00:00The highlight of the week in baseball, without a doubt, was Jordan Walker winning the Home Run
00:04Derby on Monday night. Cool, calm, collected, and smooth with that swing. It looked very early on
00:10that he'd be a contender, but I probably, Tom, honestly, would have went three, and I was on
00:15the air, but I definitely went three or four deep without even considering that this guy would win
00:20the Home Run Derby, but certainly he has come of age this season. He's an all-star. He's had a
00:24great
00:24year. I think if you point to why the Cardinals are as good this season, I think he's a big
00:29reason why. Do you think that Walker, who probably will be back to defend his title, I'm guessing
00:34next season at Wrigley Field, do you think that this is a coming-of-age season for him? Are you
00:39buying what you're seeing? I am, and I don't want to go as far to say, oh, this is a
00:45super
00:45heartwarming story, but it is, because Walker was a highly-tied prospect. He comes up to Cardinals,
00:51immense struggles, and that's putting him lightly. They're sending him up and down, up and down. He
00:56can't get his footing. He's supposed to be this cornerstone piece that the Cardinals are going to
01:00build around, and a part of me always wants to say the path to success for young prospects across
01:06all sports is never linear. Some prospects come in, and they're amazing right from the jump. They're
01:10going to win Rookie of the Year, and they look great, and they're the franchise player from the
01:14start. Walker didn't take that route, so to see him have this success and finally get to this
01:19somewhat of a national stage and win the Home Run Derby, I think that's just a credit to the Cardinals
01:24and the staff saying, we're going to believe in him. It's not going to be easy. It's not going to
01:28take a short amount of time. It's going to be long and years of sending him up and down, but
01:32he finally
01:32figured it out, and that's awesome to see. Yeah, two solid years of Walker just trying to figure it
01:38out and then seemingly has figured it out now. We'll see how the Cardinals do with about 60 or some
01:44odd games to go in the season. Walker and J.J. Weatherholt offensively have done a fantastic job
01:48carrying them. So that was the Home Run Derby, and now let's talk about the All-Star game, Tom. If
01:53you
01:53watch the first five minutes of that Home Run Derby, what you noticed is it looked like it was
02:01a great stream, looked like it was going to be a lot of fun. Then we got the numbers, and
02:06the numbers
02:06say it was the least watched derby since 2003. The only reason why I can think that this exists is
02:13because it was on Netflix. I can't think of anything else possible because it was very exciting start to
02:17finish. And look, here's the thing is that, first of all, a lot of money is coming into Major League
02:22Baseball. So I would ask you, Tom, do they really care what the ratings are if they're getting all
02:26this money? And then the second part of this is that when you hold a streaming event of this
02:32magnitude as opposed to putting it on over-the-air TV, I think you have to recognize that this is
02:39going to happen in year one. But I think what happens in year two is that you see the numbers
02:43come back up because everyone realizes it is on Netflix. I mean, for us, it's very easy. We knew the
02:48Home Run Derby was on Netflix. We put it on. But how about 50% of the country who were
02:53just like
02:53casual tuners in trying to find it? They don't have subs, and then they're out. I personally am
02:58not worried about this at all. Baseball got paid a lot. They took a shot with Netflix. I could see
03:03them doing it again next season and even doing more. Eventually, you have to grow this to streaming
03:08options. That's where we're headed. Right. And this always happens. And the same thing happened,
03:13if I remember correctly, with Netflix when they first had the Christmas Day NFL games. Like, oh,
03:17lowest viewership. It's like, well, it's not apples to apples. It's apples to oranges. When
03:22you have a new platform, essentially, you have a new spot that people need to go to find this. It's
03:27not just going to be on Fox as it has been for however many straight years. So to see that
03:32it's
03:32the lowest, well, it's the highest that it's ever been on streaming. Like, I can also flip on the
03:37other side of the corner. Oh, it's the highest they've ever had on streaming because this is the first
03:40year. So it's obviously a bit of clickbaity headlines, whatever you want to call it.
03:45Next year, I expect it to improve. There will be more promotion. There'll be more of this,
03:48more of that. And then it'll be rolling the ball down the hill that much faster. So I see this
03:53as
03:53essentially a non-issue. If it's low next year, then we're going to start to have a conversation
03:58about are they promoting it properly and then go from there. Sure. And by the way, nobody has a
04:02contract for next year either, but the Home Run Derby will be at Wrigley Field. I would expect a lot
04:06of folks to be tuning into that.
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