Welcome to the sports media podcast.

I'm your host, Richard Dyche.

My producer is James Jackson.

This is our usual Saturday Media Roundtable with two regulars.

John Lewis is the founder and editor of Sports Media Watch.

Austin Karp, media reporter for Sports Business Journal.

Welcome, fellas.

Thanks for having you.

Good to be back.

All right.

We'll start here.

I want to start with Victor Wenam.

We'll get to the viewership numbers for Game 1, which were really unbelievable.

But what's interesting to me, John, is the larger question of, you know, the NBA for a long time was searching for like it's television Michael Jordan after Jordan retired.

And in many ways, LeBron did fill that role.

Nobody could really fill the Jordan role because we're in a different universe when it comes to TV viewership and stuff.

But, you know, in many ways, LeBron did do that.

And yet another reason I think he's underrated as a sports figure. And now the search for a while

has been, is there anyone else who's like compelling television where like a casual sports fan

just wants to watch this basketball team or basketball player, even if they're not diehard fans.

And Victor Webanyama, to me, over the last couple years, has been the one player that I think could be that, just because we've never seen a seven-foot-four guy do what he's done. I know I've seen some surveys a lot of times people think maybe it's Anthony Edwards, and obviously there's a lot of great players. you know, Steph Curry obviously is in the, you know, I put him with LeBron in terms of a different era.

But before I get to the viewership numbers, John, I want to ask you in Austin this. Like, do you think Victor Webb and Yama can be like whatever you want to perceive Jordan, LeBron 3.0, where it's a real viewership draw for people who are the kind of casual fans who just tune into the late rounds of the playoffs. I think there's, I think there's

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