Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio.
Speaker 2: He's the commissioner of the NBA for the last eleven years.
Speaker 2: Adam Silver joining us on the program. High Commissioner, How
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 3: I'm good, Dan, I need some more stuff on my desk.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 3: It's clean? I like all the stuff you got there.
Speaker 2: Though, Well, you got some poll with teams. Why don't
Speaker 2: you just have a little choskeys garre. You get bobblehead
Speaker 2: dolls up there?
Speaker 3: I've got him. I just I put paper on my desk.
Speaker 3: We have a different jobs.
Speaker 2: What is the coolest thing in your office?
Speaker 3: I have one of shacks shoes. It looks like a
Speaker 3: snow boot and you could use it as a planner.
Speaker 2: Well, I have one too, his rebox shoe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't it was the brand that he created, okay.
Speaker 3: I think it was like dunk Man. I think was
Speaker 3: the brand.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: And it's enormous. It looks it doesn't look real.
Speaker 2: Well, he only gave me one. I don't know why
Speaker 2: he only gives out one shoe.
Speaker 3: He gave me the other. I only have one left, right.
Speaker 2: I think I have the left one, but.
Speaker 3: I get the right He split the pair between us.
Speaker 2: I got Tim duncan shoes from when they won the
Speaker 2: NBA title against the Knicks, and he said, I'll give
Speaker 2: you my shoes if you tell me who's the number
Speaker 2: one sports century athlete. They just win the NBA championship.
Speaker 2: He comes in, I'm doing Sports Center. He's got his
Speaker 2: shoes and he writes to DP Tim Duncan and then
Speaker 2: he said, right, who's number one on the list and
Speaker 2: I I nobody knew because we had that countdown. I
Speaker 2: said it's Jordan and he said, all right, here's your shoes.
Speaker 2: So I got Tim Duncan's shoes after the NBA Finals.
Speaker 2: Did you get any Jordan stuff when you were with
Speaker 2: the you know, Commissioner Stern?
Speaker 3: No, I mean only because it wouldn't inappropriate. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess I was around a lot of Jordan's stuff,
Speaker 3: but I wasn't a collector. I don't think it will
Speaker 3: be appropriate.
Speaker 2: Well, when you weren't the commissioner, you could have said, hey,
Speaker 2: be nice to get a pair of Mike's shoes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I bought a lot of Jordan shoes over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I I talked to who is it Tim?
Speaker 2: Who's the Tim the Tim No, no, Tim, who was
Speaker 2: the bulls pr guy, Tim, Tim Hallum, Yeah, Tim. He
Speaker 2: would get Jordan's shoes after every NBA finals, every title
Speaker 2: he Mike would take off the shoes and autograph them
Speaker 2: and hand them to them after everyone. I don't know
Speaker 2: if he sold those things, but those things got to
Speaker 2: be worth because their championship warn NBA shoes by Mike,
Speaker 2: they got to be worth a whole lot of money.
Speaker 3: And I'm think about the business Mike created as a
Speaker 3: division of Nike, the Jordan brand. I mean, it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's a multi billion dollar business at this point. I mean,
Speaker 3: how many think about how many athletes have retained, Yeah,
Speaker 3: a kind of notoriety, you know, this many decades post
Speaker 3: playing career, and it's I mean, he's an amazing guy obviously,
Speaker 3: and he's still a small owner in the league and Charlotte.
Speaker 3: But might you know I post his playing career. I
Speaker 3: mean I knew him a bit over the years, but
Speaker 3: you know, post playing career, we got to be really
Speaker 3: close and he was obviously one of my bosses for
Speaker 3: the first several years I was a commissioner and still
Speaker 3: amazing person.
Speaker 2: Give me the list here, like what's top on your
Speaker 2: list here of what needs to be addressed with the NBA.
Speaker 3: I think top on my list is the transition we're
Speaker 3: going through in media now. I mean, we locked in
Speaker 3: our new media deals for essentially the next decade, staying
Speaker 3: with Disney, ABC and ESPN, moving to Comcast Universal Peacock
Speaker 3: in addition to being on NBC and now Amazon. But
Speaker 3: I think more interesting in a way is not just
Speaker 3: moving from one partner to another, but the shift in
Speaker 3: live sports to streaming. And I think where is most
Speaker 3: fancy it now? And maybe even a little bit of
Speaker 3: a pain that they got to switch off their box
Speaker 3: or whatever else and then find the app or however
Speaker 3: they have to do it. From a programming standpoint, it's
Speaker 3: still they're finding what, in essence looks like the same game.
Speaker 3: It's just streamed as other than being on broadcaster conventional cable.
Speaker 3: What's really fascinating to me is all the functionality that
Speaker 3: sort of Internet TV will allow through streaming, all the personalization,
Speaker 3: the customization that will come, all the new types of
Speaker 3: information you can present to fans as they're watching games.
Speaker 3: You know, all that optionality. I think, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: when I when we first met I was at NBA
Speaker 3: Entertainment and sort of sort of began my career on
Speaker 3: the production side. And I think it's at this moment
Speaker 3: we can redefine how we present the game to fans
Speaker 3: and also make it a lot more convenient. I mean,
Speaker 3: in our new deals, every game will be streamed, and
Speaker 3: we have a very young audience. You know, they're watching
Speaker 3: more screen time than ever before, but not traditional television.
Speaker 3: And I think our ability to bring those games directly
Speaker 3: to them and in ways they want to consume them.
Speaker 3: I'll add to that as well. I think using social
Speaker 3: media to engage fans, I mean, not just to interest them.
Speaker 3: I mean, like example, talked about recently, Victor Wembinyama was
Speaker 3: in New York on Christmas Day and then was around
Speaker 3: for two more days because then he played in Brooklyn
Speaker 3: two days later, and he's a chess player and he
Speaker 3: went to Washington Square Park. I'm sure you saw that clip.
Speaker 3: Something like one hundred million people, you know a week
Speaker 3: saw video of him playing chess in Washington Square Park,
Speaker 3: and our viewership, which is fine, pales though in comparison
Speaker 3: to the social media following of these players and the league.
Speaker 3: That number you know, on a global basis is over
Speaker 3: two billion, and I think sort of my job is
Speaker 3: to get more basketball lovers to watch the NBA and
Speaker 3: watch it longer. And I think there's an opportunity to
Speaker 3: use social media to create more engagement, and not just
Speaker 3: to show how multifaceted Wemby is and he loves to
Speaker 3: play chess, but to teach people about the game, to
Speaker 3: celebrate the game, to demonstrate why, I know you're a
Speaker 3: college basketball player, I know you love the game, Like
Speaker 3: why this is such an incredible game, and help people
Speaker 3: better understand what they're watching, understand the finer points of
Speaker 3: the game, and fair to be critical of it at
Speaker 3: times too, and you know, should there be less three
Speaker 3: points doing et cetera. I mean that's something we're very
Speaker 3: focused on. But when I day in and day out,
Speaker 3: you know, and I have all the various streaming services
Speaker 3: and have all the different programming available to me, I
Speaker 3: don't think it's an accident that people are increasingly gravitating
Speaker 3: towards premium live sports, not just basketball, but obviously football, hockey, baseball,
Speaker 3: et cetera. WNBA. Now, I think because people crave something
Speaker 3: that's live, something that's you know, unscripted, something that can
Speaker 3: be entertaining as well, and I think the basketball in
Speaker 3: the NBA can be all those things. But we also
Speaker 3: our job has become that much harder because we're competing
Speaker 3: against so many different forms of entertainment. It's podcasts and
Speaker 3: social media and unlimited numbers of channels and programming, and
Speaker 3: so we have to up our game too to make
Speaker 3: sure that we're finding ways to engage viewers and again
Speaker 3: to teach people about the game. And that's that's been
Speaker 3: one of my frustrations. I think that don't blame the broadcasters,
Speaker 3: and it's hard you've broadcast a lot of basketball that
Speaker 3: the game's moving so quickly. You don't have the space
Speaker 3: that you might have in football or in baseball to
Speaker 3: be talking more about what's unfolding before you.
Speaker 2: But what bothers you more the ratings or the coverage
Speaker 2: of the ratings.
Speaker 3: The ratings are fine. I mean, we're roughly even with
Speaker 3: last season for the regular season, which was the highest
Speaker 3: ratings for a regular season in four years. There is
Speaker 3: I get it. There was a narrative early in the
Speaker 3: season we were down a bit. I you know, you've
Speaker 3: been covering the league for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 3: it seems that there's always a narrative around our sport.
Speaker 3: You know, too physical, too much isolation, scoring, too low,
Speaker 3: you know, super teams, player empowerment. I mean, I could
Speaker 3: go on and on, and then the narrative early in
Speaker 3: the season became the ratings are down because of three
Speaker 3: point shooting. I think those are two independent issues. The
Speaker 3: ratings are now about even with last year. And as
Speaker 3: I said, you know, if you look more broadly at
Speaker 3: other measures of engagement, our attendance last season was the
Speaker 3: highest in the history of the league. I mean, you
Speaker 3: can't look at social media over too long a spectrum
Speaker 3: because it didn't exist. But if you but when you
Speaker 3: add in social media, the game has never been more
Speaker 3: popular in terms of the engagement. So do I get
Speaker 3: frustrated about around the narrative around ratings, Yes, especially when
Speaker 3: because of the decline in traditional television, decline in cable homes,
Speaker 3: everyone's down a bit so, you know, Plus we entered
Speaker 3: into our new deals for the next decade, so I
Speaker 3: feel good about that. But I think those narratives become
Speaker 3: a reality to the extent, especially even when we're doing well,
Speaker 3: it's still only a significant a relatively small percentage of
Speaker 3: the population that's watching live games. So there's a lot
Speaker 3: of people out there who may not be fans of
Speaker 3: the NBA and become consumed with that story. And again,
Speaker 3: NBA seems to take a disproportionate amount of that discussion.
Speaker 3: I think maybe because we're so relevant from a societal standpoint.
Speaker 3: Our players have been outspoken, there's been a history of
Speaker 3: activism certain cases in this league. For whatever those reasons,
Speaker 3: I think at the end of the day, my job
Speaker 3: is to find more people who are inclined to want
Speaker 3: to watch live sports, to want to watch basketball, and
Speaker 3: convert them into NBA fans.
Speaker 2: All right, let me.
Speaker 3: I don't want to lose sight of that.
Speaker 2: Let me do rapid fire because there's a few topics here.
Speaker 2: The NIL ruling has made college basketball more of an
Speaker 2: attractive path for athletes in recent years. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that changes allowing players out of high school that
Speaker 2: you will revisit that. But what is is the NC
Speaker 2: DOUBLEA a friend or a foe to the NBA.
Speaker 3: NC DOUBLEA is a great friend. In fact, Charlie Baker,
Speaker 3: who's formed governor of Massachusetts, I've gotten to know well
Speaker 3: over the last couple of years, we're talking about more
Speaker 3: that we can do together. I mean, you remember, in
Speaker 3: the not so old days, if we touched a amateur,
Speaker 3: you know, high school player, we could cause them to
Speaker 3: lose their eligibility. Now, of course, you know, through collectives
Speaker 3: and NIL they're paid. And what we've been talking the
Speaker 3: NCAA about is we should jointly get more involved in
Speaker 3: youth basketball, particularly the training of elite players. The vast
Speaker 3: majority of them we'll never make it to the NBA,
Speaker 3: but we'll play in college. And so we have a
Speaker 3: joint interest not in developing elite players and then for
Speaker 3: the broader base of players. We have a joint interest
Speaker 3: in for young boys and of course young girls, getting
Speaker 3: them to be more active. You know, basketball is a
Speaker 3: great sport to do that, getting them again to love
Speaker 3: the game. Charlie Baker himself was a college player. So
Speaker 3: we're working together. I think on the specifically and I
Speaker 3: own collectives. I think there's work to be done in
Speaker 3: college basketball because just like in the NBA, where over
Speaker 3: successive collective bargaining agreements we've helped to level the playing
Speaker 3: field in terms of competition. We've had six different teams
Speaker 3: when championships over the last six years. At the end
Speaker 3: of the day, we're selling competition, and I think college
Speaker 3: has to work through some issues where now as players
Speaker 3: in essence, through the portal can become essentially free agents
Speaker 3: every year. You know that there's no really real salary structure,
Speaker 3: so you have a lot of real, you know, out
Speaker 3: of whack balance in terms of teams ability to compete.
Speaker 3: And I think for fans of the college game, and
Speaker 3: I'm one of them, at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: you want to see great competition in Division one.
Speaker 2: Will you revisit like the G League. You've got players
Speaker 2: who are just going to the G League. If you
Speaker 2: allow them to come out of high school to the NBA,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be going to the G League.
Speaker 3: I would imagine, well, yes, But in fact, you know,
Speaker 3: back before those court rulings which allowed the collectives in NIL,
Speaker 3: at the urging of Condallisa Rice, who oversaw a commission
Speaker 3: with the NCAA and President Obama to a certain extent,
Speaker 3: we were asked to create a professional track because the
Speaker 3: view was it was unfair to so called force these
Speaker 3: young men to go to college for a year before
Speaker 3: they came into the NBA. So we weren't ready to
Speaker 3: return to eighteen as the mini mage in the NBA.
Speaker 3: We stayed at nineteen. But through the G League we
Speaker 3: created something called Team mcnight, where we were paying players
Speaker 3: several hundred thousand dollars a year in a pro track
Speaker 3: and then come into the NBA. That seems like a
Speaker 3: pittance now based on what players are able to earn
Speaker 3: in Division one through these college programs. And frankly, I
Speaker 3: think the track through these great college programs is better
Speaker 3: than what we were offering them in the G League
Speaker 3: because they have first class training facilities, some of the
Speaker 3: greatest coaches out there, planes, et cetera. That didn't make
Speaker 3: sense in our economic model and still doesn't for the
Speaker 3: G League. So I'm perfectly fine with them going to college.
Speaker 3: And by the way, you know what you've also seen
Speaker 3: with NIL and collective money is there's a big pool
Speaker 3: of international players who would have stayed largely in Europe
Speaker 3: and played but are now coming to play Division one
Speaker 3: basketball because it's a better economic situation for them and
Speaker 3: ultimately a bet probably better development too, if their goal
Speaker 3: is to get into the NBA.
Speaker 2: Give me the wildest thing that you guys have considered.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's always you know, we're going to try this,
Speaker 2: you know, the NFL doing the kickoff the way they did.
Speaker 2: It's pretty crazy that that's what it looks like. Give
Speaker 2: me a this has been discussed, I mean.
Speaker 3: One that's only been discussed a little. I wouldn't put
Speaker 3: it necessarily in the category of being so wild. Is
Speaker 3: potentially two free throws for a foul and a three
Speaker 3: point shot. That's I don't necessarily think I would do
Speaker 3: it in the last two minutes of the game. But
Speaker 3: I think that's something interesting, something else that I'm a
Speaker 3: fan of, and I'm probably in a minority as we
Speaker 3: get more involved in global basketball. The NBA is the
Speaker 3: only league that plays forty eight minutes, and I would
Speaker 3: be I am a fan of four ten minute quarters.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that many others are. I mean, putting
Speaker 3: inside what it means for records and things like that.
Speaker 3: I think that a two hour format for a game
Speaker 3: is more consistent sort of modern television habits. I don't
Speaker 3: think people in arenas aren't asking us to shorten the game,
Speaker 3: but I think as a television program being two hours,
Speaker 3: that's Olympic basketball as being is two hours, you know,
Speaker 3: college basketball courses.
Speaker 2: If you like it, I'd say it has kind of
Speaker 2: a little bit of a push there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's such a dramatic change to the game.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think something like that would have to
Speaker 3: be talked more about over time.
Speaker 2: I mean, incidentally dramatic commissioner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I get it, And I don't know if
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of what baseball did. I'm a baseball fan,
Speaker 3: and I think some of those changes have really increased
Speaker 3: sort of the engagement, the entertainment value of the game,
Speaker 3: and so I'm paying a lot of attention to that.
Speaker 3: And in fact, I've used you know, the pitch clock,
Speaker 3: the sort of the increasing the size of the base,
Speaker 3: et cetera. In meetings at the NBA to say, you know,
Speaker 3: if baseball, which is more locked into tradition, and I
Speaker 3: don't I don't mean that negatively than any other sport.
Speaker 3: And part of what baseball provides is the tradition, the
Speaker 3: legacy that if they're able to make those changes, certainly
Speaker 3: we shouldn't be afraid to look at changes as well. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I also think though we have made a
Speaker 3: series of changes over the years, they haven't been as
Speaker 3: dramatic in many cases. You know, we've we've changed the
Speaker 3: format in the last two minutes of the game so
Speaker 3: we wouldn't have as many stoppages. We have a coaches
Speaker 3: challenge now know we did. We had the hack a
Speaker 3: shack issue. We changed the rule there. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: there's this. We added the cup, you know, which we
Speaker 3: now have. We have a play in tournament. I mean,
Speaker 3: so we've made significant changes.
Speaker 2: I have an idea before I let you go. How
Speaker 2: about we take away the three point line during the
Speaker 2: in season tournament.
Speaker 3: Interesting. I mean it's it's like the issue there.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm not like I like the three point shot. I mean,
Speaker 3: let me take a step back. I mean, if you
Speaker 3: think from when you first started covering the NBA to
Speaker 3: the skill level of big men now, I mean, look
Speaker 3: at Victor Webben Yama, look at Jannis you know, look
Speaker 3: look at Yo Kisch. Look what these guys can do.
Speaker 3: You know, it was it was like the fact that
Speaker 3: they are so skillful that they can shoot from these
Speaker 3: kinds of distances, shoot in the way guards used to
Speaker 3: be able to, like, like, is there too much three
Speaker 3: point shooting in certain situations? Maybe? But I also don't
Speaker 3: want to overreact to what we're seeing in the game
Speaker 3: because the game goes through transitions. I think the game
Speaker 3: is incredible right now, day in day out. I think
Speaker 3: some of the criticism is a bit unfair, and that
Speaker 3: goes back to my earlier point that I think the
Speaker 3: league needs to do a better job teaching about the
Speaker 3: game so that there's real appreciation for what people are
Speaker 3: seeing out there. And again, you know, ratings are fine,
Speaker 3: We have enormous global interest. People like what they're seeing
Speaker 3: right now on the floor, So I don't necessarily buy
Speaker 3: into the premise that it would be a better game
Speaker 3: if you if you eliminated three point shooting.
Speaker 2: How about we make the floor like a pinball machine
Speaker 2: where the three point line lights up, and when it
Speaker 2: lights up, then you know you're able to take threes
Speaker 2: like you could. You could really dress up the floor.
Speaker 2: You guys did a pretty good job at the end season,
Speaker 2: but why don't we make it pinball like I don't know.
Speaker 3: If you remember, but last year at All Star on
Speaker 3: All Star Saturday night, we had literally a lit court. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we've played with things like that. I mean, like
Speaker 3: I have one foot in sort of the traditionalist camp.
Speaker 3: You know, and I really do care about the game,
Speaker 3: and I think it's so special that I think when
Speaker 3: you moved to that place that where it seems too gimmicky,
Speaker 3: and I don't think, and I think what Baseball did?
Speaker 3: They found right down the middle path where they preserved
Speaker 3: what's so great about that game, but found some ways
Speaker 3: to speed it up. I think have been very effective.
Speaker 3: So we're open here. We talk a lot about potential
Speaker 3: change the game. I just add back to some notion
Speaker 3: of a forty point of a forty minute game. I mean,
Speaker 3: because this game is so global, one of the things
Speaker 3: we'd like to see over time is creating a more
Speaker 3: consistent set of rules globally around the game, like you know,
Speaker 3: again the Olympic basketball. I'm sure you watched you know
Speaker 3: on NBC and Peacock the US, Serbia, US France. Those
Speaker 3: people are basketball. Some are saying those are two of
Speaker 3: the best games they ever saw. Concidentally, if you went
Speaker 3: to a forty minute game with the issues around load
Speaker 3: management and resting, it would be the equivalent of I
Speaker 3: don't know the exact math, taking like fifteen games off
Speaker 3: the season. I like that so and I don't think
Speaker 3: most fans would be disappointed if it was a two
Speaker 3: hour presentation instead of a you know, our game is
Speaker 3: actually about two hours and fifteen.
Speaker 2: Well, you're going to find out the reaction the rest
Speaker 2: of the day as this gets posted that you're considering
Speaker 2: ten minute quarters. I gotta go.
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't fully say you asked me for some
Speaker 3: ideas till not quite at that level.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying there's a vote this week, Commissioner. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying social media will look at this and go, hey,
Speaker 2: that sounds great. Now we got guys playing more. Maybe
Speaker 2: the games are more intense and it's forty minute games,
Speaker 2: and it's great for TV, great for everybody. For another day,
Speaker 2: For another day, I have to go.
Speaker 3: Muriel in Jackson Square in New Orleans. Okay, Muriels, I'm
Speaker 3: not sure, in all due respect to your caller, I
Speaker 3: would go to I'd go to New Orleans for sushi.
Speaker 2: Can I drop your name at Muriels.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure it'll be helpful, but absolutely, do.
Speaker 2: You have an open tab at that restaurant?
Speaker 3: I will if you go.
Speaker 2: Okay, awesome, Uh, but I'm not going alone. I'm bringing
Speaker 2: my my, my whole team here. Yes, they're going.
Speaker 3: With longtime listener.
Speaker 2: Day great, great to catch up with you again. Thank you, Commissioner.
Speaker 3: Ye bye bye.
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Speaker 2: A lot of it has been made of the Chiefs,
Speaker 2: their villains, and I keep thinking, are they villains? You know,
Speaker 2: when you talk about a villain, I think about the
Speaker 2: Bad Boys, the Pistons, like they were villains, but they
Speaker 2: embraced it.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: You know, there's certain wrestlers who like being the villain.
Speaker 2: But you know, what is a villain? I have the definition,
Speaker 2: but I want you to hear from Travis Kelsey was
Speaker 2: on his podcast with his brother and talking about embracing
Speaker 2: being a villain in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 5: I love it at one point, at one point in time,
Speaker 5: you know, it wasn't that and.
Speaker 3: You were the sener. You guys are the dollars in
Speaker 3: the NFL.
Speaker 5: I was the do you feel bad for him?
Speaker 3: Guys?
Speaker 5: And you're not the he I'm I'm just I'm enjoying.
Speaker 5: I'm enjoying doing this with the guys together, the guys
Speaker 5: that we have in there, because it's it's like, it
Speaker 5: just makes us even more of a family.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the New Heights podcast with the Brothers. A
Speaker 2: villain is a character person who is intentionally evil or
Speaker 2: harmful to others. Villains can be fictional or based on
Speaker 2: real people. So the intent part of that, are they
Speaker 2: intentionally evil? Are they intentionally good or great? I think
Speaker 2: they came along at a time we were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: somebody other than the Patriots, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it's like, now we're waiting for somebody other than the
Speaker 2: Kansas City Chiefs. But I mean, Patrick Mahomes not a villain. Kelsey,
Speaker 2: Andy Reid, Chris Jones, I don't get it. I think
Speaker 2: we're tired of the story. And that's natural for sports fans.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, somebody else. Boy, we're really rooting for
Speaker 2: Buffalo or we're rooting against Kansas City because we want
Speaker 2: somebody else in there. Buffalo would be great, you know,
Speaker 2: Baltimore would be great. We want somebody else in there.
Speaker 2: This happens with dynasties. We get tired, same stories, same people.
Speaker 2: Everybody's doing commercials. It's a big deal. Every game is
Speaker 2: the nationally televised game. It's the big one on Sunday
Speaker 2: night or Sunday afternoon on Fox or CBS. So we're
Speaker 2: so familiar with this story that that's why we wanted
Speaker 2: something else. Even the Eagles, you know, we had them
Speaker 2: in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. We're
Speaker 2: very familiar with the Eagles. Now you got Saquon Barkley. Okay,
Speaker 2: you can root for them. And I never thought I
Speaker 2: would hear, you know, the national audience saying, yeah, I
Speaker 2: guess I'll root for the Eagles, and it's like Notre
Speaker 2: Dame or Duke Basketball, uh, somebody other than them. Then
Speaker 2: Notre Dame became likable this year. It's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a national audience that's going, hey, I kind of
Speaker 2: like Notre Dame this year. So then I'm not buying.
Speaker 2: But Kansas City should embrace it because it's there, it's real,
Speaker 2: and you know, fans want to see Kansas City. I
Speaker 2: don't know if they want to see the Eagles win
Speaker 2: as much as they want to see Kansas City lose.
Speaker 2: They want to see what happens with Travis Kelce when
Speaker 2: he's walking off the Field, Taylor Swift, Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid.
Speaker 2: But I look at this as extremely skilled football all
Speaker 2: three phases. They just do it right and I can't
Speaker 2: argue about that. I can't complain about that. Do they
Speaker 2: get calls? Is the perception they're getting calls? Yes, but
Speaker 2: it's not their fault. You know, if they take advantage
Speaker 2: of the rules, then change the rules. You know, the Patriots,
Speaker 2: you could say, were villains because they cheated and they
Speaker 2: were involved in a couple of nefarious situations there. Their
Speaker 2: head coach wasn't likable. Brady we embraced because it was
Speaker 2: an underdog story, Julian Edelman, underdogs, like they had so
Speaker 2: many underdog stories. But then we got tired of them,
Speaker 2: and then they're cheating, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: you hated to see Brady's face because the you know,
Speaker 2: the good looking quarterback, got the cheerleader and won the championship.
Speaker 2: Bill Belichick always be even if he won. You know,
Speaker 2: we got tired of all of that. But I view
Speaker 2: them as villains, not the Kansas City chief So if
Speaker 2: it helps the Chiefs and Travis Kelcey and you embrace that,
Speaker 2: then great. But I don't look at them as villains.
Speaker 2: I look at them as one of the great teams
Speaker 2: of all time with what they've done this run, Mahomes
Speaker 2: and what he's done historical Andy Reid, what he's done
Speaker 2: to maybe be He's the guy who couldn't win the
Speaker 2: big game. Remember, couldn't win the big game? And then
Speaker 2: he goes to Kansas City. Huh great, Yeah, maybe you'll
Speaker 2: get to a conference title game. He was good doing
Speaker 2: that in Philadelphia. Now we're looking at him. Man, guy's
Speaker 2: an offensive genius. He should be up there with Shula, Belichick, Lombard,
Speaker 2: I mean, all the greats, and rightfully so. And Mahomes.
Speaker 2: He's going to be the greatest quarterback of all time
Speaker 2: probably when it's all said and done. What did he
Speaker 2: do wrong exactly? I don't know what he did wrong.
Speaker 2: I mean, is he cocky? Does he get calls? Okay,
Speaker 2: that doesn't make him a villain? Now, that can make
Speaker 2: you root against them because they get the calls. You know,
Speaker 2: Brady got called. The greats get calls, or the perception
Speaker 2: is they got a call, and they're always on national TV,
Speaker 2: so you're seeing all this. They don't play one o'clock games,
Speaker 2: not very often. Every game is magnified. Every game Monday
Speaker 2: is a referendum on that game and that team. Yes, Marvin,
Speaker 2: I think for Mahomes, I think it's the people around
Speaker 2: Patrick Mahomes that makes people root against him. It's not
Speaker 2: even Patrick Mahomes himself, it's the people around him. I'll
Speaker 2: just leave it at that. Maybe referencing family members there
Speaker 2: maybe yeah, yeah, But that doesn't make him a villain.
Speaker 2: That doesn't make the Chiefs a villain. But I would
Speaker 2: say most people, if you're not an Eagles fan or
Speaker 2: a Chiefs fan, you're rooting against the Chiefs and the
Speaker 2: Super Bowl. It probably if you did a football map,
Speaker 2: I would guess that most of the states would be rooting,
Speaker 2: maybe not for the Eagles, but against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Pullming, I think your point was right when you
Speaker 6: explain what villain means intentional. The word intentional. If you
Speaker 6: go back to Belichick, especially the last six or seven
Speaker 6: years of that run, he was difficult with the media
Speaker 6: on purpose, and it seemed like he got more difficult
Speaker 6: and it's us against the world, and I'm gonna give
Speaker 6: you a hard time because I've got a handful of rings,
Speaker 6: and he could get away with it so and also
Speaker 6: the cheating accusations, some real, some not with the Patriots,
Speaker 6: that's true.
Speaker 2: Villainin a character in a story who opposes the hero.
Speaker 2: A person who is guilty of or likely to commit
Speaker 2: a crime. A person who is cruel or evil, A
Speaker 2: person who is blamed for a particular evil. Certain villains
Speaker 2: Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Darth Vader, the Wicked Witch of
Speaker 2: the West, the Wicked Witch of the AFC West, Bill
Speaker 2: lame Beer.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: But hey, I don't blame you, embrace it. You might
Speaker 2: as well. Hey, all right now, they can't say nobody
Speaker 2: thought we would be here. You know, it's not one
Speaker 2: of those like their villains are favorites as far as
Speaker 2: you're not an underdog story, because it's hard to hate
Speaker 2: a villain who's an underdog. Yes, yes, Neil, I think
Speaker 2: they've also been preseason betting favorites for like six years
Speaker 2: in a round. Yes, Yes, this isn't one of those
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, heartwarming stories. It's not. But when you
Speaker 2: think about it, Mahomes was nobody in college. Kelsey was
Speaker 2: a former quarterback. He played at Cincinnati. I mean came
Speaker 2: out of nowhere. Nobody knows where Chris Jones went to college.
Speaker 2: I mean that's why when you start to look at
Speaker 2: Isaiah Pacheco went to Rutgers, Tyreek Hilt. Now you know,
Speaker 2: you could maybe not like Tyreek Hill, but they traded
Speaker 2: him away and they did a great job finding Tyreek Hill.
Speaker 2: So I look at that front office unbelievable, plug and
Speaker 2: play unbelievable. And the constant is your GM, your coach,
Speaker 2: and your quarterback and not in that order. It should
Speaker 2: be a story that we embrace or at least we respect.
Speaker 2: But it's almost like, oh God, this is going to
Speaker 2: happen on Super Bowl Sunday. There'll be that moment where,
Speaker 2: oh god, they get all the calls. It's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: And I hate when it happens because then we lose
Speaker 2: sight even leading up to the Super Bowl. This is
Speaker 2: going to be a big storyline next week. Oh the villains,
Speaker 2: people hate us, that's okay? Or people saying, oh, they
Speaker 2: get all the calls? Are they going to change the
Speaker 2: rules in the offseason, Adam Schefter joins us, now, shifty,
Speaker 2: are they going to change the rules? Yes, help is
Speaker 2: on the way, Like that's what it's gonna be. Instead
Speaker 2: of these are two great teams, really really well run.
Speaker 2: When you look at the GMS, the talent both sides
Speaker 2: of the ball. Yetto Chiefs are a one and a
Speaker 2: half point favorite. I mean, this is what you want.
Speaker 2: You want a super Bowl? You know I used to
Speaker 2: cover the Super Bowls when it would be how badly
Speaker 2: is the AFC going to lose? How badly are the
Speaker 2: Broncos going to lose? Oh it's fifty five to ten.
Speaker 2: You want all right, sorry, DoD You want competition. You
Speaker 2: won a great game, and there's so many things at stake.
Speaker 2: What would a Super Bowl do for Jalen Hurts, Nick Sirianni,
Speaker 2: Saquon Barklay. We'll talk about that next hour. Add another
Speaker 2: super Bowl to Andy Reid's resume or Patrick mahomes resume?
Speaker 2: Does Kelsey retire after a super Bowl win? Like, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of great storylines here, And you know there
Speaker 2: are times when I can be a cynic, but you
Speaker 2: know I still love covering sports.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: I I hate being the Oh god, they get all
Speaker 2: the calls, that's not fair. They cheat whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: They spend more money than any but then you lose
Speaker 2: sight of what we grew up wanting, and we took
Speaker 2: for granted there weren't controversies when we were growing up.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anybody said kind of I hate
Speaker 2: the Packers in the late sixties. You're like, damn, they're
Speaker 2: good Kansas City. Man. They got a weird huddle with
Speaker 2: Lenny Dawson and Hanks Traham. But I like him. Joe Namath, Like,
Speaker 2: that's what you grow up with. I'm okay with. You know,
Speaker 2: a guy or a team that you want to beat,
Speaker 2: that they're the team to beat. I'm okay. You know,
Speaker 2: I grew up a UCLA fan, and everybody wanted to
Speaker 2: beat Ucla. But I like the fact that there was
Speaker 2: that one team you wanted to beat. The Cowboys for
Speaker 2: a while, the Packers for a while, the Steelers for
Speaker 2: a while, the Niners for a while. Man, We're so
Speaker 2: lucky to have those years where you saw greatness, true greatness.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Pauline, I want to ask you a back of
Speaker 6: the day question before we break. When Joe Namath was
Speaker 6: going to win the Super Bowl or getting ready to
Speaker 6: win the Super Bowl, was he beloved embraced by the
Speaker 6: national sports fans, or was he like, oh, this cocky
Speaker 6: guy from this upstart league.
Speaker 2: I think that since they were eighteen point underdogs, that
Speaker 2: there was a like a snickering curiosity of damn, can't
Speaker 2: believe he guaranteed they were going to beat the Colts.
Speaker 2: And you know, he had long hair, so he looked
Speaker 2: like he was, you know, the fifth Beatle. But when
Speaker 2: you watched him play at white shoes and then if
Speaker 2: he was not able to play, had this big fur
Speaker 2: white fur coat on, and so there was a curiosity.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if he was warmly embraced. I
Speaker 2: think because I grew up as an AFC AFL fan,
Speaker 2: I should say an AFL fan, so I loved that
Speaker 2: they were wide open football. The NFL was boring. It
Speaker 2: was like three yards here, and here's his sweep for
Speaker 2: four yards and there's a seven yard touchdown. Like it
Speaker 2: was boring. The AFL it was awesome. It was like
Speaker 2: the ABA. It was fun. And then you know, the
Speaker 2: same thing happened in the NBA. The NBA looked at
Speaker 2: the ABA and go, man, they're doing some fun things.
Speaker 2: The NFL did that with the AFL. Bring those teams in,
Speaker 2: they're having fun. The Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, the Jets.
Speaker 2: So you know, this just goes along. You know, this
Speaker 2: is history. Every few years it's that guy or that
Speaker 2: team or both. And that's what's to me great about this.
Speaker 2: It's why I still love coming to work every day.
Speaker 2: You have these stories, they're fun, Embrace them.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
Speaker 1: on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio w APP.
Speaker 2: Jim Gaffigan currently on his Everything Is Wonderful tour. You
Speaker 2: can check out the new special The Skinny, now streaming
Speaker 2: on Hulu as we make way for that former college
Speaker 2: football great Jim Gaffigan back on the program. All the
Speaker 2: memories the older you get, the better you were in college, Jim.
Speaker 7: You know, it's one of those things where I I
Speaker 7: you know, I literally didn't barely played, so but it
Speaker 7: is a nice little fact that is like an asterisk
Speaker 7: next to my name and there's a picture of me
Speaker 7: when I walked on it Purdue. But I was literally
Speaker 7: there for two weeks and now people are like, yeah,
Speaker 7: he the Big ten football player.
Speaker 2: I remember that game he played against Ohio State. He
Speaker 2: was incredible. Jimmy Gaffigan was all over the field.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's just sad that I didn't play in the NFL. Yeah,
Speaker 7: even though I didn't really even play Division one.
Speaker 2: A lot of hairback then too.
Speaker 3: I had some.
Speaker 7: Hair back there, those really good old days of hair
Speaker 7: and you know, energy stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when people see you, Let's say you're walking into
Speaker 2: New York and you know, Sally and Tommy from Tulsa
Speaker 2: come up and go Jim Gaffigan, how much pressure do
Speaker 2: you have to be funny in the moment, Like did
Speaker 2: you have a go to joke or line that you say?
Speaker 7: You know, sometimes people will say you look like Jim Gaffigan,
Speaker 7: and I'll go, I hope I do.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 7: Guy's good luck here, you know. But otherwise, you know,
Speaker 7: usually I find that I get a lot of If
Speaker 7: it's a really beautiful woman that comes up to me
Speaker 7: and has like a certain excitement, they usually always say,
Speaker 7: my grandfather is a big fan. So there's it's you know,
Speaker 7: there's going to be something to take the air out
Speaker 7: of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is there part of you? Some comedians like to
Speaker 2: go up there and kind of in the moment make
Speaker 2: up something or degree of difficulty where they don't want
Speaker 2: to go as scripted. Are you one of those methods comedians?
Speaker 7: You know at different times. I mean that's where I
Speaker 7: think a really good audience, when it's really flowing, that's
Speaker 7: when kind of magic hits. You know. I don't want
Speaker 7: to sound like Bono. You know, it's not like the
Speaker 7: Holy Spirit is coming down and giving me words, but
Speaker 7: there is something of when you're in front of an
Speaker 7: audience that understands your sensibility and you can kind of
Speaker 7: play and it's like joking around with friends. It's yeah,
Speaker 7: it really can be great.
Speaker 2: Give me the joke you wish you had written.
Speaker 7: Oh, I I mean, I love you know. Larry Miller
Speaker 7: had the Five Stages of Drinking, which I think is
Speaker 7: really brilliant. I don't know if you're familiar with that,
Speaker 7: but he also has Larry Miller has a very matter
Speaker 7: of fact delivery. He's kind of one of the best
Speaker 7: from that eighties era. I love George Carlin's Chunk on Suicide,
Speaker 7: which is just so dark and uh so so perfectly
Speaker 7: George carl And he goes right now somewhere someone's getting
Speaker 7: ready to kill themselves, you know what I mean, And
Speaker 7: just he goes through someone trying to plan their own
Speaker 7: suicide and just you know, I can't do it that day,
Speaker 7: I got a meeting with Mavis and stuff like this,
Speaker 7: Mom's coming over. Maybe I should do it when Mom's
Speaker 7: coming over. So it's just really dark and cynical, and
Speaker 7: he does it with such glee. It's so amazing.
Speaker 2: Do you can you give us the five stages of drinking?
Speaker 7: Well, the five stages Larry Miller's Five Stages, which people
Speaker 7: should google. It's because I'm gonna not do it. Justice is,
Speaker 7: it's it's a it's it's familiar. It's like you go,
Speaker 7: you know, you're like you're going to go out with
Speaker 7: friends during the week. You're gonna have a drink, and
Speaker 7: then you'll be home by blank, you know, by eight,
Speaker 7: you'll be in bed by ten, and then before you
Speaker 7: know it, then it's the second stage. You know, it's
Speaker 7: it's midnight and you're like, all right, that's fine. If
Speaker 7: I go home right now, I can get five hours
Speaker 7: of sleep. And then the next stage is like you're
Speaker 7: drinking some blue liquid that you all you know is
Speaker 7: they clean combs with it in the barbershop. And besides,
Speaker 7: you don't even need to sleep. You're gonna tough it. Through.
Speaker 7: Then the next stage is you're driving to Florida, And
Speaker 7: then the next stage is you've met a woman who
Speaker 7: has a tattoo that says something ridiculous and she's the
Speaker 7: most beautiful woman you've ever met. And then then he
Speaker 7: talks about like the last age is when you're you
Speaker 7: leave the bar and the sun's out and it's just,
Speaker 7: you know, you feel like you're walking on the surface
Speaker 7: of the sun. It's it's simply brilliant and neat and
Speaker 7: tidy and encompasses everyone who's had that regret.
Speaker 2: You know, did you get into bad situations habits when
Speaker 2: you're on the road before you got married?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I mean, you know, the for me, I
Speaker 7: actually never really I went through a period where for
Speaker 7: about ten years I didn't I didn't drink or do
Speaker 7: anything because I you know, when I had a day
Speaker 7: job and I was taking acting classes and I was
Speaker 7: doing stand up at night, I would get sick once
Speaker 7: a month. So I was like, I'm just going to
Speaker 7: get rid of drinking, and so I you know, really
Speaker 7: I almost kind of started drinking when I got married.
Speaker 7: But I go through different phases, you know, now I'm
Speaker 7: now I'm I'm a bourbon drinker, and you know that
Speaker 7: would you know ten years ago that would never be
Speaker 7: the case.
Speaker 2: So have you gone on stage having been drinking? No? No,
Speaker 2: I can't really.
Speaker 7: I'm such a low energy guy that I can't really
Speaker 7: even eat that much before I go on stage because
Speaker 7: I'm so slow talking.
Speaker 2: He's Jim Gaffigan, the comedian, actor, writer, producer, author. Damn,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of things there are you truly all
Speaker 2: of those?
Speaker 7: I mean, you know it's you know, you write a book.
Speaker 7: You know it's like, am I an author? Or did I,
Speaker 7: you know, complain about my kids for one hundreds?
Speaker 2: He is currently on his Everything Is Wonderful tour and
Speaker 2: you can also check out his new special The Skinny,
Speaker 2: now streaming on Hulu. How often do your kids your
Speaker 2: wife saying, hey, don't make this part of your act
Speaker 2: because things happen naturally at home where you go.
Speaker 7: That's funny, Yeah, it's there's no. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 7: I never ask, hopefully my kids would care more about
Speaker 7: if I posted a photo that they appeared in then
Speaker 7: me referencing. And I also have five kids, so when
Speaker 7: I reference a son, it can be one of the
Speaker 7: three sons, and or if I reference a kid, it
Speaker 7: can be one of five, so there is plausible deniability
Speaker 7: for each of them. But you know when it comes
Speaker 7: to the wife, that's that's a different thing. And you
Speaker 7: know there is you know, you know the days of
Speaker 7: Henny Youngman, like take my Wife. You know that you
Speaker 7: have to craft it in a way because you know,
Speaker 7: an audience is savvy and you know, a guy complaining
Speaker 7: about his wife is considered hack and people are suspicious
Speaker 7: of it. So but you can craft it in a
Speaker 7: way where you just kind of pile on yourself a
Speaker 7: little bit and then you can throw up, you know,
Speaker 7: something at your wife here and there.
Speaker 2: First comedian you saw and you said, that's what I
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 7: I think I remember seeing Jonathan Winters on I think
Speaker 7: MERV Griffin or something like that. But yeah, there was
Speaker 7: something really funny about him. You know, it was all
Speaker 7: self contained and it wasn't the jokes were kind of
Speaker 7: hidden that I thought was really interesting, But I don't know,
Speaker 7: sometimes it's it's a blur, you know. And also being
Speaker 7: from Indiana seeing Letterman on TV, it just he would
Speaker 7: hit him and John Mellencamp were the only people that
Speaker 7: like were from Indiana that it seemed to do anything.
Speaker 7: Obviously it's not true, but like to the teenage meet,
Speaker 7: it was like, wow, those are the two guys that
Speaker 7: got out.
Speaker 2: What was it like the first time you were on Letterman?
Speaker 7: Oh, it's you know, it was you know, the business
Speaker 7: has changed so much, but it was the threshold of
Speaker 7: status among uh, particularly New York comedians. But I would
Speaker 7: say comedians at that time. It was, you know, the
Speaker 7: credit that everyone wanted because if you you know, the
Speaker 7: first ten years I was doing stand up. Obviously it's
Speaker 7: different today, but if you said you were a stand up,
Speaker 7: they would say have you been on Letterman or the
Speaker 7: Tonight Show? And if you said no, they'd kind of
Speaker 7: look at you like, oh, uh, you're crazy, you know
Speaker 7: what I mean? Or you're just saying that you're a comedian.
Speaker 7: So it gave you legitimacy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then to hear Dave laugh if you're a
Speaker 2: stand up comedian, or if Johnny Carson brought the comedian
Speaker 2: over and you got to sit down next to Johnny,
Speaker 2: then you had made it like now, yeah, he had
Speaker 2: separated you absolutely.
Speaker 7: And I feel like I was the last one of
Speaker 7: my comedy peer group that really got a late Night Show,
Speaker 7: and it was Letterman, and I was invited over to
Speaker 7: sit on the couch afterwards, and I got a development
Speaker 7: deal Dave and Worldwide Pants and Robert Att gave me
Speaker 7: a development deal. And that really shifted a lot of things,
Speaker 7: because if Letterman thought you were funny, then people in
Speaker 7: the entertainment industry were much more open to viewing you
Speaker 7: as talented, because it's the entertainment industry is so risk averse.
Speaker 7: Like we have this notion that people are discovered in
Speaker 7: soda shops, but like really that, you know, people try
Speaker 7: and eliminate any risk.
Speaker 2: Obviously, we'll have fun on the road. Jim Gaffigan a
Speaker 2: man of many hats. Well he's got one hat on,
Speaker 2: but he's a comedian, actor, writer, producer, author, and a
Speaker 2: football legend. The new special The Skinny now streaming on Hulu.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jim, thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: That's Jim Gaffigan.