Dan Patrick may not be concerned about ESPN’s potential conflict of interest in its newly announced deal with NFL Media, but David Samson absolutely is.
Appearing on his eponymous podcast, the former Marlins executive tore into the partnership, questioning whether ESPN can credibly cover the NFL when it now has an actual ownership stake in the league’s media arm.
“Do you think ESPN is going to spend hours of programming each day criticizing the NFL, bringing Jerry Jones to task?” Samson asked on Nothing Personal with David Samson. “Do you think that there’s a possibility that ESPN will do anything to upset it’s partner, the NFL? And you talk about a conflict of interest, why do you think Bob Iger had to talk about it yesterday? And he did. Listen to this statement by the CEO of Disney and realize what horse hockey it is.
That statement from Iger, Disney’s chief executive, sought to downplay editorial concerns by asserting to the Wall Street Journal that “Nothing in this deal in any way changes ESPN’s approach when it comes to journalism.”
But Samson was unconvinced. He pointed to investigative reporters like Don Van Natta Jr., whose previous critical reporting on the NFL — on the heels of the findings from Pablo Torre and Mike Florio — could now be viewed through a more complicated lens. If the network is now financially tied to the NFL, Samson suggested, it’s only logical to wonder whether there’s still room for unflinching journalism.
“If you’re Don Van Natta and you’ve written articles in the past critical of the NFL. If you have [inaudible] to Pablo Torre Finds Out, and you have done investigating where the NFL looks like its done some, shall we say, nefarious things. You think that they’re re-upping his contract?
“And I really don’t want to stop someone from earning a living, but, if you’re Don you don’t think you’re looking around and saying, ‘Huh, there used to be a relationship that concerned me, but at least it wasn’t in writing. Now there’s a relationship that is solidified pending regulatory approval, obviously, but a relationship that exists in a way that there is no way that I’ve got freedom of the press.’ That’s obviously a word of art that wouldn’t apply here, but ‘There is no way that I will have the ability to do the investigative work that I do.'”
For Samson, the concern goes beyond whether ESPN will pull punches when it comes to covering the NFL, but more so, at least to him, about what that relationship means for everyone else. If the NFL now has a stake in ESPN’s programming and business decisions, how does that affect the other leagues it covers, like Major League Baseball?
“You think that when MLB negotiates with ESPN that its not a factor that the NFL will not get more minutes on whatever it is, SportsCenter, ancillary programming,” Samson continued. “ESPN and NFL are now married officially in a way they never were before. That will bleed from coverage to the type of coverage to the tone of coverage to the amount of coverage. All of that it is going to be part and parcel to a deal when you’ve got the NFL and ESPN getting together.”
With equity now in play, the line between partner and watchdog becomes harder to define. That ambiguity, Samson argues, not only reshapes ESPN, but it’s also emblematic of how the NFL itself sees its future.
Which brought him to a broader thesis, one he laid out later that same day on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. For Samson, the issue isn’t just relegated to ESPN’s changing role, but a fundamental shift in how the NFL sees itself.
“What’s over is the NFL is no longer interested in being a sports league,” Samson said. “They’re done with it. Roger Goodell, with what I consider to be the quote of the year, maybe the decade, when he said it privately, but it’s now public, that he’s not competing with Major League Baseball or the NBA anymore. Forget it. He’s competing with Google and Apple.”