What's Going on with ESPN and DirecTV and the Future of Sports Streaming? | The Dan Le Batard Show

what exactly is going on with venue Sports what's the snag there venue Sports is a they're in trouble venue Sports was invented by three different companies as a sports tier and it didn't involve CBS it involved Warner Brothers who is going to lose the NBA but they're in a lawsuit and it involved Murdoch and fox and they're trying to figure out how can we get someone to give us 45 bucks a month to get channels that you can get somewhere else in order to make it easier to find sports and then Edgar bronfman Edgar bronfman remember that name who happens to be the Seagrams guy who happens to be the one who tried to buy CBS but it didn't work and that's why sky Dan has it Edgar bronfman has this thing thing called fubo which are we on fubo stugots did you write that down I have no idea I have fubo though I had the uh the free trial I mean that's how they get you Mr free trial I'm certainly paying for it every month I mean nobody remembers to cancel except St Gods he takes the free trials and has a spreadsheet the most disorganized guy in the world knows exactly when to cancel so he doesn't have to pay for anything that is absolutely on Brandon tracks perfectly but venu Roy is this tier and fubo said wait a minute this is a violation of antitrust this isn't fair you're not able to do this tier this is getting in the way of us trying to do our own sports tiers and a judge actually agreed and a judge granted an injunction which meant venue couldn't even start they were going to start in August and now there's lawsuits and all sorts of things happening and we don't know where this ends except I think I do venue's going to disappear so is this a similar thing to uh when Disney got uh Regional Sports networks and they had to give it up because of a monopoly that's one of the greatest things that's not even talked about enough because those Regional Sports networks are all bankrupt now and what Disney did in a fit of forced Brilliance is they were told by the Department of Justice that they had to sell out those networks and they found a buyer at a ridiculously overinflated price and it is funny what the Department of Justice does is they try to help us the consumer they try to keep prices down keep people being competitive I'm not sure they're doing great in the airline industry but we can talk about that later so they're looking at all these different deals and different ways to stop these deals from happening and one of the things that they will look at when there is this consolidation in the streaming world where we're trying to get on all the different streamers wondering who's going to win at the end of the day is anytime mergers happen the doj looks and says we don't think that this is good and that's what they said to Disney that forced them to sell those networks David what is the say Financial return of a a show or or a comedic entity making a musical I'm going to say close to zero when you are asked let me give you one quick bit of advice if you're asked I'm sorry to invest in a Broadway show or a movie here's an idea don't do it well you say that as we build a Content company that makes movies I want to make Dan if I'm making it I can make the money if you're asked to be a limited partner sort of like being a limited partner in any business be very careful just be very very careful so I will explain to the peacock audience here that David Samson does a podcast every day nothing personal and while it covers a lot of ground the best ground it covers and he does this with John Skipper and Pablo Tori as well on the sporting class as part of our lebatard and Friends Network uh is no one has a grasp for the complexities of what is happening in sports business right now and covers it better than this person and especially when he's with Skipper and Pablo because they've done the work to know and be informed on business subject matter and the reason I bring all that up is while we're in the content business one of the things that I find hugely fascinating about Pat McAfee kicking down the door on Disney and Iger coming out and saying and I need the Mannings to I need to evolve this thing is the fact that when Tom Cruz and Will Smith I'm reading Will Smith's uh autobiography right now no one understands how hard those human beings had to work and have to work to be the biggest movie star in the world no one understands how hard Tom Brady and pton Manning and LeBron James had to work to be the things they are they are insistent on being those things now with Disney's money and Hollywood's money because they're in the making things business but it's hard to make them well it's not hard to make them Untold has fallen apart because it's not hard to make make them it's hard to make them consistently well and so when Manning and Brady and LeBron are and McAfee and Shannon sharp and all of these people are fighting with each other with Disney's money and they're trying to run off the journalists and Stephen A Smith is saying hey wait a minute journalism still matters and mcafe is going to ESPN and saying no it doesn't because you rent now You Don't Own Me you rent what are you interested in in there David when people are fighting over these Giants of sport are fighting over the money that Disney has to give away to keep up the number one thing is that owning your own intellectual property that is the most important thing in today's media World owning your feed owning your audience and I say that in the nicest best possible way and because that leads to portability and like free agency in sports that is the way to make the most money when you are a free agent and you own your talent and you can bring with you an existing TurnKey big operation you get paid multiples of what you're worth then you can reinvest that money and diversify your revenue streams that's what all these people are doing and we're doing it to at metalark well that's what metalark is like I don't believe that ESPN knew the value of giving us our intellectual property we're in this fight with these people because Disney gave us that to get out maybe they're just being nice no no no maybe they just want to get rid of us no no they actually made a business deal but you made a better one yeah yeah I paid for it one Zer I mean they did want to get rid of us though yeah that's true yeah yes a little dicey at the end it was a little dicey at the end uh yeah they wanted to get rid of Chris Cody well they did they didn't they did get rid of him and then the joke was on us he was an employee longer than the rest of us uhhuh Chris Cody you understand I just want people blame the kid for the divorce okay I'm not blaming the kid the kid it might have been the final straw but this this was not a marriage that was flourishing the kid is not being blamed for the divorce the I feel resentments from a lot of people in this room and ites with schilly okay for Disney World the the resentment is because you've climbed to the executive producer chair because we've decided we're going to fight Tom Brady and LeBron and pton Manning with Chris Cody there would be no resentment if you just gave Billy Disney vouchers Dan that's all that that's all it is just give him some Disney vouchers start Billy all right it's a start cuz I'll negotiate with your next contract right now I'll fill it with Disney vouchers Neti L money you know what Billy well we did get those guest passes and there was coupons for 20% off I got a deal for you Billy I don't know all of your God bless football pay is in Disney passes as many as you want for yourself that's no passes you didn't keep any Disney friends I still I still got a few I don't like asking people for things I do it all the time I hate asking people for things love you Randy I'm glad we've got an expert in these matters hey hey David I do want to ask you I'm a loyal Direct TV subscriber and lo and behold I can't get ESPN I cancelled or any any other Disney owned channels you really canceled I canceled yeah I want to watch the US Open I want to watch college football I get home Direct TV doesn't have ESPN it's driving me crazy I cancel I couldn't watch the US Open either David is is this the largest kind of uh conflict between a content provider and a Content distributor that you can remember no there was one just as big last year with Charter and uh it ended right at right as the NFL season was starting and Stu I want to really dig into that you actually called Direct TV and cancelled all of Direct TV and what did you do to get ESPN so I uh I signed up for YouTube TV I now have ESPN I have it there I had to get the NFL Sunday Ticket anyway so I just decided to go full YouTube and once this Charter disagreement is gone are you going to get Direct TV back or are you now permanently done with Direct TV I think I'm permanently done with Direct TV as long as I can get the FBI shows on YouTube TV I'm good I mean isn't that all that's happening David throughout like sports fans are trying to keep up with the new normal which is I'm going to have to start cancelling a bunch of stuff because I'm not going to have all the just don't understand David how all of this is so sloppy all of it that it makes it so that all of these entities have to go find their oil wells elsewhere and double dip on stuff and make the customer go and now Chase it around because the the money has all changed the way that we're used to doing things boy Dan you're the king of the slop though you know exactly when you're trying to do something different and new that it's going to be sloppy and there's going to be twist turns fits stops and starts that may last three and a half years so there's a complete what some are calling an existential crisis including the people at Direct TV are saying that there's a misunderstanding about what is happening in the world and Disney does not want to acknowledge it and that is the fight ESPN wants to get paid what they've always been paid by Direct TV and Direct TV is saying no we can't pay you that amount anymore it's a brand new world and as a consumer we are paying not less for cutting the cord and for getting rid of cable like Stu do the math you got rid of Direct TV I know you do the math God knows if you don't do that you you're doing nothing about how much you're paying per month when you get rid of Direct TV but add YouTube TV add the streamers that you need to get football and my guess is you're going to be exactly where you were with cable or even a little higher I'm going to be I'm going to be exact just about exactly within a few dollars pretty much where I was with just Direct TV which is amazing I mean I'm thrilled about it you know that's awesome that you're thrilled most most consumers were hoping to actually get less pay less money to get just what they want and it turns out that all this bundling and going back to venue it's all about bundling again we're actually going full circle back to what really was cable it's quite unbelievable what's the movie you're reviewing for us this week I just wanted to spend a minute and I reviewed this on nothing personal but I wanted this morning but I wanted to do it here as well I wanted to talk about Pearl Jam and Pearl Jam 20 I had a chance to go to the Pearl Jam concert last night at Madison Square Garden and uh and make it back of course to do the live show at 8:00 and there's a documentry by Cameron Crow called Pearl Jam 20 and it was their 20th anniversary and I did not know the provenance of Pearl Jam and how Eddie veter got to the band I wasn't really aware of their backstory and what they've done and how they've done it and Cameron Crow is one of my if not my favorite movie maker he's done singles and Jerry Maguire and no famous Etc so so I would encourage you to watch pearljam 20 and if you can see Eddie veteran in concert I would also encourage that David good seeing you thank you I will tell the new peacock audience NBC Sports channel uh that David Samson's podcast which is largely uh available everywhere you find all of your podcasts but is also televised on YouTube the name of it is nothing personal and the business stuff he's doing all the stuff is good but the business stuff he's doing is better than anybody is doing it in sports media thank you David thank you