Hey, everybody. This is Richard Deich, and welcome to the sports media podcast. My producers are Patrick Antenetti and Sean Cherry. Got a good show for you this week, particularly if you are an NHL fan. Two guests, both my colleagues from The athletic, Sean Shapiro, is an NHL writer for the

athletic who specializes in the business of hockey.

Ryan S. Clark, who's been on this podcast before, covers the NHL, and specifically the Seattle

Cracken for the Athletic.

And we are going to discuss ESPN's seven-year television streaming and

media rights deal, which was struck this week. The agreement will run from the beginning of the

2021-22 season through the 2027-28 season. Very, very big deal, certainly for the NHL and ESPN,

and a pretty significant deal when it

comes to sports media rights. And I'm pleased to be joined by Sean Shapiro and Ryan Clark. Thanks

guys for joining me today on the sports media podcast. Of course, glad to be here. Yeah, I've had

I've had better intros before. So I give you guys a B minus intro. I apologize for that.

You two are,

you guys are a guess. You deserved a better intro, but we shall forge on. All right, Sean,

let me start with you. You wrote the main piece for the athletic when it came to sort of an

explainer on the deal between ESPN and the NHL.

So let me ask you a writ large question.

What are your initial impressions of the deal between the two entities?

So my initial impression of the deal, for me, the thing that sticks out, obviously,

is kind of the nature of it where we're going,

it's the instead of the, we compare this to the, I think one of the falsities, for lack

for a better word, is everyone compares it to the NBC deal right away, where, hey, the NHL got

200 million for NBC, 200 million from NBC for the national rights package, where the ESPN deal

...