Pablo Torre

Well, I got a deal for you.

You were delivering newspapers physically to Europe.

It's so funny to look back.

The timeline, by the way, yeah, 2000, the year 2000, MLB clubs vote to unanimously consolidate internet rights, create MLB AM as an equally shared and centrally operated entity.

And I just love this fork in the road.

MLB buys MLB.com, the domain name, from a Philadelphia-based law firm, Morgan Lewis and Bakias, which I like to think of a different world in which they refuse to sell that.

To fact check, the less young white guy who said that Rob Manfred worked for Morgan Lewis, he did, in fact, work for Morgan Lewis on labor and employment law.

Which is all to say that, of course, if you dig deeper into any business story, you find a bunch of guys who know each other.

You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

I'm just pointing out here that in the year 2000, while that was happening, at Major League Baseball, planning for the future, investing in the future, only for that future to be bought by John Skipper and the Walt Disney Company.

September 2000 was when Netflix's founders offered to sell the company to Blockbuster for $50 million.

And Blockbuster thought the offer was a joke and declined.

So it could be worse, is what I'm saying.

It could always be worse.

Yeah.

In the words of an institution that my generation needs to respect more, a blockbuster video, John Skipper, David Sampson, thank you for being kind and for rewinding, as always, on The Sporting Class.

Thank you, Pablo.

See you later.

Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tuminello.

Our studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by Andrew Bersik and NGW Post, theme song, as always, by John Bravo, and we will talk to you next time.