Broadcasting legend Al Michaels told CNN anchor Chris Wallace that X/Twitter owner Elon Musk coujld buy the entire NFL “out of petty cash” — but added it wouldn’t happen.

Wallace interviewed Michaels for this week’s edition of his Max series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace  — now available exclusively on Max, and no longer airing a weekly highlights version on CNN. Instead of two or three episodes, the show hosts one guest per week now, since Wallace will also be hosting the newsy The Chris Wallace Show on CNN Saturday mornings later this fall.

In the wide-ranging interview, Michaels told Wallace the story behind his iconic “Do you believe in miracles?” call at the 1980 Winter Olympics, his long and illustrious career in broadcasting, and his take on the future of sports and sports media.

Along those lines, Wallace asked if Amazon’s Thursday Night Football deal is the shape of things to come for major sports, with tech giants outbidding broadcast nets:

WALLACE: You say that you are fired up about your Thursday Night Football schedule this year and you even got the first Black Friday, NFL game ever.

MICHAELS: That’s on Friday, three o’clock Eastern time. It’ll be a huge day for Amazon because they’re taking it out from behind the paywall. So you log on to your Amazon account. You can watch the game and do all of your Christmas shopping.

WALLACE: Do you realize, this is why those guys are so much richer than you and I are because they’re smarter than you and I are. That is a brilliant idea. Let’s look at television and sports from 30,000 feet. With the decline in the audience of the networks and cable, TV sports and particularly live football is the one thing that can still attract a crowd. Are we going to approach a point where these huge tech giants like Amazon, like Apple are gonna be able to buy up all the TV rights to these things and the networks ABC NBC, CBS, Fox won’t be able to compete?

MICHAELS: I’ll tell you this, Chris, if Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk or a few other people, the Saudis wanted to buy the entire National Football League, they could. Just simple as that. The entire NFL, let’s say the average franchise right now, since Washington just went for 6 Billion. So let’s say you know, let’s say the whole league is worth around 200 billion, 32 times 6, give or take. Elon Musk could buy that out of petty cash. Will that happen? No, it won’t.

WALLACE: Do you think Congress would ever allow the World Series or the Super Bowl to be on paid for TV streaming?

MICHAELS: Years ago, I would have said no. Now all bets are off. Anything is possible. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Watch above via Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace.

The post Al Michaels To CNN’s Chris Wallace: Elon Musk Could Buy Entire NFL ‘Out Of Petty Cash’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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