WEBVTT - Clay talks with legendary broadcaster Bob Costas 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.760 This is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis. Clay talks 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.879 with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business. 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:21.760 Now here's Clay Travis. Welcome and Wins and Losses podcast. 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.000 I am Clay Travis. We have got I don't know 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.400 what the number is now, thirty five of these long 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.280 form conversations. If you're new to us, i'd encourage you 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.479 to go check out the entire library. The idea is 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.760 these conversations are just as good in two years or 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.599 three years, or hopefully ten years as they are when 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:40.519 you are listening to them and the week that they 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.520 are released. The guest this week and or this month 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:51.320 in October of twenty twenty is legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.600 And Bob, I've been watching you literally my entire life, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:56.760 and I feel like there are a billion things we 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.760 can get into, but you reached out to me most recently. 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.120 First of all, you participated and I thought a really 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.080 well done piece by Greg Couch about the struggles of 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.720 the n b A when it came to the ratings 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.440 this year, UH and trying to analyze where the league 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.560 goes going forward. And I appreciate you being involved in 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.559 that OutKick article because certainly I watched you for years 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.160 and years be associated with the NBA, and we'll get 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.840 into that in a little bit as well. But in particular, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.440 I sent out a tweet one of my listener, one 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.160 of my listeners, one of my readers out there, grabbed 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.520 in uh, probably thirty second segment that you had done 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:36.080 on Don Lemon CNN show dealing with the return of 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.880 college football, and I saw it and what immediately jumped 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:43.760 out to me was that CNN had mischaracterized the return date. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.520 They had gotten it wrong. We are actually talking today 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.040 on the day that the Big Ten will return. There's 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:54.400 a Friday night football game between Illinois and Wisconsin later tonight, 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.760 and uh, but last week's CNN said that the that 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:00.960 the Big Ten was returning that weekend, and it was 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.520 an interesting conversation, and so I popped it out there, 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.240 and then you reached out to me. We've never talked before. 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.840 We had a good private conversation. You said you'd like 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:10.480 to come on and do the show. So we've got 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.119 a lot to get into, but we'll start there with 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.400 what you felt. And I think this is a fair 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.760 fair position is at times we live in a social 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.200 media era maybe all the time, where small clips can 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:29.000 be characterized that are not necessarily representative of the entirety 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:30.600 of a statement that was made. And that's why I 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.480 like having long form conversations with people here. So welcome 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.960 to the show, and we'll start right there with the 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:37.760 tweet that I sent and the hit that you did 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.920 on CNN with Don Lemon. Thanks Clay, and I appreciate 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:46.200 the opportunity to speak here at some lane. First of all, um, 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:51.160 as you know, I couldn't see the graphic that was incorrect. 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.920 Somebody at the production level at CNN, and it's not 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.600 a sports operation, got that wrong. If I had seen it, 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.639 I would have subtly corrected it. But what I said, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.560 Don asked me about the return of college football, and 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.919 I made all I think the necessary stipulations. I'm sure 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.080 that they've got all the protocols in place, etcetera, etcetera. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.280 But to me, there's something, if you take a step back, 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:22.760 something about this that exemplifies how big time college sports 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.680 football the most, but college basketball also big time college 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.200 sports has for so long been so out of perspective 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.000 and so out of proportion that the whole thing is 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.480 a sham, And well, I shouldn't say it that way, 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:38.000 and I didn't say it that way, that it is 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.080 too often a sham. And what I said was in 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.280 light of for example, Dan Mullen, the Florida football coach, saying, 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.200 we need ninety thousand people for our game against l 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.080 s U. We need to have the swamp full. Ironically, 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.840 he's the one who drained the swamp. He tests positive, 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.320 a good portion of his team test positive. And what 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.880 I'm saying is a lot of people are so obsessed 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.160 with football, be at the NFL or college football, they 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.480 just have to have it no matter what. And you 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.000 know as well as I if you could give truth 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:18.479 serum to many college football fans, especially in certain parts 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.719 of the country, and you gave them the following proposition, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.880 over the next ten years, your university will more or 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:30.720 less mirror Stanford. You'll always be competitive, maybe once or 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.880 twice you'll win the national championship or be in contention 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.280 for it. You'll be good across a wide swath of sports, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.000 and the the compact that should exist between academics and 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.880 athletics will be there. Or you can be in contention 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.919 for the national championship almost every year, And if a 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:57.599 very large number of your quote student athletes aren't really 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.160 students at all, and if many of them recruited despite 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.880 dubious and sometimes criminal backgrounds, and if many of them 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:09.760 will in fact misbehave and and bring some rather dubious 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.120 attention to the program, but you'll be in contention for 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.599 the national championship every year. We know damn well which 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.360 of those two choices would be most appealing to a 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.320 huge percentage of college sports fans. And in that sense, 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.840 to me, it's out of whack. And this notion that 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.400 we have to have college football no matter what. We 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.080 gotta travel, we gotta intermingle. We know how large the 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.200 size of the rosters are and all the auxiliary personnel, 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.720 even if life on campus is nothing like normal. The 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:44.760 one thing that's going to be as close to almost 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.919 we can possibly make its football. So that's what I said. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.680 I said, I think the exact words were too often, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.800 not always, too often, football, or in this case, college 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.680 football isn't just pleasing pastime or an interest of some kind. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.279 It is too often a mindless of obsession. Now people 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.400 object to that, fine, but that's what I said, all right, 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.600 I think so much of what you said is obviously fascinating. 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.599 I have spent a ton of time arguing for the 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.200 return of college football. Uh and everybody out there who 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.560 is listening right now to this program knows that I've 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.680 advocated as aggressively as I can possibly for it. So 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:25.520 I'm not going to make that argument right here, because 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.000 we've done it a ton about the importance of it. 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.840 What I will say is I agree with your larger 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.040 context that college football fans uniquely and I think it's 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.280 actually the most American of all sports. By the way, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.760 if you actually strip it back and consider all of 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.320 the different conflicting loyalties and hypocrisies and challenges, and both 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.039 incredible highs and incredible lows, it is in many ways, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:52.160 I believe, a metaphor for the larger American experience rich poor, 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.760 the difference between the big schools and the small schools, 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:57.920 the difference and resources. I mean, there are just so 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.520 many fascinating to me representation of college football that reflects 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.159 both the good and bad of American life in general. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.680 I do agree with you on the big precept there 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.080 that that basically you dove into, and I've said this 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.440 for a long time college football fans are selective moralist, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.280 and what I mean by that is they want other 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:20.480 programs to behave morally, but they will forgive anything that 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.440 their school does if it makes them more likely to 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.880 win a football game. And I didn't really think about this, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.000 uh Bob a lot, and thanks for being on with 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.760 us here until I started doing local radio. And that's 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.200 kind of the warrior background in me. Is if somebody 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.360 when when you looked at an n C double A violation, 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.600 for example, the first way I would think about it 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.040 is as I analyzed the case, and I make no book, 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.920 bring no bones about it. Right. I I am a 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.160 University of Tennessee fan. My grandfather played for General Neiland. 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.160 I started going to games when I was five years old. 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:55.520 I'm actually going up to watch Alabama probably absolutely obliterate 0:07:55.560 --> 0:08:00.480 Tennessee this weekend and Kneeland. But what was thinking about 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.720 it was I always say, okay, if my school is 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.880 accused of wrongdoing before I figure out what my opinion is. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.040 What would my opinion be if it were Alabama or 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:16.320 Florida or Georgia one of the rival programs that was 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.560 accused of doing the same thing. If my response is 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.640 not the exact same to those accusations. That is a 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.440 way to test my own fan bias. And so what 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:29.360 I would always say on the radio anytime we had 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.520 a story was I would say, Okay, what would your 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.719 response be if Alabama was accused of this and you're 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.199 a Tennessee fan, Well, Alabama they cheat, you know how 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.920 they are. And I said, okay, but if you're defending 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.920 Tennessee and you believe it immediately if you were Alabama, 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.080 then that's an example of bias. And to me, what 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.600 has happened in a large sense, I'm not surprised about 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.000 any of the arguments I see on social media in 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.000 the country now, because basically the country has become a 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.840 college football fan, right. You will you will defend to 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.400 the end of the earth anything that your school does, 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.720 or your party does, or your guy or girl does. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.439 But if the other side does it, it's an outrage. 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.240 And so what bothers me in general is not the 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.720 decisions that are made. It's the hypocrisy because, as I 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:15.920 told you one of our conversation, as my listeners know, 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.160 I kind of consider every opinion that I have to 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.760 be almost the equivalent of a judicial opinion. This is 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.040 the lawyer in me speaking, there has to be a 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.160 precedent that connects my opinions across the board or else. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.239 I'm guilty of what I accuse others of, which is hypocrisy. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.320 And I'm not saying I'm perfect. Certainly I make mistakes 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.760 in the way that I analyze cases and facts and 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.720 everything else, like any other human out there. But I 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.200 do believe that there is a logical basis behind most 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.520 of my opinions. And if you went back and looked 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.200 at what I wrote in two thousand twelve, it would 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.080 make sense in two thousand twenty. And if you, for instance, 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:53.800 you know to to bring in multiple conflicting areas, If 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.400 you looked at what I said about Duke Lacrosse and 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.320 you compared it with Brett Kavanaugh, it would cross O right. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.000 It would make sense logically in the Kavanaugh case the 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.120 same way that it did in the Duke Lacrosse case, 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.240 or in the Ezekiel Elliott case, or the O. J. 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.320 Simpson case, which I know you were involved in a 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.680 big way. There are so many different interesting threads there. 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:15.720 But that's what jumped out at me about the first 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.199 thing that you said there well as you were presenting 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.480 your argument. In the last couple of minutes, I was 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.640 thinking about something you got to, which is that that 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.800 sort of tunnel vision about college football. Uh, mirrors what 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.679 we see in our politics, where a relative misdemeanor by 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.040 the other side is in fact an outrage but a 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.280 certifiable felony, not a matter of opinion, but it's objectively 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.120 true if our guy or our side did it, either 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.720 it can't be true, or will ignore it, will soft 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.480 pedal it. And this is just one example. I don't 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.760 want to get overly partisan politically here, because I'm much 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.200 less partisan than a portion of your audience likely thinks. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.480 And we'll get to that later. And I'm sure you 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.359 could find an example of this that is the equivalent 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.640 from the other side. But when Janine Pierro, with a 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.800 straight face, says, by my new book, don't lie to me, 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.800 and all the lives that outrage her, of course come 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.440 from the left or from Democrats, well, if she doesn't 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.080 just defend she venerates Donald Trump, who, regardless of your 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.320 political affiliations, as objectively one of the most dishonest people 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.800 in modern American political history. You can you can barely 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.480 fact check him in real time. He lies so frequently, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.520 and the irony of that is lost on Sean Hannity, 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.560 are on Janine Pierrou. That's just the world we live in, 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.920 all right. So this is this is fascinating in general. Um, 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.960 and I do think this this goes into my analogy 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.480 that I've been making for a long time. What matters 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:52.040 to me is whether or not there is a logical 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.679 basis to reach a conclusion. And let me explain what 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:56.480 I mean for everybody out there who's listening, and I 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.480 think you'll follow along too. And I like to use 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.600 this in all g in sports. Uh. And we're talking 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.760 to Bob Costas. Appreciate him joining us. If I tell you, hey, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:06.880 I don't think that Tom Brady is going to win 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:08.520 the Super Bowl this year. And I said this to 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.319 you in my conversation recently, and I said, you know 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.800 you might listening right now, say, Okay, I agree with you. 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.080 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bruce Arians never done it before. NFC 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.080 is gonna be tough, NFC South, you got Drew Brees. Uh, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.720 You've got a lot of challenges there. But if I've 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.400 said I don't believe Tom Brady is going to win 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.400 the Super Bowl because he's never been there and won 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.640 it before. You might agree with my conclusion, but the 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.400 facts upon which I based that conclusion are completely wrong. 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.720 And one of the things that troubles me most about 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.720 society today is the basis of facts. And I think 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.120 there are lots of politicians of both parties that agree 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.960 with me here, and unfortunately they don't have a prominent 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.839 of a platform in their parties. In general, we can 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.680 disagree about conclusions, which are basically opinions about ways to 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.400 address problems, but when we don't agree on the most 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:00.320 basic factual level, then we can't in any way have 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.560 a legitimate marketplace of ideas. And worse than that, we 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.720 have people who look at the conclusion and say, oh, 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.720 I agree with where that person he or she got 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.040 from a political purpose, but they don't understand that the 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.080 facts upon which that was based are quicksand and there's 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.240 nothing there and therefore the essence of the argument is 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.120 not legitimate, and that bothers me in a big way 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.920 by by and large, And this is a generalization, and 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.240 it's more true in the social media world than it 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.840 is and what still passes from more traditional forms of media, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:40.840 which is anything that aligns with my predispositions and or resentments. 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:46.080 I'm inclined to believe without skepticism. Anything that challenges that, 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:52.800 I'm inclined to dismiss. The mainstream media has many flaws 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.319 that should be held to account. But when you've got 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.880 an all purpose intellectual will get out of jail free 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.839 card that says it's all news, which really has come 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.040 to mean anything I don't want to hear, and anything 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.760 that doesn't align with my prejudices, or anything that is 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.720 critical in a responsibly journalistic way of someone I don't 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.920 want to see criticized, I can just immediately dismiss it. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.880 Never consider it as fake news. Okay, what happens in 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.880 the Twitter world, And that's what started this conversation, and 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:26.640 I'm glad we're acquainted through it is a fragment that 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:31.360 misrepresents not only is out there, but you think people, 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.720 no matter what their political affiliation is, no matter what 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.760 the rooting interest is in sports, you would think that 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.320 they had learned, They would have learned by now that 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:44.520 a lot of what is out there is either untrue, misleading, 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:50.160 or incomplete. And so you had people responding to what 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.360 you tweeted, Well, what about all the people who rely 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.240 on Saturday college football for the hotels and the restaurants. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.480 Of course, I'm aware of that of co words, and 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:08.160 I've stipulated that many times, um this this may seem trivial, 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:12.000 and it is, except sometimes something that isn't all that important. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.960 It's like a grain of sand on the beach. A 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.520 geologist can tell you what the beach is like by 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:24.160 examining that grain of sand. Jason Starr, the acclaimed baseball writer, 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.320 Hall of Fame Baseball writer. As a matter of fact, 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.560 I went to college with him at Syracuse, and he 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:35.560 wrote something very nice about my induction into the broadcasters 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.320 going in the Hall of Fame a couple of years ago, 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:39.840 and he tweeted out, and I'm not much of a 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.160 twitter guy, but some people called it to my attention, 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:47.480 he tweeted out one line from what he called my 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.880 wonderful speech or something to that effect, and that line 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:56.880 was that very often the way we recall the most 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:01.720 memorable moments in sports is dependent upon how they were 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:07.160 framed by a great writer or by a broadcaster, producer, director. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.240 And in my Hall of Fame speech, which was about 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.960 people other than myself, I mentioned the Vince Scullies, the 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.280 Jack Box, the Ernie Harwell's and also the producers like 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.000 Um David Neil and Mike Weissman, and a great director 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.160 like Harry Coyle, and how they shaped people's recollections. I 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.760 used Kirk Gibson's Home Run as an example, and Gibson 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.160 himself says he was at the center of it, but 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.640 partly how he remembers it is how you now here 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.840 Vince Scullies call, and the way Harry Coyle directed it. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.560 It was like a movie, right, So this one line 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.200 is there, and then I shouldn't have done it. You 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.920 should shouldn't waste your time going down these rabbit holes. 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.880 But since someone had called my attention to Jason's article 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.720 and then the tweet that accompanied it, there were a 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.880 bunch of responses. Maney of them are very kind regarding me. 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:04.719 But somewhere, oh right, Hostess says that the broadcasters are 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.880 more important than the players. Thought about the players, it's 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:12.600 about him. If you had seen the speech in context, 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.880 it was the exact opposite of that. It was less 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.320 about me than almost anybody I think who has ever 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.240 stood there behind that podium. It was about my love 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.920 of the craft and my love of baseball. But wouldn't 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.520 you think that by now somebody wouldn't think that they 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.040 could go off and voice an opinion based on a 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:36.000 fragment of something. And yet that is rampant in our 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:40.560 media culture. So people, including some people of goodwill, believe 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.720 a lot of things that just are not so, are 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.160 not so factually, or are not so about the beliefs 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:51.640 and motivations of people they either support or opposed. All Right, 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.320 this is fascinating to me what that whole story in general. 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.440 I I have said for a long time that my 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.639 biggest talent to the in that I have one is 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.359 and my wife says this, drives are crazy about me 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.000 one of many things. By the way, we've been married 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.359 sixteen years, so they're basically everything I do. Drives are 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.400 crazy at this point. But yeah, welcome to the club. Indeed, 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.160 be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.040 with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.560 am Pacific. We're talking with Bob Costas. This is the 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:27.240 Wins and Losses Podcast. I genuinely am not impacted by 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.520 what someone says about me online, positive or negative. I 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.440 don't know why that is. I but I think it's 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:39.000 been important in allowing me to basically continue to plow 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.119 forward in my career even as social media has become 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.120 more all encompassing. I'm sure I've got my phone sitting 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.359 in front of me right now. If I typed in 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.320 my name, I could go through and there would be 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.840 ten awful things that have been said about me today 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.320 already that I just haven't seen. And so you are 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.080 one of the most accomplished broadcasters in the history of 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.679 sports on television. Kevin Durant, for example, is whatever you 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:06.960 want to say about him, one of the four or 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.760 five best at his craft of basketball that has played 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.240 in his generation, right, I think that's probably fair to say. 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.880 Yet I do believe that there are many people out 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.760 there who are wildly accomplished like yourself, like Kevin Durant, 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.119 and I'm we're using athletics in particular, but I think 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.040 it could be the president. I think it could be 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.840 other people who are, you know, reading the mentions and 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:33.400 reading the tweets that are really taking into account what 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.600 other people say. And and my perspective on that is, 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.240 if I'm one of the best in the world at anything, 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.560 I don't care what someone who is not in my 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.399 field thinks about me at all, And I don't know 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.199 why that is. I care about people who know me right, 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.840 people who have interactions. But for you, I don't know. 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.080 Like I told my mom, never read the comments to 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.560 anything that I say. Read it, have your own opinions. 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.760 I almost have never read any comment that people have 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.640 put after my articles in my entire life. Same thing 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.240 is true for Twitter. At this point, I barely read 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.280 the mentions. I share my opinion. What do you think 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.800 it was about that that made you click down below? 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.040 What you said was a nice thing. Jason Stark, who 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.840 is an incredibly accomplished writer, was saying, to see what 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.399 people you didn't know we're saying about what he had 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.199 said about you. You mentioned rabbit holes. To me, that's like, 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:23.800 that's like going all the way in the rabbit hole 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.600 to China. Like you, you've gone really far at that point. 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.879 And truth, that took about five minutes, and but it 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.240 is fascinating and it's seductive, and I think it speaks 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.600 to social media in general, which is designed to make 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.000 us care what people we don't know think about us 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.680 all day long, whether you're a celebrity like Bob Costas, 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:44.720 who's one of the best sports journalists of all time, 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.720 or whether you're somebody's grandma who's going on Facebook and 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:50.679 making a comment and then it goes viral and a 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.280 lot of people she doesn't know suddenly respond to it 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.520 and she feels compelled to read what they say to Yeah, 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.000 I think the key here, Clay is I'm trying to 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:00.800 make a larger point, and you'll have to take me 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.800 at my word here. I am well aware. I hope 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.040 I have enough perspective to be well aware that on 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.080 the worst day of my life, I am more fortunate 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.480 than most people will ever be. And I'm very, very 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.880 appreciative of all the nice things that have been said 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.439 and written about me, and about all the breaks and 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.840 great experiences I've had in my career. I truly feel blessed. 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.240 And so I'm not losing any sleep over this, and 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.440 I'm not spending undo time on it. But where it 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.240 interests me is in the larger point. And sometimes you 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.600 have to use your own experience, because if you're an 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.840 honest person, you're going to be credible about your own experience. 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.760 You're going to know the wise and wherefores of your 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:46.080 own experience. And if it illustrates something larger, that is 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.560 of some importance beyond yourself, then I think it's legitimate. 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.119 And so we may talk, for example, about the gun 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:57.879 thing from eight years ago on NBC and how you know. 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.359 I wish it hadn't happened. I wish people didn't have 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.560 a misimpression. I wish I had done a better job 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.040 in that moment. But I also think it illustrates a 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.159 larger point. And that's why we're talking about beyond me 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.720 just muttering to myself. We're talking to Bob Costas. This 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:16.120 is the Wins and Losses Podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Okay, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.920 I want to get to the essays and everything else, 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.119 but I want to start here. You have won a 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.919 legendary career as a sports sports broadcaster. There are a 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.400