Offering Subscriptions as a Value-Add and Rethinking Programming Deals

DirecTV’s top content executive Rob Thun joins the pod as co-host this week to discuss the problems regional sports networks are having today and talk about how the satellite operator plans to handle local sports rights in the future. Thun tells co-host John Ourand how some of the local broadcast deals some teams have made aren’t as good as they seem, and he calls on network groups to work more closely with DirecTV as they push out direct-to-consumer services. This is the first time in nearly 30 years that DirecTV is not carrying the NFL Sunday Ticket package, and Thun talks about why he made the decision to pass on it.

The voice of baseball for Fox, Joe Davis, joins the pod as The Big Get and talks about how his preparation for the upcoming World Series differs from how he prepared for his first one last year. Davis gets into how the pitch clock affected how he called games this season; what it’s like to call games in Philadelphia; why so many young play-by-players are calling games nowadays; how he got started in the business; and the difference between a Texas chop and a Baltimore chop.