Halford & Brough in the Morning - Super Agent Leigh Steinberg + What We Learned

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

In hour three, Mike & Jason chat with NFL super agent and the inspiration behind the Jerry McGuire movies as Leigh Steinberg (1:22) joins the show to talk the latest football news, plus the boys tell us what they learned (27:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

8.0.8.0. on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford, Brough, Sportsnet, 650. Halford Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. D.C.'s first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 five-star reviews. Visit them online at sands-trustee.com. We are now in our three of the program. Lee Steinberg is going to join the program in just a moment here. Hour three of this program is brought to by Campbell & Pound, Real Estate Appraisers.

Trust the expertise of Campbell and Pound. Visit them on the internet at Campbell-Dash-Pound.com today. We're coming to live from the Kintech Studio, Kintech Footwear, and Orthotics, working together with you in Step and guests on SportsNet 650 calling on the hotline powered by Power West Industries. Don't get caught in the dark when it matters most.

Visit them at powerwest.ca. Today, they keep the lights on. Our next guest joins us courtesy the Power West Industries Hotline. One of the most famous sports agents ever, inspiration behind the Jerry Maguire movie. Lee Steinberg joins us here now on the Halford and Breff Show on Sportsnet 650.

Good morning. Lee. How are you? Good morning. Doing great. You know, I sent my kids up to Alaska for a cruise. And on the way back, they stopped at Vancouver. And when they came home, all they talked about was Vancouver. And I thought, oh, they're going to love the polar bear or something. No, they love the city of Vancouver.

It is a beautiful city. We actually just had one of the more bigger, higher profile signings in our sporting history here in Thomas Mueller. And in his first week, as a Vancouver white cap, having come over from Germany. He did a bike tour around the lower mainland and kind of said the same things that your kids said. He said, gorgeous sitting, loves it.

And he is right, of course. I do want to pivot to the National Football League. We've spoken a lot about it today. We're now 11 days away from kickoff. There's still a lot of questions and a lot of things and needs to be solved. I wanted to ask you, Lee, about the Shadur Sanders story. You probably got the perfect insight for this

giving you time as an agent and also working with players through the draft process to get to the national Football League. Big picture question to start. What do you make of how this has gone from Shadur from leaving Colorado and all the NIL money that he had there, playing with his dad, going through a very tumultuous draft process. And now he thinks on the way to becoming an NFL player, but he still needs to make that 53 man cut down roster for the Browns, which is tomorrow, of course. In some ways, I don't think it could have gone better for Shadur. You know, I've represented

and probably 120 quarterbacks. And my chief concern for them is not how high they get drafted. But when you take someone like Patrick Mahomes, well, gee, it was a 10th six, the nine players went before him. But the key was he went to a franchise, it had great ownership, a great front office, supporting cast and all the rest of it.

So from that standpoint, if you're looking long term, even though it was a rough draft. night. Shadur Sanders couldn't land in a better place. He's got an aging veteran and Joe Flacco in front of him, Kenny Pickett, who hasn't been successful, another rookie Dillon, Gabriel. And I wouldn't be surprised if Flacco goes out,

Shadur learns underneath him, and eventually becomes the starting quarterback there. And that concept is sitting behind an aging veteran. It certainly helped Patrick Mahomes with Alex Smith, where he didn't play the whole first year until one game. It helped Philip Rivers, who sat behind Drew Brees, and helped Jordan Love, who sat behind Aaron Rogers. So if you can get over the fact that they had built the expectation so high

that when he didn't go in the top five, in the first round, people looked at it like it was a tragedy where he may come out with the last laugh. How much is name, image-likeness changed the collegiate football and collegiate sporting landscape? Stunning change. Nothing is the same as it was before. When you imagine a system where the top college quarterback goes to LSU and they offer

him allegedly $4 million. And a couple months passed and a big month. Michigan alum comes along and offers him $14 million, and he decommits and goes there, it's become the money has become the method of recruiting in a college like Ohio State that had plenty of NIL money, oh, coincidentally, had the top roster. And so it changed everything. From my perspective, I don't want to go, you know, I've done 64 first-round graphics. first pick and the draft overall.

You're probably not going to find them with the requisite maturity when that young man is 15 and he wants a marketing director. Now, we'll see whether the Trump executive order actually stops those collectives who have pooled their money and now use it high school, the college, and then transfer portal. We'll see if that ends up wiping that part out, but if it continues the way it is, it's just been chaos. Lee, what's in it for these alums? Is it just ego? Like, they get to say, like, yeah, my money, my pocketbook got this guy to the school. I mean, there's just such a relationship between, we don't have that as much in Canada where, you know, people have

license plates with their with their colleges and universities and they just remind so tied to the colleges and universities but is there anything beyond ego that is in it for these alums that put up millions of dollars passionate fandom

and allegiance to their alma mater and you know right behind pro football in this country the next most popular sport is college football. And these alums have bragging rights and

liver die with what happened to Notre Dame or the University of Michigan or University of Southern California. And some of it, they can write off as a tax write-off because they're paying for an advertising expense.

But it's the hyper-competitiveness of American males. We're speaking to one of the most famous sports agents of all time and one of the inspirations behind the Jerry Maguire movie, Lee Steinberg, here on the Half and Abruff Show on Sportsnet 650. It's an interesting time to talk to you, Lee, because there's a lot of deals and, you know, pending deals going on around the National Football League

where I'd love to get the agent's perspective on things. The Mike Keparsis situation in Dallas, to say it's gotten toxic would probably be an understatement. And there's a lot of sniping back and forth between the Parsons camp and the Cowboys camp. How do you see this situation playing out now that we're just 11 days away from kickoff Thursday, which of course features the Dallas Cowboys who are going to be taking on the Philadelphia Eagles on NFL kickoff at night? These issues should be settled early in an off season and not made public. I mean, the minute a player says he wants to be traded, it destroys his value to.

So his incumbent team. And other teams won't really trade because they think the incumbent team has damage good. So anytime this happens, especially in a cap system and very heavy rules about sitting on a contract, Jerry's perspective, is Michael Parsons has a contract. And he's not going to turn down playing for whatever he's getting. And they can always franchise him for the next two years. that's hardball, and that's the process rarely play with a franchise-type player. In other words, if it's an edge rusher or can put the quarterback on his back or a quarterback,

you don't see this very often. And there's a market out there now where T.J. Watt got $41 million, which is what Miles Garrett got. And I don't think Jerry wants to pay that. I've been predicting it would be settled sometime this week but they're dating it to the very end. It's just counterintuitive and they're never going to trade

Michael Parsons. They can't play defensive football without him with him. They have one of the best defenses in the league. Without him, they have a mediocre defense. So he's not going anywhere. And And so see if something happened this week.

If not, and it extends into the season, he actually refusing to play. You know, they can find him a big amount of money every day. What's your leg dealing with Jerry Jones? I had him from the very beginning in 1989 when I represented Troy Aikman. And then two years later, I had the first pick and a draft overall, and it was Dallas's, and it was Russell, Maryland. I always found him to be great to deal with because he's very smart,

and if you make a very logical argument with him and you support it and buttress it about how the status of your player and where that should put him in the market, he can make a quick decision. And so I had a unique relationship with him because the very first thing he did after firing Tom Landry, TechSram, and Gil Brandt,

and he was hated in the city was to have the Shrakeman and I fly down there to deal with him. And I ended up with a whole bunch of cowboys, Gerald Johnson, Wade Wilson, Darren Woodson. So I had a very positive relationship with him. Lee, this was great. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this this morning. We really appreciate it.

Enjoy the next few days as we get closer to the start of the NFL season. Thank you. Thanks. That's Lee Steinberg, former NFL agent and one of the inspirations behind the Jerry McGuire movie here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. There's a bunch of stuff backed up here that we haven't had a chance to speak about yet. And we had kind of some cool, interesting new news on the horizon. So it was a big weekend for Canadian soccer.

In case you missed it, Tejohn Buchanan played for Villarreal on the weekend, scored a hat trick, first ever Canadian player to score a hat trick in La Liga. Keeper needed to have that third one. And the first one. But aside from that, it wasn't great. Also, from the Canadian perspective, Jonathan David, and his setia ad debut for Juventus scored.

So great vibes going forward for the senior men's national team as we get closer and closer to the World Cup. We've got two of our best players in form. scoring goals over the weekend. Check this out. Canada Soccer this morning announced the roster for the men's U-18

national squad that's going to be playing a pair of friendlies in September. Now, you might be saying, Halford, even for you, this is a lot. Why are you telling us about the Canadian men's under 18 national

soccer team? Well, there are some very interesting names on the roster, but None of them more interesting then. Walter Sedeen. That's Hank's son. Yeah. He is currently playing in Sweden, having previously gone through the White Caps Academy.

Eligible, obviously, to play for both Sweden and Canada internationally. He had been invited to a camp to the Sweden U-17 team, but it seems like Canada has now jumped back out in front by naming him to their under-18 roster for these pair of friendlies. What have you heard about his ability? Very, very good player. He rose through the academy ranks pretty quickly. He was always playing like a year or two up and then made the jump to go play in Sweden.

I mean, with all due respect to the Whitecaps Academy, if you have an opportunity to go train and play professionally overseas, I believe he's with the U-19 team for the Swedish club and I don't have the Swedish club off the top of head, top of mind. But to be included into this squad is obviously like, another pretty significant feather in the cap. Do you think he's in?

Thank you. Do you think he's in pretty good shape? I bet he's in pretty good shape. I bet he can be awesome if he wasn't. He was like, yeah, that's more of my dad's thing. That's so much of a fitness guy. But a very cool move by Canada soccer here. I know that they have been very aggressive in pursuing dual nationals at an early stage

rather than let it get to a stage where maybe another country has made stronger overtures to join their program. So this is a pretty big deal because one, the matches are being played in Europe so it makes the travel a lot easier for him, right? Like they're going to be played in Finland and he's going to be playing in Sweden. And also, it means something at these younger levels.

Now, none of this cap ties anybody to anything. It's not until you're a senior international that you have to make the decision. But very cool. The Walter Siddini's son of Hendrik Sadeen has been named to the Canadian U-18 men's soccer team and that just came out this morning. Okay, so we're going to bring,

we're going to count that as the start of our what we learned so give us a moo cow on that first moo cow you missed that

Walter Sedin's career many more to follow Walter many more so I wanted to I guess my

what we learned is that the Little League World Series is over and Chinese Taipei which they are

known as in the tournament other people will call them Taiwan they are back. They've won it for the first time in a while. 19 years? When I was growing up, they would

just dominate that tournament. And every year, except like there was one year when Trumbull, Connecticut won it with Chris Drury. Yeah, with Chris Drury being the pitcher. 1989, Little League World Series. Yeah. But, you know, they would often, they would often win and they are back. So congratulations to them. They beat a team out of Las Vegas, Nevada. But I did want to offer my congratulations to Little Mountain for getting to the Little League World Series. I'm a little mountain guy now. I grew up. I was a Carousel guy. Now like everyone else that grew up on the

west side, I've moved to the east side. I'm a little mountain guy. And it's funny because I actually had, I have two buddies whose sons were on that, that Little Mountain team, yeah. Misha Lee and Felix Hoyano. Yeah, watch some pitch. And Felix's dad is a Gary.

Gary. He's a Gary. In the wild, just out there. Yeah. And Felix is only 11, I think, so he's got one more year of eligibility. So just congratulations to the kids from Little Mountain. They put a good whipping on Australia. Take that, Australia.

Yeah, Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy, watch out for a little mountain. Yeah, we had Jimmy Dodd also is a Little Mountain guy. Yeah. So we've got two Little Mountain. He was wearing his hat all week last week. He was, yeah, yeah. What a cool experience that would have been.

I mean, Little Mounds racking up trips now. I think this is the third and I can't remember how many years. But if you look at the borders of the Little League, it's crazy. It's a bit of advantage for Little Mountain. They split Dunbar and Carostale. Like, you should mash those two together. Dunbar and Carisdell should get together

Yes, they should. It's because they were just heated rivals for so long. I'm not doing that. It's a long time ago, let me tell you because the rivalry is simmered down. Could they put together Dunbar, Carersdell, and Jericho maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they should. Well, that's, I mean, if you look at the other regions

and Little League talk here on Alvin and Brough Langley gets its own, Quillam gets its own, right? It isn't divvied up into like neighborhoods like Vancouver is, right? Right. And when you go, but when you go to the Williamsport, you can kind of see the difference in terms of where the Little League Associations are pulling from and how much, I mean, the Chinese Taipei pitcher was clocking 80 plus on the gun. And that's not. And he's closer than a major league pitcher. It's not

recalibrated for speed. Like he was throwing that speed from 46 feet away. So that comes in at approximately 193 miles an hour. There's a reason that they blanked Nevada in the fine. It's like they're throwing way too hard. They got a lot of pitchers to choose from. Anyway, uh, Moukow, all that. And a friendly reminder to get your what we learns in. Hashtag him WWL.

Dunbar Lumber text line is 650, 650. I'll tell you what. It doesn't even have to be over the last 72 hours in sports. I know it's usually a weekend affair. But if you want to do anything that we might have missed, what did you learn while Halford and Brough were away for the entirety of August? We'll allow it. We'll let you do it.

get them in now. Dunbar Lumber text line is $6.50. There's anything else you want to weigh into? I know we shelved the Canucks talk. We really only did it for the first 15, 20 minutes of the show, and I know there's been some Canucks-related texts as the show has gone on. There's not a lot of meat on the bone with regards to new news and everything else. I think the only thing that happened while we were away was the Kravstov signing.

But if you want to weigh in or anything, if you've got some AUAs as well, you can get those in. 650-6-50 is the text line. If you want to weigh in on the soccer thing, you can do that. We went over the golf earlier, Ryder Cup, and then what happened on the weekend with Tommy Fleetwood. NFL stuff, we're just 11 days away from kickoff, including what's going to happen on opening night with the Eagles and the Cowboys, and then followed by Friday night football from Brazil with the Chiefs and the Chargers.

You want to get into some baseball talk. We haven't spent a ton of time talking about the Jays and the Mariners, but we can still do that. Anything else you want to get into, Dunbar Lema text line, 650, 650. Hashtag at WWL, you're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 650. I need to tell you about JanPro from showrooms to stock rooms and everything in between JanPro keeps workplaces tidy, clean, and disinfected for a free quote.

Visit them online at janpro.ca. Now for my favorite part of the show, what I say? Talk to the audience. Oh, God, this is always dead. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time on the show. 831 on a Monday.

Happy Monday, everybody, Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal reduces your debt by up to 80% with no more interest. Visit them online at sands dash trustee.com. We are an hour three of the program. it is what we learned time hour three is brought to by campbell and pound real estate appraisers trust the expertise of gamble and found visit them on the internet at campbell dash pound.com today a little early a little quick today I'm just excited to be here uh I love to work

well I just wanted to thank all the texters that texted in and said we hope you guys had a good vacation and we're glad you're back we're can't even read you're back key card read good Yeah. We are happy to be back and excited about what's to come the next few weeks. If you missed the first hour, you can download the podcast and we kind of, we got our feet under us a little bit. We're like, what has been happening? And it was more an exercise for us. And we went through some of the key dates about, you know, when can we expect the Canucks to start trickling back into town? Soon, hopefully. That's another common phrase. The Canucks are starting to trickle back into. to town and they're going to be working out at UBC and we'll get to go through the whole thing like how early did they come back when is the captain's level of their what level is their commitment

when's the captain's skate going to be scheduled yeah where where they're going to go to eight rinks uBC maybe there's like some cool new place we don't even know about there isn't there's no new rinks uh let's print out some submissions into the bar lumber text line. You know what? Greg just gave me an audible sad noise into one of his sad noises because he wanted

to do what we learned. So that's what it sounded like. That's exactly the sound I made. How did you know? This guy does an awesome, Greg. Anyway, I'll hold off on reading the AJ's thing because that's usually the start. Right. So we'll allow it now.

Just getting our legs under us first day back. Greg, it better be good. I really built this up. You have a what we learned. I like to bring the lighthearted clips, right? And it's baseball seasons. That's all we really have right now, other than white caps and a couple other things. Don't say it's so dismissively.

Well, no, the baseball is kind of the... What? Other than... You think of the dog days. You don't think of soccer. You think of baseball. Anyway, the root sports broadcasts for the Mariners yesterday. They had a junior announcer in the booth. You know, they bring the kid up into the announcer's booth.

They'd give them the tour. and they actually let him take the mic for one batter Jacob Wilson for the A's was coming up to the plate so little Russell got to call an abat in a major league game which is incredible so I think you all know what's coming

Up next to bat Jacob Wilson number five batting just over 300 this year it's a good hitter yeah I'll say so and pitch hit out into left field Russell, what are we doing?

Why? You can think of it as being very lucky or very unlucky. What is going on around here, Russell? Man. It's just sad. What happened? The guy hit a home run, the left field, the ace player. The opposition hit a home run while he was doing the play-by-play.

I respect Russell's dedication to the home team. Like, forget this. I'm not calling this. He's got to be more descriptive. You're right, brough, what happened, but... Well, he didn't want to call it. He was pissed off. I was, like, the very end you, that was just sad.

It's like Rayble Seahawks calls. It doesn't even like talking about the other teams if they get to touch that, it's like, whatever. Listen to the end, though. Just get past it. Touched over. Listen to the just sad at the end, though. It's so funny.

It's a pretty good call, actually. Do you have the Matt? When you're short, you do that for a car once? Do you have the Tyler Phillips interview? I do have it, yes. Okay, I want to play that. that we're doing it. So Tyler Phillips, who's not the Marlins regular closer,

he got thrown in against the Jays on Sunday because I guess the regular clothes was either hurt or they used them earlier in the series. I'm not too sure. So for those that don't know, Tyler Phillips is like a super intense dude. And when he walks out from the bullpen, he slaps himself across the face repeatedly

to get fired up to go pitch. Did you see it when he was walking home? Oh, I missed that. And like, I'm not talking like, Just casual little, like, he hits himself harder. And then he wants to get, like, super angry. Football players are going to do that now that they ban the smelling salts. They're going to have to do.

Yeah, that's another stuff that Ruby missed, too. So after the win and the save, I guess he hadn't really, like, cooled down yet. He was still in, like, fight or flight mode. So fighting himself? Yeah. So this, it's awkward. But here it is. This is Tyler Phillips after getting his second save of the season in a 5-3 win over the

days on Sunday. All right, Jack, thank you very much. Tyler, you threw 32 pitches yesterday. When did you know you were going in tonight? When they called down. And you were ready to go. Yeah, I'm ready. They call down, I'm pissed off, I'm ready to go.

Why do you get so pissed off? I don't like hitters. How did you get through that nine? Throw the wall over the plate. How long does it take you to cool down after a win? I never cool down. And the slapping, what was the level of slapping when you came on? My face is hot.

Yeah. How important was it for your team to get this win today? It's big. I mean, everyone's big. It doesn't matter what the record is. Everyone's big. That's what we're here for. It's to try to win the game. What does this organization help you unlock for your career this year? I think you just be yourself. Go out there, do with you. Whatever's going to make you successful, that's what you do. In this team, I see it. We're a lot of young guys.

And when you play for each other, have some fun with it, that's what you got to do. Great win. You're scaring me. Go to the clubhouse. Thank you very much. That is an interviewer's nightmare, those short answers. It's so tough. You know you're in trouble when you have to bring out the how important was the win. What does this team mean to you? Why you're so angry? I hate hitters.

Okay. You either start having fun with it really quick or that's it. I like the thank you. You're scaring me. Yeah, if you watch the video, some of it's a bit, for sure, from Phillips. For sure, it's a bit. But he's also kind of crazy. so you can buy into the fact that he's still, like, just way too jacked up.

Anyway, mook how that. Don't fire up the dot matrix because we're going to go right to the humanoids. Humanoid, what we learns, as always brought to by AJ's pizza on East Broadway. Go visit 325 and 327 East Broadway and eat some of the best pizza in the city, in the province, in the country, dare I say, the world, AJ's pizza on East Broadway. Kent in Victoria, what we learned. We need to talk about the Canadian women's rugby. opening dominant win against Fiji in the World Cup yet the Canadian women are really good at

rugby like they they could actually win this World Cup I don't know if they're the favorites to win it but they're one of the favorites and they're in a group with Fiji who they beat 65 to 7 a nail bit whales and Scotland and that's that's two true traditional rugby nations in Scotland and Wales and Fiji as well. But I think the tough competition is going to be Scotland who they play third and final on September 6th. They should be able to take care of whales. I was wondering why the highlights were on the other day.

It's because Julius Schell, who's a fullback, set a Canadian rugby record with six tries in the second half against Fiji in the aforementioned 65 to 7 blowout. the most by a Canadian in rugby World Cup match history. Okay, basketball Phil texted this in, and I've got an ad on here. What we learned, it was the Ferris Bueller Day Off reunion at Nat Bailey Stadium last Saturday. Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck were there, and they led the crowd in the seventh inning stretch singing, Take Me Out to the ball game.

That's a great promotion. Yeah. A few people have said. that I look like Alan Ruck. Cameron in Ferris Bueller. I'm aware of who he is. Yeah, well, some people might not be. Oh, right.

You're doing it. Is he in severance? Yeah, not severance. Succession. Succession. That's the one. He was in Spin City. Spin City was a good show.

Yeah, he was in Spin City. Yep. You do kind of look like him. He was on speed. Well, especially when he's depressed in Ferris Bueller. Yeah. He'll like me in the morning. He's got a huge beard now.

So it's hard. It's different. I think, actually, I can see the resemblance. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So two things, two things. This is C's related.

I want to get into this. Okay? Oh. Number one, I'm going to try and bring Pedro on September 2nd because there's another dog days. That's your dog. Pedro is my dog. There's another dog days at Nat Bailey Stadium.

I think they're two a year now. They're like, people like that. Let's do it again. So that's Tuesday, I think, September 2nd. I'm going to try and. bring Pedro to that. I'm on it. I'll tell you. And the other is and I did that one first because I wanted to do

a promo for the C's. Okay, so just to confirm, Tuesday, September 2nd, 705 first pitch at home September 2nd, dog day of summer. 7.05 p.m. Okay. Yeah, 9am. Don't show up that early. So I've done my promo for the C? Oh no. Where's going? I went to a C's game

during my vacation. Okay. And I had an awful hot dog. What? Awful. It was terrible. What was wrong with it? It just tasted like, like dog days. It was a dog days of hot dogs.

It was a bad dog. It was a bad dog. Bad dog in Nat Bailey. And listen, we've talked about the food at BC Place and it wasn't quite a BC place hot dog. Nothing is. It wasn't as gray as a BC place hot dog. Man, it was bad. And you know what?

I'm blaming private equity. Okay. Sold to private equity. And by the way, I spent $12 on a drink there. Like the drink prices are through the roof. So look, I love you, C's. Love Nat Bailey. We've always, we've always supported you and given a ton of kudos to the operation.

The hot dog was junk. And I talked to a few people, many people. Many people said their hot dog experience wasn't very good either. So that's important If you're going to a baseball game, man The hot dog They're trying to push you to the yard dog That's what they're trying to do

I don't want a foot long hot dog Okay I just want I didn't miss you that much Why not? And I don't I just want a regular hot dog And for it to taste like good

And for me to be like Man now I'm out of ball game Okay but the foot longs are great So why not get a full dog Some people don't want that much meat tubed meat. They don't need that much tube meat in their diet. Both hot dogs the full long should be good and the regular dog

should be good. It wasn't very good. A baseball stadium, that's the one thing you shouldn't be allowed to screw up. Yeah, that's true. Your hot dog game should be immaculate. So look, I'm going again September 2nd and I just hope I'm not feeding the hot dog to Pedro because I'm like you eat this, you'll eat anything. He doesn't give it either. I'm going to give him enough because sometimes you can just have a bad dog. Sure.

right? Sometimes it can happen but I was not happy with that speaking of private equity what do you guys make of the penguins going up for sale Fenway Sports Group I kind of kept to and then there's a family that owns an ECHL team the Hoffman family is that it? Yeah and I guess

they're also in the mix as well How about how about Fenway buying it for 900 million or something like that and then they're going to sell it for like 1.7 that's a good investment and it's all going to go to like some Liverpool striker And what's it been like six years?

How long have they owned the team? Three or something like that? And they've been horrible. They've been horrible and nobody's liked them. And they're like, yeah, we're going to take hundreds of millions and profit out of there. I'll say you do business, kids. Speaking of ownership, Chaiton and Surrey, Texan, what we learned, morning guys, hope you had a great vacay. I learned lost in the, in the, are we going Mueller, Mueller excitement?

What were we doing here? Thomas Mueller, Mueller? How far as Mueller? I don't say Muller. I don't say, he's not from Kingston, Ontario. It's not Mueller. Yeah, so you're like, Kirkamuller. So what it is, I, now again, our, you know, large contingent of German listeners might push back here.

But my understanding was that the umlaught over the you, may you pronounce it like a you. So it's supposed to be like Mueller. Mueller, okay, let's go Mueller. Okay, I learned most in the, you're saying Mueller. I'm not. You were. No. You did.

I didn't. You should get the tape. I learned lost in the. the Mueller excitement was co-owner Jeff Mallett's comments on Scarism Price regarding the sale of the caps and his talk on a new stadium. Yeah.

I think maybe things have shifted a little bit to where they are just looking for another investor. Perhaps a large German contingent led by a particular player. Yeah, maybe it's Thomas Mueller. I don't know if he saved his money enough or if he just gets the, But they need, I think what's happened is they've got some of the investors, maybe not the lead investor, which is curfut.

Maybe those guys are just like, yeah, I want to cash out because the team loses money on a yearly basis. So if you're an investor and it's losing money, even though on paper you've made a really nice profit because of the franchise value, you're also asked to like, hey, can you write a check for this? And you're like, I don't really, I want to stop doing that, right? Just I want to cash out now. So it might, I guess, end up being that it's not an entire, I don't know what's going to happen, but it feels like here's another option in here where maybe the lead investor stays the same. And then there's, there's an injection of money. I mean, this has been the most important season in terms of trajectory in the Whitecaps MLS era.

Like there's no debating that whatsoever. Like the amount of things in a positive way that have happened for the Whitecaps this season. I'm not saying that necessarily has altered the minds of those in ownership. But if you put it all together collectively, like this is going to be a transformed of season for that franchise. Well, I also think it depends how committed Kerfoot is to keeping the team in Vancouver. How much does that matter for his reputation, his legacy, how much does that matter? Because he could sell the team right now and move it.

Unless MLS stepped in and said, no, we're not going to allow that. They have been loath to move teams in the past. It's not a league that traditionally has done a lot of relocation. Yeah. Traditionally. But every circumstance is unique. He could easily go and just be like, even if it takes a year or two, you could go. It's like, listen, we're not going to be able to build a new stadium here.

And Don Garber would be like, I understand. Because Garber himself has come out and said they need a new stadium solution. dealt with it in other markets. Now, another potential is that they just get a better deal out of B.C. Place, which we've talked about before, and I don't know if B.C. Place would play ball with that. But, you know what? I hope that we can just enjoy this run and this finish to the season because the white caps are a good team. They're going to make the playoffs, jinks.

And, you know, they have the best chance in franchise history to make a deep run in the MLS playoffs and maybe even get all the way to the MLS Cup and at the same time we're probably unless there's a huge choke by the White Caps probably going to have a Vancouver Derby

in the Canadian Championship which would be really cool Vancouver SC has to hold up there under the bargain too they're up 3-1 yeah but they got to go on the road now right okay and that's always tricky but it would be very cool

and by the way the White Caps advance they host that match at BC Place just that's another home match because for the next three weeks there's no white caps because it would be ridiculous to not play at BC Place if it was Vancouver versus Vancouver

Oh, the Forge game are you talking about? Whoever wins between Forge and the white caps Yeah hosts the final Right, yeah It's just that's the way that it was But even if it was Vancouver They would find a way

To have that game at BC Place If I was a Vancouver If Cipras, I'd be like, no, we're playing at a Willoughby Like we're doing it at home I'd be like we're playing at a BC place But we're getting some of the game I want all those tickets In my pocket

But by the way, on the subject of Thomas Mueller, one of the other funny things that he did during his presser following the game on Saturday is he accidentally leaked that Tristan Blackman has been called up by the U.S. men's national soccer team. That's awesome. Yeah. So what happened there?

Another American from the Whitecaps. Yeah. They got a lot of good American athletes in Vancouver, I tell you between the Canucks and the Whitecaps. It's pretty impressive. So I guess what happened was Mueller let it slip and it hadn't been made official yet. Now, the backstory here that's important to remember

is that Jesse Marsh was trying to recruit Tristan Blackman to play for Canada. And I have been told that the U.S. men's national team in Soccer Federation was none too pleased about one of their former employees in Jesse Marsh trying to steal players. So I think this is their counterpunch is that they're going to bring Blackman into the fold. I don't know in what capacity. I don't even know when the next window is, to be honest. But Mueller was hilarious when he let it slip. He's like, oh, sorry.

I didn't know I wasn't supposed to say. that classic German humor you always love you get a good laugh out of him uh he looks like dry sidel by the way you look like me Greg looks more like dry sidel than Mueller looks more like

that's not that's not good are you are you German heritage no no no not at all not a problem you can't say like I'm Hamilton heritage Scottish and British okay pretty plain boring yeah I'm from Hamilton

from Hamilton Hamiltonian. You can tell them on my face. First generation Hamiltonian? It looks tired. I'm 23 and I've had a grizzled look on my face. You know I'm from Hamilton. You work in the hot dog factory?

I did. Oh, yes. I did. Greg in Pitt Meadows is what we learned. They're selling out the stadium. They're nearly sold out of kits. There's been so much talk of them on the radio online and in the newspaper. Leonard Duzzi once insisted that signing a name player didn't matter to the white caps.

But the Mueller signing shows how much it does and should have for all these years now to keep winning. It's been great. It's early days. And again, I don't love the fact that there's now a three-week layoff, although maybe Ryan Gould can finally get healthy. He's been week-to-week since March. So we're hopeful there. I'll go back to what I said earlier. And by the way, download our one of the podcasts if you want to hear this rant in a more expansive way.

It's not just the quality of player. and it's not just what he's giving them on the pitch. I am genuinely impressed by the level of authentic enthusiasm that Mueller brings all the time. Like he seems like he, like I wouldn't be surprised if he's like, my next goal is to win the Canadian championship. I've always wanted to win one.

It's been something that I've wanted since I was a young boy. How far could he push it? I mean, that's the one for me where he's like, I've always hated Forge. I can't. I know that, you know, Vancouver FC has been trying to steal our thunder.

for too long too long if he gets into the Canadian championship I'll be like this is really impressive

from Thomas Mueller yeah I still want to know is someone going to actually write the story of like how he decided

the athletic the athletic has one I think Josh cloak wrote it and it's he likes Yesper he like Yesper Sorensen a lot

but Jason's looking for like this isn't the right terminology but like the smoking gun like what's that one I want the timeline of all like when did he first start

talking to the white caps and then So the timeline's weird I heard that there was an Australian league club that thought they were going to get them and then LAFC thought they were going to get them. I know I'm showing my inferiority complex from a soccer perspective

but you've got a guy who is you're not. You're not. You know one of the most popular soccer players in the world and has this great social media following and is you know he's he's not the kind of guy that just comes to your team and plays well and then that's it.

Like he's more than that and he chose the white caps, an MLS club that has done nothing of significance. I know exactly what you're saying. Maybe he likes the blank slate. He likes,

he wants to be the legacy. Well, I think leave that behind. I mean, does he like the, do you think the city has, I mean, we're a nice city?

He can afford a nice place here too. I'm not joking when I say I wonder if the larger play here is that he becomes a minority ownership with some of the other guys he had from Byron and from the German national team he was part of a golden generation at the national level and the club level

right? I mean it's like him Manuel Neuer go down the list of guys that he often name checks as his peers and everything like we've seen former groups of players and consortiums get in and stand the ground floor clubs like all the men United guys. Axles opening the door there? I mean, there's...

A-Dog? They just signed another German. A-Dog? How does Axel Schuster answer the phone? Axel Schuster. This is, hello, Axel Schuster. Hello, Axel Schuster. Axel Schuster. Axel's done work, by the way, this year. Oh, yeah. And now... He's got a lot on his plate, too. Yeah. Like, there's... He's done a good job.

And we'll see what happens because he's got two new acquisitions that are going to be in the line of. It's three weeks time. Tomorrow, we're going to come back and they're like, the white caps are moving. Well, it was fun while it lasted. We got one day out of it after returning from vacation. The music means we got to say goodbye. It was great being back, everybody. Thanks for listening.

We'll catch up with you again tomorrow. Signing on for now, I have been Mike Alford. He's been Jason Bruff. He's been A-Dog and he's been Lattie. This has been the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650.