Coming up on the pod upticks for NBA All-Star weekend. Plus, a look ahead to the Paris Olympics and Apple TV+. MLS lead voice Taylor Wellman revisits his epic rant. What are we doing? What are we doing? This is the. Sports media podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal. Welcome back, everybody, to another sports media podcast. I'm Austin Karp. Hope everyone is enjoying the short week. If you had President's Day off. Joining me now is Taylor Wellman, the lead voice of MLS season
pass on Apple TV+. Taylor, thanks for taking the time to chat. Yeah big fan. How are you? Awesome and doing great. Appreciate that. Another big season coming up. Year two of MLS season pass on Apple TV+. It was a really big year last year with Messi joining the league. Our own Alex Silverman reported that, you know, Apple TV+ surpassed 2 million subs for that. I mean, but you talk about go back to last year. Talk about how the star was and then how much Messi injected into MLS the rest of the s
eason. It's a great question. I'll be telling the story about it for a long time to my grandkids and for years to come, just for everything I experienced. First and foremost, I think Major League Soccer hasn't gotten enough credit for how they embarked on this journey of trying to bring every single game through their partnership and relationship with Apple TV for the next ten years. And so they did a fantastic job in year one to get it off and running. It's just Lionel Messi who showed up in th
e middle of the summer and he lit it on fire. He has a tendency to do that. Yeah he does. He has a tendency to light everything on fire. So it was, it you know, the best way to answer this, Austin, is this is that my father played in the NASL and he played when the Pele days were there. And I remember him talking about Messi's debut last year, saying, Taylor, we didn't know Pele in the cosmos till 4 or 5 days later. Messi scores the free kick. You can see it all over the world because of the App
le TV relationship. Austin it's hard to quantify that. When Zlatan had his debut with the L.A. Galaxy, that wasn't the case. But because of this partnership with Apple TV and Major League Soccer in over 100 countries, billions of people saw the fact that he did that in a pink jersey and Inter Miami. And I just for the luck of it, was there and calling the game. So I think that's the best way I would try to quantify it. The other way is this I took my girls to Taylor Swift. I compared Lionel Mess
i to Taylor Swift because I've never seen at a sporting event 20,000 plus. People want to be in the parking lot or the area of just the bus driving by without any tickets to go to the game. It's a phenomenon, a phenomenon unlike anything I've ever experienced. And quite honestly, I don't know if I'll experience it again the rest of my life. Let's try to get Taylor Swift right now. Let's get her out of driving stadium. You could probably have another 20 or 30,000, like you said, in the parking lo
t for that show. She could draw that sort of crowd. This Travis Kelsey play right back to you. Because if he plays right back that maybe we can. We'll see if he's got those skills. But I mean we saw the impact last season. What are you expecting now this season a full season of Messi. Do you think we'll continue to a you know see the growth on the media side on Apple TV+ and as well as these sold out stadiums, you know, throughout the country? Well first off you look at 83% or some odd number of
the Major League Soccer franchises are ahead of pace on season ticket deposits. So Austin, already there's been an increase in that aspect. First and foremost, the impression social media, you're in the media business, you know, all of the buzzwords that we'd like to use. You get a full season of Lionel Messi. You also get in the middle of that season, him playing for Argentina in Copa America in the United States of America. So naturally there's going to be growth. I think the real growth is g
oing to be in in my world of expertise is the scouts, the eyeballs, the fans seeing more of Major League Soccer, understanding what Major League Soccer's about, the fact that this offseason, the average age of the players is 24 years old. Austin. This isn't even though it has the reputation at times of being a retired league. That's not the case. The proof is in the pudding. So now when you get more eyeballs because Messi's here, guess where you get you get more eyeballs to see. Well, wait a min
ute. He's good, he's good, they're good. That's a cool city. That's a different stadium. You're just going to get more exposure to the league and to the growth of the league that I've been pontificating about for 15 years. That's going to be the real growth that I'm excited about. But you get messy in the United States of America for 12 months playing the beautiful game. Austin, naturally, there's going to be growth in a variety of ways. Yeah, I know Cup America is coming to my hometown of Charl
otte. I'm very much looking forward to seeing. Yeah, you better leave right now to get there. By the way, you better leave right now to get a parking space. We're not far from the stadium. I imagine that's going to be a tough walk just to get down the couple blocks. No, no, but you talked. About some of these young players coming into the league. You know, everyone knows about Messi. Talk to us about some of the other faces we should be paying attention to this season. That could really make an
impact. It's a good question. It really is because I think there's two ways you could look at this. First off, you've got a World Cup champion goalkeeper. Yes, he's 37 years old Hugo Lloris at Lafc. Lafc have always struggled to find the right goalie. They did it one year. They won MLS Cup. Forsberg with the New York Red Bulls. I think he's the frontrunner to win newcomer of the year. Fantastic players already lighting up in the preseason. But it's about the young players. For me, it's about the
owners going out and spending more money than they ever have. Pedro de la Vega and Seattle David Martinez, those two right away jump out. I think even the fact that Atlanta United kept Tiago Almada, even though the Olympics are this summer, he's going to probably bring in 25 million plus come summer transfer window, even if they choose to, to let him go. I just think it's the owners spending a ton of money seven, eight, ten, $12 million. Austin, if you would ask me that five, six years ago, I w
ould have said, there's no way this is going to happen. I think Messi in the World Cup and that momentum and all of that coming, I think the owners are now at the precipice of really blown this up. But David Martinez is 18 years old. He's going to Lafc. Just listed as the top U18 player by The Guardian in England as the top U18 player in the world. He didn't go to Iax. He didn't go to Bayern Munich. He went to Lafc to use that as a stepping stone to go. Pedro de la Vega is another one. I'm reall
y excited about those two young players. Yeah, I think it was 2 or 3, maybe four clubs that were setting record transfer fees this season and they're coming from all over the place. They're coming from South America, they're coming from Europe. So like you said, just a very large diaspora of players coming to MLS. It seems very exciting for the league. You know, one thing I want to talk about is the Leagues Cup second year this year. How big do you think that that tournament can get. And also li
ke what can it do for the larger exposure for MLS. While one, you're tapping into the Liga max fan that is in the United States, right. And so when you look at television audiences for the last 20, 25 years, Mexico's dominated that. Now all of a sudden you've got this natural synergy because of the World Cup coming up in 26. Listen, I, I'm on the record. I stay on the record. I didn't expect Leagues Cup to be what it was last year. I just didn't I thought both seasons, both leagues stopping in t
he middle of the year, I don't know how it's going to work. I think there was a competitiveness. There was a natural, raw energy of us versus Mexico, that rivalry energy that we've loved in this country for a long time. Austin it out kicked its coverage. And everyone listening to this is going to say, well, that's because Messi showed up. I don't know if that's 100% true. And let me rephrase that. I don't believe he deserves 100% the credit because when you talk to the other teams that never pla
yed, Messi never saw Inter Miami. They were still into it. The league and Mackey's teams that were here, they were still into it. I think because of MLS and their dominance in the tournament last season, I think it's going to be more competitive from the Mexican clubs. I don't know how big it can get because it already outperformed my expectation in year one. I'm actually very intrigued. What is 26, 27, 28 looked like after the World Cup because of the synergy now between both countries US, Mexi
co, naturally, Canada's with the United States because of, what we do in Major League Soccer. I'm as intrigued as anything because of that success. Yeah, I think very few fans out there actually realize the numbers at these huge Mexican clubs Club America, Chivas, that Guadalajara are able to draw in the United States. It's bigger than anything out there in terms of soccer. So there is, like you said, an incredible fervor for these Liga mX clubs as well. And I think everybody wins with the leagu
e, got MLS league all actually exposure for the sport in the United States ahead of the 2026 World Cup. I could not agree more. Taylor. It's also been seven years since your epic we'll call it statement on the US national team failing to qualify for the World Cup. How would you assess where the team stands right now? Wow. How long do you have? I can't believe you called that a statement. That was just more of a, regurgitation. First off, Austin, the greatest accomplishment of my life and careers
. The fact that I didn't drop one F-bomb in that tirade so that that is a great accomplishment. Listen, I think to summarize it, first off, the younger American players gotten better. We've got players playing at some of the biggest clubs in this world where, if you ask me, on the night where I lost my bet, you know what? I don't know if I would have said it would have had that growth that quickly. Now, in saying that, I also would have been naive not to believe in that just because of how quick
ly U.S. soccer, Major League Soccer. And everyone in between has helped the young American develop a lot faster, a lot quicker than when I was young. And I'm not that old. But this this country is way different. We've got people reaching out to me. Austin asking about younger players 13, 14, 15, 16. You would have never had that. So the development of the younger player is exponentially greater than I thought it would. And it happened a lot quicker than I thought. Now, in saying that, I'm on the
record and I've said it, this is the golden generation of the American player. Because of that, tell me their signature win. They don't have one. And I think this summer is the most important summer to. Rebuild some of that momentum from 22 because of what happened with the team inside the team, between players and managers in Gregg Berhalter, Giovanni Reyna and everyone else. There's a negative air around the team. That's not even an opinion. That's a fact. And the only way to get rid of that
is to give the fans something they want. The fan that's curious about these young American players that are being developed all over the world. You've got to you've got to be very good in Copa America. You've got to have some signature wins. Otherwise, you're now less than two years away from the World Cup. Austin Greg Holder's name is going to be it's going to be brought up that he should be let go. That's just because people were shocked he got brought back. They need to have a big summer. I'm
on it. I'm going to say on it. They've got to have a massive summer in this summer has to be some signature wins in Copa America, which is, in my opinion, the hardest confederation in the world is South America. If you can compete in that tournament, which, by the way, is in your own backyard, it's a good I would indication of what the World Cup's going to be in 26. They've got to have some big wins this summer. Otherwise you're going to call me back. I'm going to be on the show in this podcast
again, and you're going to ask me now, what do you think that's going to be? I would say less polite. Well, you heard it here. Statement win needed by the men's national team. Yes, they do by America. You know, Taylor, we'll get you out of here in this 2024 MLS season starts tonight in Miami. What's the biggest MLS media story you're going to be following this season? It's Inter Miami and Lionel Messi. And the biggest reason why is the Four Amigos. You've got Albert Bousquet Suarez and Messy. T
hey're all coming together for The Last Dance because this is more than likely the last time Suarez will be able to play. Do they win a trophy? A lot of people often have them as frontrunners to win four trophies. I don't I think they'll be lucky to win one, and I think that makes them more intriguing than ever, because people saw what Messi and Inter Miami did in Leagues Cup. They now think four competitions, 58 plus games. He's going to blow the doors off the competition. There's one thing thi
s league has taught me. Expect the unexpected in a league built on parody. I think Inter Miami have their hands full and I think that's why it's the biggest, biggest story of this season 100%. Well, we know everyone's going to be watching Inter Miami. Everyone's going to be watching the growth of MLS now and into the future. Taylor 12 men lead MLS, boys MLS season pass on Apple TV. Thanks for taking the time to join the Sports Media podcast. Thanks for having me on dude. Great to hear your voice
. Let's get to who's up and who's down. Who's up, who's down? Joining me now is Esbjerg hockey and soccer writer Alex Silverman. Alex, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me Austin. Alex, who's your up for this week? My up is NBC sports, who got a little freebie from the NHL when the league announced that it was going to be sending its players to the Olympics in Italy in 2026. The NBC, of course, has the rights to the Olympics, and they haven't had NHL players participating since Sochi in 2
014. Now they get another marquee event here with NHL players coming back to the Olympics. The gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada in 2010 and Vancouver did over 27 million viewers, on TV in the U.S. if they can even get half of that or a third of that for a gold medal game this time around, that's a huge number for them. Team USA looks very promising. If the U.S. can make a run, this is, really good news for NBC. Yeah, that 2010 gold medal game USA, Canada or Merrill watching that live
really electric event. Obviously the media landscape is a little different now. Good luck getting 27 million viewers anywhere. But if they can draw a really strong number, I do think that that portends well for NBC, particularly not just in 2026 but in 2030. If those games land back in the United States, that would line up really well for them. My up also in hockey, it's the Stadium Series game, particularly this weekend, the doubleheader that they had at MetLife Stadium. Alex, it feels like the
Stadium Series is kind of on a run here. They've had some really good success over the last year and a half or so, but this weekend it looked really cool. Saturday night you saw the fliers come out and all rocky theme sort of uniforms, and I think they're going to get some good
numbers for both that fliers Devils game and Rangers. Islanders. You had the comeback by the Rangers on Sunday. I think these numbers on ABC are going to rival what the Winter classic was drawing on TNT on New Year's Day
. So it just shows that the power that these games can do in the Stadium Series outside of the Winter classic, and I think the visuals were just really good. The stadium was packed and it was just, I thought, a win for the NHL. Yeah, definitely. And I think if you look at the Stadium Series game that they announced for next year with the Columbus Blue Jackets hosting the Detroit Red wings at the Horseshoe Ohio Stadium, you know, on paper, Columbus Blue Jackets, not much of a draw, but if they ca
n lean into the Ohio State Michigan rivalry, which is obviously, you know, one of the most popular rivalries in sports, the NHL might be able to drop off of that and get a good number for that, and it's just going to be a spectacle with, you know, over 100,000 people in that stadium. Yeah. My who's down is Kenny Smith for those comments that he made immediately after Sabrina Ionescu taking on Steph Curry in that little three point contest that they did on Saturday night. I don't think. She's tal
king about WNBA ball WNBA ball. The smaller she shot with the WNBA shot from the line. There's a women's team in golf and it's a men's team for a reason. No, she a shooter. Shoot. Do that. What you said. Yeah, but they shoot from where. They shoot from. No, no, no, it's a pretty good job, Sabrina. But don't let any man put boundaries on you like. You want to give them a regular ball. Don't live in the same town. Although it was incredibly good. TV was an incredibly good moment. And it was. The c
omments were just unnecessary. I don't think that he had any malice or anything like that. But, you know, saying that she should have shot from the WNBA three point line and Reggie Miller was trying to bail him out. I was I was watching it live and it just seemed cringeworthy and unnecessary in the moment. I think he's a great studio analyst and has been for a long, long time, just a misstep during this particular event. And he also had a chance to kind of, you know, walk it back a little bit on
The Stephen Smith Show on Monday and double down on the comments, and I just feel like it was a chance to give me a call and be like, you know what? I just I talked more than I should have this time. So that's why he's my down this week. Alex who's your down my. Who's down our both MLS and US soccer for the ongoing dispute they're having over the US Open Cup. This event should be a selling point for both of these organizations. It's the longest running open soccer competition in the US and one
of the oldest in the world, in fact. And instead of, you know, promoting this event and using it to sell the sport, they are, you know, squabbling over whether MLS teams are participating. The, the money in terms of the economics of hosting these games, it's a bad look for, for both sides. And it's unfortunate that that this event that is an important part of the soccer calendar to many fans, has become sort of a political football here. Yeah. Like you said, a lot of history there. And it feels
like they really could make something more out of this event and build it up. I mean, it's never going to be the FA Cup, but there is a long history there, and both sides just couldn't get together to really try to make it work. Curious to see what the future is of the US Open Cup. Alex, let's stick with soccer. We have the MLS season kicking off tonight. You. Have Messi and Inter Miami hosting Real Salt Lake down in South Florida. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, some news that you repo
rted last week. MLS season pass on Apple TV+ hit nearly 2 million subs by the end of last season. That's a pretty big number. Yeah, in fact, I almost made MLS my who's up for for these, subscriber numbers? They had more than 2 million subscribers at the end of last season. Obviously right now they're trying to renew as many of those as possible and bring in, new subscribers. But this is a really good start, especially when you consider that before Lionel Messi joined the league last year, they w
ere under a million subscribers. So more than two x during the latter half of the season. It's also great news for Messi, of course, because in as part of his agreement with Apple, he gets a cut of international subscription revenue. You know, he's directly benefiting from the attention that he's bringing to the league globally. It's worth noting that these numbers do include folks that were promotional subscribers, people who signed up throughout the season at prorated amounts. But it's really
just it's a it's a good start for MLS. There were a lot of questions early in the year last year about, you know, whether this this service was gaining any traction. And I think that this this figure shows that it is. Now Don Garber did tell us that the league is not yet at its revenue sharing threshold, just to for a little bit of background, the the league has a $250 million a year agreement with Apple, but they can get additional revenue on top of that if they surpass a certain threshold of s
ubscriptions. They haven't gotten there yet. Don Garber said they're looking at it as a as a long term partnership. And, you know, I don't think they necessarily had expected to be there yet. But just worth noting that they do want to see this number grow significantly so that they can get to that, that revenue share and get that additional money. I mean, like you said, it's only a year two of what it's going to be, what's supposed to be a ten year deal between the two sides. So you have some ti
me there. It showed the power, though, of what Messi can deliver. And he's going to continue to is it's his first full season. You know, we've talked ad nauseum about how he's able to pack crowds. And now we're talking about how he's able to draw on subscribers to that subscription service. But you know, this is a ten year deal. So let's look a little beyond Messi, who are some of the other faces that MLS could maybe count on in the longer term to draw people to this package on Apple TV+? Yeah,
I'm glad you asked that. I think it's really important that, you know, as much as MLS wants to make the most of this moment they have here with Messi, they need to promote, other players and they need to promote, I think the Inter Miami brand in particular, not as just we have Messi, but we have sort of a superteam that we're building here with Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez. You know, when the heat in in the NBA, for example, had their big three, obviously that you could have ju
st focused on LeBron James, but they focused on it as a big three with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. Similarly. Now, I think it's important for them to kind of lean into that, that whole that whole Miami team, especially when you consider that, you know, Messi has had some, concerns with his health that have kept him out of some, games in the, in the preseason. And, you know, I think if you lean too hard into, promoting the league around Messi, you know, that can backfire if he's not on the field,
you know, some other players to to watch outside of Miami. Hany Mukhtar, from Nashville, the reigning MVP, Luciano Acosta from from Cincinnati, Dennis Berlanga from Lafc. You know, there's no shortage of talent, across this league. But there are also very few household names. So, I think that there's some work to do there. I mean, you talk about a coast. I mean, here's a fellow Argentine that was just overshadowed by the arrival of Messi. And, you know, a lot of people wouldn't even be able to
tell you, I think that he won the MLS MVP award because of just the fervor around the arrival of Messi in MLS last season, particularly in the second half. Alex will get you out of here on this. There are a few big tournaments that were going on this summer. You know, outside of MLS play. What are some of the events you're going to be watching as we get into the warmer months of 2024? Yeah, I think there's two in particular, Copa America, this event is being held in the U.S., just as it was in 2
016. The U.S. men's national team will be participating. The Mexican national team will be participating. Both of those are significant, TV draws here in the U.S.. And then you of course, you have, you know, some very high profile South American teams. Messi in Argentina, Brazil. You know, those are teams that draw an audience. So I think that's going to be a really big event for for the broadcasters. Fox and Univision and Fox and Univision both also have the UEFA European champions. This summer
, which did really well, last time around. Yeah. I'm really interested to see how big of a number Univision is going to be able to pull in the U.S., particularly with some of those teams that you talked about Argentina with Messi, Rizal, Mexico and the U.S. men's national team. Definitely something I'm going to be watching this summer. So Alex Silverman, our hockey and soccer writer, thanks for taking the time to join us. Thanks, Alison. Well, we are Post-super Bowl. We are post NBA All-Star gam
e, post Daytona 500, post NHL All-Star game. What is it time for? It's time to start paying attention to the run up to the Paris Olympics this summer. Going to be among the most watched telecast for the entire year. Joining us to talk about it is BJS Olympic writer Rachel Carson. Rachel, thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. So, you know, in your eyes, what are some of the biggest media issues that people should be paying attention to in the run up to Paris? I think this is a real
ly interesting Olympics. The comparison that's been made as I've been talking to folks is, you know, the biggest one since London. And the expectations for Paris are massive. I think there's a lot of questions to be seen, especially where NBC is concerned, or just viewership generally about how this compares after several cycles of down viewership. You know, I was in Los Angeles, back in November. They do a big promo shoot where they collect massive amounts of content on Olympic and Paralympic h
opefuls. And they're really talking about making this a flame to flame thing, right? Like, if this is something that people only have in their consciousness every 2 or 4 years, that they think that that tends to hurt it. And so, seeing a lot of even watch and other sporting events. Right, you know, looking at NFL games on Peacock and you're seeing promotions for Paris 2024, keeping that in the public consciousness. The Xfinity has partnered with team USA and they're doing, storytelling platform
and making it's called making Team USA. And it's really focusing on that journey from these athletes who invest, you know, their lives and all this time to, to hopefully achieve that goal of just, you know, even being an Olympian or Paralympian. You know, you've seen in the promotion a lot of, I to say unique for NBC, ways of promoting with, various celebrities, you know, Megan Thee Stallion, Peyton Manning, Lily Collins, you know, and Emily in Paris. So, and now Snoop Dogg will be back as part
of the broadcast team. So I think that there's a lot of ways that they're trying to make this be not just, you know, 17 days in July, August or, you know, for the Paralympics in August and September. And really have this be something that's more in the forefront of people's minds now. Well, one of the biggest ways that NBC does that before any Olympics are with the trials. I mean, Michael Phelps isn't, you know, coming through that door
anymore. But we do still have some stars out there, you kno
w, who could we potentially be watching at some of the bigger trials? I'm talking swimming. I'm talking track and field in the lead up to the 2024 Summer games. Well, and these are these are already somewhat underway. You know, you're seeing, where a lot of athletes are qualifying their spots. You know, USAtf just had the marathon trials, for instance. Separately, they have the track and field trials. Those will be in Eugene at Hayward Field, which is a pretty renowned, facility and plenty of st
ars to watch from that, that it's more than a week of competition where, people can can see. And, you know, that's always a heartbreaking one because it's like you finish just out of those spots and, you know, can make for some compelling viewing. Swimming, I think, is a big one to watch that have long been in Omaha. The trials there. And they are moving this, this year to Indianapolis and hosting the trials at Lucas Oil Stadium. So that's always a big event in itself. But then seeing what that
looks like, in a new environment, in a new location. Gymnastics trials as well. You know, I think there's a lot of compelling athlete storylines, all of those. I think it will garner a lot of attention in the lead up. You know, the end of June will be very busy if you're interested in, the Olympics and who's going to make team USA. You know, I thought it was very interesting on Saturday night, you talk about Lucas Oil Stadium having, you know, a smaller event there that's not an NFL game. They h
ad the NBA all star Saturday night events there. It didn't look overwhelming for a small court there. Obviously they cut off a portion of it. I assume something similar will go on during the swimming trials. So I think that'll be a very interesting venue for for the trials, you know, come this, this spring, you hit it on it a little bit. The audience expectations, the viewership, obviously Tokyo the least watched summer games. A lot of that had to do with the timezone differences between Tokyo a
nd the US. How big of an increase do you think NBC, you know, might see or is expecting for these Paris games? Well, NBC is not giving a number. They're expecting. I think it is fair to say Paris, the setting of it, the the friendlier time zone, the compelling athlete stories. They are definitely hoping for better than than Tokyo was, I think was 15.6 million, average primetime viewers. The way they put it to me when I saw them at the, the universal shoot, a few months ago was, you know, when yo
u had them in Asia. They're airing a lot of these contests live, and there's a lot of downtime. And I think what they're planning on doing is that primetime spot. Everything's going to be streaming on Peacock. So the streaming habits and the viewership, I think that's a big question of how that looks different. And I would also say just anecdotally, you know, like as a like our work from home habits are probably different or our office habits. Right? So if someone's, you know, working on emails,
do they have, you know, like the diving finals on or something like that in the middle of the day? But then trying to package that into more compelling stories in primetime. I think those are big questions. So I think the hope is up, but I don't know that the guarantee is, oh, oh, it will be restored to some previous level or what gets made up streaming, you know, other social content, things like that. Well, I know I'm going to be watching the opening ceremony. It's a very unique one taking pl
ace on the scene. Obviously you talked about some of the visuals you're going to be able to provide in and out of Paris all around the country. That's something I'm very much looking forward to watching on NBC this summer. I think there's no question Paris is a character, and that's when you look at all of the promotion, talking to the athletes, just just everyone in the movement, having these events with very iconic backdrops, I think is part of the appeal of what they're thinking about, why pe
ople will watch. Last question for you, Rachel. Obviously, storytelling so incredibly important to the Olympics and NBC, who are some of the US athletes that could potentially, you know, move the needle this summer? There are a bunch. You know, I think one of the top ones would be Simone Biles. She has not yet said for sure she is going, but everything is lining up that she will return. And given, the difficulties she had with the twisties in Tokyo and, you know, being more toward the end of her
career, she still is going to show us how, I think she will be a compelling one. In the pool, Caleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky always big ones, but among the big ones. And the track loads, just loads. You know, Sha'carri Richardson, Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway, Sydney McLaughlin, LaVar I think well you could go down the list of compelling American athletes who will be contenders for medals if not you know, gold medals and even world records. you know USA basketball is one that I think is really i
nteresting. Obviously a wealth of NBA talent, and WNBA talent vying for those teams. The last Olympics, in all likelihood for a LeBron James, for Diana Taurasi, you know, for the for these, you know, really long tenured. They have not said that. But that's, you know, just based on age the the expectation. But then also they have, you know, three on three basketball in the U.S. men have qualified a team for the first time. So, you know, the women are the defending gold medalist, but someone peopl
e will know. Jimmer Fredette is in the talent pool for, you know, three on three men's basketball. You know, so if he makes it. So plenty I think plenty of, you know, opportunities for people to be invested, I think, about would make one solid prediction. It's that the U.S. women are probably the, the higher favorites, more to watch. You know, that I think every Olympics since London, you know, it's it's been that impact of title nine where, you know, the U.S. women have led the country in the m
edal count, and if they were their own country, they'd still be, you know, kind of top ten in the standings. So, I think there will be plenty of compelling, athletes to follow there. Well, lots to watch this spring and summer as we get closer to Paris. I know you're going to be there. I know it's a tough assignment, but someone's got to do it. Yes, I will, I will bravely stand and eat the baguettes and cover all this fun. Well, I, I'm sure you're going to have a great time. It's going to be a fa
ntastic event. Rachel accent, BJ's Olympic rider. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Thanks so much, Austin. Now it's time for a karp's corner. First, let's get into the NBA All-Star game weekend numbers. The game itself competitively a disaster. 211 to 186 should be something like a congressional vote, not a basketball score. But viewers did watch on TBS, TNT, and truTV to the tune of around 5.5 million viewers. That's up 20% from last year's record low from Salt Lake City. But still, th
at's the second least watched NBA All-Star game on record. For comparison's sake, it's also just short of what the Pro Bowl drew this year, and that had the benefit of an ABC window. But this is still a big audience for the NBA, bigger than anything it drew on Christmas Day this season, better than the in-season tournament final by around a million viewers. 5.5 million is right in the range of what the NBA average for the second round of the playoffs last season. Maybe a bigger win for the leagu
e was Saturday night, 4.6 million viewers on TNT and truTV. That's the best since 2020. We're talking the skills challenge, the three point contest and the dunk contest this year. That Saturday night audience peaked during a special three point contest between Steph Curry and Sabrina You at around 5.4 million viewers. So that really resonated with viewers. Overall, a successful weekend for TNT sports from Indianapolis. They just need to work on competitively what that All-Star game can look like
. Second, Mark Bizzaro of the New York Post ran with a piece highlighting how there was a serious lack of buzz at this past weekend's Genesis Invitational, even with Tiger Woods making his return, albeit a brief one two PGA tour competition. But the Tiger Effect was on full display for the one full round that Tiger played in LA on Thursday, albeit in reverse this year. Woods was essentially done with round one when Golf Channel came on the air at 4 p.m. eastern, with ESPN plus carrying his round
earlier in the day. Golf channel then saw its Thursday audience drop by half compared to last year, when woods played most of his rounds on the linear TV window. Then woods got ill Friday and had to withdraw. And that is not going to portend well for CBS and its weekend numbers. As woods made the cut last year, you also had Jordan Spieth this year getting disqualified for a scorecard issue, so there wasn't really anybody to pick up the slack and move the needle at all on Saturday or Sunday. But
as Kennesaw wrote, the lack of buzz can be directly attributed to Woods's early departure from the field. Finally, last week on the podcast, NASCAR president Steve Phelps talked about that when the Daytona 500 gets hit with a weather delay, the audience can drop anywhere from 20 to 25% from its normal range. Lo and behold, Mother Nature did not cooperate in Florida, and the race started on Monday afternoon before a prime time finish. Even with Presidents Day weekend and a national holiday on Mo
nday, it's a tough break for NASCAR to start the season. There was some momentum coming from the Netflix docu series, and now Fox and NBC will have to build back that audience week by week this season. There's also no debut Chicago race this season to help boost the back half numbers, and all of this comes on the heels of a record low NASCAR Cup Series season audience in 2023. This is just how the sport works. They know that weather is going to be involved. We're going to see what that number fo
r the Daytona 500 looks like later today. That is it for this week's pod. Thank you to Taylor 12 men for joining. Also a shout out to Alex Silverman and Rachel Axne for coming on the pod. And a special thank you to the production team of Chris Mason, Reginald Walker and A.C. Wyatt. And thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week. On. Apple TV+, MLS lead voice Taylor, 12, revisits his epic rant. What are we doing? Oh, I thought you were talking about
my intro. What are we doing? So you like
my Congress joke? That was pretty good. Okay, I, I did not expect that. And it didn't. Work. I don't like to write jokes in here because I'm not that funny. But this one worked. That one worked. You are fantastic. Thank you. Stop being self-deprecating to. Make sure that makes sense. Maybe my voice picked up at all. Okay. All right. I gotta put on my resting place. Excuse me. And the Cup Series race was a little delayed. Delayed? Is that a word? Delayed? It's not right. Can we add that I'm peti
tioning Merriam-Webster. We're adding that 2024 new word. New words by Austin.
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