Welcome to the Vergecast, flagship podcast of phones that are also laptops and tablets and maybe kind of smartwatches. I'm your friend David Pierce and I just got a new game for the Nintendo Switch and this is a surprisingly big deal to me. So, I'm sure I've talked about this before, but my true sweet spot era of gaming growing up was the Nintendo 64, which means I logged, you know, a million hours on GoldenEye. I played a lot of Mario Party. I played a lot of Mario Golf, but the Nintendo 64 game for me was Mario Tennis. It was the game I played against all of my friends all of the time. We would have these epic five-set, like three-hour-long matches. It was the best game ever to sort of sit next to somebody and have a conversation while you also were playing a video game because there's a lot happening but you don't have to fully focus. I loved it very much. But anyway, this new game, Mario Tennis Fever, just came out for the Switch 2, so I immediately got it. And I have to say, so far it's like it's good. It's kind of a lot. These games have gotten much more complicated and gimmicky and just kind of wacky over time. They're all trying to bring more stuff into it, and that's frankly not for me. I liked when it was just tennis, but this is still tennis on the Switch and I will play it presumably for decades. I'm very excited about that. Anyway, I'm going to put this away because I'm just going to get distracted otherwise. Today in the show, we're going to do two things. First, we're going to talk to Allison Johnson about an experiment she's been doing about whether she can actually use a folding phone as a computer. This is a thing people have been talking about forever. It's sort of the dream of big phones is that they can adapt to be other things. Allison has given it a real try. She's bought some gear. She's used the thing and she's going to tell us how it went. Then Jacob Feldman, our friend from Sportico, is going to come on and catch us up on the state of sports streaming. We have some YouTube TV news. The Super Bowl just happened. The Olympics is going on right now, and it seems like a good moment to just catch up on what it means to be a sports fan in 2026. Plus, we have a hotline question about foldable phones, which happens to be right up my alley at this moment. I'm very excited to talk about it. All of that is coming up in just a sec. But first, I'm going to go win this tournament because I play with Lefty Luigi and I am unstoppable in Mario Tennis. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back.
All right, we're back. Allison Johnson, Verge senior reviewer, is here. Hi, Allison.
Um, you have been on what I would say is one of your stranger phone adventures recently. A thing that you do is just sort of ruin your life with phones to varying degrees. And that is your job. And I love that for you. But you've been trying to figure out recently, I would say, how to make a phone work as your computer. And it seems like you've had some success.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Surprising.
How is it going? Tell me the origin of this experiment.
Okay. Yeah. And it's specifically a foldable experiment, which I can date back all the way to Samsung launching the Z Fold 7 this summer.
Yeah. V and I were in this, you know, tin can of an auditorium. Wi-Fi on our phones was like working okay, but we couldn't get our laptops connected. So I was like, "Oh, this is a computer." I opened it up and used the inner screen and it's just enough room to functionally use WordPress. So that was kind of a light bulb moment.
I remember V came out of that like a changed person.
She watched you use Slack and WordPress in sort of a desktopy way on your foldable phone and she came out of it being like, I have seen the light. This is the future.
She still brings it up to this day. That's true. So yeah, and I, you know, have run the gauntlet of new phones coming out over the fall and into the winter, but I find myself with some time to use whatever phone I wish right now. So I came back to the Z Fold 7. People have been doing this, specifically our friend Mr. Mobile, Michael Fisher. He's been evangelizing the foldable as a computer kind of thing for a long time now. I actually called him up and I was like, "What do I do here? Give me your tips and tricks." But...
The thing I liked about your experiment though, and Michael is the best, and we'll link his videos. He's been doing this for a long time. I've never been able to tell for him how sort of real a part of his computing life it actually is. Do you know what I mean? Because I think there's a thing where, you know, we talk about DeX all the time on the show, which is Samsung's sort of desktop browser. All the way back like 12 years ago, Motorola was trying to do this thing. Like the idea of what if my phone was also my computer is a very old one. But I feel like you in this experiment tried more earnestly than most. Like this wasn't sort of a bit you were trying to do. Like I feel like you went after this question that I have been asking for a long time, which is basically where does my phone end and my laptop begin, and you tried to sort of see how far into laptop your phone could actually get. And I feel like you got pretty far. Like, were you surprised by how much you have enjoyed using a foldable phone kind of as a computer?
Yes. And I've seen people trying it and doing it over the past few years and kind of wrote it off as like, okay, that's great for them, but that's like a weirdo thing to do.
To me it's like the exact opposite of the people who bring IMAX to Starbucks. Do you know what I mean? It's like, yes, this is technically a thing you can do, but I don't think you're serious.
Oh, yeah. It's like you're just being way too extra. But I was getting annoyed with like, you know, this MacBook Air I have in front of me is a very light laptop, like relatively speaking. But once I'm leaving the house with it and if all I need to do is get into Chrome and write something up in a Google Doc or WordPress, I'm like, why do I have this big thing? And it, you know, I was thinking about it. It kind of changes my mindset. You know, if I'm leaving the house with a backpack and I've got my laptop and a, you know, water bottle and snacks, I'm like, I'm on a particular kind of journey. Whereas, if I can outfit my phone, the thing that I was going to have anyway, into a package that I can put in my purse, all of a sudden I'm on like a totally different kind of journey. I'm like, I don't feel weird if I go run an errand afterwards or if I go pick my kid up. I'm like, what do I do with, you know, do I put the laptop in the trunk of the car? It just all exists at once. And yeah, I've gotten pretty far with it. I'm not trying to like replace my computer at my desk, you know, crucially. But it's sort of that thing of like when I leave the house and my needs are pretty straightforward of like need something to run Google Docs, you know, that's basically a Chromebook. Like I have a Chromebook, it's this phone, and it has really worked surprisingly well.
That is very exciting. So, let's walk through the setup you've landed on. It seems like from reading your story, you picked the Z Fold 7 pretty immediately, that like it was clear to you that this, you've been calling this purse computer, it was clear to you that this was going to be a purse computer right away. What is it about the Z Fold 7 as opposed to like the Pixel Fold or any of the other sort of giant screen phones out there?
Yeah, it really is just the size and the weight. On paper it doesn't seem that much smaller or lighter than like the Pixel Fold, but I feel the difference every day that I'm carrying it around. It feels like a normal phone. So, if it feels like all upside, you know, what you get with the inner screen as opposed to like, well, I'm putting up with this, you know, kind of heavier phone that fits weird in my pocket in order to get this other stuff. "My phone sucks, but I can kind of type on it" is not a good excuse for a phone.
Yeah. And like, you know, maybe if I go to the coffee shop today, I will experience the full magnitude of the phone, but in the meantime, it's going to be hard to hold and use with my thumbs.
Not what we're looking for.
So, and the Pixel Fold is fine, and it does AirDrop now, which I enjoy, but Z Fold 7 just feels like a normal phone. It feels like all upside. So I was like, well, I'm carrying this anyway. Why don't I, you know, the first step is a little keyboard. And I saw Michael Fisher posting about, you know, a thing called like a travel keyboard, like a portable keyboard. I didn't know that was a thing, a category of keyboard that exists.
Every imaginable keyboard rabbit hole is 100 times deeper than you can possibly imagine. This is what I've discovered is like any specific kind of keyboard you need, A, exists, B, there are thousands of them, and C, everyone has really strong opinions about all of them.
Oh my god. I have learned very quickly not to ask like the keyboard nerds on staff because they just keep recommending stuff that I don't understand. I'm like, "No, no, no. You don't get it." Like, I want something that folds in half. Like, our needs are different. So yeah, I started out, the first thing I ordered was this Proto Arc. I have them all here because of course I do. So it folds up about the size of, I don't know what I compare this to, like a notebook. But it does kind of a trifold thing and it unfolds into a full-size backlit keyboard with like a number pad. And kind of realized that was overkill and it was a little too heavy. Anyway...
Okay. I was just about to say we've arrived at my biggest picture question here, which is the minute you buy a keyboard, haven't you completely undone the whole problem you're trying to solve by not having your laptop?
Yeah, I started to question the journey honestly. And I really think that part of the reason for getting this particular keyboard was because it came with a little like carrying case and I was like, well, that can't be the, you know, reason why I...
There's such an easy road here to actually ending up with more gear.
Oh, I am awash in weird little keyboards. It's so silly. Like, they keep arriving and my husband's like, "Oh god, another one of these things."
So, which one ended up working for you?
It's kind of been like a Goldilocks journey. I got one that's like really slim and light, folds in half. It's called like...
Yeah. It's the size of a passport and I don't feel it in my purse when I'm carrying it. But it is a little like squirrely. When you put it down, it slides around a little bit. Typing on it, it's a little funny. There's a hinge right in the middle, so you kind of like are working around that. What I've landed on is this Logitech. It's called Keys to Go. It's an iPad keyboard basically. And it's very slim and light. It's sort of right in between like the other two I had tried out. It's amazing. I think it's basically the keyboard I use at my desk, but made super small.
This is so funny. I did not realize that was the one you had landed on. And I was fully prepared to tell you that no matter what you've been using, it's not as good as the Logitech Keys to Go. I have one of them lying around here somewhere. And this keyboard has no business being any good, right? Like the keys don't travel really. It's all sort of one sealed thing. So everything just feels like kind of gross and membraney, but like 30 seconds of work and I'm typing as fast as I do on my full-size keyboard. It is shocking how good that keyboard is. And it basically weighs nothing and the battery lasts forever.
I have a red one that for a long time went everywhere with me and I love it.
Yeah, it's so nice. And the battery, yeah, it's not USB-C rechargeable, but you get three years of battery out of the little coin cell batteries in there. So, I'll take that.
Yeah. And it's been great. It's totally the size and weight that I was looking for. Or I can put it in the bag that's on the back of my bike.
This is a good example of purse computer versus pocket computer, right? Because the Keys to Go takes this out of being pocket computer.
But it remains fanny pack computer or purse computer. Or like the thing about the Keys to Go is like you mentioned, am I okay just like leaving this in the car while I'm at Target? Like the answer is yes. It's a tiny little like wafer of a keyboard. If you lose it, I promise it will be okay.
Yeah. So like that, there is something about the like throw it in the back seat and don't worry about it thing that is also I think really important for this particular use case.
Yeah. What I wonder most about this is my discovery with the Keys to Go in particular was that actually I realized what I wanted most was not some wild new operating system idea or like I spent less time doing the multitasking stuff than I expected. But I realized like what the actual utility here for me is to have my phone with a much better keyboard on which I can type much more quickly. And that there was just a series of things that made it feel like I was getting more done on that than I could just with my thumbs on my phone. It just like I could sit, I could put it down. I could prop it up in a coffee shop and it felt like I was doing stuff more efficiently.
Yeah. But I feel like you had, I don't know, you tried to take it a step further. You were like, "How can I actually make this feel more like a desktop computer and not just like I can type faster into my phone apps?" And I feel like that's where all of this starts to fall apart.
It's, and it definitely, I have boundaries around like when I'm willing to take this out as my only computer.
I do want to talk about those boundaries because I think that line is really complicated.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I like, I have some trips coming up. Wouldn't it be nice to not haul my MacBook around? But then I start thinking about using Lightroom on Android and the whole thing just disintegrates. Yeah, but it really is kind of the I want to leave the house. I want to be as unencumbered as possible, but I still, you know, there's a minimum viable product of I sit down at a coffee shop. Something, you know, Michael Fisher and I talked about is we both have trouble like writing anything meaningful on a slab-style phone. It just feels like you're boxed in and I'm like I can type an email but anything longer than that just feels like it's not working. So having the inner screen of the foldable changes things for me.
How big is the internal screen on the Z Fold 7?
The inner screen is 8 inches. So, just big enough to run WordPress, write my little blogs. And it does something for my mindset. And having a real keyboard in front of me also does the same thing. And there's sort of two parts to this journey, I think, which is convincing myself that the phone is a computer and not a phone. And the keyboard, all of that has done it, you know, like success.
Tease that out for me. What does that sort of emotional difference look like?
I think it is the thing. Whereas on a phone, if I'm typing out with my thumbs, you know, I'm just so aware that it's a phone. And something about having like keys under your fingers. You're not like tapping around with your thumbs on the screen. Yeah, it does it for me. It just like clicks, I think.
Okay, I buy that. So, where has your line landed? Like, if you're leaving the house, what is the most complicated thing you're willing to sit down, prop up the keyboard, open up the phone, and try to do?
It definitely comes down to like dealing with images. If I am going to be like taking photos and I need to move those onto a computer or phone and manipulate them and export them, like I'm sure I could do that on Android, but it makes me kind of queasy. I will do as much as like, you know, when we're writing up some news, we'll get some images supplied and you need to resize them or crop them because they're not quite right and all that. Like, I'm comfortable doing that, but that is like right up to the edge of like if I need to start doing background cutout things, like forget it.
Yeah, that seems right. But it's, I think, yeah, it seems like if you can hit the list of I'm comfortable doing basic communication stuff even if what I need to do is like write a long email. I think spreadsheeting is a tricky one. There's going to be a lot of people who are like even an 8-inch screen with a keyboard is not enough to do spreadsheeting.
Yeah. I think that line is probably different for everyone to some extent.
Again, one of the things I keep coming back to is I think Android is part of the problem here. And you ran into this a bunch that like for our purposes, we use Google Docs like for a living, right? Like I fundamentally, I make Google Docs for my job is essentially what I do. Google Docs the app on Android is garbage. And if you try to use Google Docs in the web browser, it just constantly yells at you to open the app. And the app is garbage as I said because it's garbage and there's just sort of this ongoing frustration that I think like you mentioned it being a Chromebook. The thing about a Chromebook is it is a really good browser and if you opened up the Z Fold 7 and it gave you honest-to-god desktop Chrome, I would be so much more compelled by this whole setup because it would feel simple and thoughtful and you could just open up a thing with a bunch of tabs and that would be your work system. But it feels like at every turn Android is fighting this thing that your phone is trying to let you do. That just drives me nuts.
And you can wrestle it into a place that works, but you do have to be willing to deal with the weird edge cases where it's just funny like some stuff is just so much better on the inner screen in a Chrome tab as opposed to the app. Slack, terrible on the, you know, like tablet kind of screen. It just is the Slack app but stretched so there's a bunch of white space that's not used. But actually Richard Lawler, our friend and senior news editor, he was like I opened it in Chrome and it's great, it's everything you want it to be. You get the columns and yeah, you will inevitably like close the phone and I'll open that tab on the outer screen and be like oh my god what is this, an app for ants, you know. So you have to be willing to like fuss with things a little bit but when I'm sitting down at the coffee shop to work, you know, I get situated, I get Slack going in a Chrome home tab. And what trips me up and it always trips me up on a Chromebook is the switching profiles like my phone is, you know, kind of default assigned to my personal Gmail and Google account. I have the work Google account on there, but Chrome is constantly trying to like shove it to the back seat like no no you don't belong here. Like every time I open a new tab, it's my personal, you know, Google and all the things tied to that. I'm like, no, I want the work profile and you have to kind of keep doing that. But for me I can get to a place like without too much trouble where I can sit down. I have my little blog. I put up with the Google Docs app because I cannot get it to run the desktop version of Google Docs in a Chrome tab. Even though it's all made by the same company. So I am convinced that no one at Google has two Google accounts. Somehow they, because this has been a problem for 20 freaking years and somehow nobody understands how to just make it work with multiple Google accounts. And also I don't think anyone at Google uses a web browser. I'm dead serious. This is the only thing I can ban. Everybody is just like desktop apps are great and we don't need web tabs. And I'm like have you, what if we opened up Google Docs? Wouldn't that be cool on our phones? And they're like, "Why would you ever do that?" Drives me insane.
But back to your sort of issue, or is this a phone question? Like when you sit down and you're sort of in the flow state of your purse computer life, what does the screen look like? Are you in a one app at a time thing and you're sort of flipping back and forth? Are you tiling as many apps as you can fit on this 8-inch screen? Because that's kind of what you would do on a laptop. Like how does it end up after you've been doing this for an hour?
I am, I usually kind of like one app gets most of the screen and that's Google Docs and then off to the side I'll have like Chrome with whatever I'm referencing or I'm looking up. I had the Google Pixel Recorder, you know, I had a transcript and recording that I was referencing kind of back and forth. It gets a little hinky because Google Docs app will constantly like you have to like tap into it and then you're actively typing and writing. It's not as seamless as if you're just kind of like tabbing back and forth on a desktop. You can open like so many tabs on little windows on the Samsung in particular. I find that like I can just as easily, you know, have my two app set up, swap over to Spotify and start playing something and then I've got controls on the keyboard if I need to do something quickly like pause or turn the volume down.
Okay. So, that's slightly chaotic, but feels sort of manageable. And I feel like I'm looking at my computer right now. I'm sitting in front of a 27-inch screen and I have four windows open including the one that we're recording into right now. And that's probably one more than you would do on purse computer. But like you could split screen an 8-inch screen fairly functionally and Android does allow for that more or less.
Yeah. And Samsung is very like you can make each window as big or as small as you want to. It doesn't matter if it looks like garbage. They're like, "Yeah, go for it."
That's so nice of you, Samsung.
Yeah. So what about the software in particular would work better for you? Like, do you have a wish list coming out of this experiment that you're like, "If only I had X, Y, or Z, this thing would be totally doable."
I want every company to remember that they have an Android app and to fix the bugs in their Android app because it's just like I know all these developers are running around with iPhones and they're like, "Oh, something is horribly broken on Android." So, first things first, fix your Android apps. Second, I think the profile thing is really the only thing that I get tripped up on over and over and I'm kind of like this like it could just be better. You know, I know how I have it working on my laptop. You know, the two profiles coexist reasonably well on my MacBook. So those would be my two things I think.
Okay. I think that's a good one. And I think I've actually been thinking a lot about the app thing from a different direction. I've been using this Razr Ultra for the last little while and I am actually, I find myself more and more convinced that I'm right that flip phones are the correct form factor and should be the future for everybody. So congrats to me. But there is this thing about even the apps that are best designed and there are some very good Android apps out there. Like a thing that is true is that iOS apps are better than Android apps. Like it's just a fact. But there are some very good Android apps out there, but none of them have done the work required to work on a bunch of different screen sizes, right? And this is like the promise of Android is that Android can be functional all the way up to the size of a TV and all the way down to the size of like a watch, right? Like this is the thing we're supposed to do. And there is nothing in these apps that works properly on anything other than like a 6-point-something-inch candy bar screen. It doesn't work on the smaller screen. This stuff doesn't work great on the bigger screens. Like my guess would be the Z Fold experience probably works best in some ways when you have two apps side by side because they are essentially phone apps. Like you get something that looks and feels sort of like a vertical-oriented phone app side by side. And that in many ways is actually how these things are intended to be looked at. And there's like Android is so desperate to be versatile but just hasn't quite finished doing the work and all the developers haven't quite finished doing the work of like you want the phone to be all of these things and to be able to do all of these things and sort of satisfy all of these different use cases. And technically speaking, Android is so close to that and so much closer than anything else is out there. But there's just all of these tiny little design quirks and the fact that everybody wants to push you to mobile apps because that's what the ecosystem is and all of this stuff that's like we've talked a lot about this long Google project to unify these things that it's like if Google can actually start to put some of these pieces together like they will solve purse computer like this is the thing they want to make work which I find very exciting and every time I use it I am just less and less convinced that everybody who is going to need to be on board to pull this off is going to be anytime soon.
Yeah, it's frustrating because like the hardware exists like I have, there is so much more like horsepower in this Z Fold 7 than like the Chromebook I bought 5 years ago. You know, totally it has, you know, like an insanely good Wi-Fi and cellular chip. Like so many problems like hardware problems are solved. There's a million tiny keyboards, you know, like it's all here, but then you kind of get let down by the software and you're like, "Oh, this is where the limitations are." And it feels like yeah, it could just be so much better.
Yeah. All right. So, real talk before I let you go here. You're a hypothetical situation. You're going away for the weekend. It's you, you have no work plans, but like we're in the news business. Sometimes work happens. We always exist in a phase of I might have to work soon. It's a delight. Everybody should do that. But you're going away just for a couple of days. Are you comfortable enough that that purse computer, the Z Fold 7 can do it that you're going to leave your laptop at home?
Yes. Yeah. I am bringing purse computer. I'm bringing my little Logitech Keys to Go. Love it. I have had enough success being in WordPress and getting everything I need to do done that it feels like this is the minimum viable product. I'm not going to run into some weird edge case where I'm like, "Oh god, now I need to Slack somebody to do something for me or like upload an image or something like embarrassing." It covers all of those basic use cases for our jobs that I'm totally happy and only like 5% unsure.
What do you do with the fact that this thing is going to be super destructive to your battery? Like we all kind of baby our phones anyway and you're saying, "I'm going to do more aggressive stuff for hours with the screen on even more." Like are you just killing your phone by 100 p.m. every day now?
No, not quite. I would not trust it as like a full day, you know, I'm going to ride the bus downtown and use my phone and sit at a WeWork and write blogs for 5 hours. The phone would absolutely be dead. For those kind of one to two hour stints in the middle of the day at the coffee shop, I'm finding it's fine. I get to the end of the day like in the alarmingly low percentages of battery, but it's okay for those little short stints. Anything longer than that, I would definitely plan to have like some recharging time or a battery or something like that.
Okay. The version of this experiment that personally I'm very excited to try is the, it's a three-hour train ride from DC to New York. Can I purse computer through the whole train ride, which is like I very rarely have like serious business to do, but it's a perfect time to catch up on emails and get some reading done and watch a show and whatever. And that is in theory the thing this is perfectly set up to do for me really well without me even needing to bring a bag on the train which would just be glorious.
There you go. That's the dream.
I like this idea. All right. Well, I'm going to do it. I'm coming to New York in like two weeks. I'm going to keep you posted. It's going to be unbelievable.
All right. I want to hear all about it.
Good. All right, Allison, thank you as always. Next time we're going to do this from your phone and it's going to be awful and we're going to have a whole different conversation about it. But until then, we're going to take a break. Thank you, Allison. We'll be right back.
Support for the show comes from Framer. Your website sets the tone for your brand and it's the face of your company. So, if you struggle to make small changes and simple updates, you're leaving opportunity on the table. That's why so many companies from early-stage startups to Fortune 500s are turning to Framer. Framer is an enterprise-grade no-code website builder used by teams at companies like Perplexity and Miro to move faster. Changes to your Framer site go live to the web in seconds with one click without help from engineering. So whether you want to launch a new site, test a few landing pages, or migrate your full.com, Framer has programs for startups, scaleups, and large enterprises to make going from idea to live site as easy and as fast as possible. Learn how you can get more out of your.com from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/verge for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/verge for 30% off. framer.com/verge. Rules and restrictions may apply.
Support for the show comes from Grammarly. You don't need reminding that the world moves fast. But work today requires clear communication. And when every message counts, sounding rushed or generic can mean getting lost in the shuffle. Grammarly gives you one place to think, write, and finish your work where you already write, while giving you access to agents that help you sound natural and engaging. No matter what kind of writing you're doing, Grammarly helps you get ideas done faster and move from draft to done with less friction. You can use Grammarly's AI chat to brainstorm ideas, outline a solid draft, then refine it with context-aware suggestions that fit what you're working on. See why 90% of professionals say Grammarly has saved them time writing and editing their work. In a world of generic AI, you don't have to sound like everyone else. With Grammarly, you never will. Download Grammarly for free at grammarly.com. That's grammarly.com.
Welcome back. One of the most interesting pieces of news to me over the last couple of weeks was a new set of packages from YouTube TV that try to kind of split out different parts of what you might want to watch on YouTube TV. And the funniest thing to me was that there is a sports-focused package, right? So the idea is you don't want everything, you just mostly want sports. And the sports package is like 80% as expensive as the whole package. So this really just is the state of sports streaming. Sports rules television, particularly live television. And most of the money and most of the resources and most of the viewership in TV in live events period goes to sports. So I figured now was a good moment to catch up on where we are in the state of live sports and streaming. Jacob Feldman, who's a reporter at Sportico, keeps up on this and covers it tons all the time. And he was on the show last year to explain where we were with ESPN and a lot of these changes going on with how the sports industry is morphing itself for a streaming universe. So I invited Jacob to come back and talk about the Super Bowl and the Olympics and what's going on with YouTube TV and ESPN, which I honestly forgot launched its streaming thing. We got a lot to catch up on. Let's get into it. Jacob Feldman, welcome back to the Vergecast.
Oh, it's a pleasure to be here.
This is like an annual tradition where I watch a bunch of sports and I get really annoyed at how hard it is to watch sports and then I bring you on to talk about watching sports.
Sports streaming therapist is kind of my title in many ways and so it's an honor to do it.
This sounds about right. So, I have a bunch of things I want to kind of jump around and then I want to talk through a bit of a piece you wrote kind of about these sort of big wars in sports streaming coming this year. But I want to start with the Winter Olympics. For anyone who can't see, you're wearing a USA curling jacket, which just hopelessly biases you forever in this whole thing. Have you been watching the Winter Olympics?
I have been, and we can get into this. Obviously, the Winter Olympics overlapped with the Super Bowl this year. So, I was out in San Francisco last week or two weeks ago, depending on when you're listening to this, and so I missed the beginning, but I've been catching up and watching morning, midday, and night.
What have you made of it as a sports business reporter thinking about like the streaming of it all?
Yeah, the streaming of it all is amazing. I think as a fan, I think they finally figured this out and we can talk about the progression here because for a long time the Olympics were one of the most frustrating sports to watch. You had it on for 3 hours each night. They were kind of spending most of the time talking about family backstories, which are great if you're into family backstories, but if you're into curling, not so great. I think there was a lot of stuff that had already happened that you already knew all of the results of that they weren't showing enough of. So, it was just like it for the longest time the Olympics sort of satisfied nobody in the way that drove me crazy. But it does, it feels now like Peacock in particular was just like, "What? You want Olympics? Here's all of it. Here's the Olympics. We have 400 streams going at any given time." And honestly, it's exactly what I wanted.
Yes. And if you want multi-view, they have that. If you want curling-only multi-view, they have that this year. If you want Red Zone with Scott Hansen, they have that. It has really been, you know, a choose-your-own-adventure in the best kind of way.
It does seem like the biggest technical innovation, at least the one that has sort of blown the most people's minds is the drones.
I feel like the drones are suddenly everywhere.
Mhm. They have absolutely made some of the coolest shots I've ever seen in the Olympics. There's one for the downhill skiing that it would just sort of fly up behind them and follow them for the beginning of every run and it's amazing.
It is noisy, which is a little weird and there's sort of this whirring sound that I now associate with the Winter Olympics. What have you made of the drones?
Yes, the whirring Olympics. And I have heard from some producers because I asked them about this too. Some people think this might be a solved problem and maybe even by the end of the Olympics they'll have figured out the right setting in terms of the audio to interesting to cut that out. But yes, the drones have been one of the biggest surprises and delights of this Olympics and I think it's probably, I'm curious your perspective on this and someone from the tech side. I mean you guys have seen these drones develop and then us on the sports side every four years like wow they can go that fast or that small the cameras are that good. You know, it's kind of like when you jump, you know, four generations of iPhones all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, these actually can fit in. They don't distract from the broadcast like they might have four or eight years ago."
Yeah, it is really fun to watch that progression because there was this moment, I don't know, five, eight years ago, that there was this thought that drones were going to become sort of a real consumer product that like you would have a drone and I would have a drone.
