The media business, above all else, is a copycat game. So when ESPN signed lucrative and loophole-laden deals with Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith, virtually every agent received inbound from their roster of clients looking for similar concessions. Perhaps they weren’t agitating for Stephen A.’s $20 million per annum, but they wanted some of the same flexibility to create content on other platforms. On a recent episode of The Varsity, UTA’s co-head of sports media, Jerry Silbowitz, walked me through the advice he gives to his clients, including Gronk and Rich Eisen. (As usual, this conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

John Ourand: Let’s start with on-air talent. If you see a lot of star potential in someone, what’s your advice? Traditional television? A newer platform? Jerry Silbowitz: From a player/analyst perspective, there’s always a desire for a certain amount of freshness when you step off the field or the court. But it’s different. Ten or 15 years ago, it would be all about star power—hall of famers and interesting personalities who would choose a pregame show or a studio. Now, obviously, those aren’t the only options. We look at if someone wants to also have their own digital show, and that’s been a significant change. We just signed former Washington Wizard Gilbert Arenas. His presence on his daily YouTube streaming show is massive, with around a million subs on his channel. He easily will do 20,000 [concurrent viewers on his livestreams], if not more, every day. He built this massive studio and infrastructure at his house. He has a business. Do we also explore some work with one of the rights holders, or do we explore something with a traditional corporate media entity that can be additive to the portfolio of what he’s doing? It doesn’t have to be one or the other. If anything, we hope that it’s a mix, because what the digital, or your owned and operated I.P., does is give you a great deal of flexibility to own your audience and control where they are, while also going on a platform and engaging with another audience. And if for some reason some things don’t work out, you still have your audience nice and organized, and ready to move on to the next thing. Back in the day, there was an obvious way for this to go: Everyone wanted a TV show because that’s where the money was, and where people saw success, even if they had big digital audiences. Do people still view it that way? Not necessarily. This all goes back to, Who’s the talent? What are their goals? Pat McAfee is not a client, but he’s an obvious example. His show started on YouTube. It’s very important to him, but he ended up adding a cable channel with extreme reach, and an S.V.O.D. service with reach. And it’s on TikTok. He clearly opted for everything, and is going for the largest reach possible. The idea of owning your I.P. and licensing it to someone—let alone having it go live on multiple platforms at the same time other than the traditional radio/TV simulcast—has never been an option. But we’re at this moment where it can be an option for the right show that can move the needle from the talent perspective. It just depends. Look at Stephen A. Smith. He has one of the most successful shows in the sports media cable landscape. But with a great deal of ambition and fire, he built his show. I don’t know him, but I’m assuming the show he does is [the] show that he’s always wanted to do at night. To use another example, Rich Eisen is a longtime client. Part of his daily show came from the idea that he wanted to be a late night talk show host. There are only a handful of those jobs, and they turn over once every two or three decades. Even in the current landscape, who knows what the impact is? But Rich’s show evolved into a cast, a radio show, a TV show with a podcast version that interviews both the top talent in sports and Hollywood and other interesting people. DirecTV got out in 2019 and gave him his show to keep. He kept going and controlled and built the show. Ask him what platform is important to him: It’s all of them. It streams live on Roku’s sports channel. He also has his own FAST channel. He has a presence on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. Those are meaningful ways for the audience to engage with your content in shorter or medium form. If people just want to engage with the short form, that’s monetized and is making an impact. Right now, all of these platforms are important. McAfee, Stephen A., Eisen. Is this a new template? It’s inspiring for those talents who can move needles. They’re expanding their capacity, from both a content-output perspective, and a revenue one. Stephen A. is doing his show in addition to the already nice business he has going with The Walt Disney Co. That’s I.P. that he owns and controls. Gilbert Arenas saw it the same way. You’re at a point where, if you can move the needle, and have access to resources and technology, all this content is cheaper to make, and much more accessible. They can have their little company, and they can have a small culture where they can make something for a dollar, sell it for $3, and you actually made $2—versus sometimes things happen, and there’s corporate math that we understand, but doesn’t always look like basic math. People do look at the McAfee and Stephen A. deals, and they aspire to it. Some can achieve it. But it doesn’t have to be the only path to winning.

On CBS’s Masters production: “If you want to teach television, just show the CBS Masters broadcast from the time of the winning putt to the end of the Butler Cabin interview. Absolute perfection in every way. I don’t know or care how the Sports Emmys work—heck, even I have one—but I promise you, there will not be a better stretch of television done in our industry this year.” —An executive from a rival network On the NHL commissioner: “Listening to your podcast with Gary Bettman that featured his thoughtful answers, but more importantly, his dog barking in the background. I’m sure that could decrease the boos he continues to hear in public-facing moments with a microphone. As the longest-tenured commissioner in the Big Four, he’s had a remarkable career and I hope that when he decides to hang up his skates, he’s celebrated by the players and fans for the enterprise he’s created.” —A Varsity subscriber

See you tomorrow, John