Speaker 1: Last episode, we took a look back at what it
Speaker 1: meant to be a college football fan in the weirdest
Speaker 1: year on record.
Speaker 2: Last year, I was in on the football and out
Speaker 2: on the storylines. You know, like so many of the
Speaker 2: storylines were so dour, and I just really didn't want
Speaker 2: to follow along.
Speaker 1: I just sort of mailed in my fandom last year.
Speaker 3: It was like a weird feeling to get excited but
Speaker 3: also keep this part of your mind to that you're
Speaker 3: just kind of.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know if I should be enjoying it
Speaker 1: this much. Now, let's close the book on twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: From the solid verbal, this is a special production, so
Speaker 1: now what Welcome back. My name is Ty Hildebrandt. I
Speaker 1: am joined as always by my co host and friend
Speaker 1: Dan Rubinstein, and on today's show we close the book
Speaker 1: on twenty twenty. We look ahead to twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and we talk about what we as fans can take
Speaker 1: from that experience, apply to this coming season and hopefully
Speaker 1: have the best season ever. Dan, how are you?
Speaker 4: I'm great, and I'm hoping for the best, because not
Speaker 4: just is the world going through hopefully positive changes, at
Speaker 4: least the college football world at least this country. Hopefully
Speaker 4: everybody continues to move in a positive direction as it
Speaker 4: relates to coronavirus pandemic and everything that has been affected
Speaker 4: by it. But I'm encouraged that we will have a
Speaker 4: relatively normal season, relatively normal season from the fan standpoint.
Speaker 4: And I'm curious though, because that's just a short term view,
Speaker 4: because as the college football world gets back to quote
Speaker 4: unquote normal, it's also an experience that is continually getting
Speaker 4: more and more different than what we're used to, right,
Speaker 4: like the transferring and the NIL stuff and TV deals
Speaker 4: and commissioner going in and out, like it's a sport
Speaker 4: going through a lot of changes, the postseason changes, Like,
Speaker 4: I'm curious to see if everybody's just going to be
Speaker 4: so happy to be along for the ride that they
Speaker 4: just roll with everything.
Speaker 1: My assumption is they won't, because.
Speaker 4: That the college football fan experience is very much aligned
Speaker 4: with not rolling with everything. So I'm just I'm exceedingly
Speaker 4: curious about how we all ride this wave.
Speaker 1: It will be interesting to see what happens. As we
Speaker 1: said in part one, we had a trusted panel overballers
Speaker 1: with us on a Zoom call to discuss all things
Speaker 1: related to the fan experience, and one of the topics
Speaker 1: that came up was that whole situation of unrest. Again,
Speaker 1: think back a year. We have a pandemic, we have
Speaker 1: an election, we have social unrest in this country, a
Speaker 1: lot of things going on, and it just sort of
Speaker 1: all spilled out into the college football world on some
Speaker 1: level when it came to are they going to play
Speaker 1: a season or are they not going to play a season?
Speaker 1: Who is the final voice in the room. Is it safe?
Speaker 1: Is it not safe? I thought one of our verbawlers
Speaker 1: put it best.
Speaker 3: Will like the vitriol that you saw last fall like
Speaker 3: disaster to stick around, because that, to me, that makes
Speaker 3: the game itself like less fun.
Speaker 1: It did make it less fun, and it was something
Speaker 1: that we had to deal with as fans to great extent,
Speaker 1: I know for me personally, and this is something that
Speaker 1: came up also in our panel. I relied less on
Speaker 1: social media to get my information on game day and
Speaker 1: to build context for our podcasts. In general. I used
Speaker 1: a lot less social because there was just so much
Speaker 1: going on, random infighting because of an election, We've got
Speaker 1: major cultural tensions because of the death of George Floyd,
Speaker 1: and obviously widespread pain and suffering because of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I tuned out social as best I could, only to
Speaker 1: stay seen and that extended to game days for me.
Speaker 1: And I feel like if we're looking to maybe tune
Speaker 1: out some of that vitriol or some of that conflict
Speaker 1: that we don't need any more of. That is something
Speaker 1: that I'm going to take with me into twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: maybe focus a little bit more on the game in
Speaker 1: front of me on the big screen, and aser Verballer
Speaker 1: said a little bit less on the small screen.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of really positive things about following along
Speaker 4: and the conversation online during games, and people are posting
Speaker 4: clips of amazing catches, or people are posting like an
Speaker 4: amazing stat that this team hasn't done this since this year, whatever.
Speaker 4: There's really interesting context to be had. But with everything
Speaker 4: sort of melding together, it's easy to get your brain
Speaker 4: scrambled a little bit if you're paying too much attention
Speaker 4: to your laptop or your phone. So now I get
Speaker 4: where you're coming from that, like you just you have
Speaker 4: to be discerning about how you consume on Saturdays or
Speaker 4: really any other day of the week. Who you are following,
Speaker 4: how you are following how often you are reading that
Speaker 4: kind of thing, Like, you need to look out for
Speaker 4: yourself as well, and if football is that escape for you,
Speaker 4: let it be an escape. Trust the escape.
Speaker 1: Lesson number one for me was to try and tune
Speaker 1: out noise and enjoy the game in front of me.
Speaker 1: Lesson number two perhaps goes without saying. Lesson number two
Speaker 1: is that in a year where it was really difficult
Speaker 1: to focus on some of these topics that would otherwise
Speaker 1: bring us great joy, the fact that it seems like
Speaker 1: we're going to have a level of normalcy in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one is incredibly exciting. It's incredibly exciting to look ahead.
Speaker 1: We had countless comments from folks who are already starting
Speaker 1: to get into it, maybe even earlier than before this year.
Speaker 2: You know, going into the summer, I found myself definitely
Speaker 2: following a little bit more closely, you know, outside of
Speaker 2: the raw football product, like following a little bit more
Speaker 2: on recruiting, Following what they're doing in terms of amenities
Speaker 2: for the stadium, you know, seeing what's happening with the
Speaker 2: you know, athletic department as a whole. I've definitely found
Speaker 2: myself a little bit more back into that, Like I
Speaker 2: normally would be.
Speaker 1: And this support something that I think we've been saying
Speaker 1: on the show now for a while that even though
Speaker 1: we had a really goofy twenty twenty, we anticipate that
Speaker 1: it's going to be all gas, no breaks in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. People are going to be into it earlier
Speaker 1: than usual. They're going to be following that narrative more
Speaker 1: intensely than ever before. We had a comment hear from Andrew.
Speaker 3: I think over the past month, I've really caught the fever,
Speaker 3: I guess, and I'm baiyah, I am ready and like
Speaker 3: have caught up on all the recruiting.
Speaker 1: We are recording this in May, Dan, and I know
Speaker 1: from looking at our numbers typically May is not one
Speaker 1: of the hot months for college football. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm picking up that sentiment across the board that May
Speaker 1: is not too early in twenty twenty one to fully
Speaker 1: re engage with college football. No.
Speaker 4: I mean, we do this show all year every year,
Speaker 4: so you know, it's one of those things we're engaging
Speaker 4: with the sport all year long, even if the news
Speaker 4: that comes out isn't all that plentiful. But yeah, it's
Speaker 4: hard to paint an entire group of a sports fans
Speaker 4: with a broad brush, because I still think some people
Speaker 4: are going to be I think a minority of people
Speaker 4: are going to be hesitant about bigger gatherings, be it
Speaker 4: watch parties or attending games or traveling to attend games.
Speaker 4: But I think, by and large, my hunch is you
Speaker 4: are more likely than not to be more engaged than
Speaker 4: you were last year around this time or even June July, August,
Speaker 4: when there's media days, when camp opens, when more and
Speaker 4: more stories are coming out about things that are going
Speaker 4: to happen during the season with your favorite team or
Speaker 4: a conference or anything like that. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 4: majority of people are ready to exhale and la.
Speaker 1: Loose, even just from the standpoint of paying attention, even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't translate to people going out to the stadium.
Speaker 1: I think there is definitely an element here of not
Speaker 1: realizing what you had until it was gone or until
Speaker 1: was not itself a slim down diet version of itself.
Speaker 1: And so I would expect that we're going to see
Speaker 1: just intense fervor for college football in a way that
Speaker 1: we haven't seen in generations. In twenty twenty one. That's
Speaker 1: less than two for me, We did talk specifically to
Speaker 1: that point of are you gonna go out to the games, like,
Speaker 1: what's what's that going to look like? I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to a big game to the first weekend and I'm
Speaker 1: not looking back like.
Speaker 3: I'm head first absolutely all on into the season.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's one or the other. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're going to have a swath of folks who
Speaker 1: are not comfortable yet with that, and then on the
Speaker 1: polar opposite side, you're going to have folks like our
Speaker 1: verballer who are just intensely ready to get in there,
Speaker 1: go to the stadium, pack it in, cheer for your team,
Speaker 1: and carry on as normal.
Speaker 4: Well, think about how much more information we have now,
Speaker 4: even a few months after the season, just between vaccinations,
Speaker 4: between just more and more science coming out. It's just
Speaker 4: it's going to fill people with a confidence that they
Speaker 4: just didn't have. So much was unknown, and so much changes,
Speaker 4: and so much is added to our our knowledge base
Speaker 4: every day, every hour, every week, whatever, and so it's
Speaker 4: a huge, huge deal. We were trying to form opinions
Speaker 4: with very little known about how to combat travel gatherings,
Speaker 4: you know, masks, things of that nature, and obviously now vaccines.
Speaker 4: So the fact that people are armed with so much
Speaker 4: more knowledge, I think is just it's beyond meaningful at
Speaker 4: this point. The question to me is, it's not like
Speaker 4: and this is a broader conversation, we can touch on
Speaker 4: it a little. It's not like college football. The sport
Speaker 4: was in a great place attendance wise. So maybe this
Speaker 4: is a shot in the arm, partial pun intended for
Speaker 4: attending games live because we're so desperate to be in
Speaker 4: person with people and to yell in person, and to tailgate,
Speaker 4: and to hear a marching band in person, and to
Speaker 4: kick the pole at USC and all the fun traditions.
Speaker 4: But I wonder if it's short lived. I wonder if
Speaker 4: things sort of go back to the way they were
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, eighteen nineteen in terms of the TV product
Speaker 4: has gotten so good, the pain of parking and you know,
Speaker 4: finding reasonably priced tickets and going to a stadium that
Speaker 4: there aren't enough bathrooms or the catwalks are cramped and
Speaker 4: there's no Wi Fi or phone signal or anything like that.
Speaker 4: I wonder if we get back to that less ideal
Speaker 4: version of normal as well, or if schools are going
Speaker 4: to double down and really embrace the fact that we
Speaker 4: prove being together in a stadium more than ever before.
Speaker 4: That to me is interesting question wise.
Speaker 1: I think for sure, in the short term we're going
Speaker 1: to see an influx in folks who want to go out.
Speaker 1: We're going to see higher than usual ticket prices on
Speaker 1: game day on stub Hub. There will be demand for
Speaker 1: these tickets. And I don't care what school you will
Speaker 1: see demand. What happens though in twenty twenty two remains
Speaker 1: to be seen. Will it go back to the place
Speaker 1: where Dennis Dodd is writing about SEC attendance. What do
Speaker 1: you think? I think eventually it will get back to
Speaker 1: that place. I don't know if it's going to occur
Speaker 1: just after one season. I could see this taking a
Speaker 1: while to get out of everyone's system.
Speaker 4: It's a question of the sports health in general, where
Speaker 4: people believe playoff participants are kind of a foregone conclusion
Speaker 4: right now, where you sometimes you get sort of that
Speaker 4: wild car team that isn't used to being in that conversation,
Speaker 4: like LSU was a couple of years ago that was
Speaker 4: just lightning in a bottle. But by and large, the
Speaker 4: postseason of the top of the sport has looked kind
Speaker 4: of similar for a few years now, and I don't
Speaker 4: know if it's a direct relationship, is a correlation causation thing,
Speaker 4: but depending on what the postseason looks like, depending on
Speaker 4: how well schools and stadiums invest in the fan experience
Speaker 4: and making things as comfortable as possible, because for a
Speaker 4: long time they didn't have to. People just always bought
Speaker 4: tickets and showed up and tailgated and yelled at the
Speaker 4: refs and did everything that comes with the territory of
Speaker 4: attending a game. I sincerely wonder and there is an
Speaker 4: opportunity to be had. There's a financial investment needed, but
Speaker 4: there's an opportunity to be had as fans come back,
Speaker 4: for fans to come back and see how much better
Speaker 4: the stadium and in person experience is now. I don't
Speaker 4: know if the funds are there for a lot of
Speaker 4: these places to make those investments, but the opportunity is
Speaker 4: there right now to double down on how excited people
Speaker 4: are about attending names.
Speaker 1: We shall see what happens, but I think that is
Speaker 1: one of the other takeaways for me in talking with
Speaker 1: folks that of course there will be some hesitancy about
Speaker 1: going back to the stadium, but we are going to
Speaker 1: see a great number of folks who are on the
Speaker 1: complete opposite end, and they are just chomping at the bit,
Speaker 1: champing at the bit, champing to get out there and
Speaker 1: cheer on their favorite teams. What other takeaways do you have, Dan.
Speaker 4: That people want to feel okay about watching football. I
Speaker 4: think a lot of people felt fine about watching football
Speaker 4: last year. But I think if you look at the
Speaker 4: totality of college football fans, you know, some people felt
Speaker 4: that there should have been a spring season and it
Speaker 4: should have been pushed back to where we did know
Speaker 4: more and that would have been the safer route to go.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of those people are going
Speaker 4: to feel a lot better about watching, engaging with the sport,
Speaker 4: going to game games, listening to podcasts, watching game day
Speaker 4: things like that than ever before. I am looking forward
Speaker 4: to seeing the I mean I mentioned the overall health
Speaker 4: of the sport and just how people feel about a
Speaker 4: sport that's still changing a lot. We're seeing nil laws
Speaker 4: across different states and conversations about Congress getting involved, and
Speaker 4: I'm curious to see how people once they are fully
Speaker 4: back in with the sport and looking at message boards
Speaker 4: and you know, making their opinions known among their friends
Speaker 4: and online. I'm curious to see what the long term
Speaker 4: health of the sport looks like with a lot of
Speaker 4: the horrors of twenty twenty behind us.
Speaker 1: I definitely noticed as well that just in talking with
Speaker 1: our panel, even in talking with some of our previous
Speaker 1: interview subjects, that source of conflict was a through line.
Speaker 1: Everybody felt very conflicted about this season. Even the people
Speaker 1: who wanted to play the season felt conflicted about some
Speaker 1: element of it. So to be able to go into
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one with hopefully most of that behind us
Speaker 1: is definitely a wanted need from the fan base, from
Speaker 1: the college football universe as a whole. People want to
Speaker 1: be past that. They don't want to have to deal
Speaker 1: with that baggage anymore. One of the other big takeaways
Speaker 1: for me, Dan and this goes back to this whole
Speaker 1: idea to do a so Now What series. Looking back
Speaker 1: when we originally envisioned this subject back in late November
Speaker 1: early December, the hope, the intent was that our part
Speaker 1: two would always feature a great deal of lessons learned.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we ever really got there. I
Speaker 1: think we found it. On a personal level, people learned
Speaker 1: things about themselves, what it meant to be cooped up,
Speaker 1: what it meant to be watching games at home alone,
Speaker 1: away from their friends. But in neither the conference show,
Speaker 1: nor the PAC twelve show where we talked about players
Speaker 1: and coaches, nor the broadcasting show, nor this one, frankly,
Speaker 1: did we learn a whole lot that we can take
Speaker 1: with us into twenty twenty one and beyond. And so
Speaker 1: I guess the big thing that I've learned is that,
Speaker 1: more than anything, people just want to forget about this.
Speaker 1: People are just done with this, for better or worse.
Speaker 1: That is the sentiment that I think rang the most true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think a lot of the lessons are probably
Speaker 4: going to come out of the fact that we learned
Speaker 4: a lot more about the inner workings of the sport
Speaker 4: and how administrators and coaches and players are or are
Speaker 4: not able to navigate serious challenges. And we saw discord
Speaker 4: in the Big ten, and we saw certain conferences much
Speaker 4: more on the same page in terms of how things
Speaker 4: should operate, whether they should play, how stadiums should be.
Speaker 4: And that's a huge lesson about who's on the same
Speaker 4: page and who's not. I thought a huge lesson was
Speaker 4: knowing that the players had the quietest voice in this all,
Speaker 4: that they were able to make their voices heard, And
Speaker 4: I think moving forward, that's a huge deal.
Speaker 1: Trevor Lawrence justin fields guys with a lot to lose.
Speaker 1: I think it's a huge deal.
Speaker 4: I think it's a huge deal that is not going away,
Speaker 4: no matter how badly some people want it to and
Speaker 4: have the conversation strictly be about football. I think there's
Speaker 4: an interesting lesson about players' ability to get message out
Speaker 4: that I think is a huge, huge deal that I
Speaker 4: don't think is going to go away. So that to
Speaker 4: me is also fascinating.
Speaker 1: And fans responding to it, frankly, because without the reception
Speaker 1: from the college football world, none of it goes anywhere anyway.
Speaker 1: The fact that it was met with the reception it
Speaker 1: was was a turning point in many ways, and a
Speaker 1: good one at that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there is going to be a certain
Speaker 4: amount of accountability that didn't exist in the sport before
Speaker 4: because of how transparent things can be, both with reporting,
Speaker 4: with social media and with just the inspiration to make
Speaker 4: certain truths known. So that to me is going to
Speaker 4: be an ongoing element of all of this. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot to unpack with twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Tie that you know is just it's going to play out,
Speaker 4: not just over this offseason, but years to come.
Speaker 1: I am ready to close the book on twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: How about you as am? I?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I absolutely am. It was a year i'd I'd
Speaker 4: rather forget in terms of my own selfish personal fandom.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to So Now What, our limited run
Speaker 1: series taking a look back and a look ahead. A
Speaker 1: special thank you to our eschemed panel Overballers Andrew Andrew,
Speaker 1: Dan Cole, Taylor, Nathan Mark and Squishy. To close the
Speaker 1: book on twenty and So Now What. Head on over
Speaker 1: to verballers dot com for our live discord chat on
Speaker 1: Friday night, June the fourth. While you're there, you can
Speaker 1: also find audio and video versions of the interviews we
Speaker 1: use to make this series. Thank you again for your support,
Speaker 1: Stay safe, and as always, stay solid.