1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Is Free Agency Good For Sports Leagues?: December 23rd, 11:00am

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

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It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the Ticketfm.com, sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. Tuesday, boom. Boom. Hit it hard. Hit it hard. Hit it hurt.

with chest. Rock? With your chest. Boom. At a boy. At a boy. Bob. Atta boy.

11. 4 in the city. 47 degrees. High 54 on the clock. 5.4. Sometime around 3 o'clock, as usual. Licking high. How about that?

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Visit Hamilton-Tel.com for more info today. Thank you, guys, sir, greatly appreciated. Crowbate, first up on the text, one says, I'm still up from last night. You late-nighters, crowbate, shut out, right? Like, I guess I owe you a shirt. for you late nighters the ones to hang out with me and Harrison until midnight

we went down two rabbit holes last night and it was spectacular spectacular if you folks aren't hanging out with us for late night you're missing some really good we're missing some really good radio

the history of NFL playoffs was pretty spectacular and then we went through Major League Baseball Free Agency. Bach asked, I asked Harrison the question,

which player can be identified as the beginning of free agency in Major League Baseball? Any idea? No, I'd just be guessing. Yeah, no, it's okay to guess. It's okay to guess.

The correct answers, plural, and it depends on what you want from it, winning would be Jim Catfish Hunter, pitcher for the Oakland A's who then went to the New York New York Yankees. But officially it was Kurt Flood, who sued Major League Baseball for the right to be free. And then they,

Catfish Hunter watched Kurt Flood lose and then figured out what the loophole was, which basically was sitting, allowing the people, the administrators in the league to forget to re, renew his contract every year. And as soon as they didn't renew it, he

went to the Supreme Court and said, follow the rules. I should be free now. I'm not surprised the Yankees are involved somehow. Well, actually, no. The Yankees weren't, no, it was actually the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals, Kurt Flood played for the cards.

And he wanted, he just wanted to get his, you know, his just due, his NIL. his branding is right. And then the following years, Jim Catfish Hunter was with the Oakland A's, and Charles O'Findley didn't want to pay his players because he owned the rights to him.

Once you were in their system, you were in their system until they released you or fired you. But he understood his value, and he went into the system. He waited. He figured out his lawyer figured out that, hey, as long as they extend the contract, every year you're stuck with it. Or you can sit out a year and then come back.

And then hopefully they don't renew. Well, they didn't renew. And he was like, whoops, the day after the contract expired, he went to free file in the Supreme Court and won. And then Andy Messerschmith and Dave McNally went into free agency. And, of course, then the Yankees were full on. following year the following year of course the big free agent in 76 was

Reggie so of course he left the Oakland A's and went to the New York Yankees so there was the rivalry between Charles O. Finley and the Yankees was stellar it was stellar Charles O'Findley went as far as so to this point Major Baseball was very clean-shaven

no facial hair no long hair Charles O'Findley offered his players 300 cash each if they could grow a mustache by the beginning of training camp and they did of course Raleigh Fingers being the most prominent with the curly curly mustache and if you're not familiar with Raleigh Fingers mustache it is epic it is epic and then the rest of the players Sal Bando joined in Reggie joined in

by the blue jet like there's some folks are there but if you aren't familiar with the Raleigh Fingers mustache get familiar it changed it changed baseball um charles o finley and his battle but then he wouldn't pay them jim catfish hunter was the si young winner and they he was only making 29,000 a year and finley was like nope that that's that's what we're paying well he let the contract run out and the yankees came in and paid him millions Millions. Just imagine the changing of the guard. Just millions of dollars now.

And then, of course, Reggie's like, oh, my locker was right next to catfish. Guess what, bro? See you, New York. See you in New York. And Steinbreda had no problem writing that check. So the time of the, so late night, we go down many, many rabbit holes. Pretty good stuff. Can I ask you, can I ask you real quick? Yes. Because I do hear this from people, and I know you're all about player movement,

so you might have a different opinion on this. And I like it, too, but did you enjoy Major League Baseball before Free Agency? I know people would just like to say in the case that you could name off the Kansas City Royals lineup for, you know, for five years or whatever, because a lot of it wasn't changing players were staying in the same locations. Of course, that's kind of, you know, what we're meeting in college sports right now is there's a lot of people that liked college sports, at least to the, point that the loyalty was there, right? If you had a player, you kind of knew what uniform

he represented. Once you get to the pros, of course, that's business money takes over with free agency and trades and all that. But that's not now hitting the college scene. Did you enjoy professional sports a little bit more before free agency, more continuity as a fan anyway? Well, the continuity part, yes, because you were, you were emotionally invested. You knew what you knew. Now, it wasn't fair imbalance because regionalized drafted, right? That, literally you were drafting from the region. If you go back another generation in baseball, you were drafted by where you were in the country,

not in where you wanted to have access to them because, again, minor leagues were in the space, so you knew your team, your players were going to play in these spaces, and you wanted it to cost as little as possible. You wanted to be efficient and otherwise. And then when it became, like Brooke Robinson never played for another team. and Cal Ripkin choosing to do that

whether it was I was the Senators fan and they took the team for money so I was scolded early that money will ultimately ruin the good things that you have in the sports space

and they did but there was always some movement it was just one-sided think about it. The New York match we were talking about it last night that they in the 60s they had a rotation that was a starting rotation that was so good John Matlack Tom Seaver um Jerry Coosman uh they had another starter they were so good that that Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson couldn't make the rotation for the New York Mets and they

weren't good until they made these moves and they started trading some players around otherwise those two would have sat idly and that's that's what was happening and there was such a difference at ends of the spectrum between good organizations who drafted who were in great locations and everybody else the people in the middle of the country you're hoping you get players you hope that they will stay um you know the george brett era was was was pertinent but the players around him for the NFL same thing applied Like, Darrell Green was a redskinned. That's what he, you know. And then when free agency happened, Gary Clark left,

Art Monk left, like you were moving back and forth. It's a great way to fix if you want parity. If you want parity and equity, which is the opportunity to fix whatever if you're geographically challenged, that's a way to fix it. If you're financially challenged, there's another way to fix it.

Each of those pockets of it allow, which is what is happening in NIL and transfer port, that sometimes it's just opportunity, sometimes it is abundance in a program like Ohio State where there's five quarterbacks deep and Joe Burrow realizes and recognizes that he needs to be somewhere else. So with the good, there's the bad, with the bad, there's the good. I'm okay with it. I think that if you're into a contract, if you enter into a contract, I think you should have out of the contract.

I think that simplifies a lot, is that if you are under contract, you, you sign a seven-year deal, you're in for seven years in that deal. You can't leave because something better comes along. But you can't get traded? No, here's, here's, why? If you. That's what I'm asking. Well, why did you enter to a seven-year contract?

if you don't want to if you aren't sure you're going to be seven years don't don't make a bad business decision with the bailout like trading is the bailout it's well what if we're wrong what if what if this guy does what if all this money i'm going to put into this evaluation of talent and chemistry and all those things and it doesn't work well and often the contracts are okay we need this we'll sign him for seven years the next four we're going to be good the last three he might start to phase out but that's when we're going to pay you him the most. No, but so it, you know, it is kind of a mess.

Simplicity. How about you pay people they're worth when they're worth it? How about you? Don't sign into a deal. Don't want ownership of the thing for, for seven years when, quite frankly, you only expected to have volume and value for the first four, then sign a four-year deal and then renegotiate. That's pretty simple.

That's pretty simple. Could be. If everybody played by those rules. But, I mean, again, the rules are in play for the people in power, not for the people and not for the talent or the workers. And that's what free agency did. It was opening the door to have ownership be accountable and to pay value and for players to have the freedom

to determine where they were going to work, who they were going to work for. Like it's a big, it's a big valid thing. I mean, of course, you should get into union talk and protections and all those things. But I think there's simplicity in being of your word. And there are too many people with money who don't want to be of their word. Like if I'm a college coach and I'm recruiting a high school senior and I say, come to Nebraska, when I make that offer, hopefully I've done my due diligence, I know what kind of young man it is or young lady it is. I know the family.

I know the academic talent or skill level, right? Can they handle the academic load? Can they handle the workload of going from high school in whatever part of the state to Division I and the Big Ten? I should know that. Right? I should know that. And I should be good with that.

Now, if you tell me that I'm only good, scholarships are going to be year by year. Okay. Okay. Because in high school, as a high school coach, I get whatever the neighborhood sends me. Depending on the high school. Well, no, but in the schools that I've been at, I get whatever the day, I never got to choose my talent. So my coaching wasn't based on talent. It was based on how can, what system can I have that I can teach easily and thoroughly every year and get results no matter what my talent level is. Like most of the folks who are listening, you weren't moving from school to school. I moved from school to school because I was bust.

I didn't have a choice. Like they pulled me out of a school and sent me to another school in the other side of county. But it was a public school. And so I lost out on some of the friendships and some of the chemistry and that sort of thing, right? it was a different vibe. But every year, as a coach, as a high school coach, I get what I get. When I show up on August 1st,

I don't, I can't go out and recruit, you know, a new star quarterback. And I really shouldn't, truth be told. Truth be told, it's such a different priority. Like, if I'm a coach and you're going to pay me to coach, I should be able to win, I should be able to coach, matter what.

And again, I've said this on air many times. I've never had the five-star lineup of players. Never had them, but I have to win anyway. I got to win anyway. And they don't care. You think the parents, the senior class parents really care what the sophomore parents have to say? This is my kid's final year.

Get him what he wants from his experience at the highest level possible. So I don't know, Bach, I don't know, it's not for me to say whether a free agency is good, but it just is, and I'm okay with people getting their worth. I mean, I've certainly had enough jobs in my life that sometimes I've simply chosen less chaos and go, oh, this athlete director is a jerk. I don't want to work for that guy for a variety of reasons and had the freedom. him because I had put in the work to go to another place and coach. It wasn't, I never made that decision based on money.

Are you doing everything you can do for the young people? That was top of the pyramid for me, was, is this athletic director and is this school set up to do the most for it for the student athletes and their experience? And not everybody works from that. And I, I'm not begrudging to anybody who coaches for the money. I mean, in state of Texas, there's a lot of those dudes they're coaching for money.

So in college, there are a lot of dudes who are coaching for money. But we also know that money can ruin things if mismanaged or the boundaries aren't set. I mean, if we said 30 years ago,

I think we can find out what Tom Oswald was making in 95. I know around, I know around like 2000, it was a huge deal that Spurrier got a million dollar contract. He was the first one to get a million. Right.

Like it was a big deal. Yeah. And now we have people that coaches, we don't even know making that amount of mind. Strength and conditioning. Right. Like we have, I mean,

so, I mean, I don't look at the movement, the player movement as, the player movement is symptomatic of coach movement. Because the players can't be loyal to a program because the program is, is fluid with coaches moving, right?

So you can't commit to four years of playing for Bach if Bach's not going to be in the programming for you. Because if Bach does the job well, he's going to go somewhere and make more money unless he's loyal to the program. Or if Bach's not good at it, the program's not going to honor its four-year deal commitment to you and Bach, and it's going to move in a different direction.

So what did the student athletes say? Well, if you're not loyal to each other, what am I going to be loyal for? Why would I? You're taking the most money. So why wouldn't the student athlete? So why wouldn't the free agent in pro sports? Right? Some people would say that if you're not drafted in the first three rounds,

it would be J-Stad, this conversation. That if you're not drafted in the money rounds, it almost behooves you to not. be drafted. So you can pick who you partner with, right, or at least have a say so, right? A place where you know the system works, the system fits, you've talked to a couple of coaches, and you look at the depth chart and you go, hey, I can actually make that roster. So free agency has, it's done what it's accomplished. And again, it brings the good, but with the good, it also brings some things that you have to stay on top.

of. I miss the days of Kyle Ripkin staying in a career, staying in a town. I miss that. I absolutely miss that. But that's been gone for a very long time. It was wrong to begin with, especially when it wasn't mutual. See, in the 70s, you stayed with one team

because you don't have a choice. They owned you. They had every right to you. And there was nothing you could do about it. There's nothing you do about it. They paid you what they paid. You could sit out, right, and say, I'm just not going to do it, which some did. You know, but how many people could do that? So that sets us up well, Bach.

That sets us up well. Let's go to the profit, right? That deemed to determine that we need another way to celebrate this season. of ours, this holiday season. Bach? Are you prepared? I'm prepared. You are prepared. It is that time of season. Bach, let us let him know. Um, newcomers. The tradition of festivist begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people. There is. You're going to hear about it. You're going to hear about it. Here's the thing. The airing of grievances, best of us for the rest of us.

So for all of us standing on the outside of the stadium, looking at watching these, this spectacle that is sports and athletics, it is time. VAC, we will go to break and when we come back, we will start with the airing of grievances. When it comes to sports, what is your grievance? What do you have a problem with? No. Sports peaves. We've been talking about indoor stadiums, Kansas City, Kansas City, big contracts, coaches, players, NIL, transfer portal, shotgun and short yardage, load management in the NBA, weird schedules, imbalance in the schedules, college football playoff system, bowl selection, it is time. Text live. Get your figures ready for the airing of grievances. Bach will lead us off when we

come back to one-on-one. Download our app by searching 93.7 the ticket in your app store. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937 the ticket and the ticket FM.com.