Speaker 1: Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle is
Speaker 1: a production of the NFL and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2: We Got Lots just say, we got lots to say?
Speaker 3: What is better here?
Speaker 4: And we hope you say because we got lost.
Speaker 2: Just said, yeah, we got lots just say. Here's Bobby that.
Speaker 5: Hey, welcome to another episode of Lots to Say. Hey,
Speaker 5: what a family picture of you guys at USC. How
Speaker 5: cool is that is it?
Speaker 1: Because it was your.
Speaker 5: Alma water, your wife's alma water, and you were working,
Speaker 5: so he took ahole family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they went.
Speaker 3: We went out there for Thanksgiving break family where it
Speaker 3: was out there. And then obviously my wife is alumnus
Speaker 3: as well, and so we brought all the kids and
Speaker 3: my extended family, my brothers, my sister, all my nieces
Speaker 3: and nephews, they all came as well.
Speaker 1: So I brought the kids down.
Speaker 3: And the funny part was we were doing the pregame
Speaker 3: show and normally what we do is we look for
Speaker 3: a big alumni to come bang the drum. It's like
Speaker 3: the last segment before we go and push it to
Speaker 3: the actual game. And we couldn't find anybody out on
Speaker 3: the field, like no heavy hitters, so then the field
Speaker 3: producer Wilkie comes up and goes, cas, we're just gonna
Speaker 3: We're gonna use your family.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, was that idea? Yeah, So they
Speaker 1: were on NBC.
Speaker 3: And the funniest part was my oldest son, who's only
Speaker 3: twelve years old. He's sitting there and he's got a
Speaker 3: stoic personality and they go to bang the drum and
Speaker 3: You're like, all my other kids are smiling stuff, and
Speaker 3: he's stone cold, and the He's just stone cold, no
Speaker 3: facial expression. And Wilkie's like, I think your oldest son
Speaker 3: was upset. I was like, no, that's just him, dude.
Speaker 3: He's he's gonna be here all the time. But it
Speaker 3: was it was awesome experience for the kids. And to
Speaker 3: have them there on the sideline and and be back
Speaker 3: at the my alma mater for the last game of
Speaker 3: the year was a good way to wrap it up.
Speaker 1: It was a great picture. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm not comic guy, I'm not heart guy.
Speaker 5: I wish I liked pictures on Instagram, because in my heart,
Speaker 5: I do like a lot of pictures. I wish I
Speaker 5: just got credit for liking pictures instead of liking them
Speaker 5: with my thumb. Can I just scroll and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: that's good, that's good. But I actually was so compelled
Speaker 5: to write great picture on that.
Speaker 1: Did you write it? Yeah? Oh thank you. I didn't
Speaker 1: even read it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't read my comments. Okay, I'm not liking
Speaker 3: there comments probably two none. Look, I just don't click
Speaker 3: on the picture to read through the comments. It's a
Speaker 3: great picture. Oh well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was fun. It was fun. It was good
Speaker 1: to see the family.
Speaker 3: But it was a crazy week because on Thanksgiving I
Speaker 3: had to fly back to the East Coast because I
Speaker 3: was in studio. Friday, got on the plane from JFK
Speaker 3: at six o'clock in the morning to fly back out
Speaker 3: to the West Coast for the USC UCLA game. Then
Speaker 3: I got on a flight Sunday morning at six point
Speaker 3: thirty to fly back to Nashville. A lot of travel.
Speaker 3: So you went California, New York, New York, California, and
Speaker 3: then right back to Nashville.
Speaker 1: That's long. Yeah. Did they at least put you in
Speaker 1: a lay down seat? Did you have those ideas?
Speaker 6: And I was so thankful for that because that's basically
Speaker 6: a flight to Europe.
Speaker 3: It's a game changer. I mean it was a game changer.
Speaker 3: You could actually lay down and like nap a little bit.
Speaker 3: I don't sleep while on planes. Can you pass down
Speaker 3: on planes if I take the right pills? Yeah, Well
Speaker 3: I need some of those pills then because I didn't
Speaker 3: have them.
Speaker 5: Well I don't take them anymore. I had some issues.
Speaker 5: I think I've told you this before. I got like
Speaker 5: jumped at work, got pistol whipped, another event, and had
Speaker 5: my house broken into.
Speaker 1: So I was struggling a little bit with sleep, obviously,
Speaker 1: and so I tried that would do it to you?
Speaker 1: Oh those are three hardcore?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was tough, and so I tried a lot
Speaker 5: of different things because I don't like to take I
Speaker 5: don't want to say medicine. I don't like to take
Speaker 5: medication because I have fear of addiction because all my
Speaker 5: family's been addicted and they're mostly all dead from it.
Speaker 5: And so I wasn't sleeping at all after those instances,
Speaker 5: like for months and months, and I was going to
Speaker 5: my doctor who were trying all the natural remedies and
Speaker 5: tai chi and anything that possibly would work, holistic, non holistic.
Speaker 5: I was doing everything except taking sleeping pills. And so
Speaker 5: I started taking sleeping pills because I was getting no
Speaker 5: sleep and I was getting sick all the time because
Speaker 5: I was getting no sleep.
Speaker 1: And finally I was like, I'm taking sleeping pills.
Speaker 5: A doctor was like, you got to do it, and
Speaker 5: so it was our last option, and so I took them.
Speaker 1: Do you ever take a sleeping pills? They're crazy? They're
Speaker 1: crazy if you go to sleep, dude.
Speaker 3: The trippiness behind that, and you're like in this other
Speaker 3: zone and world.
Speaker 1: It's like the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 5: It was so wild to me because I've never had
Speaker 5: a drink of alcohol, and so I don't know what
Speaker 5: it's like to be drunk.
Speaker 1: I'd like to be drunk a lot. I'd like to
Speaker 1: I'd like to do drugs.
Speaker 3: Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I've
Speaker 3: been there before, my reference and reference, So where do
Speaker 3: you want to go right now?
Speaker 5: I would take these pills and then I would be like,
Speaker 5: you know what, I don't need to go to sleep
Speaker 5: quite yet.
Speaker 1: I need to do some more work. That's the worst
Speaker 1: thing you could possibly do.
Speaker 5: And there I would black out and I would wake
Speaker 5: up and see that I had facetimed people.
Speaker 1: And don't remember it isn't that wild. Once I drove, No,
Speaker 1: you did not.
Speaker 5: I don't remember it, but I drove, and I drove
Speaker 5: off with the gas pump in my car.
Speaker 1: You're like Wolf of Wall Street. You know that scenery
Speaker 1: is going.
Speaker 3: I was like, dude, I got home safely, and then
Speaker 3: the next morning they do the recap and it's like,
Speaker 3: full on not not a good situation.
Speaker 5: It was so unsafe for me, and so I was like,
Speaker 5: I gotta stop taking them.
Speaker 1: But I would take them on long flights.
Speaker 5: I'd never been anywhere like overseas or even on a
Speaker 5: vacation until I got older. So I started to go
Speaker 5: places by myself and I would get the lay down seat.
Speaker 5: I started to make money and I was single, so
Speaker 5: I was like, I'm buying the freaking lay down seat.
Speaker 5: You're gonna this is all coming to a point about
Speaker 5: the lay down seats. And so I went to Ireland
Speaker 5: by myself, went to Hawaii by myself.
Speaker 1: I want by yourself? Yeah, And mostly because I would go.
Speaker 5: I went to Ireland to finish my second book because
Speaker 5: it was the closest far away place that would get
Speaker 5: me off the time zone. So I wouldn't get into
Speaker 5: my cycle of working because even though I'm like, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna check out for a few days from like the
Speaker 5: radio show on a podcast, it was still three o'clock.
Speaker 5: Here at three o'clock, everybody around me and they were
Speaker 5: still reaching out to get stuff done.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: If I go to Ireland seven hours eight hours ahead,
Speaker 5: I'm working and people are like six in the morning,
Speaker 5: but it's three pm.
Speaker 1: It's just the cycle.
Speaker 5: So I went to Ireland, same thing with Hawaii, and
Speaker 5: I just thought I'm there working. And I took a
Speaker 5: sleeping pill on the flight back, and I don't remember
Speaker 5: a lot of the flight, and it scared me because
Speaker 5: I thought, what did I say?
Speaker 1: Who today? This is the moment? And I thought what if?
Speaker 5: Because I could have easily been one of those dudes
Speaker 5: that gets arrested for like laying in the aisle for
Speaker 5: something and not knowing I.
Speaker 1: Was so out of control. Yeah, I wouldn't have known it.
Speaker 1: And that was so scary to me. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: gas pump in the car. It wasn't it was the
Speaker 1: judge would have understood. I don't think he would have.
Speaker 5: You've taken a sleeping pill before, judge, So that's why
Speaker 5: I stopped taking them. But if I take the right pills,
Speaker 5: you're out. I can sleep like crazy. One of the
Speaker 5: funniest stories about traveling internationally. It's not my story, and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna paraphrase it a bit only because and I'm
Speaker 5: gonna name drop. But I like name dropping because I
Speaker 5: think it's more fun for listeners. Yeah, so people, oh
Speaker 5: name drop?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: No, When I listen to somebody talking about stuff, I
Speaker 5: want to hear name drops because it's it's interesting. I
Speaker 5: was at dinner with Lionel Richie once and it was
Speaker 5: me and Lionel and Luke and this is we were
Speaker 5: in Syney.
Speaker 1: Luke Bryan, I don't know why did you just said? Luke,
Speaker 1: said Lionel Richie. Of course, we're doing American Idols. Okay.
Speaker 5: We were in Savannah, Georgia before we started to shoot
Speaker 5: the on location in city parts of the show where
Speaker 5: you go in the auditions.
Speaker 1: What happened? Oh yeah, I love those auditions.
Speaker 5: And so it was the night before and we're having
Speaker 5: dinner and Lionel Richie has been so famous for so
Speaker 5: long he's forgotten what it's like to be normal, for sure,
Speaker 5: because he's been famous for forty fifty years, like internationally
Speaker 5: multi millionaire, famous.
Speaker 6: And he has never taken a step backwards. Yeah, we's
Speaker 6: been at the top of his game. And I say again,
Speaker 6: he is the greatest. The only negative thing I would
Speaker 6: ever say about Lionel Richie, because he was the absolute nicest, sweetest,
Speaker 6: most humble, giving generous guy ever, is that he was
Speaker 6: a little late.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a little late. Hey, it's it's you're
Speaker 1: on his time, bab Listen. It was kind of on
Speaker 1: his time.
Speaker 3: You want this superstar, it's when I want to show
Speaker 3: up after my nap.
Speaker 1: And of all the things, that's the only thing.
Speaker 5: Because he was the greatest guy, and we would sit
Speaker 5: at dinner and he would tell great stories. We tell
Speaker 5: stories about Rita Franklin, like voicemails from her before she died,
Speaker 5: and he kept on his phone. He's just generous, right
Speaker 5: generous with the stories. And he was talking about he
Speaker 5: was like, we're flying to Europe and we couldn't get
Speaker 5: a jet, a private jet to take us.
Speaker 1: That's really tough. So we flew commercial first class.
Speaker 3: And he called that rat class. He didn't but I've
Speaker 3: never actually heard that. That's funny. Rat class so he
Speaker 3: called that rat class. You haven't heard that before, Well
Speaker 3: he must not, you know, fly commercial. I mean I've
Speaker 3: never had I got five kids. I mean, I have
Speaker 3: to sit in the back of playing with seven.
Speaker 5: Seats west if we're going to California, can no chance.
Speaker 5: If we're going to California, that is all I will
Speaker 5: fly because on the plane's not working.
Speaker 1: It'scause I'm not paying that bill. Yeah, exactly, that bill's brutal,
Speaker 1: the bill.
Speaker 5: I'm not plying private to California from here. I'll use
Speaker 5: a company plane at times. Yeah, but I'm not. No,
Speaker 5: I'm still southwest at the time. Okay, southwest thirty percent,
Speaker 5: now southwest twenty percent Southwest.
Speaker 3: Let's be honest, you're just throughout like a larger percentage,
Speaker 3: maybe ten percent. You're they have Delta, they have Delta
Speaker 3: flights that go out there first class.
Speaker 1: You're for sure taking that if it's there. But I'm
Speaker 1: telling you Vegas they don't. They don't have. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, if I had a natural so it's.
Speaker 5: Southwest of Vegas every time, and to if I'm flying
Speaker 5: into California, I'm gonna fly into I think it uhould
Speaker 5: be called Bob hope, but yeah, it's down in Orange County. Yeah,
Speaker 5: or the other one. So the one Southwest flies into
Speaker 5: that that's non John John Wayne that one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I like that with much smaller the best Southwest.
Speaker 1: I don't think there is hope, is there? Maybe not anymore?
Speaker 1: John Burbank's it. That's yeah, Burbank's tiny, tiny Burbanks what
Speaker 1: it is because.
Speaker 5: They fly Southwest flies in it's a plus anyway, I
Speaker 5: know how it was so uh. Line was like I
Speaker 5: flew first class and I woke up and I just
Speaker 5: wanted like a sorbet and he goes, I woke up
Speaker 5: in the middle of the night and I was like,
Speaker 5: excuse me, can I get like a sorbet with a
Speaker 5: a little bit of almond milk and some caramel nuggets?
Speaker 5: And she's like, Sarah'm sorry this first class, but we can't.
Speaker 5: We can't make whatever you want.
Speaker 1: We might be able to get your warm cookie. And
Speaker 1: he was like, I was in shock. They couldn't make
Speaker 1: a sorbet with nuggets.
Speaker 5: And I thought it was so funny because even he
Speaker 5: knew he was a bit out of touch, but but
Speaker 5: that's he was, like I was in a bed.
Speaker 1: He also people kept walking by when he was in
Speaker 1: his bed, taking pictures of him. I thought that.
Speaker 3: That would be uh yeah, you can't do that. Come on,
Speaker 3: you should know better if somebody's sleeping.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 5: Who's the coolest person you've ever seen? In first class?
Speaker 5: Coolest person I've ever seen? You're a Google away, Your
Speaker 5: money's a Google away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Don't act like rat classes. You're
Speaker 1: common No, But I don't know. It's funny how he's
Speaker 1: inserting himself as a common man here, Kevin. I think, Oh.
Speaker 3: My wife said. Somebody was in front of me the
Speaker 3: other day. My wife said, hold on, this is a
Speaker 3: funny story. She texts me, I'll tell you the name
Speaker 3: right now. Hold on, everybody. So this is the part
Speaker 3: of the story. So I didn't know that I was
Speaker 3: doing the us UCLA game until that week. I had
Speaker 3: already booked the flights for my family back home on Sunday,
Speaker 3: so the company booked me. I said, can you get
Speaker 3: me on that same flight? Well, they booked me first class.
Speaker 3: The rest of my family was in business class behind me.
Speaker 3: So I get on the plane. I get on the
Speaker 3: plane and I'm sitting there and then my family starts
Speaker 3: on and everybody's sitting down in like the first class
Speaker 3: at this point, and I'm sitting here and I feel terrible,
Speaker 3: and they're like, okay, dad, and I'm literally turning these people.
Speaker 3: I was like, I am not the worst father you've
Speaker 3: ever seen. To be honest with you, I didn't know
Speaker 3: I was even going to be on this flight. My
Speaker 3: company booked me. I would rather sit with my family,
Speaker 3: and they're like, okay, guy, Like, my wife goes back
Speaker 3: my five kids. So then my wife texts me and says,
Speaker 3: let's see who was sitting in front of me. It
Speaker 3: might take me a second. Guys, I know you're a
Speaker 3: big question as you like Kevin. Can you the members vodcast?
Speaker 1: Andre three thousand? Yes? Andre? What three thousand? Okay?
Speaker 2: Oh what is it?
Speaker 1: Narls Barkley.
Speaker 5: No, No, that's see low Green?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, se low Green is one
Speaker 1: of Narls Barklay. Okay.
Speaker 5: So you're so you picked another group, but not no
Speaker 5: but a member. No, So you got Andre three thousand, Andre,
Speaker 5: can you name the other one?
Speaker 1: No? Can you name me the one? For some reason,
Speaker 1: I want to go like it. No, I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna a big boy.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's exactly what I was gonna say,
Speaker 3: but I didn't want to say it's so wrong. I
Speaker 3: swear to you that I said, big boy, and I
Speaker 3: was like, but I really don't know if.
Speaker 1: This is right.
Speaker 3: Finish away, finish your story. My wife text me and says,
Speaker 3: you know, Leanne Rymes is sitting.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. So there you go, Leanne Rhymes. There's
Speaker 1: one that I can remember that your wife could remember.
Speaker 1: I tried, yeah, your wife texted, I saw.
Speaker 3: A black hat in front of me and I wasn't
Speaker 3: gonna tap people on. Are any of you guys relevant
Speaker 3: and verre important?
Speaker 1: Anybody you're famous?
Speaker 2: Talking about you guys when we.
Speaker 7: Are on our podcast on Tuesday, I was on a flight,
Speaker 7: my wife and I were going to Europe, and one
Speaker 7: hundred three thousand that's cool.
Speaker 5: Was sitting like a to the right of us because
Speaker 5: those seats it's like to to two and so he
Speaker 5: was over to the right of us.
Speaker 1: And you can absolutely tell it's him.
Speaker 5: The only difference is he's a little grayer and he
Speaker 5: walks around because he doesn't really rap anymore. He just
Speaker 5: plays the flute. He puts out flut out. Really, he's
Speaker 5: a flout.
Speaker 3: Tist wow, and so say it again a flout test.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to bother him, but you had to
Speaker 5: get a picture of him. I didn't know the only
Speaker 5: thing that I did. I have two stories like this,
Speaker 5: Is there anybody that you'd go up to?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: There are people, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It just depends a lot of it too, is like
Speaker 5: their body language are dynamic? Are they by themselves? Are
Speaker 5: they sleepy? Like I'm paying attention because on a much, much,
Speaker 5: much smaller level, I'm grateful when people do that to me.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 5: And she also wasn't with his kids. It wasn't eating.
Speaker 5: There are certain rules that I have about going up
Speaker 5: to people. But I see him and I told my
Speaker 5: wife that's on twenty thousand, and my wife is twelve
Speaker 5: years younger than I am. And she's like, is he
Speaker 5: a wrestler? Because we talked the giant. We told me
Speaker 5: Andrew the giant I was teaching. And I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: He's part of outcast.
Speaker 1: And she was like, which she still doesn't know what
Speaker 1: out cast?
Speaker 5: Well, there are versions of outcast, like I was a
Speaker 5: fan of outcast, like bombs over bag Dad, like the early.
Speaker 1: Yes and even the newer stuff.
Speaker 5: Once it was real popular, and I was like, shake it,
Speaker 5: shake shake, shake it, shake it like a Paula Roi.
Speaker 1: She goes, oh, that's him. I was like, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: She was like, oh cool. Then she doesn't care. She
Speaker 1: gets no crap about celebrities.
Speaker 5: And so we're getting off into the airport and occasionally
Speaker 5: someone will go up and be like, hey, can I
Speaker 5: get a picture. I don't think he was annoyed, but
Speaker 5: he definitely wasn't over the top about just like.
Speaker 1: Hey, love it, let's give me, give me more.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: Also, it's like we've been flying for twelve hours. He's tired,
Speaker 5: and so he was standing by the baggage gate. His
Speaker 5: body language was kind of open to me, and I say, hey,
Speaker 5: big fan, be listening to music for like twenty years.
Speaker 1: He said thanks, man walked on. I got my interaction
Speaker 1: that I was it. He didn't like bust out.
Speaker 3: Hey dude in the Country Hall of Fame for Youngest
Speaker 3: radio radio Hosts of all time.
Speaker 1: And like, nobody cares. I sent back my Dancing with
Speaker 1: the Stars thing, but none of that. Nobody cares, Like
Speaker 1: there's common thread there, there's not.
Speaker 5: Because he I believe they might be I did have
Speaker 5: a hip hop deal for a Captain Caucasian.
Speaker 1: What if you'd have been like, I'm the biggest Captain
Speaker 1: Caucasian fan ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how coolose it you want to collab now that
Speaker 3: we got a little bit older, He'll play flute on
Speaker 3: my next track.
Speaker 5: The only other one was I was in a restaurant
Speaker 5: in California and was having dinner with a friend and
Speaker 5: I was walking to the bathroom and I look over
Speaker 5: and like, oh, I know that person sitting at the table.
Speaker 5: They did not have food in front of them yet.
Speaker 5: And I was like, on the way back, I'm going
Speaker 5: to say something. I'll go to the bathroom wash my
Speaker 5: hands just in case he wanted to shake hands and washed.
Speaker 5: Man to sent down. And I walked by and it
Speaker 5: was David Spade. I said, Hey, David Spade, super funny,
Speaker 5: big fan.
Speaker 1: Man. He goes, thanks, Man, kept walking right. Have my interaction.
Speaker 5: I was talking about that because I think there are
Speaker 5: general rules where it's if you see somebody that's famous
Speaker 5: or known, if they're with their kids, do not approach,
Speaker 5: if they have food in front of them, do not
Speaker 5: approach any other time they know who they are. They
Speaker 5: also have the right to say no, the record for sure,
Speaker 5: but if no kids and no food, you can go
Speaker 5: up and say, hey, I'm a fan. I've also found
Speaker 5: the most celebrities, if they're not with their family or eating,
Speaker 5: they like people to say they're a.
Speaker 3: Fan, right because you're doing your job well, yeah, and
Speaker 3: you're appreciated.
Speaker 1: And so I was talking about that on the show
Speaker 1: and he messaged me on Instagram and I was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you not stopping me. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're walking by, you know.
Speaker 3: The one of these memorable moments for me, I was
Speaker 3: the year that I took over for Brady.
Speaker 1: We got done with season.
Speaker 3: I was back in LA where I'm from, and we
Speaker 3: went out to this nice steak restaurant and normally.
Speaker 1: Hey Brady, what do you mean, bro?
Speaker 3: You just through lookout there, Tom Brady, drop a name,
Speaker 3: But I'm saying the year, So the year I played
Speaker 3: for the Patriots, I'm done with season, get back to LA.
Speaker 3: We're out at a steak restaurant and normally people would
Speaker 3: just cut like a Patriot fan every now and then,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to the bathroom here, hey, And I
Speaker 3: was like, I look over and it's Mark Woolburg and
Speaker 3: he's a huge Patriots fan.
Speaker 1: Boston guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Boston guy. And of all people, I never thought
Speaker 3: I was going to see this guy. But he he
Speaker 3: invites me over, he shakes my hand, tells me, you know,
Speaker 3: great season this, and I'm a big Patriot fan. And
Speaker 3: I was like, that was the coolest interaction ever. Normally
Speaker 3: it's something like, hey, well you sign something or do that, this,
Speaker 3: that and the other. But for me, that was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: that's rad. This guy's a mega superstar megas superstar. Markey.
Speaker 3: Did I jammed that back in the day. Hell yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean so that was a cool interaction right there.
Speaker 3: But that was a few and far between where you
Speaker 3: get like a mega superstar fan that's a sports fan.
Speaker 3: And that's the only reason he talked to me. Otherwise
Speaker 3: you wouldn't even know anything about it. But it just
Speaker 3: just so happened that I aligned with that.
Speaker 1: That's also like Boston loving their athletes. Oh that city's wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like they're such fanatical, passionate sports fan.
Speaker 1: If you're winning the pedestal, you guys like crazy.
Speaker 3: And it was incredible to be in Boston at the
Speaker 3: time that I was too, because the Celtics won a championship.
Speaker 3: The Boston Red Sox won a championship. The city was
Speaker 3: on fire.
Speaker 1: See, I think I'd want to be the only team winning. Yeah, selfishly,
Speaker 1: that was yeah. I think they had right. They'd won
Speaker 1: three Super Bowls the year before I got there.
Speaker 3: They just accomplished their third Super Bowl, so we were
Speaker 3: in the heyday.
Speaker 5: Ken Belson is coming up next. This guy is veteran
Speaker 5: New York Times reporter. He's got a book called Every
Speaker 5: Day of Sunday. It's basically Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and
Speaker 5: Roger Goodell and how they've made the NFL so big.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this interview. We will do that next.
Speaker 1: We're gonna bring on Ken Belson.
Speaker 5: Now we're gonna talk about every Day of Sunday and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna read the what do you call this th
Speaker 5: Because I wrote books and it it was like the title, Hey, Ken,
Speaker 5: what do you call the thing? I'm about to read
Speaker 5: how Jerry Jones, Robert Craft, Roger Goodell turned the NFL
Speaker 5: into a cultural and economic juggernaut.
Speaker 1: What's the official titles? What is that called a subheader?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sub subtitle or a subhead?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Anyway, the book's called every Day a Sunday,
Speaker 5: and if you were to do the whole thing, it
Speaker 5: would take you like an hour. But that's awesome, because
Speaker 5: I mean these are as far as like sports culture,
Speaker 5: you really get no bigger than these three.
Speaker 1: I want to ask first about Roger Goodell.
Speaker 5: I met Roger Goodell once and he had the absolute
Speaker 5: strongest handshake of any man that I have ever shaken
Speaker 5: hands with. Have you ever shaken Roger Goodell's hand?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Not only have I done that, but he like like
Speaker 8: did a chest pump thing that he wants that. It
Speaker 8: felt like I was back in the high school football
Speaker 8: locker room thing. And this is the weird thing is
Speaker 8: it was in federal court. I was covering the Sunday
Speaker 8: ticket trial, which is in LA in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 8: and he the reason that I went that particular day
Speaker 8: was that Roger was on the stand, which is very
Speaker 8: unusual to see a commissioner in a federal trial on
Speaker 8: the court on the in the jury, on the on
Speaker 8: the stand. And so he had he had finished the
Speaker 8: morning session, and he knew I was there because I
Speaker 8: had said a lot to him at the beginning, and
Speaker 8: when he walked out. You know, he walked through the aisle,
Speaker 8: the middle aisle, and you know, the reporters and the
Speaker 8: lawyers were all standing up to stretch because it was
Speaker 8: a lunch break, and he went past me and he
Speaker 8: like took his fist and he like pounded my chest
Speaker 8: like hey bro, and it was it was kind of
Speaker 8: startling strong man. But yeah, so he's a strong guy,
Speaker 8: very big, relatively big.
Speaker 5: You had talked about mister Goodell and kind of compared
Speaker 5: him to like a whip, a Senate majority leader, like uh,
Speaker 5: and I because what we know of him is the face.
Speaker 5: We know he's making decisions, but we don't really get
Speaker 5: to see how that sausage is made. Like what do
Speaker 5: you think his superpower is?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so that's that's a great operation. I'm glad you
Speaker 8: brought it up because I think the average fan looks
Speaker 8: at him and says, Okay, he's the guy I boo
Speaker 8: on draft day. He's the guy responsible for my team's
Speaker 8: favorite running back for being suspended or whatever it is
Speaker 8: he takes. That's part of his job, which is to
Speaker 8: police the league itself, the players, But in reality, the
Speaker 8: people who hire him are the owners, the NFL unlike
Speaker 8: most of the other leagues, or are compared to the
Speaker 8: other leagues, is much more owner driven. Everything has to
Speaker 8: go to vote twenty four minimum of twenty four. So
Speaker 8: I mean, Roger has his own ideas and his own
Speaker 8: vision for the league, but he doesn't necessarily drive the bus.
Speaker 8: He's kind of really good at synthesizing what the owners
Speaker 8: want and what their visions are. And frankly, you know,
Speaker 8: there's some prettiest student owners on the media front. What
Speaker 8: do they do about gambling International? I'm sure AI will
Speaker 8: come up a year or two. So these owners are
Speaker 8: smart from their own businesses, and Er sort of channels them.
Speaker 8: And so that's why I compared him to a Senate whip,
Speaker 8: because he's always looking for how do I get to
Speaker 8: twenty four votes? And you know, on rare occasions he
Speaker 8: puts himself out there, one being like the Tush push
Speaker 8: a couple of a year ago, and it actually failed.
Speaker 8: That was a rare instance where Roger was kind of
Speaker 8: was in front on that issue. But most of the
Speaker 8: time he's just channeling what the owners want and what
Speaker 8: he thinks, you know, will be better for the league
Speaker 8: and frankly, to make them more money.
Speaker 2: I think is the bottom line.
Speaker 3: In the book, you talk about the powerbrokers being Jerry
Speaker 3: Jones Robert Kraft, two guys. Actually I was part of
Speaker 3: both of their organizations and two very different personalities.
Speaker 1: But how in this.
Speaker 3: Market that you're talking about, in the marketplace in the NFL,
Speaker 3: how do they compliment each other and how do they
Speaker 3: also compete against each other?
Speaker 8: Yeah, great question. Obviously they compete on the field. They
Speaker 8: totally compliment each other in the ways I didn't fully
Speaker 8: appreciate when I started doing the reporting. Jerry is like
Speaker 8: this bubbling idea guy. He's like the mad scientist. He's
Speaker 8: constantly looking at ways where can we promote the NFL.
Speaker 8: He is the absolute firms believer in the power of
Speaker 8: the shield and has from the time he took over.
Speaker 8: It's one of the reasons he bought the Cowboys, and
Speaker 8: so he's constantly coming up ideas. But he is not
Speaker 8: necessarily the closer, and sometimes he can just wear people
Speaker 8: out with his ideas. There's a great quote from Robert
Speaker 8: about Jerry. He could charm a dog off a meat truck.
Speaker 8: You know, he's just he works the phones. He still
Speaker 8: has a flip phone, I think, and He's constantly just selling.
Speaker 8: It's not about the money, It's about the deal and
Speaker 8: the chase.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 8: Where is Robert, I think is a little more in
Speaker 8: the shadows, in the sense that he is more the closer,
Speaker 8: the guy who tries to get to a win win
Speaker 8: for say the networks in the league or a sponsor
Speaker 8: in the league. And I think that is Robert's skill.
Speaker 8: He's a bit more diplomatic. He's not necessarily the ideas guy,
Speaker 8: but he's the guy that can get it over the
Speaker 8: finish line.
Speaker 5: I'm curious your perception and experience with Jerry Jones. Both
Speaker 5: Matt and I have a different relationship with him, but
Speaker 5: both were so good in that Matt has told the
Speaker 5: story here where Jerry Jones is like we want you.
Speaker 5: We're going to send the plane to get your family,
Speaker 5: like glowing reviews. I emailed the random Dallas Cowboy website
Speaker 5: once because I didn't know how to get hold of Jerry.
Speaker 5: Next thing you know, I'm in the chopper with Jerry
Speaker 5: and his family. It's literally five of us. It's him,
Speaker 5: his son, me and my wife and like my friends
Speaker 5: and Jerry's taken us in the chopper where Landing's walking
Speaker 5: us around. He's like, these people don't want to see
Speaker 5: me there, And like I was so used to use
Speaker 5: the word charms.
Speaker 1: I was so charmed.
Speaker 5: Like is that generally what he does to people is
Speaker 5: make them love him because both of us had such
Speaker 5: a wonderful relationship.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Jerry is a natural. It's just in his blood.
Speaker 8: You could tell a part of his story. I was
Speaker 8: not the first reported he tells it all the time.
Speaker 8: Was when he was a kid and growing up in
Speaker 8: Little Rock, North Little Rock, his dad had a grocery
Speaker 8: store and to bring in customers, they basically put little
Speaker 8: Jerry up there in cowboy outfits to kind of charm
Speaker 8: the moms coming in to do grocery shopping. So he's
Speaker 8: been kind of a showman from a very young age,
Speaker 8: and he understood the connection between being a good showman
Speaker 8: and making money literally helping his dad sell groceries by
Speaker 8: by presenting entertainment, cute entertainment. And it's just in his
Speaker 8: bloody he has that kind of twinkle. I'll tell you
Speaker 8: one other story. I've been up in a helicopter too,
Speaker 8: and with him and he doesn't know how to use
Speaker 8: the headset and he was yeah, exactly you got to
Speaker 8: hit the button the talk and whatever. It was a
Speaker 8: total fiasco, totally. I couldn't hear a word he's saying.
Speaker 8: It was so noisy. And so we take we're in
Speaker 8: we're going around the Star in Frisco, and the photographer
Speaker 8: loved it.
Speaker 2: Right, we're getting in these aerial photos. We get back
Speaker 2: love Field and.
Speaker 8: He he has that kind of charm and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 8: I think we should talk some more because I had
Speaker 8: like nothing in my notebook And we sat in the
Speaker 8: hangar at a table for another hour and a half.
Speaker 8: Like I'm sure he was booked and had to go somewhere,
Speaker 8: but Jerry was going to finish that and I had come,
Speaker 8: you know, down in Dallas to do that interview. So like,
Speaker 8: that's the guy who's committed a lot of other people.
Speaker 8: First all, they wouldn't have taken me up in a helicopter,
Speaker 8: and number two wouldn't have spent twice as much time
Speaker 8: with me just to make sure I had what I needed.
Speaker 3: Do you think this the NFL would have the same
Speaker 3: success without a Jerry Jones, without Robert Kraft or Roger Goodell,
Speaker 3: Like how much of an impact have they had that
Speaker 3: maybe otherwise the NFL wouldn't have the same success.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think about that a lot. You know, the
Speaker 8: what ifs. You know, Jerry and Robert this is in
Speaker 8: the Jerry came in eighty nine and Robert in ninety four.
Speaker 8: At that time, paid record amounts for their team teams,
Speaker 8: and I mean it's hard to believe Jerry paid one
Speaker 8: hundred and fifteen million for the Cowboys. They were like
Speaker 8: twelve billion now, but that was big money when it
Speaker 8: went to nine figures, when it passed one hundred million.
Speaker 8: Now you're kind of talking about a slimmer group of
Speaker 8: people able to get into the NFL. And they were
Speaker 8: part of a wave in the nineties of like wealthy
Speaker 8: business people, smart business people were coming in, not just
Speaker 8: football people and not people just interested in dabbling. And
Speaker 8: so you had Wayne Heisinger in Miami, he owned Blockbuster
Speaker 8: and a bunch of other things. Jeffrey Lourie from the
Speaker 8: Loew's hotel chain. So you have like bigger money people
Speaker 8: coming in. So they were not alone, and I think
Speaker 8: that changed the thinking in the league from hey, football
Speaker 8: is played. You know, you go to mass then you
Speaker 8: come to the stadium, then you play at one o'clock
Speaker 8: and you go home. And then you got people like
Speaker 8: Jerry and Robert who went into debt to buy their
Speaker 8: teams and they really needed new ideas to make back
Speaker 8: their money, so that really fueled it. I think Jerry
Speaker 8: and Robert were probably the best equipped. I think Heisinger
Speaker 8: had lots of other businesses and he was partly distracted
Speaker 8: Jeffrey Lorie just you know, doesn't want to necessarily lead
Speaker 8: from the front. But Jerry and Robert definitely were part
Speaker 8: of that wave. But they were very much more willing
Speaker 8: to put in the extra hours on behalf of the league,
Speaker 8: not just their teams. So I'd say that's why it
Speaker 8: would have been a very different league. I don't think
Speaker 8: they would have grown as quickly. They would have grown,
Speaker 8: but not nearly as quickly.
Speaker 5: The book definitely covers economic growth and just growth in
Speaker 5: general of the sport, because in our life we have
Speaker 5: seen an NFL boom. Any chance, this is just your
Speaker 5: opinion here, did the NFL at times grow too fast
Speaker 5: they couldn't keep up.
Speaker 8: It's a great question, and frankly you're the first person
Speaker 8: to ask it that way. So yeah, there's a question
Speaker 8: of like how much is too much the NFL and
Speaker 8: Paul Tagibow's period is really where it most took hold.
Speaker 8: But there was you know, there's NFL Properties, which is
Speaker 8: the for profit arm of the NFL. The NFL league
Speaker 8: itself is just you know, governs the sport. And those
Speaker 8: were the wild West days in the eighties and the
Speaker 8: early nineties where they were signing deals all over the place,
Speaker 8: different sponsorships. You know, you didn't have necessarily exclusivity, so
Speaker 8: you didn't have like Nike as the official parel company.
Speaker 8: So you have like six companies, and at that point
Speaker 8: it gets kind of chaotic because everybody's kind of grabbing
Speaker 8: it the same. There's you can you can saturate the
Speaker 8: market if it's not done carefully, and so yes, there
Speaker 8: was in some ways it was a hungry period and
Speaker 8: there was money to be made, but it was it
Speaker 8: was the sales team was kind of running the show
Speaker 8: and without the same kind of game plan. I think
Speaker 8: when Paul Tagubu comes in in nineteen eighty nine, one
Speaker 8: of the first things he does, or a year or
Speaker 8: two into it, he settles the labor problem. Players get
Speaker 8: free agency.
Speaker 2: That was like a.
Speaker 8: Big, big deal obviously, and then there's revenue sharing. But
Speaker 8: then he hires a guy named Neil Austrian who is
Speaker 8: in the early part of the book. And Neil is
Speaker 8: a very experienced business person, not a sports guy. He
Speaker 8: worked at Warner Brothers, he worked in IBM, lots of
Speaker 8: corporate experience, and he basically said, you run the business.
Speaker 8: And at that point the NFL said, okay, let's rationalize this.
Speaker 8: So you had Sunday ticket came in in ninety four,
Speaker 8: and then the league starts signing exclusivity, the exclusive deals.
Speaker 8: So instead of having five apparel makers, they say, let's
Speaker 8: just go with Reebok. Instead of having a bunch of
Speaker 8: different soda companies, let's just do coke. And so you
Speaker 8: could charge a premium for that exclusivity. And so I
Speaker 8: think that kind of streamlined the business, and that those
Speaker 8: wild West days of you know, sales guys just signing
Speaker 8: deals left and right kind of dissolved a little bit
Speaker 8: and the NFL.
Speaker 2: Became a little more efficient.
Speaker 9: I guess it was a better way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: In the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3: Do you see anything that could hinder the growth of
Speaker 3: the NFL? I mean, the one thing that I can
Speaker 3: only think of as a collective bargaining agreement that they
Speaker 3: can't come to.
Speaker 1: The table on both sides.
Speaker 3: Because I was part of the lockout in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: I believe it was, and it was back and forth,
Speaker 3: and that's the only thing that I could see in
Speaker 3: the foreseeable future that would slow down the growth.
Speaker 1: But I would love to hear your opinion on that, sure.
Speaker 8: I mean, obviously, labor is huge in the union right now,
Speaker 8: doesn't just have an interim leader. So there's issues on
Speaker 8: the player side as well, and that's always out there,
Speaker 8: although I think there's still several years away, another half
Speaker 8: decade ago on the current deal, but there's a lot
Speaker 8: of stuff out there. Just think of let's talk really
Speaker 8: broadly about the demographics of America. There's just essentially a
Speaker 8: slowing birth rate, which means fewer kids, which means fewer
Speaker 8: young athlete, which potentially means fewer young football players, and
Speaker 8: potentially fewer NFL fans. And that is what's driving part
Speaker 8: of what's driving the NFL to play overseas to find
Speaker 8: new fans. I mean, you know, ninety three out of
Speaker 8: the top one hundred broadcasts a few years ago were
Speaker 8: NFL games, Like how much more can you saturate American
Speaker 8: audiences with football? And they're not even at the eighteenth
Speaker 8: game yet. So that's one is just the demographics of America.
Speaker 8: And by the way, you know, baseball and other sports
Speaker 8: deal with this too. And then you get gambling, which
Speaker 8: we haven't discussed yet, and that is already changing the
Speaker 8: contours the relationship with the fans. It's really fracturing, frankly,
Speaker 8: the way people watch sports in general, but particularly the NFL.
Speaker 8: Now you're literally betting on your phone in real time,
Speaker 8: and so the whole viewing experience is completely distorted. Instead
Speaker 8: of waiting until the end of the game to find
Speaker 8: the score, you're betting on plays in the middle of
Speaker 8: the game. And I just think that like this, it
Speaker 8: has fracked sure the sports viewing experience, and I think
Speaker 8: the league's plural are going to have a challenge. There's
Speaker 8: a great book called Dopamine Nation, and this is just
Speaker 8: part of a larger trend of you know, fantasy football
Speaker 8: being one but smartphones, you know, and when I started
Speaker 8: playing fantasy football twenty five years ago, I had to
Speaker 8: go to a desktop computer and refresh eighteen times to
Speaker 8: get my score. You know, these days, it's on my
Speaker 8: phone automatically. So yeah, it's not just an NFL problem,
Speaker 8: but it is an acute problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to go back to Roger Goodell for
Speaker 3: a second, and he's had to navigate through a lot,
Speaker 3: and I'm talking about concussions. I'm talking about social injustice
Speaker 3: and what would you say was his biggest accomplishment while
Speaker 3: he has been a leader of the NFL.
Speaker 8: So, you know, credit where it's due, the whole concussion protocol,
Speaker 8: just as an example, taking a player out of a game,
Speaker 8: having spotters and neurologists on the sidelines, players themselves self diagnosing,
Speaker 8: you know, the blue tent.
Speaker 2: All these things didn't exist, you know, until.
Speaker 8: What ten years ago, and now you know there's an
Speaker 8: actual formal protocol. You of course still have examples like
Speaker 8: to and players who seem to get back, you know,
Speaker 8: before they're ready, but just as many players now sit
Speaker 8: out and maybe more, and so you know, that's something
Speaker 8: that he probably deserves some credit for and pushing the
Speaker 8: league to try and address these pretty big and really
Speaker 8: frankly fundamental problems. There's a lot of marketing and messaging around,
Speaker 8: say for helmets and youth football and flag football and
Speaker 8: some of them are good.
Speaker 2: Some.
Speaker 8: I mean, helmets are nice, but they're not going to
Speaker 8: prevent a concussion. But I would say the concussion protocol
Speaker 8: stuff has been a big game changer.
Speaker 5: We are an NFL podcast. They pay us, we work
Speaker 5: for the NFL, and we also know who the boss is.
Speaker 5: Now we have never had a guest that we've booked
Speaker 5: and they've said no. But they can say no because
Speaker 5: they are inevitably our boss. This book, I feel like
Speaker 5: it is so comprehensive that there is a lot of
Speaker 5: great stuff. There's also some honesty hear that maybe makes
Speaker 5: versions of the NFL go man. I wish we'd done
Speaker 5: a better job at this point. Why would the NFL
Speaker 5: let us have you on? Since this is not a
Speaker 5: complete I love the NFL book.
Speaker 8: I don't know whether they've intervened or they actually look
Speaker 8: over your booking schedule.
Speaker 1: They do, know, they do. Why do they love you?
Speaker 2: They do?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't know if they love me, but I think
Speaker 2: they I have to say, the NFL.
Speaker 8: I think they know who I am, and you know,
Speaker 8: I'd like to think the book is deeply reported. I've
Speaker 8: spoken to at least a dozen owners for the book.
Speaker 8: Union people, Network people, I think thoroughly researched the book,
Speaker 8: and so from that perspective, you know, I think they
Speaker 8: can appreciate the effort that went into it. It's not
Speaker 8: a gotcha book in that sense. In one review of
Speaker 8: the book, somebody said there are no heroes. I'd like
Speaker 8: to think that's probably true. And I didn't write it
Speaker 8: as a polemic. I wrote it as like a reported history,
Speaker 8: if you want to call it that, or contemporary history.
Speaker 8: So I think it's fair in that sense. And yeah,
Speaker 8: there's stuff I'm sure they would like not to be
Speaker 8: in the book, but that also gives it authenticity. I
Speaker 8: hope it's not a cheerleading book. You know, there's a
Speaker 8: fine line between giving Jerry Jones and Robert Craft and
Speaker 8: Roger Goodell credit for making a lot of money. It's
Speaker 8: a business book. On the other hand, you know, like
Speaker 8: it's up to the reader to decide whether that's greed.
Speaker 8: And maybe that's too much, right, but I'm not trying
Speaker 8: to tilt the scales in that sense.
Speaker 5: Final question, Ken, being the reporter you are that are
Speaker 5: reported on so many things, different types of things. I
Speaker 5: have a couple of friends that also do a job
Speaker 5: similar to yours. And they just talk about how they
Speaker 5: text and text and text, and so many texts are
Speaker 5: just not returned. Is that a big part of your career,
Speaker 5: just texting and being left on read all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's part of the job. I will say.
Speaker 8: You know, I've been asked a lot like how long
Speaker 8: did it take you to write the book? And the
Speaker 8: short answer is I started it in twenty twenty two
Speaker 8: and got the contract in twenty three to start writing.
Speaker 8: But the real answer is twenty thirteen when I started
Speaker 8: covering the league full time, because the book didn't happen
Speaker 8: without relationships I had already had with Pick the Owner,
Speaker 8: Art Rooney, Shod Cohn, Arthur Blank, Robert Kraft, so forth.
Speaker 8: So like you know, when I got the book, I
Speaker 8: already knew that for nine or ten years. And they
Speaker 8: do pick up your calls, or at least they take
Speaker 8: you seriously. And I'll be honest, like they're busy people, right,
Speaker 8: I get it. So just getting time in Arthur Blank's
Speaker 8: schedule took like three months, you know, or two months.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 8: Shod con I ended up speaking to him for four
Speaker 8: hours on a Saturday before a day before a game.
Speaker 8: But you know, that took months to sort out. They're
Speaker 8: just busy people, So I get it, and I'm asking
Speaker 8: them for a favor. I think the owners who sat
Speaker 8: with me obviously we're interested in talking about, for instance,
Speaker 8: the twenty eleven lockout TV deals, whatever. But you know,
Speaker 8: you're just juggling a lot. Then you know the network
Speaker 8: people all these things. Very few people'll just call you
Speaker 8: right back, So I get that that's just part of the.
Speaker 1: Job, Ken Belson. Every day is Sunday.
Speaker 5: Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell turned the NFL
Speaker 5: into a cultural and economic juggernaut. I know the book's
Speaker 5: been out since October. I hope you sell a billion copies.
Speaker 5: I'm it's so thorough. You can order the book on Amazon,
Speaker 5: but you can order anything on Amazon. You can't order
Speaker 5: pickle jar. You can order this book. You can order
Speaker 5: whatever you want, but this book is there.
Speaker 1: Ken.
Speaker 5: We really appreciate the time spending with us today, and
Speaker 5: congratulations in the book.
Speaker 2: Thank you, great conversation, appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thanks, okay, thanks to Ken Belson. I didn't even get
Speaker 5: to my Arkansas hiring a new coach.
Speaker 2: Guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I said, what we're gonna do? Uh, we're gonna
Speaker 3: wrap this and so let's be part one.
Speaker 5: We'll have part two coming up in a little bit
Speaker 5: because we got to get to our topics too.
Speaker 1: So, uh, this is lots to say.
Speaker 5: I'm Bobby Bones, that's Matt Castle, that's kick Off Kevin,
Speaker 5: and we got Morgan over the running cameras today because Brandon,
Speaker 5: because Brandon's like onation or something. That's that's true. Okay,
Speaker 5: this is part one. Part two will be up soon.
Speaker 5: We've had lots to say.
Speaker 4: Goodbye everybody, lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt
Speaker 4: Castle is a production of the NFL and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.