Pablo Torre Finds Out - Share & Football & Tell with Kevin Clark and Katie Nolan

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Is the transfer portal ruining the NCAA we all liked, or helping the NFL we love even more? Why is Cristiano Ronaldo suddenly the biggest sports-show host on YouTube? What's the status of friend requests IRL? And how's my guy? Further really original, organic content:UR • Cristiano https://www.youtube.com/@cristianoThe Frendship Paradox (Olga Khazan) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/loneliness-epidemic-friendship-shortage/679689/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraff Kings Network. Hey. Hello, Katie. Yeah, I would love one. Thank you. The throwing your phone onto a table is a power move.

Is this what people with kids are like all the time? I was telling Pablo. I have construction of my house, so I'm awake all the time. I'm sleeping on an air mattress. We're all sleeping on our mattress. I have a mattress except. Just put a mattress on the floor. Well, we can't really get to our mattress.

All right. That sucks. There's a lot of moving parts. Don't I not need headphones? Didn't we establish this last time? We do for what? You do headphones? We do for what we're here to do today because we have some clips.

All right. We got some clips. You too good for headphones, no headphones got your, is it a hair thing? It's not a hair thing. It's a vanity thing. It is a vanity thing. What's the vanity if not the hair? I don't love...

General vibe. I don't love... You look too committed when you're wearing headphones. We're just trying too hard. God forbid. We're really trying too hard. All right, Pablo, what's up? You called us here today?

We did. We did. So I suppose football is part of the premise here. And so Kevin, as a person who hosts a show called This Is Football, I wanted Katie and I to examine something that you present us as we wonder, what is football now? So what's the story that you brought us? By the way, check out Troy Aitman on this is football this week.

He really brought it. He really brought it. Does he still look like Jay-Z? Yeah. That's more of your domain. Are you aware that the internet thinks you look like Jay-Z? Yes. I am aware of that.

A white Jay-Z, there was a, there was a, meme that's, it still pops up on my feet from time to time. It was some game, yeah. He did go to, he spent a lot of time in the South of France this summer. That's very j-Z-Z-E. He's got an expensive tan. He's got an expensive tan. He looks great.

He looks phenomenal. Oh, good for him. He did a thing. He said, he was with his adult daughters, and he said, you know, cherish the childhood experience because it goes fast and then all of a sudden you're in the south of France getting tanned with your adult daughters. Sounds awful. So this weekend, the NFL starts.

Crazy. It snuck up on me. I know you guys like. You, but it snuck up on me. I was like, it's this week. She didn't go to the owner's meetings this year, so she wasn't locked in. It's a Friday game this week? It's in Brazil. Oh, okay. See, that makes more sense.

Oh, yeah. It's a little Twitter thing. It's a time. It's a time. It's a time. You can't just take a day and go, we do Fridays now. Part of it is, it's not a time zone thing because Brazil, it's straight down. It's a time. It's more of a travel thing.

It's more of a travel thing. It's like a 13-hour flight, right? Yeah, probably. I don't know. I thought it was different times. The point being, though, that football is every day. There's also a ton of fake news about this game. I don't know if you guys have followed this.

One of the players said that, like, he would play for the Packers and he said that NFL told them they couldn't wear a green because Brazil is so dangerous. And the NFL was like, that is not true. We did not tell them that. Is that like that rumor about how if you wore a certain like wristbanded meant that like, as a kid you were inviting sexual predators to prey upon you? Yes. It's slightly different, but same genre.

And then the other day I saw a thing. It was like, they said not, we can't leave our hotel rooms, which also. seems fake. I've not gotten confirmation that's fake, but it seems fake. But so there's a lot of fake news about this game. Anyway, the thing I brought, there's six quarterbacks from the first round who are either going to make their debut or will make their debut soon. And what I think is the defining characteristic of this era is the transfer portal. And if you look at the six quarterbacks went in the first round, four of them are transfer portal products, but three of them were direct results of the transfer portal.

Jaden Daniels at Arizona State does not go second overall. He might not even get drafted. Bo Nix is real old. He is like the fifth oldest rookie week one starter ever, and the guys ahead of him were in the Army. Or in minor league baseball. I keep on reading these Bo Nix stories, and everyone's like he played like 50 or 60 college games

like his defining character. It was like Roger Stoback was older because he was serving. Shout out Roger Stoback. He was serving our country. I love him. And then like Brandon We. and Chris Winkie were just playing minor league baseball for years. Bo Nix was just being old.

And I call them Dr. Quarterbacks because they just spent so long playing. Jaden Daniels threw a touchdown pass to Brandon Ayuk to beat Justin Herbert in college. Huh. So it's a COVID year. It's NIL. Bo Nix, if he had not found the transfer portal, would be doing an occupation that I... You said selling insurance. I bet a hundred.

You said selling insurance. I did sell. Bringing you guys flatbreads. Selling insurance, there's an enterprise rental car counter that's empty right now with his name on it. You know, you used to have a college degree to do enterprise rental counter. Did you know that? Well, Bo Nix has one. How do you know that?

I don't know. Bo Nix definitely has one. He's been there a while in college, so hopefully he's got a couple degrees. Well, you can go for a long time and not going to a degree. Imagine how impressed enterprise rental car would be by Bo Nix's education. And so point being is it, I think this is, and it's starting again this year, we're seeing guys already, like Cam Ward at Miami. Your guy. Who were doing one or two years

stops. You know you're talking to somebody who does not watch college football? I just want, I felt really guilty sitting here listening and going and nodding like, I'm half Ken. I'm going to bring it back. Miami's own Cam Ward. Miami's on Cam Ward as of a few months ago. I used to be a Pullman Washington's own. Washington States. And before that incarnate words. And

I'm starting to think more quarterbacking now is becoming more of a reflection of the actual college experience, which is if you don't like your surroundings, you can transfer until it starts working. I actually transfer from DePaul or the University of Miami for professional reasons. And it sounds like quarterbacks are doing that now too. And so I'm starting to wonder, like,

is there even such a quarterback prospect? Because if these guys were all born 15 years earlier, or even five years earlier, they would have not have gotten these opportunities in these offenses. They would not have found these coaches, and they would have been doing something completely different than being a first round pick. Now, again, some of them might have had NFL careers,

but not like this. Bo Nix was the most accurate quarterback in history last year because he stayed that long in college, again, COVID year, but he also stayed because of NIL, and he found the Oregon offense, which wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago. And so it is becoming professionalized, certainly. But then beyond that, it is becoming this thing

where you can find your destiny in college in a way you could never before. You can find these shotgun marriages and they work. So Katie was asking before, like, is there actually the NFL on Saturdays? And I'm like, kind of... Yeah, because of... Yeah, and the transfer portal, right?

So just to recap, because I think Katie, the reason why I want you here beyond wanting you hear whenever you're available is because, is because, I'm just catching myself, it was because I do think people need to sort of be caught up to speed on what the fuck is happening in college football. Sure. Because the transfer portal as a concept was this thing that drove Nick Sabin out of the sport, in part, on top of NIL, on top of all these other changes coming to, quote unquote, amateurism. And it was wildly criticized, the Transfer Portal was, as ruining this thing we all loved. And now, when you're looking at how it's helped these quarterbacks on the teams that we are watching most intently, it's clear that this has been the thing that has actually shaped not just those quarterback's careers, but these teams for the better. And what's funny to me is that, of course, it was going to be like this. Of course. But the premise was all of these guys are just,

delusional divas who are just going to want to change. It's a Goldilocks system where no one will ever be satisfied. And instead, you mentioned Bo Nix and you mentioned Cam Ward. These are guys who followed their coaches to other places. And so the coaches who always had freedom of movement. I was going to say, coaches who could always go wherever and whenever they wanted to. Perpetually had the access to a transfer portal of this is too cold. This is not hot enough.

They got to bring their players along with them. And to Kevin's point, we're just getting to see guys that would otherwise be in the dustbin of college football history. And now they are showing up in the NFL, seemingly, in ways that are changing that sport too. Are you saying, to understand your point, that like the performance of this class now will dictate sort of anything in the future of what I'm saying to do well to prove? What I'm saying is that there was a dearth of quarterbacks, great quarterbacks of the past 100 years. and I think there's going to be way more in the future than we think because you're going to be able to find your level.

It's almost a little bit like how this is a crazy analogy I'm coming up with and I'm way over my skis here. But like nowadays... Another analogy to explain the analogy. That's the Apple Podcast summary of This is Football. So it's a bit like how entertainment has become democratized

like on YouTube and TikTok and anybody can become famous overnight. Now we're in my wheelhouse. Yeah. And so for me, if you're a quarterback and you'd say, damn, if I could only get in that offense. If I could only get in that with that coach, if I could only put with that wide receiver, you can do it now. You can do it. And you may have to, you may not be a starter or whatever, but you can find your destiny. It used to be, Katie, if you went to

University of Florida and the coaching staff sucked. Right. And or the coach left. Or the coach left. Or somebody else won the job. You would just sit there and be like, well, that's it for me. I'm time to become a high school coach. Gave it a good run. Now you can leave. Now you can, the coaches are under more pressure to fix things because players can leave. It was funny. I asked a GM last summer, I said, how's the portal changing things? He said two things. First of all, he said the same thing I said, which is it's a net positive because people

are finding a home where, like, Matt Castle is a good example, right? Matt Castle sat on USC's bench for four years, got drafted, was fine in the NFL. But if Matt Castle were born in 2009, he would have gone and played it at UCLA or Stanford or Cal and we would have had a better evaluation. But what the GM said is is two things. He said, number one, coaches do not break players down to build them back up. So you used to de-recruit at the college level. Nick Saban and Kirby Smart will get these guys on campus after six months of saying you are the best

prospect in the world and say you are nothing, you are the ninth straight straight quarterback. You do not matter at all, right? And that's how you start to build them back up. They cannot do that anymore. I can name places that do that. I know of other places that do things like that. If they had the portal at those jobs in media, you could just leave.

Stop pointing at me so aggressively. And so now if you de-recruit a kid at Georgia, he can go, cool, I'm going to go play at South Carolina. Right. I don't need to take this. You can't lie. Again, isn't watching any college football. It's what it should be because then that other team can have a quarterback and you can have a more parity in the little, correct? But also.

You can't lie to kids. And those kids. And this is not just like touchy feel. I'm pro player stuff, although, you know, whatever, they reveal themselves to actually be good. Yes. And not just a function of a system. Like, actually good.

Coaches in the past, he just tell blatant lies. Like, famously, in Bruce Feldman's book, Meat Market, Jevin Sneed is a quarterback who ended up elsewhere, but he was Texas and Ole Miss. And he was, I believe, committed at one point to Florida. So it's the same year as Tim Tebow. And all the Tebow hype is starting, and Jevin Sneed, very good quarterback in his own rights,

is to Urban Meyer. Hey, I'm hearing a lot about Tim Tebow. And Urban Meyer says, I wouldn't worry about it, man. He's going to play a linebacker for us. Just lying. Just literally just lying. Urban Meyer? And so there would be no...

Is he talking about the Urban Meyer? I know. There would be no recourse back then except to sit for a year. A team could block your transfer. There were all sorts of things. Now you can just go, cool. I'll be here for four months and then I'm out of here.

The other thing that the GM said is just very, a huge change, is how often now college players are saying to teams, what can you do for me? Ooh. I bet they love that. They hate it a lot. But for the first time, 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds are actually... We talk about the player empowerment era,

and we never know what we're talking about. It means, like, oh, these guys can go now force trades from the rockets. No, they have Instagram. Yeah, they have Instagram. But what's actual player empowerment is saying, you can't lie to me. And also, like, not to get into the Jada-Rashada thing,

which we've all talked about is like, you can now probably, because there's finances involved, say, oh, by the way, if you lie to me, I'll see you in court. I'm going to sue the head coach of the University of Florida. College football for 100 years. My favorite thing in the world, but it is run on lies and bullshit. That's actually why I don't like it. That's why I like it.

Yeah, that's what he only likes the scammy part of it. I do. When he's saying he wants her to be guardrails, it means more scams. Oh, okay. Yeah. When people say we want more guardrails, what does that mean?

Because nobody's collectively bargained with these kids. Nobody has said, hey, we'll give you excellent. People like, oh, there has to be a cap. Okay, negotiate that because the NFL has a salary cap. And in return, the NFL players get a lot. They get a lot. Well, don't you need a union to negotiate? Correct.

So there can't be guardrails until there's a union. Surprise. And when's that going to, so how long until that happens? Well, right now, the Instablay is now trying to force through a CBA with no union, basically. Yeah, the settlement to the antitrust lawsuit, which we've covered on this show previously. The point is we're getting piecemeal towards professionalism without the guard race. quite yet. But all this to say is that the transfer portal is actually going to create better football,

not worse, a better product. Better for fans. And Roger Goodell should be thanking everybody. And by the way, ratings are up everywhere. But the college game is going to get better, not worse, because of the portal. And because of NIL, they'll stay an extra year. They get $700,000, $800,000 to stay an extra year. And they'll say, hey, I like my environment, whatever.

Which is beneficial because I feel like every time you get a rookie quarterback coming in, they're like, hey, it's better to be behind a guy who knows what he's doing. It's like, yeah, or stay in college for another year would have been beneficial. Would you have stayed in college if you could have if somebody paid you to stay in college? Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yes. I would still be in college.

No, I don't know. I didn't like it that much. Was anybody offering to pay you to just and not under the workforce, Pablo? My parents who are like, we would like you to become a literal doctor. Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm going to talk about how doctors are metaphors now for quarterbacks. That's right. Does that get me to your love?

It's doing well. It's working out. It is doing it. I hope so. Doing what you should be doing. It is doing well. The whole thing, though, of, like, what is the story when it comes to these individual quarterbacks?

It is praiseworthy, the story. Like, it's saleable to America and parents across America. The idea of, you started with, so again, the Cam Ward thing. He was what used to be called a 1-A quarterback at a school I did not know existed. Incarnate Word. Incarnate Word. And he basically traded the paperclip of Incarnate Word up and up and up to Washington State now to Miami. And that is, it's just an American success story.

You started Incarnate Word and then four and a half years later, you're at Florida Field in front of 90,000 people. In front of a drunk Kevin Clark. And Mike Ryan. Incarnate means human form, right? So what a word incarnate? Katie, I believe it has something to do with Jesus. Katie stopped reading the Bible famously. I did.

In the Old Testament. Everybody takes a break. Everybody takes a break. Somebody actually told me that they were proud. Jesus took a break, actually. On the seventh day, he rested. That was God. But they're the same.

They're the Holy Trinity. I'm not in the new test yet. You might even say he is incarnate. That's, I guess. And that's back to what we were saying. Anyway, go ahead. San Antonio is where that school is. Oh, yeah.

Good to know, because that'll come up, I'm sure. Cam Ward is from Texas. I can't even really blame college coaches for not seeing Cam Ward. as obviously a Heisman candidate as he was coming out of high school in Texas because he wasn't throwing the ball they were running like the whatever it was, single wing which is crazy in 2020, whatever it was when he was there.

But it's just, as you say, it's more snaps, it's more ability to evaluate somebody. And the NFL, like the NBA is dealing with this nightmare, right? Of like, we're getting these professionals and no one knows who the fuck they are. Correct. So the whole thing about like what's bad about people not caring about college basketball if you love the NBA.

I don't care about college basketball, I only love the NBA. The problem is that you don't know who these people are when they show up. And college football provides not just an unparalleled platform for college students to show their wares to their employers. But it also gets them better at the same time. And now I care about Cam Ward. I completely agree with you. I think that the way the NFL evaluates quarterbacks to begin with,

if any other industry were as bad at identifying the number one talent needed, there would be a crisis. The NFL has no soul-searching whatsoever. By the way, they just keep doing the same thing. I can't think of a couple other. And so. They come right to mind. So anyway, we're going to gloss right over that.

And we're going to get to the fact that, like, Joe Burrow had this amazing clip. I actually just saw it a couple weeks ago where he said that you look at Mahomes and Josh Allen. We had on crappy college teams, teams where they, had to put the team on their back all the time. And he said he thought that those guys were supernaturally gifted because of that experience at knowing how to win. And that's why they win at the NFL level. And then a lot of guys, if they go to Georgia, if they go to USC, if they go to Florida

State, whatever, they're up like 21 points all the time. Life is easy. Unless you're Florida State right now. And so... Even I know they're bad. And I think that the quarterback developmental system has been so broken. they're bringing a Cam Ward up to the highest level of football and letting see see how he wins see how he operates

I think it's democratizing the position and I think we're going to see way way way I mean the whole thing is broke like all these kids there's a lot of these quarterbacks who go to the right camps because they have the right parents and they spend $4,000 to go to XYZ camp and then UCF coach sees him and then he gets offered by Georgia Tech and all of a sudden he's a power for quarterback right

and that is the broken part of it. And now that kid never gets to play because an actual good kid whose parents didn't go to all the right camps gets to take his job. Right, right, right. God bless America. It just sounds like coaches are going to hate this. Yeah, that's what the money's for.

Yeah. Well, that's what you'd think, but they've always been getting that money, right? So they... Yeah, well, now it's a different job. They're not like, oh, this makes... They're going to want more... That's the problem with everything.

You're going to need to maybe have a bar restaurant where maybe you stay, you know, a day later while the rest of your team travels on where you can sit on a bar stool as somebody, you know, leaves no room for the Holy Ghost. No room at all. No. No. There was contact. A lot of illegal.

Well, no. Well, easy, Pablo. I don't know. But it wasn't, but all I'll say is there was contact. There was no space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incarnate word. I wanted to also. talk about football.

Yeah. But the kind that the world cares about. Soccer? Oh, you were genuinely meaning soccer. I was like, I thought I was doing a bit. Great, great prep. Oh, you think. No, no, no.

Cristiano Ronaldo. Who's that? Yeah. Great question. The most followed person in the world. What does this mean? Great question. All I know is that the dude has like literally 600 million Instagram followers and just

broke the record for one million YouTube subs in the shortest amount of time. Is that the most? Oh, it was like the day he made the channel. In 90. In 60 minutes. Oh, my God. 90 minutes. I've never seen a tweet on Instagram post.

I've never gone, let me see what Cristiano Ronaldo's got to say. This was my issue with this as I was wondering, like, why is Cristiano Ronaldo the greatest host of a sports show by the numbers in the history of the. medium, apparently. Sorry, does he have an actual show? Well. Or is it just a channel? I'm so glad you asked.

Oh, great. This is a project that we've been thinking about for many years, but now we have the opportunity has become real, and I'm very, very happy and very excited. So many years of football, I think it's an ideal platform for me to be able to share a little of my life. My things. Yeah. And really original organic content.

It's guaranteed success. I have no doubt. It's crazy, though. Well, that's all just elephant in the room. It's crazy. She looks just like me. We look so alike. We're both...

That's so crazy you found, like my dog... I don't know which one to shoot. I thought when you were... That was a lot like my episode with Akeman this morning. A lot like you. Yeah, you were in a room, decorated with... And we talked about how the show is a guaranteed success. Shot beautifully.

Organic content. Organic content. Looked gorgeous, right? Beautiful. Nice cameras. Beautiful. Beautiful. 15 million people watch that, I believe.

What did they say? What were they talking about? So you may notice that the version you get as maybe this is just the American, the ugly American here gets this treatment. But you get it dubbed. You get it dubbed. You get it dubbed by these voices. And it doesn't help me understand really anything about who this guy is or really what this content, quote unquote. It's just disconcerting to watch the guy who is the voice.

actor for Cristiano Ronaldo say the words organic content. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's, I feel like that is the nature of the fact that you don't speak, the language that he's speaking. Which is total. The guy is a international star. But the point being, more than any of us. How dare you? I know. The point is, when it comes to, like, who he is, there is, Kevin is a soccer fan. I have covered, I've been, I've been to Brazil, as it turns out, to, like, cover the World Cup. How are the time zones up? Shut up, Kevin. They were violent. But I was at these games watching Ronaldo play.

I've been at various events where he's been. I just, if you were to tell me, what is his YouTube channel going to be like? Yeah. I would struggle. But I think my brain might have spat out a version of what we just saw, which is some version of a press release, but sort of like puppeteered into some simulation of a human internet. action. This makes me think of when, who was it that was on Los Culturistas and said, authenticity is expensive. I want to say it was Tina Faye. Okay.

Cristiano Ronaldo already has so many people listening, and he is saying nothing. It does not behoove him to say anything. Like the question. The benefit, you have the eyeballs, you'll get the ads sold against the numbers for the content. just say nothing and they're not going to turn on you. No.

They don't care what you say. They're kind of just performing a fandom for you. So just, of course, this is a money grab. But what bugs me is that they use those same numbers to evaluate who's listening or who's learning or who's gaining something from the content.

And it's like, you're not really making anything. We are competing with this man. He's not making anything. I'm sorry. But the thing that means, made him really good at what he's really good at is the same thing that makes him very bad at what you're really good at. Well, I think we should listen to Cristiano Ronaldo in his voice.

Sorry, let's hear it from him. Explain. Sorry, go ahead. We know the press how works. If you speak good, don't sell. We have to speak bad. It's normal. And if you speak about Cristiano, you're coming in the first page. It's normal.

Because I'm the most follow guy in the world. It's not only because of my pretty face, but in the first. Everything. You know, why Christian is the number one following world? Why? Why do you think? Many things. There's goals. Football. Trophies. So is Rio Ferdinand, who is that gentleman there? Is he the first guest or is he a regular on this show? I believe he is the first guest slash guest host. That enabled me to hear English.

I like the way he asked, he couldn't tell if he was being asked when he was like, why is he the most followed in the world? And then the pause was long enough that he was like, child face? Trofaces. He's nice. Troufays. It did feel rhetorical. It did feel rhetorical. All of this kind of feels rhetorical.

I've been talked in a circle. I don't understand what anyone's trying to communicate. I watched every video on his channel. How long did that take you? It felt like a million years. I think it was like 30 minutes. There's a couple things here. I was going to talk about how high the bar is to have a good player podcast.

There is one, like Roy Keene has one in soccer that is very, very funny. because Roy Keene, kind of as they call him, a hard man. You know, he has all these stories about getting in fights and punching people and waiting people in parking lots, and he goes to all of his red cards and says this guy deserved it. Awesome. And on that? But there's also something with credibility where, and I'll give you a great example, if Ronaldo says something about anybody currently playing, like I'm a big Tottenham Hotspur fan, if he says,

like, man, Son is the best player in the world, I'm going to smash that RT and be like, Hell yeah, look at what Ronaldo says, right? And you're seeing that actually, so in Gainesville on Saturday, Nick Saban picked, well, I was in Gainesville on Saturday. Nick Saban picked Miami to beat Florida. I was in line at a Kava, no big deal. And there were a couple. It's a Kava?

Is that you said? A Kava? Yeah, like a Mediterranean bowl place. Yeah, I was just trying to eat healthy before. Did you get the Pita crisps in it? Yeah, I did. I did. I did.

And so there were like a couple Miami fans in Gainesville, and Saban picked Miami. and it was like the buzz of the line at Kava. And it's because Nick Saban, who has so much credibility, said something nice about something we like. And so I think that there's, that's also a part of it, is like you're always going to be the news cycle

if you're Ronaldo. And so you get to pass the line of player podcasts and go right to the top. You can print those graphics, those quote graphics. To like LeBron, right? Where it's like LeBron sends a tweet about someone random and it's like,

oh my God, LeBron reacts, right? You get to be in rarefied air and you get to make news whenever, whereas Roy Kien has to go through all his career red cards in order to make that kind of news. It may not get there. No, but with Ronaldo, it does feel like the most interesting thing about him beyond him actually as a player.

Again, whatever, is he better than Messi, no, but is he an entertaining person who, when he weighs in on, there was another clip where he weighed in on how the English premiere, this is a separate thing, like the English Premier League is the hardest league in the world, and he said, yes, it is. Yeah, okay, oh, meaningful. Yes, that is meaningful. That's meaningful, right? meaningful.

It's a way for me to be closer to my fans, to my people. What's that logo? It is you are. Right. And it means... You are Christiana Ronaldo. No, I'm not. Well, that's what U.S.R stands for on that logo.

UR. CRC. No, no, I'm not. We're not going to do that. No, I'm not. We're not doing that. But that kind of speaks to the whole thing about what he thinks is interesting about himself, which is... That me?

He thinks I'm what's interesting about him? He thinks that everybody wants to, uh, bad. in the bigness of him, in him as a concept, like the most followed thing being this defining characteristic, I don't blame him for finding that itself, the prime directive of this entire mission to start this show. It is fascinating, and yet the most boring thing in the world. Like, everybody wants to be him, true, online, hosting shows,

and yet you, like, what do I actually want to hear him say? The thing, he needs a rebrand. He needs a rebrand. And if I was him, I would rebranded a more like a Mamba mentality thing because the stories I've always heard and seen in some of the documentaries. Ronald does a step over

that everybody thinks is superfluous but he's like, no, he does one thing like 17,000 times over the course of a season, he's meticulous in it, and then all of a sudden it shows up and it's not superfluous. It matters, right?

And same with like in the Juventus documentary a couple years ago when he was on that team. Like they showed him just shooting at the net, like over and over and over again. And the coaches were like, oh, he really shoots a lot because he's trying to score. And he's the best goal scorer of all time. And like that doesn't come easy, right? And very hard, I'm sure. Right. And so, but what Kobe did was he made that into his brand. Like instead of saying, like, and Kobe had much better stories than Christiana

Renato apparently does. But he made the entire persona about the work. And so then you become winner guy. And then... You're speaking business conferences. Exactly. Bitcoin conferences. Rinaldo happened to also be involved with Binance as a side matter. Binance? Finance. Like Bitcoin finance? Is that a thing? It was.

It was one of the biggest crypto disaster stories. I saw a commercial for crypto and I'm like never seen a commercial for money before. Yeah. How is this not immediately like, I don't think this is going to be the thing? Which does feel appropriate though for this guy. And by the way, so the Kobe thing is also relevant insofar as here is somebody who figured out the branding of him while never being consensus the greatest of all time. And also has a part of his Wikipedia page where you're like, oh, let's scroll down to that part and talk about that briefly just to acknowledge that, you know, legal issues involving women are a part of this. And it's not good.

It's not good. But Katie, as you continue to, you know, not be into this content, Christiano Ronaldo wants you to know that he has a great relationship with his wife. Are you thrown to a clip? Maybe. You are, baby. Georgina Rodriguez, are you ready for the third question? Why are you so pretty?

It wasn't there, I swear. Today I'm going to have a chat with Gio. But to make more fun, let's play a game. Scary. What makes you the most angry when you read things about yourself? The lies. They make me really angry, whether I read them or hear them. And in justice.

Very good, great answer. It goes on like that for a while. Isn't that the woman that he, that they made them change Saudi law so that he could live with her without having to marry her? That sounds plight. plausible. Wasn't that a thing? He is now playing for those not caught up to speed on his athletic career. He is 39.

He's in the zone that all of these athletes, these superstars we grew up watching are now, where they're like, I want to score a thousand goals. It's literally a YouTube video also separately, in which he wants to score a thousand goals. And he's also playing in Saudi Arabia. Making a zillion dollars. Which he needs, Pablo. And that's... And he needs the YouTube money.

He needs the money. Let him get the bag, Pop. Why? He needs it. Why does he want to do any of this? This is so beneath... It needs to be more than last year. Otherwise, you're losing. You're dying. If you're, if you stop swimming, I do think these expenses are probably quite high. Yeah, but lower them then. Don't be, take Saudi money. I like Katie as the Susie Ormond of Cristiano Ronaldo's life. Stop buying avocado toasts. Okay? Invest. No, I just, I feel like we live. live at a time when you could have money

and then make passive money off it pretty easily. So when they make money that isn't passive and I know they're also definitely making passive income, it's unfathomable. There's no limit to the wealth that's being accrued, which I

don't know, I don't want to get into politics, but it just feels like, why do you need all that? What do you need it for? Where are you putting it? Can I have some? What's up? Aren't you embarrassed? Aren't you ever like, wow, I could empty one account and solve a country's entire crisis.

One crisis, maybe a small one, but I could solve it. No, I think you're some big ones. I think some big ones. Right, but I'm saying, and you don't go like, oh, that's yikes. Only Mr. Beast is doing that. I feel confident that that sort of line of questioning is not what he's going to answer on you are Christian. No, I don't think.

Also, the rhetorical questions that you just stacked up there were great, very similar to URCR. And Rio Ferdinand would also have no idea when to kind of chime in, because I didn't know either. It is safe to say that that was a spicy one. Does he ever ask about her hobbies? Did you learn anything about her other than her relationship to Christiana Ronaldo? No, no, no, no. She loves her family. Right.

And Christiano? They do. Yeah. I know this because there is a video in which he presented his kids with the gift of the gold. million subscriber YouTube plaque. And they were psyched. Which they earned. So they should have that.

What are we doing? It all makes me very nauseous. I'm sorry. It's just so crazy. Katie? Why do we always wait till the end? And then mine is clearly something I read on the way over here. Yeah.

Well. Because it is? Yeah. So maybe that's why. It's about friends. I read an article. Shut up. Are you doing this?

Because I told you that you had. had to pretend to be interested in anything. No, I am interested. I have to show you guys how this show is produced. I have a hard out in 12 minutes. Oh, shit. All right, well, that's all it's going to take. The French Paradox was an article in the Atlantic.

It was written by Olga Kazan. We've talked about this or around this multiple times on this podcast, how everybody's very lonely. Americans are very lonely, but that they, it's not due to lack of friends. 6,000 American adults in a survey of their relationships and friendships. Researchers found Americans reported having an average of about four or five friends. Which is similar to, I mean, it is. I don't know if you're joking, but not too, it is.

No, no, I mean that. Which is similar to past estimates. Very few respondents, less than 4% reported having no friends. And so the problem they say is that it's difficult to see your friend or to like make the connect to actually do things with your friends. It's something about the lack of third spaces, which is a conversation we have a lot about like where do people go to like do things, especially with like work, changing. and the telecommuting or whatever. But it's basically just saying that like it's the nature of connections are changing. And I would maybe argue that like this started with the word friend request becoming like a social

media. It became like a thing you sent to somebody that I don't know if a day before you would have called a friend when you first got, I mean I'm talking about Facebook, but I want to be clear. I don't think I've been on Facebook in like seven years at least. I don't even think Dan and I are friends on. Facebook. You're not one of the hundreds of millions of people who are friends with Cristiano Ronaldo

on Facebook. And that's the thing. It's like, I think there's the, I don't know that it's like a direct cause, but these two things are related where it's like, I do feel I have many friends. I don't see that many friends. This is me seeing my friends. Well, I was going to say. I'm seeing my friends right now.

Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's continue to, thank you for pointing at me and, and. We're friends. We just want to spend seven hours together in Arizona. But this is. But to break the fourth wall, this show, in the way that we've been doing it, has been my way of addressing this problem. Yeah. And is that okay or no?

It's the best I can do these days. Yeah. And I think, and so when Katie sent this story, I was like, of course Katie sent the story. Because Katie, I believe, has lots of friends. But in terms of how often Katie leaves the house. Very small amount of time. I'm trying, I'm like forcing myself to do it. That's why I said I was happy.

year of yes. I'm in my year of yes. But I'm, but like, we buried the lead here. But no. But no. Like I'm still saying no. Okay. Hold on the banner we're constructing for you, the year of yes. dot, dot, dot, dot. But no. Listen, as a lady who's saying no a bunch, I'm, I'm now, I'm like, say yes more often than you used to. Okay. We'll put that on the banner too. That's a bit. That's basically. I'm trying to get myself to go. Like, I think I'm going to go for a high tea with a friend of mine this one. We're going to like get, dressed and go to tea.

Because it's like, I feel like I'm watching. Yeah. How fancy. Where? I don't think it's that fancy. It's here. Tea and sympathy? It's around here somewhere. Sorry?

Tea and sympathy? No. That's a place where I've gotten to high tea in West College. No. You've been to high tea? I feel like I'm watching. No one's invited me to high tea. I feel like I'm watching everybody live life.

Yeah, maybe I have been to high tea. I went to high tea in South Africa. See what I mean? I feel like I'm watching everybody else. Live life. And then I'm here. And I feel like if I don't, um, force myself out to do things, I'm going to disappear. And so that's, I feel like that's a thing a lot

of people feel. And I feel like if I didn't have a job like this, I would be really screwed because I wouldn't have the ability to come and talk and then have like six people I'll never meet go, hey, that's, I also thank you for saying that I feel that way too. So it's like I really feel for people that have this. At the same time, I don't know if it's also because of my lack of children that I and that's a plan we will not be so don't even tell me that I'm going to I'm at the point now where I'm getting sick of hearing people be like you'll change your mind

it's just a decision that I've made and I and I anytime I'm making plans with a friend who has kids especially I'm just going to say it especially if they're a woman if they're the mother of the children it I feel like I am not

I don't want to ask for their time because I know their time is being asked of a lot. And so I feel like I, and I, but I still consider those people my best friends. And they're probably like, well, I never see her. And I'm like, but that doesn't matter to me. If somebody were to be like, name your five, you're on the list. I just think you are swamped. You have two children. You work a crazy job. You, I, where am I? I don't, I'm here. If you need a friend, call me. I'm here. But I don't want to demand of your time.

Right. Right. No. I know you're men, but. No, no, no. As the father of a daughter whose mother. Girl dad. Is my ex-girlfriend who's now my wife.

Oh, my God. That was terrifying for a second. Unbelievable. Why do you do it? Awful tension building maneuver. Why do you do it? Because narrative. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a journey. Everybody hated it. It made me sad. I felt sad for her. I have a couple of thoughts on this. Number one is that I have probably To go?

I have to go. I have six minutes to explain this. Herbie's outside. Beeper. So I probably have too many friends. And I don't want anybody to get mad and maybe that just says. That's just in this situation. And there's two things I do.

There's two things I do. Number one is I send a lot of texts that just say, how's my guy? Okay. Good. Yeah. And that's a huge. And it's like a low effort. Kevin Clark's Guide to Friendship, Number one, send text

that's a just like a random Tuesday afternoon just how's my guy you know? And you know just just just sending out those feelers and you'll get them back. Sure.

The other thing I do is I've never I think this comes down to my childhood I've had very specific interests that are not really connected to each other. So growing up I was a huge fan of punk rock

and college football and like reading about World War II and all these things and there was not going to be a unicorn friend who was just going to stay with me from 9 a.m. on a Saturday when game day comes on until 1130 when we're going to go see hot water music,

right? Like that's just not going to happen. And so I ended up with like hyper-specific groups of friends. And then I've always, I've still had that. And I think that that helps because then you automatically have something in common with them. If you're looking for someone who's going to go do everything with you. Well, this is also mentioned in this article. She says that like a lot of people have friends that are individual friends in different places.

The author of Modern Friendship, Anna Gull-Farb, said, quote, We have lots of friends that tend to only share a common history with us, not with each other. But you develop those friendships more. They break contain, as they say in football. And, like, they start out as your friend who you're going to golf with. And then it becomes, well, now we're just going to start drinking, and then we're going to go see Oppenheimer. I'm so bad at breaking contain in that way.

Siloes. I have a life full of silos. Because I'm not as, and I think I, I'm, I'm, inert in this way. I recognize that this is a problem. It's weird that I have like friends that I've known for such a long time who've never met my other friends. Right. And so it speaks to, it speaks to another thing that this article talks about, which is back in the day, because you'd be meeting most of your friends at the same spot, church, as you've talked about, the bowling alley previously. All my friends were from church back in the day. Is that true? Yeah. No, what? I don't know.

You read the old testament. You were half listening. That's why you didn't know. No, I'm trying to get a Meadowlark Wi-Fi for my meeting at one. Kevin's texting Troy Aikman, how's my guy? I am. I am. And he's in the south of France. And he's great. But the point being that, you know, we are not meeting groups of people.

We're meeting individuals now. And I think Katie's, I hadn't thought about this, but yes, the very premise of what is a friend when you're doing a survey like this, I think has been fundamentally cheapened as a definition. because we're calling lots of people. We need to reclaim the word friend. We need to probably come up with a different term. We also just need to come up with a term for like, oh, I know him. An acquaintance. I know her.

An acquaintance. We have it. But it feels like a slight. We need something between acquaintances and friend. We're too sensitive. Malcolm Gladwell in one of his books says if you know someone, the definition of that is you sit down next across the monotry. train and you can identify each other without saying it. That's if you know someone.

What? What? What? If you sit down, uh-huh. Next, across from someone on the train. Okay, first of all, why are we sitting in those seats? Why are we facing each other? Because you're on it, because there's not that many seats, because it's full of your friend. And then just a person I know came on to the train and sat across from me. It's packed. Inception-ass train. But we're sitting, we're sitting across from each other and we know each other and I, the only way to, I, I just have to identify them. No, if you can identify it. If a person, if on a crowded train, a person came and sat across me and you went, oh my God, that's a person you know. Yeah. Not if I can go,

what he's saying. I know who that is. No, but then no. But you're accepting that. What I'm saying is. No, but you, but you wouldn't. But you're cheating. You're cheating. You're cheating. You're cheating if you go, oh my, Katie, it's me. Katie. No, I didn't say it's me. No, you would. You're talking. You're identifying. You're identifying yourself. You're doing signals. You had a lot of bops. This is. You're You are done. You are done, Godwell. That's not how you know. You know somebody if you know. You are cooked. It's so fake deep. Am I missing something? I'm not. That feels like a good example of what friendship is. Yeah. This is friendship.

Yeah. I think a lot of people are my friends. And I'm, and I, and I won't name them because I would be terrified to know how they classify me. You know, but I think a lot of, I think of a lot of people as friends of mine. Is that what you found out today? Katie Nolan at the end of a show where we say what we found out? Yeah, I found out that I am Cristiano Ronaldo. I found out that my guy. What's up, my guy? How's it going? I'm doing great.

I'm doing great. He's a phone full of acquaintance slash friends. We knew that. He can't put the thing down. He stays in touch. Relentless. Not me. Look, my texts are stacked up.

It was fully blank. Kevin, Kevin, what did you learn today? What did you find out? I learned why people love to talk about Christiana and Renano, which is the trophies and the winning. Oh, God. Which I didn't think about before we referred to Dan told him. Right.

Right, right, right, right. And also, I was worried. Also, don't forget the lifestyle. No, but I would also say that I learned what Renato's wife hates the most, which is the lies and the injustices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought she liked it. I thought she liked the lies and the injustices.

And there were no specific injustices. Just, you know, the lies. No, just those general lies. I hate when people lie about me. I have to go. Yeah. I love when people lie about me. Thank you for coming in on time today.

Yeah, you're welcome. What's that about? That was a lie. That was a lie. Very funny. I tried. Kevin's literally walking out of the studio. Literally, literally, people who pay me need me to be on a Zoom.

I'm here for free. I'm here for free. We're both here for free. It's Bob and Ball. We should be redirecting on. I didn't say that I hated. You've got this tomorrow. I didn't say that I hated injustices.

I'm fine with them. Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Walter Avaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller, Howard, Ethan Shriar, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumenello, and Juliet Warren. Studio Engineering by RG Systems, sound designed by NGW Post, our theme song by John Bravo. All of us will see you on Tuesday.