Nov 24, 2025

Welcome back to The Varsity. I’m John Ourand, coming to you from Capital One Arena, where I’m hoping we see Alex Ovechkin’s record-high 908th goal tonight.

Pod alert: The legendary Andrew Marchand will be on Wednesday’s Varsity podcast, and my first question to him will be why he insists on pushing the tart Sancerre when he knows I like a chilled, crisp option. We’ll also spend time on the biggest sports media issues of the day. Also, make sure to listen to Matthew Berry’s appearance yesterday: He talked about making the leap from ESPN to NBC, the industry’s all-consuming obsession with younger fans, and A.I.’s steady encroachment on the sports desk.

Programming note: In honor of Turkey Day, this is the only edition of The Varsity that we’re publishing this week. If you must know, I’m preparing to host about a dozen people this Thursday. By a decades-old tradition, dinner starts at the two-minute warning in the first half of the Dallas game and runs through the first couple of minutes of the third quarter. I don’t make the rules… Here’s to everyone having a happy and safe week this week. See you next Monday.

The Starting Five

Netflix’s big swing: Netflix’s investment in the eventization of sports has come for MLB. The streamer is taking over the Home Run Derby— baseball’s annual slugfest between the likes of Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Cal Raleigh, and others—from ESPN. Of all the leagues, MLB probably holds the least interest for Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters since Netflix doesn’t need tonnage so much as splashy inventory for better brand deals and advertiser interest. The question is whether the Home Run Derby will work as well as a Jake Paul boxing match did for Netflix. Events are only as valuable as their ability to attract giant audiences.

It’s a very time-sensitive question. Viewership for nostalgia-driven one-offs has steadily declined over the past 15 years. The NBA All-Star Game, Pro Bowl, MLB All-Star Game, and Home Run Derby have experienced near consistent drops in viewership—to the point where leagues are creating new tournaments and gimmicks (how else to characterize the “Pro Bowl Games”) to juice engagement. Sure, the NBA Cup isn’t doing exactly what Adam Silver hoped for, but Gary Bettman must be feeling pretty good about how the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament fared. (Turns out, national pride was the secret all along. Just ask the I.O.C.)

Has viewership declined because audiences have lost interest in gimmick formats? Most people I talk to say no. But these events benefit from casual viewers, and fewer people are flipping through channels on cable TV. Streaming services mostly eliminate those sorts of serendipitous discovery opportunities, but Netflix has more than 90 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, about 30 percent more than ESPN. If anyone can make the one-off pop, it’s those guys. —Julia Alexander
Has Lachlan locked in?: If you’d polled 100 people about whether Fox One or ESPN Unlimited would have the bigger debut, I’d wager almost everyone would have chosen the latter. After all, Jimmy Pitaro and Bob Iger have touted ESPN’s streamer as the network’s future—though, yes, the duo did recently join the “well, actually” chorus about the importance of linear partnerships. Disney has even created an entirely new mascot, named App-E, which is a giant ESPN app tile sporting a red hat, and what I’d describe as a vaguely bewildered expression—a cross between Towelie from South Park and Clippy, the Microsoft O.G. (The rumors that App-E casually wanders around the Hudson Square offices are apparently true.)

However, new data from Antenna suggests that Fox One is beating ESPN Unlimited on some metrics. Between August 21 and October 31, Fox One signed up 2.3 million customers, compared to ESPN Unlimited’s 1.7 million. ESPN does beat Fox One when sign-ups for both ESPN Unlimited and ESPN Select (formerly known as ESPN+) are accounted for—that group totals 3 million new customers. Antenna also noted that their data doesn’t include customers who activated an account for either new service via their M.V.P.D. subscriptions, and ESPN’s totals don’t include subscribers who switched or upgraded from other Disney streaming packages. So the total number of people with ESPN accounts is undoubtedly higher.

As with any streaming data, there’s a swarm of asterisks involved when looking at the subscriber health story. Still, it’s fascinating to see Lachlan Murdoch’s streaming bet start to pay off considering how much he has downplayed its importance in every earnings call since announcing the product. Between Fox One and Tubi, Fox’s late and careful entry into the streaming market may prove to be a winning formula. —Julia Alexander
Berry’s broadcast calculus: On yesterday’s episode of The Varsity, NBC Sports and Fantasy Life impresario Matthew Berry shared his take on the shifting landscape for on-air talent. With his NBC Sports contract expiring after the Super Bowl, Berry will officially be a free agent—and the possibilities are wide open. He could potentially re-sign with NBC, jump to CBS, make a comeback at ESPN, or even forge a new path as an independent creator.

When I asked him for his thoughts on how important it is to be with a broadcast network versus being an independent creator, he recalled leaving ESPN for NBC in 2022. “For me, specifically, going to a big legacy media company was super important. As a fantasy guy, it’s important for me to be adjacent to the NFL, as closely as I can align with the NFL. It’s important for me and my specific career,” he said. “But for talent in general, I don’t think it is [important]. … We see it all the time where there are people who have massive followings on social media, and have never been part of traditional broadcast television, that are massively powerful. And you’ve seen it manifest itself in sports media now. … If you’re a talent, just being able to develop an audience is profitable and viable, not just on broadcast networks.”
Sports media’s talent paradox: Continuing on that thread, Berry outlined the central tension for talent now—unprecedented opportunity colliding with unprecedented saturation. The explosion of platforms should, in theory, create more paths to stardom. Instead, the glut of voices and the accelerating influence of A.I. have forced companies to rethink where they place their bets, often to the detriment of emerging voices.

“A.I. has already started to commoditize talent in a lot of ways,” Berry said. “But I think for anyone that has a movable audience, this is a really great time, because there are so many channels and streamers and companies that are desperate for attention and trying to monetize their audience—they’re all looking for talent that can help them drive revenue. So, I think it’s a great time to be a talent with that ability, but for rising talent and mid-tier talent, that might be tougher. It’s a positive that there are so many outlets, but it’s a negative that there are so many outlets. Not every company is investing in talent; they’re investing in sports rights and technology.”
Ellison’s fourth trip to the plate: On Friday, my partner Dylan Byers, the mastermind behind the excellent In the Room newsletter, dropped fresh intel on the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding saga as David Zaslav likely nears the “bittersweet” finale of his short-lived Hollywood reign. As expected, it’s a three-horse race between Paramount Skydance, Comcast, and Netflix. Here’s Dylan with the latest: “On Thursday, Zaz began reviewing the fourth formal offer from Skydance’s David Ellison for the entire company, for what I’m told is around $23.50 a share, as well as first-time offers from Comcast and Netflix for the Warner Bros. Studios and Streaming business. The universal expectation is that neither of these offers comes close to the $30-a-share high-water mark that Zaz and his mentor John Malone had suggested they could fetch in the market or through a split of the company. Still, there is significant reason to believe that the dynamics have not fundamentally changed and that Skydance remains in pole position, Zaz’s optimism notwithstanding. Ellison’s $23.50-a-share offer already represents the highest M&A premium for a media deal in recent memory, and it contemplates the whole enchilada… And, crucially, it faces the clearest path toward regulatory approval.” (Disclaimer: Through our recent acquisition of Air Mail, Zaz is now a de minimis shareholder in Puck.)

And now for the main event…

The NFL’s Perfect Storm

With two marquee matchups on Thursday—and some favorable new accounting practices lifting its sails—the league could set regular season ratings records. Plus: notes on the EverWonder-LIV deal and a new college basketball tournament play.

John Ourand

You don’t need to be Oz Pearlman to predict that this Thursday’s Chiefs-Cowboys game will set viewership records. Not only will the game feature the NFL’s two most popular franchises, but Nielsen has also changed its ratings methodology to more generously account for out-of-home and streaming consumption, which should help boost numbers beyond the 42.1 million viewers who watched the Giants-Cowboys on Thanksgiving in 2022. Some have even predicted that the game could eclipse 50 million viewers, but my best sources believe the final tally will come in a little below that gaudy figure.

But don’t sleep on the early Thanksgiving matchup. Here’s my real prediction: The Packers-Lions game on Fox will have fewer viewers than Chiefs-Cowboys, but it will wind up as the second-most-viewed NFL regular season game of all time for all the same reasons that Chiefs-Cowboys is likely to break records. Two popular teams playing under the new Nielsen rules. Plus, Fox will carry the game on Tubi, adding a significant number of viewers. (To wit: The Super Bowl averaged 13.6 million viewers on Tubi in February.)

Alas, we won’t know if I’m right for a ridiculously long time. Typically, networks release an incomplete viewership number the day after the game to offer guidance on what the final tally will be. This year, though, the NFL and networks have agreed to wait until next Wednesday (December 3!) to release the numbers—allowing them more time to synthesize the data privately before announcing a record.

It also appears that the NFL has slightly changed its strategy of scheduling games this Thanksgiving. The league and networks know that they’ll get a large audience regardless of who plays, which is why the Cowboys have played the once-hapless Commanders four times since 2016. There’s a growing sense, however, that the league shouldn’t take its Thanksgiving audience for granted. We’ve seen more marquee matchups in recent years, and that’s what we’re getting once again on Thursday.

EverWonder Tees Off

Back in February, it made a lot of sense when I reported that EverWonder Studio, the nonfiction production company backed by Jeff Zucker’s RedBird IMI, was negotiating to produce LIV Golf. Netflix had already used EverWonder for many of its live events (including the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul boxing match), and Warner Bros. Discovery worked with the studio for its golf productions.

Well, the talks have progressed far enough that a deal appears to be imminent. Nothing has been signed, but the two sides have reached consensus on most of the big deal points. It looks like EverWonder will produce LIV Golf events starting with LIV Golf Riyadh on February 4-7. The entire tournament will be played at night, “under the lights,” according to LIV’s website. To date, LIV Golf has produced its own events, primarily using in-house staff.

My interest has less to do with what LIV Golf decides to do with its TV production—its tournaments didn’t even average 350,000 viewers on Fox this year, and its FS1 performances rarely cracked 100,000. I’m curious about what this deal means for EverWonder as an independent producer of live sports. Unlike legacy media companies, streamers like Netflix and YouTube have not set up their own production infrastructure. As they continue to amass live sports rights, they are likely to rely on independent producers.

This isn’t an entirely new business: Independent producers have been a staple of local and regional telecasts for decades. But independent production companies have not really had a presence on the national level. (CBS produced last year’s Netflix Christmas games while NFL Media produced the studio shows, and EverWonder was listed as executive producer.) Maybe that’s about to change.

November Madness?

Brett Yormark and the Big 12 made news this morning when the conference took a 15 percent stake in The Players Era Festival, a college basketball tournament held this week in Vegas. Word is that Players Era organizers offered the same deal to the three other power conferences. Sources described the ACC and SEC as currently more receptive than the Big Ten, but it’s too early to tell whether they have a real interest.

The tournament, which launched in 2024, has already taken a lot of buzz away from traditional early-season competition like the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis. It has 18 men’s teams this year and expects to expand to 32 next year. (WBD holds the media rights to this year’s event. Next year’s rights are up for grabs.) As part of its deal, the Big 12 is guaranteed to have eight bids, with each team guaranteed $1 million to use for its N.I.L. pool. It’s an indicator that the college game isn’t immune to the kind of eventizing that we have seen across the sports landscape as leagues and conferences search for ways to cut through the noise during the long regular season.

From the Cheap Seats

On Dish and Disney: “Last week, Disney lost the injunction to Dish about the Sling TV weekend $4.99 pass, and Dish celebrated the win in court by giving away $1 passes this weekend. During the court hearings, the judge said that since negotiations are right around the corner, and both parties agreed that they will be commencing soon, Dish/Disney should add to their negotiations that day passes are not allowed. Do you have any insight into this?” —A Varsity subscriber

[Ed. note: I’m told that Disney’s affiliate deal with Dish ends in the late summer or early fall of 2026. Disney will certainly negotiate to prevent Dish from offering weekend or day passes, and the deal it just struck with YouTube TV—which includes access to ESPN Unlimited—will set the template for the next package.]

Have a great week. Don’t eat too much. See you Monday,
John

Ace media reporter Dylan Byers brings readers into the C-suite as he chronicles the biggest stories in the industry: the future of cable news in the streaming era, the transformation of legacy publishers, the tech giants remaking the market, and all the egos involved.

Join Puck’s chief political columnist, John Heilemann, as he roams the corridors of power and influence in America on this twice-weekly interview show, taking you beyond the headlines with the people who shape our culture: icons and up-and-comers, incumbents and insurgents, moguls and machers in the overlapping worlds of politics, entertainment, tech, business, sports, media, and beyond. The conversations are rich and revealing, unrehearsed and unexpected… and reliably impolitic. A Puck-Audacy joint, new episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday.

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