Ryan, our nation’s preeminent sports media critic, is here to discuss reports that NBC wishes to offer the NBA a tremendous amount of money. What does this mean, other than that Adam Silver is our lord and savior?

Topics…

* Can Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT) possibly come up with a competing offer?

* What’s with WBD CEO David Zaslav sitting at Knicks-Sixers with Goldman Sachs tycoon Lloyd Blankfein?

* Do Barkley and the other TNT guys join NBC in this scenario?

* Irony of WBD needing the NBA most, but being most likely to be forced out

* Oddness of young Thunder players doing that “What a pro wants” ad

* Which TNT halftime guy is least essential?

* NBA playoff ratings are all over the map. New Nielsen system or something else?

* That traditional space at end of pod where we talk Israel/Gaza campus protests

* Are these protests being received by the public in a totally different way had Elon not bought Twitter?

Ace New York politics reporter, all around culture writer and crazed baseball fan Ross Barkan objected to my “Is Baseball Dying?” article. Naturally I had him here to say his piece and boy did we hit on a range of other topics.

* Contra conventional wisdom, is baseball more international than basketball?

* Why might baseball survive the future?

* Pete Rose was insanely famous in the 1970s, and we’ve forgotten

* Is household name sports celebrity over, post LeBron James and Steph Curry?

* Is Patrick Mahomes anywhere near as famous as prime Tom Brady was?

* Taylor Swift and parasocial fandom

* Will Swift exist outside her time?

* Travis Kelce’s obvious bid for fame

* Tucker Carlson vs. Bari Weiss on Israel

* Campus fight over Israel

Joe is really smart about the sports + business overlap, as evidenced by his viral story about Glen Taylor thwarting his own sale of the Timberwolves to the ARod + Lore duo. We got deep into that deeply reported article and hit other topics of interest, such as…

* The Pat McAfee + Bill Belichick combo

* Robert Kraft’s Dynasty hit job on Belichick backfiring

* Roger Goodell expanding the NFL season

* NBA TV rights reports

* The paradox of why NBA broadcasters might pay more while asking for less inventory

* The Minnesota mess

* Glen Taylor’s sneaky trick to recapture team control

* Those Forbes team valuations matter more than you’d think

* Why the WNBA can’t pay Caitlin Clark a lot of money

* The articles arguing that Clark got a big Nike deal in large part because she’s White