Speaker 1: Kutbooms.
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
Speaker 2: of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1: And like that, it begins in the air of Rewhere
Speaker 1: The Fifth Hour with Me, Ben Maler and Danny g Radio,
Speaker 1: our first podcast of the new year, the first time
Speaker 1: I've cracked a microphone in the new year, which sounds
Speaker 1: like it's been a long time. But this is the
Speaker 1: second day of January twenty twenty six, as we begin
Speaker 1: anew another year behind the powerful microphone of the premiere
Speaker 1: Networks and iHeart Fox Sports Radio the whole conglomerate. As
Speaker 1: we are back at it again here, excited to be back,
Speaker 1: and I've got podcasts with you all weekend. Daniel join
Speaker 1: us here at some point and then we'll have the
Speaker 1: radio show returns on Sunday night into Monday morning after
Speaker 1: the final regular season NFL games on Sunday, and then
Speaker 1: it's on to the radio show and the playoffs and
Speaker 1: the whole mgilla, the full mcgilla. We'll have the whole
Speaker 1: thing here on this podcast. We have blast furnace animniacs.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna begin with one of those dopey holidays.
Speaker 1: Today is National Buffet Day. That's right, National Buffet Day
Speaker 1: every January second, an opportunity to enjoy, to indulge, to
Speaker 1: pile high a massive plate of food, a tradition that
Speaker 1: goes back to the Swedes of the sixteenth century. The
Speaker 1: early origins of the buffet, and it carried on the
Speaker 1: word buffet actually originated from a type of French siteboard
Speaker 1: used to serve food was used back in the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: and the modern buffet actually nineteen thirty nine, there were
Speaker 1: some Swedes who entered the New York World's Fair exhibition
Speaker 1: back when that was a big thing, and debuted and
Speaker 1: displayed a Smorgasborg talking about the great foods of Sweden.
Speaker 1: And then eventually that led in the nineteen forties, so
Speaker 1: that was nineteen thirty nine. In the early nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: the American buffet began in Viva Las Vegas. The first
Speaker 1: ever buffet in Vegas, the Bukaroo buffet. That just sounds wonderful,
Speaker 1: doesn't The Buckeroo Buffet, And that came from somebody named
Speaker 1: HERB McDonald. I don't know much about HERB McDonald, but
Speaker 1: you could eat to your heart's content. And so that
Speaker 1: was in the mid nineteen forties in the Vegas. By
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, so it took a little while, but
Speaker 1: by the nineteen sixties almost every casino in Vegas had
Speaker 1: its own buffet. Now, the thing about this that I love.
Speaker 1: If you've heard this podcast at all over the years,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years back, and I don't
Speaker 1: know the exact date. Lucky Tony will likely give you
Speaker 1: the exact date, but it was a while ago. I
Speaker 1: did a deep dive on how buffets make money because
Speaker 1: it seems like they should lose money, right, they should
Speaker 1: lose a lot of money. You have low prices, unlimited food,
Speaker 1: and yet the business model is designed for high volume,
Speaker 1: low margin, and yet they're able to pull it off here.
Speaker 1: And the way they do it is trickeration. It's trickeration,
Speaker 1: and they do it with inexpensive filler foods and they
Speaker 1: crunch the numbers and so that I don't want to
Speaker 1: get too much into the minutia of it. But the
Speaker 1: buffets keep the costs about thirty to forty percent of revenue.
Speaker 1: So they use a lot of rices, pastas, potatoes, breads,
Speaker 1: essentially trying to stuff your gut bult purchasing. So they
Speaker 1: don't spend as much on food, the price per ounce
Speaker 1: is lower. They reuse a lot of the ingredients across
Speaker 1: many of the dishes, the same stuffs in the Italian food,
Speaker 1: that's in the American food, that's in the Chinese food,
Speaker 1: and the Mexican food, and they just use all the
Speaker 1: same stuff. And then there's also the mental aspect of it,
Speaker 1: where they use psychology to control what one eats. It's
Speaker 1: much like when you go into a casino and there's
Speaker 1: no clocks in a casino, and they they like the
Speaker 1: penny slots. They make more money in veguas via the
Speaker 1: penny slots, which are not really a penny, but they
Speaker 1: use the mind hack to get in there. So what
Speaker 1: do buffets do They place the food they make the
Speaker 1: biggest profit off of, meaning it's the cheap filler food,
Speaker 1: the rise to pasta potato, the bread, the filling foods
Speaker 1: at the very front, the very expensive items, the ones
Speaker 1: that you actually would get your money's worth at the buffet,
Speaker 1: right the carving station. The expensive seafood, which is not
Speaker 1: my thing, you might like it. Those things are at
Speaker 1: the very back, and you're going to the buffet. You
Speaker 1: want to get started, so you're let me get a
Speaker 1: big plate of rice, of the potatoes, of some of those,
Speaker 1: of some pasta, and then you eat that. You get
Speaker 1: a little full. Yeah, you might go back to the
Speaker 1: carving station, but you're not going to load up on
Speaker 1: it the way you would if it was right in front.
Speaker 1: They also have small plates. They limit the portions they'll
Speaker 1: put on the plates. Lately, in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: they've added time limits. A lot of the buffets have
Speaker 1: had time limits. And they also make these exotic displays
Speaker 1: for food that makes the food look amazing, but it's
Speaker 1: really low cost food and they'll put that there. And
Speaker 1: so a buffet on average, they any typical standard buffet
Speaker 1: will have one hundred and twenty to two hundred customers.
Speaker 1: They will generate profit from forty to one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty thousand per month, so it's like five to fifteen
Speaker 1: percent net profit margin essentially, so the margins are thin
Speaker 1: and all that. I can go on and on, but
Speaker 1: there you go. So it's National buffet Day. Celebrate appropriately.
Speaker 1: In terms of other stuff, I finally did it. I
Speaker 1: opened my email, Big News here on the Fifth Hour podcast.
Speaker 1: Opened the email. That does not mean I wrote back
Speaker 1: to you. I opened the email. And this is what
Speaker 1: happens when you hit the pause button over the holidays,
Speaker 1: when the red light goes dark, the microphones cool off,
Speaker 1: and the over night the vampire schedule loosens its grip,
Speaker 1: and you realize rather suddenly that you have this thing
Speaker 1: called time on your hands, something that you don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of. It's dangerous time. You have time to think,
Speaker 1: you have time to scroll, you have time to click
Speaker 1: open your email. And these things have been stacking up
Speaker 1: like unopened Christmas cards from distant relatives who still think
Speaker 1: that you live in your parents' house and that whole thing. Now,
Speaker 1: several of you wrote for some odd reason asking about
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions, today being the second day of January,
Speaker 1: which tells me no offense, which means offense. You must
Speaker 1: be relatively new to the radio show, because I know,
Speaker 1: right now Alf and ferg Dog and some of the
Speaker 1: old guard are rolling their eyes right now. They're like,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with these people? Yes, so again no offense,
Speaker 1: but which means I have offense. You've got to be
Speaker 1: near the show. If you're looking to me yours truly
Speaker 1: for New Year's resolution inspiration, you have wandered into the
Speaker 1: wrong aisle at the grocery store. You might want to
Speaker 1: go to another supermarket somewhere. I've never been a resolution's guy.
Speaker 1: I've never trusted them, never needed January first to tell
Speaker 1: me what to do, like today's January sec. I don't
Speaker 1: need that. I don't have a fancy explanation. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and give you a ten minute ted
Speaker 1: talk on that. That's not my deal. This is not
Speaker 1: a self help podcast. I don't have any kind of
Speaker 1: odd inspirational background music that I'm gonna play, at least
Speaker 1: not intentionally. Simply put, I like to follow as much
Speaker 1: as I can the code of the West bunch of
Speaker 1: old school stuff. Take pride in your work. It's pretty important.
Speaker 1: Always finish what you start. That's something that's been lost
Speaker 1: over time. Do what has to be done. Another thing
Speaker 1: that doesn't really stand the test of time. And when
Speaker 1: you make a promise, keep it. You ride for the brand.
Speaker 1: And those are not New Year's resolutions, they're not. Those
Speaker 1: are load bearing beams, is what those are. If you
Speaker 1: need a calendar reminder to start being serious about your life,
Speaker 1: you're already behind the chains you buy the chase. Think
Speaker 1: of it like the myth. One of the great myths
Speaker 1: in sports is halftime adjustments. It's one of these dopey
Speaker 1: phrases that sportscasters like to say because it sounds really cool. So, coach,
Speaker 1: what adjustments are you going to make at halftime? Said
Speaker 1: the meathead or brainless sideline reporter. What halftime adjustments are
Speaker 1: you going to make? Coach? It's the great marvel of
Speaker 1: the modern NFL and NBA. Of course, it's also poppycock.
Speaker 1: I was attracted to the giant metalcock. Many have pointed out,
Speaker 1: whether it's Peyton Manning, Bill Belichick, or endless others, if
Speaker 1: something is broken in the first quarter, your protection is leaking.
Speaker 1: If you're a basketball team, your shot selections thinks. Your
Speaker 1: defense if you're an NFL team is like traffic cones
Speaker 1: and a windstorm. You're supposed to sit there and wait
Speaker 1: until halftime to fix it, because, of course the modern
Speaker 1: marble is halftime adjustment. Of course, not you make the
Speaker 1: adjustment right then you rip up whatever game plan you had.
Speaker 1: You grab the grease board, and you start changing things
Speaker 1: around the what you might call it the think of
Speaker 1: a jigs the dow hickeyes. You change the things around
Speaker 1: before the problem snowballs, and then by the time you
Speaker 1: get the halftime it doesn't matter, and then you're just
Speaker 1: doing a postgame apology tour. Waiting for some kind of
Speaker 1: arbitrary date to address a problem is like noticing your
Speaker 1: houses on fire and say, well, let's circle back after
Speaker 1: the holidays. I'll get the hose on it, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait a little bit after. Well, no, you don't wait.
Speaker 1: There'd be nothing to put the hose on at that point.
Speaker 1: Smart people don't wait, they act. And that's always been
Speaker 1: my approach, not that I'm right, absolutely not smart, but
Speaker 1: my approach to radio or life or everything in between.
Speaker 1: If something's off, if the out go rhythm is not right,
Speaker 1: you don't put it on the vision board. You put
Speaker 1: your head down and fix it. Stupid and procrastination. Listen,
Speaker 1: we've all been there at one point or another, We've
Speaker 1: all done the procrastination thing. Procrastination is like a credit card.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun, a lot of fun until
Speaker 1: you realize that the bill's coming at some point. Now,
Speaker 1: on a positive note, procrastination always gives you something to
Speaker 1: look forward to. And I have a lot of people
Speaker 1: in my circle that are like, hey, I'll get to
Speaker 1: it someday. And I looked and like, today's Friday. Right,
Speaker 1: we're recording this on a Friday. So you have Friday,
Speaker 1: you have Saturday, have Sunday, of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Speaker 1: There is no day called someday that is not it.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, a few.
Speaker 1: Of you also asked about the most memory moments from
Speaker 1: the radio show during the twenty twenty five campaign. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind that none of these messages were from Terry
Speaker 1: in England. And am I about to give you a
Speaker 1: list of the greatest moments? No, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: give you a list of the greatest moments. No matter
Speaker 1: how much moving man Matt wants that, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do it. I wish I had a neat answer
Speaker 1: with a bow. I don't. I don't have that. And
Speaker 1: I've really been the same year after year. When you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, you don't stop to take inventory.
Speaker 1: There's no inventory here.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: If you work at Costco or Walmart, you have to
Speaker 1: do inventory every month. We don't do that. We don't.
Speaker 1: We don't stop to take inventory. You're in the forest.
Speaker 1: That chains saw is buzzings, there's sawdust flying, no idea
Speaker 1: what the trees even look like from a distance. It's
Speaker 1: the day to day grind. It's the rat race, the
Speaker 1: industrial complex of the hot sports. Take the overnight shift
Speaker 1: where the hot takes are forged like steel in a
Speaker 1: blast furnace on a nightly basis. It puts hair on
Speaker 1: your chest. It's not for everybody, certainly not for the
Speaker 1: fan of heart. And still a few moments linger. The
Speaker 1: monologues always do. The monologues always do. That's the soul
Speaker 1: of this thing, whatever this thing is, that we have
Speaker 1: the purest form of radio, just a man, a darkened studio,
Speaker 1: a microphone, a thought, and no safety net. And I
Speaker 1: say a darkened studio. The show is now recorded, part
Speaker 1: of it for YouTube. So that is a lie. That
Speaker 1: is a lie. A lot of lights. There's way too
Speaker 1: many lights in the studio now The most positive feedback
Speaker 1: I have received all year came from a euge. I
Speaker 1: can't stand doing eulogies. I despise doing eugees. I want
Speaker 1: to do happy goofy, I want to do ripping people.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do eulogies. And yet here we
Speaker 1: are again looking back over the last five years or so,
Speaker 1: the things that are the most popular are the eulogies.
Speaker 1: When Kobe Bryant was killed in the helicopter crash, that
Speaker 1: was the most listened to show that we did that year.
Speaker 1: We've done a number of these over the years. When
Speaker 1: people die in sports, A Hulk Hogan this year did
Speaker 1: a twenty minute monologue on Hulk Hogan, no gimmicks, no catchphrases,
Speaker 1: just a major tip of the headphone person that impacted
Speaker 1: my youth growing up as a sports fan. I was
Speaker 1: a haulk of maniac and I just a bunch of
Speaker 1: respect for a larger than life figure. As I said
Speaker 1: in the monologue, it's like a cartoon character on Saturday
Speaker 1: Morning came to life. You'd watch he Man and the
Speaker 1: Cartoons on Saturday morning, and then after that they had wrestling,
Speaker 1: and here's hal Cogan is like, wait a minute. That's
Speaker 1: that's he man's it's what the characters coming to life.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just for my generation. Haul Cogan loomed
Speaker 1: over multiple generations. It was like a bright sign on
Speaker 1: the highway there neon sign and so that one clearly
Speaker 1: struck a nerve and you could feel it through the wires.
Speaker 1: You know there's something there. The biggest download spike came
Speaker 1: from an NBA story a trade, the Luka Doncik situation.
Speaker 1: I want to say, I want to say trade. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say a situation. You can't really call it a
Speaker 1: trade between the mav Rex and the historians of purple
Speaker 1: and gold. It was not. It was a giveaway. It
Speaker 1: was a clear and sale. It was a garage sale
Speaker 1: when the homeowner doesn't realize they have a picasso and
Speaker 1: they're selling the picasso for five bucks and a handshake.
Speaker 1: Whether this was incompetence, panic, or interference from the shadowy
Speaker 1: cabal that governs basketball, whatever it was, it was radio
Speaker 1: catnip is what it was. The phones lit up, everyone
Speaker 1: was all fired up social media. We just did a
Speaker 1: lot of traffic, had good sales, good sales on that
Speaker 1: particular show which happened over the weekend. It happened on
Speaker 1: a Saturday, I believe, and then we came in on
Speaker 1: Sunday and worked our magic. And then you've got the callers.
Speaker 1: Like radio does not belong just to the host overnight
Speaker 1: talk radio. During the day, they don't take calls. They're
Speaker 1: better than you, they don't like you, they don't want
Speaker 1: you on their shows. But at night we take calls.
Speaker 1: And radio does not belong just to me. It belongs
Speaker 1: to the weirdos, legends like Lucky, Tony, Jed who Fled,
Speaker 1: the kind of names that you do not forget, that
Speaker 1: you get only on late night radio. They feel like
Speaker 1: characters from some kind of dusty paperback novel that you
Speaker 1: were forced to read when you were in junior high school.
Speaker 1: Weed man, hippie, drifting in and out like static on
Speaker 1: the AM radio dial. But it's the human form. The
Speaker 1: awkward encounters that we have with e Dog from Long
Speaker 1: Island and Steve O in Manhattan, Marcel in Brooklyn, the
Speaker 1: gambling conversations with a man who happens to have the
Speaker 1: same name as a famous actor, Danny DeVito out of Boston.
Speaker 1: Some of this feels like just performance art. You didn't
Speaker 1: ask for you can't not listen to. And there's some
Speaker 1: regulars that couldn't handle the grind. It happens, they faded
Speaker 1: back to the shadows. This year marked the full name guy,
Speaker 1: Sir scratch Off in Arkansas. That's the rhythm, the yin
Speaker 1: and the yang of the overnight radio. People come, people go.
Speaker 1: And I often look at this like graduating classes of
Speaker 1: a college. Like if you were a football coach, you think,
Speaker 1: remember that team we had in eight that was pretty good.
Speaker 1: We had Pete and Pittsburgh, we had Genie and Medford.
Speaker 1: That was an all time great team. And then there's
Speaker 1: a new recruiting class and they come in and they
Speaker 1: make their mark, and so people come, people go. It's
Speaker 1: like it is like ships passing in the night, except
Speaker 1: the ships are the unhinged, the unstable, many of them
Speaker 1: with their Obama phones hollering James, people along those lines,
Speaker 1: Blind Scott. And you have the social media gumbas, the
Speaker 1: legends like Alf and Fergdog, Late Night Drug Tester, Eke
Speaker 1: and Roseville, Minis, Stevie, Meatball's Mister nice Guy, screwged all
Speaker 1: the regulars, and I'm leaving out a bunch. I'm leaving
Speaker 1: out of Ohio with the music, all these characters that
Speaker 1: are part of the show, and through it all, the
Speaker 1: show keeps moving on, and we have no time to
Speaker 1: sit there and celebrate, and not a lot of time
Speaker 1: to mourn. The clock does not stop. It rocks the
Speaker 1: Fox box and just another night, another take, another caller
Speaker 1: waiting on hold with some kind of theory that'll change
Speaker 1: the sporting world forever, or at least at least make
Speaker 1: it slightly awkward and uncomfortable for ninety seconds to three
Speaker 1: or four minutes. So when you email me and you
Speaker 1: ask about resolutions, about reflections, about lists which I loathe,
Speaker 1: or accomplishments, you have to understand going into this, that's
Speaker 1: not how the sausage gets made. This thing is built,
Speaker 1: whatever this is, is built in real time, call by call,
Speaker 1: monologue by monologue, mistake by mistake, and there are plenty
Speaker 1: of mallad mistakes.
Speaker 3: They happen.
Speaker 1: It's a live radio show, and there's no January reset button.
Speaker 1: There's no ceremonial fresh start. We're not going to cut
Speaker 1: the ribbon and begin anew. This is not like the
Speaker 1: NFL or the NBA where they have seasons. Is none
Speaker 1: of that. We are a year round shop. We are
Speaker 1: open pretty much all the time, and that's just the work.
Speaker 1: And so on Sunday night into Monday morning, the red
Speaker 1: light will come back on and the blabbing will commence
Speaker 1: once again, and away we go, off to the races,
Speaker 1: now turning the page, having been away for a minute,
Speaker 1: having been away for a minute, the rare and appropriate
Speaker 1: end of year tradition, trying to unpluck, trying to unplug
Speaker 1: for one brief moment. Not only did I open the email,
Speaker 1: I made the mistake of going on the interweb. And
Speaker 1: what did I see? Big bold, self important headline something
Speaker 1: dot dot dot us soccer growing the Game, one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars World Cup, windfall Soccer boom times developing hot
Speaker 1: dot dot dot. And right there I start laughing, and
Speaker 1: I mean like real laughter, like you just told me
Speaker 1: that the Jets are one quarterback away from winning in
Speaker 1: one coach away. It's my favorite genre.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It's sports propaganda. I can't not notice it once I
Speaker 1: see it. I love the yell about it. It's triple
Speaker 1: X rated it is. I call it soccer optimism, porn
Speaker 1: sop soccer optimism porn, soft lighting, cheesy music, everyone's smiling,
Speaker 1: nobody asking hard questions. So, according to the story, thanks
Speaker 1: to the upcoming twenty twenty six World Cup, US soccer
Speaker 1: is expecting about one hundred million bucks. That's going to
Speaker 1: be their share nine figures. So some CEO you've never
Speaker 1: heard of, I don't know who this person is comes
Speaker 1: out and says, the goal is to make soccer the
Speaker 1: most played sport in America. Drop the mic, most played,
Speaker 1: not grow participation, not incremental gains, not close the gap
Speaker 1: on the other sports. No, no, no, no, right to the moon,
Speaker 1: straight to the moon. It's like me saying my goal
Speaker 1: is to deliver a hammered dunk by next Tuesday. Well
Speaker 1: that's great. I'm tall enough, got some weight on me
Speaker 1: and get a little older here. Now, keep in mind
Speaker 1: I am closer to dunking than soccer. Is the passing football, basketball,
Speaker 1: or baseball buy in terms of popularity in this country.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you something. This story gets written
Speaker 1: every couple of years, every few years, the same font,
Speaker 1: same tone, new names. It's mad libs. Journalism is what
Speaker 1: it is. Right insert tournament, insert executive's name, all caps,
Speaker 1: insert vague hope about youth participation, global.
Speaker 3: Game blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, publish, repeat. It's the reboote nobody has
Speaker 3: for It's like a bad superhero movie that keeps getting
Speaker 3: remade because this time they swear they've figured it out.
Speaker 1: Now here's the reality they never want to address. They
Speaker 1: do not want to address the reality. Soccer in America
Speaker 1: has a ceiling, and that ceiling is made reinforced concrete.
Speaker 1: It's not made of paper mache. It's made out of
Speaker 1: reinforced concrete. That's the ceiling. Now, keep in mind eye
Speaker 1: of all people. My fat ass played soccer back in
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age, and today I go drive around on
Speaker 1: a Saturday morning or a Sunday, kids are out playing soccer.
Speaker 1: They've got these club team things. Now, back when I
Speaker 1: played it with the Ayso, but they've got these club
Speaker 1: team deals and they're off there playing. It's true. I'm
Speaker 1: not making it up. Little kids, cute little kids, six
Speaker 1: seven eight year old kids, shintguards on orange slices. You
Speaker 1: got dad screaming, you got mom yelling right from their
Speaker 1: folding chairs off on the side. They got their tent
Speaker 1: with the team name on it. And then something happens,
Speaker 1: and it happens around the age of twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 1: It's called this thing called puberty. And it's a mix
Speaker 1: of puberty, video games, social media, highlights on demand, the
Speaker 1: allure of nil money, AAU basketball, seven on seven football,
Speaker 1: and then you've got soccer. So soccer becomes the sport
Speaker 1: that you used to play, capitol you used to play.
Speaker 1: It's a graduation ceremony. You don't quit soccer. See that's
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 2: You do.
Speaker 1: Not quit soccer. I didn't quit soccer. I didn't. You
Speaker 1: didn't quit soccer. You age out of it. Soccer is
Speaker 1: America's training wheels sport. It is You're being made. I'm
Speaker 1: not being made. I'm being real. Nobody keeps the training
Speaker 1: wheels on forever. You don't. You have them on. They
Speaker 1: serve a purpose and that's it. And then you move on.
Speaker 1: And here's the part nobody in these glowing think pieces
Speaker 1: wants to say out loud. Soccer missed its window. There
Speaker 1: was a window of opportunity there and they blew it.
Speaker 1: If soccer was ever going to take over America, it
Speaker 1: had to happen before the PlayStation, before YouTube, before TikTok
Speaker 1: before in endless, endless entertainment options. It's just insane. And
Speaker 1: now you're competing. It's not just competition with the NFL
Speaker 1: and basketball and baseball. You're competing with kids who can
Speaker 1: watch Patrick Mahomes highlights in four K while simultaneously trash
Speaker 1: talking their friends on a twitch thing thing of a jig.
Speaker 1: Good luck, and you're gonna sell these kids. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I know you're having a great time playing the video games.
Speaker 1: Can you please watch a zero zero draw? It's so entertaining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're fighting Fortnite with shin guards. Good luck, good luck.
Speaker 1: It's like showing up to a gunfight with a water gun.
Speaker 1: Well you've got a gun technically, but it's a water gun.
Speaker 1: There's no bullets. And listen, In twenty twenty six, soccer
Speaker 1: will be huge. Let me repeat that for those of
Speaker 1: you in the back of the room a little slow,
Speaker 1: all right. It's the weekend, the beginning for us here
Speaker 1: on this Friday. So soccer will be huge. Twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Bars will be packed, They'll be flags everywhere. People will
Speaker 1: be wrapping themselves in the flags. People who can't name
Speaker 1: a player suddenly they're experts, right, they're experts in this area.
Speaker 1: A genius is patriotism will carry the load like a
Speaker 1: rented mule. But that's not gross. See, this is the
Speaker 1: that is not growth. That's a pop up shop, is
Speaker 1: what that is. Right, that's a pop up shop, is
Speaker 1: what that is. It's temporary fandom. It's seasonal interest, like
Speaker 1: pumpkin spice. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Soccer is the pumpkin spice of the sporting world. It
Speaker 1: comes around people pretend they love it because you're supposed
Speaker 1: to love it because it's pumpkin spice, and then it
Speaker 1: disappears until next time, and then you do the whole
Speaker 1: charade again, Right, the whole charade again. Just go on
Speaker 1: and on and on and as far as one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars, that's not a cultural revolution. It's a scratch
Speaker 1: off tickets found money. That's a bonus check that makes
Speaker 1: you feel good but doesn't change your life. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you can build fields, and you can do this act
Speaker 1: of charity, and that act of charity. You can fund
Speaker 1: programs to try to get more kids involved in soccer.
Speaker 1: You can hire some consultants who'll use words like ecosystem
Speaker 1: and stakeholders and big, big words. And however, you cannot
Speaker 1: force obsession. American culture the way it is does not
Speaker 1: obsess over soccer, never has and likely never will in
Speaker 1: my lifetime. And without obsession, you can't win. You won't win.
Speaker 1: You just don't win. Soccer is a guest at the party,
Speaker 1: not the host. It shows up every four years with
Speaker 1: a flag. It's got the Cape flag. Thing, stays for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, then heads back to the margins.
Speaker 1: And this isn't anti soccer. Like I don't, I'm neutral.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about whatever is popular. I don't care whatever
Speaker 1: is popular.
Speaker 2: I'll talk.
Speaker 1: I have a talk show to do. I don't care
Speaker 1: whatever people are into. It's talk rat it's broadcasting, not
Speaker 1: narrow casting. However, this is reality. Soccer isn't failing. It's
Speaker 1: exactly where it's always been. It's a niche sport with
Speaker 1: spikes of patriotism. It puts it. It's a niche. It's
Speaker 1: a sport that lives on the calendar, not in the bloodstream.
Speaker 1: The same people telling you this time it's different are
Speaker 1: the same ones who said that last time it was
Speaker 1: going to be different, and the time before that it
Speaker 1: was going to be different, and the time before that,
Speaker 1: wash rints repeat. I'm convinced that this is the sports
Speaker 1: version of the Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain plotting world
Speaker 1: domination every single night, and America just kind of nods
Speaker 1: politely and changes the channel to do something else or
Speaker 1: puts on YouTube, and God only knows watches Benny versus
Speaker 1: the Penny, and that's that and then you move on
Speaker 1: and there you go, and there we go. Have a
Speaker 1: wonderful rest of your Friday. We will have a brand
Speaker 1: spankin new edition of this pot podcast on Saturday, and
Speaker 1: then Sunday that I should have the mail bag back.
Speaker 1: You can send letters in right now Reel fifth Hour
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Reel fifth Hour at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: All letters, no numbers, and do that be part of
Speaker 1: the fun there on the mail bag which will be
Speaker 1: coming up on Sunday. But we'll have another podcast for
Speaker 1: you on Saturday as we hang out with you and
Speaker 1: for Danny g It's I Big Ben and we'll catch
Speaker 1: you next time. Got a murder?
Speaker 2: I gotta go