It didn’t take long for the T-word to make an appearance at the upfronts, which kicked off on Monday with NBC’s presentation at Radio City Music Hall. “This morning, as part of our show, we actually solved all of the tariff issues,” joked NBC’s ad chief Mark Marshall. He was alluding, of course, to this morning’s announcement of a reset in the trade war ignited by Trump’s 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods. But the “issues” Marshall noted have likely come up in every conversation between ad buyers and network ad sellers since Trump implemented the bevy of global tariffs at the beginning of April: Advertisers badly want to buy into sports, but have been wary of making commitments too early for all the obvious reasons. What if the U.S. detonates the “pause”? Or those beautiful deals never manifest? Only a day into the annual, weeklong group grope, it’s already been a fascinating upfronts. Sports, which used to be an afterthought, have now become the main attraction—the thing that networks, in particular, are building their pitches around. And yet, we’re also getting some confirmation of what many predicted weeks ago in the miasma of post-“Liberation Day” confusion: As the world’s largest companies scramble to reforecast their revenue, and map out the full impact of the levies on their supply chains and balance sheets, they’re also becoming more circumspect regarding their advertising and marketing budgets. And even though the networks and streamers are spending the week hawking their wares, and plying everyone with booze, most buyers can’t move with speed or confidence. Heading into the upfront selling season, the specter of the unknown cast a pall over the market. “In all the years of doing this, I don’t think we’ve ever had to play armchair economist as much as this year,” said Jeremy Carey, Optimum Sports’ chief investment officer, ahead of the festivities. “[While] there’s been some fluctuation in terms of market strength over the years, like with the pandemic,” he acknowledged, the current uncertainty over supply chains and consumer confidence has made it hard to concoct a long-term strategy. “There’s a core understanding of just how reliant we are on imports from certain parts of the world,” Carey continued. The uncertainty has unequivocally added to the stress on old-school linear networks, which have long been dealing with streaming companies eating their lunch. (Networks reported a slight revenue drop during last year’s upfronts, while streamers posted increases well into the double digits.) Naturally, networks have tried to counteract skepticism by focusing on top sports—the NFL, college football, and the NBA—and a pitch that dawdling clients will get locked out of prime advertising positions. Networks are focusing, in particular, on the record revenue produced by properties like the Super Bowl and College Football Playoff. “What we’re seeing is actually a potential for even more advertising supply as programming schedules get reorganized and sports gets placed into higher viewership moments,” Carey said. “But there’s this reality looming. What’s unique about it is that we haven’t seen what the true impact is going to be.” Neither ad buyers nor ad sales executives pretend to know how the tariffs (or the threat of tariffs) will affect the economy in the fall. And so all the uncertainty is leading ad buyers to demand more flexibility from the networks. “We have to figure out ways to work together to build flexibility into this, because the alternative of just sitting and waiting it out, it’s not beneficial to either side,” Carey said. “You could say, We think this thing’s going to fall apart. Let’s sit on the sideline and then just try and gobble it up if the market does fall apart. But then there needs to be a level of strategy and build-out that goes into this.”

On a potential MLB salary cap: “On the Varsity podcast, Jeff Passan said, ‘If the Dodgers win the championship, and become the first team since the 2000 Yankees to do it in consecutive seasons, it’s going to be a real problem for MLB.’ This is an insane comment. The most popular team in the second-largest market, with the sport’s only global superstar, on a monthlong championship run is a problem for the sport? Baseball has its best cultural cachet in 20 years, aided by a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. Ratings are up! Attendance is up! This is what will get you a better national TV deal in 2028, not a salary cap that saves Bruce Sherman or Bob Nutting the embarrassment of the product they’re putting on the field.” —A media executive More on a potential MLB salary cap: “MLB’s real issue is a class of crappy owners at the bottom doing nothing or actively trying to not spend money; make them pay, or make having a perennial bottom-feeder less profitable, and the sport will be better off.” —A journalist Correction: “The NBA launched its channel in 1999 as NBA.com TV, not NBA.com.” —A marketing and sales executive

See you tomorrow, John