Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Maria Kannakova and.
Speaker 2: I'm Nate Silver. Welcome to Risky Business.
Speaker 1: A show about making better decisions. This is our first
Speaker 1: episode of the show, so I want to give you
Speaker 1: a little taste of the types of topics you can
Speaker 1: expect from us going forward. So we'll obviously be talking
Speaker 1: about politics and the elections since this is a major
Speaker 1: election year. We'll be talking about poker, We'll be talking
Speaker 1: about the news, and of course we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about personal decisions. Right, how do you take this
Speaker 1: framework and make decisions in our day.
Speaker 2: To day lives conveniently almost as that we've planned this
Speaker 2: in advance. Our first show will cover all three of
Speaker 2: these areas. We'll have reflect with Maria on our recent
Speaker 2: poker success she had. We'll do a segment on RFK
Speaker 2: Junior and his effect on the presidential election, and we'll
Speaker 2: talk about Caitlin Clark and the economics of the pay
Speaker 2: gap and the WNBA.
Speaker 1: So, Nate, let's get into it.
Speaker 2: So, Maria, was it last week? It's all kind of
Speaker 2: blurring together, but I think last week we were making
Speaker 2: the official Twitter slash social media announcement about Risky Business,
Speaker 2: the podcast and you were absent from that cluster of
Speaker 2: information we wanted to spit out because you were at
Speaker 2: the final table of a poker tournament. Good excuse, I
Speaker 2: guess tell us more about that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So I was at EPT Monte Carlo, which is
Speaker 1: one of the flagship stops of the European Poker Tour,
Speaker 1: which is a Poker Stars event, and I was playing
Speaker 1: in the one euro side event and it was going
Speaker 1: pretty well. So at the time that I saw your
Speaker 1: emails and all of these announcements going back and forth,
Speaker 1: I was actually in the middle of a redraw for
Speaker 1: the final table and we were finally down to nine players.
Speaker 1: So I had, you know, a few brief moments to
Speaker 1: check my email when I saw of this and had
Speaker 1: to respond to you guys that. Unfortunately, I was going
Speaker 1: to have to be focused and not actually be paying
Speaker 1: attention to any social media announcements because final table is
Speaker 1: a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2: How much were you playing for?
Speaker 1: So first place was, and this is all in euros,
Speaker 1: was eighty three thousand, one hundred and eighty euros, so
Speaker 1: that's almost ninety thousand dollars and ninth yeah, not bad.
Speaker 1: And then ninth place, which would be you know you're
Speaker 1: the first one out at the final table was eight
Speaker 1: nine hundred euros, so that's just over nine thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty big difference.
Speaker 2: That's why you weren't answering your emails.
Speaker 1: That is why I was not answering your egail.
Speaker 2: You can be bought off for that is correct.
Speaker 1: Date, I had to be very much paying attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people in poker and neglect the importance
Speaker 2: so focused sometimes because it's such a there's a lot
Speaker 2: of noise, right, I mean it's in any given final table,
Speaker 2: it's kind of mostly luck. But like if you go
Speaker 2: jogging or running right and you're really hungover, you notice
Speaker 2: the effect on your time, Right, there's no noise there
Speaker 2: in the data in poker, you don't, But like, tell
Speaker 2: me more about the importance of focus of shutting out distractions,
Speaker 2: especially in a high stakes moment like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that you really really need
Speaker 1: to be fully present because normally during a poker tournament, right,
Speaker 1: this tournament started with around six hundred players. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was a few fewer than that or
Speaker 1: a few more, but around six hundred, right, So at
Speaker 1: that point you're sitting at a full table, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say you can phone it in, but
Speaker 1: you don't have to always give it one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of your focus, because a lot of poker is actually
Speaker 1: pretty boring, right. You don't play a lot of hands,
Speaker 1: you have to fold a lot, you get a lot
Speaker 1: of shitty hands, and you don't actually want to be
Speaker 1: tempted to play those. So a lot of the time
Speaker 1: you have down time. And of course I'd love to
Speaker 1: say that I'm one of those players with laser focus
Speaker 1: who never has my phone at the table, who is
Speaker 1: always one hundred percent present, but that is simply not true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would be just absolutely lying if I
Speaker 1: said that, And I think it's just very difficult for
Speaker 1: the human brain to do that. I've actually written a lot.
Speaker 1: My first book was about mindfulness and presence and focus
Speaker 1: and the importance of that and decision making. And one
Speaker 1: of the things you find is that's incredibly, incredibly taxing
Speaker 1: for the brain because the brain in its default state wanders,
Speaker 1: and so it takes a lot of effort to focus,
Speaker 1: and so you have to save that effort for the
Speaker 1: moments when it really matters. And the final table is
Speaker 1: one of those moments because you're playing for really high
Speaker 1: stakes and all of a sudden, every single pay jump matters.
Speaker 1: It matters if I'm out in ninth place versus eighth place,
Speaker 1: versus seventh, versus six. And just to add to the
Speaker 1: drama of this particular final table, I had had a really,
Speaker 1: really shitty series up to that point, and I knew
Speaker 1: that in order to kind of dig myself out from
Speaker 1: the hole that I was in financially, I needed to
Speaker 1: place third or better. That was the only way that
Speaker 1: I would make money on this tournament, and damned if
Speaker 1: I was going to let anything distract me from doing that.
Speaker 2: One thing, too, is you kind of can't even like
Speaker 2: fake the focus part. There's a long discussion about this
Speaker 2: in my forthcoming book On the Edge. We're actually talked
Speaker 2: about an experience we had playing together Maria in the
Speaker 2: Bahamas where we were playing the twenty five k PSPC
Speaker 2: first time I played a twenty five thousand dollars tournament,
Speaker 2: and like, I was just really wired more than I
Speaker 2: wanted to be. You know, you're feeling your heart rate
Speaker 2: escalate a little bit, and when you're at a final table,
Speaker 2: then you are just inherently more in the zone, more
Speaker 2: alert that can be tuned too high. Sometimes. Part of
Speaker 2: the benefit of experience playing poker is that you know
Speaker 2: how to deal with that extra awareness and stress that
Speaker 2: you have. But you can't fake being interested on day
Speaker 2: one of some tiny buy in event two hundred blinds deep, right,
Speaker 2: but look, did you have any cool hands that you played?
Speaker 1: I did have one, specific, one very cool hand, which
Speaker 1: really I think illustrates a lot of the principles of
Speaker 1: a final table. So I came into the final table
Speaker 1: as one of the shorter stacks, so there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people who had more chips than I do.
Speaker 1: And let's say, for a second just kind of do
Speaker 1: a little asterisk and talk about how that changes when
Speaker 1: you're kind of at the beginning stages of a tournament
Speaker 1: versus the final table. So, because as I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: there are these huge pay jumps, and you know, the
Speaker 1: monetary value really shifts depending on which place you get.
Speaker 1: Your chips are no longer worth what just what they
Speaker 1: say they are, and the ranges meaning the hands that
Speaker 1: you play change, how aggressive you want to be changes,
Speaker 1: and your strategy really really changes depending on whether you're
Speaker 1: a short stack, a middle stack, or a chip leader, right,
Speaker 1: whether you have a ton of chips. And the cool
Speaker 1: thing about my situation when I was the short stack
Speaker 1: is like I'm in last place anyway, so I can
Speaker 1: take risks and I can actually put a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on other people because I still have enough chips
Speaker 1: that I can really really put a dent in what
Speaker 1: they're doing. So at this stage of the tournament, I
Speaker 1: think there were eight of us left and I started
Speaker 1: the hand with I think seventeen big blinds. Big blinds
Speaker 1: are kind of those fource bets that you have to
Speaker 1: make blind to get some action going. So the number
Speaker 1: of biglindes is just a good way to gauge how
Speaker 1: long you can go right without without playing a hand
Speaker 1: and how long you can survive. So I was in
Speaker 1: first position, first to act, and I had ace king,
Speaker 1: which is a really strong hand.
Speaker 2: So you're in here's a test through which are our
Speaker 2: audience members know about poker? You're in first position. That
Speaker 2: must be really good. You always want to be first.
Speaker 1: What an interesting question, Nate. That is actually it's the
Speaker 1: polar opposite. So in poker and in decision making in general,
Speaker 1: this is actually a really really crucial point position, really
Speaker 1: really matters, and you actually want to be the last
Speaker 1: person to act. You want to be the last person
Speaker 1: to make the decision, which means you're in position. If
Speaker 1: you're in position, that means you get to see all
Speaker 1: the information beforehand and then you get to act. If
Speaker 1: you're out of position, that means that you have to
Speaker 1: go first, right, you choose what to do, but then
Speaker 1: all these other people see that and they have more
Speaker 1: information and they get to make a decision after you.
Speaker 1: So if you think about away from the poker table,
Speaker 1: like if you're in a salary negotiation, you do not
Speaker 1: want to throw out the first number.
Speaker 2: Say you're negotiating terms for a new podcast about decision making.
Speaker 1: Exactly, you want the other person to make the first offer,
Speaker 1: right because you do not want to accidentally low ball
Speaker 1: yourself or you know, you just you just want to
Speaker 1: know what the other person is thinking and then be
Speaker 1: able to respond to that. And so the positional advantages
Speaker 1: in poker are huge. So when you're in an early position,
Speaker 1: right when you're acting first, you have to actually be
Speaker 1: much more selective with the hand you play, and you
Speaker 1: have to be much more cautious because so many things
Speaker 1: can still happen. And I say this over and over,
Speaker 1: whether it's in poker or in decision making, because we're
Speaker 1: always playing games of incomplete information. Right, information is key.
Speaker 1: Information is power. The person with the most information has
Speaker 1: the edge, and so you want the edge and acting
Speaker 1: first ate it. So in this particular case, though, I
Speaker 1: have an amazing hand, so I'm going to open it.
Speaker 1: So that's what I do. And then two people who
Speaker 1: are acting after me decide that they're going to call,
Speaker 1: and they're both going to have position on me in
Speaker 1: the hand, So middle position calls and the button calls,
Speaker 1: and then the blinds fold. So what this means is
Speaker 1: that the only other two people in the hand are
Speaker 1: actually going to be deciding after me. And it's three ways,
Speaker 1: so that means that there's three of us, which means
Speaker 1: multi way, which is much more difficult to play. All right,
Speaker 1: So here we are ace King. Two people call and
Speaker 1: we get a flop, which is the first three community
Speaker 1: cards that everyone can see, and they are a Queen,
Speaker 1: a ten, and an eight and rainbow, and rainbow means
Speaker 1: that there are three different suits, so no possibility of
Speaker 1: a flush drawn.
Speaker 2: None of the cards match your cards, Maria.
Speaker 1: That is bad Nate. So I decide to check, which
Speaker 1: is always a really really good decision when there are
Speaker 1: lots of people acting after you. And what checking means
Speaker 1: is I just say I'm not going to act now.
Speaker 1: I check to you, and you can do what you
Speaker 1: want to do. And so I check, and the middle
Speaker 1: position player decides to bet, and he bets pretty big.
Speaker 1: He bets four big lines and the button. So the
Speaker 1: other player in the hand calls, and so here I am.
Speaker 1: And at this point we have nine big lines in
Speaker 1: the pot right starting to start the hand, plus the
Speaker 1: eight that just went in, So that is so right,
Speaker 1: that's that's my stack because I had bet two before
Speaker 1: the before the flow. So basically this is huge. And
Speaker 1: what do I do right? If I call, there are
Speaker 1: still two people behind me, and it's a really huge
Speaker 1: chunk of what I have left, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be in a really bad position if I don't improve.
Speaker 1: And so I decide to run a big bluff or
Speaker 1: semi bluff because I could improve, and I decide to
Speaker 1: shove all my chips in the middle. I go all in.
Speaker 1: And that's a very risky play because if either one
Speaker 1: of them has anything and calls me, I'm out of
Speaker 1: the tournament. They both have more chips than I do.
Speaker 2: Or you make your or you hit your jack or
Speaker 2: I hit my jack. Right, we call it a semi
Speaker 2: bluff because there are some ways. You know, the jack
Speaker 2: always makes you the best hand. You can sometimes hit
Speaker 2: two kings in a row. Occasionally one acer king makes
Speaker 2: you the best hand. Yep, So you have some equity
Speaker 2: in the podos I do.
Speaker 1: I do have some equity, and I also have some
Speaker 1: fold equity, meaning I still have enough chips that my
Speaker 1: shove puts a lot of pressure on them. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm shoving for four big blinds, which
Speaker 1: is what they already bet right, I'm shoving for a
Speaker 1: substantial amount more and the middle position player just folds instantly,
Speaker 1: which I was kind of relying on. So at a
Speaker 1: final table, especially, you will have been playing with these
Speaker 1: players for a long time several days in this case,
Speaker 1: and so you get to know their tendencies and how
Speaker 1: they play a lot more, and so you can make
Speaker 1: decisions that are much more fine tuned to these specific players.
Speaker 1: And so I knew that this middle position player was
Speaker 1: a recreational player who didn't really know what he was
Speaker 1: doing I'm sorry, and also really loved love to bet
Speaker 1: whenever anyone checked to him, like, I don't think he
Speaker 1: passed a single spot to bet, and he would just
Speaker 1: bet very random amount, so I was pretty sure he
Speaker 1: had nothing. And the person who was on the button
Speaker 1: was actually an old pro and he was someone who
Speaker 1: I'd been playing with for a while, and I knew
Speaker 1: he was very solid, good and very very capable of
Speaker 1: making big folds, which is crucial because after he calls
Speaker 1: with me to act behind, he has a good hand, right,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have just air, and so I need to
Speaker 1: be sure that this is a player who is capable
Speaker 1: of folding, because some players aren't. And so he starts tanking.
Speaker 1: And when someone goes into the tank that means they're thinking,
Speaker 1: and he is tanking and tanking and tanking, and the
Speaker 1: longer they tank, the likelihood that they're gonna call you
Speaker 1: goes up, right, So the longer he thinks here, I
Speaker 1: am sitting thinking, okay, well I guess I'm out of
Speaker 1: the tournament. And then finally he shows a queen and
Speaker 1: he folds his hand, so he folds top pair and
Speaker 1: I basically double my chips without any showdown whatsoever. And
Speaker 1: that was an absolutely crucial hand in the tournament because
Speaker 1: it gave me breathing room and it enabled me to
Speaker 1: make it to second place, which is what I eventually got.
Speaker 1: How much money Maria fifty two thousand euros.
Speaker 2: Which is Zero's good? Now there's like one point one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's like.
Speaker 1: Fifty six thousand something like that. Not as good as
Speaker 1: it would have been last year, but still pretty good.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that has been in the
Speaker 1: news lately and has really gotten me a little bit scared,
Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, well, actually scared shitless would be
Speaker 1: a more precise technical term for how I'm feeling about
Speaker 1: it is how close this presidential election is, and the
Speaker 1: fact that with how close it is, we have suddenly
Speaker 1: these third part party candidates, and specifically I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: RFK Junior, who is actually pulling ridiculously well for a
Speaker 1: third party candidate, and makes me incredibly worried that there's
Speaker 1: a chance that you know, this person who has a
Speaker 1: brainworm or had a brain worm, I guess it's still
Speaker 1: in his brain so that he and his running mate
Speaker 1: the worm, who do not believe in a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are science based and who are members of
Speaker 1: the Kennedy family, that the two of them have a
Speaker 1: real chance of making a difference in states where the
Speaker 1: elections are close.
Speaker 2: Marie, can you please, yeah, pers I need to interrogate you.
Speaker 2: What state are you from?
Speaker 1: I'm from Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Do you understand Americans the other four nine states don't
Speaker 2: give a fuck about the Kennedies and don't understand the
Speaker 2: entire Kennedy thing.
Speaker 1: No, Nate, I disagree. I disagree. I think the Kennedy
Speaker 1: thing is a huge thing, and it is a very
Speaker 1: big but yes, point taken.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me give two other kind of points of
Speaker 2: context for the listeners, one of which is kind of
Speaker 2: like a meta abstract point. Right, Maria, you planned to
Speaker 2: vote for Joe Biden? Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 2: And we're doing shows on politics. I think Maria is
Speaker 2: not going to make any hidden attempt to pretend that
Speaker 2: she's not a you know, don't know if you're a
Speaker 2: Democrat or not, but you're going to vote for Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: And I plan to vote for Joe Biden too. For
Speaker 2: what it's worth, however, I am not in these politics.
Speaker 2: I've been's going to make as many assumptions about what
Speaker 2: our audience necessarily thinks. Right. I hope we do have
Speaker 2: some Kennedy listeners and some Trump listeners whatever else. You're
Speaker 2: welcome to listen no matter what. But Maria is kind
Speaker 2: of going to be playing more of a partisan hat role,
Speaker 2: and I'll have more of a non partisan hat. So,
Speaker 2: and the second kind of assumption here is, I think
Speaker 2: you're assuming that Candy will draw more from Biden than
Speaker 2: from Trump, when I'm not so sure that's true. So
Speaker 2: in polls, Kennedy overall is at ten point two percent
Speaker 2: of the vote according to the five thirty eight average,
Speaker 2: which is the highest share of anybody since Ross Peruro
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six. If he wants up realizing that, well,
Speaker 2: debate in a moment how the numbers are more elected
Speaker 2: than not to fade. But ten percent is a serious
Speaker 2: chunk of the electorate. However, I mean, as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: Maria RFK Junior is not some liberal, progressive, pro science
Speaker 2: democrat with one of those yard signs we believe in
Speaker 2: xyz in front of in front of their house. He
Speaker 2: has some beliefs that the scientific consensus would not endorse
Speaker 2: about things like vaccines. For example, he is not to
Speaker 2: Biden's left on issues like abortion or Israel Palestine. He's
Speaker 2: to the right, although sometimes inconsistent in what he says,
Speaker 2: although at times he's been kind of linked with a
Speaker 2: libertarian nomination. Has kind of views all over the place
Speaker 2: on economic issues, a little hard to play, So he
Speaker 2: kind of seems to me like an anti establishment. You
Speaker 2: can say this nicely or not too nicely. Heterodox is
Speaker 2: a nice way to say it. Maybe kind of low
Speaker 2: information mix is a not so nice way to say it.
Speaker 2: Right to me, that reads like it's coming from the
Speaker 2: Trump pile as much as the Biden pile. And then
Speaker 2: the polls is all over the place. There are some
Speaker 2: polls where Candy draws more support from Trump, similar he
Speaker 2: draws more support from Biden. You could say examples, but
Speaker 2: you can have you can you know, every which way
Speaker 2: potentially in terms of the effect on November. By the way,
Speaker 2: there's also Cornell West and Jill Stein who are definitely
Speaker 2: running to Biden's left and are I think purely harmful
Speaker 2: to Biden. But I think look, if I'm Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: I have a lot of concerns right now, including the
Speaker 2: fact that I'm eighty one years old, the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, voters are still concerned about inflation, the fact
Speaker 2: that you have kind of a lot of pushback against
Speaker 2: the left. Now, I'm not sure if RFK Juniors had
Speaker 2: my top five concerns at the moment.
Speaker 1: So then, but in it all, that's at least right now,
Speaker 1: so close, right, So many polls have them just neck
Speaker 1: and neck, fifty to fifty more or less. Some have
Speaker 1: you know, Trump ahead, some have Biden ahead. You know,
Speaker 1: it depends on the state. But when we're talking about
Speaker 1: states that actually matter, So Nate, you vote in New York,
Speaker 1: and I voted in Massachusetts. Then I voted in New York.
Speaker 1: But now I actually get to vote in Nevada, which
Speaker 1: is a purple state and a state that is actually
Speaker 1: a swing state. So my vote finally matters. It actually
Speaker 1: matters who I am voting for. And in places like Michigan,
Speaker 1: you know, votes definitely matter. So in those cases, right
Speaker 1: in those states where every single vote is actually crucially important,
Speaker 1: do we think that collectively third party candidates, including RFK Junior,
Speaker 1: are going to be in a position where they actually
Speaker 1: might swing the outcome of the election.
Speaker 2: So historically, third party candidates get less of the vote
Speaker 2: in swing states because voters, even before a podcast Maria,
Speaker 2: some voters were rational. They would understand that, like, if
Speaker 2: you're running in New York and you want to send
Speaker 2: a message to Biden and Democrats or the two party
Speaker 2: system by lending a vote to a third party, it's
Speaker 2: not going to actually affect the outcome in the election.
Speaker 2: If you're in Pennsylvania or Arizona or Nevada, Georgia, Michigan,
Speaker 2: then it might. And I think people like actually are
Speaker 2: are relatively rational about that. We've had in the last
Speaker 2: two elections what I call tipping point states, a fancy
Speaker 2: term for the states that make the differen between who
Speaker 2: gets two hundred and seventy electoral votes and not came
Speaker 2: down to a percentage point or so. So yeah, in theory,
Speaker 2: if you have a guy taking ten percent or let's say,
Speaker 2: because by the way, it usually does go down. Because
Speaker 2: right now, people kind of use RFK as like a
Speaker 2: free parking space for deciding what we'll do later to
Speaker 2: demonstrate their lack of satisfaction with these two very old
Speaker 2: men who are running again in a rematch. A lot
Speaker 2: of Americans do not want. Although Canny himself was I
Speaker 2: think over seventy years old.
Speaker 1: He is, and he had a warm parasite the brain
Speaker 1: who ate part of his brain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: it told people that personally, if I if I have brainworms,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do a brainworm segment on this.
Speaker 1: He didn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't.
Speaker 1: It came up because he used it during a divorce trial,
Speaker 1: where let's just say so, I have a background in
Speaker 1: con artists. My second book was about con artists the
Speaker 1: confidence game, and con artists are known for telling people
Speaker 1: what they want to hear or what's strategically good in
Speaker 1: that particular moment, which has a high overlap with politicians
Speaker 1: in general. But during his divorce proceedings, RFK Junior was
Speaker 1: trying to argue that his cognitive capacity was greatly diminished
Speaker 1: and so his future earnings potential was a lot lower,
Speaker 1: so he had to pay less money during the divorce
Speaker 1: and would have to pay a lower settlement. So this
Speaker 1: was a matter of record, and journalists dug it up.
Speaker 1: And now of course he's saying, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: cognitive capacity not diminished at all. What are you talking about.
Speaker 2: We don't think he was lying in the divorce anyway.
Speaker 1: He was lying in one of the two.
Speaker 2: The point is, if you had to project historically, so
Speaker 2: for example, Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate, was polling at
Speaker 2: maybe around ten percent now or eight percent of remembering
Speaker 2: this offhand, and got more like five percent. Russfrow bounced
Speaker 2: around a lot in nineteen ninety two. He was at
Speaker 2: one point leading in the polls believed it or not,
Speaker 2: and then dropped out and then rejoined the race. God,
Speaker 2: I'm going off memory here, nineteen percent or something like that.
Speaker 2: So if you had to project where Candy will wind up,
Speaker 2: you've probably take an over under of like seven points
Speaker 2: and not ten. Right with that said, look, seven points
Speaker 2: will almost certainly be bigger than the margin of difference
Speaker 2: between Biden and Trump in a state like Michigan, for example,
Speaker 2: So if Kennedy were to take most of that vote
Speaker 2: from one side, that would be a problem for whoever
Speaker 2: lost those voters. But again, I think it might wind
Speaker 2: up being fairly even. And if the Biden campaign knows
Speaker 2: what's doing. I mean, you've seen actually Trump advisors begin
Speaker 2: to express more reservations about rfkus right as people learn
Speaker 2: more about him, they learn more about the vaccine stuff,
Speaker 2: they learn more about how he's not some typical liberal Kennedy.
Speaker 2: He may compete more with the kind of disaffected, sort
Speaker 2: of Trump voter archetype instead.
Speaker 1: So just to kind of sum that up, we're not
Speaker 1: sure at this point. We're not sure what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: but this is put a potential issue. So how you know,
Speaker 1: we're getting new polling data all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: the New York Times just released a big poll this week.
Speaker 1: How should we read the polls? How should we think
Speaker 1: about the polls going forward in the months leading up
Speaker 1: to the elections? Or should we just ignore them up
Speaker 1: to a certain point.
Speaker 2: At like this, if you're a Democrat, I'd be worried
Speaker 2: because Biden is losing the Trump right now, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: care so much about RFK Junior. It's like not my
Speaker 2: first concern. You know, you almost if you're losing Maria
Speaker 2: in a poker hand or something. You want more variants,
Speaker 2: You want more things that are in the mix. And
Speaker 2: right now, if you had an election today, Biden would
Speaker 2: probably lose at least in the swing state. So give
Speaker 2: me more RFK Junior. Right, the more worried you are
Speaker 2: about Biden's position overall, the more you should welcome chaos,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: All right, So with that I will welcome chaos. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the race, RFK and worm and let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: And as a Democrat, I hope that I don't need
Speaker 1: to hit the panic button quite yet, but I'm ready
Speaker 1: to just in case.
Speaker 2: Some Maria. A couple of weeks ago, my finance bro
Speaker 2: buddy texts me and says, do you want to go
Speaker 2: to the New York Liberty game in a couple of weekends?
Speaker 2: Right with his is a divorced dad with his young daughter,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, sure, you know, I mean, it was
Speaker 2: a little surprising in this particular friend of mine, not
Speaker 2: to profile too much, wanted women's basketball tickets, but he
Speaker 2: has a young daughter who's forty, so it kind of
Speaker 2: makes sense, right, And then I learned that it's the
Speaker 2: game against the Indiana Fever, which is the team that
Speaker 2: drafted Caitlin Clark, the superstar point guard from University of Iowa,
Speaker 2: who is maybe the most famous female basketball player in history,
Speaker 2: probably more famous than any amateur NCAAA men's player, at
Speaker 2: least as of the date of the NCAA tournament, and
Speaker 2: I was excited about this and any texts again and says,
Speaker 2: by the way, we're in. We're in the bleachers for this.
Speaker 2: And the reason why is that, unlike a typical New
Speaker 2: York Liberty game, the court side seats for this game
Speaker 2: costs tens of the utter made, not tens, but you know,
Speaker 2: high four figures worth of prices. The cheapest seats when
Speaker 2: I checked yesterday were about one hundred and five dollars
Speaker 2: with Ticketmaster fees. So that is actually more than a
Speaker 2: typical Brooklyn Nets game, right at least in the post
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant era, maybe not as much. Is like a
Speaker 2: Knixt game, the Knicks are a very popular in demand
Speaker 2: ticket but all of a sudden, women's basketball is when
Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark plays, drawing on a par with the NBA.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is crazy and quite the phenomenon. Just
Speaker 1: to be clear, I know the names of two female
Speaker 1: basketball players, Britney Griner for reasons that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with her playing basketball and everything to do with
Speaker 1: the political crisis in twenty twenty two right where she
Speaker 1: was detained by Russia as a prisoner, and Caitlin Clark,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden whenever something bleeps on my
Speaker 1: sports radar. And for people who don't know me, I
Speaker 1: am not a sports fan. I do not watch sports.
Speaker 1: I have actually never been to a single basketball game
Speaker 1: in my life though, name you say you want to?
Speaker 1: You want to? Yeah, yeah, so Caitlyn Clark has popped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet the friend who's buy tickets this game
Speaker 2: could also name those exact two women's basketball play and
Speaker 2: maybe Sue Bird, maybe one or so other. Right, if
Speaker 2: you go, for example, to the next game at Barclay Center,
Speaker 2: the Seattle Storm at New York Liberty, I can buy
Speaker 2: a good seat for twenty one bucks. So, as of now,
Speaker 2: this is very much focused on the particular cultural phenomenon
Speaker 2: that is Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So obviously this is a huge deal. But then
Speaker 1: what I started reading about her, the stories that I encountered,
Speaker 1: were all about the contrast between how popular she is, right,
Speaker 1: what a huge audience and viewership she draws. And then
Speaker 1: we have her starting salary as at WNBA's number one
Speaker 1: draft pick, which is going to be seventy six thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred and thirty five dollars. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that's crazy given that in the NCAA March Madness Final,
Speaker 1: she averaged well. Their game averaged eighteen point seven million
Speaker 1: viewers and peaked at twenty four million between ESPN and ABC,
Speaker 1: while the men's final averaged fourteen point eight million. Now,
Speaker 1: let's compare the salary of seventy six, five hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars to the lowest draft pick in the NBA,
Speaker 1: not the WNBA. The last pick in the first round
Speaker 1: of the NBA draft gets two million dollars in their
Speaker 1: first year. So that is quite the contrast to someone
Speaker 1: who has brought in record audiences to the sport. So
Speaker 1: there are two things that I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: So first of all, a lot of people point out, yeah,
Speaker 1: but her salary isn't it right. She's going to get
Speaker 1: endorsement deals, She's going to get branding deals, she's going
Speaker 1: to get opportunities that most women's basketball players or men's
Speaker 1: never get because she's a superstar. I want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the superstar effect here. But then
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about that gender pay gap
Speaker 1: and the fact that we're seeing these absolutely huge differences
Speaker 1: between someone who's just a slam dunk top superstar and
Speaker 1: what a superstar would be getting in the NBA. So, Nate,
Speaker 1: do you have any initial thoughts on that, because I
Speaker 1: could start going and it's going to be hard to
Speaker 1: shut me up. So I'm going to let you get
Speaker 1: an word in Edge West first.
Speaker 2: As an mostly underpentent capitalists most of the time, I
Speaker 2: think the issues that the system is not capitalistic enough. Right,
Speaker 2: that Caitlin Clark does not have leverage to demand her
Speaker 2: marginal revenue product would be the way that an economist
Speaker 2: would put it, and that I don't agree. I mean
Speaker 2: just because she makes money from endorsement, so I mean, look,
Speaker 2: she should also have the right to make money based
Speaker 2: on the fact that she's bringing in five or ten
Speaker 2: times more ticket revenue than any other player in the
Speaker 2: w NBA. Right. One problem is that rookies and almost
Speaker 2: every sports league are on a salary scale where they're
Speaker 2: basically underpaid. Right. One reason why NBA teams tank, meaning
Speaker 2: intentionally trying to lose, is but because you cannot only
Speaker 2: get a player like Victor Womanyama for the Spurs. He
Speaker 2: was number one pick in the men's league, and the
Speaker 2: men's we have saying men's league in the NBA. He's
Speaker 2: also paid far less than he's worth, and it has
Speaker 2: to do with the dynamics of union bargaining frankly, and
Speaker 2: the fact that like established players to some extent, are
Speaker 2: screwing over rookies who do not have as much leverage
Speaker 2: in the player union. Also, a lot of rookies are bad.
Speaker 2: Sometimes rookies are playing for developmental reasons, so they tend
Speaker 2: to lack leverage in general, and that carries over to
Speaker 2: the WNBA. The other is she though, is that she
Speaker 2: is a big outlier as far as her market ability,
Speaker 2: even forgetting the rookie thing right, even if she weren't
Speaker 2: a rookie, the entire WNBA salary cap is like what
Speaker 2: like one point four million dollars I was looking up
Speaker 2: a moment ago. The entire salary cap is, yeah, one
Speaker 2: point four six three million dollars, which is less than
Speaker 2: what a single NBA rookie makes. Now, that's because WNBA
Speaker 2: historically has made much less revenue than the NBA. There
Speaker 2: are debates about whether it's even profitable or kind of
Speaker 2: like a loss leader for the league. But she that
Speaker 2: doesn't work for her, right, she should have some special
Speaker 2: provision where she probably is gonna make in Marshall revenue
Speaker 2: probably ten fifteen, twenty million dollars a year, and she's
Speaker 2: being exploited because if she decides she doesn't want to
Speaker 2: play or go plays in China or something, which is
Speaker 2: where she might ultimately have leverage, that is money out
Speaker 2: of the coffers of the Indiana Fever and also visiting
Speaker 2: teams like the New York Liberty that are you know,
Speaker 2: people are going there to see her. My friend's daughter
Speaker 2: will be wearing a Caitlin Clark jersey and not a
Speaker 2: New York Liberty jersey. So she's getting screwed over by
Speaker 2: by a lack of ability to kind of achieve what
Speaker 2: she's really worth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that seems to be pretty clear and
Speaker 1: something that I didn't realize. So when you're talking about
Speaker 1: how you know, the WNBA is a young league, doesn't
Speaker 1: make as much money generally as the NBA, so you
Speaker 1: know the salaries are lower. But what I didn't realize
Speaker 1: was that the NBA players get fifty percent revenue share
Speaker 1: that's kind of what goes towards their salary, whereas the
Speaker 1: WNBA only get ten percent. So even if we account
Speaker 1: for the lower revenue of the WNBA, they're still getting screwed, right,
Speaker 1: They're still getting a much smaller percentage of the overall
Speaker 1: revenue share than the male players. And this, I think
Speaker 1: is something that is general to the league and not
Speaker 1: just to Kaitlin Clark, even though obviously we know Caitlyn's
Speaker 1: getting now doubly screwed because that superstar effect is not
Speaker 1: actually applying to her, right, it is applying to her
Speaker 1: in certain endorsement deals, but it's not applying to her
Speaker 1: when it just comes to her basic salary. And that
Speaker 1: pushes people like her, as you said, and like Brittany
Speaker 1: Griner to go play abroad where they might get detained
Speaker 1: because there's just no revenue opportunity in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, women's basketball has not historically had
Speaker 2: as much of an audience as men's basketball, particularly not
Speaker 2: outside of the US. So in the NBA. The European
Speaker 2: leagues are are relatively speaking more competitive, but in general,
Speaker 2: there are genetic differences between men and women, and those
Speaker 2: manifest themselves and things that are relevant to athletic competition,
Speaker 2: like who can jump farthest or run fastest or things
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm gonna I'm gonna interject here to say that
Speaker 1: Kitlyn Clark was the top overall scorer in NCAA history,
Speaker 1: which includes men.
Speaker 2: But she's competing against women. I'm not gonna get away. No,
Speaker 2: that's that's a good point. I don't fine because she's
Speaker 2: competing against women and not men. But for the most
Speaker 2: part people, it's kind of socially constructed, Like why do people,
Speaker 2: for example, watch college basketball at all? Right, the games
Speaker 2: are much much, much worse than the NBA. It's because
Speaker 2: people like are not watching for the pure sake of
Speaker 2: athletic competition. And I think maybe a lot of mostly
Speaker 2: male decision makers underestimated their market ability of women's basketball,
Speaker 2: and now there's a big correction, and I think I
Speaker 2: think that players should demand their restructuring, like sooner rather
Speaker 2: than later. I mean, it may have been appropriate compensation
Speaker 2: given what the league's ratings were up until Caitlyn Clark,
Speaker 2: and now it's going to be in all likelihood different,
Speaker 2: and you know, they should use whatever marketing power they
Speaker 2: have to rectify that as soon as possible because now
Speaker 2: they are being underpaid.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you said you said a phrase in there
Speaker 1: that I think is absolutely crucial, which is socially constructed, right.
Speaker 1: So I do think that a lot of this, a
Speaker 1: lot of the compensation, a lot of the historical differences.
Speaker 1: And this is not just true of basketball, This is
Speaker 1: just now, you know, more broadly speaking, when it comes
Speaker 1: to men versus women's gender pay gaps, et cetera, is
Speaker 1: a result of generations of socially constructed norms and what
Speaker 1: people you know, are doing versus not doing. And so
Speaker 1: I think that that's absolutely crucial to remember as we
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, moving forward, what is reasonable? What
Speaker 1: isn't it reasonable? Because even you know that fifty versus
Speaker 1: ten percent revenue share, now they can you know, can
Speaker 1: they push for fifty percent?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Because that accounts for that accounts for the fact that
Speaker 1: there are differences. They're not saying we need to be
Speaker 1: paid as much money as the men. They're saying we
Speaker 1: want to proportionally be paid as much money as the men.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's absolutely reasonable. And you know, obviously
Speaker 1: I'm a woman and I've been on the I've been
Speaker 1: on the bottom end of the of the gender pay
Speaker 1: gap from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, when you are charging one hundred bucks for
Speaker 2: a cheap seat for a regular season WNBA game in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: That's real money. That really adds up there whatever eighteen
Speaker 2: thousand people in that stadium, and Caitlin Clark, you're going
Speaker 2: to sell out every arena as long as she remains
Speaker 2: healthy and isn't a total flop. That's real money, and
Speaker 2: the players who are generating that money deserve more of it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I think that we need to look more
Speaker 1: at that argument as opposed to their gender differences, because
Speaker 1: it's incredibly easy to get bogged down in that and
Speaker 1: then to start using that as an excuse. So in
Speaker 1: my own area, right, I'm a writer, I'm a speaker,
Speaker 1: and I happen to know with one hundred percent certainty
Speaker 1: because I've actually talked to people about this and compared
Speaker 1: that I get paid less for speaking engagements, I get
Speaker 1: lower advances, I get paid less a lot of the
Speaker 1: time than male counter perhaps who don't have a PhD.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I got that fucking PhD so
Speaker 1: that I could have those three letters behind my name,
Speaker 1: because as a woman, I need that in a way
Speaker 1: that men don't. Just like Caitlin Clark to achieve what
Speaker 1: she needed to, she has to be a million times
Speaker 1: more extraordinary than a man, right, like, that's what you
Speaker 1: have to do to get over that. And even still
Speaker 1: I have people who say, oh, you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about in psychology, and they have an armchair degree, right,
Speaker 1: They've never studied psychology at the level that I have,
Speaker 1: and yet they say that to me all the time.
Speaker 2: Look as the kind of dumb sports pro between the
Speaker 2: two of us, Right, I somewhat object to how what
Speaker 2: you can map those differences in things like speaking gigs
Speaker 2: onto sports where there are more objective measures of performance.
Speaker 2: But I think like championing women's sports is like something
Speaker 2: that like young women and young men like. Right, the
Speaker 2: social norm around that changed fast. I mean I have
Speaker 2: heard more conversation about women's basketball from my sports breou
Speaker 2: friends in the past six months than I have in
Speaker 2: my entire lifetime before that, Right, And so I think
Speaker 2: encouraging that behavior, I mean, I think, for example, the
Speaker 2: Insane Tournament is a lot more fun. We need these
Speaker 2: kind of two tournaments going on together. You can bet,
Speaker 2: by the way, on on the women's game. I made
Speaker 2: a fair amount of money betting on women's college basketball
Speaker 2: this this march. That was that was you know, a
Speaker 2: way to get into the sport too for certain people.
Speaker 2: But lo, look, I think this is good, and I
Speaker 2: think Kate and Clark needs to demand demand that she
Speaker 2: is paid for the revenue she generates for the league
Speaker 2: because this whole thing wouldn't be happening. Maybe it's not true,
Speaker 2: maybe you'd have some other focal point, inflection point, but no,
Speaker 2: she should. We should have a whole march on the
Speaker 2: NBA offices on Park Avenue. Would have ever be like
Speaker 2: pay Kate and Clark more. I agree on that on
Speaker 2: that point at least, maybe not for the same reasons,
Speaker 2: but like I agree with the conclusion.
Speaker 1: All right, excellent. So we can agree on the conclusion
Speaker 1: and we can hope that when we're having this conversation
Speaker 1: again on episode one thousand and one of Risky Business,
Speaker 1: that we'll be able to look back and say thank
Speaker 1: you to Caitlin Clark for being kind of the catalyst
Speaker 1: for a revolution in the gender pay gap and how
Speaker 1: people compensate women.
Speaker 2: For what they do.
Speaker 1: Ki Business is hosted by me Maria.
Speaker 2: Kannakova and me Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Isabel Carter Our Executive producer
Speaker 1: is Jacob Goldstein. Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Sarah Bruger,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Greta Cohne, Christina Sullivan, Kerrie Brody,
Speaker 1: Owen Miller, Farah Daygrunge, Jordan McMillan, and Jake Gorsky. If
Speaker 1: you like the show, please rate and review us so
Speaker 1: other people can find us too. Thanks for listening.