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Speaker 2: All Right, everybody, I got to say, when we think
Speaker 2: about the US Open, there are players that you know.
Speaker 2: There are players legends that are not here this year.
Speaker 2: There are also players that are up and coming, maybe
Speaker 2: not household names, but will be someone who knows them
Speaker 2: all has written about them, continues to us. John Wertheim,
Speaker 2: he's executive editor senior writer at Sports Illustrated correspondent for
Speaker 2: the Tennis Channel, so this is a big time working
Speaker 2: event for him. He is covering the US Open for
Speaker 2: the Tennis Channel. He's also contributing correspondent for sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: He's a busy dude, and he found some time once
Speaker 2: again to join us here on site at the US Open.
Speaker 3: How are you good? Pleasure to be here. Nice to
Speaker 3: see you guys. How are you doing good? Good week
Speaker 3: at tennis?
Speaker 2: Right, It's great, it got a little cooler. We're kind
Speaker 2: of loving that coverage, what are you? What are you
Speaker 2: loving about it this year? What's interesting for you?
Speaker 3: Oh man? I you know, tennis, that's this weird point
Speaker 3: where Roger Fetter is retired Titan player. Everyone loved him
Speaker 3: not here, Clorida Williams Titan not here, rough and the
Speaker 3: Doll not here, And I think everybody worried, oh man,
Speaker 3: after these legends retire, what does tennis look like? Is
Speaker 3: anyone going to care about the sport? And we've kind
Speaker 3: of made uncharacteristically great, you know, graceful pivot for tennis,
Speaker 3: and the grounds are more filful than ever. The attendance
Speaker 3: is through the roof. It's going to set a record.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of strange because we have this deficit
Speaker 3: of stars compared to what we used to have. So
Speaker 3: that's that's a story I'm looking at.
Speaker 4: So do we have the deficit of stars or are
Speaker 4: is Cocoa Gough going to be there? Shelton gonna be there?
Speaker 4: Is Alcoraz there?
Speaker 3: I mean Alcaaz could have been there? Yeah, last he's
Speaker 3: not in the tournament? Yeah, I mean, I think they're
Speaker 3: bright prospects. I think they're fans. They're players that fans
Speaker 3: are starting to build relationships with. But you know, we're
Speaker 3: not talking about guys, you know, twenty majors. Yeah, Cocoa
Speaker 3: gots wonderful, but just one. And I kind of feel
Speaker 3: like fans kind of like the unpredictability of it all,
Speaker 3: and they don't mind that any of twenty players could win.
Speaker 3: And they don't mind that Carlos Alcaraz wins two tournaments
Speaker 3: and then loses in the second round.
Speaker 4: Here, So in a sense, it is that better for
Speaker 4: the sport.
Speaker 3: It's funny because I think the conventional wisdom is you
Speaker 3: sort of need excellence to the top. But the NFL,
Speaker 3: which is the most successful sports league certainly in the US,
Speaker 3: has this any given Sunday theory and parody is great,
Speaker 3: and we want all fans to think their team could
Speaker 3: get to the super Bowl. It's kind of worked out
Speaker 3: for them. But I think tennis is sort of pleasantly
Speaker 3: surprised how well things are going in the absence of stars.
Speaker 2: Why do you think it is that way? You know,
Speaker 2: We've been talking with various folks from the US and
Speaker 2: they talk about the Zendaya movie Challengers and how much
Speaker 2: money it made, and you're rolling your eyes.
Speaker 4: I didn't see it. Actually I didn't.
Speaker 3: Das Day's rate is quite high, so I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know how much it I made. But no, I
Speaker 3: think you're I think Tennyson is having a bit of
Speaker 3: a moment, and I think instead of tethering itself to
Speaker 3: these stars Toreena Williams, Rodgers, Cetter, Rofinando, I mean, it's
Speaker 3: kind of it's about the culture, it's about the fashion,
Speaker 3: it's about the the international aspects. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: some of it too is just you and I could
Speaker 3: be playing and it woul still be fun to come
Speaker 3: to the US Open and watch the tennis match. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is such a big event. It's almost
Speaker 3: sort of.
Speaker 2: Actually, John, if I was playing, though, it wouldn't be if.
Speaker 3: They would have honey deuces and they would have music,
Speaker 3: and it's I mean it's almost sort of. They're not
Speaker 3: player dependent here the way they used to be. No,
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot to recommend about tennis. I mean,
Speaker 3: I have pet theories about I think I think pickleball
Speaker 3: maybe a bit of a help that all millions, millions
Speaker 3: of people are now sort of understand ending what it
Speaker 3: means to hit a slice or they have a more
Speaker 3: appreciation for tennis because they've been bopping around a whiffle
Speaker 3: ball in their in their yards.
Speaker 2: Our producer Sebastian and I were watching a match on
Speaker 2: the side courts here yesterday and we were sitting next
Speaker 2: to somebody and he was talking about his pick a ball,
Speaker 2: playing pickleball.
Speaker 3: It's a thing, but I think that translates to tests. Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: it's it's just strange. I mean tennis is sort of
Speaker 3: having this moment and whether it's exactly it's Zendayan movies
Speaker 3: or it's the attendance, I mean, I just and I
Speaker 3: don't think anyone saw this coming. I think there was
Speaker 3: a lot of handwringing about what would the sport look like.
Speaker 3: It's sort of a happy surprise.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been. It's been really awesome to watch and
Speaker 4: least be able to cover it over the last few years,
Speaker 4: and even in those that little bit of time, see
Speaker 4: the growth. Any big stories so far this year at
Speaker 4: the US Open that are sticking out to you.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I think sometimes they're big stories in
Speaker 3: Week one and that's you know, you've got either controversy
Speaker 3: or you have big upsets, and then it kind of
Speaker 3: leads to a little bit of a fizzle in uh
Speaker 3: in week two. I mean this year we've had some upsets.
Speaker 3: To me, Carlos Alcarez losing is obviously a big story,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of people are sort of perplexed.
Speaker 3: This is supposed to be the new star. He won
Speaker 3: the French Open, he won Wimbledon, and everyone thought, oh,
Speaker 3: could he pull a summer triple. I mean, not even
Speaker 3: Roger Feeder or not even know about Joko, but ever
Speaker 3: did that. And then he comes out here and he
Speaker 3: loses in the second round to a guy outside the
Speaker 3: top fifty. That's been a strange story. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: we've had sort of the usual, the celebrities and Aaron
Speaker 3: Judge was here in Karen Washington. I mean, there hasn't
Speaker 3: been sort of that huge controversy, which I suspect the
Speaker 3: ustn AS in't mind. We had the longest match in
Speaker 3: US Open history a few days ago, which was which
Speaker 3: was good fun. But I think you know, sometimes week
Speaker 3: one and excitement and upsets sort of doesn't pay off
Speaker 3: in week two. So I think we're in a nice
Speaker 3: place right now on first Friday as we make this turn.
Speaker 2: How many opens have you covered? Oh, I'm not trying.
Speaker 3: You're doing so well, and now you've kind of it's
Speaker 3: really depressing a lot. I mean, like since the nineties.
Speaker 3: Remember the Ninetiesmber it was.
Speaker 4: But that was a really important era for American men's tennis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I sort of caught the very very
Speaker 3: tail end of sampress Agasy and then I sort of
Speaker 3: came up, you know, I came up with like.
Speaker 2: I think Ma n Roe and Connor's before, and they
Speaker 2: all looked at me.
Speaker 3: Like I was eve I c nineties. Yeah exactly, Oh sorry,
Speaker 3: go ahead. No, It's just funny because the game sort
Speaker 3: of takes on different identities, and it was it was
Speaker 3: tampress Agassy, and then you had the Williams sisters and
Speaker 3: you sort of had this international. I mean I was
Speaker 3: here when Andy Ronick won and he said, oh, there's
Speaker 3: this fresh American champion. And then here comes Roger feder
Speaker 3: rof Nadal and Novak Djokovic that basically ate everyone else
Speaker 3: lunch for twenty years, and now we're at this sort
Speaker 3: of I mean, obviously Djokovic is still here, he's a
Speaker 3: defending champion, he's somehow he's thirty seven years old. I
Speaker 3: would say, do you guys remember just sidebar, Remember when
Speaker 3: Jimmy Connors had that crazy run in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3: He's thirty nine years old, and it was sort of well,
Speaker 3: it's everybody drinking their jaritol, and there were a lot
Speaker 3: of jokes and he's gonna have to go to bed
Speaker 3: early and someone's gonna have to chop up his steak
Speaker 3: into bite sized pieces. Djokovic is only like eighteen months younger,
Speaker 3: and we haven't been in his age once. He's just
Speaker 3: a contender to.
Speaker 4: Win the title. Like, look how far we've come.
Speaker 3: So look how far we've but you.
Speaker 2: Knew exactly think about that just coming off the Olympics.
Speaker 2: I was a gymnast as a young kid, and I
Speaker 2: mean to look at Simone Biles, right, and normally you
Speaker 2: have a good season, maybe you're really young, But look
Speaker 2: at like, I just think there's is there something happening
Speaker 2: in sports where yeah, people can go the distance and
Speaker 2: why not?
Speaker 3: I have two theories, you want to real quick one
Speaker 3: of that. One of them is just its emolution, it's
Speaker 3: sports science. I also think it appropriate for a Bloomberg audience.
Speaker 3: It's commerce, it's money, it's these players have I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, Billy gi King used to come in the
Speaker 3: back of a station wagon. Now you've got players, they've
Speaker 3: got their own messuses, they've got their own teams. They're
Speaker 3: not standing in line waiting for the Hurts rental car.
Speaker 3: Counter to Oh, they're getting private jets, I think exactly.
Speaker 3: And I think that has the extension a career.
Speaker 4: Partly because they have deals with private jet companies.
Speaker 3: Well that too. It doesn't doesn't hurt when you have
Speaker 3: that endorsement.
Speaker 2: But if they didn't play well, I mean they're playing
Speaker 2: well though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sports science, they can avail themselves to all the
Speaker 3: cold plunges and the trainers, the physiosm I mean all
Speaker 3: is Tom Brady similar? And I think in Lebron James
Speaker 3: is still going strong and yeah, twenty years into this career,
Speaker 3: and I think it's because they can afford career extends.
Speaker 2: This one's done a call plunge. By the way, Yeah, very.
Speaker 4: Popular, They're very popular. I I mean, who knows it
Speaker 4: to scientists, But this might be a good time to
Speaker 4: talk doping, might be all right, what's the deal? I
Speaker 4: don't in this sport.
Speaker 3: I mean, I you want my honest opinion, I believe
Speaker 3: I believe that incentives explained an awful lot of human behavior,
Speaker 3: and I get why some athletes will dope. I get
Speaker 3: why some athletes who might be trying to, you know,
Speaker 3: have this career resurgence laid in their career with dope.
Speaker 3: I can see how young athletes. I just I don't think.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously we're we're talking about Jon Excenter number one.
Speaker 3: Everyone gave the tournament and we have this sort of
Speaker 3: strange story where he had failed to doping tests from
Speaker 3: about five months ago, but was essentially exonerated and found
Speaker 3: no negligence, no fault because the trainer essentially was was
Speaker 3: caroll And to use the substance that was legal in
Speaker 3: Italy but it is not. It's on the bad list.
Speaker 3: And I just I get the skepticism. I understand sort
Speaker 3: of there are a lot of players who are very
Speaker 3: suspicious about this. I just I'm I always look at incentives.
Speaker 3: Why would a guy with one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 3: dollars Nike deal starting his career in March when there
Speaker 3: are no major tournaments for months and months. The amount
Speaker 3: was so minuscule it wouldn't enhance performance. It just doesn't
Speaker 3: make sense that he would intentionally dope. That may sound naive.
Speaker 3: I think they're probably means naive to say there's no
Speaker 3: doping in tennis. But I also think it's such a
Speaker 3: sport that depends on hand eye coordination and focus and
Speaker 3: mental toughness. It's not as though putting on five pounds
Speaker 3: of muscle is really where the action is. I think
Speaker 3: the doping probably might help with recovery and with some
Speaker 3: of the cardio. Again, I don't think it's one hundred
Speaker 3: percent clean. I don't think any sport is, but in
Speaker 3: this case, I just the facts of the case that
Speaker 3: the process is disturbing. It's very strange. The usually you
Speaker 3: hear about this right away. Usually there's a strict liability
Speaker 3: standard where hey, we don't care what happened. It's in
Speaker 3: your system. You're the CEO of your system, right, you're guilty.
Speaker 3: That wasn't the case. I mean, I think there are
Speaker 3: a lot of process questions.
Speaker 4: Does does that give you pause? The lack of process questions?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think the way this handled, people
Speaker 3: are going to have to go back and really pick
Speaker 3: this apart and figure out why it was that this
Speaker 3: guy played for five and a half months, which which
Speaker 3: is very rare in tennis. You mentioned why wasn't there
Speaker 3: the publicity that usually accompanies some of these announcements. There
Speaker 3: are a lot of players saying, boy, I wish you
Speaker 3: know I. I tested positive too, and I also was
Speaker 3: eventually exonerated, but I had to take the reputational hit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: or I couldn't play, or I couldn't play. So I
Speaker 3: think the way this was handled raises a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: But I just, I mean, everyone's speculating. I just don't
Speaker 3: think you don't.
Speaker 4: Your point about incentives is really interesting because I didn't
Speaker 4: think you were going to go exactly the other way.
Speaker 4: And I come from a world of cycling where you know,
Speaker 4: don't doping is and has been rampid for years, and
Speaker 4: you know, a tenth of a second or that much
Speaker 4: more power is what ends up mattering in the end
Speaker 4: of a race. And the idea. When you said incentives,
Speaker 4: I thought, oh, incentives to win. But no, you're saying
Speaker 4: that there's too much to lose for these players.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I mean you think about how much of
Speaker 3: these players income and networks has nothing to do with
Speaker 3: prize money. It's image, it's reputation, it's what they represent.
Speaker 3: It's how they carry themselves. You are jeopardizing all of
Speaker 3: that to win a couple of tennis matches in Indian Wells,
Speaker 3: California in March. I don't I mean again, I don't
Speaker 3: want to be naive here. Everyone's one thing that's interesting
Speaker 3: about this to me is that some very credible, very knowledgeable,
Speaker 3: very reasonable former players agree with me and sort of
Speaker 3: say it doesn't make sense. The amount was so minuscule.
Speaker 3: Very credible, very reasonable, very educated former players say something's
Speaker 3: really fishy here. The amount might just be that he
Speaker 3: was cycling off of it. Don't be seduced by sort
Speaker 3: of the fractional the sort of infinitesimally small amount. Don't
Speaker 3: be naive and the guy got caught twice, what more
Speaker 3: do you need? So so, even within tennis, even in
Speaker 3: the sort of inner sanctum, there's they're very divergent opinions.
Speaker 3: I just think, like, you get to a point with
Speaker 3: your reputation and your net worth and how much sponsorship
Speaker 3: you have. I mean, these players can make four or
Speaker 3: five million dollars for being a worldwide brand ambassador. That's
Speaker 3: more than the US Open champion will make. Right, Why
Speaker 3: would you jeopardize that in March over this infant. I again,
Speaker 3: he is a vanishingly small amount of banned substance.
Speaker 2: Well, but we see in our world very wealthy people,
Speaker 2: financiers who have tons of money and yet do something
Speaker 2: that breaks the law just to get a little bit
Speaker 2: more money, right, and you think, really like why did
Speaker 2: you do that? But but I hear what you said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's a fair point. I mean, the risk
Speaker 3: reward calculus is not always you know, sorated, you.
Speaker 2: Know, could have been the like do you blame the coach?
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean that's sort of where this falls. Is
Speaker 3: essentially that the trainer and again the substances. It's legal
Speaker 3: in Italy, but on the box it says it says doping,
Speaker 3: So I'm not sure where and I mean someone else.
Speaker 3: So listen, your job as a trainer, what are your
Speaker 3: big jobs that you put it down?
Speaker 2: Actually get it away from me? You know what? Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, aspread works pretty well too. I mean there
Speaker 3: there are alternatives, but Bassett Tracin will cover that that
Speaker 3: cut as well. It was a really strange set of
Speaker 3: circumstances and it's almost a look, if you're a trainer,
Speaker 3: your number one job basically is to get anything even
Speaker 3: potentially illegal or on the band list away from the athlete,
Speaker 3: and here's a guy putting it on his hand and
Speaker 3: then giving the athlete an ungloved massage. The flip side is,
Speaker 3: don't people do dumb things? I don't. I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's it's definitely it's been. I mean inside
Speaker 3: these doors where we are now, it's still a weekend
Speaker 3: of this tournament, very much being discussed.
Speaker 4: You talk about that a little bit because what we're
Speaker 4: at the Bud Collins Media Center and you go inside here,
Speaker 4: this is where all the journalists are. What's the what's
Speaker 4: the I've been like covering this with the other journalists.
Speaker 3: Is that the story in particular?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well is that?
Speaker 4: I mean this story is still dominating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the players, his initial press release and
Speaker 3: I you know, whatever we all have, we're all familiar
Speaker 3: with press releases. I look forward to putting this issue
Speaker 3: behind me. And you want to say, oh, that's oh
Speaker 3: do you Yeah, that's not really how it was.
Speaker 4: One way to keep the issue front and center.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2: We know this is what you would like.
Speaker 3: I just want to move on.
Speaker 4: But that's you know, but the other players have been
Speaker 4: really supportive of him.
Speaker 3: It sounds like some of them, some of them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'd say it's been very guarded. Actually you think so, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I think given the range, I mean sometimes
Speaker 3: sort of my guilty pleasure is UFC is fixed martial arts.
Speaker 3: There anytime someone there's a doping violation, everybody piles on
Speaker 3: and sort of says, listen, this, I knew this guy
Speaker 3: was cheating. This is much more guarded. But these are
Speaker 3: sort of these very sort of meticulously worded sense. Nobody
Speaker 3: is falling on the grenade, and no one's a couple
Speaker 3: of former players. Nick Curios is here, and he's made
Speaker 3: a number of sort of sundiary statements. It's been very
Speaker 3: I've sort of been surprised at how little support he's gone.
Speaker 3: There does seem to be real questions about the process,
Speaker 3: and everyone's got a friend, everyone's got a colleague who
Speaker 3: had a similar circumstance and didn't have the luxury of
Speaker 3: six or seven figures worth of legal representation, and sort
Speaker 3: of this this cakewalk just sort of get this thing
Speaker 3: buried five and a half months later.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it's kind of interesting, but it is
Speaker 2: funny when we start talking about that because and this
Speaker 2: is something we want to We're going to do some
Speaker 2: news and come back, but I do want to also
Speaker 2: talk to you about like all the money in sports,
Speaker 2: Like this has been a big week, Like we're just
Speaker 2: talking about you know, private equity now being able in
Speaker 2: an NFL. But I just again from our perspective, like
Speaker 2: this idea of money corrupts at some point and causes
Speaker 2: us to do I don't know, gambling, Like this is
Speaker 2: another thing that we've been talking about, and just curious
Speaker 2: your take on, like all the money that continues to
Speaker 2: come into sports metia rites, like all this stuff good
Speaker 2: or bad? And we'll come back and talk some more.
Speaker 2: Is it good or bad?
Speaker 3: X thought before we get back. Okay, we're gonna continue.
Speaker 2: We're gonna come back with John Worth time. He's executive editor,
Speaker 2: senior writer of Sports Illustrated, as we said, correspondent for
Speaker 2: the Tennis Channel, and sixty minutes we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about that in just a moment.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 2: We want to get back to John Worth, tim executive editor,
Speaker 2: senior writer over at Sports Illustrated correspondent for sixty minutes,
Speaker 2: also for the Tennis Channel. He is working of course
Speaker 2: the US Open here on site with us. So the
Speaker 2: money that we continue to see in sports, it's a
Speaker 2: big thing that we cover a vertical, certainly at Bloomberg
Speaker 2: a business of sports. You know, you can go a
Speaker 2: lot of different places, but this was an interesting week
Speaker 2: where the NFL said, okay, private equity, you can own
Speaker 2: a certain amount of ownership. The money that continues to
Speaker 2: come into sports. Good bad indie friend like, how do
Speaker 2: you feel about it? How do you think about it? Gambling?
Speaker 2: We'll talk about that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that, but I think that's it.
Speaker 3: I think it depends on this sort Look any any industry,
Speaker 3: we like money coming in and we like we like
Speaker 3: more investment and not less. I mean, I think sports
Speaker 3: are a pretty robust sector. I think it depends what
Speaker 3: I mean, we can there's a sportswashing component to this.
Speaker 3: Do we like money when it comes from the golf region, Well,
Speaker 3: that comes with some strings attached. Do we like money
Speaker 3: when it comes through sports gambling, and that's been a
Speaker 3: huge infusion of cash for teams and leagues and media,
Speaker 3: not so much for athletes. We can talk about that.
Speaker 3: That's been a big topic among the players and the
Speaker 3: players lounge is a sports gambling we can we can
Speaker 3: talk about that. I think media money, you know, great
Speaker 3: if if ESPN wants to re up here. I mean,
Speaker 3: very few properties are actually going to come up for
Speaker 3: renewal anytime soon. But look, if the NBA can make
Speaker 3: billion dollars a season from its media rights deal, like,
Speaker 3: that's great, especially when there's a fifty to fifty split
Speaker 3: with the players. So right, yeah, I think it depends.
Speaker 3: I think to rule with thumb, you know, commerce good
Speaker 3: h but I think it depends on the source.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the conversations that players are that's being
Speaker 2: talked in terms of gambling because they don't necessarily get
Speaker 2: a piece.
Speaker 3: Of it, do they? Nohing, I mean, in this sport,
Speaker 3: it's really problematic and team sports. Look, it's a fifty
Speaker 3: to fifty revenue split, right, So if the NFL does
Speaker 3: a billion dollars with DraftKings, that's half of that and
Speaker 3: theory goes to the players tennis does not have revenue
Speaker 3: sharing like that. They also forbid the athletes from using
Speaker 3: the product, which is standard for most sports. And what
Speaker 3: happens to tennis is that the play a big gambling sport.
Speaker 3: I mean, tennis is like the third most gambled on sport.
Speaker 3: There are millions of matches the fliventory all over the world.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's crazy. Us there are two guys playing
Speaker 3: in a parking lot and there are three fans. Wi
Speaker 3: We're not talking about the US Open here. I mean
Speaker 3: there are all these low level events and they're you know,
Speaker 3: three fans watching, but they're tens of thousands of dollars
Speaker 3: being wagered on this match. It is ripe for corruption.
Speaker 3: But the what's really problematic to the players is that
Speaker 3: they get a lot of abuse from losing. Gambia. You
Speaker 3: you cow, I just lost one hundred dollars because you
Speaker 3: can't hold your serve. And the players are saying, wait
Speaker 3: a second, we don't get the revenue. We can't even
Speaker 3: use the product. That's a little problematic. I mean, you
Speaker 3: guys are getting all this endorsement money, and the problem,
Speaker 3: you know, the product itself, we are forbidden from using.
Speaker 3: You guys can sell the signage and you can get
Speaker 3: the data rights deal, which basically just means selling data
Speaker 3: to bookies. And not only do we not get any revenue,
Speaker 3: we open up our phone and we have a stream
Speaker 3: of messages that are just the most vile thing you've
Speaker 3: ever heard from, you know, from aggrieved gamblers.
Speaker 4: Right, this seems very problematic.
Speaker 3: It's really problematic.
Speaker 2: You've tweeted on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's it's really I mean, tennis needs
Speaker 3: a lot more player representation, it's probably I mean, I
Speaker 3: think it's problematic across the board for any of a
Speaker 3: hundred reasons. But at least football players and basketball players
Speaker 3: are seeing some of that money. These players get all
Speaker 3: the downside, you know, they open their phone and they
Speaker 3: get death threats because they missed a forehand. And the
Speaker 3: tournaments are the ones that can put the signage on
Speaker 3: the back saying you know, DraftKings and fanduls.
Speaker 4: And it's such a solitary sport too, so it's not
Speaker 4: like a team is getting the hatred. It's this individual
Speaker 4: and everything is riding on this this one individual. So
Speaker 4: what's the solution there?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's it's naive to say I mean,
Speaker 3: in a perfect world, maybe tennis says listen, not for us.
Speaker 3: We're not going to give you our data. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are ways to turn off the spigott. I don't
Speaker 3: think that's realistic. A bit more revenue to the players
Speaker 3: would at least give them some skin in the game.
Speaker 3: At least they're essentially getting paid for the abuse they're taken.
Speaker 3: I also think you have to monitor this. I mean,
Speaker 3: when I can't wrap my brain around with you, guys
Speaker 3: can help me with this. I can't order an uber
Speaker 3: and say my name is you know, Moscow Mule eleven seventeen.
Speaker 3: I can't. I mean, the anonymity I think would end
Speaker 3: a lot of this. Why is it that I can
Speaker 3: send a player a death threat and bear no consequence
Speaker 3: when they lose a tennis match, but can't I can't
Speaker 3: go on Amazon and use a pseudonym.
Speaker 4: I mean there might be somebody who much as rockets,
Speaker 4: you might want to talk to about this. Yeah, exact question. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's like there's a whole world the responsibility or.
Speaker 4: They verified accounts that are you know, just pay ten
Speaker 4: bucks a month or whatever a month, get serviced. It
Speaker 4: doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 2: It is probably just gonna make it all worse in terms.
Speaker 3: Of you know and AI when AI and sports gambling
Speaker 3: inter second, my issue with sports gamling right now we
Speaker 3: are at the uh remember when you know, you had
Speaker 3: Joe Cammell kids magazines, you had vending machines in high
Speaker 3: school selling cigarettes. This is a smoking set, really, the
Speaker 3: smoking section on the airplane, as if the smoke knew
Speaker 3: when to stop it, did? I bet we're I think
Speaker 3: we're at that phase with sports gambling. We're going to
Speaker 3: look back and we're going to say what you were
Speaker 3: allowed to do this? The players got banned out of
Speaker 3: the bag. Now I mean there's no Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: there's regulation, and I think there's some. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think whatever the cliche you know to toothpaste isn't going
Speaker 3: back into two. But I think we're going to look
Speaker 3: back at this period and say, was there no regulation whatsoever?
Speaker 2: I mean, would you expect at some point there's gonna
Speaker 2: be some big blow up of something.
Speaker 3: Whether that's a great point because I think I think
Speaker 3: the way the leagues, and again this is one of
Speaker 3: the great about faces and sports, I mean, ten years ago,
Speaker 3: the leagues would say that this is the most sinister thing.
Speaker 3: And they all, you know, every everybody went into Capitol
Speaker 3: Hill to say, why PASSPA the you know, the legislation
Speaker 3: should be overturned and why And then they ever in
Speaker 3: the league essentially did it about face and said, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what, you know, this is a lot of
Speaker 3: revenue we're passing up and we need sunlight. We need
Speaker 3: legal Legal gambling is better than illegal gambling. And the
Speaker 3: one thing the league said was that the threat of
Speaker 3: corruption is going to be lessened when it's public, right.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have all this data, we have all this access.
Speaker 3: It's like marijuana. It's sort of gonna decriminalize. And I
Speaker 3: think in a very short amount of time this started out.
Speaker 3: There were a couple of college scandals and there was
Speaker 3: a baseball coach you tip someone off, and then now
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, we have the Sho Heo Tani,
Speaker 3: you know, the MVP, reigning mvpated what he wasn't Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I think it looks pretty clear he wasn't corrupt,
Speaker 3: but someone very close to him was siphoning money out
Speaker 3: of his account to pay his dance. We have them
Speaker 3: someone on the Toronto Raptors is now banned from basketball
Speaker 3: globally because I think the water level is getting very high,
Speaker 3: and I feel like we're we are one Black Sox
Speaker 3: type scandal away from this thing really imploding. I think
Speaker 3: right now there are a lot of people who are
Speaker 3: wringing their hands and it's it's great, and we love
Speaker 3: this infusion of revenue. And some stadiums have sports books,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm I'm you know, Sports Illustrated Tennis Channel, CBS, ESPN,
Speaker 3: I mean ESPN Vegas does it. I mean every sports
Speaker 3: media exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Mickey is not into this.
Speaker 3: You don't think uh no, I mean again, like on ESPN,
Speaker 3: you couldn't mention points spreads a few years ago. That
Speaker 3: my favorite, my favorite story of all these is that
Speaker 3: the Vegas Chamber of Commerce wanted to buy a Super
Speaker 3: super Bowl add about twenty years ago, and in the
Speaker 3: NFL said no because it's too adjacent to gambling. It
Speaker 3: was just Vegas and the Super Bowl. Yeah, it was
Speaker 3: in the Chamber of Commerce exactly. And now the Super
Speaker 3: Bowl is in Las Vegas. The announcers are telling you
Speaker 3: what the points spread is and pretty soon we're just
Speaker 3: gonna go to NFL dot com and bet on football
Speaker 3: Games on the NFL's website. I mean, the the about
Speaker 3: face on this is, uh, it's pretty dramatic.
Speaker 2: Everybody in the pool like it's totally I feel like
Speaker 2: we'd be remiss because I you, earlier this year, you
Speaker 2: did something on CBS Sunday Morning and it was about
Speaker 2: defending Sports Illustrated its relevance. And you know, our producer
Speaker 2: Paul Brennan, faithful reader for forty five years, starting when
Speaker 2: he was a kid, loved the magazine version, you know,
Speaker 2: and we were confused if there is a print version
Speaker 2: there still is, right, what does the world dose by
Speaker 2: not having print versions?
Speaker 3: First of all, I'd say that, surprisingly and against all odds,
Speaker 3: there seems to be a very happy resolution here. I
Speaker 3: did that piece for I don't know what that was,
Speaker 3: maybe February. I did that piece for CBS Sunday Morning,
Speaker 3: and it was really a problematic time for Sports Illustrating.
Speaker 3: We sort of had this white night, this company minute
Speaker 3: meet stepped up and you know, we're knocking on plywood,
Speaker 3: and so far, so good. It's sort of a miraculous
Speaker 3: happy media story. I mean, to me, it's not so
Speaker 3: much that the print versus digital. I mean, you know, candidly,
Speaker 3: print is a lot. You know, it's a smaller part
Speaker 3: of our life than it was just a few years ago.
Speaker 3: To me, it's just sort of the independence of it
Speaker 3: all and the fact that you don't have to you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's fear and favor, and it's writing about things
Speaker 3: without a partnership with the league, and there's no conflict
Speaker 3: of interest. I mean, to me, that's what's lost with
Speaker 3: this changing media landscape. And my attitude is like, I
Speaker 3: don't care if it's TV or digital or the phone
Speaker 3: or print or wherever it is, as long as it's
Speaker 3: getting to consumer. To me, it's just the independence. And
Speaker 3: I think that's that's that's sort of what my great
Speaker 3: fear was at the time, that this is just another
Speaker 3: media anthony that's going to be swallowed up. And now
Speaker 3: everything's sort of mediated through a league, a team and
Speaker 3: athlete themselves, which is great, but you also need some
Speaker 3: sort of objectivity and UH agreed. Happily sports illustrates uh
Speaker 3: kind of sort of a comeback story in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to tell you very cool.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to hear that. I also, I love that
Speaker 2: you love Trader Joe's.
Speaker 3: Did you hear that? I love Trader Jet? I know Joe, Oh,
Speaker 3: I love Trader Jet. I love to say that he's
Speaker 3: got a conflict of interest. I'm an unpaid folks.
Speaker 2: It's out there.
Speaker 3: It's good stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much. Oh, pleasure, this is
Speaker 2: a pleasure. We always feel like it's just such a smart.
Speaker 4: Guy and he's in the flesh. This year is a flash.
Speaker 3: He's here speak zoom the tennis.
Speaker 2: John is going to be calling like, hey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, get back to Santa Monica now, pleasure.
Speaker 2: No, no, don't, don't, don't John Worthiam. Of course, as
Speaker 2: we said, he is covering the US Open for the
Speaker 2: Tennis Channel. He's executive editor senior writer at Sports Illustrated
Speaker 2: UH and of course correspondent for sixty minutes.
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