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Speaker 1: Welcome back all the Smoke, New York. I'm just enamored.
Speaker 5: Is that a good work?
Speaker 1: I can't spell it, but I agree with you because
Speaker 1: I love I've only seen snowfall like five times in
Speaker 1: my life, and it's literally falling right now, so I
Speaker 1: think it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: We're here in New York City, and I'm excited about
Speaker 1: this one. This guy right here is someone who I,
Speaker 1: you know, watched for a long time on television and
Speaker 1: just admired what he stood for. And it's a rarity,
Speaker 1: you know, when you kind of work for a machine
Speaker 1: to really be able to stand on what you believe in,
Speaker 1: and this guy did that, and then he also took
Speaker 1: another chance on on on wanting to team up with
Speaker 1: me and you, which is which is dope. So welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Dan Levatart, Yes, sir, Thank you guys.
Speaker 5: I have trouble generally. He's already working on his pocket.
Speaker 5: He's already working on his slightly racist but notarized and
Speaker 5: endorsed by me. He said, he's gonna get good at
Speaker 5: this impersonation of my father Stephen Jackson.
Speaker 2: Stephen Jackson and and and Dan's got his ankles out too,
Speaker 2: which I love.
Speaker 1: I'm normally an ankle abuser myself, but he's got his
Speaker 1: ankles out today, It's gonna be a good day.
Speaker 5: I have trouble with style.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Irsa, you asked him. I have ankles out,
Speaker 1: all of them, my suits, everything. It just was cold
Speaker 1: here so I kept mine in. But man, let's get
Speaker 1: to it. Your transition from ESPN, you know, obviously that's
Speaker 1: where everyone kind of got a chance to get to
Speaker 1: know you. Your transition from ESPN to Metal Lark. Can
Speaker 1: we talk about that the ending there in the beginning
Speaker 1: of something which is amazing with yourself and Bimo and
Speaker 1: John Skipper.
Speaker 5: H Yeah, before we do that, though, I just like
Speaker 5: your audience to know how deeply appreciative I am of
Speaker 5: you guys and admire how it is you did what
Speaker 5: you did beyond you know, a decade and a half
Speaker 5: each in the league, working through a bunch of commedan
Speaker 5: competitive ecosystems in a sport where the inner cities are
Speaker 5: fighting for money. The idea that you guys would have
Speaker 5: so many teammates who would love you and know that
Speaker 5: you had their back get every turn. The idea that
Speaker 5: you are consummate friends, not just with each other, but
Speaker 5: that your teammates always know that you are somebody who
Speaker 5: can be counted on, and that you did it your
Speaker 5: way every step of the way and are still doing
Speaker 5: it your way. I don't do thrilled a lot, but
Speaker 5: I am thrilled to be in business with you guys.
Speaker 5: I am thrilled that you guys, who have had all
Speaker 5: sorts of business opportunities coming your way for twenty five years,
Speaker 5: that you would trust us with your future because I
Speaker 5: believe we've got a giant one ahead, because we've all
Speaker 5: seen the market inefficiencies of you can build your own
Speaker 5: brand now you can work outside the machine. You can
Speaker 5: be legitimately free to be an independent thinker to say
Speaker 5: what you want because you're your own boss, like you can,
Speaker 5: and you can form your own teams, like you can
Speaker 5: be your own boss and form your own teams. So
Speaker 5: like we are kindred spirits in this space, and I
Speaker 5: believe like together we're going to do big things that
Speaker 5: inspire us and other people. So, yeah, I leave ESPN,
Speaker 5: and they forced upon me self employment, and I don't
Speaker 5: know that I would have chosen it. From the safety
Speaker 5: of the machine. It would be easy to stay there
Speaker 5: and just keep cashing checks. But some of the things
Speaker 5: that happened were uncomfortable enough that I felt pushed into something.
Speaker 5: And it's been a successful business venture because in order
Speaker 5: to get out of there without making a mess that
Speaker 5: was loud with headlines, they gave us all our stuff,
Speaker 5: They gave us all our intellectual property to just don't
Speaker 5: cause Disney headlines talking about all the stuff you've been
Speaker 5: talking about. Just leave and take your stuff. And so
Speaker 5: we packed up our stuff and went and it's been
Speaker 5: something that is wildly fulfilling, as all things that are
Speaker 5: difficult must be. Like if you're going to accomplish something
Speaker 5: that feels fulfilling, it almost has to be difficult. You
Speaker 5: have to choose the hard path.
Speaker 1: When you're exiting ESPN, is Metal Lark already brewing? Is
Speaker 1: it not even a thought?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: What is your thought process? I almost seem like it
Speaker 1: seems like that, you know, the transition from NBA to
Speaker 1: what was next for us? It almost seems like that's
Speaker 1: what that was for you.
Speaker 5: I don't do a lot in the way of regret,
Speaker 5: but one of the things that I would say that
Speaker 5: I do regret is not planning a little less emotionally
Speaker 5: my exit on their dime the way stephen A. Smith
Speaker 5: is doing it now. On first take, we're across the
Speaker 5: scroll on the bottom you see and go check out
Speaker 5: the Stephen A. Smith show over here that has nothing
Speaker 5: to do with ESPN, where he's saying the things he
Speaker 5: won't say on ESPN to build his brand outside of ESPN.
Speaker 5: I did it more emotionally. I'm like, Okay, you're gonna
Speaker 5: make me do this myself, all right, fuck it, we'll
Speaker 5: do it. We'll do it ourselves. And because they fired
Speaker 5: they let go of one of my guys, my mentor's
Speaker 5: son was fired off our show without telling me, and
Speaker 5: that was sort of the last straw after you know,
Speaker 5: inhibiting freedoms and stuff. That was the last straw. And
Speaker 5: so I wish I'd been slightly less emotional because I
Speaker 5: had about a year and a half that I could
Speaker 5: have done it on their dime. But like I said,
Speaker 5: the forcing me to do it has made me like
Speaker 5: speed up the curve on what I have to learn
Speaker 5: about business so that you guys can now see the
Speaker 5: business gorillas I've got, and you guys can learn from
Speaker 5: them and we can make all the things we want
Speaker 5: to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean in our situation too, was we kind
Speaker 1: of saw it coming, you know, obviously with the paramount
Speaker 1: situation and showtime and kind of working and seeing, okay,
Speaker 1: what was next. You know, it's been a tremendous opportunity
Speaker 1: with showtime to partner learn, get to build our brand,
Speaker 1: and when it was time to make a move similar stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, they didn't push us out by any means,
Speaker 1: but you know, the sign was on the wall, the
Speaker 1: writing was on the wall, was coming to an end.
Speaker 1: But in that meantime, we had already started building our
Speaker 1: production company. And luckily for us, you know, paramount and
Speaker 1: showtime and shout out Stephen Espinoza found a way for
Speaker 1: us to get all of our intellectual property, all of
Speaker 1: our archives, and it was almost like a good luck situation.
Speaker 1: So when we left, we got lucky and landed right
Speaker 1: on our feet because we had already started building this company.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, two months after we're up and running,
Speaker 1: we get news that we're gonna have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: team up with you guys and take your brain and
Speaker 1: learn and utilize your ecosystem and feel like we can
Speaker 1: bring some you know, some credible and and and good stuff.
Speaker 1: You guys's way too. So I mean again, we talked
Speaker 1: about this all night at dinner last night. We won't
Speaker 1: bore you guys with that conversation.
Speaker 5: This is a good conversation. It would have been boring
Speaker 5: close the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for real, for real. So to those who don't
Speaker 1: know what is what is Metal Lark and who are
Speaker 1: your your teams? And you know obviously John Skipper, former
Speaker 1: ESPN president bim with someone who was over at ESPN,
Speaker 1: So who are they and what is metal Ark about?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've got Dedra who leads our documentary division and
Speaker 5: h what We are is uh, storytellers in the media
Speaker 5: business who are looking to evolve in the new media world.
Speaker 5: You know, we are a company that has a giant
Speaker 5: audio product that is now growing in the video space.
Speaker 5: I've had to we've had to do all of that.
Speaker 5: You guys have learned what it takes. Content business is expensive,
Speaker 5: like you and especially if you're gonna do video like this,
Speaker 5: you have to have people in order to do that.
Speaker 5: And so we've got almost twenty documentaries that are going
Speaker 5: to be sold in the next two years. Because John
Speaker 5: Skipper was the most powerful man in sports when he
Speaker 5: was at ESPN, Like he knows how to do this.
Speaker 5: He did the thirty for thirty series. So you guys
Speaker 5: see that Hollywood has been crumbling or stagnant or atrophying
Speaker 5: or unstable for two years. And we're gonna have twenty
Speaker 5: documentaries in the next few years. And I know, you
Speaker 5: guys got a thousand ideas, you got a thousand connections,
Speaker 5: and so we're going to be a company that builds
Speaker 5: out this arm over here. I'm the side of the
Speaker 5: company where we do this stuff, you know, interviews, intimacies, vulnerabilities, laughter,
Speaker 5: get to know these people for real, I can't wait. Like,
Speaker 5: I know they've seen some of Stephen Jackson here, but
Speaker 5: his dark comedy thespian I don't think the world is ready.
Speaker 5: I do not think the world is ready for how
Speaker 5: funny this person actually is. Even though he can kick
Speaker 5: your ass and everyone knows he could kick your ass,
Speaker 5: I don't know that they know how funny is. And
Speaker 5: so hopefully we'll have some unscripted work for him to do,
Speaker 5: because I believe there are a lot of Hollywood roles
Speaker 5: for this man if he chooses them.
Speaker 1: Indeed, indeed, I asked you, I asked you in Rachel
Speaker 1: a question last night, and it was interesting because.
Speaker 5: I literally got we should mention her too, by the way,
Speaker 5: because just a true gangster who's going to help us
Speaker 5: a lot here.
Speaker 1: I mean, Rachel Nichols is obviously very instrumental. And Jack
Speaker 1: and I start in media, and I was telling a
Speaker 1: story last night that when we had Rachel long was
Speaker 1: it a year and a half ago? Last season, I
Speaker 1: got a call from one of the bosses at ESPN,
Speaker 1: like right after it air, like, hey, how come you
Speaker 1: didn't tell us you were going to have Rachel. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I didn't think I had to tell you
Speaker 1: that I was going to have Rachel, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And it was and at that moment, you know,
Speaker 1: and I told her last night for the first time,
Speaker 1: I think and the crew knew. I was like, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: I still I hadn't had no issues with ESPN up
Speaker 1: to that point, and I really didn't even have no
Speaker 1: issues with my exit up to that point. I was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, we got to be careful because
Speaker 1: that's just the machine. But like the more and more
Speaker 1: I thought about it, and the more and more we
Speaker 1: were talking when we were hearing her story, I was
Speaker 1: willing to lose my job at ESPN to allow Rachel
Speaker 1: to have a platform to tell her truth on because
Speaker 1: I don't feel like she had an opportunity to tell
Speaker 1: her truth. There was the machine's word and then Rachel,
Speaker 1: You're silenced, you can't say anything. So I just thought
Speaker 1: that was extremely unfair. I hated the narrative that was
Speaker 1: painted with her because we know who she is and
Speaker 1: what she stands for, and the narrative that was painted
Speaker 1: by the bigger machine couldn't be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: So us I feel like us allowing her to kind
Speaker 1: of speak her truth on our platform and then kind
Speaker 1: of get her back, you know, kind of be a
Speaker 1: stepping stone to get her back in this space. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's probably the most trusted NBA reporter in the game.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves her and respects her and she does great work.
Speaker 1: So again to definitely shout out Rachel, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the first things when Jelani and I came
Speaker 1: out with you. You know, you spoke highly on her
Speaker 1: and how much respect and love you guys have for
Speaker 1: each other. So definitely throwing her in the mix only
Speaker 1: is gonna go.
Speaker 5: When you talk about the machine, right, and you guys
Speaker 5: can both sort of speak to this uniquely because you've
Speaker 5: navigated the labyrinth so well. The machine makes you or
Speaker 5: can make you with its pressures, dilute your authenticity by
Speaker 5: degrees by requesting compromises from you at every turn, and
Speaker 5: choices like that, where what an it's possible spot for
Speaker 5: the two of you. You know Rachel Nichols, you know
Speaker 5: everything she's about, and now you're put in the spot
Speaker 5: where a white woman has lost her job in the
Speaker 5: climate of after George Floyd and Disney doesn't know how
Speaker 5: to react, and there's corporate pressure and American pressure, and
Speaker 5: now you two are put in the spot where you're
Speaker 5: defending Rachel Nichols, and it sounds like you might be
Speaker 5: against black women or can be perceived against black women.
Speaker 5: A difficult spot for you, guys to choose. No, we're
Speaker 5: going to be authentic, and this is one of the
Speaker 5: many reasons I admire you guys. Your authenticity and your
Speaker 5: audience knows this, and it's why they ride with you everywhere.
Speaker 5: Your authenticity matters to you and cannot be compromised by
Speaker 5: any machines, not like not the NBA machine. That I
Speaker 5: mean he went into the stands for his brother and
Speaker 5: and would do it again, and would do it again
Speaker 5: no matter the cost, because that's I mean, that's where
Speaker 5: you guys live. Who doesn't want to ride with that?
Speaker 1: No, completely agree, But I was gonna say My question
Speaker 1: to you was as someone who studied journalism for thirty
Speaker 1: plus years and Rachel again, I post close question to
Speaker 1: both you guys, how do you feel about athletes who are,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, cutting the lines so
Speaker 1: to speak, in this space and able to come in
Speaker 1: and tell our stories and have the trust from our
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters that have played the same sport, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of coming in. I wouldn't even say taken over,
Speaker 1: but I think there's definitely a there's been a shift
Speaker 1: in the tide, and athletes are kind of coming in
Speaker 1: and taking We don't necessarily have to have the journal
Speaker 1: journalist credentials to be able to be successful in the space.
Speaker 1: And someone who again prided themselves on you know, your
Speaker 1: journalistic qualities and in your body of work for so long.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about the athletes kind of coming
Speaker 1: in with this new wave of media.
Speaker 5: It's been fascinating to watch you guys shake the constructs.
Speaker 5: It's been fascinating to watch athletes understand they don't need
Speaker 5: the media because they can be their own media and
Speaker 5: without a filter. You don't have to go and make
Speaker 5: ESPN or someone else's profit when you can keep all
Speaker 5: your profit by telling the story. I understand why my
Speaker 5: brethren would be threatened by the changing of that guard.
Speaker 5: In fact, when I've talked to former athletes who go
Speaker 5: into ESPN and work at ESPN, they're all stunned because
Speaker 5: they don't come from the environment of the locker room
Speaker 5: that's so competitive, cutthroat. They're stunned by the insecurity in
Speaker 5: the room and the vanity business because it's not coachable people.
Speaker 5: It's ego. It's a lot of people who haven't had
Speaker 5: to earn what you guys have had to earn, the
Speaker 5: difficulties of what you had to climb over in order
Speaker 5: to get to what you did. And so I understand
Speaker 5: why it's threatening to us. You're shaking the machine, and
Speaker 5: when you say you're not taking over yet, you're threatening
Speaker 5: to like we are tired of the way we're covered.
Speaker 5: I came up as a sports columnist. What I learned
Speaker 5: from the writing about sports is you stand in judgment.
Speaker 5: I'm embarrassed by some of the things that I wrote
Speaker 5: in my twenties about Alonzo moarning should be loyal to
Speaker 5: the Miami Heat because x y Z I've apologized Zoe
Speaker 5: I was in my twenties. I'm learning from other columnists
Speaker 5: who have written sports columns, and what you do is
Speaker 5: you judge the athlete you write the provocative thing. You
Speaker 5: guys are trying to provide a safe space for a
Speaker 5: different perspective, so you're allowing a broader view. I welcome
Speaker 5: it because it feels like democracy. It feels like meritocracy.
Speaker 5: But you're going to be met at a lot of
Speaker 5: turns with resistance from people who don't want that change
Speaker 5: because cutting the line or why do they get to
Speaker 5: to do this when they haven't had, you know, the
Speaker 5: twenty years of journalistic training.
Speaker 2: A lot of these words, Dan using the hope y'all
Speaker 2: writing them down because I many definitions of them, so
Speaker 2: I know you got me yeah about six of them already. Okay,
Speaker 2: we can't really follow up what you said about us,
Speaker 2: but we honored too definitely. You know, like you said
Speaker 2: to piggyback on what he said, we had our own
Speaker 2: relationship too, So the biggest thing for us and me
Speaker 2: and Mad been through a lot. We bounced around the
Speaker 2: NB a lot. But to have somebody believe in us
Speaker 2: is the best feeling, right, and to know you believe
Speaker 2: in us, it's priceless. So we thank you as well.
Speaker 2: Betting on yourself. You had to bet on yourself leading.
Speaker 2: What's the hardest part, the most gratified and part of
Speaker 2: metal law so far.
Speaker 5: The most gratifying part, what I say all the time,
Speaker 5: is getting to do it is I don't take for granted.
Speaker 5: I don't know how much guys you guys suffered sort
Speaker 5: of the grieving of your former identity of I was
Speaker 5: a professional athlete. That transition can be very difficult. You're
Speaker 5: burying who you've been and who you've been working to
Speaker 5: be for twenty years getting out into freedom when I
Speaker 5: am the son of Cuban exiles and doing it principled,
Speaker 5: like the people who are with us are. We've got
Speaker 5: an unbelievably loyal audience, loyal because they think they know
Speaker 5: us and me and what I'm about. And if my
Speaker 5: mentor's son gets fired, it's going to be like, no,
Speaker 5: we all leave now. All of us are going now.
Speaker 5: And when you connect with your audience from there right,
Speaker 5: because these are intimate mediums and mine it's audio, So
Speaker 5: we're like the friends in your head when you're at work,
Speaker 5: maybe an unhappy job that you have for eight hours,
Speaker 5: and we're getting you through four of them, or a
Speaker 5: dark time or whatever, because we're in this intimate space.
Speaker 5: The idea that I get to do this with and
Speaker 5: four people I believe in, the idea that I don't
Speaker 5: have to answer to anybody. How can that not be gratifying?
Speaker 5: When I could just make things. They pay us to
Speaker 5: make things, and they pay us to support the people
Speaker 5: who we want to make things with Like that is
Speaker 5: real and genuine freedom from Cuban parents who left an
Speaker 5: island fleeing communism. And I never in my life had
Speaker 5: negotiated a contract for money. Ever, I always negotiate freedom.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to work at ESPN and Disney for
Speaker 5: ten years. I resisted skippers advances. He needed a Latin person,
Speaker 5: didn't Latin. They underrepresent with Latin. I don't even look Latin.
Speaker 5: My last name is French. So I had to get
Speaker 5: I had to get Steven Jackson. I had to get
Speaker 5: the I had to get the accent so that I
Speaker 5: would look Latin on television. But what ends up happening?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: So you rent, you rent my father's voice, but at
Speaker 5: the end I get to leave because you don't own mine.
Speaker 1: Real quick, before you go on, jack, I was just
Speaker 1: in the bay. I was covering the game for the Kings,
Speaker 1: and I went to dinner with a friend of mine
Speaker 1: and we went to stk in San Francisco, and the bartender,
Speaker 1: older white guy knew me from the Warriors, you know,
Speaker 1: came and brought his shots and he said, congratulations on
Speaker 1: teaming up with metal Ark I look forward to learning
Speaker 1: more about you and Steven, And I'm just like, so
Speaker 1: he knew we were for basketball players. But again, I
Speaker 1: think that speaks to your audience, because because we're with
Speaker 1: you guys now, they're looking forward to getting to know
Speaker 1: who we are.
Speaker 5: I cannot wait, Like I mean, I'm sure the people
Speaker 5: who follow here feel like they've got the breath of
Speaker 5: your personality. But just in the stories that you were
Speaker 5: telling last night about what your journey has been, and
Speaker 5: when I talk about my admiration for you guys, I
Speaker 5: don't think people understand how hard it was for you
Speaker 5: to get to the first of the fifteen years or
Speaker 5: the seventeen years in the league, and how hard it
Speaker 5: is to stay to stay there when all of the
Speaker 5: young people want your money and it's the world's most
Speaker 5: competitive place. There don't get to be many of you
Speaker 5: like it's all inspiring to behold, even though we get
Speaker 5: very used to seeing it on television every night, Like
Speaker 5: your stories are amazing and I cannot wait to sit
Speaker 5: down and reverse this on you guys, because the one
Speaker 5: time I interviewed him on television, he gave it all up,
Speaker 5: Like he gave it all up and and the stories
Speaker 5: were amazing, and I know he's got a thousand more.
Speaker 5: It's one of the most memorable interviews highly Questionable has
Speaker 5: ever done because.
Speaker 1: It was highly questionable what he was talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got questions a both high and take us
Speaker 4: don't sit. How was the approach in your daily show? Now?
Speaker 3: Compare up and when you started in the media space?
Speaker 4: Oh Man.
Speaker 5: So I start as a newspaper columnist and I get
Speaker 5: to the sports reporters in Times Square. The construct is
Speaker 5: guys on Sunday morning judging athletes at the ESPN Zone
Speaker 5: in Times Square. I'm thirty years old. I'm at the news.
Speaker 5: It's downtown New York. ESPN Zone smells like urine from
Speaker 5: the night before and vomit and like chairs on tables.
Speaker 5: And I get there, I'm like, is that all there is?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 5: And it felt lonely. Uh. Success didn't look like what
Speaker 5: I thought it would, And so I went on a
Speaker 5: path of how do I make this more communal? Writing
Speaker 5: is lonely? Arriving at sports reporters didn't seem like the
Speaker 5: accomplishment I thought it would be, And so I wanted
Speaker 5: group stuff, stuff that had laughter in it. I went
Speaker 5: behind the scenes at PTI when that was starting, Cornheiser
Speaker 5: and Wilbond behind the scenes, the show is much better
Speaker 5: than the show they do on air because they're yelling
Speaker 5: at each other and they're cursing. And the group of
Speaker 5: people they had around them, the sport team, like the
Speaker 5: people that you have here. They had relationships with families,
Speaker 5: so it's jocular, feels a little bit like a locker room.
Speaker 5: So I hear that laughter and the loneliness of writing,
Speaker 5: I'm like, no, no, I want I want that. I
Speaker 5: want something I do with my friends. I want something
Speaker 5: that feels like laughter. I want something that shared, because yeah,
Speaker 5: writing is super lonely. Nobody can do it for you.
Speaker 5: I always identified as a writer for you know, fifteen
Speaker 5: twenty years growing up. That's the one thing people told
Speaker 5: me I was good at when I was young, and
Speaker 5: so that's what I chose because they didn't tell me
Speaker 5: I was good at anything else. And and then I
Speaker 5: went and did fun things that that were meant to
Speaker 5: be counterculture, that were meant to Hey, sports aren't that serious.
Speaker 5: I know, we can take it all serious, but we
Speaker 5: can laugh with my dad, or we can laugh with
Speaker 5: my co host to God too, you know, We've got
Speaker 5: an odd couple relationships. So I've just been trying to
Speaker 5: create environments that are both fun and thoughtful, that they
Speaker 5: that they have some range, that they can go between
Speaker 5: smart and dumb. And so that's what that's some of
Speaker 5: the stuff that we've been building.
Speaker 1: Love it transitioning a little bit. I got a chance
Speaker 1: to meet your wife Valerie last night.
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 1: She had us all sign a cork to kind of remember, oh.
Speaker 5: I'm supposed to bring it. I forgot to bring it.
Speaker 1: I will leave it after I know she's got it.
Speaker 1: But speak to the effect that she's had on you
Speaker 1: as a man, a businessman.
Speaker 5: This is the part where you're gonna try and get
Speaker 5: me to cry. They told me, you guys are gonna
Speaker 5: try and get me to cry. So you want me
Speaker 5: to talk about love. All right, I'll talk about love,
Speaker 5: but you guys are gonna have to share this with me.
Speaker 5: I simply would not be capable of doing this if
Speaker 5: I don't believe in myself the way that she believes
Speaker 5: in who I am. She thinks I've never looked at
Speaker 5: myself this way. I'm not an entrepreneur. I've just wanted
Speaker 5: to be left alone to do these silly things we do.
Speaker 5: She thinks I'm a boss, and I would say she
Speaker 5: has made me one. Her strength is uncommon. She has
Speaker 5: turned upside down my worldview, and I just feel safe
Speaker 5: with my every vulnerability with her. And now I'm accomplishing
Speaker 5: things I never dreamed of because of the strength and
Speaker 5: her backing me. Because I wish to be the man
Speaker 5: that she thinks and believes I am. I aspire to it,
Speaker 5: and it.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: I never knew what love was, or that it could
Speaker 5: feel that way, or how healing it could be in
Speaker 5: the places where I'm not gentle on myself, like she
Speaker 5: has been a medicine, a bomb that makes all of
Speaker 5: this post Like I could not do it if I
Speaker 5: didn't have with me a foreign feeling that I'd never
Speaker 5: known before.
Speaker 1: That booies me, shut up, valve. I love hearing that.
Speaker 1: I mean behind every good man is a great woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know what I mean. You always hear that,
Speaker 1: but you know to have I.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't say she's behind me. I would say she's out
Speaker 5: in front.
Speaker 4: Like I.
Speaker 5: Lost my brother recently, and you know, at his deathbed
Speaker 5: for a year, he and I were praying that I
Speaker 5: might get to joy a more joyous existence, because I've
Speaker 5: had trouble all my life with Joy and I will
Speaker 5: only get there if I'm following her.
Speaker 1: Obviously, I know it's a tough topic. You lost your
Speaker 1: younger brother about four months ago, Jack lost his younger
Speaker 1: brother or has it been a year, a year, a
Speaker 1: little bit over a year ago? Do you mind kind
Speaker 1: of just speaking to that, and you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: you don't you told us off are like he was
Speaker 1: kind of almost like one of my kids because I
Speaker 1: don't have children, and that's how close your guys bond was.
Speaker 5: So this is, uh, it's a long story, and it's
Speaker 5: the hardest thing I've ever experienced. It's a pain that
Speaker 5: has not gone away. It is with me when I
Speaker 5: wake up in the morning. When we briefly touched on it,
Speaker 5: I don't know what he was feeling right before we started,
Speaker 5: but Stephen had to compose himself because of whatever it is.
Speaker 5: I don't know how long how long ago did and
Speaker 5: the grief. I don't know if men talk about this,
Speaker 5: either privately or publicly enough. It is a horror that
Speaker 5: a physical pain in my stomach, that is sadness that
Speaker 5: reminds me that it's there. Even when I'm laughing, I
Speaker 5: can be laughing about something transported and the reminders there
Speaker 5: that my brother is not here. I have isolated from
Speaker 5: people because I don't want to keep rummaging through this bin.
Speaker 5: It hurts too much, and avoidance sometimes feels easier. But
Speaker 5: the specifics of the horror a year daily next to
Speaker 5: a deathbed, A vibrant, colorful personality who did a career
Speaker 5: harder than mine. Art. He was a successful professional artist.
Speaker 5: He was braver than I was. He was more charismatic
Speaker 5: than I was. He was my little brother. I never
Speaker 5: imagined a scenario in which he would die, To watch
Speaker 5: his body wither away, to watch people need to pick
Speaker 5: him up, to go to the bathroom every day, to
Speaker 5: have the memories of that seared in my sleep in
Speaker 5: a way that doesn't give me any rest. It's been
Speaker 5: the most painful thing I've endured, by leaps and bounds.
Speaker 5: But I am so grateful that I got that year
Speaker 5: next to him, to solve all the little brother big
Speaker 5: brother shit, to ask forgiveness for everything, to not have
Speaker 5: in like the horror that is my grief. There is
Speaker 5: no guilt. There is no guilt because I said all
Speaker 5: the things, and he went loved and I'm deeply appreciative
Speaker 5: that I didn't lose him suddenly, Like even though I
Speaker 5: would wish on no one to watch, to watch a body,
Speaker 5: a vibrant body, an athletic body, decomposed in front of you.
Speaker 5: He didn't have the use of the bottom half of
Speaker 5: his body for the last six months, but he wanted
Speaker 5: to stay here. I'd ask you to explore grief with me,
Speaker 5: because I haven't. I have not spent a lot of
Speaker 5: time doing this with others because it hurts to Everyone's
Speaker 5: got their own experience with this. It is different for everybody.
Speaker 5: But I don't have the words to articulate to you
Speaker 5: the level of pain that this caused and the belief
Speaker 5: that I will have a greater appreciation for the growth
Speaker 5: on the other side of that pain because of what
Speaker 5: I learned next to that bed every day for a year.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing. I mean, Jack, it's been a
Speaker 1: little over a year for you, and obviously we all
Speaker 1: know how hard you like, where are you kind of
Speaker 1: at with your situation still? I mean it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's tough, you know again. I told this briefly before
Speaker 1: we got on the air. How Jack and I got
Speaker 1: so close was the loss of my mom, and I'm
Speaker 1: on the opposite spectrum from you and your brother. My
Speaker 1: mom was diagnosed with four cancers November first and died
Speaker 1: November twenty seventh, so I had literally with twenty six days.
Speaker 1: But it was when I was playing for the Warriors
Speaker 1: and I was just gone and Jack was the one
Speaker 1: every day where whether he was calling to crack jokes
Speaker 1: to make me laugh, bringing me food, coming to sit
Speaker 1: and watch TV or movies, coming to bring me some
Speaker 1: weed to smoke, like, Jack was the that was kind
Speaker 1: of just checking on me every day, didn't want didn't
Speaker 1: want nothing to return, just was the one.
Speaker 2: And overall the whole.
Speaker 1: Warriors or organization was great, but you know, Jack really
Speaker 1: went out of his way to just let me know
Speaker 1: he was there, and when I was ready to talk
Speaker 1: or needed to talk, he would be the ear and
Speaker 1: the shoulder I can talk on. And I think what
Speaker 1: I've learned since then is, you know, the pain never
Speaker 1: goes away. You just learn how to manage it over time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I felt like it.
Speaker 5: Doesn't seem real to me still, like even you're going
Speaker 5: to a deathbed you're going to a hospital every day,
Speaker 5: like for it to still not feel like a real
Speaker 5: thing months after the fact, I can't imagine what you're
Speaker 5: talking about. Seems unreachable to me, you said sixteen seventeen
Speaker 5: years Yeah, it seems it's almost a mountain too overwhelming
Speaker 5: to climb, the idea that I'm going to believe this
Speaker 5: is real. It's the realist thing in the world. Right,
Speaker 5: You're by a deathbed with a cancer patient, and to me,
Speaker 5: it doesn't I don't know if it's the same for you.
Speaker 5: It doesn't seem like a real thing, even though I've
Speaker 5: lived the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a crazy experience for me.
Speaker 2: Then I lost my little sister two months for my
Speaker 2: little brother, So I lost both my siblings two much
Speaker 2: of parts.
Speaker 3: And you're ready to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, bro. Let's speak to your upbringing started here
Speaker 1: in New York before you move to Florida. You know,
Speaker 1: parents sacrificed a lot coming from Cuba. Explain your kind
Speaker 1: of upbringing and and and the values and principles you
Speaker 1: were raised with from two people who didn't start in
Speaker 1: the States.
Speaker 5: Work, work means freedom. Work is how you get ahead
Speaker 5: in this country, there have been any number of things
Speaker 5: over the last You're right, I wonder sometimes whether avoidance
Speaker 5: is the best thing on that. Forgive me. I'll answer
Speaker 5: your question in a second, but I can go ahead.
Speaker 5: I marveled. I did an interview with Marcellus Wiley, and
Speaker 5: he's such a tough human being, and his hands are
Speaker 5: gnarled as he's sort of telling the story of being
Speaker 5: asked to close his mom's casket, and he's just chosen
Speaker 5: the path of avoidance because he's like, if I don't
Speaker 5: avoid He's obviously a very tough man, but he's like,
Speaker 5: that's too much for me to handle. Whatever your feeling
Speaker 5: there where I would counsel you from what little I
Speaker 5: know in these four months. You shouldn't stuff all of
Speaker 5: that down. You should share it with somebody. Maybe not,
Speaker 5: maybe it's too much, maybe it's not here. But anyways,
Speaker 5: my parents, they came from Cuba. They left in their
Speaker 5: teenage years. They get on planes, freedom is lost, get
Speaker 5: on planes. They think they're going to see their family soon.
Speaker 5: It goes many, many years without seeing their family. Imagine
Speaker 5: what the desperation has to be on an island where
Speaker 5: people literally throw their lives to the winds on like
Speaker 5: inner tubes. That the between Cuba and Miami is the
Speaker 5: biggest cemetery, and that ocean is the big cemetery that
Speaker 5: you will find because so many people are literally the
Speaker 5: desperation pushes them out. So my parents as teenagers come
Speaker 5: to this country and make their way, believing this country
Speaker 5: to be a certain thing, which it was for them,
Speaker 5: a land of opportunity, a land where they would I
Speaker 5: would never have to make any sacrifices because they made
Speaker 5: all of them. They got me to freedom. And the
Speaker 5: way you get to freedom is through work. That's how
Speaker 5: immigrants do it, exiles do it. This country has a
Speaker 5: lot of economies that thrive off you work, and so
Speaker 5: in that I got almost the entirety of my identity
Speaker 5: in ways that probably aren't healthy but have been successful.
Speaker 5: I'm lopsided, lopsided in the ways you know you guys
Speaker 5: can be. I would imagine that to be as great
Speaker 5: as you were at basketball, you couldn't have time for
Speaker 5: much of anything else. It had to be an obsession
Speaker 5: that you were doing all the time, every day, thinking
Speaker 5: about all the time, always pressurized.
Speaker 2: And so I made time for I have made time
Speaker 2: for weed and strip clubs too, so.
Speaker 1: Strip clubs, Yeah, I got all that in So those
Speaker 1: are those are even split.
Speaker 4: I was dedicated to all of them, saying.
Speaker 1: The one thing I will say is Jack has his
Speaker 1: jersey retired into Atlanta strip clubs.
Speaker 4: Three stop three?
Speaker 1: Excuse me?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Oh, but then people get the impression though that you
Speaker 5: don't work, that some holy man reached into your crib
Speaker 5: and just made you a better basketball Like okay, yeah,
Speaker 5: you had fun because you had to blow off steam,
Speaker 5: but you guys had to be obsessive competitive to be
Speaker 5: great in a way that's not even reasonable.
Speaker 1: Your relationship with your father, obviously, the world got the
Speaker 1: chance to know him and love him on your show.
Speaker 1: How's he doing? And and and what's that that process
Speaker 1: of father son been like for you?
Speaker 5: I mean, it's so great and interesting so many ways. Uh,
Speaker 5: my father worked for I'm gonna say, this is so
Speaker 5: funny all of this. My father didn't know how to
Speaker 5: tell me he didn't want to do the television show
Speaker 5: anymore because he's worked all his life. He was approaching
Speaker 5: eighty and the celebrity and the stuff, you know, getting
Speaker 5: you know, free tuna sandwiches and slapped on the back
Speaker 5: on heath games.
Speaker 4: He's eighty.
Speaker 5: He just wants to shuffle around the house and be
Speaker 5: left alone. So he tells ESPN that he's underpaid and
Speaker 5: he wants to be paid more because he can't figure
Speaker 5: out a way to tell me he doesn't want to
Speaker 5: do the show anymore. And he figures, well, ESPN won't
Speaker 5: give him the raise, and they called his bluff and
Speaker 5: they gave him more money. And so my father ends
Speaker 5: up winning at the end. But at the very end
Speaker 5: of what we were doing, he really didn't want to
Speaker 5: do it anymore. But the eight years that we had
Speaker 5: before that are the biggest professional blessing of my life
Speaker 5: because I got closer with my father than I'd ever
Speaker 5: been in retirement. I allowed him to do something with
Speaker 5: his later years that felt like he was genuinely helping me,
Speaker 5: and he was because he was the star of the show.
Speaker 5: I gave him a TV show and fucker stole it
Speaker 5: from me. And one of the greatest delights and surprises
Speaker 5: in all of that, And you guys could speak to
Speaker 5: the barbershop quality of this. When Memorial Day weekend in
Speaker 5: miamient no, No. But when he goes in his car,
Speaker 5: he is a king black people love my father more
Speaker 5: than Latin people do. I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 1: Because of his rap lyrics.
Speaker 3: Just lit he get it.
Speaker 5: I'm not kidding you that that was one of the
Speaker 5: how would I have imagined that? From from where it
Speaker 5: is that we started. So my father's doing the show
Speaker 5: in his second language. He doesn't really know anything about sports.
Speaker 5: But my earliest memory was like walking with my little
Speaker 5: hand in his into a magical stadium and it was
Speaker 5: a father son connection and I learned to love sports,
Speaker 5: and the energy of that was like, how do I
Speaker 5: connect with my father through sports? So to be able
Speaker 5: to be on television and with my father And then
Speaker 5: this part was important because my CEO, John Skipper was
Speaker 5: working very hard to try and diversify the opinions and
Speaker 5: the voices and the perspectives at ESPN. Every single person
Speaker 5: who sat next to my father was always a minority
Speaker 5: with another voice. It was important to me to put
Speaker 5: that on the platform. All of them made more likable
Speaker 5: as I was because my father was in the middle
Speaker 5: of it, providing the laughs, providing the show. That made
Speaker 5: it just this much different than the other shows on ESPN.
Speaker 3: I have it.
Speaker 1: Can you give us Poppy's introduction of you.
Speaker 3: Today we have introducing Stephen Juckson.
Speaker 5: He says he's going, he says he's going to profess better.
Speaker 4: It's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Who was some of the journalists you looked up to
Speaker 3: as you was coming up?
Speaker 5: So I guess these were to all be too old.
Speaker 4: You guys would age out.
Speaker 5: Like they're all too old, I would think for you.
Speaker 5: Gary Smith was a great writer at Sports Illustrated. He
Speaker 5: wrote profiles. He wrote three or four a year where
Speaker 5: he would really and this is one of my attractions
Speaker 5: to the sociology of sports, because I'm more interested in
Speaker 5: the human condition in it than I am in even
Speaker 5: the drama of the games. He'd write these profiles of
Speaker 5: people where he would interview fifty people before he started writing.
Speaker 5: And when I was in college reading one of them,
Speaker 5: I threw the Sports Illustrated across the dorm room because
Speaker 5: I didn't think I would ever be that good at
Speaker 5: being able to capture the essence of who somebody was.
Speaker 5: But he wasn't an opinion giver. These weren't essays. These
Speaker 5: were just rich, deep profiles of Let me explain who
Speaker 5: Stephen Jackson is to you in ways that Stephen Jackson
Speaker 5: will read and learn about himself because he's taking the
Speaker 5: care that a journalist should to get it right, to
Speaker 5: be fair, to tell the story correctly, to tell it thoroughly.
Speaker 5: And so you know, my early influencers weren't the opinion givers.
Speaker 5: They were the people who could tell a human story
Speaker 5: about a human being that made me feel something that
Speaker 5: would attached to them. So now I'm not just rooting
Speaker 5: for sports. I'm not rooting for the regional identity of
Speaker 5: my team. I'm rooting for this guy, this guy because
Speaker 5: I liked what they're about.
Speaker 3: Interesting wrote fort to Miami Hero in the nineties.
Speaker 2: One story that you're proud of that you wrote, and
Speaker 2: one story you covered that you regret.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, Okay, So I went to Cuba. I wrote
Speaker 5: an assortment of articles from Cuba, you know, visiting my parents' homeland,
Speaker 5: seeing the way the stories of their childhood that they
Speaker 5: described as palatial, I saw a place stuck in the
Speaker 5: nineteen fifties. I sat on the steps of their home,
Speaker 5: old home and wept because, you know, this island, this childhood,
Speaker 5: this freedom, this was all taken from them. And so
Speaker 5: the stuff that I wrote about Cuba, where I was
Speaker 5: explaining to my where I was giving a Cuban voice
Speaker 5: nationally to how Hispanic people feel, and also telling personally
Speaker 5: intimate stories that were meaningful to me. And I have
Speaker 5: a lot of regrets about things that I wrote in
Speaker 5: my twenties, just because I was trying to learn how
Speaker 5: to be a columnist. Like I was a columnist at
Speaker 5: twenty six. It was too early for me to have
Speaker 5: to be given the right to have opinions that would
Speaker 5: put in print something that judged you, guys as less
Speaker 5: than because of an athletic performance, because you took too
Speaker 5: much money. You know you took you were holding out
Speaker 5: over money or whatever.
Speaker 4: I didn't have.
Speaker 5: I didn't have world views that were formed and shaped.
Speaker 5: I just knew how to write things that were in
Speaker 5: scendiary or you know. And I would learn over time
Speaker 5: that's not who I want to be. That's not who
Speaker 5: I want to be. It's just if that was what
Speaker 5: success looked like. When I'm telling you, the story tellers
Speaker 5: who are telling the long stories about things, those are
Speaker 5: like poets. That's a hard way to make a living.
Speaker 5: The ones who were getting rewarded were the ones who
Speaker 5: were getting engagement because they were crushing you guys. Or having,
Speaker 5: you know, very strong opinions. And you've seen what's happened
Speaker 5: in the last twenty years with sports debate, television and stuff.
Speaker 5: How all this stuff gets crueler when the path to
Speaker 5: success and attention is well, you gotta, you gotta come
Speaker 5: down on the athlete. You gotta tell you, gotta, you
Speaker 5: gotta show them that we're the customer, We're the fan,
Speaker 5: and we're the ones who deserve X, Y and Z.
Speaker 5: Like you guys grew how many how many rip jobs
Speaker 5: did you guys? How many things did you guys read
Speaker 5: about yourselves that you had to hide from your children?
Speaker 1: No, I mean it was a lot of good. It
Speaker 1: was all on TV. I think you made a great
Speaker 1: point from a standpoint of what the standard is now
Speaker 1: to to to grow in sports media when it when
Speaker 1: it comes to debate shows. And you know, I was
Speaker 1: over at ESPN and there were times where the producer
Speaker 1: would want me to say stuff that I just wasn't.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: comfortable saying that. But like you said, I feel like,
Speaker 1: and this is no knock on anyone who's been able
Speaker 1: to kind of climb those corporate ladders in those spaces,
Speaker 1: I feel like the more outlandish, the louder, the wilder
Speaker 1: the take you have rather wide or wrong, you're rewarded
Speaker 1: for and you start climbing the ladder because again, like
Speaker 1: I said, whatever the angle is, whether it's bashing athletes
Speaker 1: or keeping it real or whatever the fuck they want
Speaker 1: to call it, it's getting clicks, it's getting views, and
Speaker 1: you're becoming a personality, you know, on this platform. So
Speaker 1: I was always just very comfortable with staying in my
Speaker 1: lane over there.
Speaker 5: And you know, oh, but you were already famous, you are.
Speaker 5: You already knew what came with the currency of attention.
Speaker 5: You had, you had money. They're like, yeah, if you're
Speaker 5: a career is perhaps you'd have to compromise your principles
Speaker 5: because would you yeah, to get ahead.
Speaker 1: And you're not even mad about it. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I get it, and I understand it. But we talked
Speaker 1: about it last night at dinner. You know, when it
Speaker 1: comes to certain things, This is no knock on anyone.
Speaker 1: I just I value relationships more than I value views
Speaker 1: or clicks. I guess, like I love the fact that
Speaker 1: I could still call former teammates and ask for a
Speaker 1: favor or ask them to do interviews or ask them
Speaker 1: to come on the show. And I feel like some
Speaker 1: athletes once they crossed that line, like there is no
Speaker 1: going back with some of their former teammates or colleagues
Speaker 1: or people they played in the league with. Because it's
Speaker 1: not that I wouldn't even call it the dark side,
Speaker 1: but it's just like they've kind of fully embodied this
Speaker 1: media persona now that athletes are looking at them like,
Speaker 1: you used to play here. How couldn't you even say
Speaker 1: something like that? You know what I mean? And I
Speaker 1: never wanted to be on that, but I saw that
Speaker 1: if you died't kind of do that. You get an
Speaker 1: opportunity to climb up in the space.
Speaker 5: What happened with you? You had some experiences like that.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine people were trying to tell you what
Speaker 5: to be saying about anything, ESPN anywhere.
Speaker 1: ESPN was the only place that I got rubbed the
Speaker 1: wrong way.
Speaker 3: One they didn't want to pay me.
Speaker 2: But I think the whole reason why the didn't want
Speaker 2: to pay me because I'm embarrassed woes on TV.
Speaker 3: I embarrassed on TV. We was on had a situation
Speaker 3: where he.
Speaker 2: Was saying something about Jimmy Butler, I mean, Jimmy had
Speaker 2: a great relationship, and I didn't believe it when he
Speaker 2: said it so off air, I called him and he
Speaker 2: was on a commercial break and I hit him and
Speaker 2: he said it wasn't true. And you know, Rachel's my girl.
Speaker 2: And I told Rachel, Rachel, don't say it now, wait
Speaker 2: till we get back on air. And I told him
Speaker 2: that wasn't true on air, and I, you know, showed
Speaker 2: him the message from Jimmy. And after that, my relationship
Speaker 2: I stopped working as much. Gena start giving me calls
Speaker 2: like we gotta start figuring something else. Well, have you
Speaker 2: talk to guys at Fox? Like I knew it was
Speaker 2: about to be over because nobody never did him like that.
Speaker 4: But I knew he was full of shit now.
Speaker 1: But then, on another note, you know the transition that
Speaker 1: has been made with someone like a Pat McAfee transitioning
Speaker 1: into ESPN and really kind of doing it his way
Speaker 1: or as close to his way as can be. Obviously,
Speaker 1: just called out a studio had in Norby Williamson lately,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts you know kind of mean in
Speaker 1: that and now looking at it from an outside perspective.
Speaker 5: It's fascinating here, and I think you guys will find
Speaker 5: much of this very interesting. It's going to take some telling,
Speaker 5: and I want to be careful because I support people
Speaker 5: who bet on themselves. I don't want to appear like
Speaker 5: I'm bitter at ESPN or that I'm not rooting for
Speaker 5: Pat McAfee, because I want everybody to get their money.
Speaker 5: He's creative, he's charismatic. But what do you guys know
Speaker 5: about the details of my story? Because the last straw
Speaker 5: was them letting go of my mentor's son without telling me.
Speaker 5: But what do you guys know about the previous parts
Speaker 5: of the story and where it is I was getting
Speaker 5: in hot water and what I was bumping against when
Speaker 5: I was bumping against it.
Speaker 1: I don't know the details, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: Jack Onno was well.
Speaker 2: I just from what just I'll just say this, I
Speaker 2: knew from being at ESPN band from Jena, I knew
Speaker 2: your show was the show that it was one quote
Speaker 2: away from being kicked off ESPN. That's what I always felt,
Speaker 2: and that was the mode around every time I seen
Speaker 2: your show, people talking about your show ESPN like that's
Speaker 2: the show that that that treads the line.
Speaker 5: All right, So let me tell you where the backstory is,
Speaker 5: because I think you guys to be you guys will
Speaker 5: find fascinating sort of the corridors of power and how
Speaker 5: some of this stuff works. So John Skipper, the CEO
Speaker 5: of Metal Lark, was running ESPN and I was there.
Speaker 5: I got suspended for silly things. I put up billboards
Speaker 5: at Lebron's return to Cleveland saying you're welcome Miami, you know,
Speaker 5: and I put and I got suspended for that. I
Speaker 5: got suspended for that. It was a joke, it was funny,
Speaker 5: it was great. I got it, but I got suspended
Speaker 5: for silly things. I got suspended for selling my Hall
Speaker 5: of Fame vote to dead Spin in baseball because I
Speaker 5: was like, come on, athletes, they're gonna use healing things
Speaker 5: if they're competitive on steroids. Can we stop keeping them
Speaker 5: out of the Hall of Fame? And I sort of
Speaker 5: sold my vote away because I didn't like the moralizing there.
Speaker 5: But when Skipper leaves, a new president comes in charge
Speaker 5: and there's a new policy, and the first time I
Speaker 5: got in trouble with him is when Trump is going
Speaker 5: after for women of color of political power, one of
Speaker 5: them a refugee from Somalia, who is advocating for how
Speaker 5: inhumane the cages are at the borders where there are
Speaker 5: brown babies, And what is being shouted at the protest
Speaker 5: rally is send her back the crowd of Trump people.
Speaker 5: And so the first time I get in trouble is
Speaker 5: calling bullshit on that policy, saying you cannot tell a
Speaker 5: son of exiles that I'm not allowed to talk about
Speaker 5: this unless an athlete says about it first, something about
Speaker 5: it first, so that I can then use him as
Speaker 5: a meat shield, which is what their policy was. If
Speaker 5: it's news, you can talk about politics. But I'm like,
Speaker 5: these microphones matter, man, And if I'm not just talk
Speaker 5: about whether the Pacers are better with Haliburton, like I
Speaker 5: come like, if you're gonna give me the power to
Speaker 5: represent a minority for you on television, if I'm gonna
Speaker 5: be a Hispanic man with my Hispanic father as a
Speaker 5: cartoon that we're gonna have fun with, because all right,
Speaker 5: we'll do your game. When the microphone's gotta matter. Because
Speaker 5: they're chanting send her back. I can't say anything about
Speaker 5: how racist that is. I can't say anything about how
Speaker 5: that's not the America I signed up, Like, send her
Speaker 5: back because she's trying to get cages like kids in
Speaker 5: cages at the border, and I gotta So that's where
Speaker 5: it's That's where it starts, right on the compromising of
Speaker 5: the principles, the dilutions by degrees. So to have had
Speaker 5: access at that time to the most powerful man in sports,
Speaker 5: who was an ally of mine, who wanted me to
Speaker 5: start little fires, but he's not out to the Disney
Speaker 5: power machine after George Floyd, to have like to be
Speaker 5: in there and be like, wait a minute, can I
Speaker 5: get to Eiger and Disney on like re change stuff
Speaker 5: to now watch cowboy hats make a mets with Aaron
Speaker 5: Rodgers that gets to Eiger and Disney and gets to
Speaker 5: the top of the power chain because he's got the
Speaker 5: power to not need ESPN anymore because these brands have
Speaker 5: like ESPN needs this now they have to so they
Speaker 5: make all sorts of precedents for him. He can curse
Speaker 5: on television and everything else. And again I need to
Speaker 5: make this clear, like more power to him. Because Pat McAfee,
Speaker 5: you have done an amazing job of realizing before anybody
Speaker 5: else did that this was a space that the people
Speaker 5: who were actually dominating the space weren't as good at
Speaker 5: competition as you are. Because a punter got into the
Speaker 5: space and figured it all out. I can knock these
Speaker 5: journalists out of the way, So may he have all
Speaker 5: of the fun and chaos and anarchy that is shaking
Speaker 5: that machine from the inside. Because to me it's comedy
Speaker 5: to watch it, but the portions of it that hurt
Speaker 5: are like, Man, I was so close with whatever our
Speaker 5: show was, which was sort of like that to getting
Speaker 5: into the real, you know, corridors of power where I
Speaker 5: could have maybe influenced how it made a change and
Speaker 5: how bullshit corporate. The statements were after George Floyd, how like,
Speaker 5: because you've seen the machine whatever was happening that moment,
Speaker 5: after the pandemic that year, after George Floyd, to see
Speaker 5: the machine that was saying to us, while you know,
Speaker 5: at every turn now we're the black lives matter now,
Speaker 5: to see it now shift and everything go back to
Speaker 5: the way that it was, it has been a little
Speaker 5: jarring given that at that moment, I remember it, we
Speaker 5: were in it. It lasted for a while. It felt empowering,
Speaker 5: it felt strong, It felt like, oh okay, maybe maybe
Speaker 5: people will be heart to see the machine go right
Speaker 5: back to where it was. How do I say any
Speaker 5: of that and walk you guys down that path without
Speaker 5: sounding like I'm bitter at ESPN or bitter at McAfee,
Speaker 5: Like I want to walk that path, honestly. But that's
Speaker 5: how it happened from my viewpoint, So to see him
Speaker 5: call out by name an executive when I like, I
Speaker 5: had to go and when I said what I said,
Speaker 5: I had to go meet with Pataro in New York,
Speaker 5: and there were headlines and then stuff gets leaked about
Speaker 5: what my salary is and all the stuff that he's
Speaker 5: complaining about started happening to us. At the end, I
Speaker 5: enjoyed seeing him call it out. I was surprised to
Speaker 5: see that there were no consequences for the person that
Speaker 5: he called out or for him. But it's a new
Speaker 5: age over there. They have to make the compromises because
Speaker 5: I think they need him more than he needs them.
Speaker 1: Mmmm. I said that the other day. So I mean, currently,
Speaker 1: where do you think, maybe not even just ESPN, but
Speaker 1: like the machines that make this sports media go where
Speaker 1: they're kind of at a crossroads because I wholehearty believe
Speaker 1: that these bigger the personalities have outgrown the machines. I
Speaker 1: feel the machines will always be there, and they're great
Speaker 1: for what they're great at, but they're not necessarily needed anymore.
Speaker 1: So where does ESPN Fox? Where do you kind of
Speaker 1: think they sit in the whole grand scheme of things
Speaker 1: as journalism or reporting, or athletes moving into the space
Speaker 1: kind of takeover.
Speaker 5: It'll be super interesting because there's been a monopoly in
Speaker 5: this space of what's on your television when you're walking
Speaker 5: through the airport bar. Like, I don't think that people
Speaker 5: understand what the business model of ESPN is. All of
Speaker 5: those shows exist as infomercials just to get you to
Speaker 5: the next game, Like, here is sports content, whatever it is,
Speaker 5: how do we get you to the games, to the games,
Speaker 5: to the games. They decided to become a journalism company
Speaker 5: because they didn't have to be from the very beginning,
Speaker 5: there's not a jay in ESPN. It's entertainment in sports.
Speaker 5: They decided to be a journalism company that was initially
Speaker 5: run by newspaper people. Uh, they're sort of getting out
Speaker 5: of that business now and they're going to need those
Speaker 5: personality driven people to whether it's McAfee or Steven A. Smith,
Speaker 5: to to help their brand because the whole the whole
Speaker 5: game has has changed, the programming matters. It's it McAfee
Speaker 5: needs to do a number after first take because of
Speaker 5: the way that they're paying these people like they're they're
Speaker 5: trying to keep up now with a changing game as
Speaker 5: the streaming service its service services just change everything.
Speaker 1: Kind of a little bit off topic, but not. Is
Speaker 1: there any truth to this urban legend that Disney was
Speaker 1: trying to stop the Miami Zoo from naming a hippo
Speaker 1: after you.
Speaker 5: Now it's not an urban legend. There is now a
Speaker 5: Miami zoo that has a hippo named Dan Lebato. No,
Speaker 5: but that's all true. Yes, that was They were fearing
Speaker 5: the liability of the hippo escaping named Dan Lebotard, and
Speaker 5: then you got Disney's Dan LeBatard tramples three kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The first thing I did, No, the first thing I did,
Speaker 5: the first act of freedom after leaving ESPN was going
Speaker 5: to that zoo and that there isn't There is not
Speaker 5: no longer a baby hippo. There is a hippo at
Speaker 5: Zoo Miami named Dan Levittard who hopefully doesn't trample any
Speaker 5: kids escaped. Yeah, hoping that doesn't happen.
Speaker 4: You haven't met him.
Speaker 5: I have met him, Yeah, went to meet him the
Speaker 5: first day. But isn't that it isn't that instructive As
Speaker 5: you guys build your own thing. When you're corporate, you
Speaker 5: have to fear things like this joke we're making with
Speaker 5: this hippo. I have to fear the liability of what
Speaker 5: happens if the hippo tramples everybody. I look forward to
Speaker 5: you guys making everything you do without any of those constraints, right.
Speaker 1: I definitely don't want to hippo.
Speaker 4: I know you kind of.
Speaker 2: I feel the same way about your Dolphins how I
Speaker 2: feel about my Cowboys.
Speaker 5: You know, the only thing that saves two and the
Speaker 5: Dolphin fans is what happened to your.
Speaker 1: Cowboys about them boys? Yeah, to your fans, that's a
Speaker 1: good excuse.
Speaker 4: But you're on the same on the same table with us.
Speaker 3: In cancn Now what you mean losses were all at home?
Speaker 1: You guys have had three straight twelve win seasons, shipped
Speaker 1: the bed every time in the playoffs. Miami is a
Speaker 1: new up and coming team with the.
Speaker 2: Young How many super Bowls Miami got, no team too?
Speaker 4: How many we got? Damn five. You were you were five?
Speaker 1: Last time they want to say I wasn't born when
Speaker 1: they won their So.
Speaker 5: It was the boy the Dolphins. I think I read
Speaker 5: the other day. Yeah, this was Ethan Skolnick said this
Speaker 5: that Dwayne Wade went to Hyde, I went to college.
Speaker 5: Uh had a Hall of Fame pro career and got
Speaker 5: us statue in. All of the time since the Dolphins
Speaker 5: last won a playoff game, it's.
Speaker 1: A long run.
Speaker 2: So I know you feel how I feel. What about
Speaker 2: the heat? How do you feel about the heat right now?
Speaker 5: I mean, you guys have to marvel at everything they are.
Speaker 5: They embody so many of the things that you guys
Speaker 5: were about, where if you go there and are willing
Speaker 5: to work, they will make all players better. It to
Speaker 5: me what it's been amazing to watch what pat Riley
Speaker 5: has been there built there since the beginning, because what
Speaker 5: he's got on the bay there in Miami is a
Speaker 5: military silo where those basketball players are united in nothing
Speaker 5: more than how do they get better at this thing
Speaker 5: so that Gave Vincent can get his contract, so that
Speaker 5: Max Strus can get his contract, so that you guys
Speaker 5: have played so many guys and this is no knock
Speaker 5: on Gay Vincent or Max Struce. But what they build
Speaker 5: where they get guys to believe in the idea of
Speaker 5: hard work will pay off and all of us make money.
Speaker 5: Like that's how you get a team of players rowing
Speaker 5: in the right direction, no matter who their players are.
Speaker 5: Like you, it's not easy to be as good as
Speaker 5: they've been for as long as they've been with as
Speaker 5: many different players as they've had. I did not think
Speaker 5: Jimmy Butler was that Jimmy. Did you guys think Jimmy
Speaker 5: Butler was good enough to carry a team to the two?
Speaker 4: I knew he had the heart, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: If I didn't know he was good enough to do it,
Speaker 2: he did a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it until I saw it. I've always
Speaker 1: been a big fan of Jimmy. I didn't know it
Speaker 1: until I saw it. But I also think it too.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's the environment. Ryle's is creative, but then also spoke.
Speaker 1: I think spos one of the best minds in the NBA.
Speaker 5: But think about that though you use the video room
Speaker 5: like all he's done. You know, the root of culture
Speaker 5: is cult. That is a cult like that play like that.
Speaker 5: He grew up in the dark recesses of the thankless
Speaker 5: video room, and he climbs to he's going to be
Speaker 5: running that franchise next an eight year contract when you
Speaker 5: can sell that to your employees as a way of life,
Speaker 5: like it feels like a mafia family.
Speaker 2: I could have been Mafia Pat. I could have been
Speaker 2: a Heat player. Man two drills, three man, we even seventeens.
Speaker 2: That's that's the reason why I ended up being a
Speaker 2: Miami Heat player. We did that shit for the first
Speaker 2: three minutes of practice. Nah, I don't want to be here.
Speaker 1: Which you said, I don't love it as much as
Speaker 1: I thought I did.
Speaker 4: I definitely don't. I definitely don't.
Speaker 2: And if I got to throw up every practice to
Speaker 2: make a million dollars, maybe I need to go on
Speaker 2: another team where that's not in the contract.
Speaker 5: The Marlins, oh my god, they've they've hurt Miami so
Speaker 5: many different ways. I mean, they but they betrayed. They
Speaker 5: sold after championships, they sold all their players like They've
Speaker 5: crushed generations of fan bases by taking the field good
Speaker 5: immediately and making it all about just finances. So somehow,
Speaker 5: in a Latin city where an economy was supposed to flourish,
Speaker 5: around our love for baseball, and how flamboyantly because baseball's changed.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys watch it all, but
Speaker 5: baseball is more colorful and more ethnic and more joyous.
Speaker 5: We are a broken baseball city. There's a niche group
Speaker 5: of people who believe in the Marlins, but they don't spend.
Speaker 5: They can't keep up. And I think I think as
Speaker 5: we tape this, that the Dodgers have spent one point
Speaker 5: seven billion dollars on free agents and the Marlins have
Speaker 5: not yet spent a dollar. They definitely do it bit
Speaker 5: hard to keep up that way.
Speaker 2: Is the undefeated Dolphins winning a soup bought a year?
Speaker 2: Is the best moment is Miami sports history?
Speaker 5: Oh man, So it's so long ago. It's I don't
Speaker 5: know how long ago your memories go on. Childhood so
Speaker 5: I was born in sixty eight seventy two was the
Speaker 5: proudest thing football was. Football made Miami famous because they
Speaker 5: were successful at it. At the time, it wasn't a
Speaker 5: thriving town. The Dolphins were something that made it huge.
Speaker 5: But I would say in my lifetime, the most fun
Speaker 5: I've ever had covering things in sports thirty years in
Speaker 5: that market was covering the championship University of Miami teams
Speaker 5: that were urinating on all of sportsmanship and making America
Speaker 5: insane because they won and were crazy. So covering those
Speaker 5: teams was great fun because you know, Jimmy Johnson would say,
Speaker 5: this week against Notre Dame, we're not going to have
Speaker 5: any trash talking, and then would make the captain the
Speaker 5: safety of the team who called himself the Grim Reaper
Speaker 5: and took a picture in the paper leaning against a
Speaker 5: tombstone that read shut up, bitch, and he made him
Speaker 5: a captain. Like those teams were renegades first, and then
Speaker 5: the lebron Era Heat, where you don't you rarely get
Speaker 5: these situations that are that actually feel like the country
Speaker 5: is against you on something, and so the lebron Era
Speaker 5: Heat were like crack cocaine for four years about regular
Speaker 5: season game seventeen because the Heat are nine and eight
Speaker 5: and Lebron has bumped Spolster on his way off.
Speaker 1: The court, give me a pin on that team, though,
Speaker 1: Ed Reid uh ed and James No. That was before
Speaker 1: I mean I'm talking about.
Speaker 5: I mean before they've.
Speaker 1: Had that was like Michael, yeah, the Dead well like
Speaker 1: two went back to the same time.
Speaker 5: You're allowed to get confused because I think Frank Gore,
Speaker 5: Clinton Port.
Speaker 4: Is McGahee all the same time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it all runs together because yeah, those but it's
Speaker 5: not just that.
Speaker 1: Like the Two Live two. I was talking about the
Speaker 1: Two Live Crew, Uncle Luke, Miami.
Speaker 4: Hurricane, Mike Irvenue.
Speaker 5: No, but that's that's yes, that's well before Snoop Dogg
Speaker 5: was on USC sideline when they were winning championships, and
Speaker 5: before you know, even like Ice Cube was wearing a
Speaker 5: Raider jacket or there were people on the West Coast
Speaker 5: wearing Miami jackets because of what Miami represented. Uncle Luke,
Speaker 5: you'll love this story. Uncle Luke was as the you know,
Speaker 5: one of the originators of hip hop Miami sound, who
Speaker 5: would say things like shub Knight can't come into Miami
Speaker 5: unless he asks my permission. He was putting bounties on
Speaker 5: Notre Dame players that was collected with NFL money on
Speaker 5: anybody who injured Tim Brown or whatever. There's this pool
Speaker 5: of money and it was being held by the team priest.
Speaker 5: How can you not love those How can you not
Speaker 5: love those footballs?
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 5: I love it. Oh yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: Obviously shout out Dwayne Wade. You mentioned it earlier, but
Speaker 1: he will we have he will have a statue out there,
Speaker 1: you know, being there his entire career. To me, I
Speaker 1: think he's a top three shooting guard of all time
Speaker 1: behind him and Co. Just thoughts on his journey in
Speaker 1: his career.
Speaker 5: What a joy to watch from start to finish, because
Speaker 5: I remember when he came in initially one of the
Speaker 5: things people were all. He was clearly on the path
Speaker 5: to start him like it was about to happen. He
Speaker 5: was still accessible still, and the janitors and the people
Speaker 5: who worked in the building would ask him not to change,
Speaker 5: Please don't change, because you're so approachable, You're so accessible
Speaker 5: and stuff. To watch that guy have the twenty year
Speaker 5: career he has had to watch the greatness that would
Speaker 5: rank him among the all time greats at doing that
Speaker 5: and at that size. To see him grow into an
Speaker 5: even better man because he changed in all the best ways.
Speaker 5: He didn't change being personal and professional. But now that
Speaker 5: dude's a civic leader. That dude like helped Lebron with
Speaker 5: whatever the strength was in wearing the hoodies for Trayvon
Speaker 5: Martin because they found their voice as leaders. Were like
Speaker 5: to see him be better as a man than he
Speaker 5: was as a basketball player. To see him be better
Speaker 5: as a leader, on behalf of his daughter, to fight
Speaker 5: against just hate. He loves that he has learned how
Speaker 5: to love big, so he uses his power to combat hate.
Speaker 5: We've never had an athlete better than that in South Florida.
Speaker 5: I don't have an athlete I can say that about
Speaker 5: like he grew into a He grew into a man
Speaker 5: that any of us would be honored to know and
Speaker 5: inspired by his behavior. To say that his basketball career,
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna say pales compared to anything, but what
Speaker 5: I've seen him grow into to me is moving in
Speaker 5: ways that are truly inspirational about like what you want
Speaker 5: human beings to grow into through the platform and strength
Speaker 5: of sports, like a beast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, shout out d Way definitely a you know,
Speaker 1: great player, but even better human. Recently, twenty one Savage
Speaker 1: had an impersonation of your show with the music video.
Speaker 1: We talked about it a little bit, but thoughts on this.
Speaker 5: That characterization of me is deeply racist, stereotypical, bloated, thick.
Speaker 5: My father doesn't have a mustache. It looks nothing like that.
Speaker 5: But I do like the juxtafication of saying that my,
Speaker 5: uh my character is deeply racist. But Bomani's exactly right.
Speaker 5: They got it, They got it, They got it. Who
Speaker 5: playing Bamani? He fresh out the right.
Speaker 4: They just bet him.
Speaker 5: That's exactly right, That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: But thoughts I mean overall, I mean twenty one being
Speaker 1: one of the hottest artists in this game right now.
Speaker 5: I don't understand Matt Love like this. So Matt, I'm
Speaker 5: I don't know you guys well enough yet to know
Speaker 5: how spiritual you are or what it is that the
Speaker 5: universe brings you in terms of comedy or blessings. Okay,
Speaker 5: I have no reason at fifty five years old to
Speaker 5: connect with the young sports fan who is nineteen or
Speaker 5: twenty years old who does so now, But things like
Speaker 5: that are always happening to us, uh in ways that
Speaker 5: I can't help but feel moved by inspiration and real
Speaker 5: inspiration in the idea of of course, it's ridiculous, it's funny.
Speaker 5: But yes, at one point my father and twenty one
Speaker 5: Savage talked on television and he remembered enough to do that.
Speaker 5: And I will tell you, guys, both of you, the
Speaker 5: hardest I have ever seen you Donnis Haslam laugh. The
Speaker 5: hardest is when I came into the highly questionable studio
Speaker 5: and my father was holding him up because he was
Speaker 5: leaning laughing on his shoulder, and all they were looking
Speaker 5: at were those rap collaborations my father was doing with
Speaker 5: with rappers, And so.
Speaker 1: Dan was like, what is it called? He was what
Speaker 1: is it called?
Speaker 5: Embarrassed? What is it called? Would I get worse than that?
Speaker 5: I said?
Speaker 4: Duet?
Speaker 6: I did worse than that, I definitely publicly, but that
Speaker 6: that was a private conversation. I was embarrassed enough where
Speaker 6: it was happening that I did.
Speaker 5: I loved across the table and yeah, my father those
Speaker 5: duets he does with the rabbit.
Speaker 1: Who Who's Dan? Outside of media, outside of running Metal Lark?
Speaker 4: He burned out?
Speaker 1: Who's the day to day guy?
Speaker 5: Well, this project self employment has been so fond, exhilarating,
Speaker 5: overwhelming that I haven't gotten. What I would love to
Speaker 5: have is work life balance. What I would like to
Speaker 5: be doing is get to a point in my life
Speaker 5: before you know, freedom expires, that that I can have
Speaker 5: more fun outside of what I'm doing. What we're presently
Speaker 5: doing is consuming. Okay, so I don't have kids, the
Speaker 5: people that I work with are people that I've largely
Speaker 5: raised professionally, like they haven't worked in other places. They've
Speaker 5: gone from being, you know, people who learned under us.
Speaker 5: Twenty years later, they now have their own kids, and
Speaker 5: it's my responsibility to make sure that all those people
Speaker 5: like it's now my responsibility to make sure that everything
Speaker 5: works so that those people that those I don't have kids.
Speaker 5: So I this is what passes. This is what, This
Speaker 5: is what passes for, this is what and and so
Speaker 5: what I what I hope people think of me is
Speaker 5: that I am someone who tries to spread love and
Speaker 5: decency to people he cares about. And I, you know,
Speaker 5: I spend a lot of time in that space trying
Speaker 5: to provide for others creatively and other ways. But I
Speaker 5: it embarrassed me. It embarrasses me that I don't have
Speaker 5: a better answer to your question because I'm so lopsided
Speaker 5: at the moment trying to take on this big undertaking
Speaker 5: of I don't consider myself a businessman. I have business people,
Speaker 5: but you can't. You can't build a corporation that cares
Speaker 5: unless you're the one personally caring for all of the
Speaker 5: details so that you make sure and and it's hard.
Speaker 5: It's it is hard to build a corporation with a soul.
Speaker 5: It's why most of them don't have one.
Speaker 1: I just love hearing that, because again, I'm two three
Speaker 1: years behind the process you started, and you know, giving
Speaker 1: a chance to pick your brain last night and looking
Speaker 1: forward to you know, talking to John and picking his brain,
Speaker 1: just the ups and downs and the ebbs and flows
Speaker 1: of this. You know, I was literally talking about like
Speaker 1: I'd do a ton of shit, but I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to cut that out because this is you know, all
Speaker 1: the smoke productions and teaming up with you guys is
Speaker 1: my baby is our baby, and we look forward to
Speaker 1: getting partnering with you guys and changing you know, the landscape.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's not something you talk about.
Speaker 1: It's something you have to do and the hours you
Speaker 1: have to put in you can't cheat that well.
Speaker 5: I'd ask you, guys, I'd love some guidance on this front.
Speaker 5: I because you guys are athletes, and because you're coachable,
Speaker 5: and because there's so much failure no matter how great
Speaker 5: you are. I've had a real tough time mentally dealing
Speaker 5: with failure as learning like treating it like, oh, we're
Speaker 5: a startup. Ooh, we fell in this hole because you know,
Speaker 5: you're trying to figure things out. That's that's learning. Be
Speaker 5: gentle on yourself, like you've got to figure these things out.
Speaker 5: I'd ask you, guys, how it is that you handle that,
Speaker 5: because I've always marveled at athlete ability to deal with
Speaker 5: failure when your entire job is based on being paid
Speaker 5: for success.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll start with that personal I feel like,
Speaker 1: as long as you learn something for the failure of
Speaker 1: the loss, it's not necessarily a blemish, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like no one is. You know, Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: missed a ton of shots, Kobe missed a ton of shots,
Speaker 1: people lost, Lebron's lost a ton of finals. But I
Speaker 1: think when you're able to learn from those mishaps, those
Speaker 1: mistakes or those shortcomings, as long as you got something
Speaker 1: out of it to be able to apply you from
Speaker 1: hopefully not hitting it again. You know, it's a long game.
Speaker 1: And I think today is such instant gratification everything and
Speaker 1: understanding anything worth building or anything we're doing is going
Speaker 1: to take some time. It's a slow burn, like you know,
Speaker 1: rest in peace, Nipsey House so it's a marathon, not
Speaker 1: a sprint, you know, a slow for you.
Speaker 5: Guys though like it, I mean it hadn't you guys know.
Speaker 1: We jumped, No, we made a jump, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know, being able to slow down and
Speaker 1: still learn, you know, because we don't want to although
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, maybe it was a good we
Speaker 1: kind of cut the line. So we've been able to
Speaker 1: get a multi year deal and team up with someone
Speaker 1: like you guys. But I think what I'm most excited
Speaker 1: about is learning from you guys. You know what I
Speaker 1: mean again, because you guys have had a thirty year
Speaker 1: run in this space, and you've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people come and go when a lot of different things happen.
Speaker 1: So being able to almost be like a bigger brother
Speaker 1: to us and hopefully allowing us to not maybe hit
Speaker 1: some of the same pitfalls you guys hit, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of making great content, that's what I look forward
Speaker 1: to most of really, kind of having like a mentor
Speaker 1: and a whole company that believed in us, that wants
Speaker 1: to bring us along to where they're going is what
Speaker 1: I appreciate.
Speaker 5: Honestly, you honor me when you say that, because I
Speaker 5: would imagine from the two of you. And I don't
Speaker 5: take this part lightly. I don't pretend to know you,
Speaker 5: but I've marveled at your work for fifteen years. Is
Speaker 5: someone who cares about sports and hope to know you
Speaker 5: very well. What I have seen over the years of
Speaker 5: where athletes mistrust on business because the problems that come
Speaker 5: with money. For you, guys, to trust us with your
Speaker 5: business and your future, you two specific guys, not just anybody.
Speaker 5: It honors me that you would do business like that
Speaker 5: with us, and I believe in it wholeheartedly. Like I'm
Speaker 5: going to learn from you as well, because it is
Speaker 5: inevitable that we're going to conquer things here because we've
Speaker 5: got the right people in place during a changing media time.
Speaker 5: And you guys are going to bring the same competition
Speaker 5: to this that you did when you were winning at basketball, because.
Speaker 4: Winning is winning.
Speaker 5: Like you guys are conquerors. You guys are conquered.
Speaker 1: By less clothes lines and punches and open hands slaps.
Speaker 2: I want to touch on what he said too, like
Speaker 2: for us experience. For me, experience is the best teacher.
Speaker 2: And I think for me and Man, we've been those
Speaker 2: We've been through so much stuff in our life that
Speaker 2: we basically may learn how to make love the pressure
Speaker 2: and enjoy the good and the bad times the same.
Speaker 2: So a loss, yes, it's a part of life, and
Speaker 2: you go through things and you try to figure out
Speaker 2: what's the good side of it, but it's out the
Speaker 2: only good side of it is going through it, because
Speaker 2: it's only it can't get worse, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So everything we didn't been through in life, I think
Speaker 2: we dealt with it what I had up chest out
Speaker 2: knowing that we're gonna get through it.
Speaker 5: But do you realize how much stronger that makes you
Speaker 5: than me? No stronger than me, No, the specifics of
Speaker 5: what it is that you did. Now there are different
Speaker 5: kinds of strengths right like I would I would say
Speaker 5: to you that I'm getting stronger around my brother's grief,
Speaker 5: although i am not. I am not yet strong. But
Speaker 5: that attitude that you're talking about makes you guys much
Speaker 5: stronger than the average human being. Because the days have
Speaker 5: so much failure in them, they.
Speaker 2: Have these guys depend on us, and we know that,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, We got people that depend
Speaker 2: on us.
Speaker 5: I'm just talking about your basketball careers though now you're
Speaker 5: inventing yourself in the second space right now, you're going
Speaker 5: to apply whatever competitiveness exists anywhere, and you quit a
Speaker 5: good job. You're leaving a good job that if you
Speaker 5: wanted to take the traditional path, you could be a
Speaker 5: color commentators and King's icon. Matt Barnes, you don't want
Speaker 5: to take the traditional path. The strength that you guys
Speaker 5: have makes you go chase the difficult things because the
Speaker 5: rewards are on the side of the most difficult things
Speaker 5: on the other side.
Speaker 1: I'll share a quick story about you know, when we
Speaker 1: sat down with Cobe our last interview and before we
Speaker 1: were in his office talking and he was so adamant
Speaker 1: about you know, this last twenty years of me being
Speaker 1: the Laker and Covid like, I don't want people to
Speaker 1: remember me by that, And I'm like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about. You know, you're a five time champ, one
Speaker 1: of the greatest players ever. He's like, no, they're like
Speaker 1: these next twenty this business side is what I want
Speaker 1: people to remember him for. And he's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: as athletes, we're disciplined where you know, we're coachable, we listen,
Speaker 1: we apply ourselves and we have to be elite you know,
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm taking all that to the business, and
Speaker 1: I know there was a lot of people. Just with
Speaker 1: that alone, I'm going to surpass.
Speaker 5: Oh he was going to get there before Lebron. And
Speaker 5: there's Tom Brady. They're all competing that space now for
Speaker 5: the ownership. They're all this is how you get into
Speaker 5: the halls of power, though, right, because now Tom Brady's
Speaker 5: choosing between a three hundred and seventy five million dollar
Speaker 5: job and owning the Raiders Lebron. I think Lebron showed
Speaker 5: all these guys what could be possible here. But of course,
Speaker 5: now Dwayne owns part of the Utah Jazz because here
Speaker 5: comes real power, here comes real change. Michael Jordan, the
Speaker 5: only black owner in basketball, gets out with all of
Speaker 5: the money, had very little in the way of impact,
Speaker 5: But here come his descendants as competitive as him and
Speaker 5: learning the things that a new generation learns with more
Speaker 5: power in this space, Like you're going may one day
Speaker 5: you be making the deals with Lebron at the top,
Speaker 5: just because you have the relationships, because because there's plenty
Speaker 5: of money here for everybody. Once you guys have the
Speaker 5: power and get into this game and start like disrupting,
Speaker 5: disrupting it.
Speaker 1: I love this. I'm obviously going to say the number.
Speaker 1: I love when he said last night, He's like, the
Speaker 1: money you're getting this year is just the beginning. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I love to hear that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: this is man, this has been great. We got quick hitters.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: First thing to come to mind, let us know what
Speaker 1: is your top five Miami athletes of all time?
Speaker 5: Okay, that is putting me on the spot in no
Speaker 5: particular order. We're not going in any particular order. Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna clear. No, I'm gonna do it in order.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go number five. Jose Fernandez. I'm going to
Speaker 5: say that because he he told a particularly Cuban tale. No,
Speaker 5: there are three. There are three Cuban guys. He Jose
Speaker 5: Fernandez is the Latin player who passed away. But he's
Speaker 5: probably the biggest arm in history. But you've got the
Speaker 5: two brothers you're mentioning, Levan and El Duque. I'd put
Speaker 5: all three of them together just because of the emotion
Speaker 5: of they told my family story that came over from Cuba. Four,
Speaker 5: I would go Alonzo morning because of he helped over
Speaker 5: town in a way. Uh. He had real impact charitably
Speaker 5: in our community, caring about people that not a lot
Speaker 5: of people cared about, and was obviously a Hall of
Speaker 5: Famer and great.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: Three would be u Dan Marino because he built a
Speaker 5: children That should probably be number two. Uh because he
Speaker 5: built a children's hospital and was a Hall of famer uh.
Speaker 1: And played in ace Ventura.
Speaker 5: Played they played in ace Ventura. I am Uh. I
Speaker 5: got to think about this for a second. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: go number three Ricky Williams because his story is uh.
Speaker 5: He's friends were friends, and I love him. I love
Speaker 5: him like a brother, and he was great and he
Speaker 5: was wronged, like I mean, got chased out of the
Speaker 5: league for smoking weed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 5: And then number one would be Dwane Wade. He's the
Speaker 5: best best athlete in the history of our town.
Speaker 4: One thing you wish you were better.
Speaker 5: At forgiving myself?
Speaker 1: Oh that's date being less.
Speaker 4: Hard on myself.
Speaker 5: That's why I go to therapy.
Speaker 4: I'm trying.
Speaker 5: I've had a lot of trouble with that one. If
Speaker 5: I could be more gentle with myself, I would be
Speaker 5: more loving and kinder to myself.
Speaker 1: You'll get there. One dream interview that you haven't had
Speaker 1: yet that you would like to get.
Speaker 5: Oh Man one dream interview. I'm gonna go Jim Carrey, Jim.
Speaker 1: Carrey, I like that.
Speaker 2: Top five sports personalities of all times?
Speaker 5: Oh dear God, Oh sports personalities of all time. Give
Speaker 5: me some nominations here, right, because we're gonna go Howard
Speaker 5: cosell Is obvious sports personalities. You're not talking about broadcaster types.
Speaker 5: You're talking about Okay, you're talking about characters. You're talking
Speaker 5: about charisma and yeah, of course, okay, Ali Jim Brown,
Speaker 5: although complicated legacy, yeah so, But I mean you're talking
Speaker 5: about civil rights activist, bad relationship with women that causes
Speaker 5: a moral conundrum that but as a person, I mean,
Speaker 5: retires from the league at the age of thirty as
Speaker 5: MVP from the set of The Dirty doesn't because he
Speaker 5: doesn't like his pay and wouldn't go to jail because
Speaker 5: he wasn't I'm sorry, wouldn't pick up trash and preferred
Speaker 5: to go to jail because he wasn't going to be
Speaker 5: undignified as a black man in his position picking up trash.
Speaker 5: So all of these guys who who had activist causes
Speaker 5: are moving to me personalities personalities. Rodman going a basketball here.
Speaker 5: Football rubbed some of that out, Dean. Yeah, I know, well,
Speaker 5: thank you, thank you for the help Dion, because he
Speaker 5: taught Dion knew all of this stuff much earlier, how
Speaker 5: to manage his brand, how to be a master market
Speaker 5: how to be somebody who who paved the way on
Speaker 5: both commerce and funny and and knew how to sell himself.
Speaker 5: That's enough. You guys are wearing me out. This is
Speaker 5: I don't like. I don't that's it. You're making me
Speaker 5: think too much. I grieved, I wept. Come on, emotional
Speaker 5: roll call the hip hop duet. Come on, man, you're
Speaker 5: wearing me out.
Speaker 1: Welcome to death row stuck on an island? Three shows
Speaker 1: or movies in rotation on?
Speaker 5: Man, how many more of these are there? I can't.
Speaker 5: You guys have more stamina than I do.
Speaker 1: Three favorite shows and movies.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go, uh, Breaking Bad,
Speaker 5: the Sopranos and the Jefferson's.
Speaker 1: That's nice. I like that.
Speaker 4: What's your guilty pleasure?
Speaker 5: Cheesecake?
Speaker 3: Geez?
Speaker 4: That was easy. You have.
Speaker 1: Speaking about something right now?
Speaker 5: Well, if you want to ask me about food, I'm
Speaker 5: happy to go on for another three hours.
Speaker 1: With five dinner guests, dead or alive. You plus five
Speaker 1: around the dinner table talking about whatever.
Speaker 5: You know what, I can't do it. That's a pleasure
Speaker 5: looking forward to I love it.
Speaker 1: Hey only only only here. Hey man, that's a wrap,
Speaker 1: Dan Levantar. We're thankful. Thank you Dan, Thank you John Skipper,
Speaker 1: Thank you Metal Lark for believing in us DraftKings. This
Speaker 1: new this new era of all the smoke production is
Speaker 1: going to be great. Thank you guys for sticking bias
Speaker 1: and being loyal fans. Me and Jack got a lot
Speaker 1: of new ship coming your way. Come on, man, this Dan,
Speaker 1: I just I just hope when he hugged he didn't
Speaker 1: mess my hair up. God damn it. You can catch
Speaker 1: all the smoke productions you too. Find this interview on Bennymore.
Speaker 1: We'll see you guys next week.