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Mike Florio Tried to Scare NBC Away From Partnering With Pro Football Talk

“You just got to talk about whatever comes out, and you have to sound like you know what you are talking about.”

Ricky Keeler

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A photo of Mike Florio
NBC Sports Group

Over the last 20 years, Mike Florio has gone from a lawyer in West Virginia to being the founder of Pro Football Talk and being one of the top NFL insiders in the business. Now, he is also an author, as his book Playmakers: How the NFL Really Works (And Doesn’t) was released recently.

Florio was a guest on The Adam Schein Podcast this week to talk about the book, his career, and some of the trades that happened in the NFL involving Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz. He mentioned that when he was doing radio spots in the early years of Pro Football Talk, it helped him become better as a lawyer as well:

“I started doing radio spots very early on,” said Florio. “I love doing radio spots because I looked at it this way. It was a way to market the business without it being an obvious advertisement. I didn’t have to pay for it. All I had to do was talk about football for 15 minutes and whoever happened to listen to it, here is the name of the website 4-5 times and maybe they go check it out.

“I was practicing law at the time and you have to talk on your feet on a regular basis when you do that. One thing I learned is that all the radio I was doing was actually making me better in court because you learn how to get comfortable operating with no net whatsoever, no notes, you just got to talk about whatever comes out, and you have to sound like you know what you are talking about.”

Once Dan Patrick left ESPN, Florio was a guest on his show. However in July 2010, he got an unexpected offer from the show. He thought he would just be a guest as the fill-in host when Patrick took a week off, but it ended up being a new opportunity for him.

“It was 2010. I was already with NBC, but I wasn’t a regular weekly member and didn’t know where this all was going to go,” Florio recalled. “Dan’s people called me in July 2010 and said Dan’s off next week, can you come on the show? I was like sure, whoever the replacement host is, just have him call me.

“They were like no, no, you’re the host. Time out. It’s one thing to talk for 10 minutes; for 3 hours, there’s no way, no how I can do that, but I did it. I was over-prepared for it. I had way too many notes and I was scared to death. I had no idea what a hard break was.”

Florio went on to explain that he ended up taking a hard break a minute earlier than he was supposed to. He ended up learning from it and is now one of the hosts of Pro Football Talk Live with Chris Simms and he’s part of the NBC Football Night In America crew every Sunday night during the season. 

Before Florio was on TV, NBC Sports tried to make a pitch for ProFootballTalk to be a part of NBCSports.com in 2009 and while Florio tried to scare them away in a parallel to a Seinfeld episode. However, it ended up becoming a key part of the website:

“When NBC, which was woefully behind its competitors on the dot com side, they didn’t have much of a presence on NBCSports.com. It was run by people who had Olympics background and didn’t care about football, baseball, basketball, etc. Rick Cordella, who is now the Chief Revenue Officer of Peacock, he was in charge of NBCSports.com and he called me in January 2009 and he made the pitch about how he wants to partner with PFT. I tried to scare him away. I didn’t want to do it.”

While Florio was afraid to do it, he said it was the best professional move that he ever made to join the NBC Sports family. 

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John Anderson Announces Retirement from SportsCenter on ESPN

“I don’t really know what’s quite next, I have some things in the fire. But SportsCenter will not be it.”

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Photo of John Anderson
Credit: Mediaite

Longtime SportsCenter anchor John Anderson has announced that when his contract comes up at the end of June, he will no longer be doing SportsCenter for ESPN. Anderson, who joined ESPN in 1999 does plan to continue covering certain events, but after 25 years he believes it is time to stop doing ESPN’s flagship show. Anderson spoke on his podcast, The Inside Wisconsin Show and prior to the episode’s release tomorrow, a clip was released:

“My contract runs out at ESPN at the end of June,” Anderson said. “I have decided that that will be the end. I’m going to leave the company. I’m going to sort of retire from ‘SportsCenter.’ I’m going to get to do a few track-and-field things, I’m going to get to continue to do the Boston Marathon and the New York Marathon – which I love – and some NCAA track meets and some SEC stuff.

“I am incredibly excited about that. It’s been a good run…I feel like it’s been a good run. The operation has changed. I don’t know that it’s passed me by, but it’s taken its toll and I still want to be able to do the best shows that I can, and I don’t know that if in years 26 or 27 I have the stamina to do it again.  

“So, I’m done…I don’t really know what’s quite next. I have some things in the fire. But SportsCenter will not be it.”

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Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo: NFL Streaming Games ‘Gets Obscene’

“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes.”

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Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo
Courtesy: Cindy Ord, Getty Images for SiriusXM

The National Football League has announced that the Philadelphia Eagles opening matchup taking place from San Paolo, Brazil against an opponent to be determined for the 2024 season will stream exclusively on Peacock. Even though the game will be exclusive to Peacock – thus requiring fans to subscribe in order to watch – it will also be broadcast on an over-the-air network in the local markets of the teams involved in the game. Christopher ‘Mad Dog’ Russo is not a fan of this decision by the league.

During his “What Are You Mad About?” segment on Wednesday morning’s edition of First Take on ESPN, Russo expressed his indignation towards the game being exclusively streamed by Peacock. Within his discourse, he presented a hypothetical scenario of an Eagles fan who continues to spend money to see the team at Lincoln Financial Field and how they would not fly down to Brazil to see the game. Russo continued by saying that the fan would then miss the game without having Peacock so the NFL is able to drive more revenue.

“It’s hard to get Peacock; I don’t want to get Peacock, alright?,” Russo said. “I want to watch the game normal. Give me [Joe] Buck and [Troy] Aikman, give me the CBS crew, [Tom] Brady’s going to do it. Give me something! Don’t put the Eagles 9,000 miles away and then put them on a cable thing on Peacock which you’ve got to subscribe to so NBC can make more money.”

NBC Sports will broadcast an opening night game during Week 1 on Thursday, Sept. 5, along with a Sunday Night Football contest on Sunday, Sept. 8. Within its stretch of primetime football matchups, which also includes a Saturday night Big Ten Conference game, the Friday night NFL game seems to be the only one exclusive to Peacock. The streaming platform is coming off a strong performance for its exclusive Wild Card round playoff matchup, drawing an average of 23 million viewers and becoming the most-streamed NFL game in history.

This past season of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video garnered a 24% increase in viewers compared to its first season, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. These metrics demonstrate that the broadcast property averaged 11.86 million viewers per game during the 2023 NFL season. The OTT streaming platform also presented the inaugural NFL game on Black Friday, which averaged 9.61 million viewers.

Prime Video will reportedly have the exclusive rights to an NFL playoff game next season, and it has continued building out its sports content vertical. The company has reportedly been exploring a potential media rights deal with the National Basketball Association as its national television contract is nearing expiration. The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery are currently in the midst of exclusive negotiating windows with the NBA that conclude on Monday, April 22, after which Amazon will be able to bid.

“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes,” Russo said, referring to the reported agreement for next season. “I know the NFL prints money – I understand how big they are, but boy this gets obscene.”

“One-hundred percent right,” First Take host Molly Qerim added. “I cannot stand having 8,000 different apps. It needs to be streamlined. It’s annoying – you have to remember all these passwords. I don’t have Peacock; I don’t want Peacock. I completely agree with you.”

ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler proceeded to convey the dedication of Eagles fans in showing up to the stadium and watching their team. Russo agreed with him that Eagles fans will travel down to Brazil since they pack stadiums and fervently support their team. Off of that point, ESPN NFL reporter Kimberley A. Martin explained that she believes the devotion and zeal from the fanbase is part of the reason why this is a shrewd decision by the NFL.

“This is genius,” Martin said. “You do put the Eagles – that type of team – because they’re going to buy it.”

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NCAA Women’s Championship Round 2 on ESPN Up 121%; Iowa-West Virginia Hits 4.9 Million Viewers

ESPN and ABC posted their four most-watched Women’s March Madness second-round games ever, with Iowa/West Virginia averaging 4.9 million viewers

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Graphic of the NCAA Women's basketball tournament

The women’s college basketball hot streak continues with the second round of the NCAA Women’s Championship on ESPN averaging 1.4 million viewers all weekend. Viewership was at its highest for Caitlin Clark’s final game in Iowa when her Iowa Hawkeyes defeated West Virginia, which amassed a staggering 4.9 million viewers and peaked at 6.4 million.

ESPN and ABC achieved their four-most watched second-round games on record this season. Outside of Iowa/WVU, the matchup between UConn and Stanford averaged 2.1 million viewers, the LSU/Middle Tennessee matchup garnered 2 million viewers, and the Kansas/USC tilt averaged 1.8 million viewers. This matches its first-round coverage, which also set marks for its most-viewed games ever.

According to ESPN’s VP of research Flora Kelly, Iowa/WVU’s 4.9 million viewers would have beaten every Women’s National Championship game from 2005 to 2022:

ESPN is no doubt excited for a potential Elite 8 matchup between Iowa and LSU, a rematch of last year’s national championship game. That game averaged 9.9 million viewers, shattering the previous record for a women’s college basketball game on any network. All it needs is an Iowa win over Colorado and an LSU win over UCLA to make their dream a reality. A potential Iowa/South Carolina national title game could surpass even that.

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