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