Crisis on the Field in the NFL

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love the deals, prices and selection vary by store. Mark Cuban, how you do anything is how you do everything. If you're not, if you don't pay attention to detail on the little things, you're not gonna be an avid, a paying attention to detail for the big thing. Can Griffey Jr. Hey, where's his hat back for us? Well, where my hat got this? Cause my dad had

a fro and I wonder where his hat. And if I put his hat on at 86 and you know, he's got a 8.5 and I got like a little 5. It's not going to really stay on my head. Turn out, it's good to see everybody. John Smolts. If you don't have the imagination and the willingness to fail or not being afraid to fail, I don't think

you can be truly great. Candace Parker. I have so much hope for this generation coming up that I've grown up with women in sports, in leadership roles, on television, speaking about sports, speaking knowledgeably about sports. To me, all the work that I've done, all the humanitarian work that I've done has always given me great perspective. I gotta keep my feet on the ground and has really

put and reminded me what's truly important. That was for Seattle. Just to name a few. Welcome to sports business radio. Now here's Brian Burger. Well, happy New Year and thanks for joining us on another edition of sports business radio. I hope everyone had a nice holiday season. We are entering year 19 of sports business radio in 2023. If you can believe that I'm joined by executive

producer Brian Griggs. Griggs, how are you doing? Good. And as you know, Danic Apatric said, the OGs of podcasting. Here we go. 19 years. I love it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I mean, we've discussed that we don't want to skip this year, but year 2, we're going to have to do some pretty special things. I would invite our listening audience to go into the archives. We're

going to be doing a lot of work. We've got many, many podcasts over the years with the biggest names and sports and business. Go to Apple podcasts or Spotify podcast or sportsbusinessradio.com. We've even got a YouTube channel. You can watch some of our best conversations there as well. Griggs, I know many people were watching the Monday night football game last night as we record this. And

it was between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. It was in Cincinnati. A lot of people anxiously awaiting the matchup of two of the best teams in the NFL, certainly in the AFC, Josh Allen and Joe burrow, but tragedy hit the field. And you know, it's something that you hope never happens at a sporting event. But Buffalo Bill Safety, Demar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest

after making a tackle. His heartbeat was restored. On the field, according to the team, the second year player collapsed on the field. He was given CPR and he was taken to a hospital in Cincinnati where he's currently listed as we record this in critical condition. Then I felt eventually postponed the game between the bills and the Bengals. And they just came out minutes ago and said

the game will not be resume this week. And there's no makeup date scheduled. So other games will take place this weekend week 18. Of the NFL season, this will not be one of them. So so many places to start, but you know, I want to preface this conversation by saying. I was behind the mic on March 4th 1990 when loyal, a marathon, all American Hank Gathers

collapsed and died in a basketball game. I saw something like this happened right in front of me. Unfortunately, that ended in the worst case scenario with Hank dying. Demar Hamlin is still alive. And I'm really excited to be able to help you guys. And I was really excited about seeing this happen. And I was really excited. I didn't know we're sending our thoughts and prayers and

hoping for the best for him. But I have a unique perspective on this, because I saw, you know, what happened to the players and certainly what happened to us. I mean, I was not on ESPN, but I know it Joe Buck and Trey Eggman were feeling like last night, there's really no words that can describe what you're watching. I have friends on the loyalty of the

basketball team that I consider brothers to this day. I was a fall in team at the time, Hank Gathers reminded me of what I was watching last night with Demor Hamlin. And, you know, these players are going to need therapy for a while. They saw something very traumatic last night. It's been 33 years since I saw Hank Gathers collapse and die in front of me. And

I still think about it a lot. And every time I see a player go down in a sporting event like I did last night, I have flashbacks to that night. So to expect these players to continue playing that game last night was absurd. The NFL did make the right decision. It took them an hour to make the decision. And Griggs, you wonder, you know, one of

the things I do in my, I quote unquote, day job, is I help organizations, teams, leagues, plan for crises. And you have to think of the worst case scenario. And as I walked this unfold last night, I wondered has the NFL ever planned for a death on the field. Or something like what we saw happen last night, it didn't look like it. I know there's a

lot of stakeholders. You've got the bills, you've got the bangles, you've got the medical team, you've got the league office in New York. There's a lot of people involved. But it seemed pretty obvious when you saw the reaction of the players to what was happening that they couldn't continue playing this game. So the fact that it took the league office an hour to say the game

would be postponed. It seemed like too long. Yeah. And I mean, report. It's too that, you know, I've been reading and hearing too. It sounds like the teams basically decided before the NFL. They're like, we're not right. This game. And that makes, you know, it's even worse on the NFL because you're right. They've got to have this crisis stuff planned. It can't take an hour. You've

got 70,000 fans sitting there wondering what's going on too. You've got teams wondering what's going on. That has to be more instant. I mean, it's got to be. And just the, I thought when they came out and said they're going to have a five minute warm up time. I'm like, what are you doing? I mean, this is not something you just warm up and go out

and play five minutes later. I just, I was shocked by that. Any human being who sees someone that they care about in a life or death situation, you don't just resume normal activities a few minutes later. You just don't. There was no way that players on either team wanted to play without knowing the status of DeMaur Hamlin. It became pretty clear that you weren't going to

know the status of DeMaur Hamlin in an hour and two hours and three hours. We still, you know, hours later, don't know what his status is other than he's in critical condition. And he's an intensive care. But to ask the players to resume that activity. Now at the same time that's going on, Greg's. You've got the reporters for ESPN in really this unique position that again,

most reporters play by play people color analysts, you know, your Joe bucks, Troubles, Troy Ackman's Lisa Salters, Evolt eventually Scott Van Pelt and Ryan Clark later in the night. You never planned for this. You know, you know, there's no journalism class and, you know, how do you broadcast in crises? How do you broadcast in a life or death situation? I thought that ESPN reporters did about

of good of a job as you could do under the circumstances. Again, I've literally sat in that seat. No, not on ESPN. But yes, I'm not. I'm just trying to describe the facts, trying not to speculate, trying to just let the audience know like here is what we know. And there's a lot we don't know. So we can't speculate. You know, I remember with the Hey

Gather situation, I literally left the court side broadcast location after they took him off in the ambulance. And I went down the hill to Daniel Freeman Hospital in Los Angeles. And, you know, I was in the hallway when they. Unfortunately, pronounced Hank dead. And I called my broadcast partner Keith Foreman, also the co founder of Sports Business Radio. And Keith went on the air in Los

Angeles. Obviously, this is before Twitter or any kind of social media. And he announced that Hank had passed away. So there's so much speculation. There's so many things going on. There's so many sources of information. I've often thought what would Hank Gathers situation have been like if we had social media back then. You know, ESPN happened to have a camera. Because they were going to be

doing the championship game in the West Coast Conference the night before, by the way, Eric Spolster, the now coach of the Miami Heat was playing in that game where Hank Gathers died. He was playing for the University of Portland. Eric and I have discussed this. And that night many, many times. But what were your thoughts on ESPN's coverage. I thought they did about as well as

they could do under the circumstances. Yeah, I think just like you said, I think that's what I'm going to say. What do you say? I thought Joe and Troy initially did great. I mean, really, they just let the scene play out. They didn't even talk. You just hear the sound and how quiet it was. Not arena was just unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, just when they came

back from a break and it was just you just hear the sound. I mean, that just like that hit me because it's like, wow, this is a big deal. I mean, if you've got this many people silent, you don't hear anything. But I thought they did as great as Greg. I think when they went to the halftime crew with burger, McFarlane, I thought they did a

great job. His insight was really good. The realness of him talking about being on the field with players and how big this is. And it's more than the game now. It's life and death with with this player. So I thought they did get on the halftime. And then like you mentioned to Ryan Clark had some great things to say with Scott Van Pelt later in the

night too, about the realness of these are human players going out. They're putting their life on the line to play the sport and live in their dream. And you just don't know what, you know, each hit's going to lead to. But overall, I thought they did really well. Lisa Salter's being down there by the locker room, getting some footage of, you know, just the conversation between

the head coaches going back and forth and literally the real time taking phone calls and trying to figure out how to make this thing resolve. So yeah, overall, I thought it was, it was really well done as good as you could do. And I couldn't keep my eyes off it. I mean, I was on Twitter refreshing constantly. I was watching the game. You and me were

texting a couple times. I mean, it's just that stuff just stops you in your tracks and you can't look away. You're trying to just take it in and you don't know what to do. It's just a real life happening as it's happening and pretty crazy scene. Yeah, I mean, for years and I've talked about it on this show. I mean, this is going to sound harsh,

but football is a gladiator sport. It is a brutal sport. How many players do we see dying young? Maybe not on the field, but after, you know, lingering effects of playing in the NFL? You know, these hits are like car accidents on every play. They're so big and they're so fast. I just feared, you know, was there a day coming where we're going to see a

player die on the football field? And these games have so many people watching them. And, you know, it is like the death of a gladiator. Again, DeMar Hamlin is still with us. I hope he recovers from this. But what we saw last night was about as close to that as we could get on a football field. And, and, you know, again, we saw the NFL's response.

I didn't think it was great. It seemed a little insensitive in the moment, especially given the reactions by the players. I do think, you know, postponing the game eventually and saying we're not going to resume it this week at the right call. You know, again, using my loyal, a mere amount of experience. I mean, we went to a funeral in Philadelphia after that game. We, you

know, it was two or three weeks before that team could play a game. And even then, it was just so emotional and, you know, crying on the bench, crying during the game when Bo Kimball made his left hand at free throw. And, you know, again, this is human emotion that we're talking about. And it's not just like, you know, sports, you can't, I think sometimes we

get caught up in looking at these athletes as like, oh, they're my fantasy player or, you know, they're just like a number on the field. They're not a human being. And, you know, the other thing that I found ironic was that DeMar Hamlin's mom was in the stands last night. And again, you know, Hank Gathers mom was in the stands when Hank went down. And, you

know, to be witness to that, it's the worst nightmare for a parent. And no matter what, you know, she was able to get to the hospital with him and ride an ambulance. And that was good news. I thought the Bengals couldn't have been a better host. I mean, their medical staff rushed onto the field with the bills, the ambulance was out there right away. They found

a hospital that was only a couple months ago. And I was away, University of Cincinnati, you know, trauma unit. Zacta, the head coach of the Bengals went to the hospital last night. You know, Bengals players were so supportive. You said, Joe burrow hugging Josh Allen. They lit the stadium in blue and the night. I mean, they went over backwards to show their love and support for

their brothers on the other side. And, you know, kudos. As I said on social media. To the Bengals organization for doing all that they could in a really difficult moment. Yeah, I agree. I thought it was, uh, yeah. Some of those scenes with both teams, you know, hugging and crying together. And I thought the Joe Buck kept giving credit to the fans to being respectful and

being quiet and just taking it in. I mean, that. I thought you're right. They handled amazing. You saw after the fact a ton of fans went to the hospital and did visuals and prayers and all that Cincinnati and Buffalo fans. And you mentioned his mom being there too. So cool because it's a road game for the Billus. It was awesome that she was there and able

to see him and be in the ambulance with him. And credit to, I think Joe Buck said it, uh, you know, if this has to happen, what a better place to happen other than the hospital. I mean, that you've got the best doctors in the world on both sidelines. You've got an ambulance and EMTs there. I think that's that saved his life. I mean, if that's,

he's out running in the park and this happens, no one finds him. He doesn't, he doesn't live through it. So I think credit to the medical staff to get out there and get that heart back. And, uh, yeah, I think that whole situation was handled really, really well. And I think that's the reason why I was here. And, uh, taking care of as good as I

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have been a better person other than Scott Van Pelt to lead the coverage last night. I mean, you know, he he was fantastic. And you could tell, I mean, again, this is a shocking moment. This is not something that you prepare for in journalism school or, you know, even in your career. Um, Ryan Clark has always been one of my favorites. He's, you know, was a

great player, very eloquent as a player has been a tremendous broadcaster. And he was so brutally honest and was so poignant and and really, really good. So I thought they did a great job again. Lisa Salters whenever they cut to her. And it was hard for her not to get emotional. Can't blame her at all. And, you know, Joe Buck and Troy Ackman, they really just

look speechless. I mean, they they look like. They didn't really even know what to say. And, you know, as they said, there's no words. Like there's there's nothing that you can say other than just reporting the facts and reporting what's happening at real time. There's nothing you can say that's going to, you know, fully describe the moment or make anything better for anyone. Now unfortunately, when

moments like this happen, you do have jackasses on Twitter. Um, I was blocking people like to kebab matambo last night on Twitter. Just idiots, you know, hey, toughen up, get back on the field. You know, my fantasy team needs these points. Um, I mean, just stupid stuff. But there might not have been a bigger ass hat last night. Then skip a list of Foxboards. And I

was happy to see that Shannon Sharp his partner didn't show up today for the show and basically left him there to deal with the fallout of his comments on Twitter last night, all of himself. And, you know, look, I know there's a stick for people like skip to get viewers and to be a contrarian and to be, you know, against the grain and try and stir

the pot and all of that stuff. But there's also being human. And I think that's what I'm going to say. And for him to make the comments that he made last night during that grave situation was completely uncalled for. And frankly, if Foxboards doesn't do something to punish him or address what he did on behalf of the network, I think they're an error as well. But,

you know, I won't even give anyone else the pleasure of me naming their name, but, you know, there were other people out there last night that were being jerks too on the flip side of that. I'm always amazed by the human spirit and kindness that exists in the world. So, Demar Hamlin started a toy drive a few years ago. And he was doing the toy drive

again for underprivileged youth. And before the game, they had asked to raise $2,500 on a GoFundMe page. As of this recording right now, they've raised over $4 million from people contributing. I contributed. I would say go to our Twitter feed at SB Radio. And I think that's what I'm going to say. And you can find the link to the toy drive. You know what? He's number

three, give three bucks. I mean, give whatever you can give. But like, this guy is a good kid. He's done stuff in the community. He's everything that you want about an athlete, you know, he plays hard. He's a good person in the locker room. He's a good person in the community. You know, he was a star at the University of Pittsburgh. So that community has really

rallied around him as well. I saw Mike Tom on the coach of the Steelers. Had some comments today, Tom Brady has come out. I thought it was really interested. Interesting that Chris Praunger, who had something similar happened to him on the ice in 1998. He was struck, blunt force with a puck right in the chest. And he fell over much like what we saw with Demar

Hamlin yesterday. He got the care that he needed. And he's doing fine today. So we're hoping for the same kind of outcome for Demar Hamlin. But it was nice. I think that Chris Praunger reminded us of, hey, I went through something very similar. I survived it. I'm doing okay. Like, keep the hope. There's some hope here. Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool to see. I

saw a stat about that. His, his fund that go fund me 0.003 seconds. There was a donation. Every 0.003. I mean, that is just that's the cool part of humanity. When we can come together and do something like that. I want to see his face when he, you know, is back in and doing his own stuff when he gets to that total like, hey, we've got

to 4 million overnight or whatever. He's going to be blown away. That's going to be such a highlight for him. And, you know, how many kids that's going to change their life too. So there's always good from tragedy. Obviously. And this is, this is a fascinating scene. I was just, that was so cool to see that. That total keep wracking up. And it's still going to

keep wracking up. And that's, that's pretty cool. I am so happy for, for his fund and for all those kids that's going to change their lives. Yeah. You can't help but think about the NFL and players. And I know, you know, some people may say he got hit at just the right place at the right time or in this case, the wrong place at the wrong

time. And, you know, this is a 1 and a million type of hit that would cause him to have this cardiac arrest. But football is such a brutal sport is such a gladiator sport. You see more players who have played football. Die at a young age than any other sport because of the immense contact that you're dealing with. And this is probably a conversation for another

day. But one of my other thoughts was, how many current NFL and college players are we thinking their careers after what they saw last night? And how many parents whose kids play football are going to now steer their kid away from football until you know what, go play basketball, go play baseball, go play pickleball, go, go play golf, go play a non contact sport that isn't

going to result in. Potentially catastrophic injury or, you know, at least something that's going to really hurt your body after your playing career. It seems like God, every month, you know, we just saw during the break, Franco Harris, 72 years old, look like he was in good health. You know, he dies. It seems like every month we're losing a former NFL player. And it's just really

sad. So, you know, is this the same thing that we're doing? This is a seminal moment for the NFL. This was something that transcended sport. People were walking them on the NFL football, but quickly it became news on, you know, Fox and CNN and CNBC and like this becomes a human story. So when something like that happens, you wonder. Our parents going to say, or our

players themselves going to decide, you know what? This is not worth it. You know, you see JJ watt also since our last show announced his retirement. Well, JJ watt. Had a hard episode earlier in the year. They had to shock his heart back into rhythm. He just had his first child with his wife and he decided, you know what? I don't need to do this anymore.

I've got plenty of money. And, you know, I've got my first child and I've got my whole life in front of me. I don't need to play the gladiator sport anymore. So, are we going to see more of that at the very least where players come in and maybe they play five or six years. And then they say, you know what? I'm out. Like I made

some good money. I, you know, still have my health for the most part and I'm in a move on. Or does this start even younger than that where parents wake up this morning and go, you know what? Johnny, like you've been playing pop Warner football. No more. Like you go play something else. You're not playing football anymore. And I have parent friends. I mean, I have

a daughter. So this was not a conversation for us. But, you know, I have parent friends who have said like, no, I don't want my kid to play football. Yeah. So yeah, I think somebody mentioned that last night on the broadcast too about having these machines, the AED machines, if you're going to keep playing football, they need to be at every single stadium from age five

or whenever they start playing because their life saving machines. And I don't think that has been installed and incorporated into every arena and every single high school. But they have to be there. I mean, if you're going to play this kind of sport, you know, and even these younger kids that aren't as developed as these, you know, professional athletes, it's probably even easier to take a

hit and get crushed in the heart, you know, and the ribs because they're not built the same way. But they've got to have these machines on every football field. You know, and I think at every football game, they've got to have a doctor or doctors around because it's just not worth it. If you're going to keep playing these these violence sports, there's got to be ways

to at least, you know, shock these hearts back because it's going to happen again. Most likely. Yeah. Well, I'll give a quick plug 44 for life. So after Hank Gathers died. Bokeh and Mollis former teammate and a few others started an organization called 44 for life. And I think that's the kind of thing that you can google them. That's their mission. Griggs is to get A

E D's not only in every pro facility, but every high school facility, every grade school facility anywhere where someone could go down. Could be parks and rack could be the boys and girls club. It could be anywhere. They want to have A E D's in there. So at least there's a chance that if something like this happens that you can shock the heart back into rhythm.

It doesn't guarantee that you're going to have success. But like you said, you know, I think you're going to have a good time. You know, there should be A E D's in every facility. If you work in sports, I don't care what level you're at. When you're listening to this and you don't have an A E D in your facility, get one in there. And, you

know, again, contact 44 for life. Or, you know, your local hospital or go buy one, whatever you need to do, you need to have A E D's in your facility. And, you know, Griggs is just an unfortunate situation. You know, I think that's the kind of thing that you can do. I hate even talking about like, what does this mean for the schedule for the NFL

for the rest of the year? Like, do you just call that game a tie and not make them resume it? How does it affect the standings? I think most people, you know, 12 hours out from when this happened as we record this or like, who cares? Like, I don't care. Like, we just want to know that tomorrow, Hamlin's going to be okay. We're not thinking about

the standings. We're not thinking about our fantasy team. Any of that stupid stuff. It all seems so trivial. And I think that's the kind of thing that makes us so different. And I think that's the kind of thing that makes us so different. The NFL is by far the most popular sport in America. So many people watch these games. So many people were watching that. And

I think that's the kind of thing that makes you so different. So many of the people that watch this game last night. And, you know, it played out in front of everyone. And it's a scary scene. And I think, you know, how do you learn from situations like that? You know, if I'm the NFL, you got to have a better crisis plan. If something like that

happens again. If you're ESPN, you know, you did as well as you could do. But you could tell like when they threw it back to the studio, like, you could tell Joe Buck and Troy and it's like Susie Colbert and Adam Schaefter and Bogermock Farland. They were like, okay, well, we'll carry the time. But we don't really know what to say either. And it's totally reasonable

for them to feel like that. Like, what do you say? There's nothing you can say. But they have to fill the time. They have to update people on the facts. You know, in those situations too, just so people know since I've worked in pro sports, you're really relying on the team. I mean, you know, the league is in New York. They don't have information. I mean,

the most reliable sources of information are the team. In this case, the Buffalo builds, not the Bengals, the bills. They're the ones, you know, this is their player that this happened to. They're going to keep a real tight circle around this. Right. So they're going to, I guarantee you they went into the locker room. And they said, other than offering up prayers and support, you do

not release any information on what is going on right now. That needs to come from the team. Right. The league has followed the suit of the bills for the most part on updates. You did see an update from the family, like a statement. Thank you for your support. There's a marketing rep who's made the rounds on a few of the morning shows and you know says

he's a friend of NMR's and I think he's done an excellent job. But you know, people want to be first. They want to rush to speculate. They want to rush to, you know, hey, I'm going to get Josh Allen on the phone or I'm going to get Joe burrow or I'm going to get a bit of a deal. You know, one of the coaches, no, leave

him alone. Like this is a painful experience for them. Like give them their privacy and give the family their privacy during this time. But, you know, it is hard to get information. And everyone's like holding their breath here to see how this turns out. But you know, the bills are the best source of information at this point. If you see information coming from anyone else, they're

probably speculating and I don't know that I would trust it. Yeah, I think that was key to a job. I can try it. Last night they were saying that too. Like, look, we don't have anything to report. We can't report. We're not going to speculate. Twitter started blowing up. You can't believe every tweet. Obviously, we've learned that in the past. But, you know, you just can't

say anything. And I think again, we've covered that today. They did as good as you can do because you can't, when something's happening that big in real time, you don't know information. No one's going to give you information. You're not going to get a tweet that's going to be like, oh, it's no one else knows this. No, I mean, you have to just let it happen

as it happens. And then the information will come out from the sources that, you know, want to give the information and should be giving the information like you said, the team and family and friends like that. So, yeah, I mean, it was a crazy night. And it was captivating. And like you said, so many millions of people watching that game. It was huge. Monday night football,

a holiday after the Rose Bowl. I mean, it was just like everybody. That was what you were doing last night was watching that game. And big, two big teams. It's a big game. So, yeah, it was just I'll never forget the night for sure. I've never seen anything like it. Well, and again, as we end on this topic, I will urge the NFL, the players association,

the bills, the bangles, please provide mental health resources for these players. This is not something that you forget about. Like I said earlier, you know, it's been 33 years since I watch Hank Gathers dropped dead in front of me and go down on the court. And I still have dreams about it. I think about it anytime I see another player go down and go, oh my

God, I hope it's not the same as Hank. You know, it's just a traumatic something that you never expect. And to expect that these players are going to be able to just boom, you know, compartmentalize and move on from this quickly. I think that's unreasonable. And, you know, their human beings are not built that way. And, you know, again, ask them to go back and play

last night would have been ridiculous, even asking them to play this game this week would have been ridiculous. It's going to be interesting to see what the league does with this, you know, and the next couple weeks. But at the top of the list should be providing mental health resources for anyone who is involved in that last night. Heck, you know, viewers were traumatized by seeing

what they saw. If you were on the field, and this was one of your teammates or a friend or, you know, part of the brotherhood of the NFL, I can't even imagine how that impacted you other than what I saw at Loyola Marymount when I saw how it impacted you. You know, the players who knew Hank so well. And so please NFL and NFL PA do

the right thing. Keep in close contact with each other. Support these players as much as you can. You're listening to sports business radio. We'll be right back after this. Hey, everyone, Brian burger here. Ron is the new official menswear partner of sports business radio. I love their product. I've been a fan for a long time. Did you know David Stern was one of the first investors.

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SBR 15 at checkout. Now. Back to sports business radio with Brian burger. Griggs before we wrap up, you know, there's a few headlines. They seem pretty trivial. Yeah. In comparison to what we've been talking about. But, you know, we'll put them. We'll put them out there direct TV had been the exclusive home of NFL Sunday tickets since 1994. But the NFL announced a deal last week

with YouTube TV. It's going to start this year. So this upcoming season up this season next season. The NFL is going to make $2 billion annually on the new seven year contract. Supposedly, YouTube TV is going to charge $300 for the season for customers. Direct TV had been charging $149 at $99. So YouTube TV, according to sources, is going to double the price of what people

have been paying for Sunday ticket. So I guess if you're putting out $2 billion annually. If you're YouTube TV, you know, you're going to charge $200. For people to subscribe to the NFL Sunday ticket. But, you know, big change after 18 years with direct TV. Yeah. And I think, I mean, YouTube TV has become one of the biggest streaming, you know, platforms for cut the cord

type thing. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see how they handle. I think I'm a subscriber to YouTube TV. I like what they do. I think it looks good. I think it's NFL people are going to subscribe. I don't think the dollar amount really matters. Whether it's $149 or $300 if you're an NFL fan and you can get it on YouTube TV. I think you're

probably going to subscribe to it. I'm probably going to do it because it's the NFL and it's fun just to be able to watch any game. You want it's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, and YouTube TV as direct TV did. We'll get lots of people who become subscribers to YouTube TV now, because they want to watch the NFL ticket. So, you know, that's ultimately the business plan

for YouTube TV is, you know, there's no better live sports product than the NFL. So now that we own the exclusive home for Sunday ticket, you know, we're going to work on it. We're going to do pretty well. The last headline, you know, I don't know if you watch the college football playoff grigs, but, you know, we're down to Georgia and TCU for the national championship

on January 9th at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. I wasn't so far for the Super Bowl early last year. Great facility. Kind of a regional matchup. You know, it's not like you've got East versus Western teams from other parts of the country. It'll be interesting to see. Georgia was in it last year. TCU is a little bit of a Cinderella. And, you know, they upset Michigan.

The Georgia Ohio State game was great. The TCU Michigan game was great. A lot of times those games are blowouts. And you're just hoping for a good national championship. But what do you think, Griggs? Who's who's going to win it? Yeah, I think you both games are fun. I mean, great games to watch. I thought TCU came out and played so hard. Tackling was amazing. They

were out there to win the game. And they showed it. And poor Harbott just can't quite get it done in the top four. But I think George has got the experience. I still think they're going to win that game. But it should be fun. I think it's going to be close. TCU's fun. I mean, Max, their quarterback is a lecturer. He is, you can't not watch

that. Can play. He plays hard and runs hard. But it'll be fun. Game. I'll be watching. I do think Georgia will get the repeat. It's going to be close. But I think Georgia wins. Yeah. Yeah. I think Georgia's going to win too. You know, it'll be interesting. I think it'll be interesting to see ESPN's coverage. They have like, you know, five different mega casts. And you've

got the Georgia call. You've got the TCU call. They've got the alternate broadcast. I thought I was interesting that RG3's wife went into labor. When he was doing the festival. So he like literally darted out of the stadium to go, you know, fly to his wife and new baby. That was an interesting moment. Pat McAfee with the alternate broadcast is always funny as well. And that

Georgia Ohio State game. But two really competitive games week. I can only hope that the national championship is as competitive. Kind of a sad ending for the Rose Bowl. It'll still exist. But not the traditional form. Where we've seen, you know, the big 10 and the pack 12. You know, I tweeted this out. This could be a really, really bad week for the big 10. So

Michigan lost Ohio State lost. And our friend Kevin Warren. We've had on the show the commissioner of the big 10 who recruited USC and UCLA and got that $7 billion TV deal for the big 10. He may be leaving to go become the president of Chicago Bears. So if you lose Kevin Warren who's orchestrated all these great business things and media deals and getting USC and

UCLA to your conference. And Michigan, I know how state losing the playoff. In the same week or two period. Not good for your conference. Griggs. Yeah, no, Kevin's great. I mean, we've seen what he's done the last couple of years and phenomenal on the show. Well spoken. I mean, he's got upper management. Like you said, he's going that way. So I wouldn't be surprised if he

ends up in an NFL with the Bears. But yeah, that is a tough week for the big 10. But yeah, I don't know. I think Kevin is a good guy. He's going to do well wherever he goes. But then it's always like who's going to fill his issues. So we'll have to see what happens with that. Yeah. And there's also reports that Jim Harbaugh would entertain

a return to the NFL. And leave Michigan to go back to the NFL. So you lose one of your premier coaches in your conference as well. So again, this is all trivial and light of what's happened with Demor Hamlin. We are sending positive thoughts to him and to his family to his teammates, his friends, really hoping for the best possible outcome for him. And you know,

we'll certainly have more updates on our social media platforms on Twitter is probably the best place at SB radio. We've been on top of a lot. A lot of things with the teams and the league and the marketing reps and anyone who's had news around this continue to follow us. And we'll stand top of this as best we can. But just hoping for a really good

outcome for Demor Hamlin. And Griggs, happy new year. Happy new year to all of our listeners looking forward to a fun 2023. We'll be doing some road shows. We'll have more great guests. And I think we'll be able to do a lot of things. Hoping for a good year for us. Yeah, cheers to 2023 year 19 looking forward to a great year building up to the

big two. Oh, so yeah, it should be fun and glad to be traveling again to fun to get out there and do some road shows and all the fun. We get to have in different cities around the country. So happy new year. And let's go get it. I will say this. I've noticed that since we were at J Center, the Warriors have been on a winning

streak and Clay Thompson is playing out of his mind yet 54 points last night. So I think we left some good sports business radio karma with the Warriors and the Chase Center. For sure. For sure. That seems to follow us around. I mean, Tampa Bay. We got some good winners after we have guests on that. You know, our high up in these leagues in these sporting

teams. So I think it's great. Let's keep it going. Exactly. All right. We will talk to everyone next week. Have a safe week. And we'll see you next week right here on sports business radio. This episode of sports business radio has brought to you by underdog fantasy. The fastest growing fantasy app ever. We're released in the official gaming partner of sports business radio. And with early

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a free match on your first deposit up to $100. Well, that's it for this edition of sports business radio. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks to our team at sports business radio. Brian Griggs, Josh Blank, Ryan Nakajima and our friends at CG sports who power sports business radio. CG young Matt Amerlyn, Nicole Wardle and Calvin Works. I'm Brian Burger. Have a great week and we'll talk to

you soon right here on sports business radio. This and every SBR podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and your favorite listening app. Follow sports business radio on Facebook, Twitter at SBR radio, Instagram at sportsbusinessradio, and online at sportsbusinessradio.com. Sports Business Radio is produced by Brian Griggs and Griggs Productions. GriggsProductions.com.