A roundtable with Donnovan Bennett and Jon Lewis on the 2025 NFL schedule and the WNBA season start

Sports Media with Richard Deitsch

Audacy

News, Business News, Sports, Sports News

4.3 • 721 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 509 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features host and podcaster Donnovan Bennett of Sportsnet (Canada) and Sports Media Watch founder and editor Jon Lewis. In this podcast we discuss the NFL schedule overall; what network schedule looks best; the Monday Night Football doubleheader issue; have the Chiefs passed the Cowboys as the NFL’s most popular viewership; why has schedule release day become so big; the WNBA’s opening weekend; the depth of major stars from A'ja Wilson and beyond; nationalizing games with Caitlin Clark; Bennett’s thought that the viewership comparison for Clark is Mike Tyson in his prime, and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast.
0:13.6	I'm your host, Richard Ditch.
0:14.4	My producers, Patrick Antonetti.
0:16.0	This is a mini podcast, but wanted to get something out for you guys on Monday,
0:22.9	given there has been a lot of, a lot of stuff in the sports media world that has happened
0:27.4	over the last couple of days.
0:29.4	Who better to bring on than John Lewis found on editor of Sports Media Watch?
0:33.5	And once again, now becoming a regular, Donovan Bennett, host, extraordinary podcaster from SportsNet Canada.
0:41.7	Donovan, John, welcome.
0:43.9	Thanks for having me.
0:45.5	Likewise.
0:46.8	All right.
0:47.3	I'm going to start with you, John Lewis.
0:48.8	Very broad here.
0:51.1	It is as a sports media podcast, so we should sort of think about things in terms of a media-centric question.
0:57.8	But what was your overall takeaway, John, from the schedule release?
1:04.8	Well, I mean, one, I feel like the NFL is kind of making a statement, right?
1:09.9	You know, they're going to go big this year.
1:12.8	You have a general strategy in sports TV scheduling, at least the NFL does, where for something
1:20.2	like Thanksgiving, you're not going to put your best game on Thanksgiving because you don't
1:25.5	need to put your best game on Thanksgiving.
1:33.2	You can put the Cowboys against pretty much anybody and get the biggest audience of the year.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audacy, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Audacy and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.