← Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Pablo Torre on ESPN, investigating LeBron, and becoming the New York Times' first 'creator'
01:03:36
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- [00:08]
A
Welcome to another episode of Mixed Signals from Semaphore where we are talking to the most important and interesting people shaping our new media age. Welcome to some of our new listeners from last week's episode with Emily Maitlis and many, many of our returning listeners as well. I'm Max Tawney, media editor here at Semaphore, and with me, as always, is our editor in chief, Ben sm. How's it going, Ben?
- [00:33]
B
Good. Glad to. Glad to be here, Max.
- [00:35]
A
Yeah, we've got a fun one this week, I think, because we're going to be talking to Pablo Torre. He is the host of the hit podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out. And I guess this week we are going to be finding out more about him. We'll ask him about making a sports investigative show for the YouTube age, how the New York Times is getting into the creator business by doing a partnership for his show. We'll talk to him about ESPN. Well, I'll talk to him about LeBron James, Jordan Hudson, Bill Belichick. We get to a lot of stuff this episode. And of course, we'll also ask him why he is consciously uncoupling from his partnership with DraftKings.
- [01:12]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, we talk so much about these big trends in media and with this new deal with the Times, Pablo is just like living them in real time.
- [01:19]
A
Well, we will ask him about that and even more, if you can believe it, right after the break.
- [01:31]
B
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- [02:00]
A
So before we start the show today, I wanted to just take a step back here and talk about something that I thought was really interesting, which was, you know, last week on the show we had on Emily Maitlis, the former BBC host, one of the founders of the Newsagents podcast. And, you know, before we did this episode, I kind of thought this is gonna be a really interesting interview, but maybe it wouldn't be something that would resonate with our audience. We're here in America. Many people don't know who Emily Maitlis is. And it ended up being our biggest episode ever on YouTube, which was really quite amazing. And honestly, like, was kind of shocking and surprising to me, you know, it did over 100,000 views, and people were watching it for a really long time, according to our audience person. And so, first of all, we wanted to thank everybody. We wanted to thank some of our new listeners and subscribers. But also it showed me a little bit the way in which the things that we're talking about on the show every week are actually, like, very real, which is that people are consuming content in a really different way. And sometimes unsurprising ways, even media experts such as ourselves can be kind of taken aback by the things that we talk about on the show happening in real life, which is people watching these podcast interviews on their televisions. I don't know, Ben. I thought it was pretty insane. Were you surprised by how well that episode did?
- [03:20]
B
Yeah, for sure. And it was a pretty, like, heady conversation. She's a smart person, reflecting on her career. And of course, on the Jeffrey Epstein story, which, you know, is probably big on YouTube, but I think it was. That was a really good sign about, I guess, sort of like the growing space for quality conversations.
- [03:35]
A
I totally agree. And I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everybody who listened and also to welcome people in because I imagine we probably picked up a few, hopefully we picked up a few of those hundred thousand people who will kind of join us for our exploration of the changes in the media landscape. And so shout out to Emily. And also, you know, it felt a little bit good after Scott Galloway was on our podcast. He was on Pivot, taking a little swing at us, saying, oh, only a few hundred people listened to the show. So it was awesome to see us be able to prove Scott wrong as well by putting up much, much larger numbers for the mateless episode than for the Scott Galloway episode.
- [04:14]
B
Are you trying to start three way podcast beef here, Max? Is that a growth tactic?
- [04:21]
A
I think I am. And as we've discussed in previous episodes of this show, we think that podcast beef is a great way to boost the numbers. One person who actually recently experienced podcast bee was our guest on our show today, Pablo Torre, who was recently in kind of a back and forth with Bill Simmons. But Ben, you actually know Pablo because you guys are both in the new media space, you guys are both podcasters, but you guys have also been up at 5, 4, 30 in the morning to get into hair and makeup to do Morning Joe together. Ben, talk a little bit about your experience with meeting Pablo and hanging out with him at 6:30 in the morning on set.
- [05:02]
B
Yeah, well, I feel like I know Pablo the way Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump knows Vladimir Putin. Do you remember that he said he knew Putin and then it turned out they had been on TV together once, but not really in the same room.
- [05:12]
A
That's right.
- [05:13]
B
But no, actually, Pablo actually is really interesting character for people who don't know him. He's currently the host of Pablo Torre Finds Out, a very successful sports investigative podcast that just got picked up by the Athletic, which is to say by the New York Times Company. I ran into him on Morning Joe the other day. The kind of like, you know, still, I think, really kind of elite political talk show of the country. And you know, Pablo's 39 has quite kind of elite credentials. Went to Harvard and then espn, which is the sort of Harvard of sports media, where he was successful journalist, hosted their daily podcast and then jumped in 2023 to start his own show. Pablo Torre finds Out with this independent production company, Meadowlark, and you know, there's this sort of question like, is that old media? Is that new media? I think he's just of the generation where like, who cares? Does it matter? And those things are kind of merging, whether he's on Morning show talking about golfers that I can't say I'm super familiar with, or working actually for the New York Times, producing a show that really doesn't feel like anything that the New York Times does.
- [06:15]
A
Listening to Pablo talk about Pablo Torre Finds out and what he's trying to do at Meadowlark. One of the things that I thought was interesting and one of the reasons why I was excited that we could have him on the show today is the fact that he is very open about wanting to reinvent sports media. I mean, he literally says that he is like, I want to change what sports media and what sports journalism looks like through. Through my show, which is really interesting. And the way I think that he is doing that is the show itself is kind of like a halfway between a talk show and kind of an investigative reporting production. Some episodes of the show are just a few guys chatting on a mic like this. Other episodes are just these deep dive investigations which really are like a sports version of serial or like the show Search Engine or something like that, which is really interesting because it's not written down in the kind of investigative manner were used to seeing that type of reporting. It's on YouTube talking about it in front of a mic, seemingly semi scripted. So it is this kind of new format that does seem to be resonating and obviously it's also getting results. He's gotten some people to step down over his reporting. He's dug into some of the biggest stories in sports, like sports gambling in the, in the NBA. And of course also he waded into the Bill Belichick Jordan Hudson scandal over the summer as well, which, I mean, I couldn't bring myself to follow all of that. But it was obviously, obviously very interesting for a lot of people.
- [07:44]
B
Yeah, I mean, he's got big scoops about secret documents. Genuinely kind of silly, fun tabloid scoops and all without any other kind of self importance that often attaches itself to investigative journalism. Yeah, I'm very eager to understand how he thinks he's reinventing sports media and what he's doing at the New York Times.
- [08:02]
A
Well, let's bring him on right now. So, Pablo, thank you so much for coming on the show. We're very, very excited to have you today, especially because it's the week that you' just done this new deal with the New York Times. You're new media, you've joined old media.
- [08:18]
C
Yes, my parents can finally understand, begin to understand what I do because the New York Times Athletic, they've come to rescue me from the clutches of unrespectability. Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
- [08:32]
A
You've been really upfront about wanting to kind of change how sports media and sports journalism operates. That's one of the things that you've been doing with your podcast. Pablo Torre finds out. I'm curious, what does it mean? How do you see your show changing what sports journalism is doing?
- [08:49]
C
Yeah, it's funny. Now that I've sort of made this licensing deal with the Times Athletic, I can reveal what I've been doing the entire time, which is actually selling a version of old media to people on the Internet. So to me, I'm like doing a magazine show. I'm doing some stuff that perhaps public radio has already certainly long past mastered at this point. Mastered the point where it is going extinct itself. I am doing something that feels like journalism, but in a format that is meant to be. And I always sound like McGruff the crime dog when I say this. But it's meant to be fun. It's like, what if reporting was fun? What if there was cheese melted on the broccoli? I'm serving you. What if this was in fact like an editorial concept where like, I used to work at Sports Illustrated, I used to subscribe to Sports Illustrated, I would get a magazine. And this extends obviously to every other non sports magazine too, where it's like, hey, I open up the New Yorker and in the back is John McPhee on oranges. For, like, 7,000 words. Who asked for this? Right? Like, no one asked for this. And yet I want to sort of earn the trust of a readership that opens up a magazine, opens up a podcast episode like it's a mystery box, and find something that they did not ask or express to the algorithm that they wanted. And so there is this sort of like, yeah, it's kind of a throwback, but it's dressed up in a person, a personality with some friends who are there to laugh and not take themselves too seriously, but also do stupid and smart things, hopefully simultaneously.
- [10:28]
B
Yeah. I think I do love the show because reporting is so much fun, like, and such a privilege. And you kind of do. You've been on a real tear with the collective bargaining document scoop you got out of the NFL Players association, the sports, gambling and the NBA stuff, the revelatory Bill Belichick and his girlfriend and her family set of earth shaking scoops. Do you have a favorite? Is there one you're particularly proud of? You're particularly cackling to yourself about?
- [10:56]
C
You know, I'm the guy who's like, I really want people to listen to our episode of Community. It was about competitive bird watching. And I'm like, you know, guys, like, no one's searching for this, but just please find it. It's one of my favorites. But at the same time, a thing that I really take pride in, Ben, and thank you for saying that, is breaking news, which comes from making calls. And maybe it's like, I'm the elder millennial now who's like, I am old enough to remember being shamed into having to call up people when I was a fact checker. And that thing, the payoff of. And you guys do this, obviously, at Semaphore all the time, but, like, the high, the thrill you get of, like, denting a news cycle somehow. Yeah. So, like, this NFL story, to me, that's the one where, as much as the Belichick thing is really the freak flag that people noticed flying for us, the NFL nflpa, where, like, the NFL Players association, their union had to basically disassemble its executive structure because we started uncovering these things. Anytime you can put a dent in the most powerful and richest cultural institution, you could argue, not just sport in American life. I mean, that's surreal. And that's a high and a thrill that I continue to chase as I wanna, you know, as I wanna prove that, like, hey, wait a minute. This is a story that can be fun for people who have no idea about the principles you Know, I sort of want to keep explaining my show to people who don't give a shit about sports because it's designed for them. But I keep on saying, like, my show is like, Moneyball is a book about baseball. It's like, yes, it is, deeply. You'll learn about some really granular, esoteric concepts, but it's really designed for people who don't really care about sports.
- [12:47]
A
I mean, it's also like, in a lot of ways, a lot of your biggest scoops have been kind of business scoops.
- [12:52]
C
Yes, that's right.
- [12:53]
A
Obviously, the Players association is one example. The NBA gambling situation, there's a little part of it that is a little this American Life E. Because you're getting into, like, a bodega owner. But it also has, like, real stakes for what's happening in the leagues and the stickiness around one of the biggest topics in media and sports, which is the mass legalization of sports gambling and how that changes professional sports and culture and, like, life in America for men, particularly men, but for everybody.
- [13:25]
C
If I could, I often, again, in my ongoing homage to be new media by being the oldest possible media, I want to quote one of my mentors, Tony Kornheiser, who often quotes Don Ohlmeyer. And he says, the answer to all your questions is money. And so the oldest thing to do is follow the money. But it's the thing that in sports, I think, whether it's because of the conflicted incentives around lots of the entities covering sports, whether it's because people don't want to dive into documents or make calls, that is a race that a lot of people have abdicated as real sports has gone away. Outside the lines has gone away. Sports Illustrated is sort of this again. It's still alive, but is sort of zombified in ways that depress me. Even the magazine which hired me at ESPN originally is extinct insofar as we could do that. Like, the thing. Max, that's so. That was so amusing. And I love that one, the NBA gambling scandal so much because it was something that you needed to be sort of like, Internet brained as a reporter to really get to the bottom of and to the point where, like, a thought I had was, as we were trying to figure out, like, what does the FBI know? The Eastern District of New York, which was investigating this. What do they know? And we sort of found things that I don't think they knew. It's a testament to, again, the newness of all of this. That is a story about gambling, basketball crypto and Twitter, like. And you need to sort of speak those languages semi fluently.
- [14:54]
B
Do you want to explain a little what you found?
- [14:57]
C
Yeah. So we found that there was this NBA player named Johnte Porter who was the poster child for legalized gambling gone wrong. He was with the Raptors. He was very obscure. He was banned for life and has since been, you know, apprehended by the US Government because he was essentially on a group chat, a telegram chat, with a bunch of these bettors, these gamblers who were saying things to each other like, and this is a paraphrase, not a quote, but you can find the quote. Hey, you guys might get hit with a rico. It was just sort of like they are. They were taking notes on a criminal conspiracy, to quote the Wire.
- [15:31]
A
Yes, it was the Wire meme. Yes, exactly.
- [15:34]
C
And since then, there have been a couple of other players that have emerged as identified by the federal government as these persons of interest. And the latest one is a guy named Malik Beasley. And the Malik Beasley story broke. And a week later, we were like, I think we have a way in on this. I think we can put together some of the puzzle pieces in real time. And what we found to sort of like speedrun through a bunch of it, is that Malik Beasley, I mean, beyond the biography of him being the child of actors who were, you know, I.
- [16:07]
A
Didn'T even know that. I didn't realize the movie guy was his grandpa. That's crazy. The Rudy assistant coach.
- [16:14]
C
Oh, my God. Crazy. Yeah. So he's like a beautifully sort of three dimensional, absurd character. But around. Around this, there was this figure on NBA Twitter. And this is the key. This is the key character here. To me. There's a figure on NBA Twitter who not only predicted that John Tay Porter, via a betting slip, screenshot that he posted would be this figure at the center of a scandal ahead of time. He also identified Malik Beasley as this character who would be in the sights of the federal government. And there was a tweet that he posted in which he predicted this. And people saw it and they, like, marveled at it, but it kind of like, was forgotten about. But me and Tom Haberstrough, who did a lot of the reporting on this story, we were like, what the fuck is that guy's story? Like, how does he know that? How did he know that? With definitive timeline credibility before it got published. And the question was, okay, who is this person? And he had disappeared on Twitter. He had anonymized. We had to sort of go into. And God bless X as engineered by Elon Musk, because it's broken enough to just never let you fully disappear, even if you've tried to. And so you can sort of like, the algorithm would sort of like provide these little clues if you searched in the search box of like, oh, wait, I think it's this guy. And his replies are kind of like these. It's a ghost ship of mentions. It's just like there are enough clues there to sort through. And you found. We found who this guy is, who he was connected to. And it involves, again, speed running through it, going on all of his social media profiles, deep diving through every tweet he ever sent, looking on Instagram, talking to people who were in private discord chats in which he was raising money for a meme coin called National Coin association, an homage to the NBA, the National Basketball Association. And you find that this guy, spoiler alert, is the cousin of one of the guys in the Johnte Porter Group chat.
- [18:14]
A
Right.
- [18:15]
C
And that's something that then brought us to the betting slip that this guy posted, which was before it was. It was not listed as one of the games of interest by the FBI in the Eastern District. And it was sort of like, wait a minute, I think we just expanded the scope of what they should have proclaimed as part of their investigation. And so, yeah, it's just like, you need so much of. This is just crazy making if you're not Internet brained. And we are. So that's how that happened.
- [18:45]
A
I do love the concept of multiple federal prosecutors just sitting down to watch YouTube and they're just watching your clip on the NFL Players association, which also, it seems like they're, you know, they're sniffing around about now and the NBA betting scandal as it applies to Malik Beasley. I'm curious, though, can you kind of take a step back and like, just give us a little bit of a sense of, like, what is the size of your operation? How many people are working on this show? You know, what's the cadence of it? I know you guys have been publishing a lot of, like, stuff from the vaults during the summer, but just like, walk us through the basics. How many people work on the show? How big is it? And, you know, if you don't mind showing us a little bit, you know, we're curious how many downloads, like, just walk us through the basics of how big the show is and how it operates.
- [19:32]
C
Yes, I will share everything that I know off the top of my head. And some of this I shield for myself for mental health reasons, frankly, when I was hosting a TV show on espn. I would like look up, like the minute by minute ratings and I was like, this is actually making me insane, but I'll walk you through everything that I can. So we're three times a week, so Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, which is, in other words, I love these euphemisms. Like always on. It's like, yes, we are always on. Which means that we are not one of these precious long form, sort of like limited run docu series. Although part of what we aspire to do is contain the ambitions of such things. And the NFL series, for instance, is an ongoing series in the style of, you know, serial or whatever else you might even compare it to.
- [20:19]
A
That's the.
- [20:19]
C
The ambition not to say that we are like, you know, we're doing that necessarily, but anyhow, so that's three times a week. And you are catching us now at the rare moment where, like, we have this vault, this archive of evergreen episodes that we resurface. Not enough. This American Life. God bless him. Ira Glass. I've talked to him about how he does his show and we've been talking to each other and I marvel at him. And he has no idea how we do what we do because we are always on and public radio precious in some ways. But I want to do more of just like resurfacing our evergreen content. Finally during the summer we can do some of that as we take a bit of time off the staff. So the staff, the reason why we need to take a bit of time off is because we have, I believe, four full timers and everyone else is sort of on contract freelance. We are a show that exists as an audio product as well as a video product. The origin story of us is that we were launched out of the DraftKings network, which is a fast channel that exists that I'm sure you guys are very familiar with. Yeah, these are. These are these. This was a thing that was launched as a TV show with a podcast accompaniment, which is just my way of saying that at the origin of it, we needed this to be video as well as. Because I wanted it to be audio so that podcast listener could listen and not notice anything missing. But a video TV viewer, Smart TV viewer. Smart television. Not necessarily being a smart viewer. Someone watching a fast channel on a smart TV was like, oh, this is a TV show. So we have a staff that is doing that in parallel. Like, I will edit episodes blind, so to speak, like just listening to it. And then we have the video coverage which is done in post anyway, so the point being that they're very tired. They're very, very, very tired. Our YouTube channel, I think is up to 140,000 subscribers. Our audio audience, I have not checked since the Belichick stuff. And I say that because I was told that we took a couple of big jumps and I was like, that's enough for me to not think about it. That's enough. Like YouTube, I have to see podcasting. You guys are familiar, I'm sure is so comically opaque that I'm like, this is enough for me to just check out psychologically. Just tell me when we're like, you know, when we were hitting in the Apple sports podcast charts, like, well, we're a top five sports podcast. Cool. And that was like happening with some regularity. I was just like, let me just stop. This seems fine.
- [22:44]
B
And a fast channel for listeners. The free ad supported television, one of the many new species of media these days. But you disentangled yourself from the deal with DraftKings and I wonder if you did, you end up giving up a bunch of money to get out of the gambling business.
- [23:00]
C
I would say we consciously uncoupled. To quote Gwyneth Paltrow, we. We consciously uncoupled. Look, I think that when it came to the economics of DraftKings, DraftKings is still a partner to Meadowlock Media. I co own the show with Metal Arc, which is founded by Dan LeBatard and John Skipper. And I love those guys. And DraftKings was frankly like, so laissez faire with us that we got to really pick and choose whatever we wanted. And we got like zero notes about like, hey, don't do this. So I can only thank you for the gambling money. Like genuinely, like, that's the dream. The dream is to have a teat to suckle on that doesn't really mind. And that was so great. I would say that the economics of us leaving though, as much as I want to say that, like I was principled and courageous and all of that, it was as much a cynical observation around, I think our audience ideally is not. Not sports betting really like our audience. We're not doing that stuff for them. We're not covering the news day to day. We're again, as you have a sense of very clearly, we're deliberately kind of doing a zag to lots of people's zig. And so for us it was also just a bet on, like, hey, we're gonna have to go to market. We're gonna have to find a new partner. We're Gonna have to make $0 with the, you know, the blessing of Dan Levatar and John Skipper. But if we can find a new partner, we think that the long term view is actually just the better economic decision and strategic decision. But yes, it was scary. It was totally scary to say, like, I think we. We want to find something that maybe. And again, it was handled very diplomatically, but I think we want to find something that feels more like us.
- [24:43]
A
Well, was part of it also, though, you know, the reality that a lot of the stories of modern sports and the business of sports and the kind of messiness that you guys get into, a lot of those stories are tangled up with gambling and that sports gambling has really just totally, massively changed both the sports media landscape, but obviously also professional sports. I mean, was that something that you guys were thinking about as well?
- [25:06]
C
Yeah, in the back of my head, absolutely. In terms of like, look, we have a docket in which we have this full free reign to do what we want. And it would have gotten increasingly uncomfortable for us to investigate sports gambling with a partner that needed to basically, like, take its logo off the episode. You know, like, you don't. It's just. It's a strange. It would be a strange dance. But, you know, as someone who worked at ESPN and John Skipper says all of the time, the greatest business in the history of media was ESPN and the cable bundle for reasons of, you know. Hey, wait, you say in new media you want subscriptions? What if you paid for like a lot? You paid for multiple subscriptions to shit you never watched.
- [25:52]
A
Paid for 80 subscriptions.
- [25:53]
B
How much money were you making from DraftKings and what do the economics look like now?
- [25:57]
C
Oh, the economics of DraftKings are above my pay grade. I believe the publicly reported figures around what Metal Arc is making. I don't want to be the one to say them, but they're out there somewhere. I just don't know it off the top of my head. The New York Times deal, I can say because it's been reported and I'm trying to be a good corporate citizen. Ben, you messy journalist, is. No, I appreciate the question. Obviously it's a seven figure deal. So into that goes paying for the staff, which is as described, is paying for me, is paying for production. So we feel great. I mean, honestly, we feel really good that there's some investment and we'll still.
- [26:32]
B
Be able to watch you on YouTube. I don't need to go into some New York Times app.
- [26:35]
C
This is a key thing. So what I said as a. As Like a real first principle problem was editorial independence. Like, we can do the weed taste test, athlete branded weed episodes. We can have whatever, anything from Lina Khan, who has been a guest on our show, to talking about something messy, you know, in the Middle east. We want the freedom to just do that. Even if the Times newsroom might be like, whoa, whoa, why is this guy who gets high on Tuesdays, why is he investigating our sources on Thursday? That was important to me. And yes, most, most critically, it was. We want to be outside of the paywall. We want to be free on YouTube. We want to be a podcast that you can listen to without having to pay for anything. And so that is the structure, the basic contours of it.
- [27:20]
B
And then they'll sell the ads.
- [27:22]
C
Yes, it's a license deal. Yes, yes, yes. And they.
- [27:25]
A
It's. Yes, it's amazing. This is like they're doing creator. The New York Times is doing essentially creator deals now. These are like the type of deals that like, you know, this podcast studio CAA is like putting together and they're doing it for. It's amazing to see Times is in that business.
- [27:39]
B
Yeah, no, I mean, you're seeing right now the New York Times and Fox like racing to scoop up the Pablo Torres.
- [27:46]
C
The Pablo Torres, actually and Dave Portnoy are not so dissimilar, it turns out.
- [27:51]
B
I mean, that's actually like, you know, it's funny, we had. Speaking of, we had Clay Travis on a couple of weeks ago and you know, in the sort of sports is everything, sports is like this swallowing bigger and bigger chunks of American culture kind of, as you said, you know, his view is that in particular the opportunity in sports media is on the right. That sports media got too woke that the real kind of opportunity is to make fun of trans athletes, basically. And that's where Clay seems to be taking it. And that's where he thinks he sees kind of growth among other things. What do you make of that?
- [28:25]
C
I think that's on some level, as I say often, if shamelessness is a market inefficiency, then this is the error free. You right.
- [28:34]
A
Like I.
- [28:36]
C
It's totally fine.
- [28:37]
B
That is an eternal truth, by the way.
- [28:40]
C
You know what? You know what? Touche, touche. What I would say is that certainly there has been a disconnect between how apolitical a lot of sports fans actually are even. Right coded. A lot of sports fans actually are, if you think about college football, by the way, and Clay came up as a. A really prominent college football writer and reporter. He knows this it's the second most popular sport in America, right? That list of a hundred most watched broadcasts. It's the NFL and then some college football. So the idea that you're talking to the South a lot objectively true and not to be underestimated. And by the way, it's insane to imagine a world in which sports does not have media outlets that are speaking directly to that. What I would sort of observe, though, around the trend lines, around how ESP Piano is programmed, how Fox is programmed, is that there is no shortage of programming for those audiences.
- [29:38]
A
Now.
- [29:38]
C
There might be a lack of desire to wade into the culture war with the fervent sort of hunger that Clay has in which he's picking fights and that, you know, barstool, less of that in terms of explicit political sorts of fights, but certainly unafraid. I would say that, you know, if you're telling me that, man, I'm watching football broadcasts on, yes, I'm watching College Game Day. And this is too woke. It just tells me you're not actually watching College Game Day. You're watching a clip of someone who maybe did something once, who tweeted something once. Like, it's like, come on, the hours. The tonnage speaks for itself as a math question. And so for me, the real like thing that I am marveling at, as, you know, who's the Joe Rogan of the left? Something I do believe, by the way, as silly on its face as that question is for lots of reasons we can make fun of. Joe Rogan started in mma, right. And so the whole idea was, is sports a portal to other things? My belief is that absolutely yes. And in that way I am realizing I have sort of tracked a path as I desire to do more things beyond merely straight sports, to use sports as the gateway into other things. So that part I fully agree with. But in terms of like, what's the rarest commodity in sports media? It isn't right leaning people complaining about things. By the way, like, there are lots of former ESPN people who are right leaning who complain about things and have large channels in which they complain about things. And they are very popular. And it's not just Clay. I would say that the real rare commodity is like people doing journalism into powerful entities. You know, Clay is owned by Fox. Like, you know, I mean, let's not be, let's not pretend as to our level of just like punk rockishness. Like, let's put it, let's disclose all of it and then we can talk about what we're doing.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah, Everyone will work for either Fox or the New York Times in some near future situation. Probably that'd be the whole Internet.
- [31:34]
A
Well, we have to take a short break, but we'll be right back with more from Pablo Torre.
- [31:49]
B
This week on our branded segment from Think with Google, I spoke with Google's VP of marketing, Josh Spanier, about the future of search. So we've actually spent a fair amount of time on mixed signals this summer talking about summer movies. And I believe you have a theory comparing your employer to Superman.
- [32:07]
D
Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it Google Search? I've always thought in my own head of Google Search as being like Superman, this incredibly powerful tool with all these amazing magical powers to help you drive your business outcomes, to really drive impact in the marketplace. What I was really thinking about, though, is I'm kind of excited by the Fantastic Four movie and how the evolution of why have just one Superman when you can have a whole team of superheroes fighting your behalf? And the transformation of Google Search is sort of indicative of that. The numbers are really astounding. 5 trillion searches this year across so many different, different surface and touch points. 1.5 billion people using AI overviews every month. 25 billion visual searches happening through Google Lens. The innovation under the hood of Google Search is kind of remarkable and kind of magic. And it's actually allowing all sorts of new business opportunities, which I think are really, really compelling for marketers.
- [33:06]
B
So what's the role of AI in all of this?
- [33:09]
D
So AI is allowing us to fundamentally upgrade the whole search experience. We've gone from a world of just having people's questions and queries to really understanding a lot more of the nuance and the background and why these questions are happening. That's actually allowing for richer responses. And sometimes those responses are ads, sometimes they're other services, but the overall effect is for marketers. These are incremental opportunities to connect with your consumers in Google Search. They're more relevant ads for our customers. And people like more relevant ads, which is why Google Search continues to be one of the highest rated, if not the highest rated return on ad spend channel that marketers use in their marketing programs.
- [33:51]
B
Where should people go to find out more?
- [33:53]
D
As ever, head on over to thinkwithgoogle.com there is a plethora, a myriad, a cornucopia of articles and content about Google Search and ad, how it's evolved and changed. And you can make it your own Superman and Fantastic Four on your behalf.
- [34:08]
B
Well, thank you, Josh.
- [34:09]
D
Thanks, Ben.
- [34:20]
A
So, I mean, Speaking of ESPN and journalism and one of the things that I was really curious about is you spent a lot of your career there and then you left and you obviously did some incredible journalism there. I believe I was reading on your Wikipedia page that you were the first person to report on the slogan trust the process as part of the. Which I don't think anybody. That was, you know, I don't think anybody should have done, though. Joel Embiid is a friend of Semaphore's. Did a great event with us last year, so I still believe.
- [34:51]
B
Thank you.
- [34:51]
A
Yeah, that's an amazing scoop. But I'm curious, you know, you worked at ESPN for a long time. What do you make of ESPN, ESPN's priorities these days? I mean, I, you know, I am a consumer of extremely online sports. Twitter, who, you know, really is, I think like pretty upset at ESPN these days. I mean, like they got rid of Zach Lowe. He was a favorite. You left ESPN and started doing amazing sports investigative reporting for YouTube. ESPN is like hiring influencers and giving Stephen a like a hundred million dollars or whatever it is, but getting rid of kind of a lot of their longtime investigative people. I mean, you've, you were there for a long time. You've hosted, you know, a lot of for them. What do you think about ESPN's trajectory?
- [35:35]
C
So first thing, I want to thank ESPN for helping me put my daughter through school. You know, like it's been. Thank you. Thank you for that. I still aspired to appear as Michael Wilbon's backup co hosting with Tony Kornheiser and pti. To the extent that I do anything ever for ESPN again, it would be that. And I'm hopeful that maybe I can continue to do that while also being this guy saying these things we will see again. When Skipper was president, they were always balancing the fundamental conflict of we are paying billions of dollars to leagues and also operating the biggest newsroom in sports media. Right. And so there was always just this very difficult dance that anybody who knows anything about the media business is, is trying to, to sort of like thread the needle of. And, and now over time, I would say, as the cable bundle has frankly become what is self evident, the luxury good that is reporting in journalism has become more and more endangered, if not almost extinct. And so that's ESPN the Magazine going away. That's ESPN.com changing in material ways that is social and the outsourcing of audience to certainly influencers. And again, I'm trying to both resemble and reject the creator economy. While you mentioned the 22 year old who gets hired to be like, you know, a lifestyle creator for ESPN social channels. Else I would observe that, you know, we're talking at a, at a time when ESPN has just done the biggest thing, right, that, that is sort of this inflection point in this dance, which.
- [37:07]
A
Is, yes, the NFL now owns 10% of ESPN basically as of we're recording this on Wednesday, as of yesterday, yes.
- [37:15]
C
And so just think about the two people I think about when I think about that sort of announcement, right? As someone who's like been around the offices and stuff, it's like in the boardroom, right, right at the Bob Iger level, the Jimmy Pitaro level. Like, it's so obviously what they should do. Like, it's not even a question like you're telling me this is not me cosplaying as those guys. It's like you're telling me that the most powerful and richest sport in America and arguably cultural institution in America wants to basically give us most favored nation status unto eternity in which we rely more than anything on their products. In fact, we have been advertising and buying and talking about their products more than any other product already. And you're telling me now we can have this assurance via financial relationship in which, yes, they're going to be certainly assets, NFL Network stuff, sorts of media production concerns, changing some amount of hands. But really like that part, the existential question of like you want to get into the business of football, you get into business with ESPN like and Disney, that's such a no brainer, right? Great business decision. That's the one brain I jump into. The other brain I jump into is the investigative journalist at ESPN who investigates the NFL.
- [38:26]
B
NFL.
- [38:26]
C
And I'm like, okay, well I was already doing the dance before and now again, I have no knowledge of what they have been told or not told. I'm just imagining that you have to worry about whether you are going to be a luxury good that they continue to pay for. And the trend line is indicating something that is not, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. A rising tide lifts the yachts, the super yachts. And I don't think investigative journalists are qualified to be such at this point. And the last sort of like observation around the economy of espn, which is really an observation around the economy of sports media, is this. ESPN also is operating at such a level of billions and billions of dollars in TV rights deals like the most valuable properties in sports and television that when it comes to. You mentioned Zach Lowe, who is, you know, the greatest at NBA podcasting He's the goat.
- [39:22]
A
The NBA podcasting goat.
- [39:24]
C
So if you think about Zach and Bill Simmons and Ryan Rosillo and Dan Lebatard and Colin Cowherd, and throw me in there somewhere in the rotation if you want, but just, like, down the list, right? So that's Meadowlark. That's the ringer. That's the volume. That's some other stuff that's emerging. If you were to collect all of those guys and just do the math on that, ESPN legitimately let over a billion dollars walk out the door. Now, they missed, I would argue, the future of sports podcasting. That was already in house. But the economics of why they let it go was because it was still fractional compared to their actual interests. And so everything that I think about investigative journalism, once you see it through the lens of podcasting, you're like, well, well, that was a deliberate. And maybe it was uninformed, but I would say it's still a mathematically justifiable choice about what their business really is.
- [40:23]
B
I mean, in terms of thinking about where your home is and where your corporate home is. Did you. The New York Times. I mean, obviously you see yourselves as an investigative journalist. You're looking to reinvent investigative journalism. Those are things that are really core to who the New York Times is. I mean, did you turn down other offers? I mean, was the Times the highest bidder? Did you go there because you felt like that's where you wanted to be?
- [40:43]
C
There were other bidders that were. I don't want to be so.
- [40:49]
B
Gosh, transparent, I think, is the word. You're like, I don't.
- [40:51]
C
I. Ben, what you're looking for is. I don't want to be so consistent in my principles. Correct. I would like to be hypocritical with you for a second, Ben.
- [41:01]
B
Go ahead.
- [41:02]
C
On this podcast about transparency. I'm trying to. I mean, genuinely. What's funny is that I am. I want to toot my horn. I'm just like. I don't want to make anyone feel shitty. We just announced this fancy partnership in which. I'm so thrilled.
- [41:15]
B
I thought millennials were supposed to be very transparent about this.
- [41:18]
A
You know what? Ben and I both bullied Ari Aster into telling us what movie he turned down recently when he turned down Morbius. So we can both. I mean, I'm just saying, you know.
- [41:28]
C
I want to live in that sliding doors timeline.
- [41:30]
A
You could be like, yeah, everybody does be transparent.
- [41:34]
C
Like Austin. Sorry. I will be transparent, actually, in a way that may make people uncomfortable, but whatever. It's not. This is not Watergate that. You know the economics of my podcast. Look, the reality is the Times was not the only bidder with a seven figure offer. We also valued the Times. When I went to the building and had this meeting and they told me all the things that I described that were like, wait a minute, they're trying to do a creator economy licensing deal, but also provide me access to their audience if I earn, earn it right, if I can be promoted inside of the Athletics. Larger feeds. And the Times is larger feeds. And I heard about the ways in which the Times has done that for things at the Athletic. That was the most interesting from a growth perspective, frankly, that money cannot simply buy. And I think the Times is aware of that. But they were not the only bidder that was like dangling a lot of money. And I just didn't put them in a bidding war because I always sort of valued the like. Again, my elder millennial ness of like, I value the. I value the institution.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah, I'm a guy who likes institutions. Did A.G. sulzberger himself come down and sell you on this?
- [42:38]
C
No, I did not. I did not. We. I look forward to expensing things to AG Salsberger. No. Jesse Burden is the guy at the Athletic who was the point person who came over from Spotify, by the way. And I was hearing about just like what he had done over there. There. He had told me and I don't think this is a secret, Jesse, forgive me, but like the first deal he made at Spotify was for Joe Button. And I'm like, wait a minute. If this, if this guy greenlit Joe Button, I might be able to smoke weed with a little New York Times whatever, like adjacent logo on my screen. That was actually something that would. Meant something to me.
- [43:15]
A
Jordan Cohen, the guy who does, who does PR for the audio for the Times is just like, he's got his head in his hands right now.
- [43:21]
C
Dude, I am. Jordan was on a call that I was on and I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna make his life any easier. I'm so sorry, Jordan. I'm like borderline. Yeah, yeah. Always walking that. That weird line.
- [43:35]
B
Do you think the, you know that your move to the Athletic, to the Times will change the show? I mean, do you see yourself or change what you do? I mean, do you want. Are you gonna be doing investigations of nursing homes and Trump cryptocurrency schemes and things that aren't sports?
- [43:49]
C
Certainly doing some non sports stuff? Not because the Times has said anything about what they would like me to do or not. The editorial freedom to choose is really fundamental. Like, and this is the other funny thing of the dance, right? To be transparent is we are making the show independently but licensing it to, as aforementioned, the biggest established incumbent in the history of the written printed media. So how do we remain that while also drinking from their fire hose? And so the way I think about it is, like, I want to do. You know, it was funny. I was like, one thing I did want to know from the Times athletic dynamic perspective, which is its own thing, by the way, that I have no illusions about navigating, right? Like, that was its own purchase and media story and all that. I was like, what are the stories that New York Times readers most liked from the athletic? That they got, like, sent around. They got like the biggest boost in that fire hose. And they identified a story that I loved from the athletic. It was about how NFL locker rooms love uncrustable.
- [44:51]
A
Oh, my God, that's incredible.
- [44:52]
C
Those, like, children's like, ready made, you know, And I'm like, but that was one of the most popular stories that the Times broadly really loved from the Athletic. And I'm like, wait a minute. I do uncrustable adjacent content. Like, I. So the point being, like, yes, we are gonna do serious investigative work that hopefully does a couple of things we're working on now that touches that, like, I think sweet spot of this has politics in it, this has celebrity in it, this has scandal in it, this has money in it, and this has sports in it. Like, great, we want to keep doing those. Can we also make it feel like the uncrustable story is, again, it's stupid to see about it through that, to think about it through that lens, to see it through that lens. But it is like, how do we do serious things that also feel like they are lighthearted enough? I am hopeful that. But the high and low brow thing is something that's meaningful in terms of what they want. And if there is a nursing home, by the way, that needs to be held to account. Ben, I will absolutely. I will absolutely be there as fast as I can.
- [45:58]
A
So, Pablo, you did an investigation about did LeBron go to Kobe's funeral? I'm a big Lakers fan. People who listen to the show know this. I've disclosed this before. I'm from Southern California, so I have an excuse for it. I'm not a bandwagon.
- [46:11]
C
Sorry for your listeners.
- [46:12]
A
Yeah, but yes, exactly. No, it is. It's unfortunate and sometimes unfortunate for me as well. But I'm really curious, like, what was the experience you've dealt with? Kind of the experience of backlash from unc, which denied one of your stories, which you've stood by, about Jordan Hudson being, I think, disinvited from being in the locker room or being on campus or something like that. I think LeBron and the LeBron stands have pushed back on your reporting, raising questions about whether LeBron was actually at Kobe's funeral. Can you just talk a little bit about what's it like dealing with LeBron's camp? What does that PR operation look like pushing back on you? What was the experience of Jordan Hudson and UNC's camp kind of pushing back on you? Take us behind the scenes of what the pushback actually looks like from those camps.
- [47:01]
C
Yeah. The downside of investigative journalism, obviously, is that you end up making people mad. And I would say that LeBron camp is a funny camp because there are a bunch of people in it who listened to the show on prior episodes were like, thank you for doing this. I remember we did an episode about the Knicks secret recruiting video for LeBron in which it was like, Tony Soprano, like, literally, James Gandolfini, as well as Donald Trump as well as Harvey Weinstein, just like an insane artifact that exists.
- [47:29]
A
You guys broke that story, right?
- [47:30]
C
Yes.
- [47:31]
A
You guys had the video?
- [47:32]
C
Yeah, we had the video. We published the video. It was everything I had hoped, frankly. But at that point, I heard from the rounds camp, and they were like, thank you. Like, we had not seen this since we saw it in the room, and they were glad that we published it. It was exactly the experience they had as people reacting to a ridiculous artifact from James Dolan. This, you know, no one pushed back in terms of, like, I can say no one pushed back to me directly saying, you got this wrong, for the record. Which is an important, I think, element of the pushback. But really, the criticism that was most bothersome was in the sense of people seeing, again, this is the oldest saw in anyone who makes content their complaints. But, like, someone who saw the clip but not the episode where there was this thing of, like, wait a minute, why are you policing LeBron James? Right. To grieve how he feels appropriate. And on that level, like, what I wanted to say was we dealt with this in the episode that literal, exact point. We anticipated it. Of course. It's a natural thing. This was not an episode about what and how. How you should grieve. This was an episode about the most visible celebrity funeral, as far as I can tell, in the modern era. In which it was live streamed from Staples Center.
- [48:48]
A
I watched it.
- [48:49]
C
Oh, then you remember Beyonce performed Jimmy Kimmel MC'd. There was a royal wedding.
- [48:56]
A
Michael Jordan was there.
- [48:57]
C
Funeral. Michael Jordan cried from the dais. Everybody gave speeches. Everybody was shown on camera the whole, like it was an awards show, but for grief, you know. And that was by seemingly a very clear intent. This was Kobe Bryant, the most favored son of Hollywood, which is a real thing that any Laker fan would. Would attest to. He is different. The face who was not shown, who was not produced in any recorded way, was LeBron James. And so insane. The question then was, why, like, LeBron, to be clear, is like the, you know, he's the guy who essentially is the standard. Now, Luca has complicated the ease of my timeline here as the face of the franchise. Yeah, the guy who is clearly like in the goat conversation, who you expect to be at that thing. And again, this is not about, should LeBron James have been there? That's not the question I posed. The question I posed was, why did no one see him? And how real is it that no one actually saw him? So, for instance, there was. Was. This came, by the way, Ben, this. This is sort of like how my brain is unfortunately operating now. The reason this episode came about was because Stephen A. Smith was arguing with LeBron through first take about stuff. I don't even remember what the argument was, but Stephen A. Made this offhand remark about how he's not even gonna bring up how LeBron wasn't at Kobe's funeral.
- [50:19]
A
Oh, no.
- [50:20]
C
And everyone was like, whoa. What? What? So because it had been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, LeBron was in the laundry list of guys who were there, there. Then you watch the broadcast. I. I interviewed, you know, more than a half dozen people. There's a clip in which Diana Tausi, to get real Zapruder with you, there's a clip which Diana Taurasi, the women's basketball goat, does a joke about how LeBron didn't have whatever, like a mid range J or something like that. And she gestures to the crowd and everyone's posting this video being like, this is her acknowledging LeBron in the crowd. After the joke, I end up reporting out what is undeniably true and has never been challenged, which is that Diana Taurasi didn't see LeBron that day. That was just her gesturing at the crowd. I then reported around the Lakers organization, by the way, which has been talking about this backstage ever since it happened. Like, where was LeBron that day? The owner of the team didn't see LeBron that day. No one in the buildings. Like he wasn't there. Okay, yeah. And was it possible that he was wearing a 6 foot 9 disguise for some reason? And they had asked, by the way, LeBron's camp had claimed he had asked to not be shown on camera. So what we did was we interviewed one of the producers of the broadcast and said, had you heard anything about this request? Had anybody involved or anything about LeBron asking to not be shown on camera? The answer, of course, was no. So the thing about it was I didn't want to be the guy who was like grave digging for clicks. But yeah, to me, this is a story about how someone could get away with creating an impression. I'll be generous here. Creating an impression that was not actually real. How could he do that in front of every plausible camera in this era? And the answer was because some people were afraid to criticize, to ask rude Questions about LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and people weren't gonna make the calls. And so, and so we cared about this with the level of, yeah, the JFK assassination of like what really happened here.
- [52:25]
A
But it is interesting, you know, thinking about that, thinking about Bill Simmons response to your reporting on Belichick and Jordan Hudson, you know, he kind of famously, you know, was dismissive of your. Your reporting, which we don't have to get into because that's been kind of, well, trodden territory. But like, I mean, do you think that there is a level to which, which even though there is endless sports content all day long, people, you know, spewing, shout, you know, spouting off takes all day long on espn. Spewing was the right verb. Spewing takes. Yes, exactly. But do you think that people are people in the professional sports world? These figures themselves are still just not used to being scrutinized in an investigative reporting lens. They're clearly used to being talked about. But it seems like there is a distinction because. Because the Belichick's camp and Jordan Hudson, like, they also seemed to take enormous umbrage at your reporting on them as well.
- [53:20]
C
Yeah. Oh, no, there's a big difference between feeling like you're in the dunk tank of social media and. Or being observed in the panopticon of modern Internet everything, and being investigated by journalists like, sorry, like there's a real difference in which someone's gonna like, make calls, a lot of calls, and piece together a story you don't want told. And the other thing I think that's important for me, as a sports investigative journalist guy, is to really take sports as if they're important. You know, the whole thing about, like, why is Belichick. Why, why do you care so much? I'm like, if Bill Belichick, the greatest coach of all time in the most popular sport in America, who is also this cultural archetype for, like, discipline and no nonsense and do your job and no distractions and all this of that, if that guy isn't important enough for me to take seriously, as he is also the highest paid employee, public employee in the state of North Carolina, then, like, nothing matters. So you could argue fairly nothing matters. That's a harder counter for me to make. Right. Admittedly, lots of more important things than. Than everything I just said. But if sports matter, then someone should investigate them. And that's why I say that LeBron is worthy of. Of it. Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson are worthy of it. Why all these people are, like, unfamiliar with that? Because the people who used to do that, by the way, are either dead or unemployed. Like, that's kind of the reality. That's the, that's the. The negative externality of the way in which media has gone is that no one's really monetized or incentivized that.
- [54:58]
A
Well, Pablo, thank you so much for. For doing this. This is, this is exciting. And we're glad that we got you on the eve of your new deal so that we could ask you all of these uncomfortable questions about how.
- [55:10]
C
And.
- [55:10]
A
Who your other bidders are and who and other things that I'm sure to make your new bosses feel a little bit uncomfortable. Although they're not your bosses.
- [55:18]
C
I was going to say thank you for recognizing the precise terminology of this licensing agreement, and also thank you for holding me to the courage of my alleged convictions. I deserve all of this.
- [55:29]
B
Thank you so much. Pablo. Congratulations.
- [55:31]
C
Thank you, guys.
- [55:42]
B
I want to tell you about Think with Google. It's marketers go to spot for insights from top CMOs, practical guides on emerging tech and strategies that drive real growth. You can learn how AI can help level up your marketing and address your biggest challenges across creative media and measurement. Whether you're a marketer looking for new ways to reach your audience, or a curious leader wanting to get inspired, Think with Google is the place to.
- [56:04]
A
To be.
- [56:04]
B
Learn more by heading to thinkwithgoogle.com. what a. What a smart guy and a great talker.
- [56:17]
C
Actually.
- [56:18]
B
What do you like?
- [56:19]
A
What.
- [56:20]
B
What do you make of his trajectory? Max, where is. Where's Pablo Torre heading?
- [56:23]
A
Well, first of all, I think it's really funny that everybody always mentions that he went to Harvard because I think that while you said at the top that Harvard is like the ESPN of sports media, I actually think that sports media, general, like people associate sports media with just like guys in a box on TV screaming at each other or like asking annoying stupid questions at press conferences. Like it's kind of like a meathead profession. And so I think it's very funny and amusing and I don't think it's an accident to me that everybody's always like, oh, well, Pablo went to Harvard, so he's like doing something that's a little bit smarter, we should say.
- [56:58]
B
He just says New Yorkers. He also went to Regis, which is like the Harvard of Catholic high school school. So he's extremely credentialed.
- [57:03]
A
He's a very smart, hard working guy, for sure. No question. And so it's not surprising that he's, that he's now, that he's now working for the New York Times. I thought the interesting thing to me is, you know, and I read the story and I thought, oh, that's interesting. They're doing some sort of deal with the athletic. I didn't realize how much that deal and I think maybe I'm wrong, but it really does seem like the first deal that the New York Times has done that really looks a lot more like a deal that Spotify would do or a deal that Vox Media or any of these other podcast networks would do. This Pablo is not an employee of the New York Times. They're just simply selling his ads and kind of putting his show in their podcast feed sometimes. But I think that that's actually really new and striking. And so, you know, when Meredith Levy and who we had on the show was live at Cannes doing these meetings, clearly she was not just thinking, oh, about, you know, the New York Times and their old way of business. She was actually looking at the other companies that were around at the content companies and the creators and thinking, I'm actually in that business too. Which is fascinating. I mean, Ben, was that striking to you, I imagine?
- [58:12]
B
Oh yeah, no, I think, I mean, I think like, you know, we have been talking for a year on this show about, you know, sort of the current fragmentation and the coming consolidation and now we're just watching it in real time. Like this is what consolidation looks like. You have big, well capitalized companies now, including the New York Times, kind of amazingly like snapping up these independent creators who have great businesses who love what they're doing. It's fun to be a creator and fun to be independent, but also exhausting and annoying. And nice to have a guaranteed contract. Nice to have the New York Times ad sales team doing that work for you. Nice to have the resources to play with of the New York Times and the Athletic. And I think it's interesting to see the Times doing it. As I wrote about this in our newsletter last week, but nobody is doing this more than Fox. And I talked to Paul Cheeseborough over there who we should have on who's sort of in the middle of this. And they've also picked up, they now have a relationship with Dave Portnoy, Clay Travis is there and sports. These are huge pieces of sports media. And then meanwhile in the political media space, which their core, they're just sort of absorbing big chunks of independent right wing commentators and I think trying to figure out new ways where they don't kind of totally own and control everyone. Like Pablo seems very careful and it doesn't work for the New York Times, but they're building these sort of rival constellations of talent. And I do think we're going to see relatively few companies control most of what we had thought of as the creator space.
- [59:33]
A
I think that that's true. I think that the thing though that's most interesting about that move though is that like for Fox, you know, they've always had people who are contributors to football or you know, it's not surprising that they would want to kind of add to their talent stable having like essentially already done, you know, many on air talent deals over the years. I just think that it's notable for the New York Times which does journalism and the people there have long, I mean you, you experienced this when you were there. There was always this tension between the stars not wanting to be too much bigger than the Times itself. I mean clearly the Times lost that battle and they are in the personal business with the rest of us.
- [60:12]
B
There's a famous. I can't remember who she said this to, but there was somebody was in a contract negotiation with Jill Abramson and basically implying that they were bigger than the New York Times. And Jill, when she was editor of the Times told them the New York Times is always the prettiest girl at the dance.
- [60:27]
C
And I'm not.
- [60:28]
B
Yeah. And that's not as true as it used to be.
- [60:30]
A
It's clearly there is a level to which it's still impressive to people. Pablo is basically saying, you know, walking into the building, it's still is something, it's awe. It is kind of awe inspiring in some ways if you're, you know, if you're interested in journalism and media. But the flip side of that is that Pablo is not an employee there. Right. He is getting to do what he wants to do and roam freely and just having the strength and power of the New York Times ad sales team and the reach of their incredible podcast network, which of course has one of the most popular podcasts in the country in the Daily. And then a bunch of other podcasts that are increasingly popular, like has Recline show and Ross Douthit's podcast, which I think is actually doing something really interesting. We should probably have Ross on at some point.
- [61:13]
B
Yeah. Since Barbara has been dodging us, so we should.
- [61:17]
A
That's true, Michael. Come on the show. Although now, when we booked Pablo, we didn't know he was going to be a New York Times employee. And I'm worried now about having too many New York Times. You're a former New York Times employee. We had Meredith on. We didn't think that Pablo. We were going to be talking about the New York Times. When we booked Pablo, we thought we were going to be talking more about sports, but.
- [61:35]
B
Well, this is the problem with consolidation. Suddenly you only have people from three companies. Like, I was just thinking we should have, you know, Rachel Abrams, who's hosting the Daily lately, doing a great job. We should have her on. But suddenly you're right. We're just like. We're like the Talmud to the New York Times Torah or something. We don't want to do that.
- [61:49]
C
Yeah, we. We've got it.
- [61:50]
A
We'll definitely have to have some variation on. I think the last thing that I want to leave this with is talking about John Skipper, who's a friend of Semaphore and a friend of this show. Pablo was mentioning him several times. He's the former president of espn. And it kind of did strike me as Pablo was talking about ESPN's transition away from. From anything that resembles journalism mostly into just this kind of world of sports broadcast and just talk, you know, hours and hours of talk. That the journalism part of ESPN really did seem to be propped up by John Skipper's interest in it more than any sort of value that it was providing to the company. And that's something that it seems like we've seen more and more clearly. And I think it's a little sad as a journalist ourself. But, I mean, obviously it's cool because it creates these new forms, formats like Pablo's, which probably would have never flown there yeah.
- [62:41]
B
Well, thank you so much for bringing Pablo on. That was just a fascinating conversation.
- [62:44]
A
Thank you. Well, that's it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to Mixed Signals from Semaphore. Our show is produced by Shida Ozaki, and today's episode in particular was Produced by Chris McLeod from Blue Elevator Productions. Special thanks for this episode goes to Josh Billenson. Chat Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Kaur. Our engineer, as always, is Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Billy Libby. Our public editor this week is Pat Healy, who is the standards editor for the New York Times. And undoubtedly Bill will be watching Pablo's videos of him smoking weed, I guess, on YouTube with the new York Times logo next to it.
- [63:27]
B
Thanks for keeping an eye at that. And if you like Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're watching on YouTube, please do like and subscribe.
- [63:36]
A
And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter, out every Sunday night.