The Weekly Listen: Is Netflix redefining live (mainly sports) entertainment, will TikTok dodge a US ban, and more

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss the takeaways from Netflix’s record-breaking boxing event, the chances of TikTok dodging a US ban under a Trump presidency, the future of “roadblock marketing”, Perplexity’s new feature that lets you buy things directly within its search engine, the true story that inspired the 1992 film “A League Of Their Own”, and more. Tune in to the discussion with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Director of Reports Editing Rahul Chadha, Senior Analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, and Senior Director of Forecasting Oscar Orozco.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson:

Are you wondering what to do today? Well, you can partner with eMarketer, on data-driven marketing materials. Why? I hear you asking. It's because our custom reports give eMarketer Media Solutions clients the opportunity to generate new category insights through original surveys and analysis. That's why. So you can visit emarketer.com/advertise to learn more.

Hello everyone and thanks for hanging out with us for the Behind the Numbers Weekly Listen, an eMarketer podcast. This is the Friday show that hates a pop filter.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Just this specific one, I hate.

Marcus Johnson:

Evelyn broke one over her knee and hurled it across the room right before we got on. It was a bit much. I'm your host, Marcus Johnson. In today's show, is Netflix redefining live, mainly sports, entertainment?

Oscar Orozco:

It just doesn't bode well for the future if they're not able to handle that amount of viewers where other platforms have shown that they are capable of doing it.

Marcus Johnson:

How much does a Trump administration move the TikTok ban needle?

Rahul Chadha:

The Justice Department could be instructed to refrain from enforcing the law, but that would open up Google and Apple primarily to potential liabilities if Trump changes his mind somewhere else down the road. So that's also a question mark.

Marcus Johnson:

What does the future have in store for roadblock marketing?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more of this, but I don't think there are a ton of brands that it makes sense for, especially on the scale of this activation.

Marcus Johnson:

What should we make of Perplexity's new feature that lets people buy directly from its search engine? And I have some facts about the story that inspired popular film A League of their Own?

Joining me for this episode, we have three people. Let's meet them. We start with our Senior Analyst who covers everything digital advertising and media, based in Virginia, it's Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Hello Marcus. Hello everybody.

Marcus Johnson:

Hello there. We're also joined by our Senior Director of Forecasting. He's based in New York City and we call him Oscar Orozco.

Oscar Orozco:

Hey Marcus, happy to be on. Also happy to not be on with the usual folks, Ethan and Zach. I'm happy to have a break from them.

Rahul Chadha:

Same.

Marcus Johnson:

You and me both. We're also joined by Director of Reports Editing. He now lives in Maryland and we refer to him as Rahul Chadha.

Rahul Chadha:

Hey Marcus, thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

Hey buddy. All right, what do we have in store for you? We go story of the week, then we move to a game. We end with some random trivia. Let's get to it. We start of course, with the story of the week.

Is Netflix redefining live, mainly sports, entertainment? Netflix's heavyweight boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson drew an estimated 60 million households globally, peaking at 65 million despite technical hiccups that left many viewers frustrated writes, Ginger Adams Otis of The Journal. Folks were complaining about widespread technical failures as viewers reported constant buffering, poor video quality, audio issues, and such. Oscar, I'll start with you. Netflix, not typically in the business of putting on boxing matches, but they have started to get into the production of live sports as of, I don't know, the last year or so. What was your take on this huge sporting event produced by streaming giant Netflix?

Oscar Orozco:

I mean it was a disaster. It was a disaster, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh really?

Oscar Orozco:

Yes, borderline criminal, not just what they were trying to do to Mike Tyson, but really the way Netflix and Jake Paul and Mike Tyson tried to dupe so many people around the globe to watch. Again, it wasn't just the spectacle itself, which was very, very disappointing, only slightly saved or maybe majorly saved by the women's fight, which was right before the fight between Mike and Jake.

But in general, I think it also, taking it more serious, totally reflects terribly on Netflix. And I have to say as a Love Is Blind viewer as well, I also had major issues last year with that reunion, so a lot of viewers might've had this happen twice to them now, so it just reflects poorly. It's not just a sports thing, which is of course where they're shifting a lot of the live programming. But I mean Netflix is diversifying everything they offer, from games to a lot of these reality TV and other live series and it just doesn't bode well for the future if they're not able to handle that amount of viewers where other platforms have shown that they are capable of doing it like Disney Hotstar with the Cricket World Cup or Peacock. So yeah, just kind of a mess overall.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, if folks don't remember, so Netflix's Love Is Blind, the reunion show, right?

Oscar Orozco:

Yes.

Marcus Johnson:

Last year had technical difficulties that made folks wait up to an hour?

Oscar Orozco:

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

For Netflix to release.

Oscar Orozco:

We weren't able to watch it live.

Marcus Johnson:

The recorded version of the event. Yeah. That's a big question mark here, isn't it? Does Netflix have the technical ability to deliver on a sporting event this big. It's got other ones coming up as well. Two NFL games on Christmas. I think you've got the Chief-Steelers, which is huge game, Ravens-Texans, which is also a really big one. And then they've got I think rights to Christmas Day game next year and the year after that as well. And also Wild Wrestling Entertainment, the WWE content starting next year, which is going to pull in millions and millions of folks. So that was a big question mark here. And I think Jeremy Goldman made a good point, one of our colleagues, saying success during the NFL broadcasts could help Netflix recover from the setback, but another failure would likely severely limit its sports ambitions. So maybe they've got another chance to try to fix this before people start to associate them with bad sports viewership experiences.

Oscar Orozco:

It also doesn't help them that they literally did not acknowledge the issues there in it. I got all my information live from Twitter accounts, people just complaining, which made me feel comforted. I was like, "All right, I'm not the only one here," but they literally haven't, and still seem to have called it a success. So baffling.

Marcus Johnson:

Do we want to give Netflix a pass here? And I guess the argument for that or the pushback against what we're saying is this was a huge audience. And I knew that it was, I'd read that it was 60 million households. I read that it was 60, peaked at 65. But Jess Weatherbed made this point. She was saying if we're comparing this boxing match with the 2023 TV viewership, it would place the fight second only to 115 million people. Now she's comparing people to households, but still 115 million people watched the Super Bowl telecast last year. And so compared to the 60 million households who watched, this was not seen by most events, these kinds of numbers. Is it fair to say Netflix is just starting to get into this world and they had a ridiculous size audience, they'll figure this out eventually, and the fact that they were able to pull this kind of audience and this kind of attention for this event is more important than, hey, some people couldn't watch it.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I mean, I think Netflix certainly knows it has stumbled here, so it would surprise me if Netflix wasn't working to improve it. I think it's had what, a handful, I think maybe like four, five, live events so far, and that not enough I don't think to solidify in everybody's mind Netflix will forever be a poor live-streaming experience. I think if they recover the tech and maybe have a few really great experiences for those that do tune in on Christmas for those football games that people will listen to word of mouth that spreads that, "Yeah, I viewed the game. Didn't have any issues," and the ball will kind of be rolling in a positive direction. But I think it is important that Netflix do succeed there or a couple more big fumbles and it will be really hard to dig out of the hole it's created for itself.

Oscar Orozco:

I like what you did there, that was well done.

Marcus Johnson:

Because people are watching, the other part of this is, it's not as though folks don't watch sports on streaming platforms. And Oscar, your team put these numbers together. As of last year, more folks watched live sports on digital platforms than those who watched on traditional pay TV.

Oscar Orozco:

That's right.

Marcus Johnson:

According to our forecasting team. And that gap's going to expand this year to 20 million more folks watching sports on digital versus traditional. So it's already a thing. It's just new for Netflix. You've got a lot of other players who are doing this.

Oscar Orozco:

Yeah, it's very, very fragmented.

Rahul Chadha:

I mean I would challenge one part of that statement, which is I wouldn't necessarily consider this event a sport. I think it was pretty gimmicky.

Oscar Orozco:

Fair.

Rahul Chadha:

I actually was curious to see it was actually sanctioned. I don't really know how boxing works to be honest, but I looked it up. And it was sanctioned by some licensing body in Texas.

Oscar Orozco:

It was.

Rahul Chadha:

Which is kind of unsurprising that it happened in Texas. I think in any other context if we're talking about a late 20 something guy accosting a guy close to 60, nobody would consider that a sport. You'd consider it a crime. I do think the challenge for Netflix, if you're talking about sports specifically, it has to lean into reproducibility and regularity to draw viewers back on a constant basis. I think they proved you can put a man in a ring and feed him four quarts of beer and have him fight a horse and 60 million people might show up. But other than that, I'm not really sure exactly what the learnings for them are, to be honest.

Oscar Orozco:

I think leagues will be hesitant to give them exclusive rights moving forward. I'm a bit more pessimistic, so maybe they'll have to resort to just showing those types of events, Rahul. I don't know.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. It's a really fair and good point because the viewing experience was bizarre. You said spectacle, Oscar, I think Andrew Webster at the Verge wrote an interesting line. He was saying, "It was morbid curiosity that made me tune into Netflix's live boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike," as Rahul said, late 20s, and "Mike Tyson," basically 60, "on Friday night, which was slow, ponderous and tame." I personally thought it was surreal and it felt more like I was watching the start of a episode of Black Mirror than a real life sporting event.

Rahul Chadha:

What this made me think of was when, and I wasn't actually born then, but in 1977 Evel Knievel tried to jump over the Snake River Canyon when strapped to a rocket. And yeah, it was like a morbid spectacle and that's what drew people. And I think it was a huge ratings hit. But I think part of one of the challenges for Netflix too, in terms of what I mentioned was reproducibility, is it's a gimmick and can they reproduce it? At some point, people are probably going to become inured to that spectacle as well. I'm not sure they can keep drawing the same number of viewers over and over again for these types of events.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Right. And the larger the spectacle, the higher the star power, the more expensive it is to put on that event. So the cost-effectiveness also can become maybe untenable the more they rely on that high spectacle, high star power kind of model to get this done.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. Yeah. I do wonder where they go from here if they're going to put on a similar type of event, but maybe younger fighters, who do they try to pair to try to draw in these kinds of numbers again? I mean, Tyson is such a huge name and Paul, in all fairness, is a relatively big name as well at this point. But it does feel as though Netflix is pulling out all the stops to try to make this a thing. I just was also noticing that Beyonce, who's born in Houston, will perform at the halftime show for the Texans-Ravens game.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Ooh.

Marcus Johnson:

So these Christmas day games are turning them into a mini Super Bowl style event. So they're doing a lot to try to make this work. All right folks. That's where we'll leave the story the week for today. Time now for the game of the week. Today's game. It's a super-duper game.

How's it work? I'm glad you asked. Three rounds. Today we have Move the Needle, Fortune Teller and Fill in the Blank. The better the answers, the more points you get. Let's do it.

We start with Evelyn for round one. We have Move the Needle. Folks, tell me how much the story will move the needle out of 10. TikTok could be poised to dodge a US ban under Trump, writes our Senior Director of Driefings who I mentioned earlier, Jeremy Goldman. He notes that according to Washington Post reporting President-elect Donald Trump aims to save TikTok from a forced sale, reversing his previous stance in 2020 when he attempted to ban the app, and opposing a law that gives Bytedance, which is TikTok's parent company, until January 19th, 2025 to sell its US operations. As Sapna Maheshwari of The New York Times writes, a federal law signed in April, says TikTok must be sold to a non-Chinese company by January 19th, a day before Mr. Trump is inaugurated, or face a ban in the US. But Evelyn, how much does a Trump administration move the TikTok ban needle out of 10? So if zero is no ban, 10 is banned, where's the needle now?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Before the election, I think the needle was at an eight, and if you'd asked me a week ago, I would've said we're closer to maybe a three.

Marcus Johnson:

Wow.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Now with the appointment of FCC Commissioner and Chair appointee Brendan Carr being so vocally in support of a TikTok ban, I'd say we're at maybe a four or five. The FCC doesn't actually have authority to enforce a ban, and I highly doubt any agencies will be granted more authority under the Trump administration. So Carr's appointment, and keep in mind, we're far from any of Trump's leadership picks being confirmed at this point, so Carr's appointment doesn't mean a TikTok ban is assured. But I'm going to go with a five here because we could honestly tip either way. I think TikTok just submitted two trademarks to the US, so that's signaling confidence that it will continue to operate here, but Trump doesn't exactly have a history of sticking to his word. I mean him opposing a ban is already a flip-flop from his previous stance. So all this boils down to two things. One, whether Trump will actually oppose a ban in action rather than just paying it lip service. And two, who ends up leading the DOJ and therefore enforcement or non-enforcement of the law.

Marcus Johnson:

Rahul.

Rahul Chadha:

I think I also would give it a five. I think Trump has signaled that he wants to overturn the ban. I believe him when he says it now, although as Evelyn points out, he's been pretty mercurial in the past with his policy edicts. But I think his challenge is for him is how can he actually overturn the ban? It seems from the research I did, his avenues are somewhat limited. Congress could repeal the ban, the Justice Department could be instructed to refrain from enforcing the law, but that would open up Google and Apple primarily to potential liabilities if Trump changes his mind somewhere else down the road. So that's also a question mark. So I'm not really sure even if he wants to, without it, the benefit of a legal system education, speaking on my behalf, personally, what his actual methods for recourse would be.

Marcus Johnson:

Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

Yeah, for me it would be a zero, and I'm not at zero, I'm at two, I'm at two, and that's because of how unpredictable Donald Trump can be. So I expect that there could still be some sort of flip-flop there and that's why I'm not lower. I think that there is bipartisan support. That's the one thing that also kind of keeps me from being lower here for a ban because of how China's being seen as the greatest adversary for the US at the moment. But as Trump recently said himself, he has an unprecedented and powerful mandate, and it seems to be the case with control over pretty much everyone. It seems like everyone is getting in line. So if it looks like he's at the state of wanting to go against that ban, it looks like that's going to be the case, so that's why I said a two.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. That's interesting answers, folks. It is odd because it's not, I was questioning is it politically strategic? Because most Americans wanted a TikTok ban. They wanted it to be banned. In March 2023, 61% of adults favored a ban, according to CBS YouGov. Fast forward to March 2024 and 47% of US adults supported a TikTok ban versus 34% who opposed it. So still more wanted one than didn't want one according to a research company Ledger. So he's got bipartisan support, most people in the country seem to want it banned, so to go against that would be a bit surprising. That said, a lot of outlets, news outlets, reported Mr. Trump publicly changed his stance on TikTok in March around the time that he met with Jeff Yass, he's the billionaire investor Republican donor who has shares in by Bytedance, TikTok's parent. So who knows the real motivations for getting rid of this or not. Ian Tang, though an analyst for Capstone, a policy research firm saying, "Trump being elected improves the conditions for TikTok a little bit, but it's still an uphill battle. There will have to be some structural change for it to remain operating in the US."

All right folks, round two. Evelyn just out in front by a point. Round two, we have Fortune Teller. We start with Rahul. This is where we predict the future. Paramount takes promotional stunt to a new level for Gladiator II, and that's the title of an article from Brooks Barnes of The New York Times. He was writing that on Monday this past week at 9:00 PM Eastern, Paramount debuted a final 60 second trailer for the film Gladiator II on over 4000 TV networks, digital platforms, local stations, Spanish language outlets, and radio stations at the same time. Paramount's President of Worldwide Marketing Distribution Marc Weinstock said based on average audience totals for a Monday evening, the trailer could reach roughly 300 million potential customers. This tactic is known as a roadblock and it's been used before, but never on this scale. In 2009 Variety Magazine wrote about the largest roadblock ever at the time when Sony Pictures Entertainment simultaneously aired ads for the disaster movie 2012, that was on 450 TV networks. This roadblock would reach nine times as many channels. So Rahul, what does the future have in store for roadblock marketing?

Rahul Chadha:

I mean this stunt, I would call it, just kind of had the perfume of desperation around it for me. It felt kind of like the last gasp of a sort of dying business model that being the movie studios trying to capture what they used to be able to easily do with linear TV. I think even the article you sent over referenced you just make a couple ad buys during Friends and probably get a similar sized audience. And I'm assuming this kind of thing's prohibitively expensive. Measuring ROI, something Evelyn writes a lot about, is probably a nightmare. And I think, as I said, as movie studios see increasingly shrinking margins, I doubt they're going to be inclined to pony up at these sorts of costs. I think they're just going to become prohibitive for them.

Marcus Johnson:

I think, was it 2 million or something I read, something around that, that it cost for all of this. But they apparently put, I think it was $100 million into marketing. So it's a lot of money for most people, but when you're putting $100 million in for marketing, maybe it's a drop in the ocean. Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

I mean roadblock marketing is not a new concept. I was doing a bit of research and even Google promotes this as an ad solution from their ad managers. So it's not a new concept. I agree completely with Rahul. It is a stunt. And I think that $2 million figure, I was going to mention that, speaks a lot. It's really relatively inexpensive, speaks a lot to the perceived value of it. I think more needs to be done to save the box office, indeed. And yes, I mean I'm sure it's great for exposure and brand awareness, but they're literally shoving whatever they're promoting, I hear it's a movie, but whether it's a product or a service into your eyes, and that's a one-off, two-off thing that can work, but it's not something that can be replicated over and over and over. So I wasn't too impressed with this. And so not a new concept, I'm sure we'll see it again, hopefully not again soon.

Marcus Johnson:

Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yeah, I think, I mean I come back to cost too. The cost of the media might not be that much, certainly not in the context of a big budget marketing campaign for a big budget blockbuster, but it most likely did take a significant amount of coordination. So in terms of the cost of the media and the cost of the personnel needed to execute the strategy, it's not a cheap tactic. It is probably cheaper than an ad in the Super Bowl. And the philosophy is sort of the same, reaching a large audience all at the same time. The Super Bowl has the benefit of everyone being tuned into the same program and most people are going to talk about the game and the ads for at least a few days, maybe a few weeks afterwards.

I think roadblocking, in addition to probably being cheaper than the Super Bowl, is more flexible in terms of time, which makes it perfect for things like movies or any events or product launches that take place in the other 51 weeks out of the year that aren't the Super Bowl week. So I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more of this, but I don't think there are a ton of brands that it makes sense for, especially on the scale of this activation.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, Oscar, you mentioned saving the box office, year to date North American box office down about 11% from last year and 25% versus pre-pandemic. So still trying to recover. Rahul, to what you were saying about the traditional model, trying to do anything it can to stay alive.

Evelyn out in front on six, Rahul five, Oscar four, but still a lot to play for. Round three, Fill in the Blank. And we start with Oscar, where folks do that, they fill in the blank. It's an incredibly literal segment. Buying things inside a search engine. Perplexity is rolling out a new feature that will let pro subscribers purchase a product without leaving its AI search engine writes Emma Roth of the Verge. All folks have to do is select the Buy with Pro button that will automatically ordered the products using saved shipping and billing information. Free shipping is included. Ms. Roth explains that for products that don't support Buy with Pro, Perplexity will redirect users to the merchant's website to complete their purchase. But, Oscar, filling in the blank. Perplexity's new feature that lets people buy directly from its search engine is blank.

Oscar Orozco:

Well, this will definitely not win me the round, but it's okay, and it's because I'm just curmudgeoned today and so my word is, pedestrian, not impressed.

Marcus Johnson:

Today?

Oscar Orozco:

I know it's typically how I handle these, right? But no, pedestrian. It doesn't excite me personally. And let me explain why. I mean it feels a little bit like the stunt with the roadblock marketing campaign here. It just feels like the path that a lot of these digital platforms seem to be taking, and they all seem to be copying one another. And what I mean is there's a new product that's supposed to drive up users and they'll operate at a loss to gain users and sellers, in this instance, we're talking about an e-commerce decision, because they specifically said they were not making any money on this, it's not a commercial decision. But regardless, when I think of what's happening with e-commerce is a little bit of what we're seeing with the Sheins and Temus and even Amazon before that, the quality of the products that are being sold is diminishing at an alarmingly fast rate. That's the way I'm seeing this.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay. Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

So I sort of have the exact opposite opinion to Oscar. I think it is potentially a game changer. I think we should think about it in the context of the major competitors in this space. Amazon is the king of e-commerce. It has also been innovating in this space with its Rufus chatbot and Prime comes with free and importantly fast shipping on top of all the other prime benefits like access to Prime Video.

I don't think Perplexity will topple Amazon by any means, but I do think Perplexity has a massive opportunity here because Amazon is notoriously an awful user experience. Ads clutter are everywhere, low quality products, fraud. Ad clutter is also a problem on Google Shopping and consumers encounter added friction when they're directed to merchants websites to complete a purchase. So I think by combining uncluttered and personalized product recommendations that users feel like they can trust because there aren't sponsored options, with the benefits of a single click purchasing experience and free shipping, I think it could be a winner, at least in the short term. I don't think consumers will sign up for Perplexity Pro because of Buy with Pro. So although it could be a game changer experience wise, I don't necessarily think it will make a major dent in the market dominance of Google or Amazon.

Marcus Johnson:

Your word was game changer. Is that what the-

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yes. Or potentially a game changer.

Marcus Johnson:

Potentially, in multiple words.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

The caveat is important. Well, you didn't tell me it had to be one word.

Marcus Johnson:

That's true. I just said fill in the blank. Yeah, not with a paragraph, but yes, true.

Oscar Orozco:

And no sponsor ads for how long? I don't know.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I mean, that's a good point.

Oscar Orozco:

We'll see.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

It is, but it is a subscription product, right? This is only included in the Pro. If it were in the free product, I think we would be considering ads pretty quickly here.

Rahul Chadha:

Absolutely, yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. Rahul.

Rahul Chadha:

Yeah. I think Oscar just alluded to my point, which is I think this is going to make the search engine worse at the end of the day. I'm reading this as Perplexity basically testing the waters with a potential type of ad format. Right now, I think the Gen AI search engines are really trying to figure out how do we monetize this service? Right now I think Perplexity's riding high on a bunch of venture capital, but at some point it's going to have to monetize. And I think every streaming platform has shown that it's more lucrative on a per user basis to monetize via ads and subscription fees.

Right now, I think everybody's in love with Perplexity because they kind of experimented with it and realized, "Oh, Google's gotten really bad." I feel like we're all kind of the frog in the pot of boiling water that got turned up slowly. And using Perplexity is such a different user experience, but at the end of the day, they're going to monetize. To me that means ads and that leads to a degraded user experience. So yeah, I think it's just kind of like all avenues head to sameness for that kind of user experience when it comes to the search engines.

Marcus Johnson:

Fantastic arguments, folks. That's what all we've got time for the game of the week. We count the scores and I can tell you that this week's winner isn't Oscar with six points. It's not Rahul either. It's Evelyn with nine. Congratulations to her.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Wow.

Rahul Chadha:

Well done. Well done.

Marcus Johnson:

Nine for Evelyn, eight for Rahul, six for Oscar. She gets the championship belt and the last word.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I never have anything to say here.

Marcus Johnson:

No one does, but I keep it in just for the hell of it.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Oh, I mean, we don't have a weekly listen next week, so I'll just wish everybody-

Marcus Johnson:

We don't?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

A happy Thanksgiving.

Marcus Johnson:

No one told me.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Right? I work-

Marcus Johnson:

You're right.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Okay. Don't make me panic, Marcus. I had planned to be out of office on Friday.

Marcus Johnson:

Well, cancel those plans. Yes, it will be Thanksgiving, so we're not going to be around. That's a good point.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

So yeah, happy holidays everyone.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, that's a good one.

Oscar Orozco:

That was a great one but since Evelyn didn't take all of her time, I want to say six is way too low, Marcus. Come on.

Marcus Johnson:

If I'm honest, it's generous. You should be thanking me. You're welcome. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, one and all. That's a very, very nice final word from Evelyn. She is this week's champion of the game of the week. And we move quickly to dinner party data.

This is the part of the show where we tell you about the most interesting thing we've learned this week.

Evelyn kicks us off because she won.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Great. I have some data here from YouGov they published in November on neurodivergence in America. Neurodivergent is an umbrella term for people whose brains work in an atypical fashion. Autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities are examples of neurodivergent conditions or identities.

So over one-fifth, or actually just about one-fifth of Americans, identify as neurodivergent after being provided with a definition of neurodivergence. So it's 19 self-identify as neurodivergent versus 72% identify as neurotypical. That's about even when we look at it split out by gender. So 19% of men and 19% of women. But when we look at it split out by age, the younger cohorts are significantly more likely to identify as neurodivergent. Like five times the number of under 30 respondents self-identify as neurodivergent compared to over 65. So that's interesting. I think it's also interesting that there's a really big divergence between people that identify as straight versus queer people. Queer people, LGBTQ plus people, 46% of them identified as neurodivergent versus 15% of straight people.

They have a lot more data on YouGov about different kinds of neurodiversity, but there is just a snapshot of demographics in the American populace and neurodivergence.

Oscar Orozco:

I need to Google this later. I'd like to read it. Yeah.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I can send you the link, Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

Please, please do that.

Marcus Johnson:

Very nice. Let's go, Rahul.

Rahul Chadha:

Yeah, I stumbled across a blog post about the history of the encore from a musician named Chris De La Riva. So of course being the two or three songs that a band usually plays after they exit the stage somewhat performatively. This guy analyzed about 27,000 set lists from between 1890 and 2024.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Whoa.

Rahul Chadha:

And so he found that by around 1978, about half of those shows had an encore. Shows with encores peaked in 2010 at about three quarters of shows. But then they started to decline and fell to 54% this year. It's almost back to where they were in 1978. I think the 1978 figure was actually 52% so we're at 54 now. But the interesting part to me was that he found that the number of songs included in the set list didn't decline. So I think the takeaway he made was that the bands are luckily just doing away with the pretense of encores and just playing their set list without leaving and coming back, which I thought was interesting.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Oh see, because I read it as, at least this is an experience that I've noticed, is that at concerts, artists will just save the end of their set list for encores because there's just a foregone conclusion that there will be an encore. I saw Chappell Roan live a couple months ago and she said at the beginning, "I'm performing the Rise and Fall of the Midwest Princess as an entire album." And then she didn't do two songs and she left and I was like, "Wait." And then she came back out and did the last two songs. So I think maybe it's like there's also something going on where encores are like par for the course now, and so they're just part of the set list.

Marcus Johnson:

Did you follow her backstage?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I did not.

Oscar Orozco:

Drag her.

Marcus Johnson:

Excuse me? Where are my two songs?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I really, really far away. There was a huge crowd.

Marcus Johnson:

Evelyn was arrested. All right, very good. Oscar, what have you got me?

Oscar Orozco:

Great. So in all honesty, mine, I was fully expecting to win today, so I wanted to talk about the ticker tape parade.

Marcus Johnson:

You shouldn't have.

Oscar Orozco:

Because I was going to talk about having one for myself after winning. Sort of joking.

Marcus Johnson:

This guy.

Oscar Orozco:

It also had to do with the fact that we just experienced one in New York last month and I was there and I don't think I'd ever been to one before. It was for the New York Liberty. So I wanted to look up, I wasn't even-

Marcus Johnson:

Just point of order. You can barely win when Ethan and Zach are playing, okay? Evelyn and Rahul? You have no shot, mate.

Oscar Orozco:

I'm always beating those guys. Get out of here.

Marcus Johnson:

That's true. That's a low bar.

Oscar Orozco:

Lower bar, lower bar.

Rahul Chadha:

Those two are really getting dragged today.

Oscar Orozco:

I had to keep it going, just to tease Marcus. But yeah, so ticker tape. And to be honest, I wasn't even quite sure what ticker tape was or is.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I have no idea what that is.

Oscar Orozco:

There you go. So we'll talk about it. It's a very iconic thing here in New York as well. So the history of it, well it dates back to the first time that supposedly we had one in New York City was the dedication-

Marcus Johnson:

That's what they use in the stock market?

Oscar Orozco:

Yes, it does. Exactly, exactly.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay.

Oscar Orozco:

So it was because of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. So this would've been in 1886. Where does the ticker tape come from? So it was this machine was used to transmit information over telegraph lines, and these tapes produced these strips of paper, a lot of which was thrown out in the garbage. And so I guess someone at some point figured if you throw it, ut had this confetti-like effect and it became a part of New York City tradition.

And yes, in Wall Street, part of the reason is that the firms there are the ones that really had these machines. So the stretch of Broadway between Battery and City Park, it's called the Canyon of Heroes, that's usually where these ticker tape parades take place. We've had over 200 of them. Everyone from Jesse Owens had one for winning the Olympic Gold in 1936 to the Apollo 11 astronauts that walked on the Moon, JFK. So a lot of history there. And the Alliance of Downtown New York has granite markers all along the route of the parade that talks about all of these 200 that we've had. So you can see it if you walk up. For anyone visiting New York, it's pretty cool. All on Broadway. That's the history.

Marcus Johnson:

Very nice, very nice. I think this is the best dinner party data we've ever had. Not yours, Oscar. Everyone's.

Oscar Orozco:

I've definitely had better ones.

Marcus Johnson:

Best ever? It's on the board.

Oscar Orozco:

It's a good one.

Marcus Johnson:

It's definitely on the board.

Oscar Orozco:

Good one.

Marcus Johnson:

All right folks, I've got one for you real quick. The story that inspired A League of Their Own. Who's seen the film?

Rahul Chadha:

I have.

Oscar Orozco:

It's been a while, but yes.

Marcus Johnson:

Yes, yes, and no from Evelyn? Okay, so League of Their Own. It's the 1992 Gina Davis and Tom Hanks movie. It's brilliant. About a professional all female baseball league that gets started whilst a lot of young men who would've played in the MLB were fighting in World War II.

So the movie was inspired, I saw it ages ago, re-watched it recently, but I knew it was based on a true story, but I didn't really know the history behind the true story. So movie inspired by the real, at the time it was called the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the AAGPBL, which ran from 1943 to 1954, that's a lot, 1943 to 1954. League was founded by the chewing gum mogul Philip K. Wrigley. A spoiler alert, so if you're going to watch it, then stop listening now, but it's been out for a while, so you have time. The Rockford Peaches, the team from the film, won the league championship in 1945, '48, '49, and '50. The league only ran, as I mentioned, for like 12 years so they won a lot. They were the like Yankees of the league, so to speak. Pitcher Mary Pratt was the last living member of the team and passed away in 2020 at 101 years old, as noted from a Screen Rant on school from Shawn S. Lealos and Gina Wurtz.

So Dottie, that's Gina Davis's character, was loosely based on Rockford Peaches player, Dorothy "Dottie" "Kammie" Kamenshek.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Whoa.

Marcus Johnson:

Who was excellent. So it's Dorothy Kamenshek, but she's got a bunch of nicknames, Dottie and Kammie. She was an excellent player to say the least. There aren't words for how good she was. So during her 10-year career, the league was only on for 12, in the AAGPBL she played first base and she was selected for seven All-Star Teams, held the league's record for getting people out, so catching them out, tagging them out, all the outs. She had the most outs. She won the batting title two years in a row. And this one's just staggering, she struck out just 81 times out of 3,736 times at bat. So that means every time she went to the plate, she struck out 2% of the time.

Rahul Chadha:

Oof.

Oscar Orozco:

Now that's 30 something. Well, now in the MLB. That's crazy.

Marcus Johnson:

Which is insane. Other than Davis's character, all the others were fictionalized. Although Tom Hanks' character Jimmy Dugan was inspired by a real-life baseball player called Jimmy Fox.

Oscar Orozco:

Very cool.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

It sounds like I should watch this.

Oscar Orozco:

You should. It's good movie. It's really good.

Marcus Johnson:

It's amazing.

Oscar Orozco:

Marcus, this is also-

Rahul Chadha:

There's no crying in baseball.

Oscar Orozco:

It started because of World War II, right? People wanted to see baseball.

Rahul Chadha:

Yeah.

Oscar Orozco:

And I think the league wasn't playing for a number of years.

Rahul Chadha:

Yep.

Oscar Orozco:

Very cool.

Marcus Johnson:

Exactly right, yeah. So I think he hired someone, Mr. Wrigley hired someone to try come up with an alternative to the MLB and someone came up with this and it ran for 12 years and for some ungodly reason stopped. I've never understood why there's not professional women's, at least softball, because you play softball in college and there's nowhere for women to go. So why isn't there a professional league? Because you'd have a ton of players who are coming up, let alone professional baseball. Where did that go? This woman was amazing.

Oscar Orozco:

It used to be on TV a little bit more even. I don't know if it was the college game, but I agree, Marcus, it's been a while. There were some well-known pictures I remember maybe 20 years ago.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, yeah.

Oscar Orozco:

No idea.

Marcus Johnson:

I'm calling it, Best dinner party day ever. Not just mine. Mainly mine. Anyway.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Hold on. I forgot earlier that we were, this is an audio format and so you asked me if I'd seen it and I just shook my head.

Marcus Johnson:

You did ignore me, yeah.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I would like to go on record and just say that I have not seen it.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, we'll cut that. We'll just put a tumbleweed after the guys answer and there's nothing from Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

No, I have not seen it.

Marcus Johnson:

Well played.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

There you go.

Marcus Johnson:

That's all we've got time for today's episode. Thank you so much to all of my guests. Thank you to Oscar.

Oscar Orozco:

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

Yes, sir.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Rahul.

Rahul Chadha:

Cheers. Thanks Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Thank you, Marcus. This was a fun one.

Marcus Johnson:

Absolutely. Thank you to Victoria who edits the show, Stuart runs the team, Sophie does our social media and Lance who helps with our video podcast even if this isn't one for this week. Thanks to everyone for listening in to the Behind the Numbers Weekly Listen, an eMarketer podcast. We hope to see you on Monday where you can hang out with host Bill Fisher on the Around The World Show where he'll be speaking with Paul Briggs and Paul Werner, all about the state of sports betting across the globe.