Hey, everybody. This is Richard Ditch and welcome to the sports media podcast. My producers are Patrick Antenetti and Sean Cherry. Our guest this week is a familiar guest. James Andrew Miller is the bestselling offer of books on ESPN, CAA, Saturday Live, the host of the Origins podcast.

He's been a guest on this podcast many times.

We're going to talk about what ESPN in 2021 will look like in the importance of the NFL to ESPN regarding the upcoming media rights negotiation.

But we're taping this podcast on the morning of January 7th after, quite frankly, one of the

one of the darkest days for democracy, certainly in my lifetime.

I would imagine almost anybody's lifetime.

And truly one of the worst days that the United States has

experienced in some time. I'm not a historian and I'm not going to equate it to wars or anything like that, but

domestic terrorism at its highest level and if you were watching the images on television,

it was awful to see. Jim, before we get into our ESPN talk, which kind of seems mundane

compared to real world, real world issues, you worked, I believe, in the U.S. Capitol for a couple

of years. I know you wrote, I believe you wrote a book on either working at the Senate or you can sort of explain it, but, you know, people know you for your work on sort of entertainment books, but before that, you were in politics, correct? I'll give you the floor here.

I was, yes. My first book was about the Senate, and I worked there for several years.

It was the greatest job of my life.

And what senator did you work for, if I could ask?

I worked for Howard Baker when he was Senate Majority Leader,

so I had the distinct honor, as they say in the Senate,

of walking onto the Senate floor every day,

several times a day, and particularly in the morning when the boss opened the Senate,

usually at 9.30 in the morning.

And, you know, I mean, it's, I think it's something that people who work in that building and work

on the Hill feel. It sounds kind of corny, but, you know, it's just a really special place,

...