Pablo Torre Finds Out - The Sporting Class: How to Handle a Gambling Scandal

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Why would millionaires risk it all for a bet? How do you cheer up a player facing down the feds? Will the WNBA's civil war ever end? And who really killed the Montreal Expos? John Skipper and David Samson reunite at a knock-down, drag-out moment for sports business. Plus: Operation Relocation, J.J. Putz and T-shirt cannon fever.• Previously on PTFO: What You Can't Control, with David Samson• Subscribe to "Nothing Personal with David Samson" 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. What kind of idiot would sign a deal that guarantees lack of profitability? You literally have to be out of your mind. Right after this ad. I'm thinking about making a prop bed on Rozier. What do you think? I've been out of touch.

I've been out of touch. There's a ton in here. I want to clarify that what John is alluding to, a thing that I am still investigating, journalistically. And so we have another thing coming out, TBD, but I am so glad to have you both at this table. People have been asking, where is the sporting class?

I mean, the answer is that none of us are blaming David for having a life that we explained in the last episode that Dave and I did together. And I encourage you to go and watch and like and subscribe and think and feel. What we should know is that if you're not watching on YouTube right now, what John and I are sitting next to is one of the great beards in sports media.

I still have not shaved since September 12th, and it is true that my daughter plays with it pretty much any time I'm with her. I can't tell if she likes the color of it because there's some white in the chin, which is she may not be accustomed to or if she just likes the texture of it. I don't know.

I notice that most men who grow beards ultimately end up doing this a lot. Do you find that... I don't like touching my face because I know my fingers are greasy so I don't want ever to do it. And I let her do it because I do, but I do make her sanitize first.

Oh, wow. That is very Samsonian. It's critical to me. Listen, I will do a lot of things to help her, but I will not have greasy fingers on my thing. God, cut that out. That's horrible. We're going to have to keep it

because in the movie of your life, which I think about every day as your friend, I sometimes forget to include the Samsonian features in which as the soaring, tinkling piano music is building, David Sampson is asking for the Purell. There's a whole machine now where she is. I would say you wear it pretty well. Thank you.

It's a good look. It's fine. I'd rather not have it, but I'll keep it as long as I need to. How about that? It's the perspective that applies to your beard. It's the perspective that applies to, I think, a lot of people who are running the NBA right now about certain characters. We'll keep this for as long as we need to.

What do we got to do here? And I want to get into that, some of that, because there is a conversation, a big-picture conversation around the psychology of people with money and how they get embroiled in such things. There's the question of what it's like when you're running a sports team and one of your players gets caught up in a gambling scandal. And raise your hand. And if that applies to you at this table, are you raising your hand to both volunteer and testify?

No, it is true that gambling's always been a thing. Even before it was legal, there's a rule in baseball that we had to read to the players. And we would have an assistant general manager do it because it would be his or her or there, but it was always his, opportunity to talk in front of the players. And you did it on the day before opening day, every single. single year, you read start to finish the rule prohibiting gambling. And baseball's very clear. It's, this is post-Pete Rose, very clear. You cannot gamble on baseball. You can't gamble on anything, period. So no other sport, no, no, no, you are not allowed. I never went into a

sports ball. And that pretty much solved a problem. It solved nothing, but we had to sit there and we would have to listen to the rule being read. It's not a three-s-season. sentence rule, by the way, in baseball, the rule of proving gamel. It's a very long rule. And then what changed with the CBA, we had to do it in Spanish also. So it had to be read once in English, once in Spanish. And I remember having Ichro on the team and wondering, wait, do we have to do this in Japanese? Eight men out didn't have the scene with the subtitles. It's a real scene. Of the bottom. Of course. Of course. By the way, like, to speak to the question of what

you allowed to do in the NBA and to very briefly speed run through some of this. We're talking about, I mean, the Department of Justice, the director of the FBI, the commissioner of the NYPD, the Eastern District of New York showing up last week at a press conference that has everything but the literal dogs and ponies. But there are the exhibits. There are the details, the two parallel indictments. One being Operation Royal Flush, the other being Operation Nothing But Net. Is that what they called it? Yeah, I just want to say one quick thing on that, John. The Dog and Pony, people are talking a lot about that. And without making this too political, I will tell you that when you are in the prosecutor's office, it doesn't matter what the agenda is of the FBI or of Trump or of anybody. You don't want to lose a case,

number one, you don't want to bring an indictment that will not win. So if this happened, which it did, because they were willing to, you heard what Patel said early on, he thanked, he thanked the prosecutors. Because guess what? Without the prosecutors, there's no press conference. It doesn't matter what Trump wanted. You cannot have the press conference. And Cash Patel, the director of the FBI, who Dave was referring to, this was inherited from the Biden administration.

This is years in the making. But people made it so political, and to me it's really not. But everybody made it political. I didn't see anybody make it political. I was happy to see the FBI is engaged in trying to prosecute some people who aren't on the enemies list. At least I don't think Roseir and Chauncey Phillips were on the enemies list. They probably were. They are now.

They are now. They're eligible. When will they be eligible for a pardon? He's making a McCarthy joke right now. Oh, no, no, no. But by the way, like, something that I can point out here is that... I don't think he got it. What happens when you are being indicted, arrested by the FBI,

and one of these classic 6 a.m. Right at the team hotel? I love that. Yeah, Rozier in Orlando. He's playing for the Miami Heat. They played the magic the night before. They stayed overnight because they had a game two days later. So what you do is in baseball, you get the hell out of there,

and you'd be on the plane in basketball. You spend the night in that city, where you played. And so they found out where the team hotel was, not that difficult. And they come in and they go to the front desk like it's a whole McGillow. And that's how they literally can go up to the front desk and get in the room. Did Rozier play in that game? He did not.

Was that a coach's decision? Okay. FBI decision. The question of what anybody knew and how you react to it is at the heart of this whole story, by the way. It's the thing that I continue to look into. But I say all of this to say that, yes, Chauncey Billups, Hall of Fame inductee, head coach of the Portland Trailblazers,

got arrested in Oregon. And he is somebody who's been accused of not only being a big central figure in Operation Royal Flush, in which there are sophisticated cheating technologies around private poker games in which the athletes, the pro athletes, like Chauncey Billups,

were these whales to attract experts at poker, who then didn't realize, oh, no, what I thought was an easy target ended up being something that I lost a lot of money to. Do you think these people saw Rounders? Sure. I don't know if any of you saw it. Molly's game. But you probably...

A rich history of such dynamics. It's an ironic name for a investigation into cheating because if you have a royal flush, you don't need to cheat. Because you automatically win. Yeah. Well, at least tie. But so, yeah, we would spend a lot of time coming up with names of operations when we were moving franchises around and selling and buying franchises.

We had code names for everything. Our code name, well, whatever. What's your, hold on, what's your code name? Was there one called Code Name, ruling on Montreal Expos? Code name, I'm going to be a villain in a documentary in 2025. Operation Relocation. No, it wasn't called that. What was it called?

I don't remember. That's not accurate. They're all private, though. Very good. So they're... I'll hopefully have a good code name until it's time to go public. No, but they did these names

knowing they'd go public with it. Well, this one, I should correct myself. It was, of course, Operation Nothing But Bet, which is the NBA inside information being leaked by allegedly Terry Rozier aforementioned as well as Damon Jones, who was this strange, volunteer kind of assistant coach character

with the Lakers, as well as co-conspirator number eight, who is otherwise identified by his biographical information in that indictment as Chauncey Billups as well. Long wind up for me to say that we have at the desk, John, a pleasure of a case study in the fact that David Sampson, while president of the Marlins,

had to deal with a player who was ensnared in a gambling scandal. So, well, Jared Kozar, John, you watched him pitch many times, I'm sure. I've followed the career assidiously. First time he's heard that name is my guess. He's a guy we acquired, and we got notified. We got a call from baseball.

We were not aware of an investigation. We were not aware of any impropriety, and we got a call on a random day that ended with why that our pitcher was involved in illegal gambling in violation of the rule that prohibits that. And our question was simple. which is what can we do? Is he going to be suspended?

And this was after you had acquired him? Yes. Okay. This is March 2015. So you didn't get a heads up before. Zero. But after you acquired him, they called and said, gee, by the way.

And it was, by the way, the investigation's done, and the deal with the player and the union is done. And it's the same thing they do with steroids. You only get the call when it's done. All the appeals are done, and the punishment is ready to be vetted. And we were told that Cozart's only going to be fine, but that he was betting on sports.

but they were going to announce that it was not baseball. The first thing I did upon getting the call was I went right to Cozart. And I said to him, like, how can you do this? You are sacrificing and endangering your entire career where you have a chance to make millions of dollars because, God, your breaking ball is so good. And he was sheepish. He was breaking your balls.

It was crazy to me. The story, just to catch people up, apparently this was a Twitter-driven, story. Do you remember the details? This is the early days. Yeah, we're talking 2015. So he ended up deleting his Twitter account. We just always a great sign. It's the great move, right? The minute he started to get in trouble, I like when people do that. And so, yeah, he, right, you can catch people easily. He, what his claim was, and I can see players doing this, and I'm wondering what Terry will say, his claim was that he was not aware that it was an

issue to do anything other than bet on baseball. He had been, apparently, allegedly, indirect message conversations with a gambling expert. And it was about someone was soliciting gambling advice, allegedly. It happens to players all the time. So it's a little subject that you guys don't talk about a lot, which is, and players are beginning to say things. Remember the recent player who was yelling,

if you're betting a preseason game, you got a real problem. it was a player who got yelled at during an NBA preseason game. And I'm reminded about the terrible things that are said to baseball players and basketball players and football players when people lose money, as though they have the ability to get to these players. And the players see these tweets and these DMs. They really do. They pretend they don't, but they do.

It's highly inappropriate. So it was a big deal back then, Pablo. And remember, this is 10 years ago. And our concern was anyone else on the team doing this Because we didn't want to be embroiled And you mentioned the black socks That comes up in front offices You don't want to be that

There's two things you don't want when you run a team You don't want your team to die in a plane crash And you don't want your team to be embroiled In a gambling scandal In some order Literally in that order Plain crash is first And what was the what happened with Cozor

He was fined and paid the fine, settled and then went on to not have an illustrious career. But there was no team discipline. You accepted the league discipline. Part of it is that we can't. Because the CBA? Yeah, we don't have the right to discipline a player. God, what I would have done to D. Gordon, right?

Of course. What did D. Gordon do to you? He got suspended for steroids after we gave him a guaranteed contract. And I would like to have punished him more for screwing up our years so badly. But we weren't allowed to. So, Kosart, who was 24 at the time, was investigated after his...

screen grab of direct messages allegedly from him seemed to be looking for gambling advice. And he deletes the account. Major League Baseball says, we've completed our investigation into his possible connection to sports-related gambling. No evidence was found, according to the commissioner's office.

And that co-star fully cooperated. No evidence was found that he bet on baseball. Daddy bet on baseball. That's the big one. And that's similar. You saw what happened with Chauncee Billups. They immediately said, oh, he did not do anything on the games

that he was coached. coaching, and it turns out that that's just a quick thing you do and say and leak out there immediately upon this nightmare happening to the NBA, but that's not the biggest issue that Adam Silver has right now at all. Right. So the nightmare, just to be clear about Operation Nothing But Bet, is that this is, it's a function of the fact that there is a menu of legal options to make micro bets, prop bets on things like unders. I mean, that's the through line here. Like, where are we? What's different from now in 2015, is that now there is a marketplace established for things like Terry Rozier

unders. A legal marketplace in many states. A legal market for hyper-specific, statistical underperformance. And in the Chauncey Billups case, allegedly, it was giving information that a star player was not going to play in a game. They were allegedly tanking for Victor Wembenyama in this season. This is 2023, the spring, in March. And there again, you, you know, you're sort of betting, you're allowing, allegedly, inside information to go to people who want to bet on underperformance. It's why the injury report matters so much in the NFL because of gambling. It's not about competition. It's about gambling. And they take it super seriously. The difference is probable, questionable. Those are serious differences when it comes to the line and to gambling.

And I mean L-I-N-E, though I could mean L-Y-I-N-G. And so in baseball, if you have information and there's been a starting pitcher announced and then that starting pitcher gets pulled right before the game and then you're doing a bullpen game that would be good information to know and basketball if there's a player who's probable and then doesn't play or unlikely and then does play those all would have line impacts and that's so easy for people to take advantage of right haven't there been some cases where the betting companies have refunded people's money even though there was no suggestion that it was inappropriate that the person was not played,

but just to be on the safest side of right here, there have often been refunds, I think. I know like with Draymond Green, Coco can probably help me on this. When Draymond Green played in the game, Clay Thompson's first game back, I believe he took the tip, the center court tip,

and then immediately left the game. So it was a game played for him, but all of his unders hit, and the thought was he was going to play and I believe that everyone got refunded that day. But I think Coco would have that, but that's the one that comes to my mind. The whole thing, though, about injury or lineup information being policed, I mean, now there's a, the difference, what's the difference between now and 10 years ago? It's that 10 years ago, if you wanted to bet on such specific things, you need to go to a

bookie who had a strangely hyper-specific assortment of options that you were interested in that was relevant to your inside information. Now it exists for pretty much. much everything. There's no more parking lots. Well, so the question of back in the day, everybody was aware why perhaps beat writers were very closely followed by your neighborhood bookie. Did you care about that? I mean, it was a different time.

I would say we never thought of it. I can't say that when we were making changes to our lineup that we ever thought about the gambling side of it in my career, I always knew it was there. And I knew people who were betting, obviously. but pretty hard to police your own team based upon what people may be doing illegally yeah it would not i mean it would not it would be like the CEO of you know the president of espn worrying or thinking about a lower level person who's engaging in insider trading and having that impact his life and what he does on a daily basis i would assume you never gave it a thought no well part of the question now is

what is reasonable responsibility now now that the threat, the danger of such a thing is that much more incentivized. And all of us, look, this is not a conversation about whether we should ban profits or not. That's not where I wanted to go with it, although that is an active, thriving conversation. My personal belief, as always, is that we should legalize and regulate. And there are decisions to be made around what happens when you push stuff into black markets versus keep them regulated. It's worth noting that, as usual, here, the incentive from the gambling operators, from draft kings, from fans, duel, in fairness to them, has been to want to catch this stuff.

And they did flag this stuff and alert the NBA, according to the reporting. It's becoming a very well-known argument that the legalization and these sports books, draft kings, et cetera, what they're doing is actually helpful to the leagues. That is the position that we are asked to take. It's the position that many of us actually feel, including myself. I didn't know whether you're talking about weed or about gambling. Exactly. Just giving your whole.

I'm consistent across both fields. I think this is an example where the likelihood is that it being legal made it more likely to be caught. You have a second conflict, which is the proposition bets are dramatically more effective at making money on gambling than many of the other traditional bets. So you do have a conflict. The leagues always say, well, gee, we would really love for you to de-emphasize prop bets, particularly the sort of very specific player. Are they going to play? Are they going to...

But those are the bets on which they make the most money. Adam Silver must have had insight information because before the indictment was read on television in a live press conference, days before that he had gone on a show to talk about prop betting and his desire to see prop betting adjusted, if not, made illegal in states

where there's legalized gambling. And it turns out that he knew not when, but he certainly had an idea that there was some stuff going on and there were some allegations. But he's been consistent about saying that for years. He has been on the wrong side from the start. Well, but you got the conflict, Dave.

You've been on the wrong side. They won't. I mean, Adam has been consistent at saying sports betting gets people attuned to more of our games. They watch more closely. They spend more time. That's all positive.

There's nothing wrong with any of that. But then without the prop bets, that would be less the case. I mean, the fact of the matter is your best, restitution is still to catch these guys. And I would assume that some majority of the players have an IQ above two figures that will allow, I would assume that most of the players, most of the players, no, no, I'm just suggesting. Multiple figures, though.

Well, two figures is 99. That is slightly below average. And I'm just suggesting that at this point to bet on something about your own performance when you are due. on a guaranteed contract to make $26 million, does fail the triple-digit IQ test in this matter. Yeah, but you know that people with money like more money. I mean, that's been a very serious theme going on for the past two weeks, is that, hey, how could anyone do this when they're making so much money? Why would you give it up for a couple hundred grand?

And I think I know the answer. Well, I certainly believe and have the experience that people who make a lot of money, money care in some cases, many cases, more than people who don't have money about tipping the cab driver. You don't have to talk about tipping, but that's the thing. But I think it's a more global conversation, which is people with money tend to do things to get more money, and they tend to want more money, even in smaller increments than you would imagine.

My experience with that is true. When we did the espies and invited three to 500 athletes, a plurality of them, through their agents mostly, asked, were we paying for their hotel, were we paying for their airfare, and what was in the gift bag? It always amused me that they cared so much about the gift bag because there is nothing in it that you couldn't buy

with a fraction of your weekly salary. It feels so much better to get stuff for free, though. I don't know. I used to say... When life is just a... T-shirt canon throwing luxury goods at you. I'm always amazed at standing up and I pay for my own NBA tickets often now, and they're not inexpensive, partly because I'm buying them on the resale market.

But I'm always amazed when I stand up in that crowd where I know everybody is paid $1,000 for a playoff ticket, and they could not be more excited about trying to get an inexpensive, partly cotton t-shirt. That's me. They're for seven. I'm into it. Are you the guy sitting down during the T-shirt toss? Yeah, I am. And if one actually hit me in the chest,

I would just find the closest kid and hand it to them. Why do you want a bad free t-shirt? The thrill of the hunt. I mean, you sound like a guy who's never been interested in the chase, and I know that to be wrong. The chase? Yes. Well, what Michael Jordan said, speaking of which, right?

Michael Jordan has famously said, I'm not addicted to gambling. I'm addicted to competition. And so... Well, that's kind of a bull-a-thing to say. It's like saying, I'm addicted to being unhappy about... It's not an addiction. Wait, gambling's not an addiction or competition?

It's a predilection. It's a compulsion, but it's not an addiction. I think that in this conversation, though, there's a psychology that people cannot square the circle on because they look at the publicly listed earnings for Terry Rozier and they say, this guy made a... 160 million plus dollars in the NBA. That was his, of course, gross.

His gross. They never take the taxes out. Not adjusting for take-home pay and taxes and all that. It's way less. Chonsie Billups. I know because I pay my tax. As I can concur personally in my own small way. Chonsie Billups, yes, pre all of these adjustments,

was $106-plus million career, not counting even his coaching salaries, which are, again, yet more millions of dollars. The point being, though, that, I don't know, it just seems like one of the oldest stories in the book. Didn't you do a story about players going broke? Yes, exactly. It's quite common.

A super majority often are going broke. That's quite a different phenomenon, because that probably has to do with just being foolish and spending over and over too much money. This seems like it would be a very binary thing. Gee, I might make what, $12,000, $16,000 on this bet, which would potentially endanger my fourth year of $25, $26 million of guaranteed money. It sounds easy when you talk that way, but here's the problem.

What happens if Terry had a gambling issue, a problem, which we have no idea. This is not irresponsible journalism, but here's what you think about as a league, which is what happens if you're If he's legally betting on other sports and he loses, which is what everyone does, generally loses. What happens if they can't pay or don't pay? And then the gamblers go and say the bookies or the illegal guys say, hey, I won't take your money. I'll take some info and I'll make money that way. Vulnerability is not merely a psychological concern.

It is also in this way a financial one. if you do love, quote-unquote, competition slash gambling. Now, by the way, I make an distinction between a gambling addiction and a competition addiction. I do believe a gambling addiction is a thing. Yes. Well, listen, the question and the question, of course, who has one is a clinical, a truly clinical diagnosis that we are not equipped to establish here. But I can tell you that one of the characters in this story,

who emerged in the episode we did in July of 2025 into Malik Beasley, who was the then Detroit Pistons Guard, who was an incredibly prolific three-point shooter, also a guy who, according to our reporting, was probed by the NBA because he made bets on other, on at least one other sport. And the NBA, basically, looked into that, and then what they claim now is that it was folded into the larger probe

into all this other stuff. But the question of, like, do anything, NBA players, specifically, bet on other sports, absolutely. Malik Beasley was one of those players, according to our reporting. And what do you do with that if you're the league? Well, it brings us back to the question of where the Miami Heat are in thinking about Terry Rozier. Because whatever Terry Rozier was known to have done, according to the investigation that the NBA

conducted, I can tell you this. Terry Rozier's attorney, a man named Jim Trustee, he says, now, DePablatori finds out, we watched the NBA investigate and clear Terry Rozier. The Miami Heat were allowed to keep Terry Rozier on the court and play him in games, in NBA basketball games. And that all happened, of course, the Heat acquiring Rozier after the data was assessed by the gambling operators that, hey, something of miss is happening with all of these you know, suspicious

patterns. There's investigation going on that the NBA allegedly knew about, side note, and allowed the heat to continue to have him play, continued he stunk, but that's... The federal government never cleared Terry Rozier. The heat, the NBA,

the Hornets, his previous employer, they were all told that the FBI that the federal government was looking into this question. And so yeah, if you're the heat, I mean, you made a decision to go in on this guy, to acquire him. And I just wonder what, David, you would do

if you were running the heat in the present. I would be calling my attorney to read over my franchisee agreement that I signed with baseball to see where in it did I agree not to sue Major League Baseball because I definitely agreed to it when you sign a deal. And I would see whether there was an exception or some sort of loophole that I could find because I'm pretty pissed.

Now, the heat can settle this. And the way to settle it, is by having Terry Rozier's contract voided. Right now, it should be noted, he's getting paid every two weeks, currently on his deal. Because the NBA, like an hour and a half after the press conference,

they basically said that Billups and Rozier are, they're off the team, they are on leave. They're on leave. Which is like baseball's equivalent of the administrative list, which means you're being questioned and investigated about having done something bad, but we'll still pay you every two weeks. Will that money be recovered if he is found to be guilty?

No. You do not get to flat back. Now, future salaries, after an adjudication, if you then terminate a contract, then anything you're owed after that, obviously you wouldn't have to pay. But this is a critical moment for the heat, not for salary cap reasons, because their salary cap things that they'd only have a mid-level exemption if Rosier's contract gets terminated, but it's screw all that, it's cash. Mickey Arrison could have $26 million more in cash.

So it's a CBA agreement that they cannot let him go and must pay his guaranteed contract because the criminal proceedings clearly will not be finished. Nope. Anytime soon. And these are all allegations I should make clear. Innocent before proven guilty. You can't terminate for cause based on a indictment. That sounds reasonable.

But it feels terribly when it's happening. It does feel terrible. Yeah. Yeah. And here's some of the back and forth, right? So March of 2023, Terry Rozier is flagged as this guy for whom suspicious, unusual activity is coming in for the unders for a March 23 game that he exited early after nine minutes, according to the indictment. His unders. His unders, exactly.

He leaves with a supposed injury. Sportsbooks catch it. The NBA is informed. Rozier doesn't play the rest of that season. Injury, we are told. Meanwhile, in real life, in the real world, the federal government continues to investigate, and that does not stop clearly. But the NBA, according to Terry Rozier's attorney, is saying they cleared our guy,

which is why he got back on the court, why he then got acquired by the heat, and why the opportunity costs of what the heat decided to do, is almost impossible to settle in a court of sport law or other. They're not going to file lawsuit against Adam. If I were Mickey, I'd want to, but they're not going to. But if I'm Adam Silver, I'm a little despondent today because I'm living with this and I've been pretty out front on the gambling thing. And now my league is really the one that keeps getting caught. And he's going to have to do something about it. And I would assume that Billups and Rozier's, their careers are done, but he's going to have to do more than just a three-word statement that came out the day it happened.

what Adam did, one of the first things he did, it was interesting. I was thinking back to 2014, and I'm reliving that year for a particular reason, not just because it's roughly a decade ago in the same time frame when David Samson is monitoring these Twitter scandals involving his employees about gambling. Adam Slever does two things. Number one, he orchestrates to great fanfare, the sale of the Clippers from Donald Sterling to Steve Ballmer. The other thing that happens in November, the other second, you could argue, big thing that he does as the commissioner of the NBA,

He is on November 13th, 2014, he publishes an op-ed in the New York Times titled Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting. No other commissioners were on that byline, if you recall. If you go back to that. I'm looking at it right now. How many other commissioners was Goodell there, Manfred, Batman? It was a single byline. One guy. Well, and one of his points was legalized gambling would make it easier for us to catch.

And that was borne out in this instance. I'm puzzled as to why the league cleared him in an investigation. According to the attorney of Terry Rozier, yes. By the way, who? We must stop for a moment. Was his name really James Trustee? His name is James Trustee, and his name gets us to another, I think, important data point

of how you do something in the year 2025 when there's a gambling or criminal scandal at your doorstep, which is, ostensibly, you might hire a Trump-Allied attorney, and Jim Trustee is of course exactly that. Well, it could be nothing more ironic than a Trump attorney being named trustee. He is. He's trustee. He's not trustworthy, but he's trustee.

Man, you are so biased. He literally, all I'm saying is that he did for... Really, you think it's biased to disagree? I'm not saying that I'm pro-Trump or anti-Trump. I'm saying that you're so consistent. You won't even think about the underlying issue. you'll just automatically knee-jerk say something against somebody. It's a good joke.

Trustee the process. Jim Trustee was literally representing President Trump personally for about a year, amid all of his various, you know, again, there's a lot there. Just Google it. You have to remember that if we investigate it, one of the two. If you're giving up draft picks for this, Puts. You're embarrassed by it. You want to save the money.

Mickey Harrison's got to be calling it. Can you get out of my mind? on the phone right now. Has he gotten a call from Mickey? Is he a putz or putzty? That's Yiddish. I shouldn't say Schmeckle and Yiddish. I understand it's Yiddish. You do? You knew Putz was Yiddish? Yeah. That's impressive. I didn't know J.J. Puts was Jewish. Remember J.J. Putz? Is not Jewish? There's no way J.J. Puts is Jewish. Well, that's a candidate for what I found out today at this point. I would have no way to know. I've not had him as a player, so I've not seen him. you know, after games.

Oh, hold on. Based upon this action, I would suggest that he is maybe a little putsy. Can I give you a website, which is increasingly problematic in the modern day, but there's website called Jew or not Jew. Is that, come on. But this is, I think, in the spirit of airplane,

you know, the pamphlet of Jewish athletes, I believe. And JJ Putz, unfortunately, the verdict is not a Jew. Right. Wait, you thought it was lying to you? I don't know that it's... We keep track of every single one of them.

I'm not sure... I've seen the pamphlet in the movie. But I'm not sure it's a verdict. I think it either is or is not. A verdict implies... No, but that's how Pablo does it when he investigates, journalistically. Is that journalistically...

Have they journalistically investigated his heritage, his ethnicity, and determined the verdict is not Jew? So according to Rabbi Jason Miller at rabbijason.com, J.J.Putz... Yeah. Is also not Jewish, even though he has a Yiddish last name. Parentheses, quote, Google it. As a matter of looking to the larger landscape of sports and business,

which I got this transition, is we turn to the sport without putzes, literally speaking, we turn to women's basketball. Wow. This is, I've been waiting for this for a month now because we've got someone on the show who could give us such great information about what's going on with the WMBA.

And I don't know that he will, but it bothers me that he won't. This is a tension on the sporting class is that David accuses John of knowing more than he can share. John being a position of authority and financial investment in a certain three-on-three women's basketball that is essential to the understanding of women's basketball and the economic landscape I've described,

has great insight. and yet also a conflict that we just disclosed. It's very helpfully for everybody to understand. So I am an investor and a media advisor to unrivaled, and given that, if I did know anything that was not public, and I'm not suggesting I do, there would be areas in which it would be inappropriate for me to disclose anything I might have learned as an advisor,

a confidential advisor, That would be, and you would not argue, that that would be inappropriate for me to disclose. I wouldn't argue it, but you're in the media now. We're doing a show. And I think that I want to let the audience know from my standpoint that I'm fascinated by what's going on with the WMBA and their collective bargaining negotiation and how you are John Skipper involved in it in a way, as President of ESPN, you were not, in my humble opinion, but much more so with unrivaled because they are a big part of what's happening in the WMBA.

Just to be clear, I have no involvement in the current CBA negotiation going on. And I have been public about some of my thoughts about that, and I may have thoughts about that that can be expressed on this show. What a contortionist. Well, let's, let me, let me help you guys out. Let me help you guys out with the framework here, because I think there's an actual bit of news we can use here because the WMBA, is embroiled in this really public knockdown, dragout war of words over how this was to pay their players. And Sue Bird and Megan Rapino were on this show not so long ago talking about their perspectives on it. Your perspectives, though, as people who were truly at the bargaining table from the other side, from the management side, how would you steer them?

How would you advise them if the goal was a resolution? Well, I don't know if that's the goal, but the goal is sustainability. From an ownership side, from management side, it's really nice for employees to want to get paid a whole lot of money and a high percentage of revenue. But my interest in management is to make sure we've got a healthy business that can be sustained over a long period of time and that can be profitable. And I'm not going to sign up a deal. What kind of idiot would sign a deal that guarantees lack of profitability? You literally have to be out of your mind. And what the women want in the WMBA

is for the WMBA to do a deal that would guarantee no profitability. They're not going to do it. And I would call the bluff of all of these negotiators, all of the women who are talking about we want the same percentage of revenue as the NBA players get. They have zero chance, Pablo.

And John, you know this and you won't respond. There is zero chance that the women in the WMBA are going to get the same percentage of revenue, quote-unquote, that the NBA players get? I have previously suggested and still agree, and it doesn't violate anything, I should recuse myself on, that while they're not going to get that percentage immediately, that if I were sitting at the bargaining table,

I would suggest that we're going to move over time to a model in which you do get paid a percentage of the revenues. They do get paid a percentage of the revenues. They do get paid a percentage. now. It's just 9%. So they're not arguing whether they get paid a percentage of revenues. The argument is what percentage should be. But that's just a derived number.

It's not a, nobody is required to pay 9% of their revenues. It's a derived number. And so is their media revenue? Well, I understand that. I'm just suggesting that the players, if you want to get to a deal, and I would disagree with you, I think they do want to get to a deal. Of course they would like that deal to allow their owners to be as profitable as they can be. some of them will be profitable sooner rather than later,

and I have suggested that the owners would be wise to understand that they're going to make the vast majority of money they make on flipping the team and not on annual... You're shaking your head. Spoken like a non-owner. That's the argument everyone makes. You'll make the money back when you sell the team. Where do you come up with the money to pay for the annual losses?

How did you do so when you were losing money at the raise and eventually sold the team for so, Marlins, I'm sorry, Marlins, for so much money that it covered all the losses plus a gigantic profit. Is that not accurate? A ton of borrowing, a ton of raising money on the capital markets to pay for the annual losses, and then there was a payback of all debt upon the flip of the team.

And nobody ever discussed, well, yes, this seems crazy under our certain, our current operating situation, but we'll make it back when we sell the team. Because there was no, you have to have a financial plan. Our owner did not have a plan to sell the team in 2017. It happened because of an unfortunate series of events. Well, this does remind me that there was this, what was it?

Oh, the thing is it, Netflix. Do we have that trailer? Do you have that trailer in which you may notice a familiar face who might be held to account on this very specific question. David Samson, you're unique to him. It's that there's a minute for all right. So he'd as sure to see. Oh, come on.

Oh, the French. Let me tell you about that guy. I got to translate that. Can you show that? Put it back on and so I can speak over the French because I want people to appreciate the francophilia of all of this. David Samson was one of a kind he carried a mirror everywhere he went

so he could see himself I don't believe that's accurate David maybe just means it metaphorically well that's assuming that he can speak in metaphors that is an example he's a putt

he's not even that and he's the putts who was that David a guy named Roger Brulat he was a broadcaster who was a bitter bitter man and I feel for him. Looking back, I feel for him because the expos were his life and that was it.

And he's still trading on that to this day. And I'm sorry for that. We all trade on our past and try to create new things for our future and present. But what he was trying to say is that I am so egomaniacal that all I cared about was how I looked. And he missed the point. I would have preferred him to say, all he did was carry around $100 bills.

Like that sort of comment, meaning that all I think, cared about was money, et cetera. I would have had less issue with that than him saying that this was some sort of ego play about looks. You know, I think it's often the case, John, that David is accused of only speaking the language of money. But what I am told is that

that is not literally true, as this next clip might indicate. The project de Nouveau de Nouveau des Expo is consue specially for the baseball and for the Moraleigh and Quebec. Wow, that's pretty good. Pretty good. The first interview I ever did was in French. The first time I ever had an IFB in my ear was December 9th, 1999.

I did an interview in French. And it was weird. Yeah, you got to speak French when you run the expos. In that clip, you're at the press conference table, and there was a model of what? Well, we were trying to let people know that we were going to build a new ballpark, but we had no money for it. All we had were we had renderings that we had done by a bunch of people. You could afford renderings, but not a stadium. This was not exact.

This was like renderies from a box. I can suggest that I know for certain David does not carry a mirror around. I do not. I carry on a lot of stuff. That's a mischaracterization. But I do not carry on a mirror. But I do focus on whether I have food of my teeth after I eat. That is true.

I do do that. I don't think that's peculiar. No, well, there's plenty of people walking around with them. Focus on whether it's germs. I do consider. But, you know, I'm a... It's an interesting movie, which I'm sure you'll never watch on Netflix, because they tried to say who would kill the Expos.

Yes, the question is, who killed the Montreal Expos. That's literally the name of the movie. It's called Who Killed the Montreal Expos. And it goes through different suspects. And I'm a suspect. But of course, I didn't kill the franchise. Of course, no individual killed the franchise. It was, again, a series of moments that killed the franchise.

But I copped to it in the movie, which you only saw the trailer. I'm sure you didn't see the movie. Not yet. No, you're busy investigating, journalistically. That's right. As the movie premiered yet?

Yes, October 21st. So a couple weeks ago, yeah. And so your review as somebody who, in the trailer, for those who care to see that, was presented. You were presented as the murderer. Yes. Yeah, the trailer is not cut by the director.

The trailer's cut by Netflix. Just a little side note. And so the trailer had some very incorrect things. it misled you to believe Philippe Alou was impugning Jeffrey Lurie's baseball knowledge when in the movie you realize he was talking about Claudeauceau, the owner before Jeffrey Loria. But when you make a trailer, you can make it look however you want.

But you got to watch the movie. So in other words, you think... We're innocent. I believe there's a word... You do know, journalistically, the reporter does not make the headline. That is true. That's right.

So if you're mad about a headline, and you read the story and go, gee, this doesn't sound like what the headline says. You have an over-eager editor somewhere who's trying to get more clicks on something or get more eyeballs to read the story. I must piss you off. Well, listen, I would love the plausible deniability

of blaming the people on the outside of the glass for the words that they choose on the YouTube thumbnails. I don't know what this thumbnail is going to say. I think it should also perhaps consider the fact that what David is asking all of us to consider him as at the end here is trusty. You're a very trusty source. Not putsy at all. I think that was your route.

Congrats. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.