Pablo Torre Finds Out - The Sporting Class: Are NFL Players Ready to Strike?

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Domonique Foxworth ran and — Mamma Mia! — lost in last week's secretive election by the NFL Players' Association. As he explains to Pablo and David Samson, unions may be more corporate than ever ��� but the fight against billionaires has never been more consequential. And the implications may turn nuclear for an MLB lockout.• Subscribe to "The Domonique Foxworth Show"• Subscribe to "Nothing Personal with David Samson" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out, presented by eBay Live. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. The only way you can win is if you are willing to endure the pain longer than they are. And if you listen to our show on Apple Podcasts, you can now watch video there as well. Just update to the latest iOS, hand it over to our show page, just start watching. But for right now, just a quick word from our sponsors. Telling you. Got him.

Got him? I'm telling you. What is this duet that's happening? Sorry. I'm digging that sweatshirt. Thanks, buddy. Did your child make it? It looks like a tie-dye.

All right. No, I don't mean that. It is tie-dye. I like the hoodie, too, but were you guys about to do Dreamgirls? Was that what was happening? No, no. I'm telling you. That's not what it was.

And I'm telling you? Yeah. Oh. I gave a standing ovation to that in a theater. In a movie theater. I saw it alone, and I stood up and applauded like I was on Broadway at the end of that, Jennifer Hudson. It was such a performance that I had to, and I wasn't alone. I mean, I was alone in the movie, but other people stood up, too.

I don't know if I've ever been to a movie where someone spontaneously stood up, and the actors weren't like there. It wasn't like a premiere. I've been there for applause. There was applause at the end of basic instinct. when I saw that. You've never gone to like a night of showing of like a big movie? Like I feel like back in like when Marvel was really cracking,

I feel like if you went to like one of those movies around opening night, people would lose it. Standing up sincerely for applause I have not seen. I've seen people like obviously like freak. I went to Mamma Mia, the movie. People were singing. People were fucking damn. Yeah. So that's standing up. But that's a different thing. How do you dance? They like dance in the aisles or they just get up?

Dancing in the aisles in front of like the screen, actually. I didn't know Mama Mia has slaps like that. They got get out your chair bangers? Who's producer at? Metro Boomin? Who is the producer for Mama Beer? You can't dance to Abba. Wait, are you learning this for the first time? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I know what Mama Mia is. What do you think Mamma Mia's about? Hold on. What do you think Mamma Mia is? Come on, man.

We're doing like a cultural checklist. Did I get to ask you guys questions too? Have you ever seen paid in full? Mama Mia. I know it has to do with like some infidelity or something. It's like a girl, a baby that they don't know who the dad is, something like that, right? That's right.

That's a funny takeaway. I wouldn't have that in my top five is what Mamma Mia is about, but that is true. I've never seen it. I've never seen it. But, like, I exist in America, and unlike you guys, I have to be surrounded by your culture all the time and I absorb it sometimes. I know. I know that lots of places Dominique goes, he thinks to himself, once again, more Filipino shit. God damn it.

That's true. This is the wrong audience. The wrong audience to make fun of for, like, imposing their culture of you. Damn it. I'm so used to being around and just... Copy-paste. Regular whites. Oh.

Yeah. My jokes don't work in every audience. It is good to see both of you. It's been too long since we do this. Nah, it's been right around. He likes the cadence. Dominique texted on the side. Good cadence.

Like, once every three months. That's about it. How are you guys? Hello. Hi. What's up, Pablo. Congrats. Okay.

What a big day, Dominique. I don't know if you're aware of the news. It's... Oh, whatever. You got another award? Nominated for multiple Emmys. Three of them. Two for best episode and one for best...

Sports journalism and best edited, hosted series, I believe. Don't say you believe. I was snubbed for handsomest man in sports media. Don't try to pivot the jokes. You could at least have a good joke if you're trying to pivot. You're trying to get us off of this with bad jokes? He's trying to keep us on it, obviously. But it is newsworthy because you're competing not against Schlock.

You're competing against budget. You're competing against names and studios. He got budget, too. I see, I know the books. All right. Let's get off the books. Now I'm pivoting. Now I'm pivoting.

It's budget against budget. Before I demand the financials of the Walt Disney company, I I want to pivot off of this. How many of me do you get to this? Because, yes, people have been saying nice things. And someone else who said a nice thing was Pat McAfee, a colleague at ESPN, who had, as his special guest in person, in studio,

J.C. Treter, the new executive director of the NFLPA. And here's how that conversation went. I saw Mr. Jones, who had worked with the NFLPA for 18 years, I think. I did not know who he was, but it seems like a lot of people respect him. He talked to Pablo Tori, and it felt like there was a little bit of a, negative reaction to you becoming the role that you have. I didn't listen to the entire thing.

And we, Pablo Tori is going, by the way. We, we, he has courage to go. I mean, he, I think that's good for society is what people say. We, God bless him for that. But I did hear that there was, and read some of the headlines about the backlash, you know, that was kind of happening with you getting in there. What do you think is the main mission on why people maybe don't like that you're in there? And has the history of the NFL? been something that is changeable for future NFLPA? Yeah, you said Pablo's got the courage to go. I'd challenge him to have the courage to be right,

which he hasn't been for a very long time. Okay, all right, okay, got it. So he's said a lot of things that factually just aren't true. So that was J.C. Tredder, David, the new executive director of the NFLPA. Dominic Foxworth, our friend here is the former player president of the NFLPA, a candidate in the last two executive director searches. I should say first that I wish J.C. Treader had the courage to come on this show. We've been asking since June of last year, and he won't talk to us. He hasn't given us comments or anything like that.

But the Mr. Jones thing, Craig Jones is the former Chief Security Officer of the NFLPA. He was there for over 17 years. He was our guest on Pablo Torre finds out last week. He has been on the record long before I even knew about these characters. how worried he is about the corruption. He didn't talk about Craig Jones, J.C. Tredder, though. He talked about me. I thought it was very telling that Treader is going to go safe. He's going to go on McAfee.

He's going to mention your name and try to impugn your ability as a journalist. But that's not really addressing what you were addressing. And so what I always find interesting, and management does this too. It's not unique to the union. It's PR 101, that when you don't have the facts, just argue the law when you don't have the law you argue the facts and when you have neither you just yell and what i've noticed about the nflpa during this process was just a lot of yelling because what you had you didn't discover this you just gave it oxygen and what what you're not

going to get dominique to talk here because and dominique please correct me if i'm wrong the union is an evolving live species and i don't think you're going to burn that bridge no matter what your view is internally. And the reason why you're not is because I don't view J.C. Treader as a long-term asset to the union. And that was my issue from the start. When he stepped down, I thought that he'd be down and gone. I thought that it was a mistake of the union to bring him back.

And it just showed a desire to almost kick the corruption can for as long as possible. But eventually, that comes back to get you. And I think that's the reason Dominique will stay quiet because his type of leadership. And Dominique doesn't pay me for this. but his type of leadership is serious leadership that is based on intelligence and experience. Look at, look at what we're... So sweet.

Look at this. Look at this. You're wrong, but you're sweet. Like, I appreciate it. I mean, I burned a shit out of bridge. I think if I feel strongly about something, I will absolutely torch that bridge. Like, I...

That's one thing that comes with, like, the confidence of a cornerback, borderline arrogance is that, like, I'm not concerned. about like where I'm a work. Like, I'm talented. I'll be fine. I wasn't inferring that at all, Dominique. Oh, no, I guess you, it felt to me like you were saying,

like, I didn't want to burn that bridge because, like, it's, if JC might be out at some point and I might want to try to get that role. I guess that's what I thought. So that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I do think that actually, and I think that's smart of you. I think it, but that doesn't stop you from giving opinions. But I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to, Dominic referred to something that I, I want to ask him

directly about because for those who did not pay attention to the multi-part series with Mike Florio on Pablo Tori finds out dating back to the summer of last year. The thing that's insane about this story is that J.C. Tretter was the guy who was the president of the NFLPA, the player president, the job that Dominique had. And he's the guy who ran the search that resulted in the election of Lloyd Howell, who is, and this is not even a subjective assessment at this point, who was the most embanky. character in the history of sports unions. That's okay.

He had to resign amid a scandal that involved a secret confidentiality agreement around this collusion ruling, a partial victory for the players, the holy grail that the players suddenly had, that they then decided to bury in coordination with the league. There were strip club receipts, the expense. There was a secret or not-so-secret side job with the Carlisle Group, which is one of private equity firms on the NFL's approved list of investors and NFL teams. was the fact that he was, in fact, the CFO of Booz Allen when they had the largest federal procurement scandal in which Booz, the consulting firm, apparently overbilled. The U.S. government hundreds of millions of dollars. And it goes on, actually.

He resigns. And the thing about the union, when you see just that story, Dominique, is this feels both like an extreme circumstance, but also in line with what has longed, afflicted labor unions in America, which is corruption. I get if J.C. Treader is like, look, I was the number two. I'm a good soldier. I try to do his best for the union, even as I saw corruption unfolding in front of me, which was shocking, even though he, by the way, was made the chief strategy officer a job that had never existed before by Lloyd Howell upon Lloyd Howell's election. My question for you is, after that long-ass windup,

what would you do if you were the top lieutenant at the NFLPA and you saw, an unfolding corruption scandal. Like, genuinely. Like, how would you have handled that? It's the Players' Union. And, like, that's something I genuinely believe. So, like, if this is whom they elected, then that's who they elected. So, like, I, that's why, like, I'm not going to come on here and bash.

Like, if they don't like them, if all the things that you've brought up or any of that comes up, then they'll do something about it. Having someone outside the union tried to, like, impose what they want on the will of the union. Like, I think, having been someone who was in leadership there, like, that was always, like, it felt condescending and frustrating. And so, like, that's why I'm in a situation right now, where it's, like, I can see all the reasons why I think the union has made the wrong

choice. And I could easily justify maybe I need to get involved and get loud and try to undercut them. Like, it's easy to justify the things that feel good to you. It's a job that's an organization that's meant a lot to me. It's a job that I was really excited about that felt consequential that I really wanted. I didn't get it. And the result is not going to be me trying to figure out a way to pretend as if or to try to take down the union and pretend as if it's only like from the noblest of places.

Like part of it could be. But part of it like honestly would be because it's something that means a lot. to me. So, like, I apply that to the question that you're asking me. It's like, yeah, I know what the right answer is. And in that situation, in a similar situation, I've made the right decision. But, like, I just feel like you're setting me up a little bit. You know, management goes through this, too, when you're choosing a commissioner. And companies go through this when you're choosing a president or a chairman of the board. Generally, you try to stay inside. And the reason when you get an outside commissioner as an example or an outside head of the players union, the

way white was, you tend to not understand really how things work. You tend to not understand how to juggle the plates properly. And you tend not to be beholden to the power brokers within said organization. So it's very common what the union did. So I don't want to criticize kicking the corruption can down the road because businesses do that all the time on every side. But it's actually not super common for the NFLPA, which is, I don't. I'm a lot. I'm I don't know if it's good or bad because you lose a lot of institutional knowledge. It's really difficult. But Gene Upshaw died suddenly.

And then I was on executive committee then. We led a search then that brought up some internal candidates and a lot of external candidates. We went with the external candidate. And then this next change of power, they went with another external candidate. The only other executive director before that was Ed Garvey. So, like, it's not something that we really do, which, like, has heard us in the past, honestly, with the institutional knowledge in the, like, history and connection. Because while you did say that something that's normal for businesses and companies

and organizations, you're right, there's something different about unions to me. Because they negotiate against businesses, we talk about them like they are businesses, but they aren't. They're social movement organizations, essentially. And what that means to me is that the heart, Of it matters a lot more than a lot of the mechanics of the decision-making. And I know it sounds naive. It does because it's not that way anymore, Dominique. It's like longing for the typewriter to me. Look at the Players Union in baseball and in football.

One of the things that took down this administration were outside business interests in order to raise revenue through different streams. In fact, the federal government is investigating both the MLPA and the NFLPA for alleged self-inreliven Richmond as a part of one-team partnership, this name-emgeon-likeness marketing arm of the union. But Dominique, to that point, yeah, there is capitalism more than ever in all of this. I mean, you need money to fund the union. So, like, I'm not saying you're not supposed to generate revenue any way you can. So, like, the for-profit arm, it exists and it's important.

And also, like, you need lawyers. you need corporate structure. Like, I get all of that. My point is I've been through this journey as a player who was involved in the union and felt that I needed to like understand the world of business more. So went to business school, worked at other unions, understood the business world more, ultimately come all the way back around to understanding that actually the way to have a successful union is the way that social movements have success. It's not by out-corporating

the other corporations. And like, I get how attractive that is as a player because I was there before. When I went as the COO of the NBPA, I spent months putting together a really elaborate strategic plan that was going to win on all fronts and win the war against the NBA on their terms and thought that it was really going to work. But, ultimately, I know that that's not what's going to work because the dynamics of a negotiation between a labor union in the organization are such that the only thing that will have you survive is your commitment to protect what other people's sacrifice to give you and to be able to hand over what you've created to the people after you, because ultimately

the people who are going to have to sacrifice during that fight will not benefit most from the things that they sacrifice for. And that's akin to like any sort of social movement. It be it like women's suffrage or be it LGBT plus rights or civil rights, like the most impactful social justice movement that we've had or social organization movement that we've had in this country. Like any of that stuff, it's all true. And that's the thing that scares me and worries me more about like the future of unions

is losing the connection to that. because the only way you can win is if you are willing to endure the pain longer than they are. Like, that's the final, final place that you end up on. And you have to be able to have a credible threat that you're going to be able to do that. And the only way that you can have that credible threat is that you actually are capable of doing it. And there's not enough lawyers in the world. There's not enough corporate structure in the world. There's not enough money in the world to convince people to do that.

if they don't feel a connection to the organization, which you do lose every time you bring it a brand new person. Hey, we're starting all over. We don't know anything. We have no connection to this. We're going to outsmart the owners. Or we're going to out-negotiate them. And that's something that also, like, I think David, I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but David,

you might be able to speak to this also. But I think generally people misunderstand what it means to participate in a negotiation. They think it's a movie. They think that it's whoever. has the craftiest line or whoever can win the argument in the room or whoever can play hardball the best or yell the loudest. No, a child could win a negotiation against Roger Goodell and the NFL if they had the backing that they need. The negotiation takes place before you walk in the room. If Roger Goodell and the owners genuinely believe that the players will not play for whatever

a period of time it takes to get what they want, then you can send anybody you want in that room and get it done. If they don't, you can send the fastest talking, smartest lawyer, most tactical politician you ever had in that room. They're going to walk out with the same shit they came in there with. So you're talking about leverage, number one. Number two, you're answering the question of why the outside business interests become so important because it is what the issue is, current day capital. Players and their ability to sit requires them to figure out financially the impact it has to them. And not all of the union feels the impact the same, but the union clearly needs money and which is why they go to outside sources and create for profit. MLB does the same

thing on the ownership side. Side note, they go to the banks to get a extra line of credit before a CBA negotiation. They make sure there's enough debt capacity that all teams have. They make sure there's a furlough plan to manage your expenses. All of that is done in order to withstand the possibility of missing games. Because what you're saying about the union is also true about management. You call them billionaires and as though that's the end of the discussion, but they're having the same meetings on the owner's side as you're having on the player's side. How much can we stand and what is our financial situation while we're standing it? And then it's just a matter of you show your cards at some point by who gives. And Pablo where Dominique is 100%

correct. In the room, it's like saying oral arguments win the day in front of a judge. They do not. It's all about the briefs. At the end of the day in a negotiation, inside the room is posturing. Inside the room is giving people an opportunity to get stuff off their chest and to look good in front of their fellow negotiating team. But actual provisions are agreed to outside of those official bargaining sessions. So you guys fundamentally then agree on what is the actual game here, right? The game which shapes the biggest sports in America, which is will the players actually credibly threaten to sit-out games?

That's what this all drives towards. I mean, when I first got involved with the union, it was under Gene Upshaw and they had functionally lost a couple of strikes. I mean, the first one I would consider an outright loss. The second one, they kind of consider outright loss. Gene was kind of against striking as a policy. And they got their biggest win was from decertifying the union and exposing the league to antitrusts and treble damages,

which then as a function of the settlement, the league required the union to reconstitute in order to provide them. that protection. So like, I understand how difficult it is, but I also understand that that is the game. And the one thing I'll push back on David a little bit on is I did say billionaires, and it was meant as like saying that the game is different for them because it is. And I know that maybe it's not as as easy for them to go without revenue as I make it sound, but it's certainly a lot easier than it is for the players, no matter how successful the player is, in part for two reasons. One is, it's only 32 teams in football. So, like, the windfall that they would get from the change in

revenue split, which is ultimately what this all comes down to at the end of the day is how much money you get to put in your pocket, how much I get to put in my pocket, whether it's through benefits or accommodations or salary or any of that. That's what it all comes down to. But the benefit for them, because it's only split 32 ways, is huge. And not only is it huge, it's something that they keep into perpetuity, and they hand that benefit off to their children. So the motivation for them to endure that is a lot bigger than a player.

the actual logical extension for a current actual player is not to endure a strike or a lockout. It's not. The only thing, which is why you go back to being like a social movement, is like the only thing that is powerful enough to overcome that logic is understanding that it's your responsibility, it's your obligation to uphold this because the guys who are benefiting from this today,

you can go back to the players who went through the strikes. They ain't get no money. The players that went through the strikes did not benefit from the strikes. What players that were, like... What an unpopular political position, Dominique. The truth? Yes. No, like...

The truth. It's a little more nuanced because this is not about unions. You don't have to wonder why I didn't get invited to present to the players anymore. Now you know. It's funny. like any election, you know, go to, go to student council. That's right. Pizza parties and vending machines. Everybody gets more snacks. Like, no one wants to hear that you have to sacrifice for the people who are not you. I mean, that's, but, but, I get what you're saying. This is, but like,

this is the difficulty, Dominique, of what I'm, what I'm hearing is that you went in there and said the thing that is politically costly, but ultimately, strategically, the only move the union has. We just organize. And it's interesting as we head into baseball labor negotiations. Decertification is a word that we're going to be talking a lot about because that very easily could be the path that Major League Baseball Players Association has to take in order for there to become a deal with this current labor deal that expires in December of 26.

And what he said after with the owners requiring, think about that. statement because it's totally correct requiring them to recertify to become a union again. Oh, this is fascinating. This part. The nuclear, the so-called nuclear option is fascinating. It's not really nuclear. They call it that because, in my view, when you say nuclear, there's no recovering from that. De-certification is not a nuclear option because it leads to a deal and it leads to recertification, which leads to your back on the road. Man. Mr. Harvard Business School wants to wait into this. I mean, it's pretty risky. maneuver for a couple of reasons because you the league will ultimately accuse you of a sham

decertification which then you'll have to fight in court which the judge may or may not be on your side probably considering the way the country feels about unions right now my guess is the judge is probably not going to be on your side um you also if you decertify your union you're also clearing the way for someone else to create a union. So, like, you can decertify a union and become an association and still provide a lot of the same services to your members, but you lose the ability to, like, automatically collect dues and all that stuff. And also, you open the door for the league, which I'm sure that they do everything above board and they would not try to protect their fortunes in any way possible.

but you open up a door for the league or for a, I don't know, a former player or anybody to come in and then reconstitute some sort of union. And like you have to, if you decertify, it can't be for the purposes of preparing for CBA negotiations. I think there's a real argument to say... It would be in advance of it.

I'm not saying that. Right, but I mean, right, it has to be way in advance of it, though. And it also has to be genuinely, not just in preparation, genuinely because you believe that the players are not served by having an official union. And also, like you then make the teams operate separately, which then has a negative effect on the amount of revenue that you can generate that goes back into the pot. So one of the benefits is that the league can now go as a group and sell their TV rights. That's something that you wouldn't be able to do unless you had this union cover.

As a player, I decertified a union. They can't do that no more. Now they've got to go out and make these separate deals. The money changes. So it's just a whole, it works then and it could work again. And it might be worth trying. But it's a lot more complicated, I think, than we like to present. The question of what kind of a person should run a labor union, though, I do think something that Dominic mentioned before is worth emphasizing, which is that this thing does require a bunch of true believers who are of the genuine conviction that this thing is not a business.

And in fact, it is governed by labor law, which is not business law, right? there's a difference. And so when I get to, okay, the rhetoric of someone like J.C. Treter, go back to him for a second. And he's saying, finally, we get a former player back in charge. The thing I think about is, frankly,

the 2023 election he ran. Dominique, who are the finalists for that? You're the reporter. Lloyd Howell and David White, neither of whom played in the NFL, neither of whom were athletes. And they went to David White as the interim. And they went to David White right after Lloyd Owl and J.C. Treader both resigned.

Right. So when he had authority over who should be considered for this job, he did not pick a player. He did not encourage a player as a finalist in that regard. And then in this one, the only former player who was deemed suitable as a finalist was J.C. Tredder himself. Dominique, what do you think of that concept? You're the guy who played in the NFL, went to Harvard Business School, learned how the closed mahogany doors operate and what happens behind them, right? So the whole thing of, I'm not just a player, I'm also this guy, is also you.

Yeah. And I learned that it's horseshit. What is? Right. The distinction between the two that I thought existed and the, the, you know, the, you know, insecurity that I had about the intelligence and information and access and ability of people on the other side of that mahogany door. It's like, I remember when we were looking for an executive director, when I was on

the executive committee, I was certainly, like, more impressed with the guys who weren't former players because I believe that there was something over there that we needed when ultimately I don't think it's true like after being on every side of this and looking at it from every different way that stuff is not and again maybe if we were trying to like run a soft drink company or we wanted to be an accounting firm yeah but that's not what we're doing That's not what we're doing. Dominique, what you're saying is that unions, because of their social sort of foundation, that you believe that they should be run as such, which means they wouldn't be business forward.

But what's happening in every player's union is the opposite, where it is becoming business forward. I think sometimes things seem obvious to you that aren't obvious to other people. So I'll try to walk through this in a way. I think makes it more clear my thinking, and then you can cut it down if an E.B. Is what defines success for a player's union? It's the result of the CBA negotiations, right? I would say that's kind of the report card. That's the game that you can win or lose.

How do you win that game? Is the court cases or public pressure or ultimately work stoppage from either side? strike or lockout. All right, that's the way you can win this. So how do the players have any power in that? If we win in court, the result of a win in court is not going to be that we win the negotiations. It's a win in court, right? There's nothing in court that's going, there's no way we can take them to court and get

them to give us 75% of revenue. Like, that's not it, right? If we went in court of public opinion, the fans can't force them to pay us and the fans aren't going to stop watching. We can't really get what we want from there. If we threaten the future of the game, threaten the public's relationship to the game, threaten their immediate revenue, we can get it. That is the only source of power that we actually have. So in that, then all your choices, and maybe this is a simplified look for me, is like, I think about these things in like a priority stack. And I think the least,

does also. So I would say that the first bar that I have to clear before I make any other decisions for every decision, does this get us closer to being able to extract the things that we want? If the answer is yes, then I can go down to something else. And that's my point, is when I was searching for an executive director and before I lived the rest of my post-NFL life, I was like, oh, the problem is we don't. got good enough lawyers. It's not true because we're never going to outlawyer them. Or the problem is, we don't win in the court of public opinion.

The fans turn on our players at the last minute and the players crumble as a result of it. We got to win in a court of public opinion. That don't matter. We never going to win that. All these networks and streaming services, they don't want a relationship with the players. They want to make the NFL happy. dumb place for us to fight. So I guess that's my only point is when we are making these decisions, it's easy for, or it was, I'll speak for myself. When I was there, it's easy for me to be like,

oh, but you just don't understand what's happening over there. Once you get over there, you realize that it ain't nothing special happening over there. They're not smarter than us. They're not dumber than us. And I also think we make the mistake of, we've made the mistake in the past of trying to, like, over-vilify the owners of teams and the NFL. Because it's not true either. Like, they are people just like us. They're doing what's in their best interests. They have a lot of power that they wield in ways that we don't like.

But sometimes you like them. They're cool. Hanging out with them is fine. I think we make the mistake of trying to be like, hey, these guys are so terrible. We hate them so much. They hate you. They don't care about you. And then our players get around them and they're like, oh, well, actually, that's not who they are.

I think the NFL has a priority stack also. The top thing on the priority stack is, how much money they can put in their pocket. If it doesn't affect their money, then, oh, yeah, they do care about players. They don't like not care about players. They just care about money more. But of course, you have the same priority. You meaning capital Y, the union, they're trying to make as much money as possible, too.

So actually, that's where you and I will differ. I mean, we can debate this fact, but if the players ever had a goal that did not include more compensation, there would never be tough negotiations. There's two different conversations, though. I think our goal is to generate enough power to be able to negotiate for the value that we think we deserve. I think the league's motivation is different. They're built to make money. So it's slightly different.

And I think that slight difference matters in how you build an organization, who you should have leads to organization, how you go into negotiations. How many employees think that they are valued properly by their employer? just a show of hands. Are you valued properly in your mind? I think it would be a bad negotiating strategy for me to say, yes, I am valued properly. Well, of course, but do you actually think, and I'll answer that, because I've not come across an employee across my desk, and maybe I just have the wrong employees over the, you know,

decades I've been doing this, where someone says, oh, God, that is the, thank you so much for that raise. Thanks for that bonus. You're overpaying me. This is so nice of you. I just have never heard anyone say that, nor have I said that as an employee. I've always wanted more. But isn't the point, though, that there should be this perpetual tension that results in something like a market?

And the question is, and this is why it's kind of funny that I have been investing so much of my stupid life into caring about the NFLPA, is that on some level, absent a strategy like the one that Dominique is proposing in which you're willing to fight. a fucking Vietnam War of social movements in sports. And you're trying to do everything you can to drag people into a fight in which suddenly they're surprised by how much pain you can inflict, even though you have smaller resources, smaller numbers and all of that.

Absent that, we are talking about a blowout. We're talking about a series of blouts in which there is no tension that's counterbalancing. It's the side with the far more resources blowing the fuck out of the organization that Dominique used to be a part of. Yeah, I think you did it. Normally, Pablo, you use a lot of words to say things that could be said and fewer.

That time, you just did a much better job of saying the thing that it took me a lot of words to say. And yeah, that's it. Like, you can't win that way. There's only one way to win. What is the one way to win? The one way to win is to build an organization that is made up of players that is willing to withstand a lot of things. pain. I just haven't come across that in my existence because you guys get older and owners, as you said, have a longer horizon. So I just don't see the willingness. And we can talk about

baseball, obviously, or football. But the pain that you're talking about, you have to measure what the pleasure will be at the end. And if the pleasure is for people who are not you, then that's very hard equation. I mean, can I try a different analogy maybe? which I think will resonate with everyone is like for those of us who have like have some affiliation to a school or something like that if someone if you want to wear your sweatshirt to the school that you went to and someone walked up to you and said I'll give you a hundred dollars to never wear a sweatshirt to the school that you went to again you probably be like yeah sure that's fine I'll take that money I'll give you $100 every year that you don't wear that.

I'll take that. I get it. If someone walked up to you and said, you have to divorce your wife and never talk to your family again, I'll give you $100 every year that you do that. You would say that's insane, keep your money. That's what you'd say.

The glory of this show is that you guys are both lobbying, hypothetical is that in some ways you've actually both lived. But I guess that's my point is there is I get where we are right now. I see how what I am saying sounds absurd is expecting people to have this level of commitment to a union. I know how it sounds absurd, but that's how they felt about the union when it was formed. That's how every union feels about the union. That's how every union that has any success feels about their union.

And then you have enough success that people stop feeling that way about the union. And then things start heading in the other direction. Until they get so bad that everybody starts to feel like that again about the union. And then they're willing to sacrifice again for the union. I'm just saying, we can skip all that bullshit. It's like a marriage, doesn't it? It actually sounds like... a lyric from a song that comes to mind dream curls mama mea here i go again my my how can i resist you

i can't resist you dominique i can't quit you i don't understand how that those relate i don't know that that was just a reach yes i've been brokenhearted blue since the day we parted why why did i ever let you go is this a song about a young woman looking for her father in the greek Islands or Dominique Foxworth as a relationship with the NFLPA. It's hard to tell. No. Hard to tell.

It's terrible. It's a terrible connection. You really try to force that Mamma Mia thing. This is all being edited out, Dominique. Every word you say from this point forward is not in the show. He was Googling Mamma Mia lyrics trying to find this connection for the last 30 minutes. And that's the best you can come up with. That's terrible.

In post, I'm going to absolutely nail this. That's awful. Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumenello. Our studio engineering is by RG Systems, our sound designed by Andrew Bursick and NGW Post, Digital Strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern, and our theme song, as always, by John Bravo. We'll talk to you next time.