WEBVTT - The History of The Solid Verbal 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:10.879 Welcome to the solid verbal. Call that for me. I'm 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.680 a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:15.640 I want to be happy. You want to be happy 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:20.040 for day Edith State? Is that? Woo whoom? And Dan 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:28.880 and Tie? All right, Hello everyone. I'm Tie Hill de Grandt, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.080 the author of Campus Quick Slance on SI on Campus 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.080 and joining me from the far end of the country. 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.440 What's welcome in, Dan Rubinstein, Dan, you are the SI 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:43.040 tour guy. Welcome to the the the solid verbal, that's 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:43.800 what we're calling this. 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.640 Now, that's what the working title is. Anyway, Yeah, welcome 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.440 to the podcast. It's great to be on the West coast, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.320 and I'm sure it's sort of okay to be on 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:53.880 the East coast. 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:55.920 It is very sort of okay to be here on 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.800 the East coast, but it is good to be on 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.720 the podcast with you. Dan. Of course, we've all admired 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.200 your work that you've done, and you've done a lot 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:05.920 in the off season, so we'll talk about that in 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.720 a little bit. But have we ironed out yet exactly 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.560 what we're going to be talking about in this podcast. 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.200 I'm not sure how this is going to turn out. 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:13.400 Are we just kind of going to shoot from the 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.840 hip or do we have an actual topic list to 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:16.440 work off of? 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.280 Absolutely no topic lists. Yeah, we hit We're very unprepared 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.440 and unprofessional, even though we have like the words sports 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:27.600 illustrated next to our names in some form of another. 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:29.400 Don't at all be mistaken. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:36.360 Absolutely no topic list, Dan Rubinstein, those were our words 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.680 back in two thousand and eight. 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.800 Was that that was our first show. That was our 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.040 very first show. Can I you sounded so good? You? 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.600 I was very bad. I did not bring enthusiasm. I 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.000 did not engage you. I did not engage the audience, 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.520 and you were just you were shot out of a cannon. 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.400 As if we have the listenership we have now, the 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.600 problem is I haven't improved since two thousand and eight. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:00.000 That's okay, you were already so high. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.040 We can get into that here over the next hour plus, 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.960 depending on however long it takes to kind of get 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:08.080 the message across here. 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.600 Let's start. Let's start from the very top though. First 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.080 we're in the same room. Yes, we are in New 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:17.400 York recording this. This is the aforementioned history of Solidverbal, 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.240 the exhaustive naval gazing history of the show. We've had 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.880 a lot of people say, how did you guys meet, 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:24.960 how did you guys get started? How did you I 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.360 want to be a what? This is the show? This 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:29.799 is the show. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:31.600 We're going to link this up on like the main 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.680 menu for anybody who has questions about like how do 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.640 you spell tie? Is it thha, We're going to have 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.959 you covered here and however long it takes. As we've 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.280 mentioned for quite some time now, this is going to 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.639 be our tenth college football season doing the show Dan Yes, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.959 which is incredible and kind of in the spirit of 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.520 our friends over at the Starters, who have been very 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.359 successful in a previous life as TB basketball. Previous life 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.880 is the Basketball Jones now is the Starters with the NBA. 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.440 They did a tant anniversary show not so long ago. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:07.600 We thought maybe it'd be a good time to do 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.240 one of her own, since we're roughly around the same 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:11.160 podcast age. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.560 Yeah, we were on the Grantline Network with them in 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.840 twenty eleven, so yes, there's some there are a lot 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.520 of similarities. We like those guys a lot, So this 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:20.799 is what we're going to do. Though, we are going 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.359 to go through the exhaustive history of the show. We're 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.799 going to answer your questions about the show and how 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.440 we've sort of felt about various topics and times. But 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.320 I think it's it's best if we start from the top. Right. Absolutely, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:36.680 So you were raised. 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.120 Somebody wrote in, by the way, wanted to get the conception, 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.040 the conception play by play from mom. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.320 H she's not with me, unfortunately, here's what I want. 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.720 I actually thought about calling our moms to see, but 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:51.600 then it's just going to be them. Your mom is 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.200 so much better educated as for podcasting and the show. 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.280 If we called MoMA age she would answer and give 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:56.920 you commentary. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.680 But here's what I want to start with, though before 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.520 because this show in Arnest begins with you graduating college. 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.320 I think a year before. I graduated two thousand and 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.520 four from Penn State. Yeah, two thousand and five for Oregon. 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.160 From me, so, you grew up a Notre Dame fan, 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.240 and that is because family members of years were Notre 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.960 Dame fans. You grow Catholic in the Northeast and that 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.000 was your team growing up, right, correct, Right? Okay, I 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.640 don't have that sort of singular focus. I think I 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.039 liked UCLA a good amount. There were UCLA people in 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.839 my life, but I really like honestly, my favorite team 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.360 growing up for it varied, but it was probably Florida State, 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:34.880 just because I liked watching work done Peter Warwick and 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.520 Peter Bowl, all those people, all those incredible athletes for 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.520 Florida State. So I had Florida State gear. I liked 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.400 Florida State, but I didn't have that same sort of 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.359 like that's my team year and in, year out, whatever. 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.719 So my background with college football was just sort of 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.280 I enjoyed it during the season, but wasn't a diehard. 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.640 I didn't grow up in that culture in the way 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:55.120 that a lot of people I'm sure that are listening 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.440 to this show grew up with it until I got 0:04:57.440 --> 0:04:59.560 to college, and that's when it became a little more real. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.200 I appreciated uscmore because that was the Reggie Bush thing 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.960 in there my hometown. And then, of course my freshman 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.040 year was the Joey Harrington senior year at Oregon and 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.359 got I really got into it going to a college town. You, 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.120 of course yourself went to a school that is located 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.960 in a big college football area in Penn State, And 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.800 so that is how did did I summarize, Okay, just 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.320 our base level background. 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:25.680 Yeah, I mean mine is kind of a weird one. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.719 People are always confused as a well, how is that 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.359 even possible that you root for Notre Dame and you 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.800 live and went to Penn State. You live in the 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.400 same state and went to Penn State. But as you mentioned, yeah, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.279 grew up with like strong Catholic influences. Notre Dame's got 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.680 a pretty strong fan base where I'm from in eastern Pennsylvania, 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.560 so it certainly not out of the realm of possibilities 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.280 to come out of that part of the world as 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.520 a Notre Dame fan. What was weird for me is 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.279 and I think a lot of people will attest to 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.120 this if you grow up in an area where one 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.280 team kind of rules supreme. I was kind of raised 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.839 to root against Penn State, and that created an interesting 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.640 conflict as I decided to go to school at Penn State. 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.080 My grandmother, hopefully not rolling over in her grave as 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.080 I say this, was never a fan of Penn State. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.280 Was never a fan of like George Paterno on the radio, 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:16.160 Joe's brother. 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.440 And I didn't even know he was on the radio. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.040 He was on the radio for a long time, and 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.640 that was probably part of the reason why we weren't 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.719 raised to be Penn State fans. But I went to school. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.640 There was very ambivalent towards the football team, ambivalent at 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:31.839 best towards the football team through my four years in 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.160 state college. And then it wasn't actually until after I 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:39.359 graduated that I warmed to the football program. And you know, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.280 if you listen to the show, you know that that 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.240 I've come a long way in regards to Penn State football. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.120 But it was not something that took hold for me, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.760 at least in terms of my alma mater, until after 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:50.480 I graduated. 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.159 Let the record show that the perhaps most influential figure 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.120 in Ty's life as a Notre Dame fan was a 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:56.880 senior citizen. 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.880 It's entirely possible. Senior radio and she will strike you down, brothers. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.560 I believe it entirely. So, yeah, so you go to 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.080 you go to Penn State, you graduate in two thousand 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.720 and four, and podcasting is not even so, it's it's 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.840 an MTV v JA. Here's the way you have a connection. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.080 I do have a connection. So my story is this. 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.520 I won't go into the full college college deal, but 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.040 I started at Penn State in broadcast journalism and after 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.000 two years as people want to. I switched over to 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.320 more of a technical major, a computer technology related major, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.160 for various reasons that I won't go into here, but 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.160 suffice to say I didn't want to work for eighteen 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.640 grand a year in Altuna. I don't blame you, and 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.800 so I decided to pursue a different course of action, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.640 hoping that at some point I could find my own 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:52.160 way into a broadcast. 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:53.720 Did you have a radio show? Did you write for 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:54.119 the college? 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:54.640 I did. 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.520 I did a little bit for the student radio station, 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:02.640 wrote a few hot takes to the Daily Collegiate h 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:07.800 but beyond that wasn't wasn't too involved in on campus media. 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:12.440 But after graduating college and just with having that technical background, 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.760 I got into this whole internet streaming thing. At the time, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.560 we're talking two thousand and four, podcasting wasn't even a 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.360 word right back then. If you mentioned podcast really as 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.880 late as maybe twenty twelve, people still looked at you 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.480 like two heads. But certainly back in two thousand and four, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.360 two thousand and five, what the hell is a podcast? 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:31.680 Yeah? 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:34.840 I was one of the handful of people on the 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:36.040 Internet who was dabbling with this. 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:40.319 So this is post Nabster Napster, what did the other 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.640 you know, the music sharing program? So things are slowly 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:44.280 migrating digitally. You have your MP three. 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.440 This is right around the time Facebook was becoming more 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:49.320 of a thing. 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.319 The first iPod comes out two thousand and one, two 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:53.920 thousand and two ish, right around. 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:58.760 There before iPhones were talking, before iPhones. I was one 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.079 of a handful of people, certain in the sports world 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.000 that had figured out how to do podcasting. Didn't quite 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:08.800 have a deep following yet, but it seemed to me 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:11.920 the kind of thing that could Did I ever envision 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:12.800 it be where it is now? 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:14.040 No, right, no one could have. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.360 But I dabbled with it. So I talking about right now, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.040 we're talking two thousand and four, two thousand and five, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.000 Right after graduating, I had a Yankees podcast with with 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.480 Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe cal Russo, who's was his actual 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.280 uncle that's not just like a literal uncle, yea, and 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:32.439 my cousin Tony. 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.000 We did a Yankee show for about four or five years. 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.600 How did it sound like? That was just the audio 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.440 quality compared to what we're doing now horrible, but compared 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.480 to compared to the market at the time, you know, 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.240 we maximized every decibel out of that Logitech webcam we 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.840 talked into with a sock over it to reduce the pop. 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.240 I mean, this was really, I mean, really hacked together. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.680 You're not wrong to do it, though, but back then 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:02.720 we were trying her hand at streaming a live show, 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.760 doing some on demand stuff. At one point, I had 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.760 exchanged an email with Adam Curry, Adam Curry DJ Adam Curry, Yeah, 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.600 from MTV, who is widely regarded as the guy who 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.240 kind of put it all together and figured out the 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:15.679 podcasting medium. 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.240 On demand radio talk audio in digital form. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.240 That's right, And I had chatted with him via email, 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.440 and that that kind of got me started down the 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.760 path of doing this in a more serious capacity. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.080 Which, by the way, that hasn't stopped for you. Like 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.680 whenever you come across somebody that you really admire for 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.520 some reason audio wise, especially in the technical aspect, You've 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.320 reached out to all sorts of people, and that that's 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.840 just sort of a broader lesson of how we've become 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.840 to whatever success we've gotten to. It's you technically reaching 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:49.920 out to people saying, wait, how did you this was 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:51.719 really cool? How did you do this? And people are 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.280 of like almost always, if not always responsive, And you 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:55.360 know it's not just technical. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.679 Yeah, because as we're going to talk about here, as 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.480 we get into like the timeline of the show, one 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.160 of the first big guests that we had on the 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.600 show was Bruce Fellman. And we know Bruce really well now, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.400 but back then we didn't, and initially it was a 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.559 cold email to him like, Hey, we're doing this thing, 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.240 would you be interested in coming on. You would be 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.319 surprised at how many people are responsive to your emails, 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.040 I would say, to a man, pretty much everyone reads 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.400 everything that they get, depending on how popular they are, 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.360 but in my experience, most people read everything, and it 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.840 extends to the writers you see on your favorite pub 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.840 on your favorite publications, and certainly to the technical realm 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:37.520 as well. So yeah, we've tried to borrow bits and 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.000 pieces here from other shows that we admire, and that's 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:43.680 been something that I've tried to do all along. But 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.640 that's kind of the origin story for me as it 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.320 relates to podcasting. Now, I want to jump back to 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.760 what you said in the beginning, which is kind of 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:54.839 foreign to me. You grew up in southern California, which 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.600 obviously has again as it relates to college football, pretty 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:04.840 strong USC, UCLA and yeah, you didn't have a particular identity, No, 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:06.199 with one of those teams. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.280 No, I liked Ucla. I liked the Cade McNown. I 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.000 think it was the ninety eight season where they were 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:11.520 really good but then lost to Miami at the end 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.480 of the year as the postponed Hurricane game. But no, 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.320 I didn't really have a strong allegiance. I didn't go 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:18.040 to many games. I went to the Ron Dane I 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.000 think it was Wisconsin' Stanford Rose Bowl maybe ninety nine. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.640 But no, there was no diet in the Wolf fandom 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.760 for anybody beyond Florida State from Afar, I guess. But 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.520 when I went to college, I really hated Oregon at first. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.960 I really truly, Why did you decide to go to Oregon? 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.360 They had and they still do have a very good 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:42.120 journalism and it's called electronic Media program. I wanted to 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.960 go away from home. I really liked USC, but I 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.439 didn't want to stay in Los Angeles, and there's a 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.000 lot of people from my high school going there, our 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:51.400 friends going there too. I had a lot of friends 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.439 going there. Visited Oregon in Maye. It was super nice 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:54.920 and I was like, Oh, this is what it must 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.760 be like all the time, just not true. Went to Oregon, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.800 hated it, partially because I had a really bad, long 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:06.760 distance breakup with my high school girlfriend. But freshman year, 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:08.920 one of like the outlets for being depressed in the 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.800 grayness of Eugene, Oregon was I got a radio show. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.360 And I did that with this guy Mike, who was 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.160 in my hall, and we had a really good time 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.960 playing emo music and just being stupid and very bad 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:26.400 at broadcastings called Morningwood. Yeah, because we were mature and cosmopolitan. 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.439 And we did that all four years, and by the 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.000 end of college, I don't know if we were any better, 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.000 but we were weirder. We would play game shows like we 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.920 do now. We would just we would become this very 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:42.240 strange talk show. And it really woke me up to 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.040 how much I liked the sound of my own voice. Honestly, 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.600 I really liked trying to come up with like, there'll 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.960 be eight people listening, and I'd put in hours trying 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:52.679 to come up with like game shows and stuff like that. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.240 And I realized I like creating stuff no matter how 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.720 many people listen. So I graduated from Oregon, and my 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.440 story is very different from yours. I wanted to be 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.960 a comedy writer in LA and there's no real one 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:06.400 way to do that. You have to write scripts and 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.200 you have to go through all sorts of motions. And 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.559 I majored in electronic media, so it's like broadcast journalism 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.600 at Oregon. And I just knew I wanted to make 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.920 stuff somehow. And this is two thousand and five. So like, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.320 video cameras are more affordable, video editing software is easier 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.720 and easier, iMovie final cut and bootlegable, and yeah, you 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.480 can pirate whatever. I mean, Listen, everybody lives by their 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.520 own code. I'll let you decide what you got to 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.040 do to get things done. But so in two thousand 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.600 and five, I worked for a production company as a 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.200 paid intern. Like it was miserable. I drove around LA 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:45.800 traffic and delivered scripts. It was not that fun, but 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:47.760 I made a little bit of money. It was for 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.120 the guy, the music video director who directed the All 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:56.440 the Small Things video, who directed a couple of Weezer videos, 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.400 He directed the popa Roach Last Reason video. Yeah, so 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.720 he's a famous director. His name is Marco Siega. He 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.040 directed a Future He's a big deal and I was 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.560 an internet his production company and it was fine. But 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.640 I had come up with ideas about making stuff that 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.800 I wanted to do. And I interviewed for a job 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.400 at the Office, the television show The Office, and the 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.120 job was to be a writer's PA, basically going to 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.320 get donuts for writers, but you got to sit in 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:24.920 the writer's room, you got to take notes. You know, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.040 you were a grunt, but you were there. And I 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.000 interviewed for the job. I was told I was a 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.480 finalist for the job. I was told it was between 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.400 me and one other person. I was told I was 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.240 probably going to get the job. I had. So my 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.600 connection to this was a family member used to date 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.000 the executive producer of the old show Blind Date. Remember 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.120 that show. Oh yeah, So that like got me in 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:46.720 touch with X, who got me in touch with Y, 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:48.080 who got me in touch with Z. And I got 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.160 the interview with the Office. I didn't get the job 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.360 with the Office. They said, Okay, you're going to get 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.040 this job with this Andy Richter sitcom. And I was like, 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.200 oh cool, whatever, I'll do it. And then they were 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.200 like it has to go to series, it has to 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.280 be picked up. The shot six episodes, but if they 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.600 do the full full Run, you get a pa job. 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.480 You'll get to get donuts for the writers on that show. 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.320 And I said great, and then I never heard anything. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:10.360 I never heard anything, and I was like, if I 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.240 can't get hired to get donuts for people, I'm just 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.160 gonna try my own thing. So what I did is 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.280 I had this idea. So this is now two thousand 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.560 and six. I had this idea to go to college 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.000 football games. After going to Oregon and figuring out that like, oh, 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.840 this atmosphere is fun and weird and something that could 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.520 be a canvas for my creativity, I decided to start 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.240 my own website with iweb. Do you remember Iweb? I 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.520 remember it, Yeah, I started my own website with iweb. 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.040 I started a YouTube channel. I took my dad's old 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.120 Sony camcorder and most sizable, it's like the size of 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.000 a big like muffle atta, you know, it's a tr 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:48.160 TRV something like that. And sometimes with a friend, sometimes solo, 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.480 I would take a plastic tripod and this old stupid 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.720 we're talking tapes, tapes, the little tapes, the tapes, many 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:01.000 mini DV tapes and wired microphone and I would interview tailgaters, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.280 and it would look pretty bad, like I was not 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.040 a great shooter, a one man band shooter. And I 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.560 would interview them and I would try to be funny 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:09.959 and try to be weird, and I'd try to come 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.800 up with three to six seven minutes whatever it was 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.320 worth of material. And I started that and I was 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.679 called the College Football Tour Guide, and I watermarked it, 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.240 and I put them on YouTube, and I put it 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.400 on my I website and some of them did pretty well. 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.320 All things sit are ten fifteen, twenty thousand views. Some 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.000 of them did Okay, it was a big deal, by 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.719 the way, and that in two thousand and six. That's 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:32.760 a big deal. It's a pretty big deal thousand and six. Yeah, 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.280 So I did that at seven schools. At this point, 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:41.080 I am living with my parents. I am I have 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.119 some money saved up. But you know, I was sleeping 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.159 on couches when I was on the road of friends 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.160 or like sister, I slept on the couch in Berkeley 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.399 of my now ex girlfriend's sister. I slept on her 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:55.680 couch and bertle like, you know, it's just one of 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:57.520 those things. It was totally shoe string. I would drive 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.760 everywhere and I don't think I. I paid for maybe 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.119 one hotel, so I did it shoe string. But you know, 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.199 I was losing money on you had a product. But 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:06.639 I had a product and I felt good about it, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.119 and I was making something and I was getting it 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.680 out every week. I did eight episodes I think, during 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.480 the two thousand and six season, and it was fun. 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.280 And after the two thousand and six season, I made 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.720 a DVD of that and I sent it to as 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.879 many addresses email and snail mail as I could possibly find. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:27.240 And one of these so the first response I got 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.000 was from Neil Everett from ESPNSPN, Oregon guy. Even. I 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:32.639 don't know if I realized it at the time. I 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.879 put the DVD in a Manila envelope. I wrote him 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.480 a note and I sent it to Bristol. I just blindly, 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.440 I said, like, Neil Everett could have been Anthrax. Yeah, 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.879 instead was It was a dquity of and it was 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.159 like way too long for a sizzlereel. It's like eleven 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.560 minutes long. Kids, sizlereels shouldn't be more than two minutes, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.200 No two minutes. Watch after two minutes. But a couple 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:55.919 of weeks later I look at my phone and I 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:57.800 have a call from an eight six to OHO number 0:18:58.119 --> 0:18:59.639 and I don't know what eight six so is, but 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.480 I still to this day know what it is. And 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.399 I answer the phone and I go hello, or I 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.920 was probably like oh, and I was like is this Dan? 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.879 I was like yeah, it was like it's Neil Evert ESPN. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.159 I was like, oh, that was in my mind. I 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.520 was like, I'm going to be a star, But in reality, 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:18.679 it was just a call to say, you know what, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.760 I got your DVD. I think you got something here. 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:22.840 It was really good. It really entertained me, Like I 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.000 think you can do something with this, Like you should 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.320 try to contact like the best damn Sports show or 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.080 something like that. But like I just wanted to give 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.240 you a call and let you know, like you're pretty talented, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.359 and I like this idea and good for you. And 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:35.399 that gave me the confidence to like keep pushing through. 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.200 I emailed it to the MySpace page of SI on campus. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.480 A Raschmarcazi. This is still two thousand and six. A Raschmarcazi, 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.120 who's now at ESPN, was running that page then sent 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.840 me an email back, I love this. I'm sending it 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:51.800 to my bosses, you should be doing this for us, 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.560 And I met with him a couple of times. I 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.480 went out to I went out to Sports Illustrated in 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.480 New York when I think I happened to be there. 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.159 Met with SI and they were like, we'd love to 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:02.879 have you do this in two thousand and seven. You 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:04.880 have to pay your own way, but like, we'll reimburse 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.400 your expenses and give you you know, it was nothing. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.719 It was like, I can't even remember what I cleared 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.520 and after expenses, but it was I don't know, twenty 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.719 thousand dollars, fifteen thousand dollars. Actually that might have been 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:21.960 including expense. I might have cleared like eight thousand dollars 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.320 for the season or something like that. And I was ecstatic. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.160 So I did that. In two thousand and seven four 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:31.240 Sports Illustrate. I did twelve episodes. I took a friend 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.280 each week on the road with me. That was the 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.760 extent of our shoot. And the big advantage that I 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.320 had was in two thousand and six Sports Illustrate. And 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.119 this is something I think we talked about in our 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.000 early emails. Sports Wilstraate was paying a woman. You might 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.360 remember her, you might not remember her name. Is Jen 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.000 Sturger to do something very similar but with like a 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.000 whole film crew, and I basically undercut her and said, 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.240 you're probably paying her thousands of dollars a week her 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.879 and her crew. I'll do this for way cheaper and 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.439 I'll be funnier. And so I did that, and they 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.000 responded really well to it, and so I became the 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.360 SI tour guy in two thousand and seven, the fall 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.040 of two thousand and seven. Meanwhile, between football seasons, I'm 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.880 like temping, I'm a secretary, I'm a you know, an 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:23.920 executiveever you can do try and make some money. I'm 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:25.520 picking up work along the way. I move in with 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.680 West Coast Kevin and a lion I fan Scott, guys 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.000 that have been sort of floating on the xterior of 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.880 the show forever, but nothing with podcasting at this point, 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.440 nothing at all with podcasting. But I had gotten it 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:40.000 in with Sports Illustrated through making my own video series 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.240 in my website and just hustling to try to get 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.760 it out there. And this is still like the very 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.159 early days, like Dead Spinning the Big Lead are the 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.359 only sports blog, or maybe DESBS is in its infancy, 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.200 but this is the very very beginning of like digital 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.119 sports and around the time of blogging. 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.960 Yes, this is when blogging was big because that was 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.560 your path to get to Sports Illustrate, which is an 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:08.960 awesome story, right, incredible story. As I mentioned before, Around 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.560 the same time, I'm doing this Yankee show, and I 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.440 was affiliated with a local like Yankee Fan Club, and 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.600 we kind of use that as a way to get 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.320 in the door and interview some cool people like John Sterling. 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.880 You know it's commentator again. We're talking two thousand and five. 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:32.119 What's a podcast to get an interview like that? Talking 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.720 into a webcam, holding up a speaker phone to the webcam. 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.880 I mean, we're not talking high society when it comes 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:40.840 to equipment. But we still found a way to make 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:43.040 it happen, and so that was cool. We had a 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:44.800 little bit of a following. We still have people who 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:48.600 email us about it today. But around that time, when 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:51.480 blogs were becoming more of a thing, Fox Sports was 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.479 trying to launch its own sports blog community, and in 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:57.679 order to try and drum up a little bit of 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:00.480 interest in that, they ran something they call the Next 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:04.080 Great Sports Writer Competition. Yes, so I had always written 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.600 about sports, always written about sports. I could probably make 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:09.400 a pretty good case that I'm better at doing. 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:11.440 That is two thousand and five. This is two thousand 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:12.399 and five. Yeah, you're right. 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:14.280 I could make a case that I'm probably better at 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.720 the writing than I am at the spoken word thing. 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:22.520 But a friend of mine said, hey, you know, if 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:26.120 you're interested, there's this contest going on over at Fox 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.000 Sports called the Next Great Sports Writer. They're billing it 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:33.119 as the American Idol for sports writing. And all you 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:35.640 got to do is post a blog about whatever you want. 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:37.360 Okay. 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.639 At this point, I'm working a fairly stable job in technology. 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:43.480 I like the people I will was the same job, 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:45.640 same job, the whole the whole way through the same 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:48.639 mysterious day job. It's always been the same company. And 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:53.479 so I entered and I won out of thousands of entries. 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:55.920 Lo and behold, somehow I end up winning this thing? 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:57.679 May I jump in real quick? I was one of 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.400 those thousands of entries. Really, you know this. You don't 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:02.040 know this. I don't know if I remember that. If 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:05.520 you go back and find the web cash or whatever 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.560 of the original Next Great American Sports Writer, yeah yeah, 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:12.919 you won it. I did. There was like, okay, everybody 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:14.640 enter it and then we're going to select a bunch 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:16.600 of finalists and then they're going to keep writing that's right, 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:18.360 and then we are going to figure out I don't 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:19.840 know if there were two finalists and then you won, 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:22.680 whatever it was. I did not make the finalists, but 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:26.080 I got an honorable mention. I really almost a finalist, 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:28.400 no kid, because I remember like bitching and moaning about 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:31.280 Lee Corso saying bad things about Oregon in two thousand 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:31.640 and five. 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:35.200 It was It was one of the more stressful experiences 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:36.959 of my life. But in a weird way, it kind 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:38.919 of let us down this path. Yeah, I win this, 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.359 and in winning it, not only are you exposed to 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:44.399 like the negative commentary and all the stuff that we 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:47.280 have to deal with now talking about college football as 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:50.640 regularly as we do, but you also have to learn 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:52.040 what it's like to be on deadline. You have to 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:55.199 learn what it's like to work try and you know, 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:58.400 adhere to a work out, adhere to a format, a topic, 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:01.639 whatever your editor is asking you to do. So it 0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:04.359 was a good learning experience through winning that I ended 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:06.800 up getting a contract to write like twenty five articles 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:07.520 for Fox Sports. 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:09.280 It's great, which is cool. 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.280 Yeah, and around the time I got to maybe article 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:17.280 twenty two, Fox Sports at the time had chosen to 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:20.960 go a different direction with its managing editor, and I 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:23.240 distinctly remember a phone call I had with the managing 0:25:23.320 --> 0:25:25.359 editor where it was very clear the man did not 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:28.400 take me seriously because I'd want a contest in order 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:30.280 to get my writing contract. I knew the writing was 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:32.840 on the wall at that point that after I wrote 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:34.520 my twenty five there was a pretty good chance there 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:35.760 wasn't gonna be another twenty five. 0:25:36.600 --> 0:25:39.400 But I enjoyed doing it. Foxsports dot Com making dubious 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:42.440 decisions as far back as two thousand and five, Ladies 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:42.959 a gentleman. 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:45.000 I knew at that point that if I wanted to 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:47.800 keep doing it, I needed to send clips out to people. Yeah, 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:53.320 and it was I think either through Jimmy, Treana God 0:25:53.359 --> 0:25:57.439 Bless or any great Yeah, one of those two guys 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:01.080 over at SI that I got hooked up with SI 0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:06.080 on campus and started writing Campus Quickslants, which if you 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:10.520 heard the intro, our first intro, when I mentioned campus Quickslants, 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:11.520 that was the title of my thing. 0:26:11.640 --> 0:26:13.520 Did you come up with that name? I did? Good 0:26:13.520 --> 0:26:15.720 for you? Two thousand and six. So this is early 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:17.360 two thousand and six. This is you don't know when. 0:26:17.359 --> 0:26:18.520 This is in two thousand and sex. 0:26:18.600 --> 0:26:21.680 Probably later on in this is around two thousand and seven. 0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:23.800 So I had written Fox Sports in two thousand and 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:27.560 six after I won the contest, and then in two 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:31.159 thousand and seven I started looking elsewhere and landed with 0:26:31.160 --> 0:26:35.280 Sports Illustrated. Two thousand and seven was also the same 0:26:35.320 --> 0:26:38.000 time when I found you. Yes, all right, this is 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:40.080 kind of how our paths start to cross a little bit. 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:42.960 I found your videos, and on one date in particular, 0:26:43.000 --> 0:26:43.280 it was this. 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:44.240 Is week two. 0:26:44.800 --> 0:26:47.679 I believe Week two was September nineteenth, so week two, 0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:51.720 week three, two thousand and seven, you did a video 0:26:51.840 --> 0:26:54.159 up in State College, and I just happened to be 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:57.000 at work browsing the internet as your wont to do 0:26:57.040 --> 0:26:57.600 when you're. 0:26:57.560 --> 0:27:00.360 On your kill some time, Yeah, on sign campus. 0:27:00.960 --> 0:27:03.600 And I saw that you had been up there. I 0:27:03.600 --> 0:27:06.080 had been up there too. I hadn't seen you, but 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:08.359 I liked what you did. And so here is the 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:11.240 text of the email that I wrote you saw earlier. 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:14.520 This is our first correspondence. Hey Dan, I'm tie Hilldebrandt, 0:27:14.520 --> 0:27:16.960 the author of Campus Quick slants every Wednesday for SI 0:27:17.040 --> 0:27:19.600 on campus. I just wanted to let you know and 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:21.480 shoot you a line to commend you want a job 0:27:21.480 --> 0:27:24.240 well done. Yes, I've really enjoyed your videos thus far, 0:27:24.320 --> 0:27:26.720 especially the Penn State once since I graduated from there. 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:27.440 A few years ago. 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:30.400 I was in town for the game writing about Paternalville 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:33.320 two bad we doing cross paths. I could have steered 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:35.240 you in the direction of one of the more over 0:27:35.240 --> 0:27:38.240 the top tailgates you'll ever see. I'm sure everyone says that, Yeah, 0:27:38.240 --> 0:27:40.600 that was my in. And I said, anyway, keep up 0:27:40.640 --> 0:27:42.120 the good work. Where you headed next? 0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:46.040 Right? And I responded to it. I was so famous 0:27:46.080 --> 0:27:49.280 that I didn't need to respond to it. Of course, No, 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:53.120 I remember this. I remember this correspondence and Penn State 0:27:53.240 --> 0:27:55.360 was great. The first week of that year, I think 0:27:55.480 --> 0:27:59.280 was Georgia, which was tricky. I really liked doing this 0:27:59.320 --> 0:28:01.679 for SI. It was just the first time outside of 0:28:01.680 --> 0:28:04.399 the West Coast I traveled across country. My shooter was 0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:07.040 not that great, but I brought a friend of mine, Casey, 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:09.000 from college, who knew what he was doing a little 0:28:09.000 --> 0:28:10.760 bit and had a great time. It was crazy. It 0:28:10.800 --> 0:28:13.399 was the first really crazy tailgate I had been to, 0:28:13.680 --> 0:28:16.440 and there was a woman who was probably eighty seven 0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:19.520 years old, and I asked her what she hoped Penn 0:28:19.520 --> 0:28:22.159 State did to Notre Dame, and she was like, beats 0:28:22.200 --> 0:28:24.760 the shit out of him. And that's in my reel. 0:28:24.800 --> 0:28:26.480 That's like one of the first clips in my reel 0:28:26.680 --> 0:28:29.399 because she was so great. So I had it. It 0:28:29.480 --> 0:28:33.040 was a lot of loud, sort of Jersey trash types 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:35.200 at Penn State, which shouldn't shock anybody who's been to 0:28:35.240 --> 0:28:37.480 a Penn State tailgate at that game. It's accurate. No, 0:28:37.520 --> 0:28:40.560 it's fine, it's accurate. Listen, I'm la trash. We're all 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:43.840 trash in our own way. Anyway. So I got this 0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:47.080 email from Tye and in looking back at the correspondence 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:50.640 that I'm we must have both been either very lonely 0:28:52.080 --> 0:28:54.160 there must. I don't know what it was, but like 0:28:54.360 --> 0:28:56.600 you would email me every week, and I would email 0:28:56.600 --> 0:28:58.719 like you would email me after videos, being like, oh man, 0:28:58.800 --> 0:28:59.720 Colorado looks great. 0:29:00.120 --> 0:29:02.280 In my emails for anyone who's emailed with me are 0:29:02.280 --> 0:29:05.000 not short, No, I'm not. I'm not succinct when it 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:06.880 comes to email. I will write you a book, and 0:29:06.920 --> 0:29:08.440 I think in a lot of cases I did. 0:29:08.320 --> 0:29:10.320 But it was it was always thoughtful, like you would 0:29:10.320 --> 0:29:12.240 watch the videos and you were like, was it as 0:29:12.280 --> 0:29:15.920 pretty in Colorado as it looked like? It was just like, Wow, 0:29:16.080 --> 0:29:18.600 he really likes these videos, but he's also he's not 0:29:18.680 --> 0:29:22.040 like the strangest person. He's also writing for this website. 0:29:22.080 --> 0:29:24.000 And I really liked you. You incorporated a lot of 0:29:24.040 --> 0:29:28.120 pop culture stuff into your campus quick slance wrestling references, 0:29:28.160 --> 0:29:30.200 stuff like that, and I liked your column a lot. 0:29:30.280 --> 0:29:34.520 So it was just sort of a mutual admiration. This 0:29:34.680 --> 0:29:37.080 also all feels like when you're at a wedding rehearsal 0:29:37.120 --> 0:29:39.719 dinner when they show like the slideshow of the you know, 0:29:39.800 --> 0:29:43.840 the each the spouse is growing up and then coming together. 0:29:43.960 --> 0:29:47.280 But no, it was just it was genuine like we 0:29:47.280 --> 0:29:50.440 were pen pals, which sounds strange to say right now, 0:29:50.480 --> 0:29:52.680 but like we worked the same company and we were 0:29:52.720 --> 0:29:56.960 both covering the same sport. And at a certain point 0:29:57.320 --> 0:30:00.560 in two thousand and eight, I guess because I had 0:30:00.560 --> 0:30:02.840 re upped with Sports Illustrated to do videos about not 0:30:02.920 --> 0:30:05.560 just college football but all college sports, and so I 0:30:05.680 --> 0:30:07.720 was at Shryzhevsky Ville at Duke, I was at the 0:30:07.840 --> 0:30:12.480 National Collegiate Competitive Eating Contest and there's emails after each 0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:14.920 one of these events that you sent me asking me 0:30:15.040 --> 0:30:17.680 questions about like how many fries did you eat like 0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:18.520 at these things. 0:30:18.800 --> 0:30:21.760 So, and I will say this for anyone out there 0:30:21.760 --> 0:30:24.440 who listens and you work in corporate America, you must 0:30:24.480 --> 0:30:25.240 have been very bored. 0:30:26.760 --> 0:30:27.320 I was not. 0:30:28.760 --> 0:30:31.640 In the most responsible positions at that time. You know, 0:30:32.040 --> 0:30:34.200 the people I work with are great and the company 0:30:34.200 --> 0:30:39.800 that I work for is great, but in that particular role, yeah, 0:30:39.840 --> 0:30:42.360 having someone to email about sports. 0:30:42.120 --> 0:30:44.800 Well, there's no Twitter, so there's no way to entertain 0:30:44.840 --> 0:30:46.760 yourself with like seeing what's going on in the world 0:30:46.880 --> 0:30:48.880 in real time like we have now. We can waste 0:30:48.880 --> 0:30:51.280 our time on Twitter, on Instagram, whatever. There wasn't that. 0:30:51.280 --> 0:30:53.120 There was you go on dead Spin and argue about 0:30:53.160 --> 0:30:56.000 burritos in the comments of an NCAA football video game 0:30:56.040 --> 0:30:58.040 post or something like that. But beyond that, there was 0:30:58.040 --> 0:31:02.000 no real time nothing there, right, So, as you said, 0:31:02.120 --> 0:31:04.400 I would, I would email you after the videos. I 0:31:04.440 --> 0:31:05.520 would watch all the videos. 0:31:07.200 --> 0:31:10.440 I think in a digital sense, we turned into pretty 0:31:10.440 --> 0:31:13.600 fast friends because you would email me after my columns 0:31:13.600 --> 0:31:17.240 and vice versa, and we started spinning our wheels. And 0:31:17.400 --> 0:31:19.720 I don't know the point at which it clicked for 0:31:19.760 --> 0:31:21.880 both of us. But I'm pretty sure. 0:31:21.720 --> 0:31:24.040 It was you. I looked at the email today, I'm. 0:31:23.880 --> 0:31:27.040 Pretty sure it was you who initially said, you know, 0:31:27.280 --> 0:31:31.480 I've been thinking about starting a podcast. Do you know 0:31:31.520 --> 0:31:33.320 anything about there? Might you be interested? 0:31:33.480 --> 0:31:33.680 Yes? 0:31:34.200 --> 0:31:35.880 And it was at that point that I jumped all 0:31:35.880 --> 0:31:37.920 over it and I said, I happen to know a 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:39.840 lot about it because I've been doing this now for 0:31:39.880 --> 0:31:43.480 a couple of years. And at that point in time, 0:31:44.160 --> 0:31:48.800 things were shifting from trying to live stream through a 0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:54.520 U stream or real player, real player you could do 0:31:54.640 --> 0:31:55.040 it through. 0:31:55.160 --> 0:31:56.400 It was the other one other than you. It was 0:31:56.400 --> 0:31:58.800 you stream live stream. Yeah, there there were a whole 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:01.239 variety of them. I had had a server somewhere up 0:32:01.240 --> 0:32:03.360 here in New York City that I paid thirty five 0:32:03.440 --> 0:32:06.600 dollars a month for and it was a dedicated stream 0:32:06.640 --> 0:32:11.920 for my show. Things were shifting from that realm more 0:32:11.920 --> 0:32:16.800 of in, more of the on demand thing, and we 0:32:16.960 --> 0:32:18.920 kind of got in on the ground floor of that, 0:32:19.040 --> 0:32:20.760 and I said, yeah, let's do it. We could do it, 0:32:20.800 --> 0:32:25.760 so I believe, if memory serves. We started brainstorming names, 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:29.560 and we did a pilot recording which I dug for 0:32:29.680 --> 0:32:31.920 and couldn't you find I have to go back and 0:32:31.960 --> 0:32:33.120 look as I know why I have it. 0:32:33.240 --> 0:32:36.440 Yeah, but that was June twenty third, two thousand and eight, 0:32:36.600 --> 0:32:41.520 the pilot, the pilot, and around that time here are 0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:45.720 some of the names that we were trying to workshop. 0:32:46.680 --> 0:32:51.440 The Irrefutable Audio Evidence or Irrefutable Evidence podcast. 0:32:51.440 --> 0:32:52.880 I can't even say it. 0:32:52.960 --> 0:32:56.440 The Red Shirts, which I got a bad mind, The 0:32:56.480 --> 0:33:01.560 walk On Program, which I like that it I still 0:33:01.640 --> 0:33:03.720 like it. I believe there's a basketball show called the 0:33:03.760 --> 0:33:04.480 walk Ons. 0:33:04.760 --> 0:33:06.960 Right, but not walk On Program because the program is 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:11.040 the double word there. The Shady Booster Program. I'm okay 0:33:11.040 --> 0:33:13.280 with that too, Shady Boosters. I like this. 0:33:14.040 --> 0:33:17.200 And we had another booster club in there, Yeah, another 0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:21.440 Booster club in there. So we kicked it around a 0:33:21.480 --> 0:33:27.160 little bit more after our pilot, and eventually the solid 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:31.560 Verbal was born on August eleventh, Yes, two thousand and. 0:33:31.520 --> 0:33:32.320 We came up with it. 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:37.080 You did, of course, quote maybe something with the word 0:33:37.200 --> 0:33:40.760 verbal in it. Oh, the solid verbal, Yes, something like that. 0:33:40.920 --> 0:33:44.080 Even if we're no good at doing your college football podcast, 0:33:44.320 --> 0:33:46.160 we'll go down with a damn clever name. 0:33:46.520 --> 0:33:48.240 It's true, stand by it. 0:33:48.960 --> 0:33:53.080 Solid Verbal was born August eleventh, two thousand and eight. 0:33:53.160 --> 0:33:56.520 Our first show was August twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, 0:33:57.080 --> 0:33:59.280 the intro for which you heard at the top of 0:33:59.320 --> 0:34:02.880 our show. And so the question is where did it 0:34:02.960 --> 0:34:06.960 go from there? Two thousand and eight. As you heard, 0:34:07.000 --> 0:34:07.800 we didn't really know. 0:34:07.920 --> 0:34:09.560 We didn't have a plan for this. We didn't know 0:34:09.600 --> 0:34:10.279 what we were going to do. 0:34:10.320 --> 0:34:13.000 I think we knew that the nature of the medium 0:34:13.080 --> 0:34:14.600 was such that you needed to keep doing it on 0:34:14.640 --> 0:34:17.239 a regular basis if you wanted to maintain and grow 0:34:17.280 --> 0:34:20.600 an audience. We estimate we had about eleven listeners for 0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:24.600 a good six to eight weeks. No idea how the 0:34:24.600 --> 0:34:27.160 original eleven. If you've been with us for a long time, 0:34:27.200 --> 0:34:29.600 you know that we've referenced the original eleven for quite 0:34:29.600 --> 0:34:33.799 some time. But it really was a slow burn in 0:34:33.840 --> 0:34:36.080 the beginning, a good six to eight weeks, we figured 0:34:36.080 --> 0:34:39.120 about eleven listeners and at even subscribers. 0:34:39.120 --> 0:34:40.879 We knew eleven. We didn't know how many listeners eleven 0:34:40.960 --> 0:34:42.840 eleven subscribers, that's correct. 0:34:43.719 --> 0:34:46.760 It wasn't until we started bringing on guys like Andy 0:34:46.800 --> 0:34:51.440 Gray from Sion Campus, Jimmy trena s Ion Campus. Our 0:34:51.480 --> 0:34:55.040 only connection to like the outside sports media world. It 0:34:55.080 --> 0:34:58.040 wasn't until we started bringing those guys on that we 0:34:58.040 --> 0:35:00.040 were able very slowly to grow or follow h. 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:03.000 And this was also we started the year Twitter started 0:35:03.320 --> 0:35:05.480 basically like two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight 0:35:06.040 --> 0:35:09.200 we started. I was on the road every weekend, so 0:35:09.239 --> 0:35:11.600 I was going to I was traveling on Fridays, and 0:35:11.640 --> 0:35:14.200 I think that's when we did our some of our Thursdays. 0:35:14.239 --> 0:35:16.160 I think, you know, whatever it was, I would do 0:35:16.360 --> 0:35:19.360 shows from an airport gate. I would call you and 0:35:19.480 --> 0:35:22.319 you had You're gonna have to tell me what it was. 0:35:22.400 --> 0:35:24.640 It's fine now. I think the statute of limitations is up. 0:35:24.960 --> 0:35:28.799 You had a shadily attained switcher of some kind a 0:35:28.880 --> 0:35:32.480 call switcher that you can't buy in stores. It's a 0:35:32.520 --> 0:35:34.720 it's an industrial product for radio stations. 0:35:34.760 --> 0:35:39.439 I bought some sort of phone coupler on eBay that, 0:35:39.560 --> 0:35:43.840 per my understanding, was illegal for. 0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:46.040 Private use, for private use the manner in which I 0:35:46.920 --> 0:35:49.160 could wire tap with it. Yeah. Yeah, So that's what 0:35:49.160 --> 0:35:51.600 we used for Colin interviews, and it worked. It served 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:52.399 the purpose for a while. 0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:55.759 Obviously, we've got a lot better equipment now, but we 0:35:55.920 --> 0:35:58.520 use that for a long time to make this thing 0:35:58.560 --> 0:36:00.759 go on that was a airport gate or in the 0:36:00.840 --> 0:36:01.440 car wherever. 0:36:01.640 --> 0:36:04.279 Yeah, but we had guests call in and we had 0:36:04.360 --> 0:36:06.520 you know, there were sports writers that we would meet 0:36:06.560 --> 0:36:08.120 on the road or whatever at this point, or I 0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:09.839 would meet and they'd ask like, how do you put 0:36:09.960 --> 0:36:13.160 calls on? How do you do that? And I was like, 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:14.799 Ty has a thing. Yeah, don't don't. 0:36:14.840 --> 0:36:16.600 You don't want to know how, don't ask too many questions. 0:36:16.640 --> 0:36:18.440 You want to know how we're doing this. But for 0:36:18.840 --> 0:36:22.040 a good chunk of time, really, for the first like 0:36:22.080 --> 0:36:24.640 two to three years, yeah, we were using that device. 0:36:25.480 --> 0:36:28.239 We were using that device. We kept going through two 0:36:28.239 --> 0:36:31.680 thousand and eight, Yeah, very slowly, and we picked up 0:36:31.680 --> 0:36:34.880 a following. We tried to get to forty. That was 0:36:34.920 --> 0:36:37.600 like our big pie in the sky goal. We tried 0:36:37.640 --> 0:36:40.360 to get to forty subscribers, and we said, if we 0:36:40.400 --> 0:36:42.839 can get to forty, if all eleven of you can 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:46.120 convince three to four of your friends to subscribe and 0:36:46.200 --> 0:36:49.520 listen to this show, I promise you, Ty and I 0:36:49.760 --> 0:36:57.600 will videotape ourselves. Relax, relax well, videotape ourselves running forty 0:36:57.640 --> 0:37:01.319 our dashes, doing various physical challenges, throwing a football as 0:37:01.360 --> 0:37:03.640 far as we can punting a football, as far as 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:06.560 we can in just the spirit of competition, if we 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:08.759 can get to forty, and we got to forty. We 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:12.240 got to forty. The videos are still out on YouTube. Yeah, 0:37:12.280 --> 0:37:15.600 and God's honest truth. My cousin will back me up 0:37:15.600 --> 0:37:18.560 because the videotape me running the forty we couldn't get 0:37:18.600 --> 0:37:21.319 a good framing of me running it all right, So 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:24.000 I got like the fastest time marked down on a 0:37:24.000 --> 0:37:26.600 piece of paper, and then I think you combine that 0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:29.400 with the best footage that we could find. Yeah, but 0:37:30.160 --> 0:37:32.880 I went over to and this is horrible, but you 0:37:32.920 --> 0:37:34.680 know how in a park they have like those memorial 0:37:34.719 --> 0:37:37.360 trees planted. Yeah, I ran the forty yard dash so 0:37:37.360 --> 0:37:39.040 many times that I ran over to one of those 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:40.759 memorial trees and puked all over it. 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:44.319 Wow. Yeah, okay, that's dedication. It was dedication. This was 0:37:44.560 --> 0:37:47.120 We're just losing nothing but money at this point. Nothing. 0:37:47.160 --> 0:37:49.440 I mean, if time is money, we're just giving all 0:37:49.480 --> 0:37:51.400 of our time after work on whatever day we're edit, 0:37:51.560 --> 0:37:53.680 we're doing the show. We're recording the show, ties editing 0:37:53.719 --> 0:37:56.000 the show, we're putting it up. What were you editing 0:37:56.040 --> 0:37:58.719 the show on at this point. I think at the 0:37:58.719 --> 0:38:02.800 time we were using a freeware product called gold Wave. Okay, 0:38:02.920 --> 0:38:06.960 we had a PC. Yeah, back then gold Wave was 0:38:07.000 --> 0:38:08.879 what I knew best. And this is once a week, 0:38:09.160 --> 0:38:11.279 once a week, we're doing shows once a week during 0:38:11.280 --> 0:38:13.239 the season. They would be preview shows, but I guess 0:38:13.280 --> 0:38:15.560 at the beginning we would recap or whatever. Yeah, so 0:38:15.600 --> 0:38:19.080 they we'd recap in preview and then the season ended. 0:38:19.200 --> 0:38:21.719 So we're talking about two thousand and nine, the very 0:38:21.719 --> 0:38:24.800 beginning of two thousand and nine, and the season ended, 0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:28.759 and do we stay with the show in the off 0:38:28.800 --> 0:38:31.480 season or do we say i'll see in August? What 0:38:31.520 --> 0:38:31.840 do we do? 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:35.800 We were very on the fence about it, Yeah, because 0:38:35.840 --> 0:38:38.319 the big problem we had and it's not as much 0:38:38.320 --> 0:38:41.040 of a problem anymore, but it's still something that we 0:38:41.160 --> 0:38:42.960 have to think about. What are you going to talk 0:38:42.960 --> 0:38:44.600 about in the off season? Yeah, what are you going 0:38:44.680 --> 0:38:48.400 to talk about? Even back then, college football didn't have 0:38:48.520 --> 0:38:51.160 as vibrant of an off season as I think it 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:53.600 does now. There's just more money involved now, so there's 0:38:53.600 --> 0:38:57.840 more of an interest. But back then, we were really 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:00.279 worried that we weren't going to have enough content. But 0:39:00.320 --> 0:39:01.839 we decided we were going to give it a go. 0:39:02.360 --> 0:39:04.000 We're going to give it a go. And actually, for 0:39:04.040 --> 0:39:07.080 a chunk of time, even in the nine off season, 0:39:07.120 --> 0:39:09.400 we were doing two shows a week. Yes, we were 0:39:09.400 --> 0:39:11.200 doing two shows a week to try and just produce 0:39:11.200 --> 0:39:15.040 more content, get more people hooked. Certainly through the season 0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:17.440 we did two shows a week like we do now. 0:39:17.800 --> 0:39:20.359 It wasn't until twenty ten that we decided, all right, 0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:23.759 we'll do two a week during the season, one a 0:39:23.760 --> 0:39:25.960 week in the off season because that's a little bit 0:39:26.000 --> 0:39:30.400 more sustainable. But that end of eight beginning of nine 0:39:30.400 --> 0:39:35.560 timeframe was really when we started connecting the connecting dots. 0:39:35.880 --> 0:39:37.920 We could see that numbers were going up on our 0:39:37.960 --> 0:39:42.680 FeedBurner subscription carets. We were able to track downloads to 0:39:42.680 --> 0:39:44.600 the best of our ability. At that point in time, 0:39:44.920 --> 0:39:47.560 we could see that there was a steady drumbeat of 0:39:48.160 --> 0:39:51.719 people becoming more interested. And of note, was around that 0:39:51.800 --> 0:39:53.879 time iPhones became a thing. 0:39:54.000 --> 0:39:57.080 Yes, iPhones were two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, 0:39:57.120 --> 0:39:58.800 but they really sort of launched in popularity in the 0:39:58.840 --> 0:39:59.480 next couple of years. 0:39:59.480 --> 0:40:03.040 The iPhone three G came out, without a doubt that 0:40:03.080 --> 0:40:06.000 had an impact. Now, it wasn't until years later that 0:40:06.000 --> 0:40:08.120 they actually had an app for it that was native 0:40:08.640 --> 0:40:11.839 on most iPhones. But it was around that time when 0:40:11.840 --> 0:40:14.160 people who had any kind of smartphone for that matter 0:40:14.520 --> 0:40:18.040 started figuring out, oh, we we can download it on 0:40:18.080 --> 0:40:20.960 our computer and upload it either to our iPod or. 0:40:20.880 --> 0:40:22.040 To sink it up. 0:40:22.080 --> 0:40:24.879 Yeah, and we can listen on the go. And that's 0:40:24.920 --> 0:40:28.440 how this whole podcast thing got its initial burst. It 0:40:28.480 --> 0:40:29.520 was from smart devices. 0:40:29.680 --> 0:40:32.640 Yeah, no, it totally got the iPod. It was from smartphones. Yes, 0:40:32.719 --> 0:40:36.239 it was definitely from smartphones. And the way that we 0:40:36.360 --> 0:40:40.120 sort of split up the responsibilities is you handled a 0:40:40.120 --> 0:40:43.319 lot of the technical aspects. So I sounded like shit, 0:40:43.480 --> 0:40:45.640 like I had like a Logitech, a really crappy one. 0:40:45.680 --> 0:40:48.960 And to anybody that it's writing in the least important thing. 0:40:49.000 --> 0:40:51.359 When you're first starting out as the equipment, get something 0:40:51.360 --> 0:40:53.600 that makes you sound okay. You know, don't spend more 0:40:53.640 --> 0:40:55.640 than like fifty bucks or one hundred bucks or whatever, 0:40:55.719 --> 0:40:58.279 get into rhythm, but you should sound good eventually. So 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:00.480 I didn't sound great, but slowly I I got a 0:41:00.480 --> 0:41:03.520 better and better microphone. But you handled all of the 0:41:03.560 --> 0:41:06.520 back end stuff because that was your specialty, and what 0:41:06.600 --> 0:41:09.239 I was okay at because I was on the road 0:41:09.239 --> 0:41:11.400 and I wouldn't need sports writers at games and stuff 0:41:11.440 --> 0:41:15.440 like that. Is I would send out so many emails 0:41:15.480 --> 0:41:18.080 to sports writers. I would say, Hey, would you come 0:41:18.120 --> 0:41:20.760 on our college football podcast? We've had on Bruce Felman 0:41:20.920 --> 0:41:24.640 and Andy Staples and Jimmy Trayina and pretty much everybody would 0:41:24.680 --> 0:41:26.719 come on. We really got a ton of people to 0:41:26.760 --> 0:41:29.400 come on. And at that point, also you have Twitter, 0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:31.400 so we said, you know, hey, we're going to tweet 0:41:31.400 --> 0:41:34.120 out the show. Would you mind like tweeting out the 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:35.319 fact that you were on the show. And they were 0:41:35.360 --> 0:41:37.160 said sure, whatever, and we would start going on their 0:41:37.200 --> 0:41:39.440 podcasts and radio shows or whatever the case may be. 0:41:39.760 --> 0:41:42.320 I remember in two thousand and eight I shot I 0:41:42.320 --> 0:41:44.120 think it was two thousand and eight. I shot at 0:41:44.120 --> 0:41:47.680 Ohio State and Stu Mandel, who is, you know, my 0:41:47.760 --> 0:41:49.960 coworker technically at that time, even though I live in 0:41:50.080 --> 0:41:52.040 LA and he lives in New York whatever, but I 0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:53.879 remember him emailing me. He was like, Oh, I'm gonna 0:41:53.880 --> 0:41:55.440 be at this game too, would love to say HI, 0:41:55.680 --> 0:41:57.760 would love to see how you shoot. I was like, stupid, 0:41:57.760 --> 0:41:59.560 I want to see how I shoot. So it was 0:41:59.560 --> 0:42:00.960 one of those things were like I felt like I 0:42:01.040 --> 0:42:03.040 was in this rhythm of Sports Illustrated and he really 0:42:03.080 --> 0:42:06.120 liked the solid verbal and it was very cool to 0:42:06.120 --> 0:42:09.560 see that, like we were becoming a thing in this 0:42:09.960 --> 0:42:12.480 nerdy universe of college football writers because we had a 0:42:12.520 --> 0:42:14.600 lot of them on the show. We've had Dan Wetzel 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:17.120 on the show forever. We've had Stumandel and Andy Staples 0:42:17.120 --> 0:42:19.520 and Bruce Feldman, and they've been on the show for 0:42:19.680 --> 0:42:22.160 I mean it's twenty seventeen, so they've been on going 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:25.600 on eight nine years. And so we're getting this following 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:29.239 of people and we've gone away from this somewhat is 0:42:29.360 --> 0:42:31.320 we've had, you know, like if we've had a Clemson 0:42:31.320 --> 0:42:33.560 writer and we'll have Brian Cook on from m GO blog. 0:42:33.600 --> 0:42:36.759 We were it was so specific to that school, but 0:42:36.840 --> 0:42:39.960 that's the way we got people fans from those schools interested. 0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:43.200 And that's an important point because we got to forty, 0:42:43.600 --> 0:42:47.360 we got to one hundred, and we could tell from 0:42:47.960 --> 0:42:51.640 the traffic to our website, soliverbal dot com. We could 0:42:51.680 --> 0:42:56.040 tell where people were coming from. Yeah, and you were 0:42:56.040 --> 0:43:00.200 in California at the time. I was in Pennsylvania. Could 0:43:00.200 --> 0:43:02.200 see that most of the traffic was from our two states, 0:43:02.640 --> 0:43:04.840 and so the only logical conclusion is that it was 0:43:04.840 --> 0:43:08.000 you and I right. It was at that point that 0:43:08.080 --> 0:43:11.200 I said to you, we can light some of these 0:43:11.239 --> 0:43:13.760 states up if we bring on a guy from Texas, 0:43:13.800 --> 0:43:18.200 if we bring on Brian from someone from Clemson, so 0:43:18.239 --> 0:43:22.480 on and so forth, and so very systematically. I'm not 0:43:22.480 --> 0:43:23.920 going to say we had a master plan, but that 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:25.920 was the general theme. We tried to bring people on 0:43:26.040 --> 0:43:29.520 from different bigger programs, Notre Dame, and see if we 0:43:29.560 --> 0:43:31.960 can turn Some of it was Google analytics that we're 0:43:31.960 --> 0:43:35.560 still using Google Analytics, but it could show you a 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:38.680 light green or a dark green depending on how much 0:43:38.719 --> 0:43:41.560 traffic you had from a particular state. And so, oh, 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:43.600 we want to light up Georgia. Let's bring on someone 0:43:43.680 --> 0:43:47.160 from a Georgia blog. And so we kept doing that, 0:43:47.280 --> 0:43:50.719 and throughout the course of an off season, you bring 0:43:50.760 --> 0:43:53.280 on enough people, you hit enough of the big programs, 0:43:53.560 --> 0:43:56.600 you see most of those states, especially in the southeastern 0:43:56.640 --> 0:43:58.919 part of the country, start to turn a little darker 0:43:58.960 --> 0:44:02.520 shade of green. And again we're talking very incremental here, 0:44:03.280 --> 0:44:05.160 probably not at a thousand listeners by the end of 0:44:05.160 --> 0:44:08.160 two thousand and nine, no, but we could see again 0:44:08.200 --> 0:44:09.799 that we had an upward traject print. 0:44:09.880 --> 0:44:12.600 Yeah, and I will also jump in here with something 0:44:12.600 --> 0:44:15.800 to remember. Ty and I have never met in person 0:44:16.200 --> 0:44:19.040 at this point. He is living in eastern Pennsylvania and Allentown. 0:44:19.239 --> 0:44:22.200 I am living in LA and it's studio city, still 0:44:22.280 --> 0:44:24.799 living with a couple friends. Maybe at one point I 0:44:24.880 --> 0:44:30.160 started living alone when Swartz Illustrated paid me a living wage. 0:44:30.360 --> 0:44:33.239 But we had never met. This is two thousand and nine. 0:44:33.280 --> 0:44:35.080 We've been doing the show for at least a year, 0:44:35.400 --> 0:44:39.960 a couple times a week, and sometimes it would be weird. 0:44:40.520 --> 0:44:43.280 It was we had listeners. Sometimes we get an email 0:44:43.280 --> 0:44:45.279 from somebody like Mike Knoebler, who was one of our 0:44:45.480 --> 0:44:47.680 first eleven listeners who more on him in a second 0:44:47.719 --> 0:44:50.040 Well on him was one of the He was the 0:44:50.080 --> 0:44:53.000 head of video at the University of Nebraska, their football program. 0:44:53.320 --> 0:44:57.000 And so we still never met. We still had no 0:44:57.120 --> 0:45:00.279 concept for each other in person. And you know, it's 0:45:00.320 --> 0:45:04.719 just something we're doing bi coostally. Yeah. Yeah, it was 0:45:05.480 --> 0:45:09.360 the kind of thing that no one I knew could relate. 0:45:09.400 --> 0:45:12.960 Do you have a girlfriend in this time? Not at 0:45:13.400 --> 0:45:16.200 that time? Okay I did, Yes, I did not at 0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:18.799 that time. Yeah, but it you know. 0:45:18.760 --> 0:45:21.000 You try to communicate this to your friends, like I'm 0:45:21.040 --> 0:45:23.319 giving this on like a Wednesday night we've jumped around, 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:26.440 or what nights we record, but nobody could really understand it. 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:28.799 The only thing I could really attribute it to is 0:45:28.800 --> 0:45:31.560 that we're just wired in such a way that this 0:45:31.680 --> 0:45:34.160 is totally acceptable. Yeah, and for a lot of people 0:45:34.200 --> 0:45:36.640 it isn't. But for you and I, we just that's 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:39.160 one of the common threads. And it's an isolating thing too. 0:45:39.719 --> 0:45:40.640 People don't understand. 0:45:40.800 --> 0:45:43.920 You know, you listen to podcasts of people that are 0:45:43.960 --> 0:45:45.840 doing it forever and they're in the same room constantly. 0:45:45.840 --> 0:45:48.239 They're shooting video together, they're doing audio stuff together. This 0:45:48.360 --> 0:45:52.120 is a brand new thing for us, at least I 0:45:52.120 --> 0:45:54.160 don't know how other people at that time were doing things, 0:45:54.200 --> 0:45:57.000 but like, it was extremely isolating. I would go into 0:45:57.040 --> 0:45:59.480 my room and talk to a stranger for an hour 0:45:59.480 --> 0:46:02.640 and a half two nights a week. It was a 0:46:02.680 --> 0:46:05.960 different experience. It was it felt kind of natural. It 0:46:06.000 --> 0:46:08.000 was a leap of faith. We got to know each 0:46:08.000 --> 0:46:12.160 other very well, but it was weird when we met 0:46:12.200 --> 0:46:13.640 for the first team, it definitely was. 0:46:13.680 --> 0:46:16.160 It was weird for the first time. So turning the 0:46:16.160 --> 0:46:20.520 calendar now to twenty ten and one of my favorite moments. 0:46:20.520 --> 0:46:23.239 I won't play the clip, but we had we had. 0:46:23.520 --> 0:46:25.840 This is probably one of my top five favorite moments. 0:46:26.040 --> 0:46:29.000 We started doing the show, we started interviewing coaches. Yes, 0:46:29.320 --> 0:46:31.680 first coach we ever interviewed was Jimbo Fisher right as 0:46:31.719 --> 0:46:34.840 he got the Florida State job and was super nice. 0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:36.880 I'm sure he still is super He was officially the 0:46:36.880 --> 0:46:38.759 first I know. It was Al Golden too around that 0:46:38.840 --> 0:46:40.839 Al gold was around the same time. I remember we 0:46:40.880 --> 0:46:43.120 talked to his secretary for like a half hour because 0:46:43.160 --> 0:46:45.520 she was running late. She sent me a thank you note. 0:46:45.640 --> 0:46:48.719 I mean just super nice people at Temple. Everybody that 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:52.440 we dealt with was was genuinely nice, but Jimbo couldn't 0:46:52.440 --> 0:46:54.480 have been friendlier. He was our first coach interview. I 0:46:54.480 --> 0:46:57.480 remember I was nervous, what am I gonna say Jimbo Fisher? Like, 0:46:57.480 --> 0:46:59.399 I don't even know who is Jimbo Fisher. I didn't 0:46:59.400 --> 0:47:01.600 even know who he was the time, but he was 0:47:01.680 --> 0:47:04.279 kind enough to come on our show and at. 0:47:04.160 --> 0:47:07.040 The time a man who completely destroyed Notre Dame. That's right, 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:10.080 thank you, thank you for that anecdote. JaMarcus Russell, we 0:47:10.120 --> 0:47:13.200 interviewed houston nutt yeah, And one of the funnier early 0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:15.239 moments of the show is we caught houston Nut on 0:47:15.239 --> 0:47:17.879 the toilet. Yeah. We didn't realize this till after the fact. 0:47:17.920 --> 0:47:18.560 I don't know he's coach. 0:47:18.600 --> 0:47:21.759 Elliott, a friend of mine, noticed that houston Nut was 0:47:21.800 --> 0:47:25.480 very clearly on the toilet because beginning part of the interview, 0:47:26.040 --> 0:47:28.760 there is a very distinct echo. While you were asking 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:31.400 a question, you could hear very loudly a toilet flush, 0:47:31.480 --> 0:47:32.399 like a jet engine toy. 0:47:33.000 --> 0:47:35.759 His voice was very hollow, it was echoe yeah, and. 0:47:35.719 --> 0:47:37.640 Then you hear a door close, and then by the 0:47:37.640 --> 0:47:40.400 time you get done asking your question, he's in like 0:47:40.480 --> 0:47:44.520 a perfectly insulated sound studio. And so upon further review, 0:47:44.840 --> 0:47:47.760 you could tell that he is clearly indisposed when he's yes. 0:47:48.200 --> 0:47:52.239 Doing the initial interview, it was March twenty fourth, twenty ten. 0:47:52.280 --> 0:47:53.600 If you want to go back and listen to that. 0:47:53.719 --> 0:47:55.840 Let me tell you, by the way, just before you 0:47:55.880 --> 0:47:59.319 go on, how we booked coaches when we were just 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:03.560 an anonymous podcast, because we were not on any platform 0:48:03.600 --> 0:48:08.400 at this point. I had the Football Writers Association of 0:48:08.440 --> 0:48:12.279 America like black Book, which has the contact information of 0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:14.880 everybody in college football because I was in the Writers' 0:48:14.880 --> 0:48:18.400 Association and I went through and I emailed one hundred 0:48:18.400 --> 0:48:22.640 and twenty five sids and I said, Hi, my name 0:48:22.680 --> 0:48:26.600 is Dan. I do a podcast, and Ty and I 0:48:26.840 --> 0:48:28.839 were we work at Sports Illustrator. We used to work 0:48:28.840 --> 0:48:31.560 at Sports Illustrated at this point. But we have the 0:48:31.600 --> 0:48:33.960 show and we'd love to have the coach on for 0:48:33.960 --> 0:48:36.360 twenty three minutes to talk about the Tigers or the 0:48:36.480 --> 0:48:41.399 you know whoever, the buck Eyes, and I think we booked, Yeah, 0:48:41.400 --> 0:48:43.040 I don't know, four or five or something like that 0:48:43.080 --> 0:48:45.000 out of like one hundred and twenty. But that's pretty 0:48:45.000 --> 0:48:46.919 good because as soon as you book four or five, 0:48:46.920 --> 0:48:49.200 you can say we've had on head, had Jimbo Fisher on. Yeh, 0:48:49.200 --> 0:48:52.000 We've had Jimbo Fisher on. We've had Kyle Whittingham on whoever. 0:48:52.520 --> 0:48:54.600 And so that was that was a pretty good hit rate, 0:48:54.640 --> 0:48:56.400 the fact that we got those four or five guys, 0:48:56.880 --> 0:48:59.040 and I mean we had I have I might still 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:01.440 have a message that Bill Stuart left me. He called 0:49:01.440 --> 0:49:03.680 my cell phone instead of your instead of the studio 0:49:03.760 --> 0:49:06.040 number when we had him on. May he rest in peace. 0:49:06.440 --> 0:49:09.640 But we had on head coaches and at this time. 0:49:10.160 --> 0:49:13.080 I then we can go back to where you are professionally. 0:49:13.080 --> 0:49:15.000 So this is two thousand and nine, twenty ten. I 0:49:15.040 --> 0:49:16.680 was writing a little bit in two thousand and nine 0:49:16.680 --> 0:49:19.200 for Sports Illustrated. Because they rolled back their video, I 0:49:19.360 --> 0:49:22.480 was offered a shift in video. I was doing the 0:49:22.520 --> 0:49:25.359 tour Guide show for Sports Illustrated and then they said 0:49:25.680 --> 0:49:28.600 good news, bad news, and I said, okay, cool, weird 0:49:28.680 --> 0:49:31.360 but cool. So the good news is we sold the 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:34.760 college Football Travel show to Nissan for their Heisman campaign. 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:36.480 I was like, whoa, that seems like a very good thing. 0:49:37.000 --> 0:49:38.680 And I was like, what's the bad news. The bad 0:49:38.719 --> 0:49:40.399 news is they don't really want you to like joke 0:49:40.440 --> 0:49:42.560 around with tailgaters and like eat food and drink beer. 0:49:42.560 --> 0:49:46.120 They just want you to interview a older Heisman winner. 0:49:46.760 --> 0:49:52.399 And I said, no, I'm not doing that. That's compromising 0:49:52.480 --> 0:49:57.239 my creative freedom. George Costanza, your artistic totally. What happened? Yeah, 0:49:57.360 --> 0:50:00.440 And they said are you sure? And I have this 0:50:00.520 --> 0:50:03.720 dream job traveling going to college football games as my job, 0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:05.600 and they want to keep paying me to do that, 0:50:06.239 --> 0:50:08.919 but with a wrinkle, and I said, I turned them down. 0:50:08.960 --> 0:50:10.719 And I said, no, that's not what I want to 0:50:10.719 --> 0:50:13.480 do creatively, and so they gave it the job to 0:50:13.520 --> 0:50:16.439 somebody else and I just sort of wrote, and then 0:50:17.400 --> 0:50:20.400 they stopped asking me to write. Check stop coming. The 0:50:20.480 --> 0:50:23.239 check stopped coming. And this was two thousand and nine, 0:50:23.440 --> 0:50:25.600 so the economy's not great. They're not doing any video 0:50:25.680 --> 0:50:28.280 basically anymore. It was just like Swimsuit at this point, 0:50:28.840 --> 0:50:31.720 and I stood up from my artistic integrity. I started 0:50:32.120 --> 0:50:34.480 a new video series. I set up a green screen 0:50:34.480 --> 0:50:36.759 in my apartment and I did a recap show called 0:50:36.760 --> 0:50:41.120 The Postgame Tailgates. Yeah, and there were some goofs, so 0:50:41.360 --> 0:50:44.160 I looked real crazy and weird back then, or at 0:50:44.239 --> 0:50:47.080 least crazier, but it was a green screen show. I 0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:49.440 was trying to be like The Soup but for college football. 0:50:49.800 --> 0:50:52.120 And it was fine. Some episodes are funnier than others, 0:50:52.200 --> 0:50:54.480 but I constantly had to be making so I'm doing 0:50:54.480 --> 0:50:56.640 the solid verbal. I'm not on the road anymore. I'm 0:50:56.680 --> 0:50:59.520 just recapping games. I'm wearing like an old corduroy blazer 0:50:59.520 --> 0:51:02.200 and standing in of this green screen and like I'm 0:51:02.239 --> 0:51:05.000 doing motion graphics behind me. It's very strange and cheap looking, 0:51:05.040 --> 0:51:07.719 but that's what I did. And sports Oustralia would post 0:51:07.760 --> 0:51:09.040 it every so often, and they liked the show, but 0:51:09.040 --> 0:51:11.839 they didn't pay me to do it. A good deal 0:51:11.840 --> 0:51:13.640 for them, by the way, a great deal for them, 0:51:13.680 --> 0:51:15.440 A great deal. They would just post it on their 0:51:15.480 --> 0:51:17.600 like campus or hot Clicks, Jimmy Train or whatever. And 0:51:17.640 --> 0:51:19.680 that was fine because it got me a lot of 0:51:19.719 --> 0:51:22.759 attention for that too. But We're doing the show, We're 0:51:22.760 --> 0:51:25.920 having coaches on, but I'm not making any money. So 0:51:25.960 --> 0:51:28.560 I'm like back to temping. I'm like picking up I 0:51:28.680 --> 0:51:32.320 picked up catering jobs. But like, this is totally true. Scott, 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:36.280 my really good friend Scott. His parents own this successful 0:51:36.280 --> 0:51:38.720 barbecue restaurant in La and I would go work catering 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:40.640 jobs because they would pay me one hundred bucks for 0:51:40.840 --> 0:51:43.000 doing two hours worth of work, and that seemed fine. 0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:47.000 Got to my bed broke at a certain point, like 0:51:47.120 --> 0:51:49.960 the slats in my cheap ikea bed, like it just broke, 0:51:50.000 --> 0:51:51.680 the thing that goes down the middle of the bed. 0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:53.960 It broke, and I was like, I'm not buying another bed, 0:51:54.120 --> 0:51:57.319 so I slept on a mattress on the ground inside 0:51:57.920 --> 0:52:01.759 of the frame bed. I mean, listen, people were way 0:52:01.800 --> 0:52:04.520 worse off than me. I recognize how fortunate and privileged 0:52:04.520 --> 0:52:06.319 I am to be like, that's the worst problem I had, 0:52:06.320 --> 0:52:10.080 But like I wasn't you know, I was not living 0:52:10.160 --> 0:52:11.719 any sort of comfortable life at this. 0:52:11.719 --> 0:52:14.080 Day, and we weren't making any money on the show, 0:52:14.400 --> 0:52:18.440 on the show podcast advertising. It hadn't even been conceived 0:52:18.440 --> 0:52:23.040 at that point in twenty ten, and kind of along 0:52:23.080 --> 0:52:25.840 the lines of what you said with SI on Campus, 0:52:26.440 --> 0:52:29.160 I wasn't writing at this point either. I wasn't writing 0:52:29.160 --> 0:52:29.919 at this point either. 0:52:30.120 --> 0:52:32.319 But had you had a secure day job, I had 0:52:32.320 --> 0:52:33.239 a secure day job. 0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:35.800 I was not reliant upon it like you might have 0:52:35.840 --> 0:52:39.080 been in the video realm for any kind of steady income. 0:52:39.120 --> 0:52:42.479 But the writing thing had ceased because they had, I think, 0:52:42.719 --> 0:52:45.120 pretty much closed up shop on SI on Campus at 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:50.000 some point, and so for me, the primary creative outlet 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:53.480 was truly the solidverbal yea, at that point, I wasn't writing. 0:52:53.520 --> 0:52:55.279 I was doing a little bit of blogging here and there, 0:52:55.320 --> 0:52:59.400 but I really turned all of my attention creatively to 0:53:00.200 --> 0:53:03.440 doing our show. And it was also at this point 0:53:03.480 --> 0:53:05.799 that you and I recognized that it was continuing to 0:53:05.840 --> 0:53:08.919 grow a very very fast clip and we still hadn't met. 0:53:09.120 --> 0:53:12.440 We still hadn't met so by virtue of our friend 0:53:12.480 --> 0:53:16.840 Mike Nobler, who was the video director at University of 0:53:16.840 --> 0:53:20.440 Nebraska for then who Bo Polini. He said, why don't 0:53:20.440 --> 0:53:23.120 you guys come out to the Nebraska Texas game. We'll 0:53:23.120 --> 0:53:25.200 make sure that you get in the door. We'll give 0:53:25.239 --> 0:53:27.920 you a tour of the press box, give you two 0:53:27.960 --> 0:53:30.799 of a tour of all the video operations up here, 0:53:31.400 --> 0:53:34.160 and it'll give you guys an opportunity to meet We 0:53:34.239 --> 0:53:36.680 called verbicon verbicon. 0:53:37.200 --> 0:53:38.400 There have been many. 0:53:38.200 --> 0:53:41.480 Alternate spellings created for verbicon. This is one of the 0:53:41.520 --> 0:53:43.920 things I'm very anal about that I've never said to you. 0:53:44.560 --> 0:53:50.000 I prefer the v erba capital con so like comic con, 0:53:50.040 --> 0:53:54.560 but verba con not verb not verb e verb uh 0:53:55.080 --> 0:53:56.640 con was always my preferred spelling. 0:53:56.719 --> 0:54:01.680 See, I've always interpreted as the Spish pronunciation vera bak on, 0:54:02.440 --> 0:54:03.200 vera back on. 0:54:03.520 --> 0:54:05.680 I've been under the impression for all the year said 0:54:06.239 --> 0:54:08.480 we're a very cultural show. But we did get that 0:54:08.520 --> 0:54:12.560 behind the scenes tour of uh acilities. Uh you had 0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:14.600 your first trip to five guys, which I booked on 0:54:14.640 --> 0:54:17.080 my phone. Actually still have a video, which he seems 0:54:17.120 --> 0:54:19.439 slightly annoyed that a kickoff I caught. 0:54:19.640 --> 0:54:22.359 No, no, I could have caught a kick. But it 0:54:22.400 --> 0:54:24.280 was my first time on the field for a game. 0:54:24.640 --> 0:54:26.000 I had been on the field a bunch from me. 0:54:26.000 --> 0:54:28.200 And I was worried that if I caught the ball, 0:54:28.280 --> 0:54:30.200 it'd be like a baseball game where they throw me 0:54:30.239 --> 0:54:33.080 out Jeffrey Meyer. So I decided I'm going to let 0:54:33.080 --> 0:54:35.000 the guy next to me catch the ball. And he did, 0:54:35.000 --> 0:54:36.120 and it was like the thrill of his life. 0:54:36.160 --> 0:54:36.600 It was cool. 0:54:36.719 --> 0:54:38.160 He took a step out, he held the ball up 0:54:38.160 --> 0:54:40.279 like it was a big deal for this guy. I 0:54:40.400 --> 0:54:44.360 was terrified to be anywhere near a live football in 0:54:44.400 --> 0:54:47.200 a college football stadium. But we had a chance to meet, 0:54:48.280 --> 0:54:50.880 and I remember, I don't I think it was a 0:54:50.880 --> 0:54:53.840 holiday in that we stayed at. I remember that you 0:54:54.000 --> 0:54:57.319 had arranged for the management to put out on an 0:54:57.360 --> 0:55:03.759 easel welcome verbicon and and I remember walking in seeing 0:55:03.840 --> 0:55:06.240 this on an easel and I'm gonna curse folks, thinking 0:55:06.560 --> 0:55:10.319 what the fuck is going on here? Verbicon? Like there 0:55:10.400 --> 0:55:13.200 is no real verbicon? Do these guys know it? And 0:55:13.239 --> 0:55:15.399 then you kind of popped out from around the corner. Yeah, 0:55:15.800 --> 0:55:16.799 and we had a chance to meet. 0:55:16.880 --> 0:55:20.920 Yeah, we didn't meet in the hotel lobby, though we 0:55:20.960 --> 0:55:23.120 met outside of the bar. I think that was going 0:55:23.160 --> 0:55:26.360 at that night. But in any case, yes, this is 0:55:26.440 --> 0:55:29.000 all true. We met in Lincoln, Nebraska. We had a 0:55:29.000 --> 0:55:32.840 great time. The game was great, the game experience, the 0:55:32.840 --> 0:55:36.280 game itself wasn't that good. I think it was Texas 0:55:36.320 --> 0:55:39.360 one with like a quarterback who was mobile, who's not 0:55:39.440 --> 0:55:41.319 normally mobile. I don't even remember who it was. It 0:55:41.360 --> 0:55:45.000 wasn't David Ash, it's pre Ash, but it was it 0:55:45.040 --> 0:55:52.000 Garrett Gilbert. Yeah, in any case, twenty ten for me, though, 0:55:52.480 --> 0:55:56.759 this is where I'm at. I email. I sent a 0:55:56.800 --> 0:55:59.080 cold email because I'm tired of sleeping on the ground. 0:55:59.320 --> 0:56:02.280 I sent a cold the email both I both physically 0:56:02.320 --> 0:56:04.839 cold and out of nowhere. I sent it to Eric 0:56:04.880 --> 0:56:07.600 ride Home, who is the executive producer of PTI and 0:56:07.640 --> 0:56:10.000 still is and is like a total empire builder at ESPN, 0:56:10.000 --> 0:56:11.960 and I said, Hey, if you ever need anybody to 0:56:12.000 --> 0:56:14.600 do to write research or something like that, let me know. 0:56:14.960 --> 0:56:18.240 And he was like, nobody ever leaves PTI, nobody ever leaves, 0:56:18.520 --> 0:56:20.520 nobody ever wants to leave. But if you're ever in DC, 0:56:21.280 --> 0:56:22.840 let me know, and I'd love to meet with you. 0:56:23.320 --> 0:56:25.680 And so I found an excuse to get to d C. 0:56:25.960 --> 0:56:28.200 My middle brother is a pilot, and so I was 0:56:28.200 --> 0:56:30.880 in Chicago at Blogs with Balls, which is a big 0:56:30.920 --> 0:56:34.640 sports media blogger conference, met Spencer Hall for the first 0:56:35.600 --> 0:56:37.759 met Spencer for the first time, met all sorts of 0:56:37.800 --> 0:56:39.400 people that you know are just sort of in the 0:56:39.400 --> 0:56:42.160 sports blog world. It was a great time. And then 0:56:42.239 --> 0:56:45.520 just continued onto DC from Chicago. Stayed with a friend 0:56:45.520 --> 0:56:48.319 who had recently moved out there who I liked. This friend, 0:56:48.480 --> 0:56:51.640 I was fine and sending a note to Eric ride 0:56:51.680 --> 0:56:53.080 home before I went. I was like, having to be 0:56:53.080 --> 0:56:55.319 in d C. Does the offer still stand? Because I 0:56:55.320 --> 0:56:57.440 had sent him like a reel from Sports Illustrating. He 0:56:57.480 --> 0:57:00.200 was like, sure, yeah, come on buy And I with 0:57:00.280 --> 0:57:03.080 him and he was incredibly nice, just like super kind, 0:57:03.120 --> 0:57:05.000 and I still am friendly with him to this day. 0:57:05.760 --> 0:57:09.400 But he he sent me like three email addresses of people, 0:57:09.480 --> 0:57:12.040 one of whom is Ron Wexler, who was at ESPN 0:57:12.120 --> 0:57:15.080 is now at NBC, a guy from Yahoo who I forget, 0:57:15.080 --> 0:57:18.280 and Jim Bankoff, who is the current CEO of you know, 0:57:18.360 --> 0:57:21.240 Vox Media and was at that point just Espnation. And 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:23.840 I contacted all of them. I met Jim Bankoff that 0:57:24.040 --> 0:57:28.360 night in DC at a party and sent Ron Wexler 0:57:28.360 --> 0:57:30.960 an email and started doing stuff for ESPN, just sort 0:57:31.000 --> 0:57:34.520 of tangentially helping them research and produce and stuff like 0:57:34.520 --> 0:57:36.400 that out in LA and I actually ended up getting 0:57:36.440 --> 0:57:41.640 a couple pilots with ESPNU, and so that cold email 0:57:41.680 --> 0:57:44.800 got me going sports media wise, but also like we 0:57:44.840 --> 0:57:46.680 would start having Spencer Hall on the show and he 0:57:46.720 --> 0:57:49.640 was always hilarious. So we were slowly expanding our footprint 0:57:49.640 --> 0:57:53.200 of people that would come on the show. And at 0:57:53.240 --> 0:57:57.360 the end of two thy ten, what is our next 0:57:57.400 --> 0:57:59.680 step platform wise? Because I feel like there's about to 0:57:59.720 --> 0:58:00.560 be a hit here. 0:58:00.640 --> 0:58:02.760 The other thing that I'll mention before we go onto 0:58:02.760 --> 0:58:07.160 the platform is also in twenty ten, I had a 0:58:07.240 --> 0:58:10.000 chance to audition with the Big ten network. That's right, 0:58:10.080 --> 0:58:11.480 which I totally forgot to put. 0:58:11.320 --> 0:58:13.040 Down on our on our outline. So you did. You 0:58:13.080 --> 0:58:17.560 did some piloting for ESPNU, and that was through Eric 0:58:17.600 --> 0:58:20.440 ride home and saying I had solid verbal and sports illustrated. 0:58:20.480 --> 0:58:22.800 You know, I have this at least record of activity. 0:58:23.000 --> 0:58:26.440 I got a cold email from a producer at the 0:58:26.440 --> 0:58:28.160 Big ten Network to go out there and try out 0:58:28.200 --> 0:58:30.280 for show. I had never been on camera before, I 0:58:30.320 --> 0:58:32.960 had no idea what the hell I was doing, and 0:58:33.560 --> 0:58:34.600 I tried. 0:58:34.480 --> 0:58:36.960 And this was best I could. This was from the 0:58:37.000 --> 0:58:37.640 solid verbal. 0:58:37.720 --> 0:58:39.640 This was from the solid verbal. This was just you know, 0:58:40.000 --> 0:58:42.600 me being the hosts that I try to be on 0:58:42.640 --> 0:58:46.720 our show. But went out there, flew out from Allentown 0:58:46.840 --> 0:58:50.520 direct to Chicago, was out there for a couple hours, 0:58:50.600 --> 0:58:52.880 did a tryout. Didn't get it, obviously, because I didn't 0:58:53.000 --> 0:58:54.560 really know what I was doing, didn't know a camera 0:58:54.600 --> 0:58:56.480 to look at him, and I was but it's so flattering. 0:58:56.640 --> 0:58:59.880 I was a total mess, but didn't get it. Had 0:58:59.880 --> 0:59:02.600 a good experience out there. Just getting to see the 0:59:02.600 --> 0:59:05.160 studio was kind of a cool thing. And it was 0:59:05.200 --> 0:59:08.520 at that point for me that I'm like, we must 0:59:08.560 --> 0:59:09.560 actually be pretty good at this. 0:59:10.760 --> 0:59:12.760 Pretty good. We must be pretty good at this. 0:59:12.960 --> 0:59:16.440 If I am getting an email just out of the 0:59:16.440 --> 0:59:20.800 blue from a real network with real equipment, maybe we 0:59:20.840 --> 0:59:25.160 should consider improving our equipment. Yes, maybe we should consider 0:59:25.200 --> 0:59:27.080 beefing up our equipment. So it was at that point 0:59:27.080 --> 0:59:28.600 that we started to get a little bit more serious 0:59:28.640 --> 0:59:34.280 about what what's that's right, what what equipment are we using, 0:59:34.480 --> 0:59:37.920 and what other platforms can we be on to try 0:59:37.960 --> 0:59:41.240 and grow our footprint at this point, again steady growth, 0:59:41.400 --> 0:59:44.200 continuing to grow. We're up over a thousand users, clearly 0:59:44.240 --> 0:59:47.880 by a thousand users, maybe by you know, around like 0:59:47.960 --> 0:59:49.080 three thousand at this point. 0:59:49.120 --> 0:59:49.280 Yeah. 0:59:50.080 --> 0:59:55.000 In twenty and ten, we catch on with the Score. Yes, 0:59:55.320 --> 0:59:55.959 which was. 0:59:56.040 --> 0:59:58.000 They email us or did we contact them? How did 0:59:58.080 --> 1:00:00.800 we get into communicate? I don't even remember. 1:00:00.880 --> 1:00:03.120 I don't remember how. I think they may have looked 1:00:03.200 --> 1:00:06.680 us up yet. Nonetheless, the Score was actually where the 1:00:06.680 --> 1:00:10.960 Basketball Jones was calling home at that point in time. 1:00:11.600 --> 1:00:15.720 They were a Canadian outlet. They were on serious radio, 1:00:16.360 --> 1:00:17.360 but only in Canada. 1:00:17.440 --> 1:00:19.520 No, they were on serious in the States as well. 1:00:20.720 --> 1:00:23.280 They were definitely because I remember my uncle. Yeah, yeah, 1:00:23.320 --> 1:00:26.880 they were. But the TV show was a Canadian thing. Yeah, 1:00:27.400 --> 1:00:31.520 it was a Canadian company. But we caught on with them. 1:00:32.280 --> 1:00:35.040 They started promoting our content and they paid us so 1:00:35.280 --> 1:00:38.800 many zeros of dollars, so many zeros of dollars. 1:00:38.880 --> 1:00:42.720 Yeah, we got some added exposure through their website. And 1:00:43.000 --> 1:00:45.040 it was also around this time that Chris the Capper, 1:00:45.600 --> 1:00:49.080 you remember Chris the Kapper, who has prolong time now 1:00:49.120 --> 1:00:52.040 given us his weekly college football picks. But he had 1:00:52.080 --> 1:00:54.520 emailed us and said, you know, I've done some handicapping. 1:00:54.520 --> 1:00:57.800 I'm pretty good at it. Would you mind if I 1:00:57.840 --> 1:00:59.439 called in a pick or wrote in a pick? 1:01:00.120 --> 1:01:02.040 Every week? We said, hey, let's do it. Why don't 1:01:02.040 --> 1:01:02.240 you do it. 1:01:02.320 --> 1:01:04.120 Let's try and let's try and grow this as much 1:01:04.120 --> 1:01:08.479 as we can. So Chris started contributing picks. We felt 1:01:08.520 --> 1:01:10.640 pretty good about the state of affairs. In twenty ten, 1:01:10.920 --> 1:01:15.000 podcasting was very slowly picking up steam. You still couldn't 1:01:15.000 --> 1:01:16.760 go to a bar and say I do a podcast 1:01:16.800 --> 1:01:18.320 and expect anyone to know what the hell you were 1:01:18.360 --> 1:01:22.600 talking about. But podcasting at that point seemed like it 1:01:22.680 --> 1:01:24.200 was doing better than all life support. 1:01:24.280 --> 1:01:26.000 Right, Yeah, it's It's one of those things too, where 1:01:26.120 --> 1:01:28.959 if we could say that we were on SERIOUSXM, which 1:01:29.000 --> 1:01:31.600 was enormous, we convinced them to send us to the 1:01:31.680 --> 1:01:35.640 National Championship in Arizona, or like give us our money 1:01:35.640 --> 1:01:38.960 back for that's our travel expenses whatever. So it was 1:01:39.040 --> 1:01:41.360 it was a badge of like, no, we're not making money, 1:01:41.400 --> 1:01:44.400 but like more and more sids are responding to us saying, 1:01:44.720 --> 1:01:47.800 would you like to have your coach on word SIRIOUSXM whatever, 1:01:48.120 --> 1:01:50.200 and so it was. It was a nice badge, was 1:01:50.200 --> 1:01:51.920 a nice thing to have on our resume and increase 1:01:51.960 --> 1:01:54.760 the footprint. You know, we have thousands of listeners at 1:01:54.800 --> 1:01:56.920 this point, but we're not making any money. 1:01:56.720 --> 1:02:00.400 Not making not making a single dime. But it was 1:02:00.440 --> 1:02:02.240 definitely about collecting references. 1:02:02.280 --> 1:02:06.320 And so this is year three. Yeah, yeah, so your 1:02:06.400 --> 1:02:12.840 three you'ar three. Yeah. 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This was a big deal for you 1:03:51.680 --> 1:03:54.160 because not only do we get to go and have 1:03:54.280 --> 1:03:56.760 it paid for by somebody else, which we'll talk about 1:03:56.840 --> 1:03:59.960 momentarily obviously, but it was also Orgon against Auburn. 1:04:00.960 --> 1:04:02.720 It was the two of us in West Coast, Kevin 1:04:02.840 --> 1:04:05.240 my roommate at the time. We drove from LA so 1:04:05.240 --> 1:04:06.960 it was very easy for us. You flew in from 1:04:07.320 --> 1:04:10.680 from Allentown, shipped all your audio equipment via Fax. Big 1:04:10.720 --> 1:04:12.959 freaking box. Yeah. It cost me like one hundred bucks 1:04:12.960 --> 1:04:15.280 this ship. So you ship all your audio equipment. I 1:04:15.280 --> 1:04:19.520 bring some video equipment out and we were credentialed because 1:04:19.560 --> 1:04:22.200 of Sirius XM and the score. So we went to 1:04:22.280 --> 1:04:24.440 media days and we shot fun video stuff, and we 1:04:24.480 --> 1:04:29.000 eventually cut together a video that we filmed in a 1:04:29.160 --> 1:04:33.080 very Tom Rinaldi ish style about the fact that you know, 1:04:33.080 --> 1:04:36.080 and if you've ever seen the Media Hotel in Phoenix, 1:04:36.120 --> 1:04:38.880 it's a beautiful resort. We stayed at a just awful 1:04:38.920 --> 1:04:40.760 place across the street from a strip club, a very 1:04:40.760 --> 1:04:44.080 shady strip club. Not even like a fun, exciting Atlanta 1:04:44.120 --> 1:04:46.720 Hawks strip club. No, no, this was a terrible, terrible 1:04:46.760 --> 1:04:49.760 strip club that we listen, Ty and I are not 1:04:49.880 --> 1:04:51.640 above going to a strip club. Let me get that 1:04:51.720 --> 1:04:53.720 right out in the open right here. We looked at 1:04:53.760 --> 1:04:54.640 that place and we're. 1:04:54.440 --> 1:04:56.400 Like, I don't know, that is not wouldn't even go 1:04:56.400 --> 1:04:58.360 in there for like a six pack, not even for 1:04:58.400 --> 1:05:00.720 a story, not even to like tell the story of 1:05:00.760 --> 1:05:02.080 how groedy it was. 1:05:02.120 --> 1:05:03.880 We're like, now, I think we're good. I think we've 1:05:03.880 --> 1:05:06.440 grown up now, I think life is better than. 1:05:06.400 --> 1:05:11.760 We stated a country inn in suites in Tempe in Tempe, Arizona, 1:05:11.880 --> 1:05:14.600 across from a shady strip joint, and it was there 1:05:14.680 --> 1:05:19.600 that we wrote a script. We narrated you cut video. 1:05:20.280 --> 1:05:23.120 You did narration under a blanket in our room, under 1:05:23.120 --> 1:05:25.200 a blanket to try and get like some kind of 1:05:25.240 --> 1:05:28.400 acoustic integrity in this thing. Yeah, but we cut together 1:05:29.200 --> 1:05:32.760 our story are Improbable Journey to the BCS Championship, And 1:05:32.920 --> 1:05:37.440 I look back and I watched the video and it's like, 1:05:37.480 --> 1:05:40.600 I don't even know how that story really even came about, right, 1:05:40.720 --> 1:05:43.000 I don't know what our headspace was at the time 1:05:43.080 --> 1:05:45.560 to think that that was funny or a good thing, 1:05:45.720 --> 1:05:48.840 or how that came to fruition. I have no idea, 1:05:49.280 --> 1:05:49.920 but it caught on. 1:05:50.160 --> 1:05:52.760 Yeah, we did a good job, all things considered, with 1:05:52.800 --> 1:05:56.640 the crack tom we have. I just remember we went 1:05:56.680 --> 1:06:00.360 to the media party and you and Kevin were drinking. 1:06:01.120 --> 1:06:03.200 Oh my god, this was the drinking contest. Yeah, you 1:06:03.200 --> 1:06:06.200 guys were drinking a bunch and you got back and 1:06:06.800 --> 1:06:08.960 you start you of course, go to your computer and 1:06:08.960 --> 1:06:12.000 start editing audio, and Kevin goes b lines to the 1:06:12.000 --> 1:06:14.560 bathroom and you guys were drinking drink for drink and 1:06:14.680 --> 1:06:16.320 just pukes everywhere. Yeah, he was. 1:06:16.360 --> 1:06:18.320 He was in rough shape after that, and I was. 1:06:18.840 --> 1:06:22.360 I was a more seasoned drinker. I was able to handle. 1:06:22.760 --> 1:06:24.640 I was able to handle audio. But we were at 1:06:24.680 --> 1:06:29.080 the BCS party and at that point, everybody you see 1:06:29.440 --> 1:06:32.120 that you sort of recognize is like a star. 1:06:33.480 --> 1:06:35.200 It was a big deal if we're in a college 1:06:35.200 --> 1:06:36.000 football media wise. 1:06:36.080 --> 1:06:38.320 Yeah, we went drink for drink, Kevin and I did 1:06:38.520 --> 1:06:42.160 because you were driving with Spencer Hall, who if you've 1:06:42.200 --> 1:06:45.080 ever met Spencer dude, can drink, can drink. And Clay 1:06:45.160 --> 1:06:47.600 Travis yea at the time who I don't know who 1:06:47.600 --> 1:06:49.240 Clay was with at that point in time, right, been 1:06:49.280 --> 1:06:52.120 dead Spin ye then, I don't remember, but we went 1:06:52.200 --> 1:06:54.840 drink for drink with those two guys. We came back 1:06:54.880 --> 1:06:56.920 from that party. I was editing, Kevin was in the 1:06:56.960 --> 1:06:57.760 bathroom duking. 1:06:58.840 --> 1:07:00.720 But yeah, we shut the video and it was in 1:07:00.760 --> 1:07:03.840 the very Rinaldi Tomernaldi esque style. I cut it together. 1:07:03.880 --> 1:07:05.960 We put it up a couple days after when we 1:07:06.000 --> 1:07:08.040 got back, and you know, Twitter is a thing at 1:07:08.040 --> 1:07:11.120 this point. We tweeted out and I don't know at 1:07:11.160 --> 1:07:14.200 this you know, this is twenty ten or the very 1:07:14.200 --> 1:07:18.320 beginning of twenty eleven. Maybe there were other college football podcasts, 1:07:18.520 --> 1:07:21.160 and if there were other college football podcasts, they'd record 1:07:21.280 --> 1:07:24.680 like only during the season, or they'd record, you know, 1:07:25.400 --> 1:07:27.439 once a week, and we were doing twice a week, 1:07:27.480 --> 1:07:28.720 and it was one of those things where we just 1:07:28.760 --> 1:07:31.760 didn't have a lot of competition, not because we were better, 1:07:31.960 --> 1:07:35.040 but because we just were more consistent than everybody. 1:07:34.640 --> 1:07:38.320 More consistent and probably more demented to want to keep 1:07:38.360 --> 1:07:41.520 doing it again, not making any money, right, not making 1:07:41.560 --> 1:07:42.000 any money. 1:07:42.000 --> 1:07:45.080 We'd post this thing. People seem to enjoy it. It 1:07:45.120 --> 1:07:47.760 gets spread around a whole bunch. I get an email 1:07:47.760 --> 1:07:50.760 from ESPN that they want to show it on ESPN News. 1:07:51.200 --> 1:07:53.480 Steve Weisman, who were still pals with to this get 1:07:53.520 --> 1:07:55.600 to this day, is the host. He loves the video. 1:07:55.840 --> 1:07:59.000 He brings Tom Ernaldi on the show. We eventually have 1:07:59.160 --> 1:08:01.200 Tom Renaldi on the show a couple of years later. 1:08:01.600 --> 1:08:06.680 But it becomes a thing, and it's I'm trying to 1:08:06.680 --> 1:08:09.160 figure out how to describe what this meant. It didn't 1:08:09.160 --> 1:08:11.320 make us any more money, It didn't really get us 1:08:11.320 --> 1:08:13.400 any more listeners. But I think it gave us the 1:08:13.440 --> 1:08:16.000 confidence that, like, we have a good sense for what 1:08:16.040 --> 1:08:17.559 people might think is funny, and. 1:08:17.600 --> 1:08:20.360 It was validation that what we were doing, yeah, was 1:08:20.400 --> 1:08:24.759 not totally off base, right, And still I'm at this point, 1:08:24.800 --> 1:08:28.880 it's two thousand, the beginning of twenty eleven. So I 1:08:28.920 --> 1:08:32.280 am doing some work around, like freelancing, but you know, 1:08:32.400 --> 1:08:35.120 not making a ton of money, and you're still at 1:08:35.160 --> 1:08:37.519 the day job, and we don't have any expectation that 1:08:37.560 --> 1:08:41.160 we're going to grow this into something larger and profitable. 1:08:41.600 --> 1:08:45.559 Exactly interesting side note. You saw an interesting side of 1:08:45.600 --> 1:08:48.479 me as we tried to collect the reimbursement check from 1:08:48.479 --> 1:08:51.040 the Score. Oh wow, very nice people at the Score. 1:08:51.439 --> 1:08:54.120 Enjoyed working with the Score. I won't name the gentleman 1:08:54.160 --> 1:08:56.320 that we worked with, but I did go back and 1:08:56.360 --> 1:08:59.679 count our correspondence. It took me six months and eleven 1:08:59.720 --> 1:09:02.000 follow up emails to collect that reimbursementship. 1:09:02.000 --> 1:09:03.400 How it couldn't have been much either. 1:09:03.560 --> 1:09:06.000 I don't think boks a few hundred bucks, but it 1:09:06.040 --> 1:09:08.280 was principal. Yeah, if you say you're going to send 1:09:08.320 --> 1:09:10.479 us and reimburse us, don't leave us hanging. 1:09:10.600 --> 1:09:13.080 Yeah. We had spoken, and I'm really glad this didn't 1:09:13.080 --> 1:09:15.679 come to pass. We had spoken a little bit about 1:09:15.720 --> 1:09:18.680 selling the show to the Score and how much we 1:09:18.720 --> 1:09:21.000 would want for the name and like the rights to 1:09:21.040 --> 1:09:23.320 the solid verbal because that's in some way how the 1:09:23.360 --> 1:09:25.439 starters and Basketball Jones that they had to change their 1:09:25.479 --> 1:09:28.000 name when they went to NBA TV, and it never 1:09:28.040 --> 1:09:30.400 really came to pass. We had no idea how to 1:09:30.600 --> 1:09:33.720 value our worth and our company, but it was cool 1:09:33.760 --> 1:09:36.439 to start having those conversations that people were interested in 1:09:36.560 --> 1:09:37.639 acquiring the show. 1:09:38.160 --> 1:09:41.200 At that point, we decide we should probably trademark our name, 1:09:42.160 --> 1:09:43.920 and to this day, I think that was one of 1:09:43.960 --> 1:09:47.559 the better decisions that we made at that point, where like, 1:09:48.240 --> 1:09:50.000 what we're doing clearly has value. 1:09:50.040 --> 1:09:52.519 Let's try to protect ourselves. Oh we can, so we 1:09:52.560 --> 1:09:54.880 trade more the solid verbal. What equipment are we using 1:09:54.920 --> 1:09:58.080 at this point? I think I'm twenty eleven a blue snowball, 1:09:58.200 --> 1:10:01.599 You're using a blue snowball and then a blue yetty. Yeah, 1:10:01.680 --> 1:10:04.920 I'm using a Sure SM seven B. Oh yeah, it's 1:10:04.920 --> 1:10:07.200 a great mic. I'm using a Sure SM seven B. 1:10:07.760 --> 1:10:12.240 And I will also add we're still recording on one track. Yes, 1:10:12.560 --> 1:10:14.880 all right, this gets a little too tactical maybe for 1:10:14.960 --> 1:10:18.200 this show. It's a Skype record, but it's a Skype recording. 1:10:18.840 --> 1:10:21.120 I'm recording everything on one track. And then I'm using 1:10:21.120 --> 1:10:23.800 a program called a level later. Oh yeah, which was 1:10:23.880 --> 1:10:26.400 freeware that you could find out on the internet. Still exists, 1:10:26.439 --> 1:10:30.040 still use still still exists to this day. I still 1:10:30.040 --> 1:10:33.000 recommend it to people who aren't looking to really jump 1:10:33.680 --> 1:10:37.120 headfirst into the whole podcasting thing. But it's this kind 1:10:37.160 --> 1:10:40.600 of magic algorithmic software that's able to use a compressor 1:10:40.800 --> 1:10:43.120 and some sort of limitter and. 1:10:43.160 --> 1:10:46.080 It automatically levels things out to your audio levels. 1:10:46.200 --> 1:10:49.160 It balances your audio out. It doesn't always do a 1:10:49.200 --> 1:10:51.240 great job, but in a lot of cases it's good 1:10:51.320 --> 1:10:53.800 enough quick and in a case like ours, where we're 1:10:53.840 --> 1:10:56.479 co located in different spots, it was it was ideal 1:10:56.560 --> 1:10:58.200 to try and make a sound like we were in 1:10:58.200 --> 1:10:58.680 the same room. 1:10:58.760 --> 1:11:01.200 Yeah, this is true. And the way this is our 1:11:01.240 --> 1:11:03.400 general feeling of the show is we're not taking college 1:11:03.400 --> 1:11:06.840 football too seriously. We were nerdy about things. You know, 1:11:06.880 --> 1:11:08.960 we have people like Phil Steele on and we we 1:11:09.120 --> 1:11:11.599 do some deep diving. But we find that people respond 1:11:11.640 --> 1:11:14.800 most when we're weird. We're talking about robot surgeons that 1:11:14.960 --> 1:11:16.800 you know, I don't know what year we came up 1:11:16.800 --> 1:11:19.120 with clemsoning, but that that was the sort of attitude 1:11:19.160 --> 1:11:21.439 we took where we were coming up with terms and 1:11:21.560 --> 1:11:24.320 our general philosophy as a show. Because people are so 1:11:24.920 --> 1:11:27.240 hyper local about their own teams, their tribal about their 1:11:27.280 --> 1:11:29.519 own teams, and we're doing a national show, so we 1:11:29.640 --> 1:11:32.360 just want to be entertaining. We want to build a universe. 1:11:32.400 --> 1:11:34.519 I think both of us are fans of you know, 1:11:34.960 --> 1:11:37.360 the Simpsons and stuff like that. We're like, the star 1:11:37.439 --> 1:11:39.960 of the show is not the Simpson Family, it's Springfield. 1:11:40.200 --> 1:11:41.960 So the star of this show is not Oregon and 1:11:42.040 --> 1:11:44.920 Notre Dame. It's college football. It's the weirdness. It's the 1:11:44.920 --> 1:11:48.240 the NC State, the fat NC State fan waving his towel, 1:11:48.439 --> 1:11:51.120 like when they beat Florida State. It's excuse me, hefty 1:11:51.400 --> 1:11:55.680 or husky whatever. Yeah, but we're trying to tap into that, 1:11:55.760 --> 1:11:58.120 and you know, it's it's like edsbs there, you know, 1:11:58.560 --> 1:12:01.120 we try to emulate that sort of attitude where like 1:12:01.160 --> 1:12:03.759 everything is ridiculous, let's just have fun. It's college football 1:12:04.320 --> 1:12:10.280 and it resonates with people to whatever extent, and we 1:12:10.400 --> 1:12:12.800 have a really good People are emailing the show all 1:12:12.840 --> 1:12:15.920 the time. They're tweeting us. You know, Clemson loses a 1:12:16.000 --> 1:12:18.519 dumb game to an unranked team after impressing people, and 1:12:18.520 --> 1:12:20.679 we get a bunch of tweets Clemson and Clemson and clemsoning. 1:12:20.720 --> 1:12:23.920 Is this clemsing? So but we're getting these terms into 1:12:23.960 --> 1:12:28.160 the college football lexicon. And it's again no money, but 1:12:28.240 --> 1:12:33.599 there is something fulfilling about establishing a very tiny, tiny 1:12:33.600 --> 1:12:35.679 place in the college football media universe. 1:12:35.720 --> 1:12:38.280 And the other thing that we tried to do not 1:12:38.320 --> 1:12:42.160 only was to tap into that community, but we were 1:12:42.400 --> 1:12:47.320 very I thought strategic about how we tried to give 1:12:47.360 --> 1:12:51.240 people ownership of the show. And this is really the 1:12:51.320 --> 1:12:54.960 differentiator for us. There were other shows that were popping 1:12:55.000 --> 1:12:57.559 up around that point in time, but most of them 1:12:57.600 --> 1:13:01.200 were with bigger personalities and it was a lot of 1:13:01.280 --> 1:13:04.679 one way chatter. This is what we heard from this coach, 1:13:05.360 --> 1:13:08.160 This is what we heard from this player. There weren't 1:13:08.160 --> 1:13:11.479 any shows out there that answered email questions. There weren't 1:13:11.479 --> 1:13:15.080 any shows out there that had audio from fans on 1:13:15.200 --> 1:13:18.960 their program. This was something that we started figuring out 1:13:19.000 --> 1:13:22.040 how to pull in now known as the Reverbs. Yes, 1:13:22.080 --> 1:13:23.479 we've been doing the reverbs for a while. 1:13:23.600 --> 1:13:25.360 And Bill Simmons had his mail bag, and you know, 1:13:25.400 --> 1:13:27.080 there was stuff like that in written form, but not 1:13:27.160 --> 1:13:29.280 in audio in the same way, not an audio and 1:13:29.320 --> 1:13:31.640 certainly not in the college footballwork right, And that was 1:13:31.680 --> 1:13:35.600 the little area we tried to carve out for ourselves 1:13:36.160 --> 1:13:40.160 and so with the ESPN news hit that we got 1:13:41.000 --> 1:13:44.360 and with the continued success of the podcast. That was 1:13:44.360 --> 1:13:49.639 when Grantline so I had mentioned doing ESPNU pilots and 1:13:50.040 --> 1:13:52.519 for the show Unite. I don't know if people remember 1:13:52.520 --> 1:13:54.880 that show, good for them, but I shot a couple 1:13:54.880 --> 1:13:56.880 of pilots for that. In La met a lot of 1:13:57.040 --> 1:13:59.479 ESPN people. One of those people was Dave Jacobi, who 1:13:59.600 --> 1:14:01.960 is now a famous radio host now I guess. Yeah. 1:14:02.000 --> 1:14:05.400 He was just a development guy for ESPN when they 1:14:05.439 --> 1:14:09.000 had a development partner department and original content development department, 1:14:09.479 --> 1:14:11.720 and he was put in charge of podcasts. He left 1:14:11.880 --> 1:14:13.920 ESPN for Grantland and put in charge of podcasts, and 1:14:13.960 --> 1:14:16.400 I had known him. Ron Wexler was the other name 1:14:16.439 --> 1:14:18.920 who's now at NBC Sports, but he was one of 1:14:18.920 --> 1:14:21.439 the heads of ESPN Original content and they were looking 1:14:21.479 --> 1:14:25.240 for external podcast for this grant Land network of podcasts. 1:14:26.080 --> 1:14:28.720 Dave Jacoby contacted me and he said, and I had 1:14:28.760 --> 1:14:30.880 known him already, but he said, you know, would you 1:14:30.880 --> 1:14:33.439 be interested in doing this and having the cliverbal on Grantland? 1:14:33.439 --> 1:14:36.320 And I said, of course, absolutely, yeah. You know, didn't 1:14:36.360 --> 1:14:41.360 pay us again, American dollars did not pay us. But yeah, 1:14:41.600 --> 1:14:43.880 you could definitely make the case, and I will make 1:14:43.920 --> 1:14:47.479 the case having that exposure was worth more than any 1:14:47.479 --> 1:14:50.320 paycheck they could have cut to us. Yeah, we are. 1:14:50.640 --> 1:14:53.160 We had an ad in the New York Times. We had, 1:14:53.680 --> 1:14:56.799 you know, the influence of grant Land. Obviously Bill Simmons 1:14:56.840 --> 1:14:59.240 his huge show, we had. You know, this was at 1:14:59.240 --> 1:15:01.479 the same time that and Blazers joined Grantland. This is 1:15:01.479 --> 1:15:03.439 the same time that I think it was a year 1:15:03.479 --> 1:15:09.200 before maybe the Basketball Jones had joined Grantland. But it 1:15:09.439 --> 1:15:13.320 was by far our best exposure because all of a sudden, 1:15:13.439 --> 1:15:16.040 we're in this universe that is not super technology forward. 1:15:16.080 --> 1:15:18.559 College football is sort of an older media type thing, 1:15:19.000 --> 1:15:20.599 and then we get into grant Land and it's all 1:15:20.680 --> 1:15:23.599 just like people our age, new technology, fun writers, whatever, 1:15:23.960 --> 1:15:27.080 and it's our sensibility. And it really did a number. 1:15:27.080 --> 1:15:30.360 We were on like the Grantland Network podcast feed and 1:15:30.360 --> 1:15:33.240 then you could subscribe to the Solid Verbal separately, and 1:15:33.600 --> 1:15:35.160 it was just once a week. We were doing two 1:15:35.200 --> 1:15:37.400 shows a week, but our Sunday show was on grant Land. 1:15:37.760 --> 1:15:41.240 And did you edit that special for them or something 1:15:41.320 --> 1:15:42.639 like that? Yeah, I mean it was. 1:15:42.640 --> 1:15:46.400 Never cut in a special way. It was a different file, yes, 1:15:46.439 --> 1:15:50.240 said I provided to them. But ESPN and Dave Jacobe 1:15:50.280 --> 1:15:53.960 were really good about our content. We didn't have any 1:15:54.439 --> 1:15:56.880 shackles placed on us as always like this, yeah, this 1:15:57.000 --> 1:15:59.000 thing that people seem to have with ESPN, they're always 1:15:59.040 --> 1:16:01.040 all there, they're kelly you what to say that. 1:16:01.400 --> 1:16:03.320 Nobody ever told us what to say. They were so 1:16:03.400 --> 1:16:06.320 cool about it. Yeah, they would always like The only 1:16:06.360 --> 1:16:08.600 note that Jacoby would give us was be like, just 1:16:08.640 --> 1:16:11.000 get weirder, get fun like Nick Foles in a losing 1:16:11.040 --> 1:16:13.000 effort was something that happened at that point. He was like, 1:16:13.280 --> 1:16:16.120 lean into stuff like that. That's funny and weird and unique, 1:16:16.400 --> 1:16:18.680 and so we tried to. Yeah, that was that was 1:16:18.720 --> 1:16:21.800 the big thing. Nothing, if anything, ESPN and Grantland made 1:16:21.880 --> 1:16:24.720 us weirder, So it was it was very cool to 1:16:24.720 --> 1:16:27.519 see how that expanded our footprint. So that was twenty 1:16:27.600 --> 1:16:28.800 eleven and that was a big deal. 1:16:28.840 --> 1:16:32.000 That was pretty much the inflection point for us and 1:16:32.479 --> 1:16:36.639 from that point forward, and that's our fourth season, fourth season, 1:16:36.960 --> 1:16:39.839 we're going to be entering season ten. Yeah, but fourth 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:43.080 season is when we absolutely saw an uptick in the 1:16:43.080 --> 1:16:45.640 people who were being driven to our show, to our 1:16:45.680 --> 1:16:49.320 website are our following grew by a factor of like 1:16:49.880 --> 1:16:54.240 ten at that point, and we really felt like we 1:16:54.360 --> 1:16:57.680 were picking up steam with this thing, and so we 1:16:57.720 --> 1:17:03.280 did the season with Greatland. The calendar turns to twenty twelve. Yeah, 1:17:03.960 --> 1:17:05.400 you moved to New York City. 1:17:05.520 --> 1:17:08.400 I do so. Mentioned Spencer Hall before and so that 1:17:08.520 --> 1:17:12.200 pilot for a unite it. They wanted me to reach 1:17:12.240 --> 1:17:14.680 out to Spencer to hire him at ESPNU. I had 1:17:14.680 --> 1:17:17.400 a call with Spencer. Spencer said, oh, that's interesting, that's 1:17:17.400 --> 1:17:19.479 something to think about. But we're also doing our own 1:17:19.479 --> 1:17:21.920 thing here at Espanation, and you're on our list of 1:17:22.240 --> 1:17:25.200 potential people. And one I'm making a ton of cash, 1:17:25.720 --> 1:17:28.439 and two I don't know what the future is with ESPN. 1:17:29.040 --> 1:17:32.000 And three I'm sort of in like a personal rut 1:17:32.160 --> 1:17:35.080 in LA. I'm ready for something different. And so I 1:17:35.080 --> 1:17:36.960 interviewed with est Nation. I spoke with a number of people. 1:17:37.040 --> 1:17:40.559 I came out late November or excuse me, early November. 1:17:40.560 --> 1:17:44.880 It was the week right before nine to six LSU, Alabama, 1:17:45.560 --> 1:17:49.000 So that was like November fourth eleven. Yeah, and I 1:17:49.040 --> 1:17:52.240 came out here. I met everybody Espination and liked everybody 1:17:52.360 --> 1:17:56.280 was very cool. Really wanted the job. Finally figured out, 1:17:56.400 --> 1:17:58.680 finally was told. I got the job in late December 1:17:58.720 --> 1:18:01.600 and moved to New York in early twenty twelve. So 1:18:01.600 --> 1:18:05.000 that's February twenty twelve. I moved to New York and 1:18:05.400 --> 1:18:07.680 we're still we're year round. We're doing it once a week, 1:18:07.720 --> 1:18:10.200 twice a week, depending on guests. We're trying to get coaches. 1:18:10.479 --> 1:18:13.840 I don't have a couch. I'm broadcasting. This is totally true. 1:18:13.920 --> 1:18:15.800 I didn't have a couch. I was waiting for the 1:18:15.840 --> 1:18:18.280 new couch to arrive that I ordered from some discount 1:18:18.320 --> 1:18:20.720 couch warehouse in New York. I did the show. I've 1:18:20.760 --> 1:18:23.479 done at least three or four shows from a really 1:18:23.720 --> 1:18:28.040 grody New York apartment floor. I did shows that spring 1:18:28.120 --> 1:18:32.400 from a rat infested stairwell at the old Espianation Loft 1:18:32.479 --> 1:18:36.960 studio office. And you know, it's I think we started 1:18:37.200 --> 1:18:44.400 sponsorship in twenty twelve, but it was still like I 1:18:44.400 --> 1:18:46.040 don't know if at that point I was like what 1:18:46.120 --> 1:18:47.960 am I doing with this? Because there was so much 1:18:48.000 --> 1:18:51.800 positive But that's when I specifically remember, like I was 1:18:51.800 --> 1:18:56.559 working twelve hour days at this startup basically, and that's 1:18:56.560 --> 1:18:58.680 when I remember like the podcast started taking a lot 1:18:58.720 --> 1:19:01.920 out of me. That's I was like, this is great. 1:19:02.040 --> 1:19:05.679 I love doing it. But there were definitely shows around 1:19:05.760 --> 1:19:07.519 that time when I had moved to New York War 1:19:07.800 --> 1:19:10.519 I just twenty seven minutes and I was just like, 1:19:10.560 --> 1:19:11.320 I don't have anything. 1:19:11.400 --> 1:19:15.800 I'm totally gassed. And I was in a very similar place. 1:19:16.320 --> 1:19:18.680 You know, because you stay at a company for any 1:19:18.720 --> 1:19:21.000 point in time. At this point, I'm there eight years, 1:19:21.720 --> 1:19:24.479 you start getting more responsibility. You start working a little 1:19:24.479 --> 1:19:27.000 bit harder when you're there, not that you're not always 1:19:27.000 --> 1:19:29.000 trying to do a good job, but you just have 1:19:29.080 --> 1:19:32.280 more on your plate, and so you're coming home, you're 1:19:32.360 --> 1:19:35.400 tired from your work day. In your case, sometimes you're 1:19:35.400 --> 1:19:37.559 still at work, which was not always the most tenable 1:19:37.560 --> 1:19:40.320 situation for you. I'm sure a little bit uncomfortable because 1:19:40.320 --> 1:19:42.240 you're not supposed to be doing that stuff when you're 1:19:42.320 --> 1:19:46.240 at the office. And yeah, I'm wondering the same thing 1:19:46.560 --> 1:19:47.799 mostly in the off season. 1:19:48.320 --> 1:19:48.600 For me. 1:19:48.800 --> 1:19:51.320 During the season, you're just kind of like in the ocean, 1:19:51.360 --> 1:19:54.280 you go with it. But in the off season you 1:19:54.320 --> 1:19:56.799 start having these thoughts. And I think it's common across 1:19:57.360 --> 1:20:00.120 anyone who does anything on the internet. They'll tell you 1:20:01.479 --> 1:20:05.000 thinking about quitting thinking about how this affects me personally 1:20:05.800 --> 1:20:08.479 is not something that comes about like once in a 1:20:08.520 --> 1:20:11.880 blue moon. It's something that comes about fairly regularly. Yeah, 1:20:12.280 --> 1:20:15.920 and it certainly happened to me back then. It happens 1:20:15.960 --> 1:20:19.680 to me now sure all the time. Yeah, you start wondering, like, 1:20:19.680 --> 1:20:21.800 what kind of a personal toll has this taken on me? 1:20:22.479 --> 1:20:25.200 And we stuck with it. Yeah. The interesting thing is, 1:20:26.080 --> 1:20:28.880 at this point, the solid verbal is sort of grandfathered 1:20:28.880 --> 1:20:33.800 into our lives as the oldest relationship. This is It's like, 1:20:34.080 --> 1:20:37.519 my actual negotiation with Espanation included the fact that, like, 1:20:37.880 --> 1:20:40.360 I can do this podcast, this sports thing, even though 1:20:40.360 --> 1:20:43.240 it's not Espianation, and they were cool with it. And 1:20:43.800 --> 1:20:46.320 you know, I was with somebody for seven years in 1:20:46.479 --> 1:20:49.200 LA six and change years and broke up when we 1:20:49.280 --> 1:20:52.000 when I moved to New York, and you know, had 1:20:52.240 --> 1:20:55.000 just dealing with interpersonal things, dealing with this new job 1:20:55.080 --> 1:20:57.439 and you know, not too much in the way of 1:20:57.520 --> 1:20:59.280 job security. Still at this time, even though I moved 1:20:59.280 --> 1:21:02.280 across the country, there was just a lot on our plate. 1:21:03.000 --> 1:21:04.599 There was a lot in our plate. So the calendar 1:21:04.600 --> 1:21:07.400 turn us to twenty twelve. You moved to New York City. 1:21:07.439 --> 1:21:10.040 You start working for Espionation, you and I get an 1:21:10.040 --> 1:21:13.519 invite from our friend Andrew down at south By Southwest. 1:21:13.520 --> 1:21:17.760 They were starting SX Sports at the time to try 1:21:17.760 --> 1:21:20.519 and launch a sports track. He invites us to go 1:21:20.520 --> 1:21:24.120 and do a live podcast, which was cool. It wasn't 1:21:24.160 --> 1:21:25.920 like the best setting for a. 1:21:25.880 --> 1:21:29.120 Podcast, only open to south By people, only. 1:21:28.840 --> 1:21:31.680 Open to write a select gathering of people who could 1:21:31.680 --> 1:21:34.040 afford the ticket price, but it was a great experience. 1:21:34.640 --> 1:21:37.080 The only interesting anecdote from that is that there was 1:21:37.360 --> 1:21:42.240 a printing issue in the official program, and so people 1:21:42.320 --> 1:21:47.360 showed up hoping to get a how to podcast type 1:21:47.360 --> 1:21:51.839 of presentation from us, and we were under the impression 1:21:51.880 --> 1:21:54.280 that we're there to do a college football show. Now, 1:21:54.280 --> 1:21:57.120 if you ever have the luxury of doing a college 1:21:57.160 --> 1:21:59.400 football show, right right, if you ever have the luxury 1:21:59.439 --> 1:22:02.720 of doing a presentation is south By Southwest. It's not 1:22:02.800 --> 1:22:05.160 uncommon for people to like get up midway through and 1:22:05.200 --> 1:22:08.000 start walking out. Well, we knew something was wrong when 1:22:08.000 --> 1:22:10.920 people were walking out like two minutes in yep. And 1:22:10.960 --> 1:22:13.599 I'm trying not to react to this because they they 1:22:13.640 --> 1:22:15.840 say everyone who goes there says, don't worry if people 1:22:15.880 --> 1:22:19.559 walk out. Well, people are looking disgruntled and they're walking 1:22:19.560 --> 1:22:23.719 out quickly, and eventually some British girl kind of raises 1:22:23.720 --> 1:22:26.640 her hand and heckles the shit out of us. Like 1:22:26.800 --> 1:22:29.160 I was under the impression this was going to be 1:22:29.200 --> 1:22:31.200 a how to and you guys, I don't know what. 1:22:31.160 --> 1:22:36.080 College football is. Whoa, WHOA, what are we talking about here? Yeah? 1:22:36.080 --> 1:22:38.639 It was fun. We had a good time. It rained 1:22:38.720 --> 1:22:40.439 like crazy, but it was. It was one of those 1:22:40.720 --> 1:22:44.320 just cool experiences to put a as a notch on 1:22:44.360 --> 1:22:44.800 our belt. 1:22:44.880 --> 1:22:48.680 But we met Koba Yashi or we didn't meet him, 1:22:48.680 --> 1:22:50.519 but he was at a honky tonk that we were at. 1:22:51.160 --> 1:22:54.240 Spencer Hall was there. The guys from the starters were there, 1:22:54.400 --> 1:22:57.400 were networking. It was a good time. But again another 1:22:57.439 --> 1:22:59.920 thing that we can use as a reference also into 1:23:00.000 --> 1:23:03.280 twenty twelve through your connections at es BE Nation. We 1:23:03.400 --> 1:23:05.720 end up doing a piloted video show. Yeah, we did 1:23:05.720 --> 1:23:08.799 some video stuff on the weekend. Sometimes it was Saturday 1:23:08.800 --> 1:23:10.679 and then Sunday we decided to do our live show. 1:23:10.960 --> 1:23:13.639 So there was more back and forth in person, more 1:23:13.720 --> 1:23:17.439 video availability, just to get you some reps under our belts. 1:23:17.520 --> 1:23:20.680 So that was That was twenty twelve. And it was successful, 1:23:20.760 --> 1:23:23.519 and we started getting ads. We started getting ads, a 1:23:23.560 --> 1:23:26.799 little bit of cash, which was promising, and then an 1:23:27.160 --> 1:23:29.320 indication that we were going in the right direction. And 1:23:29.680 --> 1:23:32.200 I think we went into twenty thirteen in a good space. 1:23:32.240 --> 1:23:34.840 We end up in Miami for the National Championship Game, 1:23:35.400 --> 1:23:38.280 which was a great trip. That was Miami, that was 1:23:38.520 --> 1:23:41.719 the Notre Dame Alabama. I convince you not to spend 1:23:41.800 --> 1:23:45.000 a crap ton of money. I fell asleep about ten 1:23:45.040 --> 1:23:45.840 minutes into the game. 1:23:46.040 --> 1:23:49.439 You fall asleep a few minutes into the Notre Dame 1:23:49.479 --> 1:23:53.040 Alabama National Championship Game. We're all over South Beach in 1:23:53.080 --> 1:23:55.640 a very nerdy way. We do a podcast from a 1:23:55.680 --> 1:23:58.800 rental car. But the idea is in all of this, 1:23:59.280 --> 1:24:02.639 it's that we never said, you know what, why don't 1:24:02.640 --> 1:24:06.599 we not go to this National Championship game. We never said, 1:24:07.040 --> 1:24:09.120 you know, I just want to stay home. I just 1:24:09.160 --> 1:24:12.799 want to enjoy the holidays. It's that we just kept going. 1:24:12.840 --> 1:24:16.120 We kept hitting record, we kept uploading to the internet, 1:24:16.160 --> 1:24:18.519 we kept doing dumb stuff. The only thing and we 1:24:18.600 --> 1:24:19.880 got a lot of questions, and I know we're going 1:24:19.960 --> 1:24:21.679 to go over the questions because there's not that much 1:24:21.720 --> 1:24:23.240 to add from this point on, we've just grown and 1:24:23.280 --> 1:24:25.160 grown and grown, and we're now Espionation whatever. And I'm 1:24:25.200 --> 1:24:28.320 not skipping over. But there's a lot of questions about 1:24:28.760 --> 1:24:31.000 quitting the show. You it was ever a point I 1:24:31.080 --> 1:24:33.439 think that was probably twenty twelve, Not that we actively 1:24:33.479 --> 1:24:36.560 talked about stopping the show, but it was like, you know, 1:24:36.600 --> 1:24:38.280 a lot of people asking for advice, a lot of 1:24:38.280 --> 1:24:40.559 people saying I'm interested in podcasts and how you guys grew, 1:24:40.640 --> 1:24:42.639 a lot of people saying like, I have so many listeners, 1:24:43.040 --> 1:24:44.759 but how do I you know, I have one hundred listeners, 1:24:44.800 --> 1:24:46.960 how do I make it a thousand or whatever. The 1:24:47.000 --> 1:24:49.479 only thing we can tell you is you got to 1:24:49.560 --> 1:24:51.639 keep hitt and record, don't stop. You got to keep 1:24:51.640 --> 1:24:55.720 the record. And if there's anything disagreement wise that Tye 1:24:55.760 --> 1:25:00.599 and I have had is I'm never super not never okay. 1:25:00.920 --> 1:25:05.679 I am more unrealistic about how much I want to record. 1:25:05.800 --> 1:25:07.600 Through the years, I've always said, like, let's record a 1:25:07.640 --> 1:25:09.559 third show during the week, Let's do a Q and 1:25:09.600 --> 1:25:11.840 A show, Let's do a video show during the week 1:25:11.880 --> 1:25:13.720 where we and I don't even think about if I 1:25:13.760 --> 1:25:16.840 have the time. I just want to overwhelm the market 1:25:16.880 --> 1:25:19.960 with Ty Heildon Brand and Dan Rubinstein. And it hasn't 1:25:19.960 --> 1:25:23.840 even really been disagreements. It's been just you are more 1:25:23.840 --> 1:25:27.360 realistic about twice a week is good, and let's do 1:25:27.400 --> 1:25:29.120 it five days a week, Let's do it every day. 1:25:29.200 --> 1:25:31.160 I've never been a fan of the daily podcast yea 1:25:31.240 --> 1:25:33.679 for a Matt and I've always I've always been really 1:25:33.720 --> 1:25:34.320 skittish on that. 1:25:34.760 --> 1:25:37.040 Some people abide by it. I hate it, I like it, 1:25:37.360 --> 1:25:40.040 I hate it. I've never liked it, especially for what 1:25:40.120 --> 1:25:46.640 we do, but you know it, there's definitely something to 1:25:47.040 --> 1:25:48.680 establishing your own rhythm. 1:25:48.760 --> 1:25:49.680 And I don't care what it is. 1:25:49.960 --> 1:25:51.400 You know, if it's five days a week, if it's 1:25:51.439 --> 1:25:53.080 two days a week, one day a week, one day 1:25:53.080 --> 1:25:55.960 a month, one day year, whatever it is, be consistent 1:25:56.000 --> 1:25:59.439 with it. And it was around this twenty twelve twenty 1:25:59.479 --> 1:26:01.800 thirteen time frame. So we go to we go to 1:26:01.840 --> 1:26:05.160 Miami for the championship game. We had a weird interview 1:26:05.200 --> 1:26:09.719 with Lex Steel sure which you know, people have asked 1:26:09.720 --> 1:26:12.720 how did that come about? A friend got his contact information. 1:26:12.760 --> 1:26:15.200 Just like LinkedIn Slow Things very bizarre. 1:26:15.280 --> 1:26:17.960 I had a friend who found our little confusion between 1:26:17.960 --> 1:26:20.760 Phil and Lex to be funnier than anyone else. He 1:26:20.840 --> 1:26:23.160 got his contact info to me, we brought him on. 1:26:24.280 --> 1:26:25.720 He talked about, well, I have. 1:26:25.720 --> 1:26:26.360 This sound clip. 1:26:26.360 --> 1:26:28.400 I won't play the sound clip now because we're going 1:26:28.439 --> 1:26:30.519 to try and get to some of these questions here. 1:26:30.560 --> 1:26:33.840 But twenty thirteen again, all the while, we're still growing. 1:26:33.840 --> 1:26:36.479 We're not on Grantlin though. No, we're not a Grantlin though, 1:26:36.479 --> 1:26:39.920 because Grantlin made an editorial decision. It wasn't that they 1:26:39.920 --> 1:26:41.360 didn't like what we were doing, but they made an 1:26:41.560 --> 1:26:46.439 editorial decision to try and build from within. You also 1:26:46.520 --> 1:26:52.559 had this concurrent career with esp Nation and it was awkward, yeah, 1:26:53.120 --> 1:26:55.200 to try and across the streams, right. 1:26:55.280 --> 1:26:57.160 It's true. I was full time at Espanation and I 1:26:57.200 --> 1:26:59.320 would hear from Jacoby every once in a while, but 1:26:59.479 --> 1:27:01.320 it was just and when I asked him, he was like, yay, 1:27:01.320 --> 1:27:03.639 you're an explanation. We can't really move forward. 1:27:03.840 --> 1:27:06.760 It has been a tight rope to walk, Yeah, with 1:27:06.880 --> 1:27:11.200 you working for another sports media entity. Not so much 1:27:11.200 --> 1:27:13.400 for me working in corporate America because there's not much 1:27:13.439 --> 1:27:16.680 overlapped there, right. But for a long time we've had 1:27:16.720 --> 1:27:19.680 to try and find that balance. I have needed to 1:27:19.720 --> 1:27:24.000 be respectful of that, you know, and admittedly sometimes I've 1:27:24.000 --> 1:27:26.680 had a harder time than others as certain opportunities have 1:27:26.720 --> 1:27:27.679 presented themselves. 1:27:27.680 --> 1:27:30.720 But you know, ultimately, and I would say that's the 1:27:30.720 --> 1:27:33.720 other push pull. That's the push pull in terms of 1:27:33.720 --> 1:27:36.320 disagreements to the year i've you know, I was ambitious 1:27:36.320 --> 1:27:38.400 and still am ambitious about you know, I want to 1:27:38.400 --> 1:27:39.880 record every day, I want to do video every day. 1:27:39.880 --> 1:27:41.439 I want to do whatever I want to like, you know, 1:27:41.560 --> 1:27:45.400 be this inescapable entity in people's college football universes. But 1:27:45.840 --> 1:27:48.240 you've you know, you have the responsibilities that you have, 1:27:48.720 --> 1:27:51.680 and I have the responsibilities that I have. But in 1:27:51.960 --> 1:27:56.120 opportunities of like we've okay, so we have spoken with 1:27:56.200 --> 1:27:59.400 Fox Sports, we have spoken with CBS Sports, we have 1:27:59.479 --> 1:28:02.960 had conversations with people at ESPN. We've had conversations with 1:28:03.439 --> 1:28:07.120 an agent, and we've had conversations with people at streaming 1:28:07.160 --> 1:28:11.080 services and social media networks that are doing live and 1:28:11.200 --> 1:28:16.400 high quality streaming videos. And issues range from well that's 1:28:16.400 --> 1:28:19.599 sort of unrealistic to they want us to pay them 1:28:19.680 --> 1:28:24.080 for airtime or hearing back once every three or four weeks. 1:28:24.640 --> 1:28:28.559 And it's one of those things where we need to 1:28:28.600 --> 1:28:30.960 find the right fit. We need to find the right 1:28:32.439 --> 1:28:35.360 situation in which if you were to leave your corporate 1:28:35.439 --> 1:28:37.360 job that you would have full time, you would have 1:28:37.439 --> 1:28:40.479 health insurance, but I would have health insurance. And college 1:28:40.520 --> 1:28:42.280 football is seasonal. It's not like we could do this 1:28:42.320 --> 1:28:45.479 all year If somebody wants college football show all year round, okay, 1:28:45.560 --> 1:28:48.080 we'll have a conversation. Sure, But you know, we have 1:28:48.160 --> 1:28:50.200 to find the right place, and we're still doing that. 1:28:50.240 --> 1:28:53.759 We've had a lot of strong interest from a couple places, 1:28:53.800 --> 1:28:57.519 but if the fit isn't right, if they want to 1:28:57.600 --> 1:28:59.920 pair us with other people and it would hurt the show, 1:29:00.479 --> 1:29:02.799 it's not We're We're fortunate to be in a position 1:29:02.840 --> 1:29:06.679 where we don't have to accept offers that don't feel 1:29:06.720 --> 1:29:09.200 right to us. So a lot of people have asked 1:29:09.200 --> 1:29:12.320 that we are looking, always looking to bring the show 1:29:12.840 --> 1:29:16.559 into a place that we can grow it in a 1:29:15.479 --> 1:29:17.599 an organic way. 1:29:18.160 --> 1:29:20.439 So I'm going to run through a couple of the 1:29:20.479 --> 1:29:23.559 major highlights here. Wait, let's seeah over the next couple 1:29:23.560 --> 1:29:25.960 of years. So that that's kind of the origin story. 1:29:26.040 --> 1:29:30.200 But you know, uh, twenty thirteen, we brought on Taylor 1:29:30.240 --> 1:29:32.519 as our intern. He's been having us for a long time. 1:29:32.640 --> 1:29:33.480 Reverbs. 1:29:34.640 --> 1:29:37.759 Twenty fourteen, we went to the Rose Bowl, the National 1:29:37.800 --> 1:29:40.800 Championship at Larda House. We did our hot tub show, 1:29:41.680 --> 1:29:44.920 excuse me, the Jacuzzi Show with Spencer and Ryan. Ryan 1:29:44.960 --> 1:29:46.639 got chlorine poisoning because we were. 1:29:46.560 --> 1:29:50.680 In got deeper dehydrated in the jacuzzi for like three hours. 1:29:51.360 --> 1:29:53.520 How long was that show? So we did a podcast 1:29:53.680 --> 1:29:56.840 from the jacuzzi. We had four microphones set up. Yeah, 1:29:56.880 --> 1:29:59.639 you miked up the jacuzz miked up the jacuz We'll 1:29:59.640 --> 1:30:03.120 put in some audio in post here, but miked it up. 1:30:03.120 --> 1:30:05.000 It was a three hour show. Yeah, it is a 1:30:05.040 --> 1:30:06.400 three hour show that we did, and I think we 1:30:06.439 --> 1:30:09.720 cut it up into two distinct parts. But that's I mean, 1:30:09.720 --> 1:30:12.439 that's sort of indicative of what and who we are. 1:30:12.920 --> 1:30:15.519 Like if you listen to the Paul Fine Bomb Show, 1:30:15.560 --> 1:30:18.440 if you listen to whoever they're taking calls, it's straightforward, 1:30:18.520 --> 1:30:21.360 it's whatever. We're doing shows from Jacuzi's. We're doing shows 1:30:21.360 --> 1:30:22.000 with Lex Steele. 1:30:22.479 --> 1:30:26.880 We're trying weird stuff that no one else is necessarily 1:30:26.920 --> 1:30:27.400 trying to do. 1:30:27.479 --> 1:30:29.880 Yeah, we're doing Google hangouts for my parents. Like it 1:30:30.000 --> 1:30:32.720 was just really really weird stuff. If there is a 1:30:32.800 --> 1:30:35.760 technology platform out there we are, we are on it. 1:30:35.880 --> 1:30:38.439 So twenty fourteen, the big thing was hanging out at 1:30:38.479 --> 1:30:40.200 your place in Rose Bull. You get to meet your family, 1:30:40.600 --> 1:30:42.920 hang out at the house that you grew up in. 1:30:43.439 --> 1:30:46.160 We do a bunch of shows out there. Twenty fifteen, 1:30:46.200 --> 1:30:48.960 we go back to south By Southwest again, did a 1:30:49.000 --> 1:30:53.479 podcast with Bruce and Spencer. Yeah, hung out of the 1:30:53.520 --> 1:30:55.680 four seasons, got to meet Bill Simmons, tell them that 1:30:55.680 --> 1:30:59.880 we were Yeah, this podcast network. You employed us but 1:31:00.000 --> 1:31:02.360 didn't pay us, And I mean that was it was. 1:31:02.439 --> 1:31:04.240 It was awesome, It was all cool. It was cool. 1:31:04.280 --> 1:31:07.320 We also in twenty fifteen announced kind of this loose 1:31:07.360 --> 1:31:10.479 partnership with Espionation, which people have also asked us about. 1:31:11.120 --> 1:31:13.760 We're not part of Espianation. We've gotten tweets by the way, No, 1:31:13.840 --> 1:31:16.360 we're not part of Espianation. It's a distribution deal. It's 1:31:16.400 --> 1:31:18.439 just you know, I work here. We all like each other, 1:31:18.600 --> 1:31:20.600 let's all. You know. We put our show on the 1:31:21.040 --> 1:31:24.200 Chorus platform. We've gotten tweets of like, I don't know, 1:31:24.240 --> 1:31:26.160 you guys just start the same. Since you went to Espenation, 1:31:27.320 --> 1:31:29.960 let me tell you about how many notes I've gotten 1:31:30.040 --> 1:31:34.600 about the contents of this show. Positive, negative, wondering if 1:31:34.640 --> 1:31:40.639 it's still happening. Zero notes. I've gotten zero opinions about 1:31:40.680 --> 1:31:42.360 what we're doing here and what we should or shouldn't 1:31:42.400 --> 1:31:45.320 be doing. We it's full autonomy. So if we're not 1:31:45.439 --> 1:31:47.840 as good as we used to be because we have 1:31:47.920 --> 1:31:51.360 a distribution deal with Espanation, it's only our fault. It's 1:31:51.640 --> 1:31:54.240 entirely it's we are just bad now. 1:31:55.120 --> 1:31:57.720 Also started a newsletter in twenty fifteen and oh, by 1:31:57.760 --> 1:31:58.719 the way, I gotten married. 1:31:58.920 --> 1:32:01.760 Yeah, you got married in twenty fifteen. Apparently people are 1:32:01.800 --> 1:32:04.000 still upset at me for questioning the food at your wedding. 1:32:05.680 --> 1:32:09.240 It wasn't the food at the wedding. The comment, the 1:32:09.280 --> 1:32:12.080 comment that got people yeah, was not the food at 1:32:12.080 --> 1:32:12.800 the wedding. Uh huh. 1:32:12.880 --> 1:32:15.120 The comment that you made was that the food at 1:32:15.120 --> 1:32:18.120 the wedding was good. I didn't feel so good the 1:32:18.120 --> 1:32:20.840 morning after. Really, that was the comment. 1:32:20.960 --> 1:32:22.880 That was the comment. Why you're only bringing this up now? 1:32:22.960 --> 1:32:25.439 That was a comment that did people in. Wasn't the music. 1:32:25.479 --> 1:32:27.160 That's probably my fault. Wasn't the food. 1:32:27.760 --> 1:32:30.120 It was that you implied that maybe got me sick 1:32:30.160 --> 1:32:31.679 at the wedding, got you sick? 1:32:31.920 --> 1:32:34.040 That's fine. I make a lot of bad food decisions, 1:32:34.040 --> 1:32:35.920 so it was probably mine. But everybody still loves you. Yeh. Yeah, 1:32:35.920 --> 1:32:38.960 I'm mostly playing this up for show, but sure. We 1:32:39.040 --> 1:32:41.560 did a live show in twenty sixteen at the National Championship. 1:32:41.600 --> 1:32:45.080 So we're originally with a company called podcast one for advertising, 1:32:45.320 --> 1:32:47.000 and then we found a company that was a better 1:32:47.000 --> 1:32:49.519 fit for us in mid Roll Midroll, And we've been 1:32:49.560 --> 1:32:51.840 with and have been very thrilled with mid Roll since 1:32:51.880 --> 1:32:55.479 and they'd been great. They provide us with advertisements and 1:32:55.520 --> 1:32:57.920 whatever and a lot of the like when Ty and 1:32:57.960 --> 1:33:02.040 I endorsed the products, we have turned down products like 1:33:02.160 --> 1:33:05.280 gambling sites and financial advisors and stuff like that, just 1:33:05.320 --> 1:33:07.680 like we're not going to try to convince people to 1:33:07.720 --> 1:33:10.519 trust this weird startup we know nothing about with their money. 1:33:10.720 --> 1:33:13.200 So when we endorse things like, for instance, do we 1:33:13.200 --> 1:33:15.000 have a sponsor for this show? Is this a good 1:33:15.040 --> 1:33:17.200 proper cloth? Yeah, we have proper cloth. I wore a 1:33:17.240 --> 1:33:19.280 proper cloth shirt yesterday and it was super It fit 1:33:19.360 --> 1:33:22.240 me really really well, and I'm going to wear it 1:33:22.280 --> 1:33:24.840 undersuits and I don't know anything about suit shirts, and 1:33:24.840 --> 1:33:27.680 they said that, hey, here's a suit shirt that's going 1:33:27.720 --> 1:33:29.240 to fit you really well. Would you like to try 1:33:29.280 --> 1:33:29.439 it on. 1:33:29.720 --> 1:33:33.800 I say yes, and it worked, And the mattress that 1:33:34.000 --> 1:33:36.880 I got for free has cured me of whatever woes 1:33:36.920 --> 1:33:39.400 I had going on physically when I was asleep on 1:33:39.439 --> 1:33:40.160 the old mattress. 1:33:40.640 --> 1:33:45.240 So we try to like, actually, I'm wearing an MVMT 1:33:45.400 --> 1:33:46.439 watch as we speak. 1:33:46.720 --> 1:33:50.080 We try to actually use these things before we endorse them. 1:33:50.120 --> 1:33:53.719 But mid roll has been great, and as the show 1:33:53.760 --> 1:33:57.600 has gotten bigger, yeah, we have made more in the 1:33:57.640 --> 1:33:58.479 way of ad. 1:33:58.280 --> 1:33:59.519 Revenue off this. Now. 1:33:59.520 --> 1:34:02.519 People all always ask me specifically, well, when are you 1:34:02.560 --> 1:34:04.360 going to quit the mysterious day job to do this? 1:34:04.880 --> 1:34:07.599 I don't know if that will ever happen right right now, 1:34:08.080 --> 1:34:10.639 we do well enough like it would sort of be 1:34:10.800 --> 1:34:12.240 a pretty good part time job. 1:34:12.840 --> 1:34:15.599 Yeah, it's a nice for one person. For one person, 1:34:15.640 --> 1:34:18.640 it's a nice part time or like a chunk on 1:34:18.720 --> 1:34:22.360 top of your income right now. But by no means 1:34:22.439 --> 1:34:23.800 are we ready to leave. 1:34:24.120 --> 1:34:27.679 It is not something that would be a financially sound decision, 1:34:28.240 --> 1:34:31.800 especially for both of us now that we are both married. Yes, 1:34:32.200 --> 1:34:34.760 both have to think about someone else beyond ourselves. So, 1:34:35.320 --> 1:34:36.639 but that was twenty fifteen. 1:34:36.760 --> 1:34:39.360 Although I'm always looking to become a kept boy, right right, 1:34:39.400 --> 1:34:40.519 I've always looked for for that. 1:34:40.680 --> 1:34:42.880 Yeah, twenty sixteen, excuse me, So we did. We did 1:34:42.880 --> 1:34:45.479 a live show at the National Championship. We did our 1:34:45.600 --> 1:34:48.679 Verbie's megaproduction, which I'm still very proud of, so great. 1:34:48.800 --> 1:34:50.599 Not actually at Radio City Music Hall. 1:34:50.680 --> 1:34:53.439 There took weeks, three weeks to be exact, to try 1:34:53.439 --> 1:34:57.360 and mix that guy up. We did an Espianation radio 1:34:57.400 --> 1:35:00.960 show every morning, every Saturday morning. It was on the 1:35:01.080 --> 1:35:05.760 Espianation radio waves. After Espimation acquired Yahoo Sports Radio gave 1:35:05.840 --> 1:35:08.680 us exposure to a different audience. And then there's all 1:35:08.680 --> 1:35:10.439 the stuff that we did over the last year. You know, 1:35:10.439 --> 1:35:12.920 we did a first paid live show at hill Country 1:35:13.000 --> 1:35:17.439 Chicken in New York City. You got married, and we're 1:35:17.479 --> 1:35:20.559 going to be doing another live show in the coming 1:35:20.560 --> 1:35:26.799 week plural which we're at time of recording, yet to announce. 1:35:27.200 --> 1:35:29.360 But we've got our show on Spotify. We're going to 1:35:29.439 --> 1:35:31.240 do a new logo, we're going to do new site. 1:35:31.040 --> 1:35:35.280 We're gonna do some new shirts. Is there. Okay, So 1:35:36.360 --> 1:35:38.479 not to cut you off, but the same somewhat related 1:35:39.400 --> 1:35:41.680 people want to know when you felt or when we 1:35:41.800 --> 1:35:44.080 felt that, you know, oh my god, this person is 1:35:44.080 --> 1:35:46.960 listening or these people are listening, or wow, we've really 1:35:47.000 --> 1:35:49.479 sort of made it? Is there? Like, is it the 1:35:49.479 --> 1:35:52.040 the IOWA on game Day thing? Is it? You know 1:35:52.080 --> 1:35:52.639 what is it? 1:35:52.640 --> 1:35:54.719 It's been, It's been a couple of things. The video 1:35:54.720 --> 1:35:58.240 on ESPN News to me was confirmation that, like you said, 1:35:58.800 --> 1:36:00.680 we had our finger on the pulse of what was 1:36:00.680 --> 1:36:03.880 funny and what was Yeah, getting our little meme on 1:36:03.960 --> 1:36:06.840 game Day wasn't a feather in the cap, you know, 1:36:06.880 --> 1:36:10.120 It wasn't any kind of great source of validation again, 1:36:10.360 --> 1:36:14.639 more just affirmation that, hey, I broader audience really does 1:36:14.680 --> 1:36:17.519 find what we're doing funny. The big thing for me 1:36:18.000 --> 1:36:19.920 was having our show as an ad in the New 1:36:20.000 --> 1:36:21.080 York Times. 1:36:21.520 --> 1:36:22.880 Yeah, that was that was great. 1:36:23.240 --> 1:36:27.160 I have that ad cut out and to this day 1:36:27.200 --> 1:36:28.880 I'm still trying to frame it because it's kind of 1:36:28.880 --> 1:36:31.120 oddly shaped, but yeah, it's pinned to a. 1:36:31.120 --> 1:36:32.879 Bulletin board in my old bedroom. 1:36:33.200 --> 1:36:35.839 To me, that was like the ultimate source of validation. 1:36:36.600 --> 1:36:38.960 And that was the moment when we started doing things 1:36:38.960 --> 1:36:42.920 with Grantlin, when we started getting you know, more a 1:36:42.960 --> 1:36:45.960 sense for who was out there. That to me, I 1:36:46.000 --> 1:36:48.360 think was a bigger deal than any one person emailing 1:36:48.400 --> 1:36:51.120 and I'm always sort of taken by any media member 1:36:51.479 --> 1:36:54.519 that listens to us. For me, I still feel like 1:36:54.560 --> 1:36:57.320 we're just two guys like college football. I don't consider 1:36:57.320 --> 1:36:58.880 myself an expert. I know you don't either. 1:36:59.000 --> 1:37:01.559 I do. I definitely do consider myself an expert. How 1:37:01.640 --> 1:37:01.960 dare you? 1:37:02.120 --> 1:37:04.160 But I mean, you know what I mean, Like, I 1:37:04.320 --> 1:37:09.240 take way more from the guy in Afghanistan who's like 1:37:09.320 --> 1:37:11.920 on the front lines it's so cool and emails us 1:37:11.920 --> 1:37:14.080 and says, hey, man, I listen to you guys when 1:37:14.120 --> 1:37:17.360 I'm out of patrol than I do any media members 1:37:17.640 --> 1:37:19.960 do that by the way, Yeah right, all right, pay attention. 1:37:20.400 --> 1:37:24.200 But I mean that to me is really meaningful. And 1:37:24.640 --> 1:37:26.719 I don't care so much about who listens. I care 1:37:26.800 --> 1:37:30.599 more about how we affect the people that actually do listen. 1:37:31.120 --> 1:37:33.880 And so whether you're out on patrol or you're out 1:37:33.920 --> 1:37:36.840 like Stephen Godfrey cutting his grass, or if you put 1:37:36.920 --> 1:37:38.880 us on in the same room as your child who's 1:37:38.880 --> 1:37:42.360 trying to fall asleep, I am fascinated by those little 1:37:42.360 --> 1:37:44.920 stories about how we connect with people more so than 1:37:44.920 --> 1:37:46.160 I am the actual people. 1:37:46.520 --> 1:37:50.920 So yeah, I the things that mean the most to 1:37:50.960 --> 1:37:53.400 me as far our reach with the show is like 1:37:53.479 --> 1:37:55.720 when I get stopped on the street. There was a 1:37:55.720 --> 1:37:57.680 guy who took off his earbuds on the train the 1:37:57.720 --> 1:38:00.679 New York City Subway who saw me on the train 1:38:00.920 --> 1:38:02.880 took off his earbuds and said, I'm listening to you 1:38:03.000 --> 1:38:05.880 right now, which is weird but at the same time 1:38:06.000 --> 1:38:08.360 so cool. It was so cool when Katie the Kapper 1:38:09.200 --> 1:38:12.280 Katie works at Vox Media. She came on our show 1:38:12.280 --> 1:38:15.639 a couple of times and she was at her boy 1:38:15.760 --> 1:38:19.679 her then boyfriend now husband's place with his roommate and 1:38:19.960 --> 1:38:22.160 they were listening to the show while they were cooking, 1:38:22.479 --> 1:38:25.280 and Katie was like, Oh, that's Dan. I was on 1:38:25.320 --> 1:38:27.240 that show. I was on that podcast. And he said 1:38:27.280 --> 1:38:29.360 what do you mean. He was like, and Katie was like, Oh, 1:38:29.360 --> 1:38:32.639 I'm Katie the Kapper and that blew his mind. That 1:38:32.680 --> 1:38:36.519 blue Like those are moments where I'm like, we have infiltrated, yeah, 1:38:36.680 --> 1:38:38.599 and it's so cool to hear that, Like we're part 1:38:38.600 --> 1:38:41.080 of people's lives, whether you said, like serving overseas or 1:38:41.120 --> 1:38:44.320 just like walking around New York. The military one gets 1:38:44.360 --> 1:38:46.920 me and you know, I don't have any We've heard 1:38:46.920 --> 1:38:49.439 from coaches that listen that that's like so weird to me, 1:38:49.520 --> 1:38:50.160 but it's cool. 1:38:50.240 --> 1:38:53.320 Yeah, I mean I don't have any connection otherwise to 1:38:53.400 --> 1:38:55.640 the military. Everyone's thankful for the church and all that, 1:38:55.680 --> 1:38:57.840 but especially Cam Newton of course. 1:38:57.960 --> 1:38:58.439 Yeah. 1:38:58.479 --> 1:39:01.439 But you know, I for some reason that that kind 1:39:01.520 --> 1:39:04.920 of connection has always been something like wow, And whenever 1:39:05.040 --> 1:39:07.160 I have these thoughts of like, maybe we should pack 1:39:07.240 --> 1:39:09.760 this in right, maybe maybe I'm maybe I'm doing this 1:39:09.800 --> 1:39:12.800 for not it's stuff like that that I that I 1:39:12.840 --> 1:39:15.080 think of when we did our live show, our first 1:39:15.120 --> 1:39:20.000 live show back in January. The connection that we apparently 1:39:20.040 --> 1:39:23.760 have to our audience is not something that I think 1:39:23.800 --> 1:39:26.040 we're really exposed to a whole lot. When we're doing 1:39:26.080 --> 1:39:29.280 this from your dark corner at the office or my 1:39:29.920 --> 1:39:34.040 dark corner, my makeshift studio in my townhouse back in 1:39:34.040 --> 1:39:37.080 in Allentown. That kind of thing, to me is really 1:39:37.120 --> 1:39:40.240 redeeming and it's really validation that that we're onto something. 1:39:40.800 --> 1:39:44.120 But it is a question that I think keeps recurring. 1:39:45.600 --> 1:39:48.200 Where does the show go? Where does the show go? 1:39:48.240 --> 1:39:52.519 Where do you see the show going in the next year, 1:39:53.000 --> 1:39:55.439 two years, three years, four years, five, I don't know 1:39:55.479 --> 1:39:57.560 how many years. I don't know if either one of 1:39:57.640 --> 1:40:00.320 us can answer that, But where where is it that 1:40:01.080 --> 1:40:03.519 you hope to take this now? And how often do 1:40:03.560 --> 1:40:05.360 you think about whether or not this is something we 1:40:05.360 --> 1:40:06.080 should keep doing. 1:40:06.680 --> 1:40:08.800 I never doubt it anymore. I want to keep it. 1:40:08.920 --> 1:40:11.200 It's just fun for me. It's it's not really too 1:40:11.240 --> 1:40:13.160 much work for me. But you do more back end stuff. 1:40:13.160 --> 1:40:14.880 I do more of, like the booking of guests and 1:40:14.920 --> 1:40:16.920 the networking to get people on the show, and figuring 1:40:16.920 --> 1:40:19.640 out social media, social media shops, and like coming up 1:40:19.680 --> 1:40:21.240 with the weird games we play in the off season. 1:40:21.280 --> 1:40:23.240 That's a lot of what I do, but I obviously 1:40:23.240 --> 1:40:26.320 contributes a ton to that as well. I would like 1:40:26.400 --> 1:40:28.280 to keep doing live shows. I'd like to keep doing 1:40:28.320 --> 1:40:30.960 a couple of shows during the season, every show a week, 1:40:31.200 --> 1:40:33.760 you know, a weekly show during the off season. I'd 1:40:33.800 --> 1:40:35.799 like to figure out ways in which we can extend 1:40:35.840 --> 1:40:38.880 the brand, whether it's you know, merchandising, whatever, the shirts 1:40:38.880 --> 1:40:40.840 that we create, I design all of those. If you 1:40:40.840 --> 1:40:43.960 don't like it, I apologize, but and then you know, 1:40:44.040 --> 1:40:46.400 figuring out We've spoken to a number of production companies, 1:40:46.400 --> 1:40:48.320 not just networks, but production companies that come up with 1:40:48.360 --> 1:40:50.799 shows that we really like in sports and outside of sports, 1:40:50.840 --> 1:40:53.280 and they're enthusiastic about the show, so figuring out some 1:40:53.320 --> 1:40:56.440 sort of video or TV platform. We've had these opportunities 1:40:56.560 --> 1:40:58.400 to figure out the right fit and to go from 1:40:58.439 --> 1:41:01.880 there and grow the footprint the show that way. Yeah, 1:41:01.920 --> 1:41:02.840 what about your TI. 1:41:03.120 --> 1:41:07.559 The question that I have gotten more than any other 1:41:08.120 --> 1:41:10.280 has been a how do you get the audit quality? 1:41:10.800 --> 1:41:12.920 Which we could talk about what is talk about that? 1:41:13.320 --> 1:41:16.880 With the questions, Yeah, but when are you quitting the 1:41:17.320 --> 1:41:20.320 day job? Why do you still work the mysterious day job? 1:41:20.360 --> 1:41:23.519 The short answer is you need the money. The longer 1:41:23.560 --> 1:41:26.120 answer is that I actually like the day job. I 1:41:26.240 --> 1:41:29.320 like the people I work with. If the opportunity ever 1:41:29.360 --> 1:41:33.800 presented itself that I could focus entirely on this, I'd 1:41:33.880 --> 1:41:34.360 love to do that. 1:41:34.439 --> 1:41:36.320 Yeah, when I was a little kid, he went to 1:41:36.400 --> 1:41:37.519 IT camp. That's right. 1:41:37.560 --> 1:41:39.559 I'd be crazy. We'd be crazy not to try and 1:41:39.560 --> 1:41:42.040 pursue it. It's been such a huge chunk of our lives. 1:41:42.040 --> 1:41:47.840 At this point, I think we're very much on the 1:41:47.840 --> 1:41:50.680 same page about where we'd like to take it. There 1:41:50.680 --> 1:41:53.759 are definitely times when I lose patients in that process 1:41:53.880 --> 1:41:55.519 because it's a lot of hurry up and wait. 1:41:56.840 --> 1:41:58.720 I think we can do it. I know we can 1:41:58.760 --> 1:42:00.800 do it, and I think personally, I've learned a lot 1:42:00.840 --> 1:42:04.559 from this journey. When we had the opportunity to be 1:42:04.640 --> 1:42:08.200 part of Grantland. If I go back and listen, I 1:42:08.320 --> 1:42:13.080 paid way closer attention to things like hardcore stats than 1:42:13.120 --> 1:42:15.880 I do now. I kind of tightened up knowing that 1:42:15.920 --> 1:42:18.439 there was a bigger audience that was paying attention to 1:42:18.479 --> 1:42:23.439 what we were doing. Now, in retrospect, I think I 1:42:23.439 --> 1:42:25.679 could have done a much better job, and I think 1:42:25.720 --> 1:42:29.200 I'm better at doing this because of that, knowing what 1:42:29.200 --> 1:42:32.320 that experience was like. And I think if an opportunity 1:42:32.360 --> 1:42:35.679 ever comes well to present itself where we can turn 1:42:35.720 --> 1:42:37.960 this into a video thing or a bigger audio thing, 1:42:38.000 --> 1:42:40.719 I don't know, I think I'll have a better sense 1:42:40.720 --> 1:42:43.720 for what will work and what won't work. So I 1:42:43.760 --> 1:42:47.639 think I am probably less apt to say let's pack 1:42:47.680 --> 1:42:51.040 it in now than I would have been then, just 1:42:51.080 --> 1:42:53.479 because I feel better about where we're at as a 1:42:53.600 --> 1:42:57.760 show given past experience. But it is hard sometimes it is. 1:42:57.840 --> 1:43:01.080 It's still hard, it's still grind. I think now it's 1:43:01.080 --> 1:43:03.400 flipped a little bit, and it's harder during the season 1:43:03.479 --> 1:43:04.639 for me personally than. 1:43:04.560 --> 1:43:05.479 It is in the off season. 1:43:05.840 --> 1:43:08.280 Because the off season, we've developed a rhythm, we know 1:43:08.360 --> 1:43:11.400 what works, we know the kinds of thematic shows that 1:43:11.439 --> 1:43:15.080 people like to listen to, and it's more muscle memory 1:43:15.080 --> 1:43:17.599 for us. Not that we're mailing it in in any 1:43:17.640 --> 1:43:20.240 of those off season shows, right, We're absolutely not speak 1:43:20.240 --> 1:43:23.920 for yourself. But during the season it's a grind. You 1:43:23.960 --> 1:43:27.639 miss parties, you miss well if you do do doing 1:43:27.680 --> 1:43:29.920 things during the week, and if you don't miss parties 1:43:29.960 --> 1:43:32.679 during the season, you miss games, you miss game, which 1:43:32.720 --> 1:43:33.360 hurts the show. 1:43:33.439 --> 1:43:34.840 Yeah, so it's both of us. 1:43:34.920 --> 1:43:37.960 Yeah, it's a constant balancing act for us during the season. 1:43:38.439 --> 1:43:42.240 And there's definitely a point every year around week seven 1:43:43.000 --> 1:43:44.280 where I'm like, shit. 1:43:44.680 --> 1:43:47.320 That there's another at nine weeks left? How am I? 1:43:47.400 --> 1:43:48.559 How am I going to do this? How am I 1:43:48.560 --> 1:43:50.560 going to sell this to my wife? Yeah? 1:43:50.479 --> 1:43:54.479 Who is the ultimate good soldier for understanding yeah about 1:43:54.479 --> 1:43:58.960 this And it has always been incredibly supportive. Mom h 1:43:59.040 --> 1:44:02.639 always asks the quot question like if you have kids someday, 1:44:02.760 --> 1:44:04.880 how's that going to factor in? I don't have answers 1:44:04.920 --> 1:44:05.320 to any of those. 1:44:05.520 --> 1:44:08.040 You would be the first podcaster to have children, the 1:44:08.280 --> 1:44:11.400 very first even find a spouse that's the sequel to 1:44:11.479 --> 1:44:14.479 Children of Men, Children of Podcaster. So it's a balancing 1:44:14.520 --> 1:44:17.840 act and it's something that each and every year is 1:44:18.240 --> 1:44:22.840 a kind of unchartered frontier in that you have to 1:44:22.880 --> 1:44:26.000 reinvent ways to make it all come together. But I'm 1:44:26.080 --> 1:44:28.200 confident in what we have. I like what we have. 1:44:28.360 --> 1:44:30.800 But that's the difference. That is the difference that we've 1:44:30.880 --> 1:44:32.680 established with our show and other shows. Not that we 1:44:32.800 --> 1:44:35.080 are better broadcasters, not that we're funnier, not that that 1:44:35.120 --> 1:44:38.920 we know more stats, we hit record more often. That 1:44:39.080 --> 1:44:41.160 is the thing, like we feel, and like there are 1:44:41.200 --> 1:44:45.000 there have been times where we get feedback that people 1:44:45.040 --> 1:44:46.800 are so happy that when they go to work on 1:44:46.840 --> 1:44:49.400 Monday that our show's already there. And we used to 1:44:49.439 --> 1:44:51.880 do recap shows on Monday. Now we get up early 1:44:51.920 --> 1:44:56.040 on Sundays. And so yes, we make money doing it, 1:44:56.160 --> 1:44:58.120 and but we did this before. We made money, and 1:44:58.800 --> 1:45:00.840 we're not doing it solely to make the money. No 1:45:00.880 --> 1:45:05.720 we're not. But I'm just saying it's it doesn't you know, 1:45:05.760 --> 1:45:08.120 waking up. I wake up at six am on Sundays, 1:45:08.160 --> 1:45:09.920 both for the day job and for the solid verbal 1:45:10.000 --> 1:45:13.200 to do three or four hours of research. And it's 1:45:13.280 --> 1:45:17.040 both because I feel when I'm doing a show and 1:45:17.080 --> 1:45:19.200 I'm not prepared, it feels terrible, and I know I'm 1:45:19.200 --> 1:45:22.960 putting out a bad product and it's happened. So it 1:45:23.080 --> 1:45:27.200 feels really good that our show is out twenty eight 1:45:27.240 --> 1:45:30.080 hours before and it's not really competitors because we're friends 1:45:30.080 --> 1:45:31.000 with all of these people. 1:45:31.640 --> 1:45:35.280 This is the thing that I think gets lost in translation. 1:45:36.560 --> 1:45:38.680 Maybe because you and I play off each other as 1:45:38.720 --> 1:45:41.120 well as we do, and we try to put together 1:45:41.160 --> 1:45:41.880 a friendly show. 1:45:42.040 --> 1:45:43.240 Yeah, we don't. 1:45:43.240 --> 1:45:45.519 You're right, I don't look at any other college football 1:45:45.520 --> 1:45:47.719 show and I don't care if it's a big show. Yeah, 1:45:47.760 --> 1:45:49.760 like any of the ones your espionation. I like all 1:45:49.760 --> 1:45:50.200 those guys. 1:45:50.280 --> 1:45:52.880 Yeah, full Cast, the Shutdown Forecast. They're funnier than. 1:45:52.760 --> 1:45:55.840 We All of those guys we've had on our show, 1:45:55.840 --> 1:45:58.080 and we are more than happy to promote their show. 1:45:58.120 --> 1:46:01.800 Our philosophy has always been the rising tide lists all boats. 1:46:02.080 --> 1:46:04.040 You know, We've been fighting this battle for so long 1:46:04.160 --> 1:46:07.800 just to get recognition for the word podcast. To have 1:46:07.960 --> 1:46:11.400 more of them, have more good ones of them is 1:46:11.439 --> 1:46:15.360 a good thing for us ultimately. So I've never had 1:46:15.400 --> 1:46:19.559 this like this, this jealousy towards any other shows. 1:46:21.040 --> 1:46:23.519 It's not like, oh, well full Cast got that forward sponsor. 1:46:23.560 --> 1:46:24.120 We don't care. 1:46:24.200 --> 1:46:27.600 We want to be ranked higher, But ultimately it's not 1:46:28.280 --> 1:46:30.200 because we want to try and beat out Bruce and 1:46:30.240 --> 1:46:32.320 Stew or anybody else. 1:46:32.360 --> 1:46:34.240 I want to point out, we just we've outlasted We 1:46:34.320 --> 1:46:36.719 have outlasted Brus and Stew. That's another story altogether. 1:46:37.120 --> 1:46:40.360 What does not come through, though, is how competitive you 1:46:40.400 --> 1:46:43.400 and I are. Yeah, that's true, and how obsessive compulsive 1:46:44.080 --> 1:46:45.760 you and I are when it comes to trying to 1:46:45.800 --> 1:46:48.200 put content out there that we think people are really 1:46:48.200 --> 1:46:52.599 going to care about. And I think people most people 1:46:52.640 --> 1:46:54.080 who listen to the show know that I'm doing a 1:46:54.080 --> 1:46:56.240 lot of the back end stuff, and they have an 1:46:56.240 --> 1:46:59.679 appreciation for the kind of audio quality that we're putting 1:46:59.680 --> 1:47:04.280 out there. What doesn't come through is how nutso you are, 1:47:06.560 --> 1:47:10.280 how nuts so you are for trying to put something 1:47:10.320 --> 1:47:14.120 out there that's a little bit different, a little bit quirky. 1:47:15.080 --> 1:47:17.840 I don't know why people don't give you credit for that. 1:47:17.960 --> 1:47:21.519 It's cool, but people don't give you enough credit for that. Dan, 1:47:22.120 --> 1:47:26.840 you very much are a creative engine that gives this 1:47:27.000 --> 1:47:30.880 show a dimension that I couldn't give it on my own. 1:47:31.520 --> 1:47:34.799 We have always been this thing where I am trying 1:47:35.760 --> 1:47:39.400 always to pull it back onto college football or back 1:47:39.880 --> 1:47:43.800 into some kind of serious and paced and structured format, 1:47:44.000 --> 1:47:46.679 and you are always, ever so desperately trying to pull 1:47:46.720 --> 1:47:48.559 it as hard as you can away from that. Yeah, 1:47:49.080 --> 1:47:52.280 and that push pull makes us what we are. What 1:47:52.360 --> 1:47:54.479 people don't see is what goes in behind the scenes. 1:47:55.080 --> 1:47:57.280 A lot of Google docs, a lot of Google docs, 1:47:57.680 --> 1:48:00.760 a lot of weird ideas, and I think a lot 1:48:00.800 --> 1:48:05.439 of just obsessive compulsiveness on your end to try and 1:48:05.479 --> 1:48:08.000 come up with something that's a little different it actually is. 1:48:08.120 --> 1:48:10.639 It physically pains me if we go a week without recording. 1:48:10.880 --> 1:48:14.160 It's like on my honeymoon when Bob Stoops retired, I 1:48:14.200 --> 1:48:16.080 was like, God, should I call Tie? It's four in 1:48:16.120 --> 1:48:19.519 the morning there, But yeah, no, it's totally true, and 1:48:19.560 --> 1:48:21.960 that I just I want to work at work everybody. 1:48:22.240 --> 1:48:26.599 We have had conversations not just with like production companies 1:48:26.600 --> 1:48:29.439 on the video front or wherever, yeah, but also with 1:48:29.520 --> 1:48:33.680 like podcast networks, because podcast networks have been awesome. And 1:48:34.000 --> 1:48:36.360 one of the things that many podcast networks will tell 1:48:36.360 --> 1:48:38.000 you if you go and talk to them is that 1:48:38.040 --> 1:48:40.840 they can help you with the production of your show, right, 1:48:40.880 --> 1:48:43.560 they can help you. Yeah, and for that they'll take money. 1:48:43.680 --> 1:48:45.160 They'll take money, but they can help you and they 1:48:45.160 --> 1:48:46.360 do a good job. There are a lot of really 1:48:46.400 --> 1:48:50.439 good ones out there now. But it requires you to 1:48:50.520 --> 1:48:52.000 turn over those keys. 1:48:52.120 --> 1:48:53.400 Yeah, not a chance. 1:48:53.800 --> 1:48:56.479 And I've considered it as like, oh, you know, it's 1:48:56.560 --> 1:48:59.360 hard for me during the season to try to manage 1:48:59.400 --> 1:49:03.479 life and the sh and the thought of turning over 1:49:03.800 --> 1:49:06.840 those keys is painful. 1:49:06.960 --> 1:49:10.080 Yeah, I'm sure is painful. I see the goosebumps on you. 1:49:10.479 --> 1:49:14.120 I cannot do it. This is very much our baby. 1:49:14.800 --> 1:49:17.800 For me to turn over those keys, those production keys, 1:49:17.800 --> 1:49:20.479 to anyone else, not to say that someone else couldn't 1:49:20.479 --> 1:49:22.439 do it better. I'm always trying to find a way 1:49:22.560 --> 1:49:25.720 to make this sound a little better. But I know 1:49:25.800 --> 1:49:28.679 the beats, I know the rhythms. We know each other 1:49:28.720 --> 1:49:31.720 so well. To turn that over to someone else is 1:49:31.760 --> 1:49:34.200 like I would incur a physical ailment. 1:49:34.240 --> 1:49:36.479 At this point, I believe that you want to do 1:49:36.520 --> 1:49:38.240 some questions real quick. Let's do it. We'll go out 1:49:38.240 --> 1:49:42.160 because we've we're at about two hours, about a couple hours, okay, 1:49:43.320 --> 1:49:46.040 a negative feedback. How do we respond to it? How 1:49:46.080 --> 1:49:48.519 did we respond to it. Initially, I can answer this 1:49:48.640 --> 1:49:51.240 that I used to be way more of a dick, 1:49:51.920 --> 1:49:55.000 both via email and social media. Our Twitter account is 1:49:55.080 --> 1:49:58.160 much tamer now. Yeah, I take it personally because we 1:49:58.160 --> 1:50:00.439 put so much time into the show and if it's 1:50:00.479 --> 1:50:02.320 just like me saying North Carolina was good and a 1:50:02.320 --> 1:50:06.519 North Carolina State fan saying you're in now, I took 1:50:06.520 --> 1:50:07.080 it personally. 1:50:07.720 --> 1:50:12.679 I used to be when we started doing this show, 1:50:13.520 --> 1:50:16.000 the kind of person on Twitter who would for kicks 1:50:16.040 --> 1:50:19.120 cut other people down. And there are a lot of 1:50:19.120 --> 1:50:20.360 people out there who still do that. 1:50:20.439 --> 1:50:21.320 We've grown up, tie. 1:50:22.080 --> 1:50:24.759 Maybe it's because you grow up and get a little wiser. 1:50:25.920 --> 1:50:28.519 Maybe it's because you've been we've been doing this for 1:50:28.560 --> 1:50:30.639 a while now and we kind of know what it's 1:50:30.640 --> 1:50:31.680 like to be on the other end of that. 1:50:32.520 --> 1:50:34.000 I don't do that anymore. 1:50:34.800 --> 1:50:37.920 I don't do that anymore because no matter what people say, 1:50:37.920 --> 1:50:42.160 they read it, and unless you're like a megastar and 1:50:42.200 --> 1:50:45.519 someone else handles your Twitter, it always has a little 1:50:45.560 --> 1:50:47.599 bit of an effect on you. It's not the kind 1:50:47.640 --> 1:50:50.759 of thing that causes me to lose any sleep. And certainly, 1:50:50.840 --> 1:50:53.280 if it's a content thing and opinion driven a thing, 1:50:54.280 --> 1:50:57.600 reasonable minds can disagree. But if you're coming at me 1:50:57.680 --> 1:51:00.960 because you don't like the way that something sounded, or 1:51:01.000 --> 1:51:03.800 you know you should put more production muscle behind this, 1:51:04.400 --> 1:51:07.400 but you don't have any real feedback as to how 1:51:08.000 --> 1:51:10.639 it's just a throwaway comment because you feel the need 1:51:10.680 --> 1:51:13.439 to make that comment. That's the kind of thing that 1:51:13.439 --> 1:51:15.680 that ultimately pisses me off more than anything else. If 1:51:15.680 --> 1:51:18.679 you disagree with me, if I missed a fact, then hey, 1:51:19.200 --> 1:51:21.080 I mean that that's just the way this goes sometimes. 1:51:21.080 --> 1:51:23.840 But you mispronounce a Polynesian last name, like, yeah, I 1:51:23.840 --> 1:51:25.479 mean that that kind of thing happens. 1:51:25.600 --> 1:51:27.000 I will try. I believe me. 1:51:27.200 --> 1:51:29.240 I will try harder next time to try and get 1:51:29.240 --> 1:51:32.160 it right. If I make a dumb mistake, that's on me. 1:51:32.640 --> 1:51:35.000 But if it's just a comment to try and like 1:51:35.240 --> 1:51:39.240 assert your dominance over us, or you want to try 1:51:39.240 --> 1:51:41.559 it like, that's the kind of thing that it's like, 1:51:41.600 --> 1:51:42.600 go away, dude. 1:51:43.040 --> 1:51:47.400 You know. Favorite guest, Oh God, I can tell you 1:51:47.439 --> 1:51:50.400 our early favorite guest was early favorite. Early favorite was 1:51:50.479 --> 1:51:54.760 Jed Williams oh Wow, who worked for an ACC affiliated 1:51:54.880 --> 1:51:57.400 outlet did radio stuff in North Carolina. He was a 1:51:57.439 --> 1:52:01.160 friend of camera guy Dave Dave's Trump who works now 1:52:01.200 --> 1:52:04.920 for the Dodgers Network. Just an ACC machine, and I 1:52:04.960 --> 1:52:06.640 think we contacted him once. We didn't hear back from 1:52:06.720 --> 1:52:09.240 and that was cool. Whatever. We don't hold anything against him, 1:52:09.240 --> 1:52:12.680 but so great, just a wealth of information when we 1:52:12.680 --> 1:52:14.000 would do ACC shows. 1:52:15.040 --> 1:52:17.360 It's tough for me to say that anyone's a favorite. 1:52:18.360 --> 1:52:20.640 We've invited all these people on because they were a 1:52:20.680 --> 1:52:23.280 favorite of ours in some respect before we even invited 1:52:23.280 --> 1:52:28.040 them on. Right, I may have told our Friendship Patterson 1:52:28.040 --> 1:52:30.400 that if you ever got hit, if you ever got 1:52:30.479 --> 1:52:33.599 hit by a bread truck, I would inquire if he 1:52:33.640 --> 1:52:36.160 would like to fill your that's fine your seat. 1:52:36.600 --> 1:52:39.360 I really like Check. He's far more charming than I 1:52:39.720 --> 1:52:42.720 and I. Yeah, he's a good dude. Yeah, I'd still 1:52:42.720 --> 1:52:46.360 probably say Bruce just because Yeah, he even early on 1:52:46.520 --> 1:52:48.120 didn't have to give us as much time as he 1:52:48.120 --> 1:52:50.160 did and always has been super He never had any 1:52:50.200 --> 1:52:53.200 reservations about coming on this show. Yeah, Bruce Feldman never 1:52:53.240 --> 1:52:55.559 had any reservations about coming on the show. But still 1:52:55.600 --> 1:52:58.599 like Andy Staples, Spencer Hall, Stu Mandel, all these people, 1:52:58.840 --> 1:53:01.200 Nicole Auerback, all these people been super generous with their 1:53:01.240 --> 1:53:04.360 time and it's been great, and we wouldn't be where 1:53:04.400 --> 1:53:07.080 we are without them, because part of what goes into 1:53:07.120 --> 1:53:10.559 inviting a guest on is knowing that they've got a 1:53:10.600 --> 1:53:12.840 social media following that they can blast this out to 1:53:14.640 --> 1:53:15.160 excuse me. 1:53:15.320 --> 1:53:17.120 Yeah, so they don't have the following. If they're not 1:53:17.160 --> 1:53:19.439 willing to come on the show, we're not where we are. 1:53:21.000 --> 1:53:23.320 The most frustrating aspect of producing a show from a 1:53:23.360 --> 1:53:26.840 technical standpoints, microphone's not working. Finding time when you're both 1:53:26.880 --> 1:53:30.639 free audio not recording time has been you know, generally 1:53:30.640 --> 1:53:32.760 we're on a pretty regular schedule, so that hasn't been 1:53:32.840 --> 1:53:34.920 too much of an issue in the most recent years. 1:53:35.200 --> 1:53:37.880 Yeah, it's way easier now to do a show than 1:53:37.880 --> 1:53:40.320 it used to be. Yeah, it's way easier now. The 1:53:40.360 --> 1:53:41.679 technology is there. 1:53:41.840 --> 1:53:44.759 And by the way people have asked we record separate tracks. 1:53:44.800 --> 1:53:47.840 We record locally and I send my half of the 1:53:47.840 --> 1:53:49.800 show to Tie and he has a method to sync 1:53:49.840 --> 1:53:52.400 it up. Yeah, it's not as frustrating now as it 1:53:52.479 --> 1:53:53.759 used to be. Usually. 1:53:53.760 --> 1:53:56.599 The most frustrating part now is if we're pulling in 1:53:56.920 --> 1:54:01.240 audio from the guests, someone who's on skype the phone, 1:54:01.439 --> 1:54:03.439 you can't always get a pretty good fix on how 1:54:03.439 --> 1:54:05.360 that's going to sound yeah. 1:54:05.200 --> 1:54:10.160 But beyond that, I think we've gotten it down to 1:54:10.240 --> 1:54:10.920 a point. 1:54:10.640 --> 1:54:15.840 Where where we're pretty formulaic with how we do the show. 1:54:15.920 --> 1:54:20.880 In the early days though to Skype's going to cut out, Yeah, 1:54:20.920 --> 1:54:25.040 you're in California, I'm in eastern Pennsylvania. There's no telling 1:54:25.080 --> 1:54:29.360 what Skype is going to do. Those shows. Trying to 1:54:29.400 --> 1:54:31.479 cut them together was always a bit of a challenge. 1:54:31.520 --> 1:54:33.840 How seriously did coaches take you since you weren't really 1:54:33.880 --> 1:54:36.280 backed by ESPN or some other big media company. We 1:54:36.360 --> 1:54:38.760 went through go betweens like sids, But when we'd be 1:54:38.800 --> 1:54:41.880 at national championship games, we would have coaches, we would 1:54:41.880 --> 1:54:44.000 have sids, we'd have staffers because we'd have our like 1:54:44.000 --> 1:54:46.680 little Soliverrble sign as record come by and say oh 1:54:46.840 --> 1:54:48.760 love you. Guys just wanted to real quick and say hi, 1:54:48.960 --> 1:54:51.920 and that's always super cool. So through the years we've 1:54:51.920 --> 1:54:54.440 gotten that sort of that sort of feedback, so we've 1:54:54.760 --> 1:54:56.200 our names have been raised. 1:54:56.240 --> 1:54:58.720 It's it's very much on the backs of Bruce Fellmans 1:54:58.920 --> 1:55:01.800 and having Stuart Man, Ellen Adye Staples and and all 1:55:01.840 --> 1:55:03.560 these guys that have been on the show as guests 1:55:03.600 --> 1:55:05.240 and in some capacity over the years. 1:55:05.400 --> 1:55:09.040 Yes, but buh buh buh. How did ties very down 1:55:09.040 --> 1:55:12.120 to earth, humble and straight laced personality blend so well 1:55:12.120 --> 1:55:15.760 with Dan's uber, flashy, outgoing and cosmopolitan self, also embodied 1:55:15.760 --> 1:55:17.720 by the teamy roots for and where he's lived. I 1:55:17.720 --> 1:55:19.640 would expect Dan to be a New York Calley guy 1:55:19.680 --> 1:55:22.840 for life. Maybe DC or Chicagoy really wants to slum it, 1:55:22.880 --> 1:55:25.640 but that's definitely it for him. I just say, we 1:55:25.680 --> 1:55:28.200 got fortunate. You can never really figure out chemistry, so 1:55:28.360 --> 1:55:31.960 I think that's an accurate depiction of both of us. No, 1:55:32.080 --> 1:55:34.400 I'm not flashy at all. I'm not flashy. No, I'm 1:55:34.440 --> 1:55:38.440 so boring. But I say weird things, and you are, 1:55:38.600 --> 1:55:40.080 you know, more down to earth and what you say. 1:55:40.120 --> 1:55:43.440 And I think I think, by and large the personalities 1:55:43.480 --> 1:55:45.640 that we have on our show is. 1:55:45.600 --> 1:55:47.240 Pretty close to what we are in real life. 1:55:47.400 --> 1:55:50.640 Yeah, maybe I'm a little bit more outgoing, Yes, that 1:55:50.760 --> 1:55:54.280 have to be on the podcast. I think people get 1:55:55.080 --> 1:55:58.320 a bad read on you. It's probably honestly, Yeah, I 1:55:58.320 --> 1:56:00.240 think I think there are a lot of people who 1:56:01.080 --> 1:56:05.400 they hook on to a controversial thing that you say 1:56:05.640 --> 1:56:09.280 or an opinion that you have, and they think that 1:56:09.360 --> 1:56:14.200 you're a dick. You're not, I hope not a dick. 1:56:14.280 --> 1:56:17.600 You're a good guy. You're someone I genuinely enjoy spending 1:56:17.600 --> 1:56:21.960 time with. You're not that guy that some people think 1:56:22.000 --> 1:56:26.920 you are. Just through doing the show, I think we've 1:56:26.960 --> 1:56:29.600 answered pretty much. I mean, there's a lot of like 1:56:29.760 --> 1:56:31.480 when did you stop? Let me a question you wanted 1:56:31.480 --> 1:56:33.280 to address. Let me close out with this because we've 1:56:33.280 --> 1:56:35.200 been doing this for two hours, and if people want 1:56:35.240 --> 1:56:37.400 to write in solid verbal at gmail dot com, find 1:56:37.480 --> 1:56:41.120 us on Facebook, on Twitter. We got a bunch of 1:56:41.240 --> 1:56:45.480 other questions that I or you we will go through 1:56:45.520 --> 1:56:49.080 wherever you post them, Facebook or even the reddit Subreddit 1:56:49.400 --> 1:56:51.200 would probably be a good place to just put them 1:56:51.200 --> 1:56:54.600 all down, or email. We'll try to answer all these 1:56:54.640 --> 1:56:56.720 because we're trying to make a little event out of this. 1:56:56.840 --> 1:56:59.760 But go to one of those places let us know 1:56:59.800 --> 1:57:02.320 if you have a question. Yeah, what have you. 1:57:02.400 --> 1:57:08.600 Learned the most from doing this for ten years? Two 1:57:08.640 --> 1:57:11.040 things that I've learned the most I have a much 1:57:11.040 --> 1:57:15.000 better time on the show in or outside of the season, 1:57:15.440 --> 1:57:17.720 the better prepared I am. I think I'm good off 1:57:17.800 --> 1:57:19.640 the cuff, but I'm better off the cuff when I 1:57:19.640 --> 1:57:23.560 already have less sort of my my bullets ready whatever, 1:57:23.600 --> 1:57:25.720 for lack of a better term, that when I am 1:57:25.840 --> 1:57:28.720 when I am studied or with a loaded guns. Yeah yeah, 1:57:28.720 --> 1:57:31.200 when I when my arsenal one, when my rep weaponry 1:57:31.240 --> 1:57:34.360 is good to go, I do a better job. And 1:57:34.440 --> 1:57:36.560 sometimes I don't have time for that, and it shows 1:57:37.000 --> 1:57:40.520 the other The second thing is when we really zeroed 1:57:40.560 --> 1:57:45.600 in on the fact that we want to produce a really, 1:57:45.760 --> 1:57:49.240 really good show that happens to be about college football. 1:57:49.800 --> 1:57:51.840 When we zeroed in on that more we're just like, 1:57:52.000 --> 1:57:54.000 let's do a good show. We could be doing a 1:57:54.080 --> 1:57:55.880 knitting show. We could be doing a food show, and 1:57:56.120 --> 1:57:57.920 sometimes we do do a food show. We could doing 1:57:57.960 --> 1:58:00.760 a fashion show. But it's the idea of let's put 1:58:00.760 --> 1:58:05.520 together a really good concept that in our canvas is 1:58:05.560 --> 1:58:09.280 college football, canvas is podcasting, and the subject is college football. 1:58:09.480 --> 1:58:12.160 But the idea of let's do a really good show 1:58:12.240 --> 1:58:14.840 that happens to be about college football, not let's do 1:58:14.840 --> 1:58:17.200 a college football show, that to me was like the 1:58:17.240 --> 1:58:20.720 big realization of where we should go and what sort 1:58:20.720 --> 1:58:21.280 of fuels me. 1:58:21.400 --> 1:58:24.640 Now Yeah, I mean, I could probably talk until I'm 1:58:24.640 --> 1:58:29.520 blue in the face about digital media and podcasting and 1:58:30.360 --> 1:58:30.880 in truth. 1:58:33.200 --> 1:58:34.280 We were there. 1:58:35.600 --> 1:58:38.800 At the very beginning of podcasting, which is probably a 1:58:38.800 --> 1:58:41.000 big part of why we're still. 1:58:40.800 --> 1:58:43.120 Doing it now. Yeah, and why we've grown as big 1:58:43.440 --> 1:58:43.920 as we have. 1:58:46.480 --> 1:58:49.280 So I could talk about that in some other medium, 1:58:49.320 --> 1:58:52.360 I'm sure if people are interested. The thing that I 1:58:52.440 --> 1:58:58.560 have learned most is really about identity. Two things that 1:58:59.400 --> 1:59:04.680 I think I I've learned first when I started doing writing, 1:59:04.920 --> 1:59:08.480 when I started doing any kind of sports media, I 1:59:08.560 --> 1:59:14.040 always wanted to be the funny man, okay, and no 1:59:14.080 --> 1:59:18.120 matter how hard I tried, I always ended up being 1:59:18.920 --> 1:59:24.640 more of the straight laced, traditional pacer, the host, the 1:59:24.720 --> 1:59:27.920 host of a show, and I always tried to be 1:59:28.000 --> 1:59:30.200 something else. I always wanted to be something else. I 1:59:30.240 --> 1:59:33.320 always wanted to be what you are, and I never 1:59:33.320 --> 1:59:35.560 could pull it off. And it's not to say I'm 1:59:35.560 --> 1:59:37.400 not good at it or couldn't be good at it. 1:59:37.920 --> 1:59:41.680 But it took me a while to realize that naturally 1:59:41.840 --> 1:59:44.120 I was better at doing what I've done for us. 1:59:44.960 --> 1:59:47.680 And I don't know when it hit me, but at 1:59:47.720 --> 1:59:50.800 some point I got really confident in doing what I 1:59:50.920 --> 1:59:54.320 do on our show and stop trying to be something else. 1:59:55.080 --> 1:59:58.440 And for me, that's when I think this It clicked, 1:59:59.480 --> 2:00:03.280 and we start of putting something together that was reliable 2:00:03.920 --> 2:00:07.800 and funny in its own way, on a consistent basis. 2:00:08.280 --> 2:00:11.080 And so the first was the first thing that I 2:00:11.160 --> 2:00:14.040 learned was just be be confident in what kind of 2:00:14.680 --> 2:00:17.880 show you think you can just do naturally and comfortably. 2:00:18.440 --> 2:00:20.280 The second thing that I learned, and I give you 2:00:20.320 --> 2:00:24.200 total credit for this, I am the kind of person 2:00:24.240 --> 2:00:26.840 that is always trying to drive forward with anything, not 2:00:26.920 --> 2:00:32.360 like an aggressive corporate executive type. I want to be 2:00:32.400 --> 2:00:35.360 in charge of the company. That's not really my speed. 2:00:35.400 --> 2:00:39.800 But if I feel like something goes stagnant, I get 2:00:39.800 --> 2:00:45.000 really upset and not like depressed depressed, but I really 2:00:45.280 --> 2:00:46.600 like I feel it deeply. 2:00:47.560 --> 2:00:49.160 And you said something to me. 2:00:50.200 --> 2:00:52.200 I want to say at the start of like twenty 2:00:52.600 --> 2:00:57.680 thirteen or twenty fourteen, we were at that point in 2:00:57.720 --> 2:01:00.240 time talking to somebody about trying to turn this into 2:01:00.480 --> 2:01:02.680 like a digital show or a TV show or a 2:01:02.840 --> 2:01:06.200 ard knows what kind of show, and you made a 2:01:06.240 --> 2:01:11.680 point to me that there was nothing wrong with owning 2:01:11.800 --> 2:01:15.920 our own little corner of the Internet and not trying 2:01:15.920 --> 2:01:20.800 to be a TV show, not trying to be sports Center. 2:01:20.960 --> 2:01:25.200 I don't know, but just owning what we do and 2:01:25.280 --> 2:01:27.880 kind of owning our own little corner, our little niche 2:01:27.880 --> 2:01:31.440 in the digital space. And that really stuck with me 2:01:31.720 --> 2:01:36.280 nice really truly, I'm I'm speaking truth to power man. 2:01:37.000 --> 2:01:41.440 That really stuck with me. Cool, and I have to 2:01:41.560 --> 2:01:47.280 a large degree stopped getting that kind of dark sense 2:01:47.440 --> 2:01:49.800 if things I feel go stagnant for a little bit 2:01:49.800 --> 2:01:54.560 in time. I'm very comfortable with where we're at. I'm 2:01:54.640 --> 2:01:55.840 very happy with what we've done. 2:01:56.120 --> 2:02:00.160 You've now everybody officially listened to both the history of 2:02:00.160 --> 2:02:03.360 the solid verbal and the very last solid verbal episode 2:02:04.080 --> 2:02:06.280 ever to be recorded. You probably didn't know that when 2:02:06.320 --> 2:02:08.720 you started. But we're done now. I'm just kidding. We're 2:02:08.720 --> 2:02:11.120 gonna keep going so cool man. 2:02:11.320 --> 2:02:13.680 Uh you know, I don't know if there I don't know, 2:02:13.720 --> 2:02:15.200 if we've got ten more good years in US. 2:02:15.240 --> 2:02:17.720 I don't know. I don't know if this is Bartola 2:02:17.800 --> 2:02:20.040 cologne or if this is like, you know, get fat 2:02:20.080 --> 2:02:20.800 with you. That's fine. 2:02:20.880 --> 2:02:23.400 Uh yeah, but whatever whatever this ends up being, it's 2:02:23.440 --> 2:02:26.440 been a fun nine seasons, is going to be an 2:02:26.480 --> 2:02:31.320 awesome tenth season, and well we'll see where this takes 2:02:31.400 --> 2:02:33.080 us next. But it's been a hell of a journey 2:02:33.920 --> 2:02:36.120 and thank you so much for putting up not only 2:02:36.160 --> 2:02:38.320 with this show, but for many of you out there 2:02:38.320 --> 2:02:42.480 who I'm sure are listening to the full verbal history 2:02:42.480 --> 2:02:44.800 of the solid verbal. Thank you for all your support 2:02:44.840 --> 2:02:46.040 for making us into what we are. 2:02:46.200 --> 2:02:49.720 If you're still listening, tweet at ty hilden Brands. If 2:02:49.720 --> 2:02:52.560 you're still listening, t y h I L D E 2:02:52.680 --> 2:02:54.560 N B R A N D T. Don't tell them 2:02:54.880 --> 2:02:58.080 where you came from, who sent you, and just tweet Tie, 2:02:58.680 --> 2:03:01.800 I love you you Tye. Just tweet them that they 2:03:01.920 --> 2:03:04.080 make me to prove, to prove that you're still listening. 2:03:04.120 --> 2:03:05.640 So you're list you want to sign off, you want 2:03:05.640 --> 2:03:06.440 to do? You want to take it? 2:03:06.680 --> 2:03:10.080 For that guy over there, literally over there, seated to 2:03:10.120 --> 2:03:12.160 my left, looking very spelt, thank you. 2:03:12.920 --> 2:03:15.640 His name is Dan Rubinstein. For myself, Tie Hildebrand, thank 2:03:15.680 --> 2:03:18.040 you so much for listening all these years. We will 2:03:18.040 --> 2:03:24.280 catch you on a week's stay solid peace. Don't forget 2:03:24.280 --> 2:03:28.000 to visit our friends over at proper Cloth. Do it today. 2:03:28.080 --> 2:03:32.240 It's propercloth dot com slash Solid. If you're interested in 2:03:32.280 --> 2:03:35.720 the deal, enter the gift code Solid S l I 2:03:35.800 --> 2:03:40.879 D and save twenty dollars off your first custom fitted 2:03:41.120 --> 2:03:43.240 perfectly fitting dress shirt,