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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access

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Speaker 1: by clicking the link in the description to this episode.

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Speaker 1: Very Pleased this afternoon to be joined by Beaumani Jones,

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Speaker 1: a award winning sports journalist.

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Speaker 2: Welcome, hey Man, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: You bet so beaumni. We think in the country today,

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Speaker 1: you look around a lot of division in America. People

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Speaker 1: are at each other's throats. Trust has collapsed in nearly

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Speaker 1: every major institution that you can think of. But sports

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Speaker 1: still has the capacity to unify people.

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Speaker 2: It does. And what is interesting though about that? And

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Speaker 2: I think you hit on a really big one with trust.

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Speaker 2: And I've been thinking about that a lot. Like when

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Speaker 2: I was in graduate school at Clairemont Graduate University. The

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Speaker 2: first thing that really touched on when I got there

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Speaker 2: that I wasn't like truly expecting to think about in

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Speaker 2: terms of economics, it's just kind of the importance of trust,

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Speaker 2: and like the people have to trust institutions in order

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Speaker 2: for them to be able to function, and then once

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Speaker 2: they believe that they don't, then all bets are off,

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Speaker 2: and I think that there's a quaintness in a way

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Speaker 2: to sports where you know, the bottom line is very

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Speaker 2: easy to understand. Conceptually, you get it, we know what

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Speaker 2: is and is not fair. But on the other side,

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Speaker 2: you know, these are a billion dollar businesses that are

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Speaker 2: also playing by a lot of the rot that we

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Speaker 2: see in a lot of the other places. And so

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Speaker 2: what's happening now with sports, and particularly the coverage of

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Speaker 2: it as much as anything else, is trying to keep

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Speaker 2: everything on the field as much as possible because that's

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Speaker 2: the place where the cynicism is lowest. But we're also

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Speaker 2: trying to get you to do that while advertising gambling

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Speaker 2: to you at every turn, which is the moment that

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Speaker 2: you realize that this is not all fun and games.

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Speaker 2: So I think sports are really, in a lot of

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Speaker 2: ways at a tipping point right now, at least in

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Speaker 2: terms is the way that the public views them, and

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Speaker 2: I think that's in large part where I think an

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Speaker 2: example of what I think people need to worry about,

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Speaker 2: and what we talk about here with trust, is that

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Speaker 2: sports fandom among younger people is declining, and being a

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Speaker 2: fan of sports fundamentally requires a lot of belief and

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Speaker 2: if we are at a time where belief is at

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Speaker 2: its lowest, and that is something that I think the

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Speaker 2: sports people have to be very, very concerned about. Is

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Speaker 2: this this great, macro level fundamental idea of belief And

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Speaker 2: if you think it doesn't affect this world, I think

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Speaker 2: they're wrong. I just think the creep is going to

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Speaker 2: be a little bit slower talk.

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Speaker 1: About that is What do you mean by belief? What

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Speaker 1: does it mean to believe in a team? I'm a

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Speaker 1: New York I'm a New York Jet fan, so I

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Speaker 1: think I know what you mean because I believe every

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Speaker 1: every late summer this time that they're going to be

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Speaker 1: in the super Bowl, even though I know they never

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Speaker 1: will be. I guess that's belief. But what do you

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Speaker 1: mean by belief?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it spreads into a few different directions.

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Speaker 2: Like I really got to thinking about this. I was

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Speaker 2: watching Brett Morgan's David Bowie Died moon Age day Dream

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Speaker 2: that was running on HBO, and it starts with this quote.

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Speaker 2: I think it's a quote from Bowie, but I guess

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Speaker 2: this is the idea that everybody gets to a point

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Speaker 2: where they realize that nothing really matters. You have to

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Speaker 2: decide why it is that you are going to continue

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Speaker 2: into pursuing this world. Now, I would make the argument

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Speaker 2: that maybe there's not an objective standard for something that matters,

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Speaker 2: but everybody's got something that they believe that they matter,

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Speaker 2: that they believe matters. But you could almost look at

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Speaker 2: it somewhat like we to a degree arbitrarily pick these

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Speaker 2: things that were going to put our faith in that

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Speaker 2: no matter how many times we get disappointed by something,

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Speaker 2: we still lean in on something like it's something that

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Speaker 2: of course is huge as Religion is an example of this. Right,

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Speaker 2: if you ask people to tie it to something logical,

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Speaker 2: it probably falls apart, but that misses the point. People

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Speaker 2: need that thing to believe in, and they choose that

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Speaker 2: the ethos that's around, in the mythos that's around those

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Speaker 2: religions are going to be the things that they believe in.

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Speaker 2: With sports, I think part of it comes down to

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Speaker 2: believing in teams and just this idea that one day

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Speaker 2: it's going to get better. That's why Jets fans keep

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Speaker 2: coming back every year for Luci to portera football on them. Right,

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Speaker 2: it never matters, never fails, but you keep coming back

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Speaker 2: because for whatever reason you've chosen that you want to

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Speaker 2: believe that this thing is going to work out. I

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Speaker 2: also think that if we took belief and looked at

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Speaker 2: it in a broader sense, that the belief in kind

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Speaker 2: of the principles and fundamentals of like things that sound corny,

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Speaker 2: like fair play in the likes. I think that for

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Speaker 2: a lot of people, it's important to believe that those

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Speaker 2: things matter that much in that sports are the reflections

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Speaker 2: are those things. But if you get to a place

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Speaker 2: the citizensen where you don't think anything's actually going to

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Speaker 2: work out, they're getting into sports could be a little

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Speaker 2: difficult because that's so much of what It's what keeps

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Speaker 2: people around. It's what stops it from simply being oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm watching this thing because it's all on to being

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Speaker 2: something that people like choose to invest their time and

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Speaker 2: resources into.

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Speaker 1: There was such a red line growing up. I'm fifty

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Speaker 1: two on gambling in sports, right, it was away from

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Speaker 1: the leagues. Pete Rose, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean you look at you look at.

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Speaker 1: Society, American society. I mean you look at Trump, the

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Speaker 1: one guy that there's no forgiveness for death penalty forever.

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Speaker 1: They even let one of the manson killers out of

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Speaker 1: out of prison, but Pete Rose banned for life. To

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Speaker 1: what degree do you think sports in America risks really

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Speaker 1: becoming the front the facade for the gambling industry? And

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Speaker 1: how how do you process that when you think about

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Speaker 1: it through the prism of faith and belief, Like you

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Speaker 1: just just talked about, do you do you think professional

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Speaker 1: sports is heading towards the iceberg with regard to regard

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Speaker 1: to gambling. You just had a player betting on betting

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Speaker 1: on games that he was playing on. He won't be

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Speaker 1: the last one. I suspect, and I wonder what you

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Speaker 1: think happens to sports into the integrity of these games

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Speaker 1: over the medium and long term.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like we haven't had the giant gambling scandal yet, right,

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Speaker 2: Like we've had these stories like what popped up with

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Speaker 2: the State of Iowa doing his investigation to find of

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Speaker 2: the players that and Iowa State had gambled. But the

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Speaker 2: most disturbing thing in that was that a kicker for

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Speaker 2: Iowa was betting on the under. For people who don't

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Speaker 2: participate in sports gambling, there's a number that you can

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Speaker 2: bet on for total points that will be scored in

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Speaker 2: a game, and you could pick if it's going to

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Speaker 2: be over or under the kicker who exists at the

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Speaker 2: margins right three points at a time, one point here,

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Speaker 2: three points there, all of this stuff betting on the under.

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Speaker 2: You can obviously see the conflict that is created by

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Speaker 2: this sort of thing. And I think that what the

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Speaker 2: leagues are hoping for as it relates to the integrity

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Speaker 2: and it goes to players and the likes, is that

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Speaker 2: there will be such a level of monitoring because there

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Speaker 2: is regulation, that they'll catch anybody who engages in it,

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Speaker 2: and therefore the threat of being caught will then prevent

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Speaker 2: people from engaging in gambling. Now, maybe that argument will

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Speaker 2: work for a certain class, a professional, but college students

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Speaker 2: are the single dumbest people on the face of planet Earth.

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Speaker 2: There are other people that are dumber than college students,

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Speaker 2: but they got just enough reason to believe that they're

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Speaker 2: smarter than they are while also still being stupid because

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Speaker 2: they're at the incredibly stupid age that the chances of

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Speaker 2: somebody getting in over their skis and everything that can

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Speaker 2: come from that, it's so right there, and it's so

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Speaker 2: readily apparent that at some point you're I'm going to

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Speaker 2: have some things that come up like you had in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties, where people are gonna have like giant

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Speaker 2: gambling scandals that come Now, does it take us toward

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Speaker 2: an iceberg in professional sports? I think it's something that

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Speaker 2: needs to be considered, right, I don't know, and I can't.

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Speaker 2: I'm not so sure that, oh, this is the guaranteed

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Speaker 2: ending of this, right. I got some other things that

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Speaker 2: in different areas I think might be that. But I

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Speaker 2: definitely think it's something that they have to be concerned with.

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Speaker 2: But the reason I think they have to be concerned

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Speaker 2: with it is that nobody came here for the gambling. Right.

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Speaker 2: Once you get into sports, you find out that gambling

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Speaker 2: is there, and then maybe that you know, becomes the

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Speaker 2: way that you want to engage with the product. But

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Speaker 2: the things that have always appealed to people about sports

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Speaker 2: have nothing to do with gambling. And so treating the

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Speaker 2: average sports fan is though he is a gambler, if

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Speaker 2: it is a to walk the person into gambling or

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Speaker 2: b because you legitimately believe that there's the profile of

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Speaker 2: the person who is consuming the product, I don't think

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Speaker 2: that's right. Like Mark Liebovitz wrote a book called Brand NFL,

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Speaker 2: which I think is a really good one for anybody

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Speaker 2: to check out to understand the way the NFL has

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Speaker 2: solved itself over decades. And the one thing that the

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Speaker 2: NFL found was when they wrapped themselves in the flag,

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Speaker 2: people loved it, right. That is why the NFL above

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Speaker 2: all the other sports. I mean, granted also part of

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Speaker 2: his outsoorce stadiums and all this, but all the flyovers

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Speaker 2: and all the military stuff and everything else that's heavier

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Speaker 2: in the NFL, they lean in on it because they

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Speaker 2: found that it was great for business. People believe in America, right,

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Speaker 2: Like red, white and blue with stripes and everything else.

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Speaker 2: Those are the things that people believe in. And I

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Speaker 2: think that is an example of the way that sports

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Speaker 2: at its most successful and popular is wrapped in belief.

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Speaker 2: Now the way tho that the flag and all those

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Speaker 2: things is applied in sports, that's an entirely different discussion,

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Speaker 2: but I think it speaks to the fact that people

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Speaker 2: want something media around it to give it a feeling

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Speaker 2: of significance, and gambling does not feel significant. In fact,

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Speaker 2: the whole point of it is that it is not significant.

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Speaker 2: Except the problem is once you go too far, it

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Speaker 2: gets really significant, really fast.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think when you talk about the flag

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Speaker 1: and the in the NFL, why do you think it

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Speaker 1: is in this country that when black athletes took a knee.

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Speaker 1: You can look at, for example, the protest at the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight Olympics during the playing of the national

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Speaker 1: anthem with the black athlete who had one one gold

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Speaker 1: and silver who were standing on the on the podium.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not I'm not recalling your names right now.

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Speaker 2: What Tommy John Carlos, what struck.

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Speaker 1: Me about this protest cycle? In this moment in time,

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Speaker 1: there was not one person, not one corporate leader, not

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Speaker 1: one political leader, who went out and explained that in

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Speaker 1: this country we have something called the First Amendment and

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Speaker 1: that allows every citizen, of which those athletes and players are,

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Speaker 1: to protest. Now, personally, what I would have said is

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Speaker 1: to an athlete that Martin Luther King understood that he

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Speaker 1: marched under the American flag. He rallied people to that

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Speaker 1: cause because people do like their country. It's not great

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Speaker 1: in terms of bringing people to your cause, but you're

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Speaker 1: making a point, you're protesting, that's your god given right.

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Speaker 1: And nobody talked about the values and the ideas and

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Speaker 1: the ideals that the flag is supposed to represent. In

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Speaker 1: that in that moment, just a complete desert in that.

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Speaker 1: What what do you what do you make of that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that that whole time to me was very interesting,

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Speaker 2: like as I was observing getting you know, starting with

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Speaker 2: Colin Kaepernick and everything that happened after that, and really

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Speaker 2: what I think extends into twenty twenty and George Floyd

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Speaker 2: and the reactions that you saw there where you saw

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Speaker 2: the players actually get Roder Goodell even though it looked

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Speaker 2: like a hostage to make a video and say that

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Speaker 2: the NFL opposes things like systemic racism and everything else. Right, Like,

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Speaker 2: it was a really interesting epoch of time that went together.

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Speaker 2: But I hadn't thought about it until you said that.

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Speaker 2: But you're absolutely correct that no corporate person came out

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Speaker 2: and said such things. The closest you got was Nike.

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Speaker 2: But they were doing that to sell their product, right

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Speaker 2: Like they felt at that point that it was good

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Speaker 2: good for their branding. And I think corporate thinking typically

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Speaker 2: is to not offend right. It is rarely to like

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Speaker 2: fully assert something that isn't obvious. Like writer inn A

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Speaker 2: Jimmy Israel used to make the point that there's nothing

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Speaker 2: to say that you want justice, because that's like saying

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Speaker 2: you want ice cream. Anybody likes ice cream. Right. If

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Speaker 2: a corporation believes at any turn that somebody is going

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Speaker 2: to be offended by something, then they have been conditioned

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Speaker 2: to absolutely fall back off of that completely. And it's

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Speaker 2: interesting because we think of these titans a industry, titans

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Speaker 2: of industry, as being the most influential people in our society,

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Speaker 2: but in fact they are still afraid of what the

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Speaker 2: outrage machine is. And it doesn't even take that many

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Speaker 2: people being outraged. It just takes some And I could

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Speaker 2: never figure out during the Kaepernick situation, like that was

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Speaker 2: a process that began with me changing the way that

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Speaker 2: I interacted with people online because I started looking at

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Speaker 2: the people that were responding to me and I couldn't

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Speaker 2: tell if they were actual people. Like it felt like

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Speaker 2: the noise was being amplified artificially in such a way

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Speaker 2: where to this day, I don't really know how many

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Speaker 2: people were really that mad about those things, and how

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Speaker 2: many people were truly that angry. But the NFL believed

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Speaker 2: that this was a losing matter, and all of these

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Speaker 2: corporations believed that it was a losing matter, and they

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Speaker 2: did not want to be kind of, I guess proto

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Speaker 2: bud Light in a sense that they would be the

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Speaker 2: company that they felt like people were walking away from

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Speaker 2: right there. But to me, what it spoke to was

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Speaker 2: kind of the veneer of the idea of the corporate conscience,

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Speaker 2: where I think, in line with what we talk about

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Speaker 2: a trust and belief in this society, that we don't

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Speaker 2: seem to be enforcing the standards upon people, like we

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Speaker 2: have a baseline of behavior that we think that people

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Speaker 2: are supposed to engage in, but if they fall short

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Speaker 2: on it, if they're on your side, you kind of

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Speaker 2: let it slide, right, instead of demanding that whoever it

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Speaker 2: is on your side or whatever it is, get up

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Speaker 2: to that point. And nobody seemed to demand that of

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Speaker 2: the NFL to just say like, hey, look, this is

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Speaker 2: how these players are choosing to deal with the national

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Speaker 2: anthem or handle it, whatever term that you choose to use.

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Speaker 2: The league very easily could have stood up in defense

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Speaker 2: of them, but honestly, they were terrified. To Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: and I think that that may be the answer to

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Speaker 2: the corporations in so many cases. Was that period of

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Speaker 2: people being absolutely petrified that the President of the United

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Speaker 2: States will send a tweet about it and everything goes

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Speaker 2: to hell from there.

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Speaker 1: Do you have a sense with black athletes who are

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Speaker 1: in their twenties and thirties that they feel called to

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Speaker 1: activism to raise their voices in the moment in time?

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Speaker 1: Has that settled back down into what I would call

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Speaker 1: the Michael Jordan I guess the Michael Jordan ethos right

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Speaker 1: of sports and marketing. It was business. I still have

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Speaker 1: no idea what Michael Jordan's politics are. You could hold

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Speaker 1: a gun to my head, right, I have no you know,

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Speaker 1: I have no idea. I mean, he's been front and

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Speaker 1: center in in in the country, in my life for

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Speaker 1: you know, for a lot of it. Do do you

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Speaker 1: you know the the athletes that you know, the Gen

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Speaker 1: Z athletes, the younger athletes that are coming up, you know,

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Speaker 1: different than the millennials. Are they Are they going to

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Speaker 1: be activists? Are they what what makes them tick?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that it is settled. And I think

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Speaker 2: that something we need to remember about athlete activism is

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Speaker 2: that it is typically reflective of the activism of the times.

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Speaker 2: And I think that we can kind of look at

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Speaker 2: a sort of Ebb and flow for America's appetite for

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Speaker 2: activism through the second half of the twentieth century, where

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Speaker 2: you have, you know, you get this apex in nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty eight where everything seems to be on fire, and

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Speaker 2: then you get the much more hedonistic nineteen seventies, which

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Speaker 2: then turn into this absolutely craving capitalist nineteen eighties. And

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Speaker 2: I think what happens is after a certain point, people

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Speaker 2: get exhausted because taking all those fights really takes on

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Speaker 2: a lot of energy, and particularly if you have a

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Speaker 2: lot of money, you can look around and ask yourself,

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Speaker 2: what am I accomplishing? What am I doing? Does my

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Speaker 2: life have to be this hard? The question to me becomes,

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Speaker 2: will there be some sort of flashpoint that comes up

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Speaker 2: that stokes those fires in the way they're really Trayvon

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Speaker 2: Martin is probably the first one to really poke things

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Speaker 2: in twenty twelve in this country with athletes, and we

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Speaker 2: saw the building movement. It gets to twenty fourteen with

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Speaker 2: Mike Brown, and in its own way, Kaepernick obviously winds

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Speaker 2: up being connected to that. But I think that what

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Speaker 2: we're seeing now is kind of a natural fall that

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Speaker 2: comes I think COVID had a big effect on how

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Speaker 2: much energy, Like energy's a finite resource and so how

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Speaker 2: much energy people had for those things. What worries me

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Speaker 2: about the coming class of athlete, and this is black, white,

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Speaker 2: anybody else, is that the money in sports is so

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Speaker 2: big right now that these players are being molded to

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Speaker 2: be stars at a very, very very young age. And

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Speaker 2: it's funny because I was talking. I did something about

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Speaker 2: this on HBO where there's a school, a place called

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Speaker 2: Overtime Elite that's kind of sort of school, not really,

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Speaker 2: but it's like a basketball warehousing place for teenagers before

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Speaker 2: they go to the next level, and they give the

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Speaker 2: media training and I'm like, maybe one or two these

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Speaker 2: guys will ever actually need media trading, right, They're not

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Speaker 2: going to be star basketball players by and large, that

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Speaker 2: happens to so few people. But the world for these

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Speaker 2: guys is being molded toward them being professional athletes, corporate

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Speaker 2: pitchmen and all of those things. And that doesn't really

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Speaker 2: create an environment where I think you get the worldly

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Speaker 2: understanding that it's necessary to truly have opinions on these things.

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of these guys have these moments

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Speaker 2: in their late teens early twenties perhaps where they realized

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Speaker 2: there's this whole world that they hadn't been exposed to,

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Speaker 2: and then they try to get into it, and then

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Speaker 2: they're kind of like, very few people can be autodidacts

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Speaker 2: and teach themselves these things, but they're on their own.

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Speaker 2: They want to figure this stuff out, but they don't

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Speaker 2: necessarily know how to do so. And So what I

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Speaker 2: hope for the next class of athletes, and this one

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Speaker 2: now I think will be an interesting test case, is

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Speaker 2: we got to start making sure that kids of all

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Speaker 2: stripes actually know something about the world, because after you

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Speaker 2: get done playing this stuff, for no matter what it is,

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Speaker 2: the world's still gonna affect you. And I just don't

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Speaker 2: know how many athletes are going to who had the

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Speaker 2: awareness that's necessary to really apply themselves in those places,

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Speaker 2: because the people who are surrounding them are not there

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Speaker 2: to build worldly beings. They're there to build athletes who

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Speaker 2: can make money for people.

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Speaker 1: I was on the HAD podcast yesterday a Congressman Al

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Speaker 1: Red from Texas, he's running against. Ted Cruz played in

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Speaker 1: the NFL with the Titans, and we were talking about

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Speaker 1: his career ending injury. He was on the he was

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Speaker 1: on the field, he had a neck injury. And he

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Speaker 1: said in the moment, he said, he knew that was

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Speaker 1: his last play. NFL career was over. And we were

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Speaker 1: talking about that moment on the field and and I said, well,

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Speaker 1: what were you thinking? And he said, my only thought

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Speaker 1: was I guess I'm going to law school now. And

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Speaker 1: he did, and he got elected, He got elected to Congress.

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Speaker 1: He was We talked about his character. He's very much

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Speaker 1: an optimistic guy. And I don't think that you can

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Speaker 1: be laying on an NFL field having reached that level

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Speaker 1: knowing you just played your last play and you're focused

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Speaker 1: on what comes next. Right, That's a genetic thing. You're

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Speaker 1: you're hardwired to to be able to be able to

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Speaker 1: do that. And he talked about his life and he

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Speaker 1: was a guy who never never had a father, raised

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Speaker 1: by his mom, didn't have a lot of money, and

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Speaker 1: he and he said football was really the formative character

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Speaker 1: development experience in his life. He said, all the things

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Speaker 1: I've accomplished in my life, none of these things would

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Speaker 1: have happened without football. And you talked about the disconnection

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Speaker 1: between younger people in sports in terms of fandom, in

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Speaker 1: terms at some levels some sports participation, but but how

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Speaker 1: important is sports for character to development for young men

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Speaker 1: and women? How should we think about it as a

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Speaker 1: society and are we breaking that character development aspect of

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Speaker 1: sports as we've traditionally understand stood it with schools and

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Speaker 1: the marketing where each kid is the next Michael Jordan

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Speaker 1: de be or at least that's what's being marketed to

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Speaker 1: the parents, right, and you know, the professionalization of all sports,

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Speaker 1: not just at a college level, but you know, pushing

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Speaker 1: it all the way, all the way, all the way down.

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Speaker 1: Do you ever do you ever think about those issues

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Speaker 1: and those.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, because you sports in particular. A friend

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Speaker 2: of mine many years ago called me and told me

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Speaker 2: that her little brother, who was in high school in

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Speaker 2: Houston at the time, he was going to be playing

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Speaker 2: on ESPN because his high school had a game that

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Speaker 2: was on ESPN. ESPN is showing this game on television

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Speaker 2: because his team and the other team both had big

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Speaker 2: recruits on them. But I assure you just about everybody

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Speaker 2: else on that team had no business playing football on television, right,

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Speaker 2: Like they're out here for fun, Like this is the

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Speaker 2: cool thing to do in high school. That is what

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Speaker 2: sports is supposed to be on the youth level, and

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Speaker 2: then there are these outliers who exist and then they

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Speaker 2: go on to other levels. But the purpose of this

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Speaker 2: on the youth level really is about teaching things like

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Speaker 2: character and discipline and all of that, or at least

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Speaker 2: most optimistically, those are the like perhaps most noble purposes

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Speaker 2: of youth sports in that way is to teach those things.

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Speaker 2: And I do think that those things are important, and

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Speaker 2: I think that the more that I've been around sports

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Speaker 2: and a professional capacity. There are a lot of criticisms

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Speaker 2: to be made of football players, and there are a

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Speaker 2: lot of criticisms to be made of football but I

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Speaker 2: will say this, if all of us cared about our

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Speaker 2: co workers as much as football players care about their

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Speaker 2: co workers in the midst of performing the task, this

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Speaker 2: world would be a much better place. Like there's no

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Speaker 2: disputing that there are elements of like learning how to

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Speaker 2: properly navigate group dynamics, like learning where you exist in

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Speaker 2: a hierarchy, and all those types of things. There's no

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Speaker 2: denying that sports can teach those things as well, if

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Speaker 2: not better than most things can, and there's a real

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Speaker 2: positive value in having that. That's a big part of

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Speaker 2: why the push for women's sports is so important because

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Speaker 2: these values, which I think people associate a lot of

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Speaker 2: ways with traditionally with men in masculinity, will women, particularly

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Speaker 2: as women then entered into the workforce, need these skills also,

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Speaker 2: and so like to deprive the opportunities to be in

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Speaker 2: those positions to learn those skills the same way creates

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Speaker 2: an incredibly unfair disadvantage. So I think these things are huge,

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Speaker 2: and I do think that these things wind up getting

437
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 2: lost because so wild to me is watching how many

438
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 2: people are in youth sports for wins, right, Like when

439
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:50,679
Speaker 2: you look and you see kind of the reality shows,

440
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 2: and then you see all these guys who are coaching

441
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 2: youth football and you realize they're doing cosplay, right, They're

442
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:58,719
Speaker 2: doing the cosplay of the professional coaches, because the idea

443
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 2: of being a coach a measure of authority upon you

444
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:03,400
Speaker 2: in this society. And now you get to be that guy,

445
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:05,120
Speaker 2: right like they're out there like the coaches we knew,

446
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 2: wearing the hats that are all misshapen and where the

447
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 2: funny looking shorts and everything else, because they get to

448
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 2: be in charge right like they are. Now you now

449
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 2: get to be Nick Saban, You now get to be

450
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 2: Bear Bryant, you now get to be whoever that person is,

451
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 2: and that is putting the interest of adults in their

452
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 2: dreams over what really is something that just should be

453
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 2: good for kids. Like I am amazed personally by how

454
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 2: many people I know who every weekend are getting in

455
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 2: the minivan or the suv and driving every weekend to

456
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 2: go participate in some sporting activity for their kid. And

457
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 2: I'm telling you that kid is never going to make

458
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 2: a die play in any of these sports. There's just

459
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 2: no way in the world. There just aren't enough spots.

460
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 2: But everybody's pushing their kids so hard in a way

461
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 2: that I think completely misses the point that, yes, there's

462
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: something to be said for developing the discipline and everything

463
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 2: that comes from being really good at something. And you know,

464
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 2: all of you know, I don't want to act as

465
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 2: though there's nothing to it, but it still feels a

466
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,360
Speaker 2: lot more like a elt trying to live out their

467
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 2: dreams vicariously through children in a way that I do

468
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 2: think is ultimately.

469
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 1: I think, I think it's I think it's beyond crazy.

470
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: In fact, I opted out of this with my kids.

471
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: I moved to a ski town and so they skied

472
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: right that was they were on the mountain constantly. They were,

473
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 1: they were in the mountains. But I went to the

474
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift concert last night, took my daughter, and so

475
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 1: a couple of observations from that. First, I don't think

476
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: I've ever been anywhere in my life at age fifty

477
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: two with more women sold out to the rafters. You know,

478
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: eighty five ninety thousand people. No way was there ten

479
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: percent or less men? Right know, the words of every song.

480
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 1: People are going crazy. These women, I mean, they love

481
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift. But the parents in the in the crowd

482
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: with the little girls, as a general proposition, aren't sending

483
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 1: those kids to Taylor Swift camp. They're not telling them

484
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: right that you're gonna be up on the stage, uh,

485
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: selling out so far stadium, right, it's we don't You

486
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: don't seem to a lot of kids play instruments, right,

487
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: pick up music right as part of the curriculum.

488
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 2: Right.

489
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 1: We want sports and schools, we want music in schools.

490
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: But we're not telling every kid, right that you are

491
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: going to be some superstar, a once in a generation

492
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 1: type performer. But we but we have made this and

493
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: deeply ingrained it in our culture when it comes to sports, right,

494
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: I mean the only the only thing we haven't done

495
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: is assigned the kid an agent when they when they

496
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 1: enroll in the kindergarten, right, I mean, it's.

497
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 2: Well, I think the other part about that, which to

498
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 2: me it gets to be interesting, is that sports really

499
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 2: used to be the ticket to college, right. That was

500
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 2: the big thing for a lot of people. Is that,

501
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:05,880
Speaker 2: you know, in an era where we had so many

502
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 2: people like gi Bill to go to college, like all

503
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 2: the things that we think about that, you know, generations

504
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 2: before us did to go to college, sports was a

505
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 2: great ticket for that. Like, one of the theories that people

506
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 2: have about the declining interest in baseball among black people

507
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 2: is that youth baseball was a ticket to the minor

508
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 2: leagues as opposed to a ticket to college. Right, you know,

509
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 2: so like this has always been that was where it went.

510
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,399
Speaker 2: Then it became okay, but you can get to the league.

511
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 2: And we treat like getting a college scholarship to play

512
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 2: ball as almost like just the beginning or something like that.

513
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 2: But the math on this is really bad for people,

514
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 2: at least in terms of playing the odds. So we

515
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 2: have more professional sports teams than ever, we have more

516
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 2: professional sports jobs than ever, there's more money in professional

517
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 2: sports than ever, and we also have more people chasing

518
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 2: after that same dream than ever. It is no easier

519
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 2: or ow less of a long shot to make it

520
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 2: and have a professional sports career now than it was

521
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 2: when there were eight teams in the NBA and twelve

522
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 2: teams in the NFL. Right, Like, the numbers may be

523
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 2: a little bit off, but in effect, right, the deltas

524
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 2: on this are very very small. I just don't think.

525
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 2: I just don't think it's any easier, which makes all

526
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 2: of this expendature feel like even more of a fool's

527
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,239
Speaker 2: Errand because I don't believe the purpose of this is

528
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 2: just to get your kid a scholarship, because there's so

529
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 2: many other ways to do that that have less competition

530
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:31,679
Speaker 2: in order for you to make that happen, and that push,

531
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: I just don't this stuff isn't that important in that way,

532
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 2: particularly when, and this is the thing that breaks people's

533
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 2: hearts when it gets to the end, all that training,

534
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 2: all that work, everything else, still nothing matters more than

535
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: the natural endowment of physical talent. Right, what's actually gonna

536
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 2: get you to the league is still not something somebody

537
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 2: can teach you. Somebody's gonna look at you and think,

538
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 2: do you have the physical capabilities to do this? And

539
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 2: if you do, they're going to be the ones to

540
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 2: teach you. Yeah.

541
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: No, I mean that's right. It's and if you if

542
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: you stand on an NFL field, which you which you've done,

543
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: and I've had the experience because I've had NFL clients

544
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: in my in my career, and you watch them on

545
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: a field and you see a guy who's six foot seven,

546
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: who's pushing three hundred pounds or slightly bigger, and he's

547
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: faster than anyone you've ever known. It's incredible. That's founding

548
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: athletes since you can't.

549
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 2: I tell people you think NFL players that do it.

550
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 2: NBA players are way bigger than people realize too, Like

551
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 2: you just be amazed at what giants they are. And

552
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 2: I laugh when you said to think about it being faster,

553
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 2: like all those guys you think are fat are so

554
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 2: much faster than you. Like every like all those forty

555
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 2: yard dance times, somebody has a band forty yard dance,

556
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 2: it'd be like five and a half seconds and everybody

557
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: laughs at them. And I am here to tell you

558
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 2: that big sloppy dude with that gut would dust you,

559
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:03,959
Speaker 2: dust you even if you think you're in good shape.

560
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 2: You're not beating them like they are. They don't. They

561
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 2: are just next level human beings. Like it's it's a

562
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 2: very Nietzschean Ubermints sort of concept, like this seems to

563
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 2: be the next step in the human evolution, and you're

564
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 2: not gonna You're not gonna become that by playing a

565
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 2: lot of football on the wiki. It's just not gonna happen.

566
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: No, it's it's definitely not. Let's talk about golf, because

567
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:32,479
Speaker 1: I think golf may not make it in the sense

568
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: that the PGA Tour in the post Tiger era in

569
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: partnership and owned by the Saudis. I will never, uh,

570
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: and I mean never attend another PGA tour run by

571
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: the run by the run by the Saudis. And I've

572
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: seen a lot of them. I'm a I'm a big

573
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: golf fan, and I I don't think golf fans are

574
00:30:58,120 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: gonna go for it.

575
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 2: This was one of the more And you know, I

576
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 2: don't have a real Pollyanna streak in me about this stuff, right,

577
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 2: Like I'm fairly realistic about things. But the idea that

578
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: the Saudis were able to leverage this how they did

579
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 2: using a brand worth literally nothing, right, the brand of

580
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: Live Golf is it worth a single thing? You couldn't

581
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 2: parlay that into a TV deal. You couldn't parlay that

582
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 2: into any brand, sponsor anything else. It was worth nothing.

583
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 2: And they turned that into control of the new Golfing

584
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 2: super Alliance whatever it is, where they run the board,

585
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 2: and then the guy that's the front the front man

586
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 2: for the PGA is going to be the front man

587
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 2: for this, And I am curious to see how a

588
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 2: lot of fans and players ultimately respond to it. They

589
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 2: abuse the trust of a lot of their players and

590
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 2: had them stand out there in the name of principle,

591
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 2: when in the end, even if they had to fold

592
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 2: because they couldn't win, you know, sustain the legal challenge financially,

593
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: they put a lot of people in a really bad

594
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 2: position and made their word look useless. And it is

595
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 2: I think going to become more difficult for them to

596
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 2: sell that tour, and I think they're going to be

597
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 2: people who have a lot more questions about them and

598
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 2: what it is that they're doing after this has happened.

599
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 2: What I'm curious to see about this, though, is are

600
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 2: the Saudi's planning to stay in the background on this

601
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 2: and just hope that as long as they're not around

602
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 2: and nobody's looking at them, nobody thinks about exactly what

603
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: it is that has happened here. And I guess that's

604
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 2: going to wind up being the play that they make.

605
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 2: But I can't think of an organization being honestly more

606
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 2: embarrassed and more humiliated than the PGA Tour was by

607
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 2: the way that they allowed people to take what was

608
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 2: theirs with nothing. And I have also been surprised, and

609
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 2: I'm curious your thoughts about this. In terms of the

610
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 2: coverage of it. You didn't really see many media reports

611
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 2: that said the Saudi's bag golf, but it sure felt

612
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 2: like they did right like everything in terms of what

613
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 2: the power structure was going to be. After the fact,

614
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 2: I was like, so, this didn't a merger they bought.

615
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 2: They just bought the PGA Tour. But I never saw

616
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 2: I saw very few people who were willing to come

617
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: out and explicitly stake that. I saw a lot of

618
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 2: people that kind of shrugged their shoulder cynically, like, oh, well,

619
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 2: I guess that's what the money says, But I don't

620
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 2: I don't. I just could not believe that happened.

621
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: I think I think it's really interesting, and I think

622
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of a lot of chapters

623
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: still to be written on it. One aspect of it

624
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: that no one's really reported on is that there's an

625
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: argument to be made under the rules as Robert Muller

626
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: applied them, with foreign agent registration. If you're a PGA

627
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: Tour player, and this certainly applies to the commissioner, but

628
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: it may also apply to the to the players, to

629
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: the American players, you may need to register as a

630
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: as a Saudi agent and be a registered foreign agent

631
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: to play on the PGA Tour, because certainly the Saudis

632
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: owned the league to enhance their reputation internationally. Right the

633
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: red of the league is functioning at some level as

634
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: a propaganda arm of the Saudi foreign Ministry. And and

635
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: that being the case, if you were to apply the

636
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 1: apply the law evenly that would fall under that would

637
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 1: fall to the athletes. If you, if you're paid by

638
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: the Saudis hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars a

639
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: year to really, in essence, speak for the Saudis, play

640
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: for the Saudis. Represent in front for the Saudis. You're

641
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: a Saudi agent, and so I I think that you know,

642
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: certainly you know these cultural you know, these cultural totems

643
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 1: in our country, right, the power of American sports, the

644
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: power of American culture, music. You know, they want to

645
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: get their hooks into these things. I'm sure they'd love

646
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 1: to buy a baseball team, you know, if there would

647
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: be a rules change, or an NFL team, and so

648
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: when you look at foreign ownership of clubs, and you know,

649
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: we'll see in the years ahead.

650
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 2: But I'm curious what you think about the propaganda element

651
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 2: of it, because we did something on game Theory on

652
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 2: HBO in our last season about you know, this is

653
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 2: before everything had happened with the golf tour, but does

654
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 2: that actually work? Like, you know, the Chinese spent all

655
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:27,240
Speaker 2: the money to have the Olympics twice in a span

656
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 2: of fifteen years, but it doesn't make anybody look at

657
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 2: them any differently necessarily, Like I always wonder when these

658
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 2: attempts are made to legitimize themselves through sport, where I'm like,

659
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 2: I don't think this is doing the job that you

660
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 2: think it is.

661
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: No, I don't think it succeeds in the sense of

662
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,439
Speaker 1: right that the Saudi's now because they have the PGA tour,

663
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: right that you know, all of a sudden people view

664
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: the Saudi regime as good or noble or not despotic. Well,

665
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,439
Speaker 1: what I think it does is it ends their isolation.

666
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: It gives them a power and a currency and allows

667
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: them the ability to control and lever against criticism that

668
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: comes their way. Right, because if you look at a

669
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: mass execution which happened, you know, a year or so ago, right,

670
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: they be headed eighty seven people in a day, or

671
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: you know, a gay person is stoned to death or whatever,

672
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: whatever atrocity has happened, Washington Post reporter. You know, that's

673
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: chopped up. There's gonna be a lot of reluctance to

674
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: make criticisms of that. And you see that in the

675
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: in the NBA regarding regarding China, you know, where you

676
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: have a lot of people who are outspoken on a

677
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: lot of issues, but we'll not talk about we'll not

678
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: talk about the Chinese. Really, that's that's that's what you're

679
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 1: buying with that.

680
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Seeah, the NBA is in what I was

681
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 2: termed somewhat unique situation with the China thing, because unlike

682
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 2: the NFL, like the NBA is America's only truly global

683
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 2: league where they need to get this money from around

684
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 2: the world, and they have a product that's more attractive

685
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 2: and more places, and it just so happens this place

686
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 2: that has one a billion people really really really likes basketball.

687
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,759
Speaker 2: What always gets me about what is it? Well, it's

688
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 2: interesting to me when the Chinese thing comes up is

689
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 2: it can often feel as though it is wielded as

690
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 2: a weapon to get people to stop talking about the

691
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 2: domestic issues. Right Like, I think everybody's got something that

692
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 2: they're into, and everybody's got something that they're not. The

693
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 2: NBA itself, though as a league, has not figured out

694
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,439
Speaker 2: how they're supposed to deal with the Chinese situation because

695
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 2: it's a little different for them. Like when you take

696
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: it to the players, that's one thing. But when you

697
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 2: make certain ethos central to the image of your league

698
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 2: and then people ask you about China, you gotta have

699
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 2: better answers than the ones that they come up with.

700
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 2: But I do think that you're correct that what happens

701
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 2: is I think I've talked about BYU football in these

702
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 2: terms and simply in the sense that BYU football is

703
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 2: the most public representation of the Church of Latter Day

704
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:19,359
Speaker 2: Saints when you really think about it, even for people

705
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: who don't realize it. But what it did is it

706
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: gave people something to point to about the Church that

707
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: is not in line with where in most of the

708
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 2: country people view Mormons as other right, you know, like,

709
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 2: I'm not making any judgments about them at all, it's clear,

710
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 2: but in the ways that people perceive them is a

711
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 2: very other sort of way. And b YU football was

712
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 2: not like it. It was the thing that you could

713
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 2: point at it be like, yo, this is us and

714
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 2: this is not all this other stuff that you're thinking about.

715
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 2: And I guess for the Saudis and many of these groups,

716
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 2: they hope that that will be the case. But it's

717
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 2: easier for a smaller institution like the Church of Latter

718
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 2: day Saints to do that than a whole country with

719
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 2: history that we can all go look up that affects geopolitics.

720
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 2: I'm they're gonna do it, and I guess they'll get

721
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 2: something that is out of it. And I also think

722
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 2: a lot of it is rich people who want to

723
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: be treated like all the other rich people, especially since

724
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 2: a lot of them are richer than any of the

725
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 2: rich people that they want to be respected.

726
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: By really rich people, really, really really.

727
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: I mean rich to the point, rich to the point

728
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 2: where a lot of what they're doing in sports is

729
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 2: honestly because you've got to do something with the money.

730
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: Right, Well, have we lived long enough to see soccer

731
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: take off here in America? Is soccer? Major league soccer

732
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: officially in orbit now with Messi arriving here.

733
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 2: Well, what's so interesting to be about Major league soccer

734
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 2: is like when we think about the sports, like basketball

735
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 2: is a great example of the courts. You're watching this

736
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 2: country and you'll hear about somebody playing in the Italian league, right,

737
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 2: or they go or they play in France. Okay, that's

738
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 2: what our soccer league is, right, it's one of these

739
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 2: other leagues. But yeah, you can go play cider aw

740
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 2: lots of places. You could even go to America. But

741
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 2: what I do think that it has arrived in the

742
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 2: sense that what soccer probably needed to give the sense

743
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 2: of arrival was the more fragmented media space, and that

744
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 2: you didn't need to show these dominant, overwhelming numbers to

745
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 2: get people to believe that you existed, Like there's a

746
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 2: real appetite for soccer in this country. The technology now

747
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 2: makes it that people can access the most elite levels

748
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 2: of soccer and watch the Premier League and everything that

749
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 2: goes on in Europe and all of these places. They

750
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:31,359
Speaker 2: can get online and they can watch them. And then

751
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 2: in the United States. So if you live in Portland,

752
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 2: for example, you can take your kids to go watch

753
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 2: a soccer match. It'll be entertaining, you can watch it.

754
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 2: But the interest in the game is absolutely here. What

755
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: we have is a second or third tier league in

756
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 2: this country. But that's okay, right, Like it doesn't have

757
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 2: to be as big as the NFL. And I think

758
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 2: that what had often happened with soccer was the comparative

759
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 2: cases for them were just two outsize and it's just like, oh,

760
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 2: well it's not as popular as baseball. Okay, well that's

761
00:40:57,680 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 2: not going to happen. But now there's room, i think,

762
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 2: in zeitgeist for things that are not as like like,

763
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 2: you don't have to be Michael Jackson famous to be

764
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 2: famous anymore. So there's room for something like that to

765
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 2: exist at the level at which it exists, and it'd

766
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 2: be cool and people have access to it. Nobody's ever

767
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody other than like a guy like Messi,

768
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 2: for example, it's gonna make it like twenty million dollars

769
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 2: a year playing that level of soccer. But I do

770
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 2: think it is here. I do think that it is

771
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 2: here to stay, and I do think that it's a

772
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 2: worthwhile product for us to have in the country, just

773
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 2: so people can have a place where they can go

774
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 2: and watch soccer in a professional setting without having to

775
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,800
Speaker 2: get on a plane, you know, get on a concord,

776
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 2: which they don't make anymore.

777
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean, right, Yeah, I remember,

778
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: I mean I remember this so well. I was nine

779
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: years old when Pele came right playing for the Cosmos,

780
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,320
Speaker 1: and that was and then and then the next summer

781
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: that was youth soccer. Right they started up right, you

782
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: can sign up for soccer. No one had ever played

783
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: soccer before North Plainfield, New Jersey, before before Pele arrived.

784
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a big difference over over forty

785
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:02,320
Speaker 1: years in this country with regard to Yeah.

786
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 2: Well, I think a big thing of the half with

787
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 2: soccer too is people figured out, Wow, what a great

788
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 2: way to tire these kids out? Right, Like I remember

789
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 2: we moved to Houston when I was seven years old,

790
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 2: and we would just see all those soccer fields. This

791
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,320
Speaker 2: is the late eighties and we see all these soccer

792
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 2: fields just filled up, and in Atlanta where we previously

793
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 2: we had never really seen that before. And it was

794
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 2: a it was a really good activity to engage your

795
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 2: children in if you wanted to. But the problem was

796
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 2: it was very clearly also being done to price a

797
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:34,359
Speaker 2: lot of people out of it, so it would only

798
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 2: be certain people's kids playing against those same certain people's kids,

799
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: just that there's living in different houses. But now I

800
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 2: think also with the increase of the Latino population in

801
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 2: the country, we have seen that the interest in this

802
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 2: is just way bigger than it ever was. And I

803
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 2: think the ninety four World Cup, of course, was a

804
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 2: big step in that and people I think just I

805
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 2: think what a lot of people needed to see. And

806
00:42:58,080 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 2: I think this was a big thing for me. And

807
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge soccer fan, but I did need

808
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 2: to see soccer played at the highest levels to understand

809
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 2: why it is that people were really into this.

810
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: I feel exactly the same like I never I never

811
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: got it, didn't really like it, didn't appreciate it it

812
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: at all, right until I saw played at the highest

813
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: levels and then and then you got it right, and

814
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: you think about it, right, if you only the only

815
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: football you ever saw was high school football, right, right, right,

816
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 1: it's not the same.

817
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 2: I'll tell you this though. I went to Madrid last

818
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 2: year and I went to a real Madrid match, and

819
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,479
Speaker 2: I had placed way too much on this soccer match

820
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 2: because the only soccer I was watching was the World Cup,

821
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,279
Speaker 2: the biggest matches in the world. And I was there

822
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 2: watching a regular season soccer match. And don't get me wrong,

823
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,839
Speaker 2: great displays of athleticism, but I just put too much

824
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 2: in my head about it, like this was not going

825
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 2: to be the World Cup final because they only made

826
00:43:58,719 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 2: one of those.

827
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: When we think about sports and how people will watch

828
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: it over the next over the next twenty five years,

829
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 1: I was I was having a conversation on this subject

830
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: with someone in politics and this is this is an

831
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 1: astounding statistic. And they didn't believe it when I told them.

832
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 1: The number of plugged in cable households in America is

833
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: now down to the same level it was in nineteen

834
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: ninety one. Oh wow, Right, so people are unplugging. The

835
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: one thing we know, right is that once you unplug shit, right,

836
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 1: it's never getting plugged back in again. Right, That doesn't

837
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 1: you know whether it's your VCR, right, your Blu Ray,

838
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:53,240
Speaker 1: it's gone right, So people, people are not not going

839
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: to have cable, These companies will not have the carriage fees.

840
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: What happens to sports television? What does it look like?

841
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: How do people watch sports in the next ten to

842
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: fifteen years? How does it? Where does all of this?

843
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:17,399
Speaker 1: Where does all of this go?

844
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question that somebody who spent the

845
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 2: better part of the last twenty years working for ESPN

846
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 2: it doesn't work for them anymore. I can tell you

847
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 2: that question is confounding a lot a lot lot of

848
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 2: people the one thing, at least in the short term,

849
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:36,800
Speaker 2: that they still have going for them. And this is

850
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 2: one thing I think about. People are unplugging cable, but

851
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 2: especially for like watching sports, cable is still a superior product.

852
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 2: It's still faster, it's still more stable. Like I don't

853
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 2: really like watching sports on digital platforms. I'm much rather

854
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 2: watch it on cable. But I also speak from a

855
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 2: level of class privilege in that regard. I can afford

856
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 2: to blow the money on cable. Not everybody has you

857
00:45:57,520 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 2: know has the ability to do that. The question for

858
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 2: me is going to be how do how do all

859
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 2: these streaming platforms, Like how does that market wind up

860
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 2: shaking out? Because this is all going to go to

861
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,839
Speaker 2: stream Like I think we all recognize that. We also

862
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 2: recognize it is not going to be sustainable for people

863
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:18,280
Speaker 2: to have all the streaming apps anymore, right, Like eventually,

864
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 2: eventually all this stuff is going to look like the

865
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 2: cable bundle. It's so funny, like I tell people about

866
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 2: like that week and a half, this app Clubhouse was

867
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 2: hot where people were doing like live shows, you know,

868
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 2: on the app, and a group of people had gotten

869
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 2: together to do a rendition of the Broadway version of

870
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 2: the Lion King and people reading parts and it was

871
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 2: absolutely riveting. And it dawned on me. Guys were watching

872
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 2: the radio like it's nineteen thirty five. You guys think

873
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 2: you invented something. You just invented listening to the radio,

874
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 2: and somebody's gonna pop up and invent the cable bundle

875
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:50,839
Speaker 2: because the only way for people to have all these

876
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 2: channels and be sustainable was that. And that sort of

877
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:55,840
Speaker 2: thing I think is going to be necessary when it

878
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 2: comes to sports, because what happens is enough people generally

879
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 2: and specifically watch sports that ESPN was able to charge

880
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 2: the ridiculous carriage feed that they did, because there might

881
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 2: be some man in that house or this woman might

882
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 2: have some man over one night, and you gotta have

883
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 2: ESPN over there for him to watch or whatever it is.

884
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 2: And so it stayed there for people who weren't actually

885
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 2: watching it most of the time. But then a big

886
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 2: game comes up and it's this thing and everybody crowds

887
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 2: around and then we go. But for the sports to work,

888
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 2: I feel like in the broad in the sense of

889
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 2: being distributed, I don't know how exactly they're going to

890
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:33,919
Speaker 2: be able to do that to proper scale while keeping

891
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 2: up the sort of money that everybody's been making through

892
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 2: the television landscape, because people just can't figure out how

893
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 2: to make that kind of money off of the internet.

894
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 2: So I am not exactly sure how it is that

895
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 2: people are going to watch it. Somebody's gonna jump on

896
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 2: it for no other reason. Then it's the most attractive

897
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 2: live viewing property going. It's basically like the only thing

898
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 2: out there that you gotta watch when it happens. It

899
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 2: just doesn't work if you don't watch it live and

900
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 2: they to figure it out somehow. I just don't know

901
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 2: how they can do it sustainably at the money that

902
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 2: everybody's making right now. And you and I both know

903
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 2: this is not about how much money you make. It's

904
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:10,879
Speaker 2: about how much more money you make than you used

905
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 2: to make. That is what the stays these.

906
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: Operations, absolutely, absolutely one hundred. I got into this conversation

907
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: with my wife talking about golf, talking about the Saudis,

908
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,760
Speaker 1: and we were talking about Tiger Woods and I said,

909
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: there will never be another Tiger Woods. And she said, well,

910
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,720
Speaker 1: you can't say that, and I said, no, I can't.

911
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: I said, there will never be another Tiger Woods. And

912
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: in fact, I don't think there will ever be another

913
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: person in my lifetime that I get to see who

914
00:48:53,239 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: so completely dominates their sport at a level of almost

915
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: superhuman excellent. And I was, I think that he's he's

916
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: the top. Like for me, when I when I think

917
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:12,320
Speaker 1: of athletes over my lifetime, there are there are two

918
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: guys that that stand out. One was Bo Jackson, just

919
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: absolutely singular. And I tell my kids, who are seventeen, now,

920
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: we'll say this guy guy. So there's no there's one

921
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: Bo Jackson and Tiger Woods.

922
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are Bo Jackson. I got a bo Jackson

923
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,720
Speaker 2: bubble head up top of all the the bookshelf back there.

924
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 2: I am with you on Tiger, like Michael Jordan's is

925
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 2: in that space also, And so I think in terms

926
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 2: of like the magnitude of personality, like there'll never be

927
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 2: another Michael Jackson again, for example, There'll never be another

928
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 2: even Britney Spears. I could make the argument like it's

929
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 2: just kind of hard to be that singularly famous or

930
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 2: nobody knew was going to pop up that exists in

931
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:59,320
Speaker 2: that space. The thing that made Tiger so incredible versus

932
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 2: say a Boja type is you looked at Bo Jackson

933
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 2: and immediately knew the other kids can't do, like before

934
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 2: you even saw him do anything. Just see him walk

935
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 2: in the room. You're like, yo, you don't look like

936
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:15,120
Speaker 2: the other kids. Tiger Woods, like Fenotype notwithstanding, didn't look

937
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 2: any different than the rest of those guys. Like it

938
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 2: wasn't like he was just endowed with these obvious physical

939
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 2: gifts that these dudes had. But that ninety seven Masters

940
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 2: was the truest example ever of oh, he's playing a

941
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 2: completely different game than everybody. Else's and kept that up

942
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,359
Speaker 2: for basically about a decade and took a sport that

943
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 2: never really had a lot of mass appeal and brought

944
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 2: it to people. It's not because they cared about golf,

945
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 2: but they understood that this was greatness at work and

946
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 2: this guy was so much better than everybody else. And

947
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 2: I do not know if there will ever be a

948
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,439
Speaker 2: case that we see somebody who from almost day one,

949
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: like it wasn't literally day one, but it was from

950
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 2: nearly day one. He showed up and nobody was anywhere

951
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 2: near him. They try to change all the stuff with

952
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,879
Speaker 2: the courses, you guys still couldn't catch up to him.

953
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety seven, the whole country stopped and watched the

954
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 1: Masters that weekend. Yeah, it was incredible.

955
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 2: Look, I remember this that Sunday for the final round.

956
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 2: I grew up in the northwest part of Houston suburban area,

957
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,280
Speaker 2: and there weren't too many black people in that area,

958
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 2: and so there was a group, like a group for kids,

959
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 2: you know, we get together on the weekends, do some stuff,

960
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 2: get to know each other all this, And I remember

961
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 2: we had our meeting that weekend that Sunday, and the

962
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 2: thing that somebody said to begin with, was all right,

963
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:40,759
Speaker 2: we got to hurry this up so we can go

964
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 2: home and watch golf, which I assure you had never

965
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 2: been said before at that meeting. And I feel like

966
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:48,240
Speaker 2: there were a lot of other meetings. There was probably

967
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 2: some Bible studies, like you know how old Super Bowl

968
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 2: Sunday everybody reworked the church schedule. I bet it was

969
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 2: a whole lot of stuff like that, because Tiger Woods

970
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:57,759
Speaker 2: was just that singularly captivated.

971
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 1: Last thing I wanted to ask you about today. Not

972
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 1: every day you see a collegiate athletic conference completely collapse.

973
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 1: What's going on? How do you explain this to a

974
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: casual sports fan? You know about what's going on in

975
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: college sports right now? That's driving this? This is you

976
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: bring it back to the beginning of the conversation on

977
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,439
Speaker 1: faith and belief, right, it is one hundred and five

978
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: hundred and ten year old institution.

979
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 2: God. Yeah, the the entire college sports landscape is devouring

980
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,719
Speaker 2: itself in hunt of television money. And what thing that

981
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 2: is interesting, by the way, when you hear about the

982
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 2: money that we're talking about these schools getting, and you'll

983
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 2: hear things like, well, they're going to this place because

984
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 2: they'll get thirty more million dollars a year. I'm not

985
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 2: saying that thirty million dollars is a lot of is

986
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 2: not a lot of money. I am saying though thirty

987
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 2: million dollars in the scheme of a college budget is

988
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:00,799
Speaker 2: rounding error in a lot of places. This money, to

989
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 2: me is not nearly as substantial as people make it

990
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 2: out to be. That they're making these decisions in the

991
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,759
Speaker 2: name of But what has happened is there was a

992
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:13,360
Speaker 2: lawsuit in the mid nineteen eighties that gave the rights

993
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:17,879
Speaker 2: for televising games to schools. The schools then wound up

994
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:20,760
Speaker 2: in many cases and actually now almost in every case,

995
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 2: the schools turn those rights over to these conferences of

996
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:27,919
Speaker 2: which they are members, and the conferences sell the television rights,

997
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 2: and that's where everybody gets all the boat loads of money.

998
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:34,120
Speaker 2: All right, Well, television landscape has changed a lot over

999
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:38,719
Speaker 2: the years, and at every turn, the larger conferences are

1000
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 2: trying to find a way to basically strengthen their television package. Meanwhile,

1001
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 2: the members of these smaller conferences are looking at how

1002
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 2: much money they are or are not getting from their

1003
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 2: television packages, and now they want to go to conferences

1004
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 2: where they feel like they can get more money. Now,

1005
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 2: what happened in the PAC twelve was in two thousand

1006
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:58,839
Speaker 2: and nine, I believe the year was. The PAC twelve

1007
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 2: hired a man named Larry's Scott to be the director

1008
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 2: of the conference. The reason they hired Larry Scott was

1009
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 2: because he had experience as a media executive and they

1010
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 2: thought that he would be the right person to negotiate

1011
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 2: their television deal. He did a terrible job negotiating their

1012
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 2: television deals, blew their expenses out of the water by

1013
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 2: doing things like moving the conference to San Francisco off

1014
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 2: his space because he wanted to be involved in Silicon

1015
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,439
Speaker 2: Valley and had the conference be seen in that light.

1016
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:29,319
Speaker 2: So all these schools were into PAC twelve and they

1017
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 2: looked around and they didn't like the money that they

1018
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 2: were getting. And then USC and UCLA based in Los Angeles,

1019
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:37,640
Speaker 2: looked up and the Big Ten was like, we'll give

1020
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:39,760
Speaker 2: you guys more money if you come over here. Because

1021
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 2: for the Big Ten, it becomes more attractive to have

1022
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles television market in their TV package and

1023
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 2: now they can sell it for more money. USC and

1024
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 2: UCLA do the reverse. Beverly Hills nine two to one

1025
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:55,759
Speaker 2: zero and they go back to the Midwest. Now the

1026
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 2: rest of the PAC twelve looks around and they say

1027
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 2: to themselves, well, we don't have the in this anymore.

1028
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 2: This conference looks like it's on the verge of collapse.

1029
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 2: And now we're in your classic game theory prisoner's dilemma.

1030
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:10,240
Speaker 2: Everybody would be better off holding the line and staying together,

1031
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 2: but they're all freaked out, so they're all gonna panic

1032
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,760
Speaker 2: and bail. We saw Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah decided

1033
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:19,720
Speaker 2: to move to the Big twelve. Oregon in Washington decided

1034
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 2: to go to the Big Ten. And something that's very

1035
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,439
Speaker 2: important about when schools moved to the Big Ten, that's

1036
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 2: the conference that a university president wants to be a

1037
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:30,640
Speaker 2: member of. That's the one like, that's the room they

1038
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 2: want to walk around because they have the Big Ten,

1039
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 2: unlike the other conferences, has an actual academic pedigree and profile.

1040
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 2: And so what was the PAC twelve last month? People

1041
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,880
Speaker 2: looked around and it's now the Pack four? They literally

1042
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 2: have four schools. What's happening as a result of this?

1043
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 2: At least in the way that I look at it,

1044
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 2: college football is rivalry based it is provincial, right. This

1045
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 2: is not a very sophisticated thing. It is for people

1046
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:02,439
Speaker 2: in small areas to argue with each other about their state.

1047
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:04,320
Speaker 2: They go to work and they can snip a snipe

1048
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 2: about everything else. But this is not a national game.

1049
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 2: The interest in it is buy and large. People who

1050
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 2: care about their schools who will never have a chance

1051
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 2: to win, forget a national championship, would never have a

1052
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 2: chance to win a conference championship. But it's fun to

1053
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,359
Speaker 2: engage each other like that. And every Saturday go out

1054
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,480
Speaker 2: barbecue in the parking lot and go inside, do your

1055
00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:24,759
Speaker 2: cheers and everything else. But it's buy and large, just

1056
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 2: a good time. The money had just gotten so big

1057
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 2: that all the universities have gone and chased it. And

1058
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 2: what I think is going to happen is you're going

1059
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:35,720
Speaker 2: to end up with a product that doesn't have charm

1060
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:39,279
Speaker 2: and personality. What it becomes is a slate of television

1061
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 2: games to put on television. That's what it is. The

1062
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 2: TV networks need inventory. Well, we got these games. Okay,

1063
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 2: we'll put these games on and the games will be

1064
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 2: on or people will make money because they'll be on.

1065
00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 2: But I think people are going to care less than

1066
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 2: they ever have before. So yeah, the longer, the short

1067
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:57,600
Speaker 2: is schools trying to get as much money as they can.

1068
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 2: And we all know how tenuous group dynamics are. And

1069
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:00,879
Speaker 2: there you go.

1070
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting when you when you're talking about this,

1071
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 1: the the voter in American life, the fan in American life,

1072
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: they're on the short end of the stick on a

1073
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: on a number of different ways. And we live in

1074
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: a country where if you give the people something they

1075
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 1: don't want, uh, you hear from them uh before before

1076
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: very long. And I think that's what's driving a lot

1077
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 1: of the tumult a lot of the chaos in the

1078
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 1: in the country, or these disruptions in these change and

1079
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 1: really a sense that no one is looking out uh

1080
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:49,680
Speaker 1: for the little guy, and that shattering of the social

1081
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 1: compact I think is bleeding in some ways, you know,

1082
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 1: at some levels into sports, and you're seeing it manifest

1083
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 1: because all of this occurs in a in a broader culture.

1084
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: And it's one thing that people don't get about politics, right,

1085
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:08,000
Speaker 1: It's that the culture doesn't flow from what Ted Cruz

1086
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:14,439
Speaker 1: pronounces right in Washington, DC. Politics is downrange right of culture, right,

1087
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 1: And so so your politics is a function of that,

1088
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: just like sports, just like music, movies, everything, everything else,

1089
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:28,000
Speaker 1: and money has always has always been, has always been

1090
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 1: the golden calf.

1091
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:33,720
Speaker 2: In this country. And the American sports fans a little

1092
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 2: different than say, the European sports fans. Let me tell

1093
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:38,840
Speaker 2: you something, this stuff that's going on with college football. Now,

1094
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 2: please understand, people in other countries can't understand our college

1095
00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 2: sports system. It's that it's that nonsense.

1096
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 1: But they can't. They I'm married to a Canadian, right,

1097
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 1: you can't. It's not you can't even you can't explain

1098
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:49,400
Speaker 1: it to a Canadian.

1099
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 2: Right They just sit there and look at you like,

1100
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 2: what do you mean? Like none of it makes sense? Right?

1101
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:55,880
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you this. If France had college football

1102
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 2: and all this stuff was happening, people would be in

1103
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 2: the streets right now, like the American sports fans is

1104
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 2: kind of like, oh, well, I guess we just got

1105
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:06,440
Speaker 2: to take it over Air France and something like this

1106
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 2: happened with the soccer team, they would be outside the

1107
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 2: offices right now. When they tried to make that super

1108
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:13,400
Speaker 2: league in France, those people you know in England and

1109
00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 2: all that, those people took it to the streets and

1110
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 2: they shut that down here, we just gonna take it.

1111
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 2: They just gonna look up and be like, oh, well,

1112
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 2: I guess things are different now.

1113
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 1: We watch what we watch, whatever the game is on,

1114
00:59:24,120 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: is the one where the one we're watching.

1115
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 2: Right, maybe even bet on it.

1116
00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:30,320
Speaker 1: I guess right, maybe even bet on it.

1117
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 2: Uh.

1118
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 1: Thanks for spending some time this afternoon. Appreciate it.

1119
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 2: Good thanks see thanks see man, I appreciate having me

1120
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 2: all my pleasure