The Business of Heated Rivalry

The other day I saw an item of clothing was very tempted to buy possibly the most I would

have ever paid for an item of clothing. It was a Montreal Metro's hockey jersey, $150. The Metros are a made up hockey team from the TV show Heated rivalry. Official replica jerseys were on sale for $150, but totally sold out. In fact, every single item on the official Heated rivalry merch site is sold out.

A sign I suspect that the TV shows creators were not expecting this level of success. Heated rivalry is a Canadian television show based on a Canadian romance book series. It's streamed in the US by HBO. It's about a pair of professional men's hockey players, rising superstars, star-cross lovers, very steamy, TV-m-a-rated, and it has been a giant hit.

“I started watching it with my wife, and I think we did it in two tranches, and we loved it.”

I love that in your house you refer to Benches' tranches. I feel like... Sanchez, thank you. Yes, we're very fancy people. That's the perfect car switcher, yes.

Sarah Swisher, journalist, podcaster, media icon, I dare say, and Kara has sort of owned the subject area of technology and business for the last 25 years, but today she is here to talk Heated rivalry and business. I think one of the things that really struck me of a couple of things is it caused somewhere

between two and $3.6 million per episode to make, which is really low.

Yeah, on average, the show was made for a little under $3 million per episode Canadian. So, like $2.2 million US, and what struck Kara was the way that this scrappy little production in Canada was able to stretch that budget without the show looking cheap, getting

“way more bang for its buck than what she's seen on American productions.”

If you've ever been on Hollywood's set, and I've been on a couple, I was on the morning show. I'm in an upcoming movie with someone named Merrill Streep, coming up, but there's a lot going on, right? And they film in this way that, to me, seemed somewhat inefficient. So, you know, directors may want lots of takes of the same scene, lots of coverage from

different angles, reactions from everybody in the scene. Heated rivalry on the other hand, will often stay on one character's face as a scene plays out, meaning they need fewer takes, fewer extras in the background. And the reason we're talking about all of this is because I have not been able to stop telling people what I've learned from a recent episode of Kara's podcast.

That show is called Pivot. It's co-hosted by NYU Business Professor Scott Galaway, typically the show is about technology and business and anti-trust, lots of anti-trust lately.

“But Kara took a break from that to talk to the creators of Heated rivalry about the business”

of getting that show made, because it's not just that I learned Heated rivalry was made very cleverly. What I learned was that the Canadian economic system of making TV and movies is completely different from how we do it in the U.S., something I asked Kara about. I guess, naively, it hadn't occurred to me to even think of an American business model versus a Canadian business model.

Sure. Were you aware of this? I mean, you've-- Yeah, no, I've covered Hollywood a lot because of the impact of digital. So I understand their economics quite well and one of the things that had been a constant theme was the costs are so high in this country and there's got to be different economic

systems that they could do really well. So today we are giving the episode over to Kara and her interview with Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady, creators of Heated rivalry. The Canadian business of entertainment lives in contrast to the U.S. business and I learned so much about the current state of both industries from this conversation.

Oh, and also, all that merch I mentioned at the beginning turns out it is a way bigger deal for Canadian creators. Kara's interview with Heated rivalries creators after the brain. So hi, everyone. I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we've got a special bonus episode and it's not about anything terrifying or depressing. It's about the most addictive delightful,

surprise cultural phenomena of the decade he did rivalry. I'm joined today by the show's creator, Jacob Tierney, an executive producer, Brendan Brady. Welcome, you too. Thank you. Thanks, Kara. We've been beset by some tech issues but nonetheless, the gaze will prevail. The success

of the show is about so many things. Queer joy, sex, inclusion. It's amazing business

story and that's really what I wanted to talk about. So one thing this show has been a giant PR booth in the entire country. Here's Prime Minister Mark Carney at a recent media event. The world knows the Shane and Ilia rising hockey stars who follow for each other as they face

A fundamental Canadian value is that people should be able to be whoever they want to be,

to love whoever they want to love. So, the narrative has become that it was a little show out of Canada, obviously made in can it because American dissers are afraid of the sex content, but he sort of articulates it rather well as that people are upset and divided and this brings a respite. But it's more than that, but why don't you start Jacob?

I mean, I think that there's, I think that what the show did in a kind of an unpretty, untrying to teach you a lesson way is just present queer joy and I think that that's it's soft power. You know, that's the thing that I think people are surprised by and you know, there are obviously our queer lives are filled with trauma and I get that and we I think we all know that, but I think this shows desire to not focus on that, to focus on other

parts of the queer experience as fantasy and I fully admit, right? It's a romance, it's

“a romance. I think that that's the partly the reaction to it, right, Brendan?”

Yeah, so I think like the other part of this was Jacob has talked about a lot and it was kind of how we were pitching this when we were going out to people, which is this is a story written by women and it's consumed primarily by women and we don't take female desire and story seriously in media a lot of the times. There's so many readers of all types of romance novels. They're there and they are yearning for for these stories to be told. When we were

pitching it, we were really crossing our fingers hoping that we were right, we were like there is a built-in audience. So I think that was the other like secret sauce in this is just like this is a massive fan base that have not had their stories taken seriously and they got to see it taken seriously and they loved it. Talk about this, but getting it made. Like we talked on this success on what it symbolizes,

the difference between Canada and the U.S., though, even how these productions are funded. And let me play very quickly a part of Mark Carney's speech about that and how it was funded. Yeah, I'm a politician. I'm not a bomb taking credit for the Canadian funding that helped you share this story with the world. I may not have been here because the decision was made, but I'm here now. So yeah, I made, I greenlit this thing. I stood up to the Americans.

“That's amazing. So I think that like our show was made in the Canadian system and it is”

very different from the U.S. We explain it, explain it for people to understand. So basically the Canadian film and TV system has subsidies and equity and grant systems that are propped up by the Canadian government. So we, you know, when you go to a broadcaster like we did with Crave, which is the streaming platform in Canada that commissioned the show, they go and say, okay, great. Here is a license fee. Typically, it'll run between 20 to 30% of the budget. Then we

have a tax credit, both provincial and federal. And that brings another 20 to 30% of the budget.

And then it's always that last little piece that you're looking for, right? So the benefit to us in

Canada's producers is it's unfortunate that we don't get necessarily the whole budget out of our broadcasters, but we as the producers own all the underlying IP. So that is a bit different. You don't sell it to a studio. Exactly. Exactly. It is on the system. But the, you know,

“the limitations on that are you have to go then raise money. So how we did this with our show is”

we ended up talking to a couple of studios, some of them Americans, some of them Canadian. And ultimately, it wasn't the right fit from a creative perspective. And, you know, we've, we understand where everybody was coming from. It is a, this was, you know, on paper, didn't seem like an amazing massive hit right out the gate. And so luckily, when we were going through this process, Crave's parent company, which is Bell Media, Bell Media is like,

if Comcast and Disney were merged into one in our country, they own everything from telecommunications to internet to sports. And they get divisions like Crave, which is exactly like that. Is that they're only streaming platforms? Yes. Yes. Yes. So they're only streaming platform. And they had just acquired a distribution company called Sphere Abicus out of the UK. And so we were looking for that last 30% of the budget, and they came in for 20 more percent on a distribution advance.

So the last 10% was Jacob and I putting our producer fees. And we put in almost all of our producer fees. So what you would have earned for this, the what a fees that are standard, right? That's exactly

right. What was the total budget here? So we were just under 3 million Canadian in an episode.

low for a sitcom. It's deeply low for one hour. It's not, deeply low for one hour. Most, those are the salaries of certain people depending. So you know, obviously these were not well-known people,

“but still it's still an expensive thing. I think most US ones, I feel like 10 million is the lowest”

they make. It depends. It's like between four to 10 million dollars in episode U.S. is typical

depending on where your level is. But yeah, I mean, costs of really skyrocketed over the last decade. Is it less expensive to make this in Canada from a production perspective? No, we have an efficient model. And I mean, yes, it is because we don't have the same level of money that is being thrown around. So we buy necessity half to spend less. But we also, like, did something here where we shot all six episodes in 36 days. Jacob directed all six of them.

We blocked shot them like one giant movie. We talk about this one studios, especially US studios, come and say, "How do you guys do this?" And we go, "It's crazy." You have all of your episodes written before you go into prep. And that's typically when we lose people and they don't understand.

Right, because they write it through. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's changing in the US.

It is. It has to. It's crazy to do with the other words. Especially when you're not doing 22 episodes anymore. Like back in the old model, when you're doing this volume of episodes where it's not possible to have them already. Well, you have writers on staff. Well, that you have to just be writing all the time. But if you're doing, if the new model is 8 to 10 episodes, there's almost no reason why this can't be accomplished before you start shooting. So you start shooting,

go ahead. Yeah, we start shooting. And then we do 10 hour shoot days primarily. Like I'm not going to say it's not every day. But we try to keep our hours low. And there's a couple of reasons for this. A, as soon as you get into 12, 13 hours with crews, you end up paying for an additional day by virtue of the over time. But we also just feel that like, you know, my wife is an assistant costume designer. She was the assistant costume designer on this show. She's five months pregnant.

Departments. Thank you. The departments that get hooped are hair make up or drove with these pre calls a lot of the time who are those departments run by primarily women. And so we also just feel that like they're in our business. We need to change this mentality of endlessly shooting 15, 16 hour days, which is where the cost blew. Right. Right. What are you a lesbian? What's happening here? Anyway. So Jacob, talk about your production style. Besides being, you know,

truncated like making a tie, you keep it tight kind of thing. You call it anti-fascist. Explain what you mean by that. Well, I mean, I guess what I mean about that is there's a desire often for perfection. That is I think not only unachievable, but also insane and cruel to be even attempting. There's no reason to do. If you're doing 25 takes of a scene because you don't like the performance of the actor, I'm an actor. I've been doing this since I was four years old. The

problem is the scene. It's not the actor. You have a retina properly. If you're not accomplishing

“what you need to accomplish, there's a fundamental issue. And by torturing people into repeating”

and repeating and repeating, I don't know what you're gaining. And so that's kind of-- I just did, I just did a part of it. It was all day. I was like, why? I didn't think it's thing, why? It's not like, is it all day? To do nine different sizes on a close-up is insane. All of this stuff is crazy. I do believe fundamentally that film and TV is an ensemble process. It is. Otherwise, go right a book, you know, go paint a picture. There's lots of ways to be in total control.

So anti-fascist might be a big statement, but it is kind of, it's a rejection of an idea that everything has to come from one person and like what, you know, the brilliant, it's very top-down. It's very top-down. So when you talk about owning this intellectual property, what does that mean now for you all? Because I own all my intellectual property, just so you know. And I think it's important, explain why it is for you, especially in this space. Because that's something that's been in

an anathema to the industry. Well, I'll tell you what it means is like, Jacob and I worked on a show called Lettercanny and Shorzee and the producers of that show made it in Canada as well. And they had a robust merchandise business. And when we were in post-production, we decided because we have, we, you know, retained all the intellectual property behind the series that we wanted to take advantage of that and make a line of merchandise, which we're doing, which is now incredibly,

like it's become this amazing part of our business that we're super excited about. But it also

means that ultimately, like when we, we made the decision to reinvest our fees, it was because we knew that if this goes really well, we're going to benefit for the next 25 years off of this.

“And that is the difference. And I think like what, you know, people always ask about,”

or I guess you look at the Canadian system versus the American system. The Canadian system,

part of the, like the offering is the broadcasters can't own the IP. The producers get to.

And some people will look at that, you know, the butt, the flip side in the US is you're making way more money upfront. I don't think that either is right on the other is wrong. I just think that our system is something to protect for a hundred years. This business was run on the idea that creators and the people who made it got to own and benefit from what they did for their entire lives. And I think that that's something worth fighting for. I think so completely. I

want some point. I wasn't going to make some of your someone. And then I said, you just have to give

“me IP and they said, why do you have to have it? I said, it's not on your business. Because I want it.”

Yeah, because it's mine. It's not yours. It's like the whole musician, right? It was like on your own publishing, right? Because why would you let somebody else administer your work and take all the profit from it? Yeah. And like we're going to we have opportunities and we will work in the system that doesn't have that. And it'll be fine as well. But I just think that like, yeah, when we talk about, you know, there's so many reasons why budgets have exploded, you know, the economy,

like the economy of scale on TV has just completely fallen out because we don't make episode enough episodes. We don't keen contain them into certain locations. But also, it doesn't matter if you have a massive hit or a kind of a middlely in hit, you seem to win no matter what at that level. So I think that there is something to look at as we move forward in these systems of like giving people back end again, like these are these old ideas should be new. After the break, more from Cara

Swisher's conversation with the creators of heated rivalry, how streaming is changing the way directors are asked to tell their stories and what Paramount's bid to buy Warner Brothers and HBO might mean for heated rivalry. We're back with Executive Producer Jacob Djerney and Brendan Brady, who the people behind this huge hit heated rivalry, I want to play something Matt Damon said on Joe Rogan last month, but how streaming is impacted the creative process because a lot of it

part of it are people breaking free, like myself many years ago, or I have a lot of people coming to me, I'm like, it's great out here, like you don't need all that stuff. But let's talk, let's hear what he had to say, and this is a very successful actor and pretty much. So you said Matt Damon? Matt Damon? Yeah, he's talking about the business.

“I think he part of it. Like for instance, Netflix, standard way to make an action movie that we learned”

was you usually have like three set pieces, one in the first act, one in the second, one in the third, and you kind of ramp up, and the big one with all the explosions, and you spend most of your money on that one in the third act, that's your kind of finale. And now they're like, can we get a big one in the first five minutes to get some, but we want people to stay tuned in and Ken, and wouldn't be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because

people are on their phones while they're on their phones. But I mean, so talk about that. He would by the way, make an excellent gay hockey player. But, um, to all, and old gay, retired one. Sure.

I was a, I speak clear. I love Matt Damon. I've always loved Matt Damon. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll talk

about that. What's happening now in, in the creation. Do you, either of you feel pressure? We yet to really experience that if I'm being perfectly honest, crave was not like that. And I will say that part of what the reaction to the show that has been so kind of interesting to me is people saying, like, this is sure you have to pay attention to. If you're on your phone, you're not going to get it because it's so much about what is not being said about catching

looks between people. It is dialogue as avoidance and obfuscation. And the storyline is actually really simple. They're in love with the pandemic. So like, it's actually not a super complicated plot in that way. But so much of it is about the ways in which they're avoiding each other, the ways

“in which they cannot speak. That's why the sex is so important because that's when they're being honest.”

And so I think there is definitely a move towards oversimplification. That being said, you know, I don't, I wouldn't want to be too much of a big deal about those, like, everybody wants an opening the captures you. Like, that's not new. Like, that's been a note

since the dawn of time was stories. Like, let me in. What's the first scene? Why are you capturing

my attention? I don't think that's insane. And I think this thing, you can see it. I think in a lot of streamers, you know, where you're like, oh boy, you just explained a thing to me that I already know. I get, I get that that can be frustrating. But I would also add, I am on my phone when I look up and realize you've said it to me that's for the third time. And I'm like, yeah, you're not wrong. I did drift. All right. But like, and I think that there can be room for both.

every once in a while, something comes along and you need to pay attention. And that's what can

you do. And then it's up to you to choose, is that too much for you? That's okay. Move it along. Yeah, I actually didn't look at my, I have a rule. Like, how many how many text looks is it in a movie? How good is it if I don't pick it up at all? We have shows in my household with my boyfriend that we put on to be on our phones with. We're aware of this. And we think of

“them as like visual podcasts. So, um, when you have the acquisition of Warner, does that affect it?”

That's our goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't, I think we don't, you know, we have no, uh, actual information on that. I would say, um, again, we just want more competition in the marketplace, because in Canada, what we have, like the reason why we ended up on HBO, uh, around the world, is because crave and, uh, Bell media have the exclusive rights to all of HBO's, uh, catalog in Canada. Yeah. Um, we don't have any. So, if we don't have HBO, you have Craven, that has

HBO on it. And so, like, if we don't have that on Crave, does that affect Crave, what happens to them? That's a big part of why people go there. I mean, now and now and he did rivalry, obviously, but, um, but, um, yeah, like, I think that it's a scary time as we see more and more mergers happening. And I, for one, would love to see, uh, just more competition, because I think it's way better when we have more. But what I would say to, I just, sorry, is just that because we're an acquisition, you know,

“a HBO is not actually creatively involved in this show. I think they like, they say nice things.”

They're a district is great, exactly. So we're not, like, I think that that, that part is not really going to change, uh, at least in the foreseeable future. But now, now that the show's blown up, they're not suddenly having a opinion about it. No, because they're still getting it for the same price. So I think it's worked out great for that. It's worked out really well for them. Like, this is a very successful acquisition. And I mean, it's clearly working well enough that I don't

think they feel the, you know, yeah, I think that this is just like going, yeah, but it can go elsewhere, right around the world. So it's been sold territory by territory or chunk of territory by territory, in general, picked up by HBO outlets, sky in the UK and Ireland in New Zealand, a couple of other

exceptions to that rule. But basically what they do is they buy it, and then they have an option

on the second season and potentially third season. So they get, it's like a kind of a right of first refusal. So with an increase, they get it. So it's not really even to be renegotiated. It's just kind of like, you either want this or you don't, there's no input into the content. Right. Right. I have a couple more quick questions. One is about obviously everyone here in the entertainment industry in LA seems to be in despair in many ways in terms of what's happening, including with competition,

with AI and stuff. Do you, do you, is there a big fear for me all about AI? Because this is the, some of the big hits this year have been the most non AI type of content like centers, weapons, yours, and we'll continue to be. Listen, there is going to be a place for AI in how we work in this

“business. I actually think that there are a lot of opportunities. But I think it is in that tool”

for creators, not as the creative engine behind costuming. I think even scheduling and budgeting and prepping like those kinds of things where you take an immense amount of time trying to just input data so much of our jobs or data driven like just trying to get information. And I do think exactly. I think that those are the opportunities out right away that we will see. And where I would love for people to focus their attention because we were experiencing this and I

am sure, Cara, you have had this with your team. Those moments of friction when you're trying to explain something to someone and they don't get it, that is hard to replicate. That is hard to do with AI in a way that actually gets you to a place where you're like, okay, cool, we have now communicated together. I think we underestimate the importance of friction in the creative experience. Yeah. I would agree. That's exactly how I say it. I talk about it. The words

tech people use are always seamless, frictionless, convenient. You know, they're always using

those words. I'm like no friction is critical for you being here. Yeah. What about you, Jacob? Do you think about it all? It confuses me. No, it doesn't answer. I don't think, again, the way the bread and speak is about it. That makes sense. I can imagine it helping me with some stuff, but it's not going to write for me. I don't want that either. I love what I do. I don't want someone. I don't need that kind of help. Is the way I was said? Yeah. So before I go, what would you

want to do if you could do anything? You guys are now the world is always dirt kind of thing. Like you can do, obviously you're going to do another season of this maybe two, three,

things and they are one of which in particular is a dream come true. I'm excited to be able to

“eventually talk about it, but I can't at this point. We have a whole production company that”

we're running with a lot in development. It's about getting these projects, the projects that

you know, from a producer standpoint, what we really want to get made, we have a number of shows.

The one that is about to go out is called the King Is Dead, and I'm going to plug it right here,

“because it's going to amazing, amazing indigenous writer out of Canada named Tim Fontaine.”

Crave has already signed on for development. We're looking for that other partner, because it's

basically a, it's a call, action adventure comedy set in the 1700s. I know, bear with us. No,

super, outlander. Yeah, 100%. But it's a comedy about a group of indigenous folks, tired of all

“these white people coming to North America. They take about traverse back to England in an attempt to”

kill King George III. So it's a revisionist history. Like Monti Python energy. It's very funny, and I'm very excited about that show. Yeah, so that's in development with Crave right now. I'm very excited about that one. All right. Well, everybody loves you. All the boys are getting a lot of attention, which they must be having a ball. It looks like, but you guys deserve equal amounts of attention. Yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Jake. Thank you. And thank you, Brendan.

That original episode of "Tivit" from New York Magazine and the Fox Media podcast network was produced by Larry Naman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin, and engineered by Brandon McFarland. Nishat Kurwa is Fox Media's executive producer, podcast, and a very, very special thanks this week to the whole team at Pivot for working with us on this episode of Planet Money was produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang and FactCheck by Larry Naman, outskilled Marcus Hour executive producer.

I'm Kenny Malone. This is NPR, and me is at the cottage.