Bill Belichick's McAfee role, Caitlin Clark's TV potential and more: Sports Media Mailbag (2024)

Welcome to the 37th Media Mailbag for The Athletic. Thanks for sending in your questions via the website and app. There were more than 200 questions, so this will be a two-parter.

Note: Questions have been edited for clarity and length.

I saw Bill Belichick on Pat McAfee’s show and was very surprised how well he did. What do you expect out of him? What else will he be doing besides the NFL Draft? — Adam A.

Belichick’s only ESPN-related assignment right now is “The Pat McAfee Show Draft Spectacular,” which will air the opening night of the draft on YouTube and ESPN+. An ESPN executive said you won’t see Belichick on other ESPN/ABC platforms during its NFL Draft coverage. I’ve written a number of pieces on Belichick’s prospects as a broadcaster, and I’ve always believed he’d be better than conventional wisdom suggests. He’s favored to land with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions.

“He’s extremely thoughtful and really never says anything simply for effect,” Al Michaels told The Athletic recently. “Bill would bring light to a discussion, not heat. I don’t see him in a conventional analyst role on game telecasts. He’d be expected to create some artificial energy, and that’s not him. His value would be in a role where the discussions would be relevant and meaningful and devoid of so-called ‘hot takes.’ I don’t know what he plans to do next, but there’s definitely a ‘right’ role for him in television.”

How do you define a legendary or iconic sports broadcaster? Is it someone who has been doing the same job for a long time? Longevity is not indicative of greatness. … Who do you consider the legendary or iconic broadcasters working right now? In my opinion, there are very few left: Al Michaels, Bob Costas, Mike Breen. That’s my list. What’s yours? — Cecil H.

I agree. Longevity and greatness are separate entities. Broadcasting is also subjective. One person’s Monet is another person’s LeRoy Neiman. It seems you are focusing on play-by-play announcers. So an incomplete list would include Michaels, Costas, Breen, Ian Eagle, Beth Mowins, Jim Nantz, Joe Buck, Mike Tirico, Kevin Harlan, Ian Darke and Gus Johnson.

When will the TV and streaming platforms realize they need to frequently run a graphic that tells us who is doing play-by-play and analysis? Once or twice a game just does not cut it. Many of us come in and out. Why does this matter? This helps us learn them so we know who to avoid or seek out. — Wayne B.

I like this idea. I think it should be shown often.

How realistic could a scenario like this be: The NFL schedule grows to 18 games, adding a second bye week for each team that would follow a required international game for each team each season. That group of 16 games is sold separately as a package to an outlet for Sunday morning and/or potentially Saturday morning games. A large chunk of the 16 could be played in one market (say, 8 games in London) to thoroughly test its viability as an expansion market. This seeds the game in multiple markets and also gets existing franchises used to the inevitability of international teams and the associated travel. — Mark B.

It’s an interesting proposal, and I think very smart as far as acclimating everyone to a team abroad. Peter King did a lot of reporting on the NFL abroad, and there would absolutely be interest in a package (especially among the streamers) of games emanating from another country. You could easily offer the global rights to an Amazon or Netflix to increase the money of the package. I think the NFL having a franchise playing outside of the U.S. in the 2030s is inevitable.

What are your thoughts on Gregg Doyel’s behavior at Caitlin Clark’s press conference? — Marc U

Embarrassing for the profession. It was performative garbage, sexist, and it deserved the criticism it received.

ESPN’s success has always respected numbers in its audience. That is why MLB has moved at times to a back seat behind the NBA and of course the NFL, which the network sees as its 365-day draw. NBA audience numbers are stagnant and not overwhelming. Could this onrush of a new audience continue to the established WNBA in the same way Magic and Bird made a dormant NBA into must-see TV? — Name Withheld

Women’s sports viewership is at an all-time high. Networks *most likely* will start pushing the bigger games onto broadcast channels or just better viewing spots. For things like college softball, regular season women’s CBB and the WNBA, will they run into a “glass ceiling” for lack of a better term with NBA, NFL, CFB or other bigger/more entrenched sports prohibiting the growth? — Jesse K.

The 2024 WNBA Draft obliterated the previous viewership record for a WNBA Draft, drawing a record 2.446 million viewers, That was a head-spinning 307 percent increase in viewership over last year. This is a great sign for the WNBA as it heads into a season with more national windows than ever before. But you have to be realistic as far as impact. Per Sports Media Watch: Last year’s WNBA regular season averaged 505,000 viewers across ESPN, ABC and CBS, up 21 percent from 2022 and the league’s highest average since 2002, the final year of its original TV deal with NBC. Games on ABC averaged 627,000 — the highest since 2012, when the network carried just one game. Caitlin Clark and the great draft class will absolutely increase that, and the story will be how much. Adding a couple of hundred thousand viewers to the regular-season average would be a massive win for the WNBA.

We’re a little over a month away from finding out when a lot of the marquee college football times will take place and the network they will be on. With this being the first season that CBS, Fox, and NBC get a full schedule to select the Big Ten games (last year CBS only had a partial schedule) what’s your prediction on the network that some of the marquee Big Ten games will be on this year? I’m assuming that Fox gets to select the first three weeks/games for the season (can you confirm this)? — Aaron W.

Fox has the top three picks for all remaining years of that deal. Obviously, they will have great games. I think I am most curious about how the CBS schedule plays out. Adding USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington sets up each network for viewership success.

With Verne Lundquist now retired from the Masters, what does CBS do with the broadcast? Do they move Andrew Catalon from No. 14 to No. 16? Do they add another broadcaster, and if so, who could that be? Or does Jim Nantz add another hole to the many that he already does? — Chuck H.

Great questions. I have no intel here. But if I were new CBS Sports president David Berson, I’d reward Catalon for the excellent work and have him do No. 16 in the post-Verne era. I also think you’ll see a new broadcaster added.

Fox is creating their own version of the NIT for basketball despite there already being multiple tournaments. What would it take for there to be a football version of the NIT? … Would there be any interest for Fox, CBS or Amazon to try to host a playoff with ESPN basically owning the current CFB playoff for the next 10 years? — Jordan W.

I called in my colleague Stewart Mandel to offer some educated thoughts: “It’s a good idea. In fact, several years ago Northern Illinois AD Sean Frazier proposed just that, a Group of 5 Playoff. It was not met with much interest. But that was before the arrival of the 12-team CFP with a guaranteed berth for the top G5 team. ESPN owns most of the lower bowl games those conference play in. Only they could say whether an event like this would generate more money than all those bowls, which usually get decent viewership.”

How are the (United Football League) ratings being viewed? Has the merged league actually proven there’s a legitimate market for a spring football league, or is this seemingly another case of history repeating itself? — Name Withheld

Per Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal: The UFL averaged 1.05 million on Fox and ESPN for Week 1 and 844,000 for Week 2 on ABC, Fox and ESPN. That 944,000 average is down from the XFL last year but up from the USFL numbers. The league has gone up against the NCAA Tournament, so the next couple of weeks will give us much more important data. Personally, I don’t think a spring football league will ever get mass traction. But it can certainly maintain itself as a business given who is funding it.

In basketball, why do cameras leave live action after a basket to show fan reaction while play is going on? — Gary C.

Atmosphere. The broadcast wants to give you a sense how things are in the arena or stadium. Leagues, the partners of the broadcasters, also want this because it helps sell tickets.

What are some of the reasons for the decline in television ratings of this year’s Masters final round? Is it Scottie Scheffler, who is a great player but not particularly captivating to the average sports fan (the way Tiger was or even Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth is)? Or is it, as I suspect, that the bickering between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has turned off many? … Also, while it was great to see women’s college basketball receive so much attention this year, as a men’s college basketball fan it was a bit disheartening to see interest in this year’s tournament be lower than usual. What do you think was lacking this year that led to its championship game receiving lower viewership numbers than the women’s game? Will certain storylines next season, like highly-touted freshman Cooper Flagg at Duke, be sufficient enough in drawing in a bigger audience? — Sal M

There’s never one reason for a decline or an increase (that even goes for Caitlin Clark too, though she’s the primary driver of the women’s basketball increase). I thought Drew Lerner of Sports Media Watch had an excellent piece on your golf question. He surmised that the sport was due for a course correction as Tiger Woods became less dominant. I agree. The same thing happened to the NBA in the post-Michael Jordan era. As for the micro view: Every sport needs great finishes, and the 2024 Masters did not have that. I know a ton of hardcore golf fans are fatigued by the PGA-LIV fight, but hardcore fans rarely abandon their sport.

The biggest issue for men’s college basketball viewership is the one-and-done nature of the sport. If you have transcendent freshmen in college, I think you’ll see viewership increase. So I’ll be curious to see if Flagg has a Zion Williamson-like impact on Duke games. The title game will be back on CBS in 2025, and that should provide a small pop too. But men’s college basketball has a long-term viewership issue here, particularly in the regular season.

Two sports media podcasts that might interest you:

• Episode 390 of the Sports Media Podcast features my colleague Andrew Marchand, a senior sports media columnist for The Athletic. In this podcast, we discuss Tom Brady’s comments about considering a comeback and what that means for Fox Sports if anything; the NBA media rights and how Marchand sees them shaking out; how Caitlin Clark will impact the WNBA’s business and viewership; what happens now for women’s college basketball; MLB’s Sunday morning baseball on Peaco*ck; whether the Olympics in Paris can be a viewership hit and more.

• Episode 391 of the Sports Media Podcast features Danny Parkins, the co-author of “Pipeline to the Pros: How D3, Small College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA” with Ben Cohen, and the co-host of The Score 670 (Chicago) afternoon show with Matt Spiegel. In this podcast, we discuss the many former D3 players serving as head coach in the NBA, including Tom Thibodeau and Frank Vogel; the challenge of promoting a book such as this; the future of local sports-talk radio in a city such as Chicago and more.

Some things I read over the last week that were interesting to me (Note: there are a lot of paywalls here):

• This is an incredible piece: Riding the baddest bulls made him a legend. Then one broke his neck. By Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post.

• Top Chinese Swimmers Tested Positive for Banned Drug, Then Won Olympic Gold. By Michael S. Schmidt and Tariq Panja of The New York Times.

• NFL teams know the best way to draft, so why aren’t they doing it? By Alec Lewis of The Athletic.

• Inside Bill Belichick’s failed job hunt. By Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.

• Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at World’s Busiest Airports. By Margot Patrick of The Wall Street Journal.

• Verified pro-Nazi X accounts flourish under Elon Musk. By David Ingram of NBC News.

• Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media — and driving some to suicide. By Olivia Carville for Bloomberg Businessweek.

• It was nice to see all the tributes for Howie Schwab, whose work behind the scenes at ESPN as an early stats expert helped define and build that institution. He passed away last week at age 63. Schwab was part of a cruel layoff at ESPN in 2013 after 26 years of service there.

• Is Caitlin Clark’s star power strong enough to spike WNBA fandom? By Ben Pickman and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic.

(Top photo of Caitlin Clark: Mykal McEldowney / USA Today)