catches this year. So there's a lot of mileage on Saquon Barkley this year to where if you're leading the Cowboys 21-0 in the third quarter and Saquon's rushed for 80 yards, do you say, okay, let's keep running him because he's rushing for a record? Or do you say, okay Saquon, sorry, but I'm taking you out because I want you to be healthy for the playoffs. Because ultimately, what's more important for Saquon Barkley? Establishing a new rushing record or winning a ring? I would hope it's winning a ring, right?
Yeah, absolutely. You play football because you want to win the ultimate trophy, which is win a Super Bowl. Not to beat Eric Tigerson's rushing record.
That's a nice little, you know, additional piece to it. Yeah, we won a Super Bowl and I was the all-time leading rusher this year, or, you know, in NFL history for a season. So I think if it's a blowout type of game, it doesn't actually work in Saquon Barkley's favor. I do think the Eagles and Nick Sirianni would take him out. And you know, Saquon might say take me out. Because remember, earlier this year he had a chance to break the Eagles' single game record for rushing yards. He said, nah, put the young players in.
Let them have a chance to eat. Good for him. Good for him. Now he ended up breaking the record later in the year anyway. But still, I mean, it's not like he's a selfish type of player. He's not. So if he wins it, amazing. Mike Vorkanov, NBA business reporter for the Athletic.
It's going to be fun talking with him next. I want to know more about the loss of ratings in the NBA. What does it really mean? Remember, they already have the new TV deals, but the ratings continue like this. Are they going to say, wait a minute, why are you paying this much when the viewership is down?
And also, should the NBA be happy with the ratings numbers for the five Christmas Day games? Mike Vorkanov, national basketball business reporter for the Athletic joins us next as we continue to roll along here on a Friday. I'm Josh Schwartzman in for Rich.
It's the Rich Eisen Show. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back. And find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. So stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit us at OReillyAuto.com slash Eisen.
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Game time. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger. With supplies and solutions for every industry, Grainger has the right product for you.
Call, click grainger.com or just stop by. Where are we at now? 23 past the hour, this is hour three.
Dan Schwartzman in for Rich on the Rich Eisen Show on this Friday. Last Friday of 2024, NBA season rolls along. Ratings out for the 5... And they average five and a quarter million viewers per game. And that actually is the best numbers they've had in five years.
Good ratings news went a few weeks ago where last week the ratings news came out that they're down 17%. Mike Vorkanov of the National Basketball Business Department for the Athletic joining us. Mike, first off, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to you and the family. Yes, you guys as well. All the holidays. You get to celebrate them all at once. You know what? Why not?
Why not? Let's throw them all in there. As many presents as the kids want, right?
Let's pile them up for the kids. Because frankly, we get nothing. You know, I've got nothing. Literally nothing. What got me nothing?
The kids got me nothing. And I've had to buy them stuff, of course. Isn't that unbelievable?
Of course. It's a good way to go broke. It's a good way to go broke, right?
I guess my wife and kids are being financially responsible by not buying me squat. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, you know, maybe like one thing. I don't like this anymore. I don't really care. I don't need anything, right? I wear the same six shirts.
I rotate in my washroom. Whatever. But like, don't you think one gift would have been nice? Like one, Mike?
Yeah, just like one token thing under the tree so you feel a little less lonely this year. I get it. I understand. I'm not going to complain.
I will complain publicly, but I will not complain privately in my house to the wife and kids because I will never win that. Alright, let's get the NBA here, Mike. Good news, the ratings were good for Christmas Day. They needed to hear that news. Five and a quarter million viewers per game. That's the best numbers in the last five years. You said, though, we get the news recently that ratings are down 17 percent right now. How concerned should the league be?
I would say not really that concern for a number of reasons. One, you know, I think you have to take ratings as a whole throughout the entire year. Ratings are always weaker for the NBA before Christmas. But honestly, I think the bigger thing is they just signed a new deal. It's going to be 11 years long. And by the time it ends in 2036, I don't think any of us know what the correct metric is to judge interest and viewership for the NBA, let alone what the networks will value in the next media deal. And so for now, I think it's kind of just data points that will fit whichever side of your views of the NBA that you're on right now.
And you can just get to throw out a bunch of red herrings if you want. You know, Mike, Juan Soto gets a 15-year deal for the Mets, fully guaranteed. He could lose a leg.
It doesn't matter. They have to pay him all that money. You just mentioned it's an 11-year deal with the networks, and it's a lot of money, by the way, for the NBA.
Are there any outs, or is this guaranteed? Whatever happens to the networks and ratings and viewership and their money situations, are they on the hook for 11 years, or are there outs? No, they're on the hook for 11, and I think that's kind of what the NBA wanted, in the sense that they get to lock this in for 11 years, get to live through this next generation of media distribution churn, right? And they get revenue certainty out of it, and then whenever they come out of it in 2034, 35, whenever they start negotiating their next media right deal, they can see what things look like. And that's why they went and negotiated the CBA early, so they could be ready for the next media rights discussion, and so I think that part is to their benefit, is that they get to go the next decade, see what everyone is watching sports on in 2034, you know, 2035, what the networks value or the streamers value, whether that be subscriptions, ratings, total streams at once, whatever the metrics might be, and then they get to come out of it. And then I think we'll be able to have a strong discussion about what is good for the league and what's not good for the league, whereas now, the losses in viewership, the gains in viewership, we can all kind of nitpick them and they're all kind of marginally higher, marginally lower, but I think it's not that big of a deal right now.
Yeah, but Mike, you know what? I think for the NBA, this is a great deal. I think the numbers they got were massive. I think for the networks, it's a bad deal. And for me, if you're these networks and you see the number of cord cutters over the years, and let's face it, young people are not getting cable, right? They've cut the cord.
They're all on streaming. I think for them, it's going to be harder and harder to justify if numbers keep going down year after year at the end of these 11 years potentially. This may turn out to be a bad deal for them. I think the league's going to look great with it, but I worry about the networks, Mike, in the sense of without any sort of out, they're locked into spending these billions of dollars for a product that the viewers may not be watching as much right now and in the future. I'm going to qualify by saying I haven't read the full contract yet, but you know, for let's say NBC, right? One of the nights is going to be exclusively on Peacock. So that's going to be streamed. I'm sure a bunch of other games will be streamed on Peacock. Amazon obviously is a streaming only type of affair with how the NBA games will be viewed there. And I'm sure a bunch of the ESPN ABC games will be streamed as well. And likely in 2025 when ESPN launches, it's kind of highly anticipated flagship over the top app. And so I think a number of these games will kind of go with the networks wherever their next form of broadcast distribution will be. And that's obviously, you know, fewer people watching cable, fewer people have cable, fewer people watching on network TV, linear TV, and more people are streaming. And I think these games will be on there as well. And so they'll be able to carry those viewers, I think, on whatever their next form of media distribution will be.
So I think it'll age a little bit better than expected. I guess the question is, and maybe this is just more so a big question for all sports, maybe outside just like the NFL, which nothing it does matter if people just keep watching, is will people keep watching live sports, period? Because you see some trends where younger viewers don't watch games, they watch highlights, and then it doesn't matter what the distribution channels are. And I think the NBA obviously has to worry about that, just like pretty much every other sport has to worry about that. Mike Vorkanov, national basketball business reporter for The Athletic, joining us here on the Rich Eisen Show.
Dan Schwartzman in for Rich on this Friday. I think the problem is people try to compare themselves to the NFL, and the NFL to me seems to be Teflon. They can do wrong, but in the ratings they never do wrong. And people continue to watch, and the numbers are staggering. And every year you look at the top 100 watched shows on TV, and the NFL has like 95 of those shows or something ridiculous like that. And I think maybe, you're right, the NBA will have streaming options. I just don't know if people will do what they've done with the NFL, which is I don't care if it's on Prime, I don't care if it's on Netflix.
It's the NFL. We're going to watch. And I don't know if that's going to be the same way with Warriors and Lakers on streaming.
I have to watch that. I don't know if the numbers will translate the way it has for the NFL moving to streaming for games when it comes to the NBA. I think that's the worry that I have when it comes to these networks, maybe overestimating the value of the NBA or Major League Baseball, which also now has games on Prime. But maybe I'm wrong, Mike.
I don't know. I think that's what they're banking on, right? Oh, look, I would never compare any sport to the NFL, right? Like we just had college football, which gets the second highest viewership of any sport, go up against the NFL for the first round of its playoff, and it got creamed.
So this is a problem for everybody. And I think that that would be foolhardy to compare any league to the NFL. I'm kind of curious to see what happens. I think at some point you'll have a rebundling of these streaming apps. You'll have kind of a cable 2.0 or whatever you want to call it. I think that'll make it easier to watch sports, make watch TV and kind of we can become passive viewers again, right? Where you just kind of flip on your TV channel, flip along your cable package until you find the channel you like, which you can't do right now because we have so many differentiated streaming apps. And I think maybe that'll change the viewership habits for so many people.
But I think it is. I think it's a question of what this all looks like in five to 10 years of how people watch sports, where they watch sports and who provides it for them. But, you know, I think you also see that live sports are the most valuable thing out there.
And that's why the NBA got 11 years, 75 billion dollars for the rights for their games. And I'm generally just more curious what all of our viewing habits will look like in seven years. Where are we watching? How are we going to be watching?
That's a great point. People watch a lot now on their phones. You know, I've always been like, if I'm going to watch a movie, I want a big screen, right?
And yet you have all these people. I watch them on public transportation, literally watching movies on their phones. I'm like, how do you watch an entire movie on your phone? To me, I can't do that. But I'm also 46 years old. I'm not 20 years old. But, you know, it's also a case where the people don't have the mind frame to sit there and watch two hours straight.
And I think I've kind of fallen into that because there's so much information absorbed out there right now. You're right. Do people want to sit down for two to three hours to watch a live sporting event? Or is it going to be the highlights or the red zone? You know, how are the leagues and networks going to adapt to the viewing habits of people? And I think that is going to be very interesting to see how that does move forward.
And no one has the answer. So for the NBA, it's a great deal. Now, with that money you mentioned, Mike, the billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars over the next 11 years. I heard that star players signing supermax contracts moving forward and Shea Gilgus Alexander was the name I heard, potentially could earn up to $80 million a year. Is that accurate? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think we're going to see if the cap goes up the way it has been and then, you know, the next CDA doesn't change anything about kind of what a max player is. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we get to $100 million a year player within a decade, maybe a year less. $100 million a year? That's right. Over a million dollars a game. Oh, my goodness.
You know what, though? I'm not surprised. I look at some of these contracts and, Mike, I'm telling you, guys who are maybe average players at best, right? And it's like this guy got a three years, $59 million contract, three years, $60 million contract. I'm thinking the guy just averaged six points, five rebounds a game and he's getting double digit millions a year. The money's gotten outrageous. Is this really sustainable, Mike?
I mean, why not? The salary cap and player salaries are just a reflection of how much revenue the league is getting, right? Players are guaranteed roughly 50% of all basketball revenue. So, you know, if the NBA keeps making the money that it does and that keeps going up the way it does, the players will keep getting 50% and the max player gets 35% of the salary cap. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely sustainable.
It's just the numbers are so large now we might have to readjust to it. But sports is not sports, right? It's a multi tens of billions dollars entertainment enterprise and that's kind of what it is. It's a business and I think it's going to take a while for us to understand truly the amount of money applied. Yeah, and the NBA is perfect for this, obviously, because you have smaller sized rosters. The NFL will never have contracts at the $100 million mark even though they bring in the most revenue and that's because you have 53 guys on a roster. Everybody's got to get paid something. Meanwhile, when you have to split 50% of league revenue, and as you said, 35% to a supermax player, whatever it is, you're talking split amongst what? 12 guys on a roster. So the money is going to be outrageous.
And that's what we're seeing now. You know, Bam Adebayo got three years, $166 million. You're talking about guys making $50 plus million a year. Guys making $60 million a year closer to the end of their supermax deals.
Guys turning down. Jimmy Butler's guaranteed $52 million next year and all indications are is he's going to opt out of that to try to sign a longer term deal and cash in even more money. Mike Vorkanov, national basketball business reporter for The Athletic. Mike, appreciate the time. As always, my friend, again, happy holidays and happy New Year to you and the family. Yeah, Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah to everyone and to you too.
Thank you so much. How about that? How about that crazy amount of money? That is unbelievable, right? $100 million a year player. And we're not that far off from that. Not that far off from that. That's insane.
Staggering. If your kid can play any sport right now, like say your kid is guaranteed to be a star. No, no, but you know what? You could be a 6'2 shooting guard, right? I mean, Allen Iverson is six feet tall maybe?
Maybe? So, I mean, the whole point is if you're going to be a star athlete in any sport today, it should be the NBA. Here's why. You play 82 regular season games and now that you have these load management things, so you only play, say you play like 75 a year. Yeah, you got the playoffs and things like that.
Great. You play in a climate controlled indoor environment, right? You play in the winter months, so you actually have the summer off. Baseball, you're playing in the summer, so you have the summer off in the NBA and you're making more money per year than any other sport can pay you. Not with endorsements, by the way. I'm just talking pure salary.
That includes European football, by the way. Like Messi and Ronaldo and guys like that make a ton of money a year. And yes, they're probably making 50, 60 million dollars in salary potentially, but most of their money or a large chunk of the money is endorsement deals. And yeah, you have crazy contracts now like, you know, Shohei Ohtani ten years, 700 million, but you know, 680 million of that is deferred money to where the actual value per year is about 47 million dollars. A ton of money, but still not at the NBA level.
I mean, think about the NBA right now. Who's worth 100 million? It's unbelievable.
I mean, it's unbelievable. Right now, this year, Steph Curry is the highest paid player in the league at 55.76 million dollars. Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant, they're making a little over 51 million, so they're averaging a million dollars a week. Bradley Beal is making 50 million, so you have one, two, three, four, five guys that are making 50 plus million dollars right now. The 40th highest paid player in the NBA right now is making 35 million dollars. Unbelievable. The 40th highest paid player in the league. It's honestly, it's...
In a sport that nobody's watching. Yeah, ratings have gone down 17%. But what Mike said is correct right now. It's about the TV deals. They got 11 years, 76 billion, and when you talk about league revenue having to be split 50-50 with the players, so take, you know, billions of dollars that you have to pay the players. Take the fact that there's 12-man rosters, so there's less players to split the money amongst. Take the fact that when you talk about max types of deals, super max types of deals, there's a set percentage of the salary cap that that deal is worth, so it's not even negotiable. The only negotiation is, does the team want to give you that contract or not? There's no negotiating dollar amounts, right? The amount is the amount.
It's laid out already. All right, Dan, is this model sustainable? Can they sustain?
How long? Well, you know what? Mike said they can. As long as the TV revenue's there, they can. But to me, it's a bad deal not for the NBA but for the networks. You're locked into 11 years when right now cable TV, the future cable TV's up in the, or network TV's up in the air. Comcast is trying to rid itself of NBC Universal.
They don't want to deal with TV anymore because while it makes money now, they don't see the growth revenue-wise moving forward because to them, the money now is the max amount they're going to get because young people are not buying cable right now. Not watching, yeah. I'm about to cut the cord. I'm sick of it.
I pay a ton and for what? I never watch it. Outside of watching sports, what am I watching on network television?
Nothing. Maybe the news. Just the news. But you can get the news anywhere right now.
You can get the news anywhere. I love the Blue Bloods but that's off the air now, so the heck with that. I don't need network television now for that. Donnie Wahlberg was awesome. Oh, what a great show. I love Tom Selleck. What a great show.
And Donnie Wahlberg's great. The whole point is everybody's watching streaming, right? Everybody's got Netflix, Prime, Apple TV+, all that. So why am I paying hundreds of dollars for cable when no one's watching anymore? And honestly, all the good stuff's showing up not on cable anymore. Remember, you used to need HBO and Showtime to watch movies.
Well, guess what? I can buy the latest movie on Prime. Exactly.
I can buy it on Netflix. I don't need to wait for it to come out on the quote-unquote premiums. So why would you lock yourself into 11 years when you're networking and you have no idea what the future holds for your viewership? And the numbers are going to go down. They're not going to go up. I think it's a terrible deal. To not build in an out clause is just pure stupidity on the part of the networks. And here's why that happens. Because the people making the deals right now will not be in charge in five, six years to where they're going to sit there going, my goodness, can we please renegotiate this? This is killing us.
Yeah, at some point it is going to. It's like politicians who will give unions massive raises and stuff because they don't care. Because they'll get the votes now and at the end of their term, it doesn't matter anymore. It's out of their hands. They're out of office. They're out of office. What do they care? Meanwhile, you've saddled the taxpayer with a ton of costs. But does it matter? You're out of office.
You got the votes. And I think that's what's happening here. So I don't think it's sustainable long term because I would be highly surprised that in nine years from now or ten years from now when they start negotiating the next TV deals... It's not going to happen. I don't think they're getting more money. I don't think they're getting seven million a year or six and a half billion dollars a year. Unless these networks are really stupid, which they might be. Think about this for Netflix. Now Netflix prints money. I understand the streaming services overpaying for sports because they can afford it, right? Like Amazon Prime is printing money. So it comes down to this.
I'm going to explain to you on the other side why it makes sense for them to actually lose money, but it doesn't for the networks. We're going to wrap things up coming up next. Always fun filling in for the big man himself, Rich Eisen. Dan Schwartzman in on The Rich Eisen Show. Now when I tell the story, I go, he went and got breakfast. There you go. Bagels. Yeah.
Watch what Lala is talking about on YouTube or search for Give Them Lala wherever you listen. Wrapping things up, a Friday edition of The Rich Eisen Show. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich last Friday of 2024. Talked about the business aspect of, say, the NBA with the 11 year $76 billion. Very enlightening.
It was. Great conversation with Mike Vorkanov from The Athletic. He's a national basketball business reporter. The dollar amounts for players. You can see $100 million a year players very shortly, by the way.
But we talked about this in the last segment. Netflix paid $75 million per game to air the Christmas Day doubleheader. They were selling packages, ad packages where you got eight ads, eight 30 second ads for $5 million. So, look, you're paying about a little over $1.1 million per minute.
So a pretty decent rate. That's really good. Now, Art, you run the games for Westwood One.
Yes. And you counted that there were 32 slots for commercials within the game broadcast. On our Sunday night broadcast, yes, there's 32 slots.
Okay, 32. And some of those are local breaks. So we have to run PSAs for the local stations. Right. It's not even our networks.
Right. So they offer that eight ad package to the eight major NFL sponsors like InBev, which is a big Brazilian slash Belgium beverage company. It owns Budweiser and brands like that.
Verizon, Lowe's, the big bigs, the giant companies that can afford it. So even if eight companies, somehow they fit 64 slots with pregame, postgame, whatever it might be. Say they fit 64 slots to give the eight big advertisers those packages, you're talking $40 plus million, say $45 million. And you're still losing money. You're still losing $30 million. You paid $75 million. If you want to recoup $75 million to at least break even to broadcast an NFL game, you have to literally charge double. And no one's paying double.
You're not paying $10 million for four minutes. Right. This isn't the Super Bowl. Yeah, it's a regular season game. It's not the Super Bowl.
Exactly. Not even the playoffs. It's a regular season game. It had 24.3 million viewers per game for the late game, 24.14 chiefs and Steelers. So you're talking about less than a quarter of the audience of a Super Bowl. So if a Super Bowl ad is going for $5 million for 30 seconds, you know, you can't be charging $2 to $3 million when a quarter of the eyes or even a fifth of the eyes are watching your product.
But these networks don't care. It's the prestige of having the NFL on your network. They will lose money, but they can at least say the home of the NFC, home of the playoffs, home of the Super Bowl.
To them, that means something. It's like why have a flagship store if you're a fashion brand on Fifth Avenue in New York City where you rent some million dollars a month? You're losing your shirt in that store. You cannot sell enough product to cover your rent. But guess what? If you're a fashion brand, you need to say we have stores in Milan and in New York City, right?
You have to. Like if you're Gucci, you cannot not have a store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. I wouldn't know anything about what you're saying. I can tell by the way you dress, Art. But still, the bottom line is, but you know, it makes sense. If you're a fashion brand, you have to be on Fifth Avenue in New York City if you want legitimacy.
If you're Ferragamo or Gucci or Coach, whatever it might be. It doesn't matter. It's the same thing if you're a network, you want the NFL.
Why? Because the NFL is a ratings juggernaut. But you're not going to make money on the NFL. Netflix isn't coming out of Christmas Day saying we made money. No, they're coming out saying we lost 80 million bucks but we don't care.
Because we now have the NFL. We're a multi-gajillion dollar company, right? The money is all going to Netflix and Prime and Apple. It's the streaming. That's where the money is right now on TV. It's not the networks. Outside of the Super Bowl and the playoffs, how much are the networks really going to be bringing in for their billions of dollars they're spending? They're losing their shirt on this stuff. Losing tons of money. Losing tons of money. But they don't care.
I could use some of that money. Exactly. But to a point you can justify it with the NFL when you have tens of millions of people watching. I don't understand how you can justify paying billions of dollars a year for the NBA when on Christmas Day, which is supposed to be their day, you average five and a quarter million viewers per game. And that's a good number for them, by the way.
No offense. There's 340 million people in America. Five million plus are watching my product. Why am I paying billions of dollars for that? To me, it's a model that's not sustainable. No. I don't even think the NFL model is sustainable, to be honest with you.
I don't. It's never considered good business to lose money, right? You don't go into business to lose money.
Every decision you make business-wise should be to make money. That's the whole point of it. But I don't get how it's okay when it comes to professional live sports. They don't care that they lose money on the product so that they can puff out their chest with the prestige of being the home of the NFL, the AFC, the NFC, whatever it might be.
I honestly don't understand it, especially when these networks have shareholders and they have to provide quarterly results and showing their money. Explain everything. Explain gains and losses. How do you explain the NFL? Hey, guys, we lost a billion dollars in the NFL, but we don't care because we had this many people watch, but yet you lost money. It's mind-boggling to me the amount of dollars spent on live sports programming when it's literally impossible to recoup that investment.
It's bad business that's actually looked upon as being good business. I want to thank Mike Sandoz, senior NFL writer for The Athletic, Chris Venini, Covers College Football for The Athletic, and Mike Vorkanov, national basketball business reporter for The Athletic for joining us on the show today. Man, final Friday of 2024. Happy New Year, Dan. Great job. Happy New Year to you as well, Art. Great job from you as always. It's been fun filling in the last couple of days for Rich. Until the next time. Again, I'm Dan Schwartzman for Rich right here on The Rich Eisen Show. Take care. My world with Jeff Jarrett, wherever you listen.
