Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Growing up, I lived across the street from Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 2: I could hear the crowd. I could smell the Glizzies,
Speaker 2: white people. Those are hot dogs. When Red Sox fans
Speaker 2: asked me for directions to the stadium, I point them
Speaker 2: straight to the projects.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. Then in two thousand and.
Speaker 2: Nine, they built a new Yankee Stadium right next to
Speaker 2: the old one, and it looked basically the same. It
Speaker 2: was like Drake's last two albums. You couldn't tell them apart.
Speaker 2: But there was one huge difference, the cost to the public.
Speaker 2: The city handed over twenty acres of public parkland and
Speaker 2: a billion dollars of tax paper money. So the house
Speaker 2: that Ruth built really became the house that you and
Speaker 2: I built. Well, most of you. I'm a softign sistan.
Speaker 2: I don't pay taxes. But this happens all the time.
Speaker 2: Just last year, New York gave the Buffalo Bills six
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars to build a new stadium.
Speaker 1: Six hundred million. That's almost as much.
Speaker 2: As NYPD spends to stop fifty thousand dollars worth of
Speaker 2: turnstile jumper.
Speaker 1: So how does this happen.
Speaker 2: Why are billionaire owners getting welfare to build stadiums? It's
Speaker 2: something I want to talk about in tonight's long story
Speaker 2: short all right, right now, We're in a sports stadium
Speaker 2: building boom, and just about every one of them is
Speaker 2: funded by taxpayers. So how are billionaire team owners able
Speaker 2: to get these sweetheart deals easy? When asking for taxpayer subsidies?
Speaker 2: Teams come to a community like a dude asking for
Speaker 2: open marriage. Now, girl, it's not just good for me,
Speaker 2: it's good for you too. Now, they say these stadiums
Speaker 2: will spread economic growth throughout the community, construction jobs, restaurants,
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift, body doubles.
Speaker 1: Come on, now you think she's.
Speaker 2: Watching Travis Kelce and do show an Argentina an hour later? Nah,
Speaker 2: that math is not math?
Speaker 1: Then come on. Yeah.
Speaker 2: See Now these owners also claim these stadiums will increase
Speaker 2: property values, which is one of the biggest lies in
Speaker 2: the world. What kind of cycle was like, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: want fifty thousand drunk idiots pissing on my.
Speaker 1: Stoop every night. No way, bro, If any drunk.
Speaker 2: Idiot is gonna piss on my stoop, it's gonna be me. Next,
Speaker 2: they promise to donate money to the community or build
Speaker 2: affordable housing.
Speaker 1: And if none of that works, they threaten to move the.
Speaker 2: Team, and it usually works because even though using taxpayer
Speaker 2: money in stadiums is usually unpopular, losing the team could
Speaker 2: end the politician's career, like, for example, if Mayor Eric
Speaker 2: Adams lost us the Knicks.
Speaker 1: He would be deported.
Speaker 2: All the way back to his real home in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: But the truth is a lot of.
Speaker 2: The time those owners are bluffing, and we know that
Speaker 2: because they admit it.
Speaker 1: David Samson, the former president of Marlins, largely credited with
Speaker 1: pulling off the worst stadium deal for Miami day taxpayers.
Speaker 1: It's actually a pretty easy playbook.
Speaker 3: I get a lot of credit for doing the Marlins
Speaker 3: Park deal, but it really wasn't very difficult because Miami
Speaker 3: did not want to lose its baseball team, and all
Speaker 3: we had to say is that we're ready to leave
Speaker 3: Miami if we don't get a deal done.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you, were the Marlins going to leave Miami?
Speaker 1: David truly absolutely not.
Speaker 5: See these guys are full of shit.
Speaker 2: They were never going to leave Miami because no one
Speaker 2: ever leaves Miami, even people who are just visiting.
Speaker 1: Don't leave Miami.
Speaker 2: Not a cousin who went to a bachelor party six
Speaker 2: months ago. He's still in a club partying with bbls.
Speaker 2: So the teams get their free subsidies and now that
Speaker 2: they have their brand new stadium, that boost their value.
Speaker 2: But don't worry because in return, the city gets hundreds
Speaker 2: of millions of dollars worth of jackshit. Economists who study
Speaker 2: stadium subsidies say little or none of the money makes
Speaker 2: it back to taxpayers.
Speaker 6: One economist estimated that the contribution of a professional baseball
Speaker 6: team is similar to that of a mid sized department store.
Speaker 6: As a University of Chicago economist aptly put it, if
Speaker 6: you want to inject money into local economy, it would
Speaker 6: be better to drop it from a helicopter than invest
Speaker 6: it in a new ballpark.
Speaker 1: Wait, that's an option, yo.
Speaker 2: I wish they'd drop a giant bag of money in
Speaker 2: my neighborhood, like rested peace of the person that lands on.
Speaker 1: But it'd be a payday for rest of us.
Speaker 2: So the economic boostay promise doesn't pan out. And I
Speaker 2: know that personally because I saw that in the Bronx.
Speaker 2: In exchange for that twenty acres of parkland, the Yankees
Speaker 2: promise to donate forty million dollars to affected areas, but
Speaker 2: the media community has not seen a dime from the
Speaker 2: team immediately. They're more importantly, we haven't seen a World
Speaker 2: Series in like twenty years, or.
Speaker 5: Like, if you want to screw my community out of forty.
Speaker 2: Million, fine, that's business. But me not getting a ring,
Speaker 2: that's personal. I mean, at the very least, these teams
Speaker 2: could toss out some more shirts during games, Like how
Speaker 2: do you have twenty five thousand fans in the arena
Speaker 2: and only toss out ten T shirts?
Speaker 1: And they're all sizes excel? Do mediums costs more?
Speaker 2: And also, could we please get a T shirt cannon
Speaker 2: that could hit the three hundreds?
Speaker 1: What the fuck up top? And the row up top?
Speaker 2: And the thing that really gets me heated, these stadiums aren't.
Speaker 1: Even that old.
Speaker 2: Stadiums for the Braves and the Rangers last like twenty
Speaker 2: years before they built new ones. You can't be replacing
Speaker 2: a stadium that Leonardo.
Speaker 5: DiCaprio was still hit. I'm not going to be a
Speaker 5: Titanic too.
Speaker 2: Sorry, But you know what the worst part is how
Speaker 2: much it sucks for the fans because suddenly the team
Speaker 2: they've been rooting for their whole lives, starts extorting them
Speaker 2: for a fortune, and all they can do about it
Speaker 2: is to go to the stadium and cut out the owner,
Speaker 2: which is what they did in Oakland.
Speaker 6: Check this out A's fans packing the Oakland Coliseum for
Speaker 6: the first time in what seems like forever to send
Speaker 6: a blunt message to the athletics.
Speaker 4: Top brass a season best crowd of nearly twenty eight
Speaker 4: thousand A's fans came out to the coliseum for what
Speaker 4: was deemed a reverse boycott, which encouraged owner John Fisher
Speaker 4: to sell the team so it can remain in Oakland
Speaker 4: instead of moving to Las Vegas.
Speaker 7: Fornight the coliseum corrupted with one of a fine chance
Speaker 7: and cheers.
Speaker 4: Thirty thousand people are going to show up tonight the
Speaker 4: show John Fisher that he sucks.
Speaker 1: That's how you do it.
Speaker 2: Listen, I'm an East Coast boy for Oakland, paying twenty
Speaker 2: dollars to cuss out of man you've never met is
Speaker 2: Big New York Energy you specs. But long story short,
Speaker 2: politicians got to stop falling for the stadium griff. If
Speaker 2: we're getting ripped off by team owners, it should be
Speaker 2: the old way with fourteen dollars butt lights.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guy tonight is
Speaker 1: a two time.
Speaker 2: WNBA champion who plays for the Las Vegas Aces. Please
Speaker 2: welcome Sydney Colesa. Wow, Sidney, congratulations on another championship.
Speaker 1: Listen. Thank Okay, we got Vegas fans here?
Speaker 2: Youah Vegas fans everywhere? Sad this is supposed to be
Speaker 2: Liberty Turf right. You know I've been Liberty garn. Did
Speaker 2: you come here to glote?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 1: I'm yes, actually talk that talk, but actually I don't
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 9: Most of them were cheering for the Aces.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Wow, man, we got I think we just got.
Speaker 9: W fans here though.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, because I'm actually at that game and
Speaker 2: it was the highest rated game.
Speaker 1: In the w NBA history. This season, people are actually
Speaker 1: watching the game. People coming out, y'all are coming out.
Speaker 2: What does it feel like to be part of that movement?
Speaker 2: We're now like you're more visible and people are really
Speaker 2: rocking with the WNBA.
Speaker 9: It's incredible. I think about when I came in the
Speaker 9: league in twenty eleven and what it looked like them
Speaker 9: versus what these arenas will look like today, and what
Speaker 9: how many how many times we'll see players on commercials,
Speaker 9: on TV shows, on just a.
Speaker 1: Variety of things.
Speaker 9: This wasn't anything I ever expected to see in like
Speaker 9: my time that I was playing, but especially as like
Speaker 9: a young black player, to see women that look like
Speaker 9: me doing it and killing it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I just gotta keep working, Okay.
Speaker 2: All right now doing in the game for you were
Speaker 2: down two star players, and that's the game.
Speaker 1: You had choice words for all the doubters. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we have a clip. Okay.
Speaker 2: People wanted to count us out because we had two
Speaker 2: hours starters down.
Speaker 1: But they don't know we got some dogs on this team.
Speaker 1: Shaw got two words to say night guys.
Speaker 2: Wow wow, I mean she got But do you feel
Speaker 2: you're one of the best trash talkers in the WNBA When.
Speaker 9: I tell you, I'm not even a trash talker.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 9: This particular moment blew up and it makes me look
Speaker 9: like such.
Speaker 1: I'm loving it, a douche bag, I'm loving your villain.
Speaker 9: I'm like, I didn't even know I would be in it,
Speaker 9: but I'm like people, I'm troubling people at this point.
Speaker 1: One because I don't care. They're like, you only had
Speaker 1: two points. She's not two points on the Daily Show.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be there today? I mean speaking at two points.
Speaker 2: It kind of got cooked on Twitter today by Asia.
Speaker 9: I know, right, it be your own teammates.
Speaker 1: Be all teammate.
Speaker 2: She said, you thought the whole team was gonna see Usher,
Speaker 2: and she tweeted and response to youl since scores two
Speaker 2: points in game four and thinks she's gonna get Usher tickets.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you gonna take that.
Speaker 9: I'm not gonna take that, I responded to. And I
Speaker 9: know you saw that.
Speaker 1: Okay? Is this like playful rivalry?
Speaker 5: This is for sure?
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yes, just like we haven't seen that before in the WNBA.
Speaker 2: Just like even like the rivalry between the Liberty and you.
Speaker 1: But it's so you.
Speaker 5: Guys respect each other on such a level.
Speaker 9: For sure. It's like when you're a sibling or you
Speaker 9: got cousins that you grew up with, like you rag
Speaker 9: on each other, you joke on each other.
Speaker 1: But you love them. Got you, got you.
Speaker 2: You're not working on a new unscripted comedy series called
Speaker 2: The Sid and TP Show.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to take my jobs?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 1: No, tell me about your show.
Speaker 9: So the long Line is like two WNBA bench warmers
Speaker 9: who try to become the face of the league even
Speaker 9: though nobody asks them to, and it's just hilarious.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of.
Speaker 9: Like man on the Street type stuff, a few like
Speaker 9: sketches that we do and else just anybody who knows
Speaker 9: our personalities or have seen us like on the Asist
Speaker 9: Social I think they'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You gotta have me on season two. We're hoping for it.
Speaker 1: Let's go say yes, come on, I see you on
Speaker 1: Fools Channel and food go for my guest tonight is.
Speaker 2: The best selling author is Labis book Chain Gang also
Speaker 2: is the finalist for the National Book Award. Please welcome
Speaker 2: my man, not not Quamina.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, now full disclosure. You currently reside in what
Speaker 1: Borough the Bronx. Yes, I'm only telling y'all because if
Speaker 1: you see the Drip, you'd wonder.
Speaker 2: Okay, So your first novel, tell us about it because
Speaker 2: it's super popular everyone.
Speaker 1: I'm telling to everyone I talk to, I was saying,
Speaker 1: I'm having you on.
Speaker 2: The should Everyone's like ever that book already, So what
Speaker 2: I'm missing on Thank you?
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 8: So my first novel is about an imagined future in
Speaker 8: which convicted wards of state can opt out of a
Speaker 8: sentence of at least twenty five years and participate in
Speaker 8: death matches.
Speaker 1: So it's really.
Speaker 8: About abolition the prison system, but in a fun way.
Speaker 1: So basically, incarcerated people can fight to the death to
Speaker 1: become free.
Speaker 8: They become gladiators and they're fighting for their freedom.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't give Eric Adams that idea, man, I'm volid.
Speaker 8: This is a satirical book, Eric Adams.
Speaker 2: Please, Is it hard to write a dystopian novel because
Speaker 2: we're kind of living in a dytopian novel right now.
Speaker 10: Bro.
Speaker 1: It is crazy to see it.
Speaker 8: I started this book about seven years ago, almost eight
Speaker 8: years ago, and in the process of writing it, you,
Speaker 8: I sort of watched the world become more and more
Speaker 8: aware of some of the things I was thinking about
Speaker 8: because it was becoming more and more true. We're seeing
Speaker 8: just how heinous the system was in so many different ways,
Speaker 8: and so it's it's difficult, but also makes me feel like,
Speaker 8: you know, maybe I'm doing something that needs to be done.
Speaker 2: Got you And now in your book, it's a for
Speaker 2: profit prison system, yeah, which is kind of similar to
Speaker 2: all the NFL.
Speaker 1: Do you see any parallels?
Speaker 8: Yes, well, no, I mean I think that in general,
Speaker 8: our sort of consumer culture, where we have this idea
Speaker 8: where people's bodies are things for us to be entertained by,
Speaker 8: we've gotten really comfortable just viewing humans as a means
Speaker 8: to an end, you know, or outside of it being
Speaker 8: a means in and of themselves. So I think the
Speaker 8: NFL is particularly heinous. I think that's like the Big
Speaker 8: JUNGERDD of evil white men telling black bodies to go
Speaker 8: hurt yourself. But but I think that paradigm exists in
Speaker 8: a lot of other places.
Speaker 2: Too, Got You, Got You, And in this book, your
Speaker 2: protagonist is a black woman.
Speaker 1: Yes, was that a conscious choice? Absolutely? It was.
Speaker 8: I think that there's a particular way in which the
Speaker 8: black women can be both respected but also disrespected in
Speaker 8: the same breath. I think if you think about Serena Williams,
Speaker 8: both Serena Williams and the bron for example, understand a
Speaker 8: particular way of existing in the world. But I think
Speaker 8: Serena understands something that's particular to her, which is always
Speaker 8: being sort of like disrespected or reduced to sexuality, her
Speaker 8: image and so many other type of little weird, little
Speaker 8: jabs that they give her. I think that that intersection
Speaker 8: of being a woman, being an athlete, being someone who's
Speaker 8: in the eye of the public, all those things from
Speaker 8: important for this book, and so it made sense for
Speaker 8: the protagonist to be a woman sense Okay.
Speaker 2: I recently hosted the gala for the Bronx Defenders, their
Speaker 2: public Defenders in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: He's the name, but your father is also a defense attorney. Yep,
Speaker 1: he was.
Speaker 2: Did that affect your view on the just criminal justice?
Speaker 1: It absolutely absolutely did.
Speaker 8: He told me about how he was in the middle
Speaker 8: of defending someone who had committed a murder got and
Speaker 8: I remember then being like, dang, Like, okay, I guess
Speaker 8: my father's a villain.
Speaker 1: He's a bad guy.
Speaker 8: And I remember him telling me it's not that simple,
Speaker 8: And just in that little moment, I was probably like
Speaker 8: eleven tennis. A little seed was planned. That I think
Speaker 8: is a big part of how this book came to be.
Speaker 2: How satisfying does it feel to actually complete your first book?
Speaker 8: Oh my god, it's it's the biggest reward, to be honest.
Speaker 8: The day where I sent it in and it was
Speaker 8: like done, done, done, done. It's bigger than any reward
Speaker 8: I can get. So I'm just grateful it's out there.
Speaker 8: I'm grateful people are reading it. I'm grateful people are
Speaker 8: thinking about the prisons some and how we can maybe
Speaker 8: be more compassionate. So that's really the big gift.
Speaker 2: Okay, this might be a little disrespectful to you, Mary
Speaker 2: Kill Tony Morrison or and Neil Hurston, James.
Speaker 1: Bodwin, my English teacher is gonna kill me.
Speaker 8: Tony's the god, so I want to marry her, and
Speaker 8: then I feel bad to even say it. Zoora and
Speaker 8: Neil Hurston and I would.
Speaker 1: Have some relations.
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Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcast