Speaker 1: Thank you again for joining me another week for It's
Speaker 1: a Numbers Game with Ryan Gurdusky. I want to ask
Speaker 1: you to like and subscribe to this podcast on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or where you get listening to your podcast, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. And I want to start this week by
Speaker 1: just acknowledging and taking a second for the horrible airline
Speaker 1: tragedy in Washington, DC that occurred a lot of people
Speaker 1: lost their lives, and I hope that you can just
Speaker 1: keep them in your thoughts in prayers. With all the
Speaker 1: heavy news that came out in January, I want to
Speaker 1: talk with something lighter and look towards February. You know,
Speaker 1: it's our shortest month. It's Black History Month, President's Day,
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day, but it's a really big month for pop culture.
Speaker 1: February starts off with the Grammy Awards on February second,
Speaker 1: which is the highest prize for music artists. Then they
Speaker 1: have the Super Bowl the week after, and then at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of March, which is technically still February,
Speaker 1: since it's the shortest month, you have the Academy Awards.
Speaker 1: So I thought we'd take a break from politics for
Speaker 1: one week and look at pop culture. Kicking off the
Speaker 1: show this week is my first River Page. River is
Speaker 1: a reporter for the Free Press. He wrote a fantastic
Speaker 1: review of the Oscar nominated movie Amelia Perez, and I
Speaker 1: thought I would have him on for some pop culture topics. River,
Speaker 1: thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan.
Speaker 1: So I want to start off with talking about the
Speaker 1: Academy Awards, which you wrote about, which are on March second,
Speaker 1: as I said, and those of the people who haven't
Speaker 1: who have been following, there's ten nominees for Best Picture.
Speaker 1: They are Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune,
Speaker 1: Amelia Perez, I'm Still Here, the Nickel Boys, The Substance,
Speaker 1: and Wicked. Now, because this is a data podcast, I
Speaker 1: want to start off with a piece of data. Of
Speaker 1: the ten movies that have been nominated for Best Picture,
Speaker 1: they have made a total of one point seven billion
Speaker 1: dollars worldwide. But that's only because two movies, Wicked and
Speaker 1: Dune Part two made one point four billion dollars. That's
Speaker 1: really not a lot of money for like movies. So
Speaker 1: my first question for you is, like, why is the
Speaker 1: Academy so heavily like nominating a bunch of art house
Speaker 1: movies that not a lot of people are watching.
Speaker 2: Well, they've sort of always done this. I think it's
Speaker 2: a it's a bit of snobbishness. I don't completely think
Speaker 2: it's a bad thing. You know, I don't want I
Speaker 2: don't know the Peppa Pig movie or whatever nominated for
Speaker 2: Best Picture. You know, they usually throw in a blockbuster
Speaker 2: to like Wicked in this case.
Speaker 1: Last year they had Oppenheimer and Barbie, which were big movies.
Speaker 1: They had Top Gun, Elvis and Avatar the year before.
Speaker 1: There are big movies nominated a bunch of times this
Speaker 1: movie this year, lots of movies about either trainees or
Speaker 1: people who don't have or what was in concrete spoiler
Speaker 1: they don't have jen afroditeite situation. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of that going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always the topic of the day. They love
Speaker 2: like a SOB story and like it's usually they like
Speaker 2: a political thing, but it's it's like very liberal. It's
Speaker 2: not quite leftists, like for instance, the Amelia Perez thing Glad,
Speaker 2: which is like the evil like gay rights watchdog, like
Speaker 2: professional you know, snarkers or whatever. They hated Amelia Perez.
Speaker 2: It's actually come out that the transactress who plays the
Speaker 2: Mexican drug lord who becomes trans and Amelia Perez has
Speaker 2: made a bunch of tweets saying that like Muslims should
Speaker 2: be banned from Europe.
Speaker 1: And like she has praised Hitler. Hitler just had opinions
Speaker 1: on the Jews like she was she just she just
Speaker 1: she just got rid of her Twitter account like today
Speaker 1: because she she has some spicy tweets on World War Two,
Speaker 1: you wrote in the Free For those who don't know
Speaker 1: what we were talking about, you wrote in the Free Press,
Speaker 1: you described the movie as a quote Spanish language musical
Speaker 1: about a transgender Mexican drug lord and her girl boss
Speaker 1: of attorney. That is doesn't sound like it's when that
Speaker 1: people are breaking their doors down to see.
Speaker 2: No, they're not. It did so badly it barely even
Speaker 2: released in the United States. It did so badly in
Speaker 2: Mexico that a government like consumer protection agency had to
Speaker 2: get involved to get people their ticket refunds because so
Speaker 2: many people were requesting though, really, yeah, that's so fun.
Speaker 2: It did really badly. It was hated by audiences. A
Speaker 2: lot of critics didn't even like it, but the Academy
Speaker 2: seems to love it, which isn't totally in line with them.
Speaker 2: They love picking up these sort of like sad sap
Speaker 2: movies with you know, liberal politics that are sort of
Speaker 2: five years behind wherever Twitter is. This is just what
Speaker 2: they do. They've been doing it for years.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think so? Some one of our
Speaker 1: mutual friends said, hollywoo Wood is like Detroit on a hill,
Speaker 1: Like it's just dead. It's a dead city. Is that
Speaker 1: what this? Because they could have I mean I don't
Speaker 1: really I saw a few movies this year, but they
Speaker 1: could have done something better, Like I'm sure there was
Speaker 1: a better crop to pick from, even from the streaming
Speaker 1: movies or must have been a better one. Is it
Speaker 1: just that they had, Like there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: and engines that go into like getting a nominated movie
Speaker 1: for Best Picture stuff. Is that just what it was?
Speaker 2: Or is that like, well, there's three types of movies
Speaker 2: that are made today. It's like blockbusters for the Chinese
Speaker 2: middle class. It's sort of like weird can't focus, made
Speaker 2: for streaming like made to watch on your phone, sort
Speaker 2: of Netflix trash. And then there are like art house
Speaker 2: movies that are bad, but like they're they're bad in
Speaker 2: a way that you're supposed to feel smart for watching them,
Speaker 2: like conclaves like this, it's a terrible, boring slog, but
Speaker 2: you feel like you're a smart person for sitting through
Speaker 2: three hours of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was what movie was it that was like three
Speaker 1: and a half hours long that I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to see this. And I looked
Speaker 1: at this brutalless brutalist and they're like, it's three and
Speaker 1: a half hours long, and I was like, what's it about?
Speaker 1: And they're like the guy who made brutalist architecture. I'm like,
Speaker 1: who is gonna watch that movie?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Three and a half. I can't. I can't do that.
Speaker 2: I went and last year or the year before, I
Speaker 2: can't remember. I saw Killers of the Flower Moon in theaters.
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese is four hours long, and to watch that
Speaker 2: in theaters is so brutal. I didn't bring a jacket.
Speaker 2: I was like shivering in the movie theater because I
Speaker 2: was in South Florida. They keep everything like sixty five
Speaker 2: degrees inside there. I had to pee so bad. But
Speaker 2: I was like there's no intermission, yeah, and I was
Speaker 2: like this is this is just too much. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was good because Martin Scorsese is good, but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: he needs an editor, so to be a top two hours,
Speaker 2: it's as much as I can handle.
Speaker 1: He's he's he's at the point in his career where
Speaker 1: he doesn't like no one demands some edit his movie.
Speaker 1: Because even like To the Party, which is like my
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies of all time, would have
Speaker 1: been great if it was twenty minutes shorter, and I
Speaker 1: was like, this is it's still a master it's amazing,
Speaker 1: but like we didn't need the last twenty minutes. We
Speaker 1: just didn't need them. And but you can't say Martin Scorsese. No.
Speaker 1: A couple of these movies like whoever means the Brutalist,
Speaker 1: it's not Martin Scorsese. So like I'm sure a four
Speaker 1: hour movie or three and a half hour movie was
Speaker 1: too much. And then as far as like the actors
Speaker 1: who are nominated, A lot of them I'm not like
Speaker 1: super familiar with, but there's not a lot of There's
Speaker 1: Demi Moore, who is she's nominated for her first award ever.
Speaker 1: I think she's never been nominated before for her movie
Speaker 1: which was like a horror movie about like a body.
Speaker 2: Of business, substance, which I loved, did you a lot
Speaker 2: of people hated, But yeah, it's about this. To me,
Speaker 2: Moore is this aging pilates instructors, sort of like a
Speaker 2: Jane Fonda character, like TV pilates instructor who gets aged
Speaker 2: out and takes this the substance, which basically turns her
Speaker 2: into Margaret Quayle, who is like a young hot actress,
Speaker 2: and so she has an alter ego she has she
Speaker 2: can only spend one week as each person, and if
Speaker 2: you disrupt the balance and try to spend more time
Speaker 2: as your younger self, you like slowly become this like
Speaker 2: weird monster. It's very campy. It's really it's stupid, Like
Speaker 2: the entire concept is stupid, but it's it's very campy
Speaker 2: and fun. I'm kind of surprised that it was nominated
Speaker 2: for an Oscar honestly because it's.
Speaker 1: I think it's her lifetime.
Speaker 3: She means award.
Speaker 1: I think that's basically what it is. Like, Hey, you
Speaker 1: you've you've lived, you're sixty, you're still got a career,
Speaker 1: and like, let's give you an award for something because
Speaker 1: you make.
Speaker 2: It's like we regret not giving you, you know, award
Speaker 2: for g I Jane or whatever. So we're gonna do this. Yeah, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: A sport, although I did say probably get bad, but
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, not like strip teas, but like maybe
Speaker 1: one of the other like ghosts. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: you like you made it, You're still around, like you're
Speaker 1: still relative. Swells has got Alzheimer's, Like, you know, he's
Speaker 1: your ex husband. Let's give you an award just because
Speaker 1: we should. And then I saw the Kieran Culkin movie,
Speaker 1: which was incredibly boring, but I'm a big fan of his,
Speaker 1: so I kind of hope that he wins. Do you
Speaker 1: have any opinion of who you think would win.
Speaker 2: For Best Actor or best hope and think that Sebastian
Speaker 2: stan might win.
Speaker 1: What movie was he in?
Speaker 2: He played Trump in The Apprentice, which is the movie
Speaker 2: about relationship with Roy Moore. I actually really liked it.
Speaker 2: It was I mean, of course, it's, you know, a
Speaker 2: hit piece because it portrays Trump raping his ex wife,
Speaker 2: which she alleged in divorce proceedings and later retracted. I
Speaker 2: wrote a piece a review of this on the Free Press,
Speaker 2: but I thought that it humanized Trump in a way
Speaker 2: that I wasn't really expecting. Really from a movie with
Speaker 2: its politics, and it really was more just about like
Speaker 2: the relationship between Trump and roy Cone, and I just
Speaker 2: find roy Cone to be like an endlessly fascinating figure.
Speaker 1: Do you think that like Trump will like loom over
Speaker 1: entertainment in the next four years like he did over
Speaker 1: the last four years.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of these people are burned out,
Speaker 2: Like there just hasn't been you know, if you think
Speaker 2: about what it was like in you know, January of
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, like it was so much more hysterical, Like
Speaker 2: there's still some hysteria, but it was so so much worse.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are like, we've been
Speaker 2: through Trump, we know what we're.
Speaker 1: Dealing with, and there's only one just don't have the.
Speaker 2: Bandwidth for it anymore, and he has a mandate. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can only I mean, I'm sure you'll still have
Speaker 2: some terrible libtard movies that come out, but I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to have a complete domination over the culture.
Speaker 2: You can even look at something like SNL, which you
Speaker 2: know it's still has a liberal bent, but it at
Speaker 2: least they have somebody who like can do a convincing
Speaker 2: Trump now and like actually makes funny jokes and like
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like there at the very least,
Speaker 2: like people are still like willing to laugh.
Speaker 4: Her.
Speaker 1: Santa Glam has deleted her crying video, which she would
Speaker 1: not have done for you. They'd all be crying videos
Speaker 1: right now. And the fact that she deleted her crying
Speaker 1: video was like a lot.
Speaker 2: No, they would have like awarded her at the Kennedy
Speaker 2: Senator like eight years ago. Yeah, see you so do you?
Speaker 1: Who do you think it would win for Best Picture? Then?
Speaker 1: I heard of Nora is Good movie. I didn't see it,
Speaker 1: though I've heard it.
Speaker 2: I've heard of Nora is Good. I haven't seen it either.
Speaker 2: I think that Amelia well, actually Amelia Perez made I
Speaker 2: don't know. It's the voting already been done. I don't
Speaker 2: know how this works.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's for another month. I think three
Speaker 1: weeks run over. I don't know. I don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Nancy stuff made us.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think has a good.
Speaker 1: Chance doesn't go well, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it'll. If it's not Amelia Perez, I
Speaker 2: think it'll probably be conclave.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Okay, Well we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: Grammys next. Before we do, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned. The
Speaker 1: Grammys are being held on February second after this podcast
Speaker 1: is released, but before we're taping it, so we don't
Speaker 1: know the winners are yet, and the big nominees are
Speaker 1: Charlie XCX. She's got an album called Bratt Billy Eilish,
Speaker 1: The Rise and Fall of the Midwest, Princess by Chapel Rone,
Speaker 1: Tortured Poet Society by Taylor Swift, and Cowboy Carter by Beyonce.
Speaker 1: Now let me give you guys a little data to chew.
Speaker 1: One Dance is the most Grammy Award winning artist of
Speaker 1: all time. She has won thirty two awards. She's had
Speaker 1: ninety nine nominations, but she has never won the coveted
Speaker 1: Album of the Year awards, spite being nominated five previous times.
Speaker 1: This is her sixth nomination and River what frustrates me
Speaker 1: a little bit about like And I'm not a Beyonce
Speaker 1: like fan, per se. I don't hate her, but I
Speaker 1: don't really care. But every time she doesn't win this award,
Speaker 1: we have a national conversation about how America is racist
Speaker 1: because she doesn't have another trophy and what are your feelings?
Speaker 1: Are they right because as she doesn't have her Album
Speaker 1: of the Year award.
Speaker 3: No, they're not.
Speaker 2: I mean it's yeah, this happens constantly. I think it's
Speaker 2: it's because of her fan base, which is like or
Speaker 2: at least her online like hardcore, the Beayhive as they
Speaker 2: call it. It's like thirty five year old black woman
Speaker 2: with master's degrees and like the most psychotic gig guy
Speaker 2: you know. And that's who's who's bullying the Grammys and everybody.
Speaker 1: You know, Cowboy Carter, Yeah, crashing and it's it's trash.
Speaker 2: It sucks. She so word on the Street I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do by w Wendy Williams. Now word on the street
Speaker 2: is that she, like a decade ago, Beyonce performed at
Speaker 2: the CMA Awards with the Dixie Chicks right and got
Speaker 2: a very icy reception that she took very personally, which
Speaker 2: by the way, it was probably an icy reception war
Speaker 2: to the Dixie Chicks and then to her right. But
Speaker 2: she apparently was so offended by this that she was like,
Speaker 2: one day We're going to make a country album and
Speaker 2: now she has and it's not good. Balt's mats some
Speaker 2: good music, like if you play like crazy in love
Speaker 2: or whatever, like in the club at you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't hate it. People still love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's great, yea.
Speaker 2: Some good nice club hits. But it's not a good
Speaker 2: country album, but pro album. It's like somewhere weird in between.
Speaker 2: She covered Uh, Dolly Parker Joline, but then she was like,
Speaker 2: don't take my man. I'm like, who's coming for jay Z?
Speaker 1: Girl?
Speaker 2: Like especially now to jar Jar Binks. Look at who
Speaker 2: standing next to you. Nobody's coming for him.
Speaker 1: Well, it's so well, what like the thing that gets
Speaker 1: me and I think that thing that annoys some people,
Speaker 1: like especially entertainers, is a sense of entitlement. Like she
Speaker 1: feels entitled, and not only when something doesn't happen for her.
Speaker 1: It's like a conversation about a Marria. I want to
Speaker 1: just give the listeners something like this that I did
Speaker 1: not know until I started researching us. These are the
Speaker 1: lists of people who have never won a Grammy, not
Speaker 1: one Grammy, not one time, Abba, The Beach Boys, Bob Marley,
Speaker 1: Dean Martin, Diana Ross, Guns N' Roses, Lana del Rey,
Speaker 1: Queen and Beyonce has more Grammys than Mariah Carey, Madonna,
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley, and the Beatles combined. I look almost as
Speaker 1: much as Michael Jackson if you added to that, like
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson barely crosses them over, I think by one
Speaker 1: or two wards. But for some reason, America is a
Speaker 1: deeply racist country because she for some reasons, One think
Speaker 1: it's an entitlement, and I think it's an entitlement you've
Speaker 1: see in other parts of our culture. And I think
Speaker 1: maybe like the intensity towards any criticisms around her where
Speaker 1: you have to you know, if anyone says anything bad.
Speaker 1: Therefore it's a combination of I guess Black America or
Speaker 1: something some random thing. It's very it's a very strange
Speaker 1: relationship with fans that we like, we're all kind of
Speaker 1: forced through. My other question is is so one of
Speaker 1: the predictors of who could win is Charlie XCX Now
Speaker 1: Charlotte for those who don't know, her album called Brat
Speaker 1: was like very like ingratiated with the Kamala Harris campaign.
Speaker 1: It was Brat Summer for her. So do you think
Speaker 1: that because Kamala loss are gonna give it to Charlie
Speaker 1: XCX is like a isolation prize, cancelation prize. You didn't
Speaker 1: win the White House, but Charlie XCX is gonna win
Speaker 1: for all of you. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think they might be too like traumatized by it.
Speaker 2: Like I feel like every time like a democrat heres
Speaker 2: like three six y five or something, they're just gonna
Speaker 2: like it's gonna be like Vietnam flashbacks. Because the Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris campaign vastly overestimated the number of homos in America. Like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, there's not that many of it. I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm living for like the brat, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm like, if your message as a politician appeals to
Speaker 2: me a bit like a gay culture critic, it is
Speaker 2: not for America. You are not what do you do
Speaker 2: do a retreat? So I don't know. I think they might.
Speaker 2: They might be a little too It might be a
Speaker 2: little too soon. You know, she might have to get
Speaker 2: an honorary award twenty years from now.
Speaker 1: Do you think a ward show still matter?
Speaker 2: Uh? No, they better to me, but they don't matter.
Speaker 2: It's like I think the radio doesn't even matter anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what's on it? To be completely honest, right,
Speaker 2: it's everybody. There are people who I listen to all
Speaker 2: the time who are like famous, and I'll mention their
Speaker 2: name to somebody and they're like, who you know. I
Speaker 2: think that streaming has really like changed the way the
Speaker 2: music industry works, and the Grammys haven't really kept up
Speaker 2: with that. Yeah, there are you know, people who are
Speaker 2: only musicians who are only famous on TikTok, musicians who
Speaker 2: are only famous on streaming. And then there's like people
Speaker 2: that you hear at CVS, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, or the doctor's office waiting room. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, this is what from the top
Speaker 1: end of this person. I will just say this one
Speaker 1: little once again data point for the listener. So the Grammys,
Speaker 1: on like other ward shows, their viewership was up last
Speaker 1: year sixteen point nine million people. And I right about
Speaker 1: what does the financial financial win fall from winning one
Speaker 1: of these awards. So Bruno Mars, the singer Bruna Mars,
Speaker 1: saw his ticket sales per night show p nic.
Speaker 2: One of thes people.
Speaker 1: By the way, I like Bruno Mars, but anyway, his
Speaker 1: the cause his number went from like one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty thousand to two hundred thousand per show, and Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift after she won her first Grammy went from one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand to six hundred thousand, and so I mean
Speaker 1: there's something. I mean, people do listen, there is a
Speaker 1: financial incentive for these artists to win.
Speaker 2: What do you think about Taylor Swift because her her
Speaker 2: fans are very similar to Beyonce is I mean they
Speaker 2: obviously they can't pull the race card. They but it's
Speaker 2: also a sense of entitlement that she should win every Grammy,
Speaker 2: every award.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every album should be but she has that. She's
Speaker 1: tied Frank Sinatra and Who's Who's Stevie Wonder for the
Speaker 1: most best most album of the years ever. Listen. She
Speaker 1: produces a ton of music. Some of it's really like catchy.
Speaker 1: Some of it I have no interest in whatsoever. I'm
Speaker 1: not like I would never go buy a ticket to
Speaker 1: a show. I would never prop But if it comes
Speaker 1: on the radio, if I'm listening to the radio, or
Speaker 1: if it pops on one of those like playlists on Spotify,
Speaker 1: I will listen through and I'll probably know the words
Speaker 1: to my handful of her songs. But like I'm I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't understand that I did go to one of
Speaker 1: her concerts because my friend an extra ticket. This is
Speaker 1: like years and years ago, and her fans were borderline
Speaker 1: like terrifying because like they had my homemade one of
Speaker 1: one was an overweight, middle aged man who had like
Speaker 1: made a homemade sweater of all of her cats. And
Speaker 1: I was like, this is very intense, Like no one
Speaker 1: will ever love me in my life as much as
Speaker 1: this middle aged man loves taylorsh Web And I find
Speaker 1: that you have very strange why do.
Speaker 2: You Yeah, yeah, they think she's like Bob Dillwood, like
Speaker 2: she could barely right. I don't know what you people
Speaker 2: are saying. I mean my friend Nick Beloane for the
Speaker 2: Thought Topics podcast, he says something very light Nick about
Speaker 2: Taylor Swiff and her fan of one time, which is
Speaker 2: that Taylor Swift is as deep as some people can go.
Speaker 2: And that's okay, And yeah, I mean I think that
Speaker 2: that's that pretty much sums it up. I mean, but
Speaker 2: that's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she's fine, Like she's fine. Is she a genius? No,
Speaker 1: but she's fine. Like I don't hate her, and I
Speaker 1: don't understand. I think people just don't like success, so
Speaker 1: they want to trash someone like her. They want to
Speaker 1: trash them, like Beyonce whatever and like whatever, Like they're
Speaker 1: more annoyed at their fans or the success than you
Speaker 1: are at them. They're fine, they're whatever, but like they're
Speaker 1: not a genius. They didn't change music, like I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not I don't know, like they're not the Beatles
Speaker 1: or whatever else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there's sort of a parallel between
Speaker 2: between both Beyonce and Taylor Swift and the sort of
Speaker 2: like you know, Marvel movie, uh so blockbuster like made
Speaker 2: for mass general consumption to where like you know, Beyonce
Speaker 2: was born in Houston, but in my mind she's like
Speaker 2: incorporated in Delaware, you know what I mean, She's she's an.
Speaker 1: Llcy so brilliant. That is so brilliant. That is such
Speaker 1: a brilliant line. She was born in ustimp but incorporated
Speaker 1: in Delaware. Yes, yes, you know, it is just it
Speaker 1: is inoffensive. But and she does a lot of Janet
Speaker 1: Jackson cosplay. If you notice, if you listen to jan
Speaker 1: Jackson like the nineties and you listen to Beyonce, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of copying. It's just what I noticed, a
Speaker 1: lot of it. But yeah, do you have a person
Speaker 1: you like to see when if you care?
Speaker 2: Chapel Rock, Well, I actually would like Charlie to win,
Speaker 2: just because I love that album, but I I'd also
Speaker 2: like to see Chapel roon when she'd like the rise
Speaker 2: of BD West Princess. I find Chapel Room personally very annoying.
Speaker 1: She's extremely insufferable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that somebody you have to mute on Twitter. But
Speaker 2: I'm like, get the lesbians a win, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, I've only ever had like Brandy Carlile was
Speaker 2: after I told these like boring, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, lesbians haven't gotten enough praise enough in the last
Speaker 1: few years. It's been a rough go for the lesbians,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, Allen left the television and Rosie went crazy.
Speaker 1: All they have is Chapel Run.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well in Billie Eilish too, she's a lesbian girl.
Speaker 2: Look at her.
Speaker 1: She dresses like Cedric the entertainer. You're so funny, Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: going to the Sports River. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being on the show. Where could people go to read
Speaker 1: your work?
Speaker 2: You can find me at the Free Press. I write
Speaker 2: the Digest a lot. I do a lot of culture
Speaker 2: criticism Twitter.
Speaker 1: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: Yes, Twitter, So.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. My Twitter is at River Underscore
Speaker 2: is underscore.
Speaker 1: Nice River page. Thank you so much for coming on,
Speaker 1: and we will be right back after these words. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to admitstling to my listeners upfront. I
Speaker 1: know very little about sports. I like watching it occasionally,
Speaker 1: I love going to a live event, but it's all
Speaker 1: sportsball to me. So I brought on two people to
Speaker 1: talk about the Super Bowl, who do know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about. My two guests are Dylan gwen he is
Speaker 1: the sports editor for Bright Barton News, and Dan Roberts,
Speaker 1: he is the editor in chief for Front Office Sports.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for being here.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: So let me start off with So February ninth is
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl between Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City
Speaker 1: chief Kansas City Chiefs have won for the last two
Speaker 1: years in a row, and if they win this time
Speaker 1: would be the first time ever according to Wikipedia anyway,
Speaker 1: that team has won three consecutive years. Going into this game,
Speaker 1: the Eagles have a fourteen win three loss record and
Speaker 1: the Chiefs have a fifteen win, two loss record. Dylan,
Speaker 1: I'll start with you going into this game, does either
Speaker 1: team have a specific advantage, like you think that I'll
Speaker 1: probably have an advantage, you know as a whole.
Speaker 3: Well, if you ask most of Twitter, that advantage would
Speaker 3: be the referees for the Chiefs. Well, there's been a
Speaker 3: lot of controversy over this over ever since the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one postseason, the Chiefs have had a notable advantage
Speaker 3: in the number of penalties called for their opponents and
Speaker 3: are against their opponents and not for them. A lot
Speaker 3: of the critical calls in these games have gone the
Speaker 3: Chiefs way and not their opponent's way. There was recently
Speaker 3: a Warren Sharp did a study on this recently going
Speaker 3: back to the twenty twenty one playoffs. So there's been
Speaker 3: a lot of controversy over this. And it used to
Speaker 3: be just a tinfoil hat kind of thing, you know,
Speaker 3: guys like me on the internet whatever. But now Troy
Speaker 3: Aikman's gotten involved. Troy Aikman. Troy Aikman is the legendary
Speaker 3: Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. He is
Speaker 3: now an ESPN color analyst for Monday Night Ball, and
Speaker 3: he called the Chiefs playoff game against the Texans a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago in which there were a few
Speaker 3: highly controversial calls in this game and they all went
Speaker 3: the Chiefs way. And this wasn't during the game, but
Speaker 3: he told Jimmy Treana of Sports Illustrated yesterday, I believe
Speaker 3: it was that, you know, hey, the NFL's got to
Speaker 3: get this under control, because the NFL is sitting here
Speaker 3: telling people to gamble on these games. The NFL is
Speaker 3: pushing gambling, their embracing gambling in a way they have
Speaker 3: not ever done before. And you're telling people to spend
Speaker 3: their money on these games and gamble it away. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: you've got these ridiculous calls in these games that for
Speaker 3: some reason always seem to benefit this team from Kansas City,
Speaker 3: and people are people are scratching their heads like can
Speaker 3: you trust it? Can you trust what you're watching? Which
Speaker 3: is a critical critical component of gambling.
Speaker 1: Dann what are you saying?
Speaker 4: Well, let me just add here. I mean, Dylan's right
Speaker 4: that in some ways the have become the story when
Speaker 4: you talk about the Chiefs, and I always say, the
Speaker 4: truth flies somewhere in the middle. In other words, he
Speaker 4: does seem to get some calls and in the big
Speaker 4: Bills Chiefs game, and God bless Josh Allen because I
Speaker 4: don't know any other quarterback who's lost this many times
Speaker 4: in the final game to get to the Super Bowl
Speaker 4: to the same guy. But you know, there was I
Speaker 4: would say the most controversial moment was not getting the
Speaker 4: first down call. There was a key first down that
Speaker 4: the rest said they were short. Side note. People say,
Speaker 4: I can't believe we're still having three human beings eyeball
Speaker 4: this instead of lasers and computers. And my answer to
Speaker 4: that is, don't leave yourself in a position where you
Speaker 4: have to get this one key first down to win
Speaker 4: the game. I mean, they didn't do enough to win
Speaker 4: the game. So yes, I think Mahomes gets some calls.
Speaker 4: But also they tend to just perform in playoff moments
Speaker 4: and they tend to beat you. This was the season
Speaker 4: where they squeaked by the most times. In other words,
Speaker 4: a number of games this year won by the Chiefs
Speaker 4: were won by three points or fewers. So are they
Speaker 4: getting calls. Yes, Are they only getting to the super
Speaker 4: Bowl because they get those calls? No, they tend to
Speaker 4: get it done in the postseason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dan, I want to ask you about this question
Speaker 1: when it comes to Super Bowl because I you know,
Speaker 1: the NFL is a thirteen billion dollar year industry, and
Speaker 1: I know there's some kind of profit sharing incentive within
Speaker 1: the NFL. Is there do teams get like some kind
Speaker 1: of a bonus that they when the Super Bowl is? Like,
Speaker 1: does sales of their merchandise go up? Like what?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Does just the losing team sale merchandise all go to Africa?
Speaker 3: You know what?
Speaker 1: Like what exactly happens? Is there a financial incentive? Not
Speaker 1: just like the trophy it's up, but does the coaches
Speaker 1: get more money or anything? So?
Speaker 4: So yes and no, they all split revenue equally, which
Speaker 4: is why it's so lucrative to be a part NFL owner.
Speaker 4: And by the way, knew this season the NFL opened
Speaker 4: its stores to private equity stakes up to ten percent.
Speaker 4: The other leagues had all done that for years. The
Speaker 4: NFL had sort of dragged its heals. So as a result,
Speaker 4: you saw a number of new investors came in. And
Speaker 4: and what I always say in business, you know, never
Speaker 4: say anything as a guaranteed investment, But boy, owning a
Speaker 4: piece of an NFL, NBA, or Major League Baseball team
Speaker 4: is pretty damn close to a sure thing. In other words,
Speaker 4: you're almost guaranteed within two to four years to be
Speaker 4: able to turn around and sell your stake for more money.
Speaker 4: But all that said, it's a revenue split. Yes, all
Speaker 4: the players get an extra bonus for winning a Super Bowl,
Speaker 4: some of them bigger than others. Saquon Barkley, who's the
Speaker 4: big running back on the Eagles, the Giants let him
Speaker 4: go a big mistake. He has something like two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty thousand dollars bonus coming his way, and Mahomes
Speaker 4: has more than a million dollar bonus coming his way.
Speaker 4: The rest of the guys, it's like one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty k I think for winning a Super Bowl. But
Speaker 4: you brought up merchandise sales. Sure, you could argue merchandise
Speaker 4: sales benefit probably teams sponsorships benefit. After winning a Super Bowl,
Speaker 4: you could charge more for your season tickets. All that said,
Speaker 4: specifically with the Chiefs, it's diminishing returns at this point.
Speaker 4: These guys won the last two. They're about to do
Speaker 4: a three pet. Anyone who's spending money on Chiefs merch
Speaker 4: or chief season tickets already is. And the Eagles last
Speaker 4: one in twenty eighteen. In other words, there's a reason
Speaker 4: I think that a lot of people are less interested
Speaker 4: this year. Ticket sales, in fact, on the resale market
Speaker 4: have dipped a little bit in the last week. Still
Speaker 4: extremely expensive, but nowhere near where they we're right now
Speaker 4: a year ago, because I think there is some Chiefs fatigue.
Speaker 4: So all that said, there's a benefit to the teams,
Speaker 4: but not a direct automatic, you know, X number of
Speaker 4: extra dollars from winning another Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: So I have this internal conflict because one, I really
Speaker 1: don't care, but two, I'm a New Yorker. The only
Speaker 1: thing about sports was really trained to do is hate Boston.
Speaker 1: And then I met Philadelphia fans. I was like, ooh,
Speaker 1: those Boston people are not that bad. Or actually, like
Speaker 1: I've really underestimated those Boston people. They're way less intense.
Speaker 1: But you know, I always for an underdog. I like,
Speaker 1: I would love to see a Bills win or World
Speaker 1: Series one day, or the Jets win or whatever, just
Speaker 1: because like, Okay, great they finally won. But like it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to like the Eagles in a really
Speaker 1: tough way. But the whole Kelsey Travis Taylor Swift thing
Speaker 1: is America rooting against the Chiefs. What would you say doing.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Last year, I would have absolutely said, yes,
Speaker 3: there's no question about it. The saturation was to the
Speaker 3: m degree and you got shots of her after, you know,
Speaker 3: every three plays, you'd get a shot of her in
Speaker 3: the luxury suite, or even when there was no reason,
Speaker 3: even when you know Travis Kelcey wasn't even on the field,
Speaker 3: that you would get, you know, the obligatory Taylor Swift shot.
Speaker 3: This year, I think the networks were a lot more
Speaker 3: controlled with how they broadcast her, Like you got all
Speaker 3: the tweets, the social media, her entering the stadium, stuff
Speaker 3: like that, she got to see what she was wearing,
Speaker 3: all the wies got to get excited about that or
Speaker 3: or or whatever. But the end game shots, and I
Speaker 3: don't know if anybody else agrees. I thought they were
Speaker 3: more toned down this year than they were the previous year.
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't know that the hate or
Speaker 3: the over hate maybe too strong of a word, but
Speaker 3: I don't know that the saturation overload of Taylor Swift
Speaker 3: was to the degree this year that it was last year.
Speaker 3: And I don't know that that's really keeping people away
Speaker 3: from the game. It's definitely not bringing any males to
Speaker 3: the game. It may bring me a lot of teenage
Speaker 3: girls to the game. Now, the NFL cares a lot
Speaker 3: about that because they're expanding. That's your plus one demo there,
Speaker 3: so the NFL is very excited.
Speaker 1: About and teens often have their parents' credit cards.
Speaker 3: So there you go, there you go, there they go.
Speaker 4: Now, I would add to what Dylan said, I think
Speaker 4: that if anything, there's been a flip, and it's the
Speaker 4: Kelsey brothers who are oversaturated. Now. I do think that
Speaker 4: they toned it down with the tailor shots. By the way,
Speaker 4: we've written at FOS about the very real bump that
Speaker 4: the Taylor Swift thing has brought in terms of female fans.
Speaker 4: So if you're the league, why wouldn't you keep showing her?
Speaker 4: Maybe this is just my opinion. I think it's Travis
Speaker 4: and Jason who have become way oversaturated, and there's evidence
Speaker 4: of this because Jason Kelsey has a new late night
Speaker 4: show that has not done very well so far it's debut.
Speaker 4: I think they're in every damn advertisement, you know, I
Speaker 4: get it. The idea is that this is the new
Speaker 4: Peyton and Eli Manning, And again they're charismatic, they're you know,
Speaker 4: they're they're pretty good on cam are both these guys.
Speaker 4: But boy, I'm seeing way too much of them now.
Speaker 4: Look Sam goes for like Matthew McConaughey. I mean, there's
Speaker 4: always someone of the moment who is overly saturated in
Speaker 4: the TV ads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but Paydon and Eli were really likable
Speaker 1: in a way that I don't think the Kelsey bro
Speaker 1: I don't remember the Eli Manning taking a doing like
Speaker 1: an I got a vaccination commercial that was like, it
Speaker 1: was really like, it's it's a weird ad you'd put
Speaker 1: a football player. And I want to talk just one
Speaker 1: more time about the money situation. So I looked this up.
Speaker 1: The year I was born, a commercial for the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl cost six hundred thousand dollars for a Thursday, and
Speaker 1: then it'll be about eight million this year, do I mean?
Speaker 1: And we had a lot of iconic commercials I feel
Speaker 1: like more older. I mean, when we had the Budweiser,
Speaker 1: a Frog's and you know, God made a farmer. More recently,
Speaker 1: whatever Jews does the ads actually do as much as
Speaker 1: for branding as people think that for eight million dollars
Speaker 1: for thirty seconds, you you want to know about those
Speaker 1: well feeling.
Speaker 3: I think I think the big the big thing you're
Speaker 3: seeing in the ads. So this is I'm glad you
Speaker 3: brought it up because this year normally the one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars annual increase in the average price of an
Speaker 3: ad for a Super Bowl ad. So last year it
Speaker 3: was roughly seven million dollars for a thirty second ad.
Speaker 3: This year, Fox isn't really saying what it is, but
Speaker 3: it's believed being around, it's believed to be much more expensive.
Speaker 3: The number we do have is that the average price
Speaker 3: for an ad this year has increased by five hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, So that's a fivefold increase over what the
Speaker 3: average price has been up until now. And you ask
Speaker 3: yourself why, And it's because you've got a lot of
Speaker 3: new brands that are getting involved in advertising right now
Speaker 3: and they're seeing this and this may be a little
Speaker 3: bit of a Taylor Swift effect. You've got a lot
Speaker 3: of businesses out there that don't traditionally or haven't traditionally
Speaker 3: advertised in the Super Bowl, and now all of a
Speaker 3: sudden they're like.
Speaker 1: Well that gotting point, Yeah, we got to do this,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the older brand demo, Yeah.
Speaker 3: For sure, and a lot of the older brands that
Speaker 3: were talking you probably were on when you were younger. Ryan.
Speaker 3: The automotive brands, they're pulling out, largely. State Farm is
Speaker 3: pulling out because the controversy surrounding the insurance of the
Speaker 3: California wildfires. They're pulling out. And now you've got this
Speaker 3: new breed, this new money kind of coming into the thing,
Speaker 3: and they're flooding the market and it's radically increased the
Speaker 3: average price of a thirty second ad. Now, so it's
Speaker 3: a whole new generation of advertisement.
Speaker 1: I did not know that.
Speaker 4: Hey, the story this year, Ryan, so far is AI ads, which, boy,
Speaker 4: if you weren't sick.
Speaker 1: Of what are we the ads are? They like that?
Speaker 1: It's like an AI made you.
Speaker 4: Know, artificial intelligence companies and services, you know, whether it's
Speaker 4: whether it's Chat, GBT, imitators, DASS, companies that use AI
Speaker 4: for their platform. It's all about AI. Now, let's replace
Speaker 4: all the writers, right And in some ways to me,
Speaker 4: this is the new crypto super Bowl. Remember two or
Speaker 4: three years ago, suddenly the crypto companies came flooding in
Speaker 4: FTX was the biggest We all know what happened there.
Speaker 4: In my prior life, I was editor in chief of
Speaker 4: a crypto news site and it was right at the
Speaker 4: peak where suddenly Coinbase was doing an ad. If you
Speaker 4: remember coinbases, the one that I really think was the
Speaker 4: most effective. It was just a QR code bouncing around
Speaker 4: the screen like a screen saver. It led a lot
Speaker 4: of people to quite literally hold their phones up to
Speaker 4: the screen. What is this?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: And so when you ask how big is the impact
Speaker 4: of a Super Bowl ad? I think in most cases
Speaker 4: it's not as impactful as it once was.
Speaker 3: I'm with you.
Speaker 4: I don't think that there are many examples in the
Speaker 4: last maybe six years of really iconic Super Bowl ads.
Speaker 4: When you ask iconic superl ads, I still think of
Speaker 4: all the ones from my childhood. There is the VW
Speaker 4: kid and the Darth Vader costume, right yeah, Unting in
Speaker 4: the car, and then all the Budweiser ones, the frogs,
Speaker 4: you know what, all those ads. But I remember that
Speaker 4: Coinbase one. And this is going to be the AI
Speaker 4: Super Bowl because crypto companies are no longer spending.
Speaker 1: Fine, who do you think is the most important player
Speaker 1: for each team? And who do you think is the
Speaker 1: weakest link.
Speaker 3: Well, well, the most important player on the field is
Speaker 3: always the quarterback. Doesn't really matter if we're talking x's
Speaker 3: and o's, that we're talking football, it's always the quarterback.
Speaker 3: And the most important player for the Chiefs is is
Speaker 3: Patrick Mahomes. There's no questioned about it. He's Houdini out there.
Speaker 3: He's just he just does a lot of incredible things.
Speaker 3: He's kind of like Kerr.
Speaker 1: Got most of the points last time.
Speaker 3: Very Bucker is vital to that team because they're kicker.
Speaker 3: So yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1: He hail Mary's right before the game and they are
Speaker 1: getting Bucker.
Speaker 4: If Bucker would come off on this chat, he should.
Speaker 3: He deserves it, and I and I would be remiss
Speaker 3: for not mentioning him. But as far as the most important,
Speaker 3: I mean, Patrick Mahomes is the most important for the
Speaker 3: Chiefs and and and honestly, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: you want to say Jalen Hurst, who's the quarterback for
Speaker 3: the Eagles. But they've really gotten to this point in
Speaker 3: this season on the on the the strength of Saquon Barkley,
Speaker 3: who who as you mentioned before, came over from the Giants,
Speaker 3: and that and that deal that will be much chagrined
Speaker 3: in New York for many, many years, and he's really
Speaker 3: carried this team. So I mean, as far as I
Speaker 3: see it, those are those are your two most important players.
Speaker 3: But the Super Bowl always gives us an unknown who
Speaker 3: plays some surprise factor in determining the outcome of the game.
Speaker 3: And you just have to wait to see who that is.
Speaker 1: An if any different pinions and who think it's the
Speaker 1: weakest link, Dan Well, I don't.
Speaker 4: Know about weakest link. I mean it could be the QBS, arguably,
Speaker 4: like how good is Jalen Hurt's going to be in
Speaker 4: this moment again? And in some ways, as Dylan said,
Speaker 4: it's about Hurts and Mahomes, I'd bring up Travis Kelcey
Speaker 4: because the truth is he didn't have a great season
Speaker 4: until late in the season. I say that as a
Speaker 4: guy who still reluctantly plays fantasy. He was my fantasy
Speaker 4: tight end and all season it was just not enough.
Speaker 4: And finally, in the final week of the regular fantasy
Speaker 4: season I benched him. Big mistake. He finally had big numbers,
Speaker 4: So let's see how he does. And then you're actually
Speaker 4: right Ryan to mention the kickers. You know, it's Jake Elliott.
Speaker 4: It's Butker. We've seen this at the college game too,
Speaker 4: that the kickers make all the difference. Remember, last season's
Speaker 4: sewer Role was only won by three points. It was
Speaker 4: not by any means of drubbing for Kansas City to
Speaker 4: all those people who say Kansas City gets all the calls.
Speaker 4: So I think it'll actually be a very close game,
Speaker 4: and I think the ratings are going to be interesting
Speaker 4: to watch. Last year we had the biggest viewership of
Speaker 4: all time, but twenty fifteen is still number two, and
Speaker 4: the household rating has actually dipped in a number of
Speaker 4: recent years. Will this be the most watched Super Bowl ever?
Speaker 4: I don't think so, but I think it'll be up there,
Speaker 4: and I think that, you know, it depends on me. Yes,
Speaker 4: some people are sick of the Chiefs. Some people want
Speaker 4: to see history made the three peat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, if you have an informed opinion, and you don't,
Speaker 1: I mean you could it could be just be a
Speaker 1: guest and you could just say, I don't know, But
Speaker 1: do you think who would you say that is favored
Speaker 1: to win?
Speaker 4: Well, in Vegas, it's it's the Chiefs. But yeah, but
Speaker 4: only by a point?
Speaker 3: Right now? Dyl what what one or one and a half.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I'm going with the Eagles. I think the Chiefs.
Speaker 4: The Chief's luck runs.
Speaker 3: Out till I would I'm born and raised Redskins fan.
Speaker 3: I can't root for the Eagles or want them to win. Ever,
Speaker 3: I'm also oversaturated with the Chiefs, so I don't know
Speaker 3: what I'm rooting for in this game. I look based
Speaker 3: on what I've seen in the in the Chiefs in
Speaker 3: the playoffs, I'm not I'm not going to pick against them.
Speaker 3: They that team has found a way to win over
Speaker 3: far more talented teams than themselves, and I've seen them
Speaker 3: do it for five years in a row, and I
Speaker 3: think that continues.
Speaker 1: I'm the guy with the sun that says I just
Speaker 1: hope everybody has fun. Thank you guys for both being
Speaker 1: on Dylan. Where can everyone read your stuff and find
Speaker 1: you and read your Twitter and everything?
Speaker 3: Bright Bart Sports. Check us out there, bright bart dot com,
Speaker 3: click the sab for sports and We're going to just
Speaker 3: go directly to bright Bart Sports and I can be
Speaker 3: followed on Twitter at the Mighty Gwin Dan.
Speaker 1: Where can people expect from front office sports up to
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl? And where can people read your stuff?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I hope everyone reads FOS. We have two newsletters
Speaker 4: per weekday, huge lift with hundreds of thousands of subscribers,
Speaker 4: so it's Frontofice Sports dot com. We're at FOS on
Speaker 4: Twitter and I'm at read Dan Wright.
Speaker 1: Well, and I want to thank everyone for listening to
Speaker 1: this week's episode of A Numbers Game with Ryan Grodwski.
Speaker 1: Please listen and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: where we get your podcast. I'll talk to you guys
Speaker 1: next week. Everyone, Thank you,