For a sports media and business nerd like me, there is no better podcast to listen to than The Sporting Class, the show I eavesdropped in on this week. The show, which features Pablo Torre along with former ESPN executive and current Meadowlark Media CEO John Skipper and former Miami Marlins President David Samson, airs every other week on Torre’s channel for his regular podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out.
The bi-weekly podcast addresses the top stories happening behind the scenes in sports and in around an hour, the two sports executives and the funny and bright Torre keep you entertained while you walk away a much more informed sports fan for having listened.
In the episode I checked out, which dropped on Friday January 31, the main topic was the dominance of both the NFL over every other professional sport in the US and the Kansas City Chiefs over every other team in the league. Both Skipper and Samson expressed they are still surprised when they look at just how dominant the NFL is.
“The NFL is the game of this country,” Skipper said. “It is the game in which our country mostly stops, where you notice it on the street…It is America’s sport, and most Americans stop for big games like [the AFC and NFC Championship games] and this is what their day is about.”
Samson added that one NFL championship game drew more of a television audience than the entire World Series. He and Torre also talked about the difference between a playoff series in baseball versus the winner take all games in the NFL. Samson says the single elimination style, like March Madness, has “so much at stake for every game and football is that on steroids.”
Skipper talked about one of his sons enjoying the NFL playoffs despite being a fan of the New York Jets who have not been invited to join the postseason party in nearly a decade and a half. When Samson asked if that was perhaps because his son wagers on the games, Skipper said that was not the case and added, “I personally believe the suggestion that gambling has anything to do with these high numbers, I don’t really believe it. I think it makes it more fun, but I don’t think that that’s why these numbers are high…It’s more of a…love of the game that is astonishing.”
I got the sense that neither Samson nor Torre agreed with Skipper on that point but in this case, they chose not to question the longtime president of ESPN who started with that company in 1997 as senior vice president and general manager of ESPN the Magazine. Later, Skipper made the point that another reason for the NFL’s dominance is how good the experience is watching it on television.
“It’s a great game to watch on television,” he said. “It’s easy, you can see everything almost.”
Torre added, “It’s better on television.”
Skipper went on to say that the very way the game works lends itself to a fun experience. “I think the fact that there is less action in a football game makes it better,” he said. “It’s a more social event. You sit around laughing and talking. Television works perfectly for football.”
Another great topic that came up was the idea of villains in sports, notably the teams that win a lot in a certain period of time, much like the Kansas City Chiefs are currently doing. As Torre said about the Chiefs, “In this moment they are super-villains.”
Skipper added that for a television network, “Villainy is not a bad thing.” He then asked, “Why is their dynasty villainous? Aren’t all dynasties villainous because you’re keeping every other team and their fans from winning?”
Samson puts an end to the conspiracy theories about the Chiefs as he addresses what a lot of people seem to miss. In a nutshell his point was that if the NFL wanted to script things, why are the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys bad? If sports can be rigged and controlled by leagues, why aren’t the New York Knicks deep in the postseason every year or how come it took so long to get a Los Angeles Dodgers-New York Yankees World Series again?
This is the type of analysis you get on The Sporting Class as the hosts do their best to use facts rather than just throwing out blanket opinions. Samson and Skipper lived and still live in these worlds and are mostly giving you firsthand information or are commenting after having spoken to people who would be in the know.
A good example of this comes later on the topic of Tom Brady and his ownership of the Raiders while working as an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. Samson doesn’t hold back when he says he is not a fan of either FOX Sports or the Raiders/NFL allowing Brady to also do the other job.
To put it in more context, as the group discusses Brady’s current role with the Raiders, which looks an awful like a job someone would have as a full-time position, Samson points out the fans lose out on both ends.
“Raiders fans should be mad,” he said as he brings up the point that the team deserves to have someone who is fully focused on the team making these big decisions or being involved in them. On the other hand, his responsibilities as an analyst for FOX Sports are compromised by the time he puts in for the Raiders and the things he is not allowed to do by the league.
The rest of the way, the guys were terrific on the topic of broadcaster salaries, the ManningCast and more. If you are into the why behind a lot of what happens in sports and sports media, The Sporting Class is for you.
Last year, when Pablo Torre spoke with Barrett Media’s Derek Futterman, he summed the show up well when he said, “I love hosting The Sporting Class so much, and I refer to it all the time as ‘Rich guys’ OnlyFans’ because really what it is is I’m wildly curious about what it’s like to be them and have their perspective on a business that is changing so chaotically and rapidly really hour to hour,” Torre said. “We’re watching billion-dollar swings happen regularly, executives change employers and just sports emerge seemingly out of nowhere, and so, so much of sports right now is a business story, and my genuine curiosity also applies to, ‘What’s actually going on here?’”
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Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
