Ben Gilbert

That would be the real way to answer this question.

But I do kind of want to walk back some of my concerns about the NFL's future because Gen Z likes the NBA more.

I think the data is just actually not that clear on that.

And we also talked a lot, even not with Gen Z, just about the rise of the NBA and popularity and fame and all this stuff.

If you just look at the numbers, the Super Bowl draws 127 million viewers, and that is growing.

The NBA Finals per game draws just 10 million viewers, down from its peak in the 25 to 30 million during the Michael Jordan era.

Wow.

And if you look at viewership during the regular season, that tells a similar story.

We threw out the 18 million number for the NFL per game.

Even the NBA's national broadcast, not just the regional sports networks, but the national ones on ESPN and TNT, those average 1 to 2 million fans.

Listeners, even if you don't care about cricket, if you like thinking about the design of sports leagues, that episode was very fun to do.

Yes, the difference is staggering.

I bet this is true when you look at follower counts.

But if you think about it a different way, which is how much social media stuff do I get about NFL versus about NBA, most of the time when you follow LeBron, it's not like he's putting up game footage everywhere.

three times a day so you're watching highlights but i bet if you try to look at football content on social media versus basketball content on social media it becomes clear that the follower counts are more due to like celebrity status versus engagement around the game

Well yes and a thing that's extremely measurable is how much money people make.

And using that as a proxy.

So we were sort of ripping on the fact that LeBron makes $127 million a year in disclosed deals between his contract and all of his sponsorships, and no one in the NFL even comes close.

That's just not true anymore.

Pat Mahomes is making $90 annually, and about half of that is his Chiefs deal, and about half of that is other endorsements.