Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Emergency podcast: ESPN's Kevin Seifert breaks down Vikings announcing no fans for the first two games

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

Read Matthew Coller's Vikings camp coverage at PurpleInsider.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folks, do you feel like everything these days is go, go, go? It's non-stop, from work, to friends, to family, and a million pressing issues. Sometimes you just need to take a playoff and hit the reset button. That's when you reach for a Coors Light. It's made to chill. Hey, it's that time of year in Minnesota again to get out on the lake, go to the cabin, sit back, watch some baseball. Coors Light is the perfect refreshment to chill during these summer months. There's only one beer out there that's made to chill. The mountains on the bottles and cans turn blue when your beer is cold,

and that way you know it's time to chill. Hit that reset button with some mountain cold refreshment. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. Coors Light is the one you should choose when you need to unwind, when you want to hit the reset button. Reach for the beer that is made to chill.

Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado, and as always, celebrate. This is Greg Olson, here to tell you about my new podcast, TE1. On the show, I had a chance to talk to my fellow tight ends who have revolutionized the position from an extra lineman to a dual threat superstar. And just like my guests have changed the game, this year, NFLSundayTicket.tv is revolutionizing your NFL viewing experience.

Stream all the live, out-of-market NFL games every Sunday on your favorite devices and never miss a moment from your favorite players. Visit NFLSundayTicket.tv and use the promo code GREG88 at checkout and get 15% off your subscription. That's NFLSundayTicket.tv and the promo code GREG88. Subscribe to TE1 and get NFLSundayTicket.tv and the promo code GREG88. Subscribe to TE1 and get NFLSundayTicket.tv. An unmatched dual threat. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, an emergency episode with ESPN's Kevin Seifert to discuss the Minnesota Vikings announcing that they will not have fans at their first two home games.

Kevin, what is going on? massive pandemic going around the country and around the world that is contagious when large amounts of people spend time together, especially indoors. And so the NFL has actually left it up to each team to decide if they want to allow fans into their games this season, and if so, how many. But the first step for each of those teams is to abide by any state and local regulations. And right now in the state of Minnesota, the limit of indoor gatherings, I believe, is 250 people. And so that would not be worth the trouble of opening up the stadium. And so at this point, the Vikings' early home games will be fan-free, like most teams that aren't bound by a – or at least a lot of teams are doing similar week-by-week or month-by-month decisions

as the Vikings are. And so potentially it could be revisited if the state changes the regulations. But at this point, they will not have fans in the stadium. So what is your take having covered this all summer long and done a terrific job, by the way? Boy, the NFL never lets you sleep. Last year was pass interference, and now it's a worldwide pandemic that you're covering. I like to jump from fiasco to fiasco. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. But we will get to the XFL, which you've been covering as well eventually.

So now this is an interesting approach from the NFL to go team by team and state by state as opposed to just saying, look, no fans whatsoever. And that's, I think, reasonably concerning for a couple of different reasons. I mean, what Mike Zimmer and Sean McDermott brought up of just being unfair for some teams to have fans and other teams not. And also the idea that they have overall, aside from some false positives, played this really well to start. They got everybody in. They've had their little mini personal bubbles going on. And so far we've had no outbreaks whatsoever. And it seems to me to let certain teams have fans in the stands is playing with fire a little bit. It is. And it's also very interesting. You know, there's two parts

of it. One is the health and safety part, and one is the competitive part, which I think is what the coaches are referring to. From the health and safety standpoint, I guess kind of what they're hiding behind is that, you know, we're just the NFL. We wouldn't know what's best for the community of Minneapolis, St. Paul, or the community of Denver, or the community of Houston, the people in that area should decide what's best for them. And the governments in those areas should be making the health related decisions. And so I guess that's sort of defensible. You know, it leaves the responsibility in the hands of the people who are the medical experts in theory. From a competitive standpoint, it puts the NFL's past practices on its head.

I mean, they have an entire competition committee made up of team presidents, GMs, owners, coaches, whose entire job is to make sure that everything's fair for everybody and that not only are the games decided on a fair baseline, but that people who are gambling on NFL games can be assured that there's not going to be a baked in advantage for one team, or if it is, I guess to make sure that it's obvious. And in this case it would be. And that there's never, you know, rules are applied to every team equally and that every team, when they step on the field, from a rules standpoint at least

and an infrastructure standpoint, has a fair chance to win. But if you dig deeper in it, you say, well, every home stadium is a little different and there's definitely data that shows that some teams have a big much bigger home field advantage than others and so what's really at play is that those teams are losing that advantage you know the Vikings obviously have a home field advantage really dating back to the Metrodome Seattle would be crushed at least I'm not going to say there'd be a terrible team but like they would admit that their crowd has a big part of why they play so well at home over the years in their stadium and so that um you know that's really probably what's unfair is that some teams are losing that advantage

and some teams will have a minimal advantage will you have an advantage if you have like an arrowhead, if you have 15,000 people in the stadium? I don't know. But that seems to be the concern from the coaches. And it really does, is surprising that the NFL has decided to do that from a competitive standpoint. And, again, maybe they're simply just saying that, you know, home field advantage has always been an uneven playing field and we're not changing anything by doing that.

We just have new advantages being taken. So if you're the Vikings, though, and you play the Green Bay Packers week one with no fans in the stands and Aaron Rodgers and his wide receivers, though not that talented outside of Devontae Adams, can hear him and communicate. And he has his best game ever at U.S. Bank Stadium, where he has generally not played very well. And then the Vikings travel down to Lambeau, another one of the toughest places to play in the NFL,

and they have a third of the stadium full. Or maybe by then, I doubt this, but maybe by then, we'll be in better shape with COVID, and they've got half the stadium the stadium full and all of a sudden Kirk Cousins has to go in there and play with a much different advantage. I mean, I think the division games are the biggest problem here when it comes to going down to Houston or Indianapolis or wherever it might be. I don't know how much that changes things because they're both playing in the same circumstances. But when you're talking about division games that might be different from now to later, that's where I think that they've got the biggest beef. Like, why do we have to play in front of fans at Lambeau,

but Aaron Rodgers didn't have to come here and play in front of fans? And play in the cold. So I guess part of the Lambeau field, home field advantage might be the weather. But that aside, I think the NFL has tried to get out in front of it. And a lot of people, I think, have said this publicly as well, that, hey, guess what? This is not going to be a normal season. It's not going to be fair. We're all going to have to drop some of our otherwise well-founded concerns about parity

and fairness in service of just making sure that we can have a season. I don't know that that will be bought into by coaches and players because the NFL has made lots of rule changes this year that they normally wouldn't have made to accommodate the pandemic. And they could easily just say, you know what, we'll make it fair for everybody, no fans anywhere. But my guess is that their desire, well, what's really proved out is that their desire for fairness and parity is trumped by their desire to make some ticket revenue, basically. I don't know that we can really attribute it to anything else. If they weren't, you say, what is the, you know, other than pleasing your fan base maybe, some small percentage of your fan base that still wants to attend games in this situation, what's the driving force behind doing this? And obviously, it's revenue, and I'm kind of waiting to see what the NFL says, is, okay, if you're going to have an empty stadium, what are the rules of engagement for your stadium entertainment? I guess the best way to put it, the U.S. Bank, all these stadiums have these great audio systems.

They have lots of music. They have lots of music. They have lots of volume. Some would argue that some franchises have a long history of knowing how to pipe in crowd noise. So what are the limitations there? And can a creative football operations department work with its creative marketing and stadium management to create some level of home field advantage? You know, you look at the nba uh and they they're playing on neutral courts like there's no it's not even a consideration of who's got the home field home court advantage or who yeah you know i'm sure there are home teams in terms of the

schedule but uh that's just they just wrote that off um baseball you know they they seem to have written it off you know they're playing in ballparks that are emptyball, you know, they seem to have written it off. You know, they're playing in ballparks that are empty. But, you know, we all know the lengths to which NFL teams will go to try to gain an advantage. And so is there going to be a way to gain some kind of advantage? Do they have to, can the music play during the game? Can you, is there a limitation on decibel levels? Can you put something on the screen that could potentially distract an opponent? To what extent are they going to allow that? And can that be used creatively and legally to give your team a different kind of advantage? Well, Arif Hassan on the podcast a couple days ago, he suggested playing nickelback on third down to horrify the opponent and make them really distracted and upset.

But, you know, Mike Zimmer mentioned the crowd noise that it sounds like they're going to be allowed to pump in. And if it's anything like what they're doing at practice, which was how he described it, he said, if you've been at practice, then that level of noise is about what they're going to allow. It's nothing like U.S. Bank Stadium. It more sounds like playing next to the ocean. So if you've watched Point Break and Keanu Reeves play football next to the ocean, that's a deep 80s or early 90s movie cut. I'm aware of it, yeah. But, yeah, of course.

Well, if you know Judd Zolgad, you are. And or old, yeah. Yeah, that's right, and Patrick Swayze. Anyway, so they play football next to the ocean, that's what it sounds like, and I mean, I don't know, like, does that, is that even worth it? Does that even make any difference? No, I think that is more, you know, you think, okay, what's the NFL product when there's not fans in the stands, the TV product? And so I don't think, you know, myself watching, you know, baseball with the ambient noise on TV, watching NBA with kind of some level of, you know, pumped in noise, is it probably more preferable as a TV product than in silence and, you know, hearing every squeak of the sneaker or every, you know, I guess we would,

you know, some football nerds would love to hear every single thing the quarterback says and every, every adjustment that everybody, you know, and just hear that kind of thing. And maybe you'd hear more of the actual contact that occurs and that, you know, that could be some ambient noise, but I think it's more comforting to at least hear that ocean breeze type level of fan noise just to not be

disconcerting as you start watching a game on tv definitely for myself I would love to hear the communication how that goes on even if we don't know what they're saying. But I would also understand if teams were like, we really want our signals and our words that we're saying broadcast over TV. And I know that teams go back and listen, and they listen and they watch the TV copy of the broadcast to see if they can pick up on anything. And if the whole episode in Green Bay and in a lot of other markets that hasn't gotten quite as much of attention in terms of the length that teams are going to prevent reporters from leaking out what they're seeing in practice,

if that is any sign, then yes, that is a reminder of how they'll object to any broadcast of what happens during the game on the field and also speaks to the larger issue of what we're talking about is why they're so upset about crowd noise or about fans in attendance at all is that the big approach that most of these teams take is that for the most part, the league has created a structure of parity that makes most teams pretty equal. It may not seem that way when you look at the standings or when you watch teams play, but from a skill standpoint, from a, you know, from a cutting off of most obvious advantage standpoints, you know, reversing the draft every, you know, the draft order every year, they work pretty hard to make these, every team be, have the potential to be

competitive, and so there's a very small margin between what could be certainly 10 and 6 and 6 and 10, but even 13 and 3 and 4 and 12, you know, that, and that's what these teams believe, and so it might be that everybody does, everything's a wash except for one thing that they decide to do differently during training camp or one secret that they manage to keep about an injury in week three that makes a difference between the win that's going to put them in the playoffs or not or put them in the number one seat or not. And I'm not saying that's true. I've not necessarily bought that.

Like I wonder if – you know, it does seem like there's some teams with a lot of talent and some teams with not a whole lot of talent and some teams with really good, you know, coaches and some that can't seem to find any. And so I'm not sure if it's as, if the league is as close as they think it is, but that's what they think. And so that explains why even the very smallest of perceived advantages is they attempt with such energy to capitalize on. Get back to the conversation in just a minute, but first have to tell you about something very cool from our friends at SodaStick. You probably know them for Minnesota sports-inspired hats and shirts and hoodies that are screen printed in Minnesota, but Soda Stick also has artwork as well. You're going to want to check out their Man Cave prints,

20 by 24 prints representing everything Minnesota sports, from awesome throwback logos to legendary plays at first base to famous disgusting acts in Green Bay. They are on sale now for just $35. You can't go out to games at the moment, but you can liven up where you're watching them from. You want to get SodaStick's very cool prints. Go to SodaStick.com.

That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com and use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. As a side note, the Packers thing was funny with their general manager saying, well, we have people that read the other beat reporters. And I was thinking about my own tweets like reporting on Ezra Cleveland eating quesadillas to make sure that he stays for weight. So you're welcome, Packers.

Yeah, somebody made a note of that. And who knows if that's what they make decisions off of, but I don't doubt that. I remember, and this is a little off topic, I used to cover college football in the mid-90s before the internet really was used by everyone and I went into the coach's office one day and there was a stack of newspapers sky high and this team I covered the University of Maryland at the time and they subscribed to every newspaper that covered an ACC team, the old ACC, not the expanded one. And these newspapers would come by mail like three days after they were published,

and then they would have an intern go through these newspapers just looking for, you know, making note of all the things in a notebook. And as long as you could get it in before the Saturday game, you were good. But this has been going on for decades, for sure. Oh, yeah, and the team, the Vikings, along with I'm sure every other team, sends out an email internally with everything that was written about them that day anyway that they gather. So, I mean, yeah, it's not necessarily new, but who the nickel corner is for the Packers is not a secret to the Vikings and

vice versa. They know the depth chart. And that information would normally be available anyway, because there's fans in the stands in training camp. And so that was the rub is that this year, there's not. So they're going to try to keep that in house. Right. Well, good luck with that to the Packers. Luckily, we haven't had the same issue with the vikings um but uh unfortunately going back to covid yeah you you would know much more about the nfl's operation here because the um the overall on this podcast the stance has been let's hope they play and uh let's hope it works out and everyone stays safe but the from my perception the measures that they've taken, at first when we were going into this, it felt like, oh my gosh, they're behind and they need to catch up fast or they're

going to end up like Major League Baseball and have outbreaks. But it seems like, Kevin, the NFL has done a very, very good job, save for the one testing issue in New Jersey of keeping outbreaks out and giving hope to playing an entire season. And it's gone better than I think anyone could have reasonably imagined, even in the league, even in the health and safety office, because their whole approach was, this thing is, there's too much virus out there in the country. It's going to get in. People are going to get it. So we need to create a plan, not based on keeping people from getting it in the first place but keeping it from spreading once somebody in our building gets it and so that was the whole idea between daily testing and surveillance is that you catch it quickly it was the whole idea between all this contact

tracing these you know electronic proximity devices that they can dial up within minutes to see everyone who was within six feet of somebody who got infected, and all these protocols to try to race against time to get all the sick people and potentially sick people away from the healthy people. And in reality, almost none of the, you know, certainly none of the 3000 plus players and coaches have even gotten it in the first place. I mean, they went an entire week without a single player and only six non players getting infected over the course of, you,000 or 10,000 people, which is incredible. And so the real story of their approach so far has not been necessarily their capacity for making a quick reaction to somebody getting infected, but all those people who are leaving

training camp every day, and maybe they're going to the team hotel, but all those people who are leaving training camp every day, and maybe they're going to the team hotel, but they don't have to, most of them just, you know, statistically are going home and out into the community at some level, whether it's the grocery store or somebody they live with is doing that. I mean, they're exposed to the community, but they've clearly avoided any kind of high risk behavior that would accelerate their chances for getting it in terms of going to bars or clubs or indoor restaurants, big gatherings, parties. And the people that they live with have apparently done the same. And so that's been the real, the real story there, is that, and when you think

about it, like, they've got three teams in Florida, there's three teams in California, there's two teams in Texas, I mean, in places where the virus was really rampant at the start of training camp, all those community numbers have come down, but there's, I mean, it's just just I mean, I don't want to say it's miraculous, but it's it's as close to shocking as on a positive sense. And we've had with any development in the in the entire pandemic in this country. It's been my take that seeing what happened with Major League Baseball was helpful for the NFL because you had the example to point to like, don't be that guy. Right. I mean, look what the Indians did with their pitchers where they just said, go home,

like get out of here. If you guys are going to take risks, then we don't even want you around. Even though those two pitchers were really good. And I think that teams are feeling the same way. This is part of your responsibility to your teammates. And if you're the Vikings, it's not only,

Hey, the healthiest team will win, but also Dom Capers is old Mike Zimmer is old Gary Kubiak is old and has previous health issues I mean if you guys are going out to bars or anything like that or taking any risk you are putting your coaching staff potentially at risk and I think that at least so far that message has gotten through now whether we can go on an entire season with that message that I think is the biggest challenge and have you because I haven't seen anything but

you would know better than me has the NFL said anything about how they would handle the kind of bad scenario or nightmare scenario of you know Aaron Rodgers and Tim Boyle both get it right before a game or something like that like in terms of canceling games postponing because Major League Baseball has had to do a lot of shuffling they have not indicated that they're going to have a hard and fast set of rules that like if your starting quarterback is sick then the game's canceled or postponed they haven't done anything like that. And that would probably, you know,

be almost impossible to figure out in a fair way because your quarterback could get hurt the day before, two days before in a normal sense, in a normal season, and it's happened. And so, like, it's maybe not fair to the opponent to, like, not be able to play the team when the quarterback gets sick because that's part of football is that you know there's times when people aren't available but what they have done is created a separate committee from the competition committee to avoid any conflict of interest of like former coaches former players former GMs that they're gonna

that Roger Goodell will consult with and say, the way I understand it, here's the set of circumstances for the game. This guy's out. This position group is down to four players. This quarter, Tom Brady is going to be playing behind four backup offensive linemen that were on the practice squad last week, something like that. Is this a fair set of circumstances to play a competitive game? And ask these people, the Bill Pullians of the world, you know, is this fair?

And it'll be subjective. And when they make decisions, some people probably won't agree with it. But I think that's what they're leaning towards is, you know, having some kind of subjective collective decision about whether the circumstances that have presented themselves allow the teams to play a fair game. And if not, can the game – should the game just be canceled? Can it be moved back to a bye week?

Should we hold on to it and play it if we need it for standings? But even Troy Vinson, who's the top football guy at the NFL, said they've been working on scenarios of how to figure out playoff standings if there's an unequal amount of divisional games. And so that's just, you know, something they're already considering. So who knows how many times that will come up and where that red line will eventually be that would cause a game to be impacted by the amount of people that aren't available but um that that sounds like that's

the direction they'll go so if what happened the other day with the new jersey lab happened right before a game would they bump it or would they make bl Lynch play instead of Eric Hendricks? Right. Like what would they do? Because there was at least skepticism that those results weren't right, but they wanted to make sure that nobody practiced and was around anybody else for at least that day. But if it happens right before a game, would they just be able to move it?

I mean, actually not having fans here, I would think makes it a little easier because then if you just have to slide it to a Monday, you slide it to a Monday to make sure you retest. Right. Well, part of what people haven't picked up on yet is that the protocols that exist now, which force these players to miss this one day of practice until their 24 hours of isolation had gone by, only go through the end of training camp. The NFL and the NFLPA have not decided on what the game day testing or the regular season protocol for testing will be. They haven't even

decided whether it's going to continue to be daily or if it'll go to every other day or what. And they haven't come up with a decision on where the cutoff for games will be. The easiest thing to do is just to say two days before the game, you take a test. We'll get it back the next day. So, in other words, you take a test Friday. If you pass, you can play in the game Sunday. If you didn't, then you still have time to go through that 24 hour process of figuring out whether it's a false positive. And if it is a false positive, you can play on Sunday. That's still kind of tight because you might not find out until Sunday

morning. But again, things will be different this year. If the only other way they could do it, you know, is as you say, move the game back. But again, is that fair to move the game back just because a few players, you know, a handful of players maybe aren't going to be available because that can happen with a regular injury as well? Or they could come up with a faster way to figure out whether it's a false positive. And whether that's saliva testing or whether that's something, some other procedure they can get health and safety backing on, that's a possibility as well. But my guess is the most convenient way is to just cut it off, you know, say you take a test 48 hours before kickoff and there'll still be time to decide whether that was a false positive or not if it comes back that way. We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but first got to tell you about TheraOne CBD.

From tight muscles, tough workouts, signs of aging, to simply making it through each busy day, everyone understands what it feels like to be tense and sore, so everyone can benefit from TheraOne's CBD products. Started by Dr. Jason Worsland, Therabody exists to provide you with the best scientifically validated natural solutions to help soothe your body and relax your mind. It started with the revolutionary Theragun percussive therapy device. When Dr. Jason saw the benefits of using CBD in his treatment, he created Therawand to bring you CBD products done right. A lot of CBD products claim organic,

but still contain up to 30% filler. And these fillers are potentially toxic. Thera one products test four times before they get to you. Every product is USDA certified organic grown in the U S and their CBD extracts are the highest quality available anywhere. Use Thera one's warming lotion in your morning routine, the cooling lotion or massage oil to recover, body balm for targeted relief,

and sleep tincture to drift away to a deep night's sleep. And now, through Labor Day, Monday, September 7th, TheraOne is offering listeners buy one, get one free for all TheraOne products, but you've got to go to theragun.com slash bluewire. If you don't love what you get from TheraOne,

send it back for a full refund within 30 days of purchase. This is not something TheraOne is likely to do again. Buy one, get one free at Theragun.com slash blue wire. Only until Labor Day. Go right now, Theragun.com slash blue wire. Sunday, Sunday, Sundays are coming back in the NFL with NFLSundayTicket.tv. You can stream every live out-of-market NFL game every Sunday afternoon on your favorite

devices, plus Red Zone and DirecTV Fantasy Zone channels. Never miss your favorite team and favorite players. No matter where you live, NFLSundayTicket.tv is your key to the most glorious Sundays ever. Use the promo code BLUEWIRE at checkout to get 15% off your subscription. Visit NFLSundayTicket.tv and use promo code BLUEWIRE. Now, it also sounds like, in terms of the NFL taking measures here, that on the road, players will arrive, go into their hotel, stay in their hotel rooms, play the football game,

leave their hotel rooms, fly back, and that's the story. There's no, my buddy Alex Boone loved to tell stories about finding restaurants, and when he was a new Arizona Cardinal, they asked him, oh, where's the go in San Francisco before they played the 49ers? Yeah. And he picked a restaurant that had closed, and he didn't realize it, and so that didn't go over super well with the other players. So that's a thing they do.

They go out before the next game. But I think if they fly in and don't do anything else and have their food delivered, that it gives them a shot to be able to handle these road games differently again for Major League Baseball where they're there for a couple days. Yeah, they could potentially travel in a bubble. You know, we so much talk about bubbles and this and that. You could travel in a bubble. You could, we so much talk about bubbles and this and that. You could travel in a bubble. You could, you know, everybody's at the team facility.

You get on a bus where the driver has, you know, has already or the driver is because you're going to have to have multiple buses for social distancing. They've all been cleared on testing. Take them, you know, these guys even in normal situations they get they go through x-rays or they go through security usually at the team facility so once they're on the bus they're tsa approved so they get driven straight onto the tarmac usually they get on the plane with you know just themselves who all are presumably negative and the flight attendants and they uh and the pilots who are presumably negative because they would have tested to go to a hotel they already have all these um protocols for how you

enter the hotel and the hotel has to have a separate entrance for you um and they want them potentially on low floors so you don't have to take the elevators all different kinds of stuff probably not usually you have a team meeting Saturday night in the hotel. Don't need to do that. Zoom that. So you're in your room. It stinks. It's no fun.

You're probably going to get restless. You're probably nervous for the game on Sunday. But that's just the way it's going to be. Then you, you know, you meet – you go back down. You go out the same entrance the next morning. Get on the same – you know, the same drivers or drivers who have already been approved. You go to the stadium where nobody is, at least where you enter nobody is. You're in the locker room just with your people.

Go on the field where almost nobody is going to be on the field except for team personnel for both teams. And then reverse it, go to the airport and come home. And so that's, you know, you probably didn't want that much detail, but that's how you can travel in a bubble. So the answer is yes. Yes, they could. Yeah, well, it's going to be fascinating to see how all of this stuff plays out. But I think that in terms of making it feasible, they've done everything they possibly can here. Before we talk about the Rock and the XFL, you think the Vikings play with fans at any point this season?

You know, like if I had to bet, I would say no, because it seems like Minnesota is in a decent spot, but it doesn't appear as though the governor is looking to, um, to loosen any regulations at this time, not a political statement, just that's just the way he has been operating. And so as you, as it gets colder and more people are inside and the flu and all the things that we're being told potentially could exacerbate the situation. It's hard to imagine there being a time when you get to where he's allowing more than 250 people to gather indoors. But we don't know. We don't know about vaccines.

We don't know about new therapeutics. We don't know about testing. We don't, you know, it's been hard to know exactly where things are going. But, you know, in terms of the over-under on 50%, I'm certainly taking the over on 50% that the likelihood of them not having fans at any point this year. Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, the NFL will be okay. It'll be all right. They'll still make some money. They'll still survive, and it'll be all right.

And I personally am a little kind of nervous about letting fans in because of the video that was out there of Kansas City fans watching training camp. And they're supposed to be wearing masks the whole time. And there's nobody wearing masks in the whole video. And it's like, you know, in a way, you're also, when you let fans in, you're asking somebody to now be the mask police. It's great to say, oh, everyone has to wear a mask, but then are you going to go in the third quarter and throw someone out of the game, throw a group out of the game because they don't have their masks? That becomes very difficult.

Yeah, and no one wants to do that. And it's not even just the mask. It's social distancing. If you feel so strongly about going to a football game that you're going to go during a pandemic, then you're probably going to get your money's worth, and you're going to probably be good and liquored up, which is your right, you know, and what we do at football games, but your, your ability to, to, to follow all these unnatural regulations are, is going to be that much harder. Like in terms of, you know, how are you going to

keep people away from each other? I know that I saw the dolphins are going to have, um, the kind of like tarped over certain seats. And so you can only sit in it. But, you know, so what? I've seen people lying across entire rows of seats, you know, during football games because that's crazy. You know, and so, you know, it would seem very hard to, number one, enforce that. And number two, to think that it's going to work. And so maybe the play is you put all the responsibility on the fans, and if they get sick, it's their fault.

I don't know. But if you're going to have the normal fan experience or anything close to it, even if there isn't tailgating, there's plenty of ways to get drunk before a game and during a game, then it's hard to see how all those things will happen. Even if people are sober, like I don't think you want to be having confrontations with, you know, yellow coat security people.

That's not what they signed up to do. You know, no one wants to have these viral things, moments happen in stands when you're already out on a limb by allowing anybody out in there in the first place. Yep, yep. I think it's – they really are, like I said before, playing with fire, I think, by trying to get just a little bit of money here. 13,000 fans, I don't know. Maybe they hope that they can jack up the prices for those tickets because they're scarce or something i don't know um but uh now the rock bought the xfl and that is amazing and if you i tweeted this at you but if you get to talk to the rock about the xfl i will

hate you because i will be so incredibly jealous of that. I love that The Rock bought the XFL, and I cannot wait to see what he does with it. I love the version of the XFL that we had. It gets shut down by a pandemic. I thought it was going in a really good direction. P.J. Walker is now a backup quarterback in Carolina. He was exciting to watch. What is The Rock going to do with the XFL, Kevin? It's interesting.

The first thing, I know he's obviously gotten the most attention, but the interesting thing is that his ex-wife and his current business partner, Danny Garcia, has been sort of the one speaking publicly about the league, and she seems like it's going to be more in her wheelhouse in terms of having a day-to-day management because The Rock is doing rock things. It's not going to be time to sit in the XFL office. Saving the globe and so forth. A lot of more important things.

And then there's also the Redbird Financial Capital Partners is sort of this financial firm that seems like it has a significant sway in the financial part of how it's going to work as well and so I you know that they initially when they first were awarded the league through bankruptcy they touted the fact that the XFL had already come up with sort of a bubble tournament style season that would be made for TV only and not necessarily even for a pandemic, just for a way to operate at much lower cost in case they ever needed to do that. And so they have an arrangement or at least an infrastructure in place in terms of how they could have a 2021 spring bubble football tournament. I'm, you know, but things are happening in real time.

That was before the big 10 and the pack 12, you know, imply that they might move to the spring. Like I still don't know if that's a real thing or not, but then you're talking about a pretty, a more crowded spring environment. If the NFL has to push their season back at all, that goes into that window where the XFL normally had put itself in the post-Super Bowl, pre-baseball, you know, NBA type, NBA playoff type window. And so I think the short answer is they're not sure yet. I don't think that they are looking to invest,

you know, like Vince McMahon dropped 200 million into this and he got 15 million back and, you know, and who knows what other financial ramifications there were to doing all that. But I don't think that there's any plans for this group to do something similar. So it's going to have to support itself. And the only way to support a professional sports league is through TV or

streaming revenues. And so the agreements that the XFL had with ABC, Disney, ESPN, Fox, all that last year was, did not give them any, any, you know, there were no rights fees there. They, the, the networks paid for the broadcasting and production costs, but they did

not provide a rights fee to the XFL. The AAF, they were paying CBS to go on. And so that was almost like an infomercial situation. But so I don't know, like if they have the leverage to to go to any network and say hey pay pay us money to go to come do our bubble league next year and if they don't I'm not sure that they're looking to to jump in and start going into debt right away and so we'll see if that's the case but they have that opportunity to do a bubble but um i don't know if you if you wanted to to look at that or if you wanted to you know in terms of like rocks um you know what what the the tone of it will be what the what the will it be any more outlandish i don't think so i think he i think he like he and and he and Danny Garcia has said this as well I think they

liked the fact that this was a serious football league that had a little bit more you know didn't take itself nearest nearly as seriously as the NFL does was willing to make you know lots of changes was willing to play a different brand of game was willing to be much more interactive with fans and and all that so I think they liked that part of it and maybe they'll, they'll magnify some of those things a little bit more. But I don't think that they are, have any kind of like WWE motif in mind or any outlandish things or like that they want to make it the league where you're allowed to hit with your

head or, you know, kill kill people that kind of thing so um i i everything i can tell is that they really liked what was happening and maybe they see some things where they could put their own signature on but it won't be it'll still be marketed as serious football who can swing from a cable off of a burning building and fight bad guys gets the ball first is how the Rock wants it. Well, I'm going to speak my idea into existence. I think this should be an HBO thing, a Netflix thing where they go behind the scenes, hard knocks without the NFL watching over their shoulder, and then stream the games, but make them as like more of a – what's the college football one? Last Chance U?

Make it more of a Last Chance U that will grab a wider audience because of the drama and the stories. And then for the hardcore football people, for you and I that want to watch Cardale Jones play the whole football game, we can. That's my idea. But I don't know. I mean, maybe they end up landing top college players or something who are looking to help themselves, the NFL draft because of, you know,

college football being canceled. Yeah, there is, there is the potential for at least not long-term, but for a quick one year diversion that would, you know, I don't think the very best college football players would need or want to put themselves through an XFL or any kind of, you know, health risk between now and the draft. But there's a lot of Big Ten players and a lot of Pac-12 players who were probably on the bubble of the draft or were, you know, are now probably considered like a late round type but if they put five you know good games together in the XFL bubble could be a first round pick that's not out of the question and so they'll have much more talent and young talent available to them and then an extra audience those you know if if five um players from Oregon and five players from Ohio State

and five players from Michigan, you know, not necessarily the best, but people who were, you know, right on the cusp go to the XFL. All those schools fans will have much more interest in it than they otherwise would have. So that's a possibility for like a one-year diversion. Well, The Rock, call me, or Rock. Do you address him as the rock or rock? I was thinking of calling DJ next time I see him.

I'll just say DJ. Good luck with that. That's what Danny Garcia calls him. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I,

cause I was thinking when I tweeted, I mean, sort of jokingly, but tweeted at him, like make it a reality show rock. I was like, should I have said make it a reality show comma the rock? Just tag him at,

I think he's at the rock. Yeah, he is at the rock. I thought if you should I have said make it a reality show, comma, The Rock? I think he's at The Rock. Yeah, he is at The Rock. I thought if you call him Dwayne, it sounds sarcastic. Like, come on, Dwayne. Yeah, he's the NFL. That's his name. That's what it shows on the credits of his blockbuster movies. That is true. That is true. Kevin

Seifert, you've done an incredible job covering all the stuff with COVID and so forth that is as complicated as NFL rules. So you were prepared for this well by the NFL rules. And I appreciate your coverage and all of your time today. Perfect timing with the Vikings deciding not to have fans. So thanks for coming on, man.

Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Matt. Did somebody say playoffs? NBA and NHL are playing for the gold, and our partners at BetOnline have you covered. Get in on all the action, including a new NBA bracket contest with plenty of chances to win. MLB season is pushing into the fall. There's no shortage of ways to bet on hundreds of odds futures and props there so take advantage of the return to sports and remember the casino never closes check it out all day

all night go to betonline.ag use promo code blue wire to receive your welcome bonus that's betonline.ag code blue wire bet online your online sportsbook experts