Games with Names - Michael Rubin on the USA Basketball vs Serbia 2024 Olympic Semifinals

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Michael Rubin is in studio! The Fanatics founder and CEO is with us to relive the thrilling semifinals match between USA and Serbia in the 2024 Olympic games, as well as some of his best stories of his friends including Tom Brady, Steph Curry, and LeBron James.Support the show: http://www.gameswithnames.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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line. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA, and I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mail Room. And I'm Jordan, the show's producer. And like most guys, I haven't been to the doctor in way too long. I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking, but aren't. Every week, we're breaking down the world of men's health from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility. We'll talk science. without the jargon and get your real answers

to the stuff you actually wonder about. So check out the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get, your favorite shows. You got Brady to come out of retirement? Look, flag football is the fastest growing sport in the world right now. I think being on the Olympic stage of 2008 is going to be great. You're going to have the best players in the NFL playing in that game. A guy like Tom Brady coming out of retirement,

he's working out every day now because he wants to make sure. He wants to make sure he wins that. but he's going to have some tough, tough competition from some young bucks playing. Anything to happen with Tom, Benjamin Button, Brady. Anything could happen. Welcome to Games with Names. I'm Julian Edelman. They're Jack and Kyler.

And we're on a mission to find the greatest game of all time. And on today's episode, we are covering the 2004 men's Olympic basketball semifinal, Serbia versus Team USA with Fanatics CEO, Philly Legend. a man that's probably best friends with one of your favorite rappers, Michael Rubin. And we're talking his wild 28 to 3 game story. He was pretty

dejected, if I'm going to be honest. Look, what's the lesson? You never give up. Period. Challenging me to compete at Fanatics Fest. Are you training for next year yet? I'm rehabbing right now. If you end up being the most pathetic patriot, that's just like, that's an embarrassment.

And his best sports moment with OBJ. Odell Tock me, he was like stunned. I caught the ball. He said, Roob, the only athletic thing you've ever done. And we do top five jerseys of all time in the chill zone presented by Coors Light. You gotta stick around to the end. Let's go. Games with Names of Names of Productions of IHeart Radio.

August 8, 2024, Bersie Arena, Paris, France. Down double digits in the fourth quarter. We need a good old-fashioned American comeback. Let's go! Thank God we got Steph freaking Curry. This is 2024 Olympic semifinals. Welcome to Games with Names. Today we are looking at the USA versus Serbia game. 2004 Olympics men's semifinal

legendary game with Michael Rubin Michael Rubin in one sentence why did you pick this game well I think the game picked me I want to go to the Olympics but I'll tell you one thing that was one of the greatest moments

every of you just think about surreal things that happened that I got to just witness firsthand I mean I thought your 283 comeback was pretty fucking special this was pretty competitive. A semi-final of an Olympics is being compared to the 28 to 3 game,

which at the end of the episode, we will see where this ranks. And you will see where the 28 to 3 ranks. I mean, they were both pretty special. They were both pretty special. It's just the greatest game of all time. I mean, I could tell you, at the beginning of the game,

I said, I wish I could bet on sports because I'm not allowed to bet on sports. And I said, like, I would put everything I had which is maybe why you shouldn't bet on sports. Not what you have, yeah. And I made that joke before the game. And at halftime, Travis Scott was, we went to the game together. I'm like, Trave, you got to hype these guys up.

Like, this on your shoulders. We cannot leave her. Like, they're going to lose. And I remember looking at Travis, and he was jumping up and down for about a quarter straight, about three, four feet in there every second. And he was, and he was just going crazy. Yeah. Like, it was watching them come back was absolutely.

incredible. I mean, I'll never forget that for the rest of my life. I can't wait to dive into it. But let's start off. You're the CEO of Fanatics, ultra booming sports company. Explain to us what Fanatics is to our listener. So we originally started in the Fangier business, and that's what I think a lot of people think of us for. But today, Fanatics is really the biggest digital sports platform in the world. We're in three primary businesses. You know, when you go to buy Fangier, you often buy it from us, whether it's the fanatic site or the NFL shop or the Patriot store or MLB shop or, or, you know, really, you know, many of the best sports properties in the world, we power and operate their e-commerce stores, but also at the flagship fanatic store.

We also own lids, which has 1,400 stores around the world. We operate lots of venue stores, lots of college bookstores. So if you went to the Notre Dame bookstore, you went to the San Francisco 49ers venue, that's all operated by fanatics. So we started the fan gear business. And then the last five years, we got into both the collectibles business and the betting and gaming business.

Collectibles business, we own tops. We're the official manufacturer of Major League Baseball Trading Cards, the NBA. We'll launch the NFL in April, WW UFC, F1, Champions League, Premier League, Marvel, Star Wars, Disney. So we make a few trading cards.

Jesus. Yeah. A lot of trading cards. A lot of trading cards, which, by the way, we've been innovating and growing that business like crazy and, you know, just finding out so many ways to make it better for fans. And then we got into the betting and gaming business two years ago. People told us we had no shot. I love them.

People tell me I have no shot. And we're now the fastest growing sportsbook and can see it on the country. Let's go. Yeah. And you didn't even mention Fanatics Fest, which I got to attend last year. And it was actually the first time Rob and I had a guest on dudes on dudes, which is under the Nut House. We are here in the Nut House.

It doesn't seem that nutty yet. Notty yet. I want to see more nutty. I'll feel better with more nuttiness. Like, I'm only comfortable in complete nuttiness. Right now we've got a little nudget in here. I've seen that of you from time to time. Well, getting back to the Fanatics Fest, not the Nut House.

It was extraordinary. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen because we've all heard about the Comic-Con, these cons, that con. And it was the first time I got to go to a place and see sports being celebrated. How, I mean, where did this love for sports come from? Because it's genuinely in your blood.

I see you at all these different types of games. We're talking about Olympics games. You're on the court side of all the basketball Philly games. You see you at Mr. Craftsbox. Where did this love of sports come from? You know, for me, I always gravitate to what you're good at. And by the way, sports I was terrible. I was like the opposite of you.

Like, I grew up one of the world's worst students than the world. Like, I barely made it out of high school. People think I lie and just embellish. when I said that, but I was truly one of the worst students of the world. You know, I took, um, on my SAT is, I got a 780 combined. It's very hard to do that poorly. Okay. I think Grunk got that on his math school.

Yeah. Right. And by the way, if Bronca is, if Bronca's getting on a half of his score, I mean, you could see how pathetic that is. He's, he's actually like Rain Man with numbers. Listen, if he's getting double what I got, I mean, you could see how bad of a student I was. I mean, if Grank is getting double Michael Rubin, you could see like, I'm hopeless, okay?

As bad as students as I was, I was really that bad of an athlete. But I always love business. I always love sports. So for me, the ability to take my love for business and my love for sports and combine together, that was just such a great opportunity. So I've been in the sports business in one form or another, my entire, you know, kind of life from teen up. I started with, you know, ski tuning shops and ski shops in my, you know, when I was 12 years old,

you know, obviously very well-known story at this point. But, you know, I've been in the sports business now. I cringe thinking about it, but 41 years. Wow. So, and it's, look, it's such an honor to do it. So when we had the idea to start Fanatics Fest, it was really about how do we do something incredible for sports fans. And I'll tell you, a lot of times there are things that seem obvious,

but there's just not the right person to organize it. Because Fanatics works with, you know, most of the great sports properties in the world, you know, 5,000 incredible athletes, all the players associations, we were the person that could really convene this. And, you know, walking in the Comic-Con, my action is like, why don't they have this for sports fans?

And the answer was, there was no one to organize it. And so it's hard to get everyone to go. It's actually, by the way, it was a great story because when we got it in the trading card and collectibles business and won all the rights in 2021, I went to this thing called the National. I don't know if you've ever been to it.

It's like the big, you know, once-a-year trading card show. And it was in Atlantic City. and I walked into the show and I had like kind of two thoughts. One was, this is pretty spectacular. There were like 150,000 fans. They're like, my God, what a incredible, you know, the best sports fans in the world

are collectors of trading cards. There's no better sports fans. Then if I go out to buy your trading card, I'm a true, I am a true super fan. Okay, especially by your trading card. So, you know, I had such respect for the fandom from, you know, from these 150,000. and people being at this training card show.

But then I felt like it was something out of the 1980s. And I'm like, I don't understand why we can't do better. It's a, by the way, the national is a great show, but it's very old school, very traditional, made for traditional collectors. And so I went to Comic-Con that October in New York. I'm like, this is incredible. Why do we not have this sort of sports fans?

I literally said to my chief of staff, like, find me the guy who runs Comic-Con. Bring him into the office. I brought him and said, hey, buddy, you know, great to meet you. By the way, you're going to have a new career. We're going to do a sporticon. And that was like the original, you know, kind of just like, we're just going to take what Comic Con does

and do it for sports fans. And I'll tell you, we were probably the only company in the world that could get every sports league to show up, you know, all these incredible athletes to show up. And everyone who comes as one thing, like what a great give back it is to fans. And we're going to have 200,000 people there this year in our third year. And you have the biggest stars in the world

from LeBron James to Tom Brady, that people in culture like, you know, Jay Z and Travis. Travis Scott to Kevin Hart. And across, I think we had 350 of the biggest athletes, celebrities, artists in the world. Everyone was there. The Rizzler was there. Rizzler.

He was. Streamer on like a minute of Aiden Ross. I would consider Rizler to have more athletic skills like mine. You know, I think that's why I want to compete in the fanatics games against. That would be epic. Oh, my God. I got to see that. You know, it really did feel like you were celebrating sport with the people that celebrate sports.

It was unbelievable. I don't know if that makes sense. I'm not a pollator or anything, but it kind of sound poetic. Look, the first, we did this for the first time in June of 24, and then we ran it back in June of 25. This year, it's actually going to be 100% aligned with the World Cup final, so it's going to be July 16th to the 19th, which is amazing, have everyone from the World Cup around the world.

We're getting the soccer guys? We're going to have a lot of soccer guys. Absolutely. That's why we did it that weekend. We wanted to make sure that soccer. And Bobbi? Listen, I have. You're going to see a lot of the biggest soccer stars in the world there for sure.

And, you know, for us, the thing that was most incredible to me was the reaction I saw from the biggest stars in the world saying, I love the way I'm connecting with my fans. Like, I love how great this is to, you know, to build the things that are also important to them, but also, you know, how they connect with their fans. Because, you know, when you're playing a game and, you know, you're the biggest stars in the world,

you're locked into that game. Okay. But, you know, when you could celebrate the people that are your biggest fans, I mean, it's pretty incredible. So, you know, for me, it's the hardest thing we do all year. It's also the most fun thing we do all year. Like to pull everyone together throughout the world. And we own social media and the internet for that week. And you see some of the craziest things in the world happen there. And it's just, I mean, KD got on stage there this year. I mean, Katie got traded on stage. Yeah. He's on stage and found out he was going to Houston. I mean, it was insane. And, you know, I remember looking up by

the way at the, you know, Jay Z does a 40-40 pop-up in there. I remember looking up and I see Jay, Brady, Braun, I think Jane and Daniels and C.J. Straud, Michael Parsons. Like, everyone's talking about, like, this is the middle of a sports festival. This is insane. It's like, it's pretty, it's pretty great. And we work so hard all year to do this to just get everyone to show up, but people love doing it. So I expect you, we were just talking, Sounds like last year you had some medical conditions that held you back from really winning the Fanatic Games. Now, by the way, I've been training. I'll tell you, when we started the Fanatic Games, and for everyone who doesn't know what it is,

we took 50 of the best athletes, celebrities, artists, stars in the world against 50, you know, average Joe fans and see how they would kind of compete. And the activities are awesome. You get like a hockey shot, you get like six shots, and you got to put. put it in like a washer machine. You got to hit like the pitch machine where you got to hit the strike zone and you get a certain amount.

Like it's a bunch of fun shit. The wrestling intro. The wrestling intro was awesome. I was stone cold. I participated in that one. Participated in that one. Are you training for next year yet? I'm rehabbing right now.

I need you fully. I mean, by the way, the most disappointing thing to me was having Brady talk so much shit about how he was going to win it. And I really thought, I said 48 years old he's one of these young bucks is going to take him

and when he won it the the shit I had to hear and by the he scripted shit scripted but I actually had some of the guys were mad like like you made this easy for him to win and wait he's like I made the hockey competition

but I watched him throw baseball as I thought he was at I watched the first thing he did I'm like he's out this is over and I look at the end of the day he's at the top of the ranks I'm like what? Fucking Brady I think Gronk won the hockey competition I think Grunk did.

We were there with him. Yeah. Gronks is slap shot that shit. There's no one. He came to Fanatics Fest the first year. I got to tell you something. You talk about somebody who loves his fans. Loves him.

I mean, nobody loves his fans more than Grank. I mean, and watching him have so much fun with, you know, 100,000 plus, you know, crazy sports fans. What was incredible. This year, we did the, we did the little stunt where we might have had a, and no one knew what was going on. We had a trophy, a Lombardi trophy, that Tommy threw it to, to Gront that we might have self-destructed in the air. Wait, that wasn't real? That wasn't real.

Oh, no. Hollywood. Hold on. The crazy thing. Is wrestling real? Wrestling's real, for sure. Yeah, didn't you see the Travis Scott shirt wrestling is real? Hey. So the crazy thing was, I just said, I didn't, I went to grab Tom.

I didn't tell him that we were going to bring him in. They were going to be like 20 people dressed up as Gronk with their helmets on. And so, first we brought him in there. He had no idea what was going on. and said, hey, you got to pick the real Gronka. And he's going through, and he's oblitering these people one by one. You're too short. You're too unathletic looking.

You're too fat. Granc ain't here. And Gronk was there. So he was, like, stunned by that. They said, hey, you got to throw this. We got to try to replicate the, you know, what you did in the boat. So you got to try to throw this Lombardi trophy. What are they doing the boat?

We remember when he was drunk. No, I don't. You don't remember you're saying. I wasn't there. Right. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.

Michael. You're saying because you drank too much? No, because that was the Tampa. I was in Foxborough. I was just seen if you remember. Foxborough forever. Yeah, I mean, that's loyalty. That's the type of loyalty we love.

That's right. So when he threw the trophy, they had like a little thing that would self-destruct. The NFL says, like, how'd you get that Lombardi trophy? Like, where did it? Because I think there's only two actual Lombardi trophies.

And so they thought it was real. And like there was a panic going through the league office that somehow we got the Lombardi trophy out of there. Like, these guys had broken it. So ultimately it was just a prank. Oh my God. A good one, by the next little prop guys.

So you got Fanatics Fest, you got Fanatics Fest, you got Fanatics, you've been in sports business for 41 years. What are the teams you grew up loving? You're from Philly. Yeah, I grew up a diehard Sixers fan. Diehard, well, you used to own part of them. Yeah, I was the third largest shareholder of the Sixers until it just became such a conflict with Fanatics,

and I wanted to put Fanatics first in what we did and put the fan first to everything we did. And I was a, I grew up a Philly's fan, a little bit of an Eagles fan, tell you, and you know this. Well, you're, you're a Foxborough forever. Um, if you grow up and you move around, um, you actually, it kind of kills the fans. Now I'm a fan of my friends. Yeah. You know, who do I want to do well? Who am I really invested in? What, who owns teams and friends? Like, you kind of just root for your friends. You stop kind of, it kind of kills a little

bit of loyalty. I mean, I know when, you know, I'm sure when, you know, a friend of yours goes to another team, you're rooting for that friend, not the team. One thousand percent. I mean, once an athlete got to once you get to college and you start seeing guys that you played with played against go to teams like I was a diehard

Niners fan and it kind of just went out the window after that you know and then I was like oh I want to see you know I like Tom Brady because he was from the Bay Area in the Patriots I liked you know

I liked the Raiders because of Charlie Fry and I used to throw with them like it always became who you were invested with like as far as friendships. It's funny because the average fan and I respect

this, they get mad like you know, when I rooted for the Patriots in each Super Bowl, Philly fans want to kill me. Kill you. Right? They want to kill me. But I'm like, you know, Robert Kraft's one of my closest friends. You know, it's like when I, when

someone left a team and I rooted for that person, but to me, you got to always stick with your people. That's that's the real, that's the real truth. How about those Patriots? Yeah, baby. How about those Patriots back. Honestly, on a serious note, it's incredible. Mr. Kraft's looking like a fucking genius. He hired Parcells. He hired Pete Carroll, hires Bill, now he's got Vrable. I mean, RKK all the way. Noseball. Listen, it's super exciting. Nine and two. Long way to go. Long way to go.

It's all about, as you know, I remember, and I just, got to watch you do it, you'll remember this like it was for the rest of your life. You guys would win the AFC championship and not even flinch. You didn't care. You're like, who cares?

AFC championship, that means shit. Unless we win the Super Bowl, we haven't done anything. So I remember the amount of AFC games I watched you win and it was like there wasn't ever any excitement. So until you win the Superball again, it doesn't matter.

But that's what he's focused on. And I think certainly, I don't think anyone would have predicted at the beginning of the season that the Patriots would be 9 and 2 and, you know, talking about what they can do in the playoffs. But the guy,

A guy calling the shots, might be calling the right shots. Yeah, listen, as you know, and it's very easy when you really get to see this inside, you can pick who are the perennial winners, who are the perennial losers, and who's like kind of perennial, I'm kind of mediocre, you know, the New England Patriots, led by Robert John and the Kraft, they're perennial winners, okay? And they know how to run a great organization. They know how to make the right choices. When they get it wrong, they know how to correct it.

and I think that goes to being a great owner. You know, I'm always going to make the best decision I can. And also, if I didn't get it right, I'm going to fix it. And that's what I do in business every day because we fuck things up all the time. We screw, you know, but the part is own your mistakes and get them right as soon as you can. It's like in sport.

Scotty O'Brien, special teams legend coordinator for us, would always say a play whether good or bad is a bit of experience and the good ones don't make the same mistake twice. You're going to make mistakes. You've got to be able to fix them. Absolutely. So what is your most prized

collectible that you have? I mean, the owner of fanatics, the founder of fanatics, the guy who started sports everywhere, what is the best card, memorabilia thing that you cherish the most? So I've been asked this. Your holy grail. I've been asked

this a lot and it's actually a really funny story. No, you can't use my card. Not me. Not me. I know. It was your card. It was a special. Was this one you wrote to me, you know, after your first touch up? No. So, owning that I'm not the most athletic human being in planet Earth,

I do this small party each year at my house called the White Party. And there was a flag football game that broke out right the day before the white party in 24. And I remember this one I enjoy. This is probably the only good athletic moment in my life. C.J. Shrodd, he drew up a play. C.J. said like, you know, you know, here you go. Here's the play. And, and O'Dell was guarding me. And, like, CJ, he, I mean, he threw me a bullet, hit me right in the chest, grabbed it with everything I had, right in front of, with O'Dell right there. Odell talked, he was, like, stunned. I caught the ball. And C.J. brought me the ball back. I walked back to my house. He said, Rube, the only athletic thing you've ever done. And that is in my office. That is, that is in my office. That is. that's the that's the holy grill for me yeah represents a good athletic moment i mean i could tell you it was some multi-million dollar card i own and i own many of them but for me it was for me it was i'll never want to forget that catch no by the way right afterward kevin hart guarded me

and literally i tripped right in front of him and he he intercepted the ball that was really bad yeah but that that's what's also really cool about sports memorabilia the value people have for certain things is predicated on their value and what it means to them. And you never know what it's going to be. Now, look, I've become such a big collector. I grew up a collector of trading cards. When I was 10 years old, 11 years old, 12 years old, I was always buying and selling baseball cards, selling them to my friend's parents because they had the money. And I've always been into cards when I was a kid. And I really got back into it. And so I bought some incredible cards over the last several years, you know, cards that I think a lot of big collectors would

have, but also cards that are really special. Right now, what I like to collect are people that I'm close with, they're best cards. So how do I have, you know, X, Y, Z athlete's best card, because I'm invested in their career. I believe in what they're doing. I also, we made this, we came up with this innovation in trading cards that is probably the best innovation that I think has ever happened in trading cards. And it's when a, as I'm sure you know, when a player, you know, what people are chasing trading cards are rookie cards, okay?

It's someone's most rare rookie card. And so Tops came up with the idea for whenever a player plays the first game in the pros. So you play your first game in the NFL, your first game in Major League Baseball, your first game in the NBA to create a debut patch that will go on your jersey only for that first game. And then right when the game's over,

we take the jersey off. we put it in a truly one-on-one card, there's only one in the world, okay? And so if you think this year about the draft, whether it's Vijay Edgecombe, whether it's Cooper flag, whether it's Ace Bailey, whether it's Dylan Harper,

like the chance to get those guys, you know, debut patches, like I'm obsessed with those cards. We actually had them in the NFL the last couple years, you know, we had Jaden Daniels, you know, CJ's, you know, Caleb Williams, you know, their debut patches.

So you think about how special those are, Could you imagine if we had Otani's, you know, debut, it wasn't made then. Yeah. If you had Brady's, if you had Jordans, I mean, you know, Otani's debut patch, I bet you's a $25 million card today. If it exists, that doesn't exist. Jesus. Okay, if you had the one of one card, because there's one in the world to signify,

this is the first time someone played. I mean, could you imagine if we had your debut patch, by the way? No. I mean. It would be very clean. It would be very clean. Actually, my first game against the Jets. Preseason?

We count in preseason? I had nine catches for a hundy Sunlight Oh, is this the play? This is the play, but we'll see it. Stutter go, in cut. Okay, for me, that's pretty good, right? Change the direction.

People are stunned by this. We're moving the chains. Moving the chains. I mean, do you see how happy I was right there? Like, this was a good moment for me. That's why. Just like I say, Rubes. People got to convert third downs for other people's to score touchdowns.

That was a conversion right there. Hey, you know what? Now, the next play was awful. I think I put that up to it because I really like making fun of myself. So the next one was just abysmal. So I didn't want to show something good without showing something bad. But there is one coming up. I don't know if it's there.

I don't know if it's there. But when you see it, it's really, there's one with Kevin Hart. That one went a lot more viral because obviously it was me embarrassing myself. Oh, here it is. that was horrible he flipped your hips on you i mean i think i had to get i went on the i r right after it it was it was very bad it was very very bad he didn't uh kevin though he he tore his hamstring when he raced rid yeah yeah stephen ridley that was pretty bad as well that was that was pretty bad athletic moments i enjoy that i like to be able to make nothing better

there's something about that when like in like a healthy way oh yeah not like he gets seriously hurt but if any friend gets her doing something he did get seriously hurt so i shouldn't have yeah just it look when kevin hard's trying to be all tough and race somebody and and and and then he's you know he he's facetiming me from a wheelchair you can't not have used a shit out you can't yeah especially he's going to dish it out you're going to dish it and i'm going to dish even more now you were sitting next to r kkk in the 28 to 3 game was my guy handling that? What was it like? Give us something in there. What was, was it? He was pretty dejected, if I'm going to be honest. Yeah. I remember we had a, uh, a private

conversation and I just share the, the, uh, a small part of it at halftime. And you, as everyone knows, you were down 21, three. And he was, uh, he, he, he, he was not as optimistic as. And I was given, I was given the speed like, you're winning this game. It's only 213. Don't worry about it. At 283, I'm like, yeah, you're fucked. We were all there. Yeah. That was, I'll tell you, if you'd say what are some of the, in my life, like memories that you just remember forever, sitting next to him and Jonathan and watching what you guys did, I mean, that will be something. I'm sure you'll tell that story

probably another thousand times in your life. At least. You know, and just getting to see that. I mean, thank you for giving me a good moments inspired to. But you know what? That's inspirational. Here's the reality. When we, I remember my daughter who, what you, that was, um, 16. Right. So my daughter was, um, she was 10 or 11 at that point. She called me. She was like crying that the Patriots were going to lose. I remember saying like, Kylie, it's not over yet. Like, and she called me to Emily. I'm telling her like, it's not over yet. And you know, look, what's the lesson? You never give up. Period. And that's, you know, that's what you guys did. And that's what we do in business every

They were always unrelenting to make sure we're pushing for the best possible outcome until you've lost something mathematically it's over, you've never lost. Now, do you remember when the spirits got lifted in that room? Was there a certain play? Maybe the Trey Flowers sack? High Tower.

High Tower sack. Maybe a catch. Maybe a catch. I think you might have had a few special contributions to that game that got people very motivated. I mean, even by the way, even when you got to 12, I think it still seemed pretty unlikely. I think, and then I'm such a optimist to push,

but also always thinking of calculating every worst case scenario. All I kept thinking was one of these two-point conversions isn't happening. It's tough. And the crazy thing about that is, how many two-point conversions you have in that? We had... We installed six that week. Shout out Ernie.

Shout out Ernie, which usually you go into a game with maybe two or three. but for some odd reason the football gods came down and said we're going to put in six this week the football gods were good to us needed a football gods were good to us now by the way they've taken a few

they've taken a few unfair ones away too so I kind of feel like you kind of got to evened out in the end that's sports exactly why we play the game as business for sure that's life I feel like I got more wisdom I feel like I've got some more wisdom coming from you you know I'm just trying to get on your level rubes I'm just trying

it on your level, man. We'll be right back after this quick break. Let's go back into time and let's go to August 8th, 2024, and let's jump around and see what was going on in the world. Number one movie was Deadpool and Wolverine. Never saw that one. Did you? No. Didn't either, yeah. Number one song, a bar song by Shabuzi. I know that song well. And the reason I know that song well, at the white i'd never heard of shabuzi at this point yeah he wanted to come do that song at the white party and i wasn't sure and then like everyone kept telling me they love him he's a great guy so he came and then he did it four times in a row on stage then he walked off and threw up because he drank too much and then he went right back to doing shots and doing the song again so i kind

of had a lot of respect for him sometimes you got pulled the trigger to dude i mean i it was it was it was a mushroom and a he put up a strong performance by the way that's incredible Super Bowl champions were the Kansas City Chiefs. Lamar Jackson was the MVP. Celtics took the NBA championship, and Yolkich took the MVP in basketball. How was Paris at this time for the Olympics? Paris was incredible. It was actually incredible.

And you know, look, when you're in the sports business, you're fortunate enough to see so many different things and you go to so many different things. It's kind of, you know, it's part of, you know, our day job. That was like, this is incredible. You felt every minute of that you just honored to, you know, get to see it live and, you know, watching what Team USA did was, you know, no one would have thought it would have been so hard, but at the end of the day, they got the gold medal. I actually have, you asked me about other pieces of memorability that I have that I love.

I have this picture of KD wrapped in the American flag, giving me a hug at the end of the game. It's just like, it's just such a cool, like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, And it sits in my office. You look at that. You're like, what a moment. This is just such a great, you know, such a great moment. You know what? There's probably nothing like that feeling to get to go compete for your country

for the world's best, which is exciting because flag football is now going to be an Olympic sport. Are we going to take that? And you're, are you putting on the flag football game in? We're putting on the flag football game together with Tom Brady and Saudi. And we're, you know, we're super excited to be part of. of that and that's going to be broadcast on Fox. I think you're going to have the best players in the NFL playing in that game. Look, flag football is the fastest growing sport in the world

right now. I think being on the Olympic stage of 2008 is going to be great. Do I think that America will take it absolutely. But I get scared with that. Yeah. Well, I get scared with everything until you get the W. I mean, exactly. If you don't have that fear, then someone's going to, you know, bad things happen. So I think you always got to go into it not being Arab. but being humble. But it's also, it's a completely different sport. This isn't football. I don't even know what the rules are.

I don't even know if our guys will know what the rules are. You probably can't do half the things that we want to do. You know, I'll tell you, I've learned a lot about flag football in the past couple months, and I'll tell you, a lot of the younger guys, they've got a lot of experience playing flag football. There you go. They know really how it works. What I'm excited for is our flag football to watch the competition to see a guy like Tom Brady coming out of retirement.

And he's working on every day now because he wants to make sure that he comes home you know, as the winner of that. You got, you know, round robin game, you know, three teams competing. He wants to make sure he wins that. But he's going to have some tough, tough competition

from some young bucks playing. Do we, we know all those young bucks? We haven't announced to the other quarterbacks, are you? But I could tell you, he better be working on a sprinting as well. So the sprinting is a thing for the quarterback. I mean, I think you got to be,

I mean, Flay football is a game. You've got to be fast. It's not just passing accuracy. You've got to be fast here. My guy did get a better 40 time in his 40s than he did in his 20s. So anything to happen with Tom, Benjamin Button, Brady. Anything could happen. I agree.

And I tell him all the time I'm rooting against him just to motivate him, but I'm absolutely rooting for him. Got him. It's a goat. Absolutely. But we've got to keep the pressure on him, too. Like, could you or Matt, I said to him, by the way, so everyone's going over together in the plane, there's like a, you know, playing with a couple hundred seats. Everyone is playing, their family.

so everyone's going to the game together. I've told him if he doesn't win, he's going back commercial coach middle seat. Seems right. I think he's got a couple of friends, though. He got a couple. No, we're going to make sure to get some pretty bad pass. Could you imagine Tom Brady in the back of economy

in the middle seat? He better win this game. 19 hours? How far is this? Well, I make sure we had some stops alone. Better be friends. We got to win. You got to get some connections.

Oh, my, he's going to be fired up for this. He's definitely, by the way, there's nobody who likes to compete more than Tom Brady. No one. Yeah, for sure. He's definitely got Alex working on his arm right now. He's doing his little, the Dak Prescott thing. You know, that thing?

That came from Tom House and TB, that little hip thing. He's doing that all day in the mirror. Now he's got a couple veins in his arm because he's been lifting weights. Ooh, vascular. He's looking young. He's looking good. Geez, let's go. Let's go.

He seems very excited. I am. I mean. Who does he get excited to see the goat throw the pass? I'm with you. Do you think it's fair that if he didn't leave victorious, that he should have to go back, coach, middle seat, economy?

I mean, I can't bite the hand that fed me. I think this got to be pressure. He's got to come home with it. He's got to come home with it. He's got to, I mean, he's going to put so much pressure on himself. This guy is the most pressure giving himself guy in the world.

Like, I played with them for 10 years or 11 years. I mean, this guy, he doesn't need any more motivation. anyone that can get motivated playing in his 20th year against a team that's one in eight in week nine like he don't need no more motivation

this guy's motivated bro 16 hours in economy though middle seat middle seat that's motivation that's motivation for me that's some cruel and unusual type punishment bro that's what we like here fanatics it's fun that's some like fantasy factory shit honestly Jackie let's jump into the game should we get into the Serbia team real quick

These guys, I mean, Serbia, they know ball, baby. This is a great basketball-playing nation, led by legendary Euroleague coach, Sletislav Petchik. Sorry, my pronunciations here, really getting a workout. I'm glad you're doing this. Oh, man, me too. That was so much better than I could have done. Thank you. That's all I needed.

You know him. He coached Barcelona. He coached all these, like, Dynamo, Moscow. He's been in the EuroLeague forever. This roster had four guys that were currently NBA at the time. Yokic, of course, three-time MVP. Love you. The man.

man. Boiagandrovich from the Hawks, we know him. Missich, who was on the Hornets that year. And then, not to be confused, but Nikolai Jovich, who's on the heat. And so really good EuroLeague players. They were coming off a strong showing at that 2023 Fiba World Cup, where they took silver, fell to Germany in the finals. This was a real big momentum for him.

So that kind of put him on the world stage, dethrer, competed with Germany, who was number one at the time. But they were, they were expected to challenge us in this one. First out, how good is Yolk it in person? Joker, baby. He's spectacular. But I was definitely, I'm used to rooting against him, and I rooted against him more than normal in this particular game.

I bet. You know, when he played the Sixers, I've rooted against him here against our country. I was definitely rooting against his ass. He's a scary dude. He's scary. Yeah. Like, silent scary. Yeah.

Assassin. Those are the scariest ones, guys, that don't talk. He's like the guy and gone in 60 seconds. Remember the guy that had to steal the Hummer? Remember that one movie? Great comp. He's like that exact same dude. Didn't talk the whole movie.

And then he's got his brothers sitting behind the bench. Those guys are even scary. And they're bigger than him. Yeah, they're even bigger somehow. We had Joe, remember when Joe was on here? Joe was like, it looks like he's playing water polo out there. Kind of does. Yeah, it does.

Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health. And I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mailroom. And I'm Jordan, the show's producer. And like a lot of guys, I haven't been to the doctor in many years. I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking, but aren't. Because guys usually don't go to the doctor unless a piece of their face is hanging off or they've broken a bone. Depends which bone.

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It's about energy, confidence, and connection. We don't just want you to live longer. We want you to live better. So check out the mailroom on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. On an all-new episode of I-HeartRadios Las Culturistas, actress and director, Brittany Snow, opens up about challenging age bias. Hollywood wants to kind of disregard women after the age of three.

32. And she reflects on the responsibility of inspiring other women. You sharing your story might just be really small to you, but it might be the story that someone needs to feel like there's hope. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Las Culturistas and listen to the full podcast now. What up y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Month, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends. people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak?

And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes. Let's be honest.

We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal fell through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about. that and how we made it through.

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Enter now at iHeartpodcastawards.com. The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot. Even though they are such a powerful player in finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them. And even harder to understand. Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the

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outsized indicators of inflation. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, is our time as being the basketball leader in the world, the United States? Is this finally coming? Are we, is it closer to the end than, I mean, we haven't had an MVP in a long time? So I don't think so. Look, here's the reality.

Basketball is an incredibly global sport. And there's so many stars from around the world that drive. competition at the highest level. But I still think you're going to have the concentration when you put it all together. I still think, you know, America's going to be able to put the best team on the court, Olympics after Olympics after Olympics. So I don't think our time is ending. I will say, I think people go into that with a lot of confidence.

I think what happened in 2024 was a good message to say, hey, we better take the shit seriously in 2008, 2032. So, you know, I don't think our time is. over, but what I will say is, I think that was a good reminder. You know, how many games do you think you were going to win in your life? And you just, I said this to actually Robert Kraft, right before you guys, you know, played the Jets this week. I'm like, it's the games you think you're going to win are the games that you lose.

And so I think there was a level of confidence. Complacency. That probably shouldn't have been had. And I think at the end of the day, the team knew how to pull it together and win when it mattered. And that was what was so incredible to be there for both. This game and the final game against France. Both were so spectacular.

But, you know, it is a real global sport, that's for sure. 1,000%. It's kind of like how we were our whole career where if you have so much sustained success, when you're playing a dog shit team, they think if they beat you guys... Yeah, that's their dream. That's their Super Bowl. And they get that with everyone in the world. Every little kid on all these teams grew up watching the NBA,

wanting to be in America. And when they get a shot to play them, they're out for avenges, man. By the way, we see that with smaller competitors against fanatics every day. But I actually love that. That competition makes us better. And so for me, you know,

when we were smaller, we were the person trying to disrupt somebody else and make it better for the fan. Now, all we think about and we obsess about is how we can do everything to enhance really the consumer experience for the fan. But I got to tell you something, there's so many young companies saying they want to kill us, okay? And I love that competition. That competition, you each push each other

to be better and to put your best foot forward. So competition's great. That's why we play the game. Raises the best out of you. Raises the best out of you. That's right, baby. Jackie, let's jump in Team USA. Oh, this roster speaks for itself. Steve Kerr leading the way, star-studded assistant coaching staff, Mark Few, you know him from Gonzaga, Eric Spolstra, Ty Liu, four straight gold medals coming into this thing, 16 overall. The average age on this team, a little bit old, 30, the U and USA standing for Unk out here. KD, LeBron, Steph, the old heads leading away, but I love it. 11 of the 12 guys were all-stars this year, eight combined MVPs on this team.

We got some notable Olympic debuts. Steph, first ever Olympics, crazy. That's crazy. We needed him. Anthony Edwards, Antman, he's the future. Embed, Halliburton, and Derek White. Yeah, this was, I mean, this is Team USA, stacked. Now, could this team beat the dream team?

team? That's such a good question. What do you think? I mean, I don't, I don't watch basketball now like I did then. And I still have the folklore of like Michael Jordan still being the guy and that whole team and the stories around the practices of that team. And it was like the first time the pros could play in the bass. You know what I mean? I don't know. You know what? But I don't know my job is to give a politically correct answer because I'm friends with a lot of people on both sides. But you know it? Fuck it. These guys would win. yes you know why because i just think everything's advanced so much the way the three shot today is advanced and you know since since that period of time i just think the way people are

the the way you can train today i just think the sophistication today is at the greatest level so i'm going to say yes they would win so the time traveler theory though so if you take that that group and put them into the other group not if that group got to be in this group now you're confusing this shit like I was asked a very simple question would this team beat the dream team and I thought first I should be politically correct and not answer the question

and I said fuck it yes and now you're coming and making the question more complicated I think Charles might say that's terrible man That's terrible Johnson Larry Bird Michael Jordan It feels like blasphemy but I'm with Michael on this one you know what it's You're with me right I'm with you

Thank you I'm not against you I mean I just trying to be political and I ask the question What do you think either they would win or they wouldn't win Who is winning? Answer the question. I got to go with Jordan. That's what old people do. The old people can respect the youth. By the way, and then when they're calling,

when they're calling out saying these 30-year-olds are old, I'm definitely going with the young guys. I know. And then all of a sudden you see Steph Curry pull up from half court and just drain three threes in a row. Like it's nothing with the night night. Oh my God. How good is Steph Curry?

Spectacular. How is it watching it live? I've never seen him live either, I don't think. Okay. Well, first of all, there's one thing I picked up here. I thought I didn't leave my house when I came to Los Angeles. you need to get out of your house. There's this basketball team here called the Lakers.

Lakers? There's also a second one called the Clippers. Clip shows. Both play basketball and you can actually get out and see some of these guys. You are in the sports business. You want to be relevant. You want to know what's going on.

I'm just suggesting. Get the fuck out of your house. Yeah, just saying. Who agrees with that? I agree. I'm with you. Celtics are in town soon. Are they?

I think so. Last time I went to a Lakers game when they play the Celtics. Hey, let's run it back. Let's run it back. We did have Jeannie bus here. Take me with you. We did.

Jeannie said I could go whenever I want. And then she sold the team on you. And she sold the team on me. Now he's not about me anymore. She's like, yeah, I made this commitment to Jules. I don't want anything to do with me. Horrible. I don't want anything to do with me.

I don't want them at the game. You've probably hung out with all these guys. Who's the funnest to hang out with? There's so, I mean, first of all, I probably know half the guy as well. If I'd say, there's so many great guys on this team and so many just incredible athletes. I mean, I think of these guys, you know, I think like all of us, these, this is a group that literally they eat, breathe, live basketball, and that's what's their priority 24, 365. So I don't think of any of these guys like, hey, these are the fun guys you hang out with.

But you always see moments. Just like, you know, people, you know, you see the five, ten moments a year that I'm having fun. I mean, you know, like there's so many great guys in here. I'm looking at the bottom list. I look at the book. I mean, in the rare times when you see him out, he's certainly, he's got such a great personality, such a fun guy, you know,

obviously imbeds my boy, JT's great. I mean, there's so many great guys on here. Who's a guy on here? Who's a guy that's not on here that you think that should be on here? For this team, for a 2024 Olympic team, I don't know. I'm going to let you create the controversies with that one. Jalen Brown.

Jalen Brown? Jalen Brown? Well, that was a lot of controversy around him for sure, people. And by the way, and they brought in my guy White. I love D. White though, too. I like D. White. He's got such a great way about,

and I've met him a few times. I barely know him. But you just see, one of the things I love to see is people that bring people together. And if you look at this list, obviously, Steph, you know, you think about right away,

someone who's like, because the thing about basketball, as you know, sometimes you have these teams that you're like, oh, that team's going to win it all because they have three great stars, but the three great stars,

they don't fit well together. They don't play well together. You know, Derek White, just felt like he has such great energy of how he brings people together. Obviously, I look at the top of your list here and you look at Steph and obviously you think that right away. Here's a guy who brings people together. There's so many leaders in this team, but bringing people together is, you know, part of, you know, you can have

all the talent in the world. That doesn't mean you're going to win. I've seen, I've seen that in business as well. Sometimes we'll go out and we'll hire somebody incredible's got all the intellect, all the talent, but they can't work well with other people. And you need to get people that have all the talent but know how to bring people together. You played on a team where what was Tom Brady's best skill, probably how he brought everyone together. Yeah, consistency too. Right. Same guy every day. which is part of leadership. Part of leadership.

He kept you in line, which is no easy job. No easy job. Talk about a guy who'd go off the rails. Not with TB, though. Because he'd kick your ass. He kicked my ass. What about with Cam Newton? Can't have my highest yardage game with Kim.

I don't know what to say. 179 when I couldn't even walk. Highway 11. Highway 11. Getting out of sick nicknames. He did have good nicknames, Kim. He had great nicknames. Who's the funnest guy?

you like to watch? Who's like your favorite player to watch on the team? I mean, I got to say, I'd still say it's Braun, because I just have so much respect for someone at his age, who's doing what he's doing is spectacular. And I think it seemed prior to Tom

and Braun, it seemed inconceivable that you could play at the level that these guys are playing at the age they're at. And all, like, I like to joke around and be the, you know, have fun with my friends, but like, I can't wait to see Tom come back at 48 years old in this flag football game and see, does he look as good as ever? Because I think he's going to, because he's working out to accomplish that. When you look at Braun at 40 years old and what he does day in and day out, it's pretty

spectacular. And I was listening to Charles Barkley a couple days ago saying, like, there's a time when he just hates to see old guys where you don't have the last couple years. Bront still got it. So for me, on this list, you know, it's Bronn without question. It's hard to argue. I would say either Braun or Steph, just because Steph is like, defying odds when I see him shoot and do the things he did like he's literally revolutionized

the game you asked me for one I answer no I know I know so like if you want by by for me I feel like it be Braun Steph JT book I mean you asked me for one person I try to answer your question Braun versus Jordan then who do you got answer that question you answer it first I know you're old how you're going with Jordan you know I used to be that way and then with what you just explained Braun is in his 40s and he was the best guy in that court in this game.

Like we wouldn't have won if it wasn't for Braun and the other guys, but he took over the game at like 39 in the world. Because at the end of the day he has those killer instincts that when he has to kill

like that's not the guy you fuck with. Okay? That's the guy you always respect and like I remember, I'll tell you a great basketball story. I remember at the end end of a, this is when I was involved in the ownership of the Sixers. I remember seeing Jalen

Brown, you know, at the end of a game, when they played the Sixers. I think the Sixers had just won the game by a couple points. And Jalen came up to me, says, yeah, you know, I hope you guy gets MVP. I'm like, I know exactly why you're saying that. He's like, yeah, he said, I want him to be happy with MVP. I don't want him to be thinking about any, anything else. And here's Jaylon Brown saying, here's how I'm going to be a killer. Like, I'm playing a game of chess. You know, here's what I want to happen. So like, I mean, look, do you, do you, guys, you don't get to where any of these guys are without being killers, but Bron's an assassin. Yeah. I think it's a lot closer than what it was back in the day. It used to be just straight

Jordan, but now, like, I never even thought it could be possible to get on the same wavelength of him with that killer instinct that we're talking about. But Bron, I mean, I'm a Tom guy. So that, like, naturally puts me in that Bronn category because of the longevity, like, the the fine odds with the age stuff, the consistency. The consistency is so big. The durability. Winning in different locations.

Winning in different locations. Like it's fucking, it's, it's hard to pick. You can't. You got to pick. Only reason I'm picking Michael Jordan because one time

before the Super Bowl, my first Super Bowl, I played, or second Super Bowl we played in when we won, I met Jordan for the first time and I was so intimidated. It was him and Derek Jeter.

We were at Paradise Vals. or Paradise Valley, that little restaurant in there, the sanctuary is a Friday before the Super Bowl. And I go up to meet Mr. Jordan and Mr. Jeter and Jordan was super standoffish. And Jeter was charming. We're talking for like 10 minutes. And I went and introduced myself, like, I'm about to play in this game, sir. You know, I just want to meet you guys. And Jordan at the end of the conversation looks at me with a stone cold killer eye. And he says, don't fuck this up, kid. I got a lot of money on you. guys. Sounds like Mike. Which game was it?

Seahawks. And so just because of that, I thought he literally was going to kill me with his eyeballs. I love that. I got to pick Jordan. It's killer instant. And you had the game when he touched him. I was just terrified of him. And it was everything I wanted and more from if I were to ever meet Michael Jordan. It went, it surpassed my excitement levels because he was real with me. And they said he didn't give me the Kiki, hey, fanboy, he said, hey, fucking kid, don't fuck this up. It's good words of wisdom.

We didn't fuck it up. Didn't let MJ down. Got close. So I'm going, Jordan. That's a thoughtful and respectable answer. Before we move into the game, you grow up in Philly. What's it like growing up of the team you're a fan of and then walking in the first time you own the team? You know, I think people think owning a team is fun.

No. It's not because you have one job and we failed it every year I was involved. You have to win the championship. That is your job. You have no other responsibility when you own a team. And we were a perennial second round exeter of the playoffs in the time I was above with the team. So for me, I think I learned a ton. I think I added some value to the organization.

But for me, I felt like this huge, I'm letting down fans by not winning the championship. And that's all that really mattered. You know, there's no reason if you don't, when you enter sports ownership, if you don't do it, if the only reason you're doing it isn't because you want to win championship, because you're in for the wrong reason.

And that is what the city and the fans expect for you. and they're 100% right. So, you know, I think you'll learn a lot about heartbreak. You feel what the fans feel because you want it so fucking bad. You want to deliver it for it so bad. And that's why I'm so excited for Robert Kraft today to say from going from six Super Bowls

to people thinking they're kind of an embarrassment of the NFL to now being nine and two with, you know, you know, an incredible quarterback for the future and an incredible, you know, coaching organization and they're back and like I know how good that feels and I know how much he sweats. He and Jonathan sweat every single play, every single moment that makes, gives them the chance to get that, you know, at bat to try to win a Super Bowl. So for me, I'd say I did it from 2011 until 2021 to 22. it became a huge distraction of fanatics.

We were getting the sports betting business. You can't take bets on people that you can't take bets on your own team. You know, we had individual deals with that. So we kind of, as we expanded our business, that violated the rules of the leagues. And so it was time for me to move on. But I'd say I left feeling like I never did my job. And that's, you know, that's an L on my record.

Man of integrity. And honesty. And honesty. facts. Jackie, get us in this game after that moment right there. Lean up to this game. There's a rematch. Played them twice already before this. Played him in an exhibition.

Busted him 115-79. Then we met him again in group play 10-84. People say, looking back on hindsight 2020, they were giving us some vanilla looks there, playing possum a little bit, because not to get too ahead of ourselves here. They come out with different coverages. They're switching. They're

doubling. They're fowling to stop any transition for us. So that was a little bit of a talking point leading up to it. But immediately, you know, that happens in sports. A little vanilla look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a safer for the, save for when it really matters. In the quarterfinals of the knockout stage, we busted Brazil 12287.

Meanwhile, Serbia had to go to OT to beat the Aussies. 9590. That gets us to the semifinals. This event, we talked about it, but being in Paris, that's got to be a cool feeling. Like having the Olympics in Paris, well, we're, where was everything at? Where was it all at the, what stadium or,

you know, for me, the cool feeling was this was probably the time when I felt most connected to every bit of this from both the business aspect. You know, we operate, you know,

many of these businesses, whether it's their online businesses, we sell so much of this merchandise, we create so many of these collectibles. By the way, the trading card that we collected of the, having,

that we created a card at the end of the game that had Braun, Steph, and KD on it. It was probably the single, biggest card we've ever done in the history of tops and by the way there was one one card that still it's the one-on-one card still has not been found yet which is unusual for such a special card to to not surface um you know oftentimes they come out they come out eventually that card still hasn't been found so now those are in the regular packets they're ran it's completely randomized yeah there's no gum

anymore. That stopped. That stopped when you were young. When they were considered you a young box, that stopped. But you're completely randomized. So when you go today, I mean, there was a very famous story last year where Paul Skeen's rookie pitcher had his debut patch. And a kid actually in California had asked his parents, hey, I really want a box of these cards for his Christmas present. And they went to stock. I'd spent 200 bucks, bought the box of cards. and he got the Paul Skeen's card, which ultimately sold for $1.1.1 million.

Now, that's a great story. There's, you know, many people get boxes of cards with the value of the cards are, you know, way less than what you pay for it. So it's completely randomized. And it's just, and it's worked that way for the entire trading cards. Trading cards have been randomized since, you know,

Tops was created, you know, in the early 50s. Wow. That was crazy. That story was nuts. A million dollars. I love those stories. The Pirates were like, here's like season tickets. Can we get it back? For 30 years.

years. Yeah. Front row season tickets for 30 years. They gave him for 30 years. They offered it. They offered it. And then Livy said

and come to the suite with me to watch the game. And it worked? Nope. The kid took the, I'm just kidding. Jack was taking that. That's like in Seinfeld

with the hot coffee, you remember? Yeah. So look, being in Paris where we have such a big partnership with so many, you know,

so many the guys on Team USA, having been such a big basketball fan, that was like, I went to other sports. I went to volleyball. I went to track, but like, I'm looking at these pictures now. I mean, that picture, you look at the picture of Travis there and just how hyped he was and there's J.T. over there. It was just, it was such a, it was such a great moment.

How is it different, though, like, because I've been to Super Bowls. You go to the NBA finals. Because at the end of the day, you're still fighting for your country. You're still fighting for your country. And by the way, they still have the events and stuff? So much better, so much better to almost lose and then win, than to win easily. Yeah. Like, makes it more exciting.

Yeah. Like, let me ask you a question. What's the best moment you can remember in your life? It's that 283 comeback, correct? Honestly. Probably. Or it could have been, you know, I mean, we came. All of them are daughter.

Birth of daughter. No, hold on. I know we're supposed to be properly saying. He said sports world. He said sports. Sports. I actually did it because you said, what's the moment? Like, look, you were just glowing about your daughter, how amazing she is.

and, you know, you're here for her. But the reality is being in front of the whole world and being down 283 and having so many thousands of people leave the stadium and say, we gave up on you. And you said, fuck that. We're going to find a way to win this game. I'm looking at you, Mark Wahlberg.

Yeah. Like, you're going to, by the way, I'm not. But in the suite I was in. It was all the bad mojo we got out of that suite. Rob is going to kill me for saying this. But it was all the people were like, yeah, we're leaving half time.

The game's over. Fuck y'all. You know what? people didn't believe in you and you know you guys went out and you did what you did so to me like watching team USA thinking they're really losing against Serbia and then coming back and winning the game by way 17 point differentiation 17 point differentiation in the thing come out right in the fourth quarter insane insane insane absolutely insane 15 points in the fourth by I'll tell you I'm looking at this picture now, I think Travis jumped up and down the entire fourth quarter. He must have

burned 5,000 calories. Basketball does give you that excitement, though, when you're sitting on the court. There's nothing like it. Your feet's on the plane. You're on it. You're hearing the boys talk. Yeah. Yeah. You see the energy. You see the and then all I was thinking, I'm always like rooting hard, but always thinking about every scenario. That's the way my brain works. So I'm like, I'm like, are we going to lose this freaking game? Like, no way. Like this can't happen and so and then like it felt like it was a Disney movie set up to have USA play France in Paris with Wembe there who played so incredible okay and he is such a special special special human being and we do we have his we got his first game patch out there already we did not have

that so we don't we have his first jersey on his first game patch let's get something yeah He's, you know, look, he's one of the most important athletes in the world to Fanax in the future. And, you know, what he's doing is incredible. And he's such a, he's a good dude. Seems like a good dude. I don't know. He's special. He's really, really special.

All the great ones seem like, that's the thing. You got to be a good dude. Well, I'll tell you something about him. And I'll give the abbreviated story of this. But we were having dinner a year or two ago in New York. and I've tried to set the dinner up for eight. I think he set up for six and showed up 10 minutes early.

Anyway, long story short. Showed up 10 minutes early. But here's the story that you'll love. So Brady lives two minutes from me in New York. So he called and I said, oh, Wemby's here. You should come by with your son. So they came by and these guys are having all kinds of great conversations. And Vic looks at his watch.

He's like, hey, it's, I think it was like 8.30. He's like, I got to go home and read. It's 8.30 in the night. He's going home to read this book to make sure he gets the exact, right amount of sleep and Thomas is like huge respect for the age. Just like the discipline he has is a, I think it was 20 at this point. That's why he's going to be, he's going to be the guy. He's something else, man.

He is something else. Health fair. Those big guys, they scare me though when they're so big. I know. I got to you saying, I know. He is, that's what everyone says about him. And I'm going to tell you saying, this guy takes his stretching and his fit. He is not your, he is special beyond special in his thoughtfulness.

in his the way he takes care of himself he is not like it's pretty embarrassing for me when you have you spend time

with someone who's 32 years younger than you feel like they're more responsible he's definitely responsible guy

this guy too yeah I was saying he's definitely more responsible than you for sure probably

oh my gosh this was should we put a quick bow on this game man I hound Steve Kerf for not

playing JT enough But his coaching with Steph, Book, K.D., LeBron, AD lineup toward the end was huge. We had a big sequence with KD and book, back-to-back threes that cut it to five. Then you got the Embed turnaround with four minutes left. That cuts it to two. Then you get Braun and Steph going downhill. Those big transition layups, just willing us to win, going right to the cup. And then you really iced that thing.

We're only up two with about 30 seconds left. Katie hits that long two, right in Petraev's eye, puts us up four, and the rest was history. We end up winning this thing, 95, 91. Unbelievable game. 15 points in the fourth quarter that held them to. What's your favorite, favorite moment of this game? When did you know you guys had it? When did you feel it?

I knew I had it when the game was over. Not until then. Yeah. Anytime we prematurely celebrate bad things happen. See, I'm not into pre-martialism. I'm not into pre-matured stuff. I'm not into pre-matured celebrations. I am not into premature celebrations.

Yeah. That does not work out well. Never has worked out well. I'm no different than I'd say if I were in a casino I got three blackjacks someone else would celebrate and I'd say like wait a second

they got a face card you don't know what's under there like calm down and you know 10% of the scenarios they got the blackjack too so like I'm never celebrating until something's over my kind of fan that's right

those cards and Steph pours this thing in with 36 points leads us to victory I mean my favorite moment was like the excitement when that game was over but then you had to know

but you know what else you knew right away hey man wimby no you know you said yeah these guys you know we just got tested hard we got to lock in and focus now i will tell you one thing i was in my entire family and uh the celebration after they won the gold oh i got to hear about it how does it start the pg version or something well i only can start to like it starts like one or two o'clock of the morning and ended in me not speaking very much in the car right home as i was you know maybe had a few too many drinks i mean gold medal we we we

Got to in Paris against the home team. By the way, I guess I can always be a drunk buffoon like any of them. It shows you like, I'm, have everyone's gold medal on in the minute. It's like, whatever. You just all celebrating and having a great time. It's so, you know, so I felt so lucky to get to witness that firsthand and, you know, to see greatness, you know, rare its head in the, in the biggest of ways. Amazing.

Before we score the game, we ask all our guests, what do sports mean to you? for me what sports means is the right to compete and there's nothing greater and the reason i always say i have the greatest job in the world is i get to compete 17 hours a day 365 days a year in business i can do it until i die and i love doing it so much but sports is the ultimate competition and so um if you grow up with a real competitive mentality you like to test that as much as possible. And that's the honor that I get to do running fanatics every day. Wow.

Well said. Well said. What's it mean to you? If you haven't had to answer that before, 720,000 times here. I've never actually answered it. I always ask it. But I wouldn't be where I wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for sport. Sport taught me the lessons of life.

that you need a team, the accountability, the discipline, the sacrifice, the putting goals towards something, the progressing towards something, the putting hard work, not just in hard work, but working hard at specific things, knowing what you have to work on to improve. The improvement. Improvement is such a great thing that I've learned through sport. Like I've learned all my life lessons that I've learned after sport through sport, because it took that advice that I learned in sport to do. So sports is everything to me. It's giving me everything. I love that. I'm going to tell you, we ADD'd around, you actually asked me about the uniforms of Drusky in his uniform and me in your uniform. And for me, it was because in a lot of ways,

for a really unathletic guy, which I'm very self-professed at. And I'm not by way, I'm not a religious person. I'm just, I would never grow up very religious, but, you know, to be a Jewish, unathletic kid, when they said, what jersey do you want to wear in the skit? I said yours because it was like, here's a little guy.

Let's go. Who's Jewish, who, like, found a way to prevail all the time. That's fucking inspiration, man. And I remember, Jewish guy had so much fun doing this. We were just cracking up, running through the halls of fanatics. By the way, I fucking stacked. By the way, I was amazing. By the way, not having played football since ninth grade,

it actually, like, I was pretty aggressive and, and, yeah, I was, I don't think we showed some of the crazy scenes when I was just, like, knocking him over. By the way, I showed, Vince didn't see this, and I saw Vincent at one of Roberts party. I think I was in cleats slipping like, yeah, you're going to die. Yeah, but you should, you should know,

I want your jersey to show you know it. I appreciate that. Here's this little Jewish guy. Look what he can do. If he can do it, anyone can do it. Let's fucking go. So why did Drewski pick Vince Wolf Forg? Well, that's obviously.

They have the same stomach lining. They have the same body shape. I appreciate that, bro. I appreciate that. We'll be right back after this quick break. Hey there. Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health. And I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mailroom.

And I'm Jordan, the show's producer. And like a lot of guys, I haven't been to the doctor in many years. I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking, but aren't. Because guys usually don't go to the doctor unless a piece of their face is hanging off or they've broken a bone. Depends which bone. Well, that's true. Every week, we're breaking down the unique world of men's health, from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility, and things that happen in the bedroom. You mean sleep?

Yeah, something like that, Jordan. We'll talk science without the jargon and get you real answers to the stuff you actually wonder about. It's going to be fun, whether you're 27, 97, or somewhere in between. Men's Health is about more than six packs and supplements. It's about energy, confidence, and connection. We don't just want you to live longer. We want you to live better. So check out the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

On an all-new episode of IHeartRadios Las Culturistas, actress and director, Brittany Snow, opens up about challenging age bias. Hollywood wants to kind of disregard women after the age of 32. And she reflects on the responsibility of inspiring other women. You sharing your story might just be really small to you, but it might be the story that someone needs to feel like there's hope. Open your free IHeard Radio app. Search Las Culturistas and listen to the full podcast now. What up y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage.

I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Month, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak? And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash.

I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes. Let's be honest. We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake.

The deal fell through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about that and how we made it through. So when they sat me down, they were kind of like, we got into the small talk. And they were just like, so what do you got? What? What ideas?

And I was like, oh, no. What? Check out Not My Best Moment with me, Kevin on stage on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Podcasters, it's time to get the recognition you deserve. The IHeart Podcast Awards are coming back in 2026. Got a mic? Then you've got a shot. Every year, we celebrate the most creative, compelling, and game-changing voices in podcasting. Is that you? Submit now at iHeartPodcastawards.com for a chance to be honored on the biggest stage in the industry. Deadline, December 7th. This is your chance. Let's celebrate the power of podcasting and your place in it. Enter now at iHeartpodcastawards.com. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story.

Every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsides indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House.

And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's aim the game and score the game. These are some names that we came up with. If you have a specific name, we can use it.

We came up with the Steph Curry game. Steph saves America game. Oy, boy, Steph. That's we, we, we, Steph. It's France. Well, I was thinking, you know, I got my dialects from. We were going to name this game. Joker versus Juggernauts or something else.

I got a new name for you. What we got? USA Don't Quit. There it is. USA Don't quit. I love that. Score the game. Is this the greatest game of all time?

Let's score it. Remember decimals. are encouraged. Rube's stakes of this semifinal game in the Olympic, semi-final game, the stake zero to ten decimals encouraged. Well, I mean, I might score it at a hundred because you're going home if you don't win it. So I don't know how you don't give it. If I'm really cut off a 10, it's a 10.

But what if there's a final game? What's the stakes of that one? I'm going home if I don't win this game. All right. And this game was more dramatic than the last game. I get it. get it. We let all our facts, facts. People have their own

scores. I'm going to go with a I mean, it's a semifinal game in the Olympics but we are. I bet you thought you were going home. You watched that game and thought we were leaving. Yeah, but we're team did you watch the game? A little bit, yeah. Did you think we were losing? No. Never. You're full of shit.

You got to fucking believe, Roobes. This guy who's down 28 to 3 in a Super Bowl. You think I fucking, you know what? I jumped on it, baby. You know what? I agree. I'll shut. I'll shut up. I'll go you know I think it's an 8.8 got a 9.4

8.6 I was close to 10 man this is a I love this game this is a ball noer pick of a game too this was a ball nor pick of a game too. This is a ball no I love that the crazy thing about this in 20 years this game could even be even bigger because we may not win another championship after that. Star

Power 0 to 10, Descentals encouraged. We will. That was a defeatist attitude. What are you talking about? I'm just saying last 10 MVP's all from other country. Don't talk that dumb shit. They're not off in the same country. Star power of this game. A lot of stars. You want me to hit them real quick?

A lot of stars. We got Travis Scott. We got Michael Rubin. We got Simone Biles. We got Snoop Dogg. Mick Jagger, Paul Gasol, Cuevo, Sue Bird, Megan Rapino. Gabriel Union, Cap.

Colin Starr's route. Tony Parker, Dwayne Wade. Not to mention the guys on the court. Sorry, I thought you were evaluating the quality of the squad. This is stars that came to watch. It's both. It's all encompassing. I need more clarity here.

You guys, like, you can't just, Star Power. We're just throwing the overall star power. I think the star power at the game was, here's what I'm going to say. I think the star power of the team was a nine. I think the star power of, no, no, I'm getting mathematics.

I think the star power of the team was a nine because you had other great players, other places, but you had the most incredible players on Team USA. So I'm going to give the star power of the team a nine. I'm going to say the star power that was there was a six, so I'm going to give it a seven and a half. I like that. It could have been more star power at the game.

It weren't enough great people. this ain't no white party they say i mean anyway that's a tactic i would go i thought there's hell of stars at this thing i'm going with at least an 8.2 i think you guys are both low damn i went 10 it shows i've never been to a you guys go to 5 it's an all-star game

all-star game and it's in paris it's the star of all the cities but you said how you said how were the stars that came out and i'm going to say the stars that came out we needed more support okay i like it this is true I can always do better. I'm sticking to my six. I like that. All right.

Integrity score. The gameplay, this is where it goes off. Gameplay, 0 to 10, decimal's encouraged. We're talking the full game last quarter.

Full game? Entertainment value. Full game. Entertainment was great. I'm going to give it a, I'm just, I'm still very disappointed by having put it all in the fourth quarter.

I would have liked to blow up by 40 points because that would have made me not test my heart rate in conditioning. So I'm going to give it an 8.75. So I like that. score. That's a really good score. It was a freaking great game. I'm going to go with the 8.9. Nice. Just for shits and giggles, what are we rating

the 283 comeback? We can show you after. I think we'll show you after. Yeah. At a 9.8? I'm high. 9.8.8.2. Now, the name of the game, USA, don't quit. We got to, we great with the name of the game. I might need to rescore my name. It's a 10. You know why? Because we got to always remind, we need to always remind people never fucking quit, period of the story. And you know, so many people are soft. They talk the words, they don't walk the walk.

And so I love that name. Made it run to a brick wall. It has our country and it has don't quit in it. I got to go with a nine. I'm going to have to up whatever I put in there because we got a new name, 8.1. How do you grade you're even on my name? I know. I pre-graded.

I'm going nine. I game off of the cultural impact of this game, right? how much you think about it later on, right? 28 to 3 game, you'll just think about that in the shower, right? I'm not a big basketball guy. I don't think about it. He thinks about every day for a shot. I really don't.

I gave the lowest score on it. Where does it get us? It's my Roman Empire. Wait, hold on no. It's an 8.8. Jesus is going to be high. Oh, I love this. This is going to be high.

This is our new. It's tied for 11th and 10th. So tied with 10th with the choke of the dog, Florida versus Florida State, week 11, 1994, and the 2004, and the 2004 ALCS game for Yankees versus Red Soxed. I just want to say, you guys' greatest system sucks. What are you talking about? That you have the 283 comeback and this is 11th.

You have, you have nine games in between the 283 comeback. What are the games? And this? This is a good games in there. Sorry, where did you put it at? It's tied with these two games. It's 888. 8.88. So a three-way tie.

Okay. So it's a three-way tie now. Got it. I'm still going to say, I think we've been unfairly hard on the rating of this game because I don't understand how. how two through nine would be in between. Miracle and ice. Geopolitical.

I mean, I'm too young for that. 2016 World Series. I was like, I'm going to go to the Cold War. Cubs versus Indians? That was great. You got out of the house, bro. The 1999, women's World Cup, China versus USA, gold to gold to gold. The revolutionized women's sports. They took their shirt off.

That's not why you need a regrading system here. It needs to move up. We do every, like, we do need a snowball. It literally, No one cares about your snowball. I wasn't there. Dude, Travis Scott was not even there. You're a Fox Bowl forever.

Yeah, but that literally, that one play could have changed six Super Bowl. It could have just. I need to have this sent to me. I'm going to actually go back and watch some of these games. I like to go watch them. Yeah. We're going to send you. We would appreciate that.

And then we're going to give you a book report on them. Perfect. The regrading. I think we need to. This is our Canada beat us. How is that ahead of this? That one's a high score. That's a high school.

Yeah, we had a Canadian. came on like right after. So you're saying there's scoring accuracy issues here. Oh, yes. We're always think of a thousand percent. We're always competitive with

ourselves and trying to be better. Every 50 games or so, we try to rescore and try to make things better. If you have any feedback, we will welcome it. Happily. Okay, well, I just gave yourself. I know.

I like that. Rube's, we miss anything about this game? Do we miss anything about this game? You might have missed one crazy situation. Which one? My friend who got arrested right afterward?

Who got arrested? Remember Travis Scott for being drunk? He was stuck in jail for two days for nothing. Oh, bro. I forgot about it. Wow. By the way, I went home. We didn't want to bring it up.

I mean, 10 minutes later, I mean, I tried to forget it. But it's not like, I mean, it was like, I mean, it was a nothing thing. It was just like a drunkenly stupidity of the night. At least I was asleep and not with him. Bro, free of flame. Yeah. Come on, man. It's all good.

Yeah, didn't want to bring that one up. Here's if you really want to get into the hood. Oh, my God. Of our scoring system. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I'm going to send our. accountants and do do an audit. We're going to get back to you with feedback of where you guys fucked up.

And we're going to make sure that you guys do better. I'm terrified of this audit. I make sure you guys do better in the future. I'm terrified of this audience. When you make a mistake, you correct it. You guys have a responsibility to your fans to do better. We need a little more roobes in our life. I like that.

I'm with you. Couldn't agree more. You're on a mission to stomp out bad business. The very first rescuing episode we did was because Mark Cuban came in here and gave everything tens and we're like that's, we cannot do this anymore. On a game 6th. That's a DQ. You just throw them out.

That's where we did. There we go. We added more numbers. So it drew up. I accurately and fairly approach this with thought into each score. And it came up with a fair outcome. Then when we came up with the score, it was unfairly lower than it should have been. Just saying.

In your parameters. In accurate parameters. We don't know the accurate parameters yet until the audit happens. Okay. All this on, baby. Until the audit happens. We're going to cook the book. In the meantime.

They got a lot of orders of Fanatics, too, by the way. Let's go. Everyone, Fanatics Fest. What date? July 16 to 19. July 16 to 19. Same weekend as the World Cup, New York City, Javits.

Oh, my gosh. Here's my question for you. They asked you you had medical conditions that prohibited you from doing the full fanatics games. If we were to offer you an opportunity to compete again, one, are you going to compete at the fullest level? And two, do you think you have a chance of winning? One, I will compete at the fullest level.

two, I don't know if I have a chance of winning. I'm not a good hockey guy. So the way it works, there's eight games and you drop your first, your worst two scores. May have a shot. We can coach you up with hockey too. I'm just saying, what's happened you since?

Like, you used to, like, like, what happened you? You're fucking soft. Just something pathetic about you know, look, I already think I'm losing. He moved to California. What's up? Move to California. That's what it is. This LA LA life is softening you up, man. I just kind of want like an avocado toast and a smoothie. I mean, it's pathetic. Hey, we got to start training. Show him a little bit out of East Coast

toughness. We got to get back. I need to see. During these episodes, I need to see him training for the fanatics games that you're going to take this seriously. We have the UFC striking event. You can practice on me. Let's start doing that. Let's train. We can cut this in six months from now when you win. Rocky montage style. Talk right to the camera. We're going to go but could you imagine Brady's already guaranteed he's winning it again. Okay. Gronk's in coming with everything he's got. If he's like the I'll take him out. Last place. And by the way, maybe you get Drake May in there this year.

If you're just like the most pathetic Patriot. Easy. It's probably pretty good at all this shit. By the way, if you end up being the most pathetic Patriot, that's just like, that's an embarrassment. No. Those are three good pets. Bro, James Harden was top five.

We can beat Jimmy Harden. James Hardin was top five. Yes, bro. By way, he was a lot of skills. Those basketball guys got skills. James was number four, and I've never seen someone so angry about number four in his life. Like, he was like, H was fucking pissed. like and you know a school teacher was number three

I did okay yeah and so and the shit I talked to James like you got beat by a school teacher that you're like you're a loser which by the way in this particular case he was bro where's that school teacher from Pennsylvania Western PA's got a lot of football athletes out there

I'd tell you that right now this guy was one of the crazy things I don't know what the number was I know mayor's behind a mayor how many of the top 10 were not professional athletes Those six of the top ten were fans How about that six of the top ten were fans You know what that means

You better get your shit together Get in the fucking gym and get to work man You know what that means I need a guy that just has my stats Right behind me at all time You do You literally get you got to live bro By the way you guys are miss scoring shit

You just got demote it I mean Everyone go check out Fanatics Fest Or just Fanatics too It's not just fast The whole thing A lot of verticals A lot of verticals

Let's go baby we got cards you gotta be betting with fanatics sports book if you're collecting cards training cards got to be finacts collect get your merchandise fanatics

come to fanatics fest if you're a super fan Rods jewels try to not be a little bitch and compete at the highest level I'm gonna try my hardest try my hardest thanks Rubes

I'm honored to be with you man I wonder what it's like to be in Rubin's head for one minute he's probably just doing so many things you could see him just calculating all day you couldn't handle it

Man, I couldn't. Too much. I got to be more like Roobes. He was a beast. Yeah. What a guy? He knows. Inspiring.

What's up with our grading system? He's the one who had to lower scores, right? I want to see what. His star power was way too low. Yeah, because he's got the white party standard. Yeah, this guy's got. But even still, like, I know. I mean, that's a pretty big, like, he's got high standard.

He does. The only thing to knock the star power with people in attendance and the games was that, I mean, the Serbian team only had Joker. like from like a big time name. Technically, maybe he's right. Baby, we remember him at Gonzaga. Well, that was fun. Also, before we move on real quick,

we mentioned it a little bit, but that was a real ball and over a game selection. Yes, great point, Guy, guy. Like, that was. Well, he loves, I mean, he loves basketball. Yeah. I remember seeing him when he was on those Sixers. Yeah.

He was on that court every game. He was like RKK of the Sixers. Oh my God, he's on the wood more than a lumberjack. He's really disappointed he didn't win a chip. I know. Yeah, which I respect the hell. Joker's a competitor trying to get me to go against Rob and Tom and drank. You should do that.

It would be great content. You should do that. School teachers. Try to win it next year. Try to go beat Tom next year. You're too old. You can't do it. At least be that dude that teaches fourth period. Bro, you mean the teacher.

Kidding me? Teacher. I don't know, man. You're too old. You got to get back in the swing of things. You're next too fucked up. All right. We're going to start training, though.

We're getting on me about, I couldn't do the event. Sorry, I got to fuck. fucking broken neck. Yeah, meanwhile you're out there doing a full Steve Austin clanging beers together getting the people going. Yes, bro, fighting through fatigue.

Let's go. Speaking of clinking beers together. You've been getting good at them. Nice, nice. It's time for the chill zone brought to you by Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered

straight to your door. Visit Coorslight.com. Oh, can we also talk about slash Gw. I should have asked them if we could trademark this. Celebrate responsibly. He said the game chose me.

What a bar. we said why this game he's been hanging around a lot of rappers yeah he hangs around a lot of rappers so he's probably getting shit left he's getting say it's left that is him and j z were at your hall of fame game yeah i didn't want to yeah like say thanks rubs for letting me get to meet jz because of you but it was basically because of rubs thanks rubs dude that was crazy that was a bar though the game shows me who today in the chill zone in honor of michael rubin guy that knows a little something about jerseys we We're going to be doing a top five of our best jerseys of all time, starting five,

latest edition of starting five, best jerseys of all time in honor of Michael Rubin fanatics. Jerseys or Unis. Unis. I mean, juries or unis? Up for the term. Up for. Same thing in my regard. It makes a complete difference on one of my picks.

Well, then you can just pick what you want. Yeah. It's open to interpretation. The rules are not super strict here. Well, ever since Rubes came in, I want to. I want a clear definitive fucking rule class. That goes first. Me, go first.

But we should put these and have people vote for it and have some sort of competition. I'm going with an all-timer, the Boston Celtics. Classic. Right off rip. Hadn't changed. Don't need to. Now, are you just saying the entire Boston Celtics, Uvra? Or just like...

Classic home and away. I'm going with... I fucking love Niners jerseys. The classics, bro. The old Niners jerseys. We're talking gold pants or white pants? Gold pants. gold pants white pants are sick too but i when i remember when they changed over to those

unis i was like man i like the old ones yeah but then now those are so old it's like those are cool it's kind of like the old 19s like it's like the c10 yeah trucks they used to be like kind of like not that cool and now like they're so old that they're like hell is sick and i want one that's the type of uniform that you just like the refresh so like you like toggle between gold or white and however women you've been on with they don't want no race that they don't want no Red and white, they don't want, no, red and white, because red and white is dynamite, because red and what is dynamite, am I right, all right, you're right, are we weakers, I'm a countdown, one, two, bring it all down, three, four, all the way round, one, two, three, four, Niners. I'm going to try to win. We should make this a competition. I'm going to try to win. I'm going to go with the Chargers, powder blue. classic

are we talking like the Kellan Winslow joins soft any version of the powder blue they don't want no red and why bang that's what we used to sing in our in our two pop Warner when we had to do two laps we'd sing that as like a little

like troops I don't want to rent what I don't know because we were the Redwood City 49ers oh I know them I don't know when this episode oh I know them but someone coached by Frank Gilman they're going to the national championship I think they're not going to the national championship they're going first to the regional.

Okay. First. So let's go, R.C., let's go. Also, what side? And what side lost? They lost? God, God, fuck. What the?

That's why I didn't want to go too hard because they weren't at the championship game. Gronks over here, like, oh my God. You definitely don't want to support those children too much. Nah. Games with name is for the children, but. Only if you make it a championship game. If you're in a uniform, you ain't.

a child. Probably getting NIL deals. No, no, I would sign. Do we want to snake or not? No, let's just do classic styles. Make it easy. I like it. So back to me. I am going to go with the 90s Timberwolves, the Sam Cassell's baby.

You probably could have got that jersey later in this direction. That's all good. We'll get it when we get it. You know the ones I'm talking about? Oh, yes, you do. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. It was in it was in, um, uh, what was the basketball? game we all used to play. NBA jam. He's heating up.

NBA gym. These joints. Yeah, these are gas. Those are sick. That was like the new age-est. Yeah. Fine. We've ever seen in sports.

That was definitely an error. That had a little flavor to it. My second. Fucking, you can't say the Raiders? Yeah, that's a pretty good one. Raiders? Yeah, maybe the black hole. Are we talking black?

There's you need. The black raider union? Haven't changed, bro. They haven't changed. God, they never will. I love that. That's a big feather in the cap to making a jersey great is it never changes.

It never changes. It never has to. That's how you know it's a great jersey. Black and silver, those are like some, those are cool. See, I was always stuck because I love red and gold, but black and silver, tougher. Tougher, bro.

Black and gold, flashy or red and gold, black and silver. You better, you better watch it out when you're going down a dark alley with that black. silver, you might get took. Sound light. I'm going to go... Pirate.

I'm going to go with the New York Yankees home pinstripes. Not a fan, but can't argue with that pick one bit. You know what? It's hard for me to say this.

But the two teams I grew up hating the most have like the coolest, like some of the coolest signature unies. Who's the Dodgers? The Dodgers hat and the Yankees hat. I can never wear one, but I think they're such visually pleasing look.

They're like cool ass hats. And also, you go anywhere abroad, like people are wearing those hats, whether it's supporting the team or just for like a fashion statement. We saw the, we saw the 30 for 30, Kyler. We saw the 30 for 30. What 30 for 30? Wasn't there something about that? Yeah, there was a doc on the, like, the cultural significance.

I don't know. I just travel. I don't. Sorry, dude. I thought you were a movie guy. I thought you liked films. Yeah, I thought. How many three of 30s have you

Produce documentaries, bro? I thought you would know the category. What's the documentary? I don't know the exact title, but I don't even think it was a documentary. Jules just saw a TikTok. One of those six minute cutups in like a sports center. Yeah.

Yeah, Spike did. But I think Spike Lee was in it. Yeah, beyond the Bronx. Yeah, oh, see? Spike did it. Maybe I was right. I love Spike's the man. Spike knows a little something about it.

Spike in that new movie, wasn't that good, man. Oh, highest and lows? I liked it. I fell asleep. I got to rewage. it. To be fair, you fall asleep during good movies too. No, to be fair, I fall asleep in the first 15 minute of any movie. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's unfairly getting dragged on the internet too, though. There was like a weird little moment where they're like, the worst movie. I'm

like, relax. Because I love Denzel and Spike, especially together. Oh, me too. They side Brockian. Yeah. Not a little bad. Not bad. Jeffrey Wright. Oh, I love him. All right. Me up next. This one, I'm going to take this one from you guys. 90s Hornets baby. One of the best jerseys of all time. Alexander Julian design. The shorts had pleats for god's sake pleaded gas look at dell in that thing also don't they have like a purple pinstripe yeah there's pinstripe in there it's just i mean it's jack were you a child in the 90s by any chance i was yeah that's a good one yep all right who's up next you i'm going with the michigan wolverine that's a great that's great one i loved the helmet i was

just going to say where do you stand on the helmet that i thought it was the coolest thing ever like when I first started playing football. I think Oak Grove had like their color scheme with the thing. There's always a team that you play that has that. Yeah. And I thought it was, but like the blue gold,

it kind of, you know, blue gold is awesome. Shout out. Shout out. Middlebury. They also have that. Oh yeah.

Delaware too, I think. Delaware, the blue hens. Well, Kent State. We, we very similar,

but not. Dude, how about DeRille? I like DeRillus Clark, bro. Princeton has. I think it may have came from somewhere before Michigan. I saw something on it. I said that on an episode recently.

I think I gave some bad intel. We'll have to dive in. Dude, I got to shout out my guy, Darylis Clark, Ken State. Shout out. My turn. Hartford Whalers. Tough to beat. All-timer.

Now, the thing with the Hartford Whalers is that the logo is better than the uniform. Boliva does do some heavy lifting. And you got to do when they're like the royal blue, like this green, like the dark green not the one they went navy before they moved yeah and by the way i yeah i played it in between a whaler's game as a kid nice shout out rory runner he scored the only goal nice so whalers hartford whalers all day love that um yeah that one's hard still a top selling piece of merchandise in the world as it should be michael rubin could tell us that he would know he would know he would know he would know he would know he'd have a spreadsheet he'd hit up his guy in the back hey what is that yeah let me get

the auditors on that okay jackie um i'm gonna go with this is a deep cut the next 1997-98 Juventis Pink Away Kit Ooh I think I remember that because we play a lot of FIFA Sony minidisc was the sponsor Ooh

Did you have a mini disc? I never did you have a mini disc Didn't they're all right You know what I still think I'm getting kind of biased though With my shit But I like the Sharks unies

Oh yeah From San Jose That teal black I like black in my unies It always made the teams bigger and tougher. But teal? But they had a little hint of teal. No, they were full.

Was it teal? They were full teal. No, like I like the black unies though. There was a black, because I had a black park Okay, the black ones. Yeah, I got you, Jules. That's fire. I love that shark. If we're going to go 90s hockey. Got to. I'm going to go the Phoenix coyotes. Yeah, great pick. What do they call? It's a

Kuchina, the Kuchina guy. Oh, that was so sick. Let me cut up. Those are kind of sick You're the black one I remember that Yeah Yeah those are sick

And then like the cool like Hockey always got super like new With their shit Because they have newer franchising You know what I mean Yeah Although the original six teams are like Their judges are iconic

Yeah but they haven't changed Yeah yeah But like they always had New teams I feel popping up Especially when we were kids Yes Because 90s there was a lot of expansion Yeah

I don't want to say a team Because I might want to pick them Or second Hey oh Spoiler All right Is it me? Yeah

I'm gonna go with The 1990s Patriots, Drew Bledso, big Patriot on the shoulder. You know those ones? Yeah. The starter joints. The Royal Blue? Yep. They should bring those back.

They should. How did we get the Nor'Easter jerseys before we get the... Dude, I'll put those in there. The Blues. The Nor Easter's are fire. There's... They got to get those back out there. They got good juju in them.

I just like these ones. Drew like Drew Thai, early Thai law. The big huge Pat Patriot on the shoulder. Starter. I like you. yeah um for me you got a pretty good list cooking right now we kind of like i was always a sucker for oaklin a's unis that green and yellow man the a is iconic the a yeah the hat but also what was i liked it when they were like whites yeah with the hat or was it white Oakland A's the clean white

yeah yeah yeah yeah is sick okay okanese that's a great one i didn't think i didn't predict that one I don't eat jewels, but I like it. Yeah, these guys, right? Yeah, just the white. Just that one right there. Yeah. That's, the grays aren't bad either. The grays, their ways aren't bad either.

No, I think all their unies are sick, even their green ones. Yeah, they're clean. I'm going to go with the purple mighty duck's original jersey. Just picture Paul Korea, T. Mussolani, and that bad boy. J.S. Jaguer. Those are sick. Those are sick. Like the Donald Duck, duck.

What's that? It's kind of like the Donald Lee Duck, duck. Yeah. They should have never changed that. Yeah. Right. I hate that they went to just... They went to the new duck.

Yeah. And they changed it. But they went to like the real, the pros unis? Yeah. Those are... Weak. Yeah. I was a penguin...

Actually, fun fact. I was a penguins fan, but it was the 90s. I had Mighty Ducks wallpaper in my bedroom. Wow. Really? Yeah. I could have guessed that. I like that.

But it's because my brother was a lightning fan. I was a Penguins fan and the Ducks for a compromise. Pretty fair compromise, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Who doesn't like the ducks in the 90s? I fuck with that. Yeah.

All right. We got our starting five. Now we've got to go off the bench. We get a six man. Six and a six man here in starting five. I'm going to go with another soccer one. I'm in the 90s here. Let's get out of the 90s.

Let's go to 2004 Netherlands, Nike Total 90 kit. I'm going to go with the Netherlands joint. Look at my man, Rud van Nisselroy here. These are classics. These babies running about 3,400 on eBay right now. If anybody wants to send one my way, Edgar Davids, Rud van Nisselroy. Some deep cuts here. All you FIFA heads know what's up.

I don't know what's up. why, but I always loved 90s, Florida State uniforms. Cut off? Peter Warrick. But I love the maroon, the gold, the feather on, like, the helmet's great. The helmet.

I like, see, I like gold shit, and then I like black shit. Gold, Alamaris. A golden black. Just like all the, if you look at my youth, except the Oakland A's. But that has, you could say that's like a form of gold, yellow. Oh, Florida State.

Florida State, which hasn't really changed. Seminels. Not much. They haven't really changed. And they tweaked their mascot a little bit. Chief Osceola. And don't sleep on Bobby Bowden's drip. Bobby had some drip, man. Yeah.

Those hats are now like the turtleneck. The windbreaker. You need more turtlenex. Yeah, I'll take a mock turtle. I'll take whatever. You got work done right there. And then the Tomahawks, that's cool. I like the whites too.

Go to the white uni. I like the patch is fun. Like the pant patch. That was like the thing back in the day. Now where do you guys stand on this one? I am anti. Kai guy you might be pro after your last comment there little decals for doing something on the helmet

the little like oh you did you made a play and you get a sticker on there I'm anti What do they call those? I think only a certain I only I think only certain teams should be able to do Buckeyes do it Buckeyes Seminoles Michigan Did Michigan do it?

Yeah And then That's the that's the union I like Georgia does uh Georgia does a uh A gold bone yeah right What do you guys stand on those Depends.

That's the union I like white That that with the fucking But didn't they have a seminal helmet too? Yeah that was in there as well Let me see what years that was from though Before they switched to the

The spear I love Native American culture for sport As long as I love the tribal I love when they get a part of it Right and that's what's great about Florida State Is that they are in communication With the seminal tribe of Florida To develop and to make all that stuff

Well, I just think, I think, like, just in general. Okay. I think Native Americans are just tough as fuck. Yeah. So before I do mine, I just want to just, some big ones we left off the table, right? Talking Lakers, we left off the table. I might pick penguins still, but it's a little biased. What I left off the table.

Cowboys. The one I love, I love the Brazilian international soccer. Oh, so clean. The greens. Yeah. So clean. Blue shorts. Alabama we left off, Penn State we left off, Notre Dame we left off.

Yeah, I don't really like Penn State. Yeah, I might say Virginia Tech purely because James Franklin. Oh, very excited. There you go. Small game, James is back, baby. I can't wait. Is he going there? Yeah, yesterday. Let's go.

I think I'll end up going with, Jack, and I'm surprised you didn't. I was saying it for you. I don't know which year it is, but the Lithuanian basketball team that was sponsored by the Grateful Dead. Yep. What year is that? Another one they made a jersey or a doc about. Was it 92?

Was it the, was it the, um, yep, 1999. So this is the dream team year. The Grateful Dead. North Carolina,

unies. There's a classic with the Argyll basketball. It can't be, I don't like football in powder blue. Not with you. Yeah. Not tough enough. But you chose it.

Pull up? No, I didn't. It's your first club. Oh, okay, fine. Whatever.

Those are great. I mean, chose it. The tie-dye with the Lithuanian basketball team is sick. Those are awesome. And the story makes it great, too, because the Grateful Dead gave them money because they were like underfunded and they were going to the Olympics. So, Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead gave them some money and sponsored them.

And is he from there? He's got roots? I don't think so. No, they just picked the Lithuanians. Watch the 2012 doc, the other dream team tells you the whole story. Tie-dyes. Great. Man, we could do another edition of this.

We should probably do another edition. We should tighten the scope. Okay, I feel that. Right. Tighten the scope. We got to bring more Michael Rubin in

thought into this. Tighten the scope. Yep. Where's the parameters? Got to be a little bit more like rubs every day. WWMRD. What would Michael Rubin do?

That's what we should ask ourselves. And then we'll probably be billies. Hey, Jack, don't count other people's. That's just true. This is true. Shouldn't count other people's pockets. I'm not.

That would never be me. No pocket watching. pockets, we'll all be all right. No birdwatching, no pocket watch, not that. All right. That was another chill zone. Thanks to our favorite beer, Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door.

Visit Coorslight.com slash GwN and celebrate responsibly. What a game. Thanks again to Michael Rubin. That's been another episode of Games with Names. Subscribe on Apple, Podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast. Call it in a game you want us to do. And remember, rate and review.

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