WITH NO NEED FOR ACTORS OR WRITERS, SPORTS SOMEHOW WILL GET BIGGER
The entertainment industry is paralyzed by monumental work stoppages, but live sports is immune — and with even more billions and eyeballs in play, this is a fine time to clean up some messes
The rumor isn’t true. I investigated for myself, confirming that the iconic sign atop the sweeping Los Angeles cityscape does not read HELLYWOOD. Nor is it correct that picket lines lead directly into homeless encampments, at least not yet, still locked in the early stages of double-barreled work stoppages that have paralyzed the entertainment industry.
But if screen actors and writers continue to strike for months — and it seems possible when Ted Lasso is shouting through a bullhorn and Ron Perlman is firing trash-talk at studio executives, saying, “It can’t be about your f—ing Porsche and your f—ing stock prices!” — we can name any doomsday movie title as a real-life possibility. You take “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” The Gen Zers can have “The Last of Us.” And I’ll opt for “I Am Legend,” with Will Smith as the last man on Earth and not even Chris Rock around to slap.
Do the fatal equation. Without actors and writers, there are fewer movies and scripted shows. With reduced content, viewership shrinks and subscriptions are killed. And with fewer dollars and eyeballs, industry leaders become vampire-zombies capable of any corporate action that justifies, say, Bob Iger’s Disney-fied dream of a $50 million yacht and David Zaslav’s $246.6 million compensation at Warner Bros. Discovery. Imagine a world where “Barbie” is the last movie we watch at the theater. Imagine a life where browsing the On Demand library for ancient programming becomes our evening pastime.
The streaming wars have more than crushed Hollywood’s traditional business model. They’ve endangered show business as we’ve known it for generations. A tsunami disruption has led to mass layoffs, shockingly paltry residuals — Mandy Moore gets 81-cent streaming checks — and existential fears about the future, which prompted the SAG-AFTRA union to join the Writers Guild on picket lines across town. Artificial intelligence is upon us, too. Robots can’t supplant Leo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, and initial returns on AI suggest the most creative writers needn’t worry about replacements. But what stops the studios from owning every human being in a movie except the principal actors? The studios had the audacity to propose this, according to union negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland: “That our background actors should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no content and no compensation.”
Might this be the first step toward scanning Brad Pitt and inserting his ageless face into movies forevermore? How about a computer-generated Margot Robbie? And what stops Sir Bob and Zaslav from cruising Starbucks for typing, non-union, Wi-Fi poachers who will work for latte money?
In sports, my usual topical realm, inordinate amounts of time are spent bemoaning bad actors — and the soap operas seemingly scripted by deranged minds. But say this much: Real athletic contests never could be waged by actors, never could be scripted by writers and, far as we now, never could be staged via AI. Oh, the tech takeover already is happening via replays, line calls and, soon enough, balls-and-strikes umpiring. And video games have replicated action since I was a kid with a joystick. But athletes at elite levels cannot be robotized.
Can they?
For that reason, an already clearcut American reality is about to be reinforced. Live sports events — in particular, King Football — not only will be our continuing entertainment obsession but the only reliable daily option. As it is, of last year’s 100 most-watched TV broadcasts, NFL games accounted for 82. This year, with Hollywood shut down — and no World Cup or Olympics, either — the league might go 100 for 100. The most bonkers political programming is still a calendar turn away. No wonder NBC, ESPN, CBS, Fox, Amazon and YouTube don’t mind paying a collective $115 billion for Roger Goodell’s broadcast rights.
At present, it looks like a bargain. Same goes for the NBA, where Adam Silver will demand upwards of $70 billion from partners in the next negotiation. Same goes for college football, where the SEC lacked foresight during the pandemic and took $300 million annually from ESPN — allowing the Big Ten to swoop in with a seven-year, $7 billion jackpot from Fox, NBC and CBS. Whatever they wish to air in the coming weeks and months and beyond — pickleball, cricket, Shohei Ohtani’s batting practices and bullpen sessions — is going to resonate.
Sports is the new Hollywood. It explains why Iger continues to voice optimism about live offerings on ESPN, even as he ponders a sale of legacy jewel ABC amid the demise of linear TV. He might divest a chunk of ESPN. But Disney is bullish about the sports business.
“If you look at today’s media landscape, sports stands very, very tall in terms of its ability to convene millions and millions of people all at once,” Iger said last week on CNBC. “There’s almost a guarantee that that occurs. It’s an advertiser’s dream. There’s a great demographic there and it lends itself to technology in many ways, both in terms of coverage, distribution, and consumption. And our position in that business is very unique. We have a great brand. We’ve had a great business, and we want to stay in that business.
“One of the reasons we're optimistic is we know the power and the popularity of live sports and we know how attractive it is. Not just to consumers but to advertisers. There’s a reason to be bullish. We think we’re well-positioned. And it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be open-minded about its future, but right now, we’re bullish about it.”
Oh, and did he mention he doesn’t have to pay actors and writers?
With so much love and promise in the air, now would be a fine time for sports to clean up its various messes and enjoy unparalleled prosperity. It won’t happen, because the owners are too busy counting their ample revenues, but it’s my job to at least plant the seeds of correction.
Gambling has reached a crisis mode. The leagues won’t admit it, flush with riches from sportsbook partnerships, but the betting culture is so prevalent that actual game outcomes sometimes become secondary to point spreads and prop bets. Point-shaving scandals are happening as I type this, regardless of the NFL’s obligatory suspensions of mostly marginal players who’ve violated the gambling policy. College athletes are particularly inclined to throw games, with the NCAA reporting 175 violations of its betting policy since 2018. Millions of problem bettors are losing jobs, families and homes, with addiction hotline numbers displayed in such minuscule type on relentlessly cycled bet-bet-bet commercials — six every NFL game — that a microscope is a required living-room accessory. When a vast majority of sports viewers do not place wagers, why cater to those who do? Do I really have to answer that question?
Money. Which is why golf, wobbling as it is in the post-Tiger era, has landed in a bunker of geopolitical chaos. Leaving us angered and baffled — players, fans and observers alike — the PGA Tour remains hellbent on joining forces with the Saudis to unify the sport. Are we supposed to forget the previous dark views of commissioner Jay Monahan, who denounced Saudi Arabia for what it is — a country of 9/11 murderers and human-rights abuses — because he wants to tap into the Gulf nation’s sovereign wealth fund? Monahan is the one who launched the plague known as Saudi Sports Fever, whipping open doors for other leagues to have short memories and swim with the bad guys. On Wednesday, Martin Slumbers noted what’s happening throughout sports from his seat as CEO of the R&A, controlling fathers of the British Open, which also is very interested in the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund.
“I think the world has changed in the last year. It’s not just golf. You’re seeing it in football,” said Slumbers, referring to the beautiful game, not our football. “You’re seeing it in F1. You’re seeing it in cricket. I’m sure tennis won’t be that far behind. … It is not feasible for golf to ignore what is a societal change on a global basis.”
For now, the NFL and NBA won’t sleep with the enemy. But what would stop American universities from taking Saudi money in sports partnerships? College football is the No. 3 sport, arguably No. 2 ahead of the NBA. The arms race is on in the furious NIL competition — why wouldn’t certain programs use the PIF to buy recruits? There is no shame on campuses, as seen in the hazing and sexual abuse case at Northwestern. The SEC commissioner, Greg Sankey, is pleading for Congress to implement a national standard for name, image and likeness. He shouldn’t his breath, as states continues to make their own laws and rules.
“The reality is, only Congress can fully address the challenges facing college athletics,” he said. “The NCAA cannot fix all of these issues, the courts cannot resolve all of these issues. The states cannot resolve all of these issues, nor can the conferences. Whether congressional action is achievable is a matter of debate. Much debate.”
How about the sordid tale of Jaden Rashada, the high-school quarterback who thought he was signing a $13.85 million NIL deal at Florida. Chomp this, he was told, before fleeing to Arizona State for relative chump change. Said Sankey: “Some stories told and others not told of promises made but not fulfilled, of inducements offered but not provided, of empty commitments, and NIL agreements that created more questions than provided answers and other behaviors in this space that rightly caused concern. The reality is our student-athletes deserve something better than a patchwork of state laws that support their name, image and likeness activities, if support is the right word.”
Heck, maybe the Saudis will create a slush fund for aggrieved running backs. Jim Brown and Walter Payton, rest in peace, would be aghast to know about the NFL-wide mistreatment of leading players at the position. It’s true that Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs and Tony Pollard have legitimate beefs about not getting long-term deals this week. On a somewhat higher salary plane, they are being treated like construction workers who do dirty work for fat-cat developers not inclined to pay market value. “This is Criminal. Three of the best PLAYERS in the entire league, regardless of position,’’ wrote Christian McCaffrey, among the sport’s most explosive players yet also underpaid as a classified running back. The same executives have no problem overpaying quarterbacks, who are more important than running backs — but not four times more important, the applicable formula when Barkley will play this season for $10 million (assuming he suits up) while a hot-and-cold QB, Daniel Jones, was showered with a $40 million annual average by the New York Giants. The salary pie should offer a bigger piece to ballcarriers who, on many teams, control game flow and clock management.
“My leverage is I could say, ‘F--k you’ to the Giants, I could say, ‘F--k you to my teammates,’ ” Barkley said on a podcast, issuing a threat to sit out the 2023 season. “And be like, ‘You want me to show you my worth? You want me to show you how valuable I am to the team? I won't show up. I won't play a down.’ And that's a play I could use.”
So sports employees are unhappy, too, about money. But at least there is labor peace across the landscape, which can’t be said in Hollywood, where the show does not go on. All you need to know: A picket line of angry strikers is marching outside Fox Studios on Pico Boulevard. Behind them is a billboard.
It’s an ad tease for “Speak,” a daily sports show.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.