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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Scott So, I'm Evan Nobi Williams, and I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Barr. And this is the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast,

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Speaker 1: where yes explore the big money in the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: I knew he was going to do it. He's a cavetchervet.

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Speaker 1: You know the word cavetch look at him, A teacher

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Speaker 1: man official. Today we begin with the New York Knicks

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Speaker 1: and the hopes and dreams of Knicks fans as we

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Speaker 1: enter free agency season. Owner Jim Dolan spoke with Michael

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Speaker 1: k on ESPN Radio last month about his team's latest

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Speaker 1: losing season, despite what he says are his best efforts.

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Speaker 1: You know, we take, you know, the the investment into

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Speaker 1: the team to the max that we can take it,

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Speaker 1: that we do everything we can to make that the

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Speaker 1: the game experience as as great of a game experience,

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Speaker 1: even when we lose, right for our fans that they

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Speaker 1: you know, we spent a billion dollars renovating that the

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Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. But I do believe that, you know,

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Speaker 1: there is you know, a malcontent group that's always very vocal,

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Speaker 1: and I think they'll always be there. So gentleman, as

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Speaker 1: Jim Dolan and the NIXT head into the offseason. Will

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Speaker 1: this time be different? First of all, bar As somebody

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Speaker 1: who did the tour and wrote about this quite a bit,

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Speaker 1: he would be very upset Mr Dolan if one of

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Speaker 1: his employees called it a renovation, because they were charged

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Speaker 1: with telling everybody it was not a renovation of the building.

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Speaker 1: It was a transformation. No renovation, Yes, transformation, billion dollar transfer,

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Speaker 1: billion dollar transformation. That the question is can they transform

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Speaker 1: the Knicks into a winner? That? And and I wanted

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Speaker 1: to discuss this today because the New York Times did

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Speaker 1: a big piece on Will Dolan. Is he the reason

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Speaker 1: that free agents will not come to New York? And

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Speaker 1: one of the people they spoke with David Stern, who

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Speaker 1: of course we've had on the show, who called the

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Speaker 1: Knicks once not a model of intelligent management. And David

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Speaker 1: and I, I believe you've seen I see the same

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Speaker 1: on this one. That Dolan will not keep free agents,

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Speaker 1: whether it's Kevin Durant, whether it's Kyrie Irving, if they

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Speaker 1: get lucky and get Zion Williams in the draft, or

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Speaker 1: whether they try and trade for Anthony Davis. Free agents

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Speaker 1: are not looking at the owner of the New York

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Speaker 1: Knicks and saying, well, that guy is mentally he has

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Speaker 1: some problems with some fans. One, do they have the

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Speaker 1: room to pay me? That's one? What can I do?

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Speaker 1: What's my lifestyle off the court? Too? And that includes

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Speaker 1: you know, can I make some money there? And Lebron

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Speaker 1: proved if you're biginning star doesn't really matter where you are.

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Speaker 1: So the mindset, let's say Kevin Durant, does Kevin Durant

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Speaker 1: really believe that if he goes to New York they're

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Speaker 1: gonna stink? Is here? Exactly? They're the solution, right, that's

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Speaker 1: the difference here that the ego does not allow. Well,

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Speaker 1: if I'm never going to be bad, Well, what happens

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Speaker 1: if you get Kevin Durant, And yes, you do get

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Speaker 1: Zion Williamson. So I'm just I'm playing the what if game?

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Speaker 1: Toss Kyrie Irving in their draft. This this team is

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Speaker 1: going to be significantly better next year, could possibly be

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Speaker 1: one of the best teams on paper in the East

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Speaker 1: in just a couple of months. Right, they have the

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Speaker 1: chance to get the number one pick to get Zion, right,

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Speaker 1: the best odds. I believe that they had the worst record. Um,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna pick top five. No matter what, to pick

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Speaker 1: top three, they're gonna get a good draft pick. They

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Speaker 1: also have two max contract slots available and a pretty

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Speaker 1: decent free agent class at that. Um, if they add

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Speaker 1: Zion and two good free agents or even R. J. Barrett,

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Speaker 1: whatever the number three pick is, and to two max contracts,

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Speaker 1: this team is going to be so much better than

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Speaker 1: the question. If I were a free agent or in

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Speaker 1: the agent four said person, I would look into the

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Speaker 1: basketball management. How do they manage the assets that they have?

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Speaker 1: Do they draft well? Those sorts of things would concern me.

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Speaker 1: Now that folds on Steve Mills and Scott Perry, the GM,

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Speaker 1: and well if if jim inserts himself into the process

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Speaker 1: of where he was the one who wanted Carmelo Anthony

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Speaker 1: when realistically, I mean anybody would have told him just

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Speaker 1: wait for the year to end, and I believe Donnie

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Speaker 1: Walsh did. Why are we giving up our assets to

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Speaker 1: get Carmelo Anthony in the middle of the season when

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Speaker 1: we can just wait till the end of the year

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Speaker 1: and signed MS a free agent and keep the assets.

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Speaker 1: But Carmelo wanted now, and Jimmy wanted now. Um, maybe

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Speaker 1: he learned from that. Maybe not, I don't know, but

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Speaker 1: still they spend money. It is New York, the number

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Speaker 1: one media market in the country. It is a desirable

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Speaker 1: location for free agents astely and to just to underscore

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Speaker 1: how bad they've been recently. Why did you use the

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Speaker 1: word underscore the Knicks? They haven't they've won one playoff

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Speaker 1: series since two thousand and one. No window. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: been what but but it's still it's still a place

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Speaker 1: to be and it places to be still an event

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Speaker 1: when the Knicks play, it's still of it. And we

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Speaker 1: had Shawn Marks, the GM of the Nets, on the

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Speaker 1: podcast a couple of weeks ago. Uh. And Scott, you

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Speaker 1: asked him towards the end of the interview, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you were pitching a free agent on coming to

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Speaker 1: the Knicks or the Nets, what's the pitch to get

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Speaker 1: them to come to the Nets? Uh? It's a relevant

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Speaker 1: question now because the Nets also have a pretty significant

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Speaker 1: amount of cap space. Um. I think if you were

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Speaker 1: to look at the teams as they're constituted right now,

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Speaker 1: the Nets made the playoffs, the Knicks didn't. But the

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Speaker 1: Nuts certainly seemed like they have more young pieces to

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Speaker 1: build around seems they started to transform a culture. Agree,

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Speaker 1: we believe that. However, the brand, as you're saying, the

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Speaker 1: brand playing in Brooklyn for the Nets are playing at

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Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden and the Knicks. It's such a it's

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Speaker 1: such a vast difference there. Old schoolers remember the old

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Speaker 1: ABC NBA Game of the Week and a lot of

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Speaker 1: times you would probably see you going Red, White and

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Speaker 1: Blue ball on Dr Jay on Long Island. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to Willis read on you man, this is when the

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Speaker 1: Knicks would play the Lakers. You would see it all

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Speaker 1: the time. I mean you had both coasts, big cities,

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Speaker 1: and you would see these games all the time. And

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Speaker 1: as a kid, I enjoyed watching that. So like a

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Speaker 1: whole generation bar who thought it was just the Celtics

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Speaker 1: and the Lakers in the championship every year. Yeah, nobody

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Speaker 1: has really got a chance. It was just like you

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Speaker 1: play and then at the end, we'll see the Celtics

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Speaker 1: and the Lakers. Oh I missed those days anyway. Let's

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Speaker 1: uh shift gears now to college ball with a long

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Speaker 1: awaited trial over allegations of corruption and college basketball kicking

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Speaker 1: golf two days. Yeah, the the second of the three

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Speaker 1: different college basketball you know, recruiting scandal. FBI investigation cases

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Speaker 1: starts this week in New York. The big one couple

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Speaker 1: of months ago kind of focused around the money that

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Speaker 1: gets paid UH two families and and athletes to to

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Speaker 1: go to specific schools. This one focusing more on the

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Speaker 1: money paid to coaches UH in exchange for kind of

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Speaker 1: nudging players to sign with a specific agent or a

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Speaker 1: specific consultant when they're when they're ready to go pro um.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's gonna be a lot of a lot

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Speaker 1: of testimony, a lot of evidence. I would imagine these

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Speaker 1: next couple of weeks are going to be filled with

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Speaker 1: little relevant revelations in court that you know, this coach

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Speaker 1: took you know, twenty dollars for this player. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: see a lot of big names, both from a player

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Speaker 1: standpoint and from a coaching standpoint, being brought up in

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Speaker 1: these next few weeks. So far, has this whole thing

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Speaker 1: has been not been a big fizzle? And we're supposed

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Speaker 1: to transform everything, and all I know is that Rick

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Speaker 1: Pettino's coaching increase. Yeah, it's it's it depends on how

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Speaker 1: you define fizzle. Right. The first trial, you know, all

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Speaker 1: three guys were found guilty. Right, they were all convicted

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Speaker 1: of of of jail then j transformation of college sports

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Speaker 1: in college basket, it hasn't. It has not changed that much.

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Speaker 1: I think the in general, there there is certainly a

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Speaker 1: subset of college sports fans out there who think one that,

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Speaker 1: you know, the rules need to be changed significantly, but

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Speaker 1: be you know, I think it's kind of ridiculous that

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Speaker 1: you know, we're holding up the victims in this case

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Speaker 1: are the schools? Right? And the argument is that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the government was defrauded because they give money to the schools,

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Speaker 1: but also that the schools were defrauded, um because you

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Speaker 1: know the way in which you know, these coaches went

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Speaker 1: beyond you know the rules in there UH employment contract,

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Speaker 1: the way they went beyond the on our code of

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Speaker 1: the school, the way they went beyond UH amateurism rules

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Speaker 1: for the n c A. Right, that all those things

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Speaker 1: kind of defrauded the schools UM. And Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that that's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of a paper victim in some ways, right, because the

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Speaker 1: truth is that you know, a lot of times the

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Speaker 1: schools are the schools are getting they're getting these athletes, right,

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Speaker 1: that they are they are receiving the goods and the

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Speaker 1: advantage that comes along with this. There's a legal benchmark

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Speaker 1: that that is is out there called willful blindness, and

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Speaker 1: I always have to wonder how much of this, on

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Speaker 1: the institution stand standpoint is willful blind Well yeah, but

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Speaker 1: that's the thing I wanted to bring up to is

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Speaker 1: that I guess as a society we had to We

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Speaker 1: always thought of college sports as hey, that's my team.

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Speaker 1: Rob Ryan was very innocent. We weren't looking at it

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Speaker 1: as a business many years ago, and then one day

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Speaker 1: society said, wait, this is a business. Well one day

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Speaker 1: paid a ton of money to put it on TV.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's that was the big thing. And if

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Speaker 1: we want to continue the legal ease, I'll just give

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Speaker 1: you the race SEPs A. Look, Witter, there are there

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Speaker 1: are a lot more schools involved in this one that

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Speaker 1: that first trial focused so much on on Louisville and Kansas.

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Speaker 1: You know, this time we have USC, South Carolina, Oklahoma State,

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Speaker 1: tc U, l s U, Creighton. UM. You know that

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Speaker 1: the two big names that the people in the in

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Speaker 1: this world they're talking about right now, Sean Miller, the

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Speaker 1: head coach at Arizona still has a job. There's been

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Speaker 1: a lot out there, still still employed. Has refuted a

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Speaker 1: lot of the argument are a lot of things that

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Speaker 1: have been reported about him. UM and the second one

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Speaker 1: being l s U coach Will Wade Um, who was

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Speaker 1: was not behind the bench when LSU made their run

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Speaker 1: in the n c A tournament this year. Um. Both

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Speaker 1: of them came out last weekend. Don't have to testify,

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Speaker 1: which I think is a is a downer for some

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Speaker 1: people who are expecting some juiciness. But there's no question

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Speaker 1: that there is going to be evidence brought forth in

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Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks that possibly directly ties them

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Speaker 1: to payments. UM, and who knows what other head coaches

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Speaker 1: and other big names might might not everybody can be

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Speaker 1: as clean as the circus orange bars. All I have

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Speaker 1: to say to save this audio for two. Finally, this

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Speaker 1: is this is sad and I and it's it's final.

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Speaker 1: It's a story we've been covering extensively. It is because

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Speaker 1: it is official now. The a a F, the Alliance

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Speaker 1: of American Football, has filed for bankruptcy. Guys, it looks

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Speaker 1: like it's over before it even got off the ground.

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Speaker 1: Dreams just shot the smith Mareens. I feel bad playing

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Speaker 1: the role of Evan Nooby Williams will be me from

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Speaker 1: the filing forty eight point four million in liabilities eleven

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Speaker 1: point four million in assets. Is that good? Liability is

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Speaker 1: much greater that assets. That's when Chapter seven just five

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Speaker 1: and thirty six thousand in cash on hand. UM. A

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Speaker 1: bunch of creditors here, some big names, CBS, you know,

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Speaker 1: five million, MGM, seven million, number universities, A s U.

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Speaker 1: I think one point one point two million UM. This

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Speaker 1: is Chapter seven bankruptcy. I mean, what a mess, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean we had an idea of some of the

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Speaker 1: details of the financial situation the a F was in.

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Speaker 1: This kind of crystallizes it in some ways. Does this

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Speaker 1: all hinge because the a F couldn't strike a deal

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Speaker 1: with the NFL for some of their farm players ahead.

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Speaker 1: I think the answer to that is no. I mean

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Speaker 1: Tom Dundon, who invested in the a F pretty early

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Speaker 1: and quickly became, you know, the executive chairman. He was

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Speaker 1: very public about wanting this this deal with the NFL,

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Speaker 1: in which the a a F would have been a

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Speaker 1: kind of a feeder league where NFL player NFL teams

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Speaker 1: could send down practice squad players, etcetera. To get more

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Speaker 1: reps um. He clearly wanted at UM and you know,

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Speaker 1: said a couple of weeks before it folded that he

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Speaker 1: was willing to fold the league if he didn't get

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Speaker 1: it um, and in the end he didn't. We have

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Speaker 1: not we still have not heard from Tom Dundon publicly.

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Speaker 1: Uh in kind of coordination with this bankruptcy, Charlie Ever

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Speaker 1: saw the TV producer who was one of the co founders.

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Speaker 1: He gave an interview Sports Business Journal. He talked a

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Speaker 1: bit about kind of what it looked like from from

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Speaker 1: his perspective. As Charlie said it, you know, he didn't

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Speaker 1: feel like this was a directly a money issue. I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: you know, they knew they were gonna lose money in

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Speaker 1: the beginning. The fact that they were were low on cash,

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Speaker 1: I don't think it was a huge surprise to him.

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Speaker 1: He felt as though the plan should have been, or was,

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Speaker 1: you know, to to to get to the end of

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Speaker 1: the season, payback the debtors that they needed to pay back,

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Speaker 1: and then kind of take stock of where they were

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Speaker 1: going to be for season two. It seems pretty clear

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Speaker 1: that Tom Dundon, who had all the authority because he

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Speaker 1: was the executive chairman that he felt differently. Um. This

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Speaker 1: from what I understand, this bankruptcy filing was filed by

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Speaker 1: Charlie himself, so not from from Tom camp Um. But yeah, still,

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Speaker 1: you know there's still some kind of a little bit

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Speaker 1: of mystery shrouded in exactly how this thing unwound. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'll take the very basic stance of if one wanted

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Speaker 1: or needed an affiliation with the NFL and NFL p

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Speaker 1: A to have sort of a business plan that you

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Speaker 1: think would have a better chance of survival, one ought

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Speaker 1: to solidify that agreement prior to launch of the league.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that that's not a Harvard NBA speaking

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Speaker 1: right there. However, there was no agreement, there was no

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Speaker 1: impetus for the n f L p A to agree.

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Speaker 1: Talked to Morris Smith big time about this, and I

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Speaker 1: don't think there were any really hard talkative discussions, if

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Speaker 1: at all, about making this happen. And let me go

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Speaker 1: one step further, I'm not so sure I would be

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Speaker 1: all that excited if NFL practice squad players were allowed

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Speaker 1: to go to the a FULD, because I probably have

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Speaker 1: heard of five of them, so I'm not sure, that's

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Speaker 1: the big difference either other than one the affiliation, the

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Speaker 1: official affiliation with the NFL, and perhaps some promotion and

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Speaker 1: and marketing might say, hey, you want NFL, you gotta

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Speaker 1: give some airtime to this as well. Um, I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure that would be the saving grace either. One other

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Speaker 1: little item from that bankruptcy filing. Um Charlie Ebersol continued

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Speaker 1: to be paid after the league ceased operations, including a

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Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollar salary payment that came I think a

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Speaker 1: week prior to the what was what was the final

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Speaker 1: thirty seven dollars for the cell phone reinbased Scott. I

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Speaker 1: know you're a son Zoo fan. Leaders eat last I

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Speaker 1: believe is one of his one of his tenants. Doesn't

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Speaker 1: appear like that was like that was under If the

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Speaker 1: army sleeps out in the rain, the general must sleep

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Speaker 1: out in the rain as well. If he's got a tent,

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Speaker 1: they will not follow the players get stranded at the hotel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the founder needs to be better. You better be with

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Speaker 1: your cell phone cut off saying I can't get an

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Speaker 1: uber right. By the way, we mentioned to Morris Smith

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Speaker 1: and anybody does not know Demorris Smith head of the

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Speaker 1: NFL o P eight. This is the Bloomberg Business of

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Speaker 1: Sports podcast. Michael Barr, along with Scott Sasnik and Evan

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Speaker 1: Novie Williams. We are here each and every Monday, Wednesday

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Speaker 1: and Thursday exploring the world of money in sports. Join

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Speaker 1: us again at the end of the week when we

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Speaker 1: speak with Wes Eden's co owner of the Milwaukee Bucks,

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Speaker 1: the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Get out of here. Really,

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Bar doesn't know that yet, so

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Speaker 1: that I just found out right now. Oh my goodness,

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Speaker 1: Big West. You're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio around the world and online where you get

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Speaker 1: your podcast.