Jun 12, 2025

Welcome back to The Varsity, our thrice-weekly private email on the sports media business. I’m hunkered down in my hometown of Washington, D.C., writing this with one eye on NBC’s coverage of the U.S. Open. Congrats to my partner Leigh Ann Caldwell, who interviewed Sen. Brian Schatz downtown this morning at the Hay-Adams for our “Puck Power Breakfast” series. One of the joys of this company is how we unite our adjacent industries. If any of you philistines want to join Leigh Ann for the next installment of her newsmaker series, drop Fritz@puck.news a line. Pod alert: NASCAR racing legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. will visit the Varsity podcast this weekend for a wide-ranging conversation about everything from the future of the sport to his Amazon Prime documentary series. Junior is a fixture in both the Amazon and TNT Sports booths, and comes across as a thoughtful observer of NASCAR culture. Meanwhile, make sure you listen to yesterday’s pod: LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield offered a fulsome prognostication of how the WBD divorce will play out, particularly as it pertains to TNT Sports. Speaking of the podcast: We’re doing a live taping at the NASCAR race in Sonoma the weekend of July 12. Steve Phelps (NASCAR’s recently named, first-ever commissioner) will be my guest. We’ll cover a lot of ground, including the sport’s efforts to grow its audience with events like the Chicago street race, and this weekend’s race in Mexico City. We may have some availability, if you’re interested in experiencing NASCAR in wine country. (NASCAR is one of those sports you can’t truly appreciate until you see it live—preferably with a crisp chenin blanc in hand, Andrew!) Just email Fritz. Before we get started… I want to draw your attention to Bill Plaschke’s powerful piece in the L.A. Times about his Parkinson’s diagnosis. “I’ve spent my entire career writing triumphant stories about athletes overcoming illness and adversity, only to reach the home stretch struggling to find a similar triumph in a story about me,” he writes. Here’s wishing Bill all the best as he manages his illness. Okay, let’s get to it…

Player of the Week: Steve Bornstein

Genius Sports, the publicly traded A.I. and analytics company, provides real-time sports data to sportsbooks, leagues, and media companies, etcetera. But its vulnerability has always been its reliance on an NFL contract that was set to expire after the 2028 Super Bowl. Genius Sports president Steve Bornstein, who served long stints at both ESPN and the NFL Network, has eliminated that risk by signing a renewal, which includes a rights fee that has a low-double-digit escalator, per Guggenheim. More importantly, the deal gives the NFL $94 million in Genius stock. In fact, the Shield is now Genius’s largest shareholder, which should align incentives and calm the nerves of anxious investors.

Down to the J.V.: Jason Coyle

When the Chicago Sports Network launched last fall, the R.S.N.’s executives couldn’t work out a Comcast deal, so they cajoled the city’s biggest sports fans into buying digital antennas to watch Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox games for free over the air. With the consummation of last week’s Comcast deal, though, the team pulled those over-the-air signals, forcing fans to subscribe to Comcast’s expensive digital tier to watch the games. CHSN president Jason Coyle made this move for obvious reasons, and early viewership numbers show a considerable jump. But the decision to cancel those signals riled up loyal fans of three mediocre teams—none of which has had a winning season since 2021-22.

The Starting Five

The NFL’s weekend in D.C.: News that the NFL is sponsoring a “Kids Zone” on the National Mall before this weekend’s military parade caught several D.C. types by surprise. It’s true that the league has a history of supporting the military—and vice versa—and the festival is being held in honor of the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday. But everything these days has become intensely politicized—especially here in D.C.—and Saturday’s military parade has been associated with Donald Trump’s 79th birthday, which is also Saturday. (Events commemorating the anniversary had been in the works for two years, but it was only in recent months that Trump asked the Army for a parade.) Anyway, since the Kaepernick era, the NFL has been effective in staying out of the political morass, which made it notable that the league was the only brand featured on Saturday’s festival map. In fact, the NFL has been increasingly intertwined with Trumpworld. The league needed federal support to clear the path for the Commanders to move back to the city in 2030, for instance, and its ownership ranks are strewn with Trump guys, like Woody Johnson and Bob Kraft. It was only about a month ago that Roger Goodell was in the Oval Office announcing that the league would host the 2027 NFL Draft from the Mall. Meanwhile, sources tell me that NFL lobbyists have been trying to get the new tax hike on sports team owners excised from the tax reconciliation package moving through Congress.
NBA ratings air ball: The first two games of the NBA’s small-market Finals have been as low as pessimists predicted: Game 1 averaged just 8.91 million viewers, and Game 2 ticked down to 8.76 million. I still think there’s a chance the Finals can beat last year’s 11.3 million viewer average—if the series goes to six or seven games, but we’re a long way from that. I was interested to hear how Adam Silver addressed these numbers on ESPN last night. It wasn’t surprising to hear the NBA commissioner point out that the first two games were the highest-rated programs on TV for the nights they aired—–the go-to talking point when a sporting event attracts subpar viewership. Silver also spoke about how much easier it is for the league to take over smaller markets, like Oklahoma City and Indianapolis (“We’re dominating in these cities,” he said). Still, it’s clear that Silver isn’t happy with the TV numbers. He suggested that the league and Disney need to figure out how to bring more viewers into the tent. “Ultimately, the goal is to get more people to watch, and that’s what makes it a bigger event. So we have to be innovative and find new ways,” he said.
What’s next for TNT Sports: TNT Sports C.E.O. Luis Silberwasser is negotiating to pick up a package of UFC rights. He’s also in the final stages of securing a deal to sublicense more College Football Playoff games from ESPN. But LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield believes TNT Sports will become much less active in the rights business over the next 12 months, as the division’s spinoff from Warner Bros. Discovery moves toward closing. “I would be shocked to see them as a real bidder for UFC, Formula One, Major League Baseball, or the WWE P.L.E.s,” Greenfield told me on The Varsity podcast. Considering that they’ve completed several carriage deals, Greenfield speculated that TNT Sports isn’t going to do anything that hurts the cashflow of the linear networks. “You've got a bidder coming out of the sports rights bidding process over the course of the next 12 months,” he said. “With this transaction overhanging them, they’re out.”
The House settlement lawsuits: The first legal challenge to the NCAA’s House settlement has arrived from a group of female athletes, who filed a notice to appeal yesterday. They argue that the settlement runs afoul of Title IX because a wildly disproportionate amount of the settlement’s $2.7 billion payout is earmarked for male athletes, per Sportico’s Michael McCann. There’s another aspect of the settlement that is sure to invite even more legal challenges. As part of the agreement, Deloitte will manage a clearinghouse called NIL Go that will determine which name, image, and likeness deals are legit, and which aren’t. It sounds like a good idea in theory. But what happens the first time that Deloitte rejects an N.I.L. deal? After all, Deloitte reps have reportedly been telling college administrators that it would reject most of the N.I.L. deals coming from booster collectives. It’s not a stretch to envision the agents who negotiate these deals challenging Deloitte’s position in court—which will make for a whole new source of chaos in the college market.
A broadcast nightmare: The Varsity doesn’t usually wade into regulatory waters, but my partner Eriq Gardner has identified a potential broadcast bombshell in the budget reconciliation bill that’s moving through Congress. Namely, that the Trump administration hopes to auction off the upper-level C-band broadband spectrum used by TV companies. (Elon Musk would likely bid on behalf of his Starlink venture.) Here’s Eriq: “This predicament has put Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, Fox, Paramount, and A+E in a state of unanimous distress. In a recent joint filing with the F.C.C., they said that retaining the C-band ‘is essential to the reliable distribution of programming’ and warned that giving it up would undermine the architecture for live programming—sports and news, in particular…Make no mistake, the content companies are about to get steamrolled. The F.C.C. can’t auction the spectrum without congressional authority, but Trump’s desire to auction the C-band appears to be moving right ahead: Brendan Carr has requested that congressional authority, and Republicans have fallen in line after settling Department of Defense concerns.”

And now for the main card…

Rolapp Ditches His Bridesmaid Dress

It’s not easy being Roger Goodell’s number two. Now, Brian Rolapp, a longtime resident of the NFL commissioner shortlist, is at the precipice of taking a job with the PGA Tour, instead.

John Ourand

Back in December, soon after PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced a plan to hire a C.E.O., the search committee identified Roger Goodell’s number two, Brian Rolapp, as a top candidate. Rolapp has been the NFL’s top business executive for years, and the lead architect of the league’s media playbook. And though he has never been officially identified as the heir apparent to Goodell, Rolapp has unofficially been on the shortlist to succeed him. But who knows when that might happen. Goodell, whose contract runs until 2027, has apparently given Rolapp his blessing to pivot to the PGA Tour. It’s probably not coincidental that the head of the Tour's search committee, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, obviously has a long relationship with Goodell. Late this afternoon, as news broke that the PGA Tour intended to hire Rolapp, Goodell sent out a memo to league staff formally announcing his deputy’s departure from the NFL after 21 years. (“Brian’s done a great job,” etcetera…) The PGA Tour job won’t be announced this week. The Tour doesn’t want to take any focus off the U.S. Open, which runs through Sunday at Oakmont outside of Pittsburgh. The Tour also has a board meeting set to take place next week during the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, where Rolapp’s hiring will be rubber-stamped. Sources tell me that talks progressed quickly in the past week, with compensation being the final sticking point between the two. Rolapp will work alongside Monahan, whose contract is up next year. In some ways, the PGA Tour’s interest in Rolapp is surprising, considering the insular nature of the golf world. But Monahan made it clear from the outset that they were open to bringing in an outsider. And, per SBJ, the Tour reached out to executives like NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps, TaylorMade Golf C.E.O. David Abeles, and former Ticketmaster chairman Jared Smith. The Tour has spent the past few years on the defensive, losing several top-name golfers to the upstart LIV Golf. Early last year, however, the PGA Tour received a $3 billion investment from the Strategic Sports Group, and, a couple of months ago, rejected a $1.5 billion investment from LIV—a sign that momentum has swung the Tour’s way. It also launched PGA Tour Studios to gain control over the production of its events, and it invested in TMRW Sports, which launched the TGL last year. Of course, the PGA Tour’s media deals run through 2030, and many of its biggest sponsorship deals are locked in for multiple years as well. Meanwhile, Rolapp’s 20-plus years at the NFL have been marked by massive growth. NFL owners have said that they want to extend the 66-year-old Goodell again, which would keep him as commissioner until at least 2030. It’s no wonder Rolapp, who’s been a loyal soldier for two decades, is interested in running something. After all, who knows: perhaps this experience will elevate his profile down the road. He’s still a relatively young man with decades to go in his career. Indeed, several sources caution that Rolapp’s move would not necessarily take him out of the running to be the next NFL commissioner. “If he does well at the PGA Tour, he could be an even more legitimate candidate—with commissioner experience—to replace Roger at some point,” one executive who works with Rolapp told me. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine the NFL will be comfortable with an outsider. Many of Goodell’s discussions regarding his own extension have focused on succession planning. Owners have told Goodell that they want him to develop a stronger bench that they can tap when the commissioner ultimately calls it quits.

From the Cheap Seats…

On the Time Warner geniuses: “At what point does Time Warner leadership get the credit they deserve? More than 15 years ago, they had the foresight to first see the headwinds facing cable (sorry Rich Greenfield, it was way before Iger) and were the first to act by splitting their assets into two separate companies (distribution and content). Not even five years later, Time Warner Cable was being sold, and the remaining assets followed a few years after. Even Marchand would have to admit their timing was pretty, pretty good.” —A media executive On streaming latency: “Low-latency streaming is already near, or better, than some cable feeds. The cost just needs to come down, and I wouldn’t bet against that. Plus, linear isn’t perfect. Traditional TV often has its own delays (8-12 seconds), so the gap isn’t as wide as people assume. The future is streaming. It delivers flexibility, scale, interactivity, and control that linear simply can’t match.” —A streaming media executive On typos in The Varsity: “You wrote ‘andpower’ in your intro on Monday. No space between the words. Get it together, Ourand. I would make a Marchand joke, but as an Oilers fan, that is a trigger word at the moment.” —A lawyer (of course)

Have a great weekend, John

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