Ben Gilbert

There is a second very large revenue stream called retransmission fees.

Did you know about this?

Yeah.

So starting in the mid-late 2000s, that's at least when they kind of got material, the networks started being able to charge cable companies for the right to retransmit stuff that they have the rights to.

Right.

But if you have a cable package and in your cable package you choose to go to the NBC station, then NBC gets paid by the cable company for bringing you as a viewer.

I think that revenue stream was almost as large as the advertising revenue stream.

So they have these two big pillars of their business, the direct subscription revenue that comes from retransmission fees and the advertising revenue.

Obviously, retransmission is sort of dwindling as cable dwindles.

But the belief is, well, hey, with Peacock or with Fox Sports or any of these apps, we have our own direct monetization revenue.

Or even, you know, if we're included in YouTube TV.

Yeah, sports and in particular premium sports and in particular, particular, the NFL is really where ad spend is sort of shifting on TV spend.

Yes.

And sports are sort of eating a larger and larger percentage of the pie of TV ad revenue.

And you could make an argument they were sort of under-earning for many years, but as the last thing that you actually watch on TV is these premium live sports, they are definitely commanding the revenues that they long deserved.

So why has viewership increased so much?

Or why have people been really wanting to pay attention to NFL games over the last couple of years?

What could have possibly changed that would make people pay attention?

Well, we said earlier in the episode that if you got money riding on a game, you are much more likely to care about it, even if you don't care about any of these teams gambling.

So the Supreme Court decision came down, I believe made it a state's rights issue of what type of gambling, sports gambling, to allow.