I'm Shrinking. That's the nothing personal word of the day. It's Thursday, November 20th,

2025. Today's episode is brought to you by Draft Kings. Draft Kings, the crown is yours.

We are not here to talk about the fantastic Jason Segal Harrison Ford led

show called Shrinking. We are here to talk about the platform called ESPN. That is shrinking.

Now, I'm not going to be cute. I'm not really in the mood to be too cute.

So I'll just remind you, Major League Baseball and ESPN had a broadcast deal agreement for $550 million per year.

That deal ended when both Major League Baseball and ESPN decided that they would opt out of

that contract. After the breakup, Commissioner Rob Manford said ESPN is a shrinking platform.

And MLB was hopeful to replace ESPN with all of the other potential bidders,

all of the other potential platforms to take what ESPN had.

There was panic in the industry.

Will this be the end of ESPN?

Is it all over?

Will ESPN move on from baseball after decades and decades?

What will happen to Jeff Basson?

All of these questions were asked.

But meanwhile, deep in the corners of MLB's offices, there was one man in charge of figuring this out,

and his name is Noah.

And Noah had a plan, as many Noah's do.

And his plan was to make sure that ESPN understood that what they were giving up by opting out of $550 million

and opting out of Sunday night baseball and opting out of playoff baseball, that they were not

going to have an opportunity to get back in that game at those numbers.

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