The Bill Simmons Podcast - Mayor Eric Garcetti and Casey Wasserman on Landing the 2028 Summer Olympics (Ep. 243)

Episode Date: August 1, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and sports media mogul Casey Wasserman to discuss L.A.'s Olympic bid (5:00), modernizing the Coliseum (11:00), the biggest Olympic concerns (17:00), L.A.'s underdog status with the IOC (25:00), Trump's involvement in the bid (34:00), connected car-share technology (40:00), and L.A.'s Olympics legacy (44:00). Then, The Ringer's Jason Concepcion joins to give his thoughts on Kyrie's trade request (1:01:00) and NBA players determining their own destinies (1:11:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek. That is our presenting sponsor. That's the easiest way to shop for the best tickets thanks to their revolutionary grading system. I just did this. I bought Red Sox Angels tickets. I did not get the little deal they have. $10 off baseball tickets the first time you use SeatGeek. If you use promo code BSMLB, it was not my first time.

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of your loan in real time to make sure you're getting the right solution that's rocket mortgage by quick and loans apply simply understand fully mortgage confidently to get started go to rocket mortgage.com slash bill simmons equal housing lender license in all 50 states and mls consumer access.org number 30 30 we should mention two ringer podcasts that i appeared on this week one was house of carbs we did um part two of the interview that uh house did with david chang and i just kind of happened to sit in but if you like the movie burnt i would encourage you to listen to this because david chang rips it apart and we talked about uh the food media and last meal on earth and a whole bunch of fun stuff rember brown old grantland teammate was also on

that episode to talk about atlanta's famous wings and then the other podcast i did that's coming out this week we did a special episode of against all odds with cousin sal our friend brad who uh has been on my podcast a couple times and has done some Grantland video stuff. We decided because it's such a dead time for gambling right now to do the autobiography of Brad because gambling has intersected in his life multiple times and sometimes in not great ways. But to say this is a podcast that can't be missed is an understatement tate where did it rank best ones you've ever produced top 10 for top 10 for he turned on tate at one point he started yelling at tate uh it's phenomenal so anyway check that out against

the lads with cousin sound don't forget about uh talk to thrones our new twitter show hashtag talk to thrones but it comes on right after Game of Thrones on HBO. It has been awesome watching the audience build. We had some great numbers, not just 500,000 after the Fact on Demand show, but the audience during the show was unbelievable too. And it's been really cool to see this idea kind of blossom. Jason Concepcion, who's coming up later to talk about Kyrie Irving, Chris Ryan, Mally Rubin, Andy Greenwald doing a great job.

All the behind-the-scenes crew doing a great job, too. Check that out right after Game of Thrones. The show is confusing. You need people who are experts to explain what the heck just happened. Check it out, twitter.com, at ringer, or hashtag talktothrones. All right, coming up, we're going to talk to Mayor Eric Garcetti and Casey Wasserman, the chair of the LA 2020 committee, because LA got the Summer Olympics.

And we're going to talk about it, what it means, what happens to LA over these next 12 years, fears, things we're excited about, all that stuff. We're going to talk to those guys about all that. And then after that, we're going to talk to Jason Concepcion about Kyrie Irving and where he might go and whether he's making the right idea or not. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this on noon Tuesday afternoon. Casey Wasserman is here.

Mary-Erik Garce is here. I was just asking how Italian he was. He said 1-8. At least an 8. They all went to Mexico, so it's my dad's dad's dad. Though we found out where we're from in Italy just a few months ago from like Piemonte, that area, like Torino. So a bunch of Italians came to work in the mines in Mexico, in Chihuahua. And that's where my great-grandfather, we think, came to, or great-great-grandfather.

So I'm either an 8th or a 16th. He's hitting a lot of bases. But let me tell you, when there's the three Italian IOC members asked him, at least 50% Italian. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm 100% puro Italian. Puro Italiano, as they say in Spanish. We're catching you

one day after the dramatic announcement. After how many years did you spend trying to get LA 2024? You have all the hashtags, the websites. Now it's something

that's 2028, but it's happening. This is done. It is. The mayor actually declared it's happening. This is done. It is. The Olympics is coming to LA. The mayor actually declared it on his first day in office. He wrote me in in the summer of 2014, and here we are in the summer of 2017,

and it's good to say the Olympics are coming back to Los Angeles. Was this a deal? How much backroom dealing was involved in this? Because you had Paris versus LA, basically, for 24. It's really 44 years in the making, right? We've been almost every time since. It's funny when you think about right after 84, like people are saying, we'll do it like the next one in the 80s and the 90s. But we had to negotiate a lot.

I mean, we've been so well represented by this guy. I mean, you want somebody to be there to close your deal. It's Casey Wasserman. And we're both 84 boys who grew up with the Olympics. You were here when it was here. He was 13. I mean, you want somebody to be there to close your deal. It's Casey Wasserman. And we're both 84 boys who grew up with Olympics. You were here when I was here. He was 13, I was 10 and it shaped our lives.

Which he tells me a lot. So he's younger than me is what he's saying. He was 10, I was 13, but I'm wiser than him. Yeah, yeah. By three years. It shaped a little bit of my life too

because I remember that summer, which was a great summer for cable. It was like the first summer where I think I had more than 20 cable channels. But remember the Olympics was on all the time. Did you go to the Olympics? No, because I was in Boston.

But it was on like 1130 at night, 130 at night, volleyball, all these different sports. It was great. And I think a lot of Americans remember that Olympics favorably because we won so much because the Russians didn't come. We like winning, and that was a good way to do it that was a good way we had a lot of good things but this time everybody's probably gonna come right 2028 we hope let's hope so who knows what the world's getting crazy but yeah i guarantee you we'll hold the olympics but who knows what

the state of the world will be in 28 all right so let's go let's start here um why concede 24 do 28 instead what was what were the reasons i don't think either of us look at it as a concession. We started this race to compete to host the games, but the mayor has been clear that this was never just about 24. This was about our ability to really invest of ourselves and help the movement for years to come. And as the race continued, the opportunity to create certainty, to create an economic benefit from that certainty that will benefit the people of L.A. immediately,

and to do something that, frankly, only one other American city has done for a summer games the last hundred years, which is win a competition for an Olympic Games, is a big deal. And to be able to do that and declare victory is a big win for us. I mean, look, a vote would have been tough and contentious. We were always underdogs, but we still might have won for 24. But we might have lost as well. But if I had been given yesterday the deal that exists right now for 24 for Paris and us for 28, I'd probably be derelict of duty not to take the 28 one.

And I'll tell you why. If I took 24, we'd have to wait until the year after to have a legacy. The profits of the games to invest in youth sports like we did after 84. We'd have to wait eight years from now. But with this deal, they're giving us enough resources up front to start that probably next year. So what's better for a city to say, hey, we're going to create a generation of athletes now or wait eight years because I want to have the Olympics four years earlier. Pretty much a no brainer. So it's basically you have 12 years to prepare instead of eight with more resources or the same resources? Hundreds of millions more. So literally we will have money to be able to make sports universally accessible in all of our rec and park system in LA for every

kid. Think about in 84, we took those profits, 230 million bucks to date that we've spent, and we built things like tennis centers in Compton and the Williams sisters were discovered. I think about people who didn't become Olympic athletes, but whose lives were changed because they stayed in school or they became athletes and they're fit today because of that. Unfortunately, we couldn't make that universal. We think with the money that they've given us up front, we'll be able to start as soon as next year, making that universal for every kid and every zip code. So one of the reasons I thought this would work and why I didn't think it would work in Boston was because we have all the stuff here already.

I went to the 2012 thing in London. Remember they built up that whole, that whole village. Basically they built that makeshift stadium and all these things that they kind of had to have to make it work. But the best case for la having the olympics would be you could argue we have too many arenas we actually many stadiums right i mean there are venues we won't use um that are olympic quality that are olympic quality i mean we'll play

soccer matches in the rose bowl but we don't have to play soccer matches the rose bowl we'll use the pond or the honda center in anaheim we don't't have to use the Honda Center in Anaheim. We have these venues that are extraordinary. And if you think about it, most people build an Olympic village and then try and figure out what to do with it after a Games. One month after the Games are over, 25,000 students from UCLA will move in and start their fall quarter at UCLA. So you don't have to build an Olympic village. The day the Olympic basketball ends at Staples Center, a month

later, the Kings, Lakers, and Clippers will move back into Staples Center and play basketball. So our venues, we are interrupting their normal use to host the Olympic games, not building them and trying to hope that there's something to use them after the fact. And it's really unique. You're interrupting soccer camps and basketball

camps at UCLA, and more importantly, Kanye gets there to shoot, apparently. And summer school. They get a summer off, so that's a good thing. They're all happy and basketball camps at UCLA. And more importantly, Kanye gets there to shoot, apparently. And summer school. They get a summer off, so that's a good thing. They're all happy. But think about UCLA. Usually building a village is $2 billion. If you're lucky, the plumbing works in time.

They're trying to figure out the food, and they're putting everybody in a huge tent. The trees haven't grown. And sometimes it's empty afterwards. UCLA, the trees are all mature. It's a beautiful campus. You have not only amazing dorms that are like a luxury hotel. I should have gone to college there now because it's amazing. But they have the best food in America for any college campus.

That's what they're ranked. And then what most villages never have is Olympic-sized pools, tennis courts, tracks where Olympic champions like Allison Felix train today. And not to have to travel to warm up is going to be a huge advantage. When they came and saw it, the evaluation commission said, this is the nicest Olympic village. So yeah, it saves money, but it also is the best village, which it was like a double strength. Why spend money on a village that will be worse when you can have the best for free? Right.

So how does the Inglewood thing with Cronky's NFL stadium, and then it really looks like Ballmer's going to build a basketball arena there, too. That's two more stadiums. When you were playing this in 2014, you didn't know either of those things were coming. Although I always felt like you knew a little bit about the Cronky thing. You just didn't tell me. When we first started, we didn't have the Rams building. But as we got into the IOC process, the international process, it came around. And so that's going to be sort of, we're going to have a unique opening ceremonies where we'll have a sort of citywide celebration in the Coliseum to embrace the history of the Coliseum, but that'll be used for athletics. And the torch will come through there, but that's a way to get more people exposed to opening ceremonies. And then the formal athlete procession will happen in the Rams Stadium.

That's where the Olympic Cauldron will be. But that stadium will be used for ceremonies. But track and field will still be at the Coliseum. I mean, the only stadium ever to have three Olympic track and field competitions in the same stadium. How cool is that? So is that the history is the reason? Because it would make more sense to do the football stadium? There's a technical reason, which is the size of the track setup is so big that we will actually build a track in the Coliseum and lose 14 rows of seats.

And the size of that track, you actually couldn't even fit in the Rams stadium. Wow. Isn't that amazing? You can't build those stadiums anymore because you want to bring the fans closer for football and soccer. So to build track and field stadiums is really tough in America now, but we've got the Coliseum. Because the Coliseum is not tiered. So when you lose seats, you don't affect the rake of the stadium. With a tiered stadium, you might be into the concourse by the time you got the track all in.

I was hoping you were going to talk about the rake of the stadium in this podcast. He gets really excited when we talk technical. How much money do you have to put into the Coliseum to modernize it? $100 million? Yeah, that temporary track is about – well, no. The USC is going to modernize the building, but that temporary track is over $100 million. And that track goes away? That is actually the most expensive thing we will build for the Olympic Games, but that temporary track's over $100 million. And that track goes away. That is actually the most expensive thing we will build for the Olympic Games,

is that temporary track. Potentially, we can reuse it. We can use the track for the community in the community, not the platform it's on, though. Gotcha. What are the other expenses? Got a temporary swim stadium at USC, which will be awesome in open air. So many of the stadiums are closed usually, but we have such great weather.

You can see the city around you. We've got to do whitewater. So for the canoeing, that'll be in the San Fernando Valley in what's called the Sepulveda Basin area. We've got to put the beach volleyball in the home of where it started in Santa Monica, right by the pier, which will be sweet. And for, I think, some of the boating and rowing stuff,

we'll put up some temporary seating for wherever that lands and the nice thing is now that we've won we can negotiate these things in the best possible places and i think our costs will come down because even a lot of the federations the people control these sports are saying well maybe we don't need to spend that much because they realize long term they're not going to have cities bid around the world if it costs so much for them say team handball demands,000 spectators and you build a new stadium and then it's just stuck there afterwards. Maybe we can make do with smaller spaces in other cities. Then here in L.A., we've got all of the stuff built.

But if they want to see other cities line up in an affordable way, they should focus on the TV. Enough people in there, but not these mega arenas just for the 17 days of the Olympics. The Staples Center, the convention center next to it where they're building the LAFC stadium, does that get used too? So LAFC will be soccer. Yeah. And the convention centers are really important facilities for Olympic games because you use

them for a lot of sports that can sort of be in the hall setting. So whether it's boxing or table tennis or things like taekwondo, you know, those kind of things are great in those kind of setups. And it's a way. But having that next to Staples Center in the downtown core means that those sports are going to get people who otherwise never would have gone. Yeah, because they're part of an area that's drawing a lot of traffic. And that's one of the things that we have in L.A. is we have these aggregations of sports venues. That means we'll get to expose lots of Olympic sports to people that otherwise would not go see them. You know, a lot of places sometimes it's more compact, the Olympics, but each sport is a secure zone. So you got to leave basketball, go through security,

wait in line just to get over to Taekwondo. That we have these four areas that people can see multiple things. You can go from canoeing to equestrian to shooting out in the Valley. You can go downtown from basketball to Taekwondo at the convention center. You can go from archery to some of the stuff that we'll have at the Ram stadium. That's really cool because it part of the fun of the Olympics, you're talking about watching it on cable, you know,

in 84 is like discovering a sport you never thought you'd be interested in. And you're like, wow, this archery is fascinating to watch. Handball is like that for me. Every thought you'd be interested in. And you're like, wow, this archery is fascinating to watch. Handball is like that for me every four years. Every four years I get mad we're not better at handball. They really, by the way, the Team Handball Federation talked to us. Like, what can we do to break into this market?

And I said, well, a lot of firefighters play handball. And they're like, no, that's the wrong sport, Mayor. It's like team handball. It's the other one. So what's cool is I think we can expose, if we have a decade in our high school, we can, in high schools, we can expose kids to a lot of these other sports. Think about badminton, for instance. Here in LA, it's a huge Asian sport. And you have Asian American kids who, oh, I see people who look like me who play this.

Girls and boys can start at the same level. There's not kind of a gender divide. And we found what, like 40,000 people that play badminton in Southern California because we have such a huge Asian community that's here. So I think that this is going to be good for these sports to find the American market, as well as the new sports that they're going to bring in and that we probably will continue. Tokyo is going to have skateboarding, surfing, rock climbing, baseball's coming back, and we can continue that here in LA. So downtown LA is going to basically be what London was like in 2012, where it's this big area you have to go into,

and then there's going to be a bunch of different things going on. Not all of downtown LA, but around the Staples Center. Around Staples Convention Center. So once you get through security once, you can walk to all the sports without having to do it again. Because London basically had everything in one spot, and I walked so much that I had started eating candy to put weight back on.

I was down like 164 pounds. 12 miles a day. It was insane. This seems like it's more spread out. So as a person who lives in LA, my biggest concern slash fear would be the transportation. How are people getting from one place to the other? Because one of the reasons London was so great was you hop on the train. You could basically go anywhere. Is LA going to be ready in 2028 to be able to do that in 1984 we didn't even

have a subway yet and people come up to me all the time saying please throw the olympics so we can have 17 days with no traffic because they remember 84 people get the hell out people leave and also we dedicate lanes so for not just the athletes and the olympic folks but any of the fans who are going on the shuttles we will guarantee you like the quickest rides you've ever seen in LA. On top of that, public transportation will be built out by then. We'll have LAX connected to public transportation, the subway, the Olympic Village. LAX is going to be connected to public transportation. Can you believe it?

That's like. That's actually happening? It's actually happening. That was my first dream. Olympics was second. 2003, 2098? No, no, no. We're going to be done probably 2022. actually happening it's actually happening it's that was my first dream olympics was second 2003 2098 we're gonna be done probably 2022 what yep and we have we have a subway that's 70 of the way light rail it's 70 of the way done already that comes to just outside the airport that'll be done

probably in a year and a half and then by 2022 we'll have a people mover a train that connects you from that stop into every terminal at LAX. So is it conceivable you could go from like Santa Monica all the way to Englewood? Can we do that now? You can go from Santa Monica all the way downtown now from the beach. Right. So then Englewood would be the next. Exactly. Then you just take the Crenshaw LAX line. You go straight to Englewood.

And we're working on a spur outside of the Olympics that will go into the Forum and the New Ram Stadium so that people can go there on the train. What's the biggest thing you guys are worried about these next seven years to get done? Like, what's the one where you look at and you go, oh, that's we got to figure that one out. What is it? I don't think it's a figure out. And we just have to go execute now. I mean, we have to go generate, you know, three and a half, four billion dollars of revenue. Now, that's less revenue than London did in sponsorships

and Rio did in ticketing, so I think we're pretty conservative. But we're stewards of these games, and we're ultimately responsible to the people of L.A. to do this responsibly and well. And we just have to go execute. The plan is in place, the opportunity is there, and now we just have to go make it happen.

I've known you for a long time. That was the most political answer I've ever heard from you. You totally didn't answer my question at all. I'm not really stressed about anything except momentum. I mean, I want people to feel excitement. But when I look at it, what can go wrong? I mean, Staples Center isn't going to disappear. UCLA isn't going to pack up and not be a place like this is as airtight. Literally, I'll quote one of the IOC members who came out here for the Evaluation Commission. He said, I keep looking to find a hole in this bid.

I can't find one. So more it's a human thing, making sure that we all feel enthused about this and that we realize, look, the Olympics is coming and that's great. But we still need to address the rest of the problems the city faces, homelessness, traffic. I mean, for me, don't get distracted and don't think this is the only thing that we're thinking about 11 years from now. We're actually improving the city at the same time we're preparing for the Olympics. So that's, so I'm sure there's going to be, has there been backlash yet to this?

I'm sure there'll be backlash. There's been a little, but you know, I think when people understand the reality of the bid and the details of the bid, this is not on the city budget. This is privately financed, privately operated. It's as conservative a budget has ever been presented for an Olympic bid. This is not on the city budget. This is privately financed, privately operated. It's as conservative a budget has ever been presented for an Olympic bid. It's as third party validated. I think people understand that, as the mayor says, you know, we can walk and chew

gum here. Like, you have to do big things to achieve big results. That doesn't mean you're ignoring the problems or the challenges that every big city in the world has. And we can do both, and we should do both, because I think it makes us better. And so while there is backlash and you would expect that, I think a lot of it's based not on the facts, but on what people perceive to be the situation or using it for other reasons. Right. I mean, you look at most cities, there's a big backlash because you're going to go into debt. We're not, and we're not using public funds for this. So the poll that came out today said that for 2028, this wasn't our poll, it was Loyola Marymount University, 83% of people support it. So, look, 17% times 4 million people is still a lot of people.

Yeah. But there's even more people, especially everybody who was here in 84, who realizes this is good. We're not displacing residents like you read in other cities. We're not taking city budgets and shifting around. This is win-win. $11 billion to our economy, thousands of jobs, the world's attention, and a legacy of fitness. And to me, that's the big thing is somehow Olympics got into being an urban planning exercise. Like the legacy is supposed to be buildings.

This has always been a sports thing. Why not make the legacy about sports and people and fitness and competition? I want to return the Olympics back to that. It's what we did in 84. That's what we'll do in 28. So I would guess some of the backlash, people have just a fear of when your city does a big project, whether it's, I mean, the Olympics is the ultimate of it, but a lot of times with stadiums, there'll be like this little hidden wrinkle, like, oh no, the public's not going to pay anything. And then like buried in the back is going to be, hey, if we go over, this goes into your taxes. Is that the case here? here la is smart like look what we did with the nfl like it took us 20 years but we always said you need us more than we need you and we are not going to subsidize your stadium so we got in la and inglewood a free stadium i mean on their dime not the taxpayers dime and somehow it's a good deal for steve kranke because that's going to

be like the epicenter of the NFL, and he's going to have Super Bowls. Because LA can do that, like New York, too. I mean, that's the only other non-subsidized one where it was privately funded. The big markets can do that. So I think most of the things that people rightfully so get upset with rich owners taking their taxpayer money

or these vanity games. You look at something like Sochi. People always mistake the Olympics themselves don't go over budget, the operating side. It's always the capital side, the things that you build on top of it. And you say, we're doing this for the Olympics. Well, LA, we're fixing our traffic, not for the Olympics. The Olympics can benefit from it, but we're doing it for ourselves. We're not building a line that connects the village and the sports arena. We're connecting, you know, main residential neighborhoods with where our jobs are downtown. So I think the Olympics, to be successful in the future, have to fit the games to the city, not the city to the games.

And that's been the mistake for a few decades. So is there a 0% chance this trickles into taxes or a 3% chance? What is it? I think like a 1% chance. The world would have to melt down. It's not a 0%, and we've guaranteed it, to be clear. The city of L.A for anything, goes over, and the state of California.

But if I had to bet today, we are going to make hundreds of millions, and it could be high hundreds of millions off of these games. So what about, you're creating all these jobs, right? How many jobs is this going to create? It's 11 billion of activity. I forget how many jobs it was.

We'll find out. We got, you know, Manav, who's one of your biggest fans right here, who's like a groupie in the back here. His credibility just went up so high you have no idea. I love that guy.

I knew I liked him. You know what I know something else about Manav that you didn't know? Kumar. He is a shareholder of the Green Bay Packers. Wow. Congratulations.

Yeah. He's also here for tape. But he's going to look it up. But it's thousands of jobs. A lot is in the temporary construction stuff. But most of it is in the hospitality industry. We'll build extra hotels because this is happening. Ooh, more hotels.

We'll have, obviously, through the folks that come through LAX, they'll stay here. When people come for the Olympics, they usually come. And especially with a city like LA, they're going to want to go to Disneyland and Universal. And so you wind up getting billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. But the legacy is less about, I think, those jobs than about the sports that we'll be able to fund. And look, this is a town where 26% of people are obese, where we have like diabetes rates, especially in communities of color that are off the charts and increasing, doubling in the last decade. So to me, you know, that's what we'll leave behind even more than the economic impact is making L.A. the healthiest city in America.

That's kind of my goal over this next decade. It's about 74,000 jobs. Wow. Now, one of the criticisms of the Olympics is always that they create these jobs, but then the Olympics ends and the jobs are done. So how do you account for that? Well, the construction ones, the nice thing is the people that we train, for instance, the folks that will help build the stadiums or do any of this stuff, will be able to go into what we're doing for the next 40 years

of constructing stuff for our public transportation. So a kid growing up in South LA. We definitely need that. I can tell you that much. No question. Where do you live? Relatively close to here. Okay, good, Okay. What's that address again? That's good. Well, we will have, you know, construction jobs for folks, but so often we've given them to people who don't grow up in LA. They'll be able to go as soon as the

Olympics are done into a program at the airport, the port of LA, or for our public transportation that's the next 40 years. It's already paid for. Taxpayers passed it. So it's a nice way to say, look, these jobs aren't disappearing. Same thing with the tourism jobs. Our tourism goes up every single year. We just broke records at LAX. We have a goal of 50 million visitors by 2020. So these folks are going to be in place, I think, in good jobs after the Olympics come to. I'm not letting him answer this because he's biased. Since I've been here, it's been incredible to watch LA take off as a city. I mean, I even remember when we launched Grantland in 2011, it was really hard to get young people to move here.

And I think part of that was because it had this reputation, the city's so gigantic and sprawling. If you're on the East Coast, you're used to taking cabs and stuff like that. that and over the last six years i think uber had a big big a big uh role in this is the fact that you can now just hop in a car and go wherever you want and i feel like the city is taking off you can see it and now it's much easier to get people to move here and you have los feliz and um silver lake and echo park and now maybe englewood and Eagle Rock and all these little places on the outskirts are filling up with young people. And it doesn't seem like it's going to slow down. Like, can you feel that? How do you feel about that, Casey?

It's amazing. I mean, you go, you know, some of the best restaurants in America are in the Arts District in downtown. And that's a part of the city that no one's ever been to until five years ago. Now it might be the hottest real estate area in the country. This sounds like an L.A. infomercial now. But it is true. It's true. David Chang was on our House of Carbs food podcast, and he said Koreatown is the single best place for food in the world right now.

He didn't even say America. He was like the world. And he's like, all the chefs are coming to L.A. It's true. And shit's happening. But think about it. When I was a kid in the mayor where we had PE, we had smog days where you couldn't go outside

and now we have really clean air and our kids play outside. The air is noticeable. I moved here in 2002. My lungs were killing me at the first couple. Seriously, I couldn't because I had bad lungs. And now it's a lot better. I mean, it's not ideal, but it's better.

It's way better. So LA, I think, is really in its moment and I think by 2028, I think it's going to be a pretty la i think is really in its moment and i think uh by 2028 i think it's going to be a pretty incredible city to show off to the world what is this like for you personally because i i was with you just randomly the time that you found out boston was getting the bid i held you accountable for that but then you fixed it you were like you're happy you're happy i'm like i'm not happy This is a disaster. Boston people are going to hate this. But it really did seem like this wasn't going to happen.

It did. I mean, it's been a roller coaster, to say the least, you know, to have for six months fought really hard and then go to Boston, which from the beginning we felt like was the wrong choice, to have them come back to us, to then enter a race sort of, you know, behind the other cities. And then we were competing of, you know, behind the other cities. And then we were competing with, you know, the big boys of Europe. I mean, it was Rome and Paris.

And then you had Budapest and you had Hamburg. So you had these countries and these cities that were European and entrenched in the Olympic movement. And then you had L.A. who shows up late and was perceived as a second choice. And here we are to be celebrating that the games are coming back. It's a pretty... Did we even invite you to the party? Like, what are you doing here? Did somebody invite LA to this party? Cause could you get out of here? It's true. Yeah. It's an amazing thing. I mean, I think Casey said that he called the three American, um, chairs of

the last three Olympics, Billy Payne, Mitt Romney, and of course, Peter Uberoth. And something he told me really resonated since yesterday that Mitt Romney told him it was the best experience of his professional life. Yeah. Because everybody knows they're getting fired the next day. So you're not competing with each other. You're all doing this because you love sports and you love your city and you love this place. And when we had it here in 84, it was like, who could ever be, if anybody lived here in 84, I challenge them to be opposed to the 2028 Olympics. It was transformative. It was a moment

which we kind of use not just for the sports, but think about the world today when people questioning what America's about and Americans are all at each other's throats. Like this is the one time everybody puts down their arms and says like this is we we cheer on the african underdog who wins the sprint we you know cheer on our team that shouldn't win that sport but does in the united states it's it's like the greatest moment in our lives and that we can pass this on to our kids the way it was passed on to us makes this really an emotional moment how long have you guys known each other well i waved to him when he was 10 across the stadium. He didn't even pay attention, but he was too cool for me. Like six, uh, probably about 16, maybe 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. And when did this become an idea? Well, his idea before it was

mine. Um, and then he called me and kind of said, so what year are we talking? Well, so 20, 2013, I took over as mayor. My first thing that I did was sign a letter to the United States Olympic Committee saying, yes, we were in. But Casey's being modest. Before I selected him to be chair a year later, we sat down probably two months into my mayoralty and just started talking about sports. We're like, it'd be great to get a football team here or two. It'd be awesome if the new soccer stadium could get built. It would be so cool to bring the Olympics. And all of a sudden, all those are coming. An all-star game in hockey and one in basketball

and probably in baseball soon in the Super Bowl. If we had just done one of those things in a five or six-year period, it would be awesome. They've all come in. And leadership matters. I mean, having a peer who I really like and who we get along well, but also who understands this business. I tell you, I bet there's never been anybody who's negotiated an IOC contract to host an Olympics with somebody who knows as much about the business as Casey. So he was I've learned things like the back end on the top level sponsorships for mobility, which means who's paying for the car sponsorship. Yeah. You know, sharing that profit. This is the first time the Olympics is giving us the profit after the games back. Now, most Olympics don't make a profit, but they've never offered that because they believe in our vision so much and what Casey negotiated. So we were off to the races in 2014. But I think when we first met in fall of 2013,

that's when I realized this is the guy, this is a shared vision. And we're totally, the odds are we're going to lose this, but let's go for it. It's worth fighting for. So any profit goes back to the city. Correct. Any IOC profit comes back to the city. So originally they were- Can we build some more soccer fields?

Yeah. No, we want to put it not just into free access. That's the first piece. Maybe not free because people show if it's totally free, some kids don't show up. But like $10, right? Nobody can be kept away from sports because they can't afford the uniforms or their parents have to choose one of their kids because they can't afford both of them. But then let's talk coaches. Let's look at the facilities. 1984 dollars still are paying back

230 million and counting. So there's stadiums that have the Olympic rings on them. There's, you know, swimming pools that are in South L.A. that have the Olympic rings on them. There's swimming pools that are in South L.A. that have the Olympic rings on them. I mentioned the Williams Sisters and the tennis center. That stuff, it's not just about the physical landscape. It's not just about the access. It's also about the coaching and trying to get our high schools and everybody else to get involved, too. So when we have a decade now, it's not just going to be about what we put in from the Olympic money. I think we can get the entire city to say, sports matter.

It's why kids don't drop out from school. Not everybody's going to be a champion. Not everybody's going to be about what we put in from the Olympic money. I think we can get the entire city to say, sports matter. It's why kids don't drop out from school. Not everybody's going to be a champion. Not everybody's going to be professional. But we should all have that opportunity. And it slowly has been taken away from a lot of American public schools that sports don't matter. I think that's BS. And we can help bring it back. Look, we're going to have two things that no organizing committee has ever had in the history of the Olympic movement, which is time and money. Yeah. We will both have the time to plan and the money to execute all of those things. Is this the most time somebody's had to plan an Olympics? It's the most time by a lot, by four years, and we will have had the most resources because we have no

pressures to build things. So most people think about doing really interesting things for their city, and then they wake up the day after they win an Olympics and they're like, oh, oh wow, we have to go build an Olympic village for 17,500 people. Oh, we have to go build a $2 billion Olympic stadium. Oh, we have to go build a million square foot broadcast center. And they're like, OK, those good ideas are nice, but we're going to be lucky if we get this thing done in seven years. We don't have those issues. So think about the resources, the creativity, the innovation we can bring to bear based on knowing you have that and you have the money to actually make it happen. It's really unique. And all the lead up events, a lot of people don't realize

once you win the Olympics, a lot of these sports want to do the lead up events in the years to come. Now that we have 11 years that we can have, you know, the weightlifting championships here and the beach volleyball championships here, that is a really cool thing for a city to get engaged and involved. So you build your base. That's a lot of the money that comes in. It's not just during the 17 days of the Olympics, but other sporting events that you're able to attract. And then we can also invest in the permanent infrastructure for these things so that kids 20 years from now will be playing badminton and beach volleyball and baseball and all of those things that we wish we can have. So legacy comes first in this bid instead of being thought of as last in most bids. This isn't the number one problem living in L.A. right now, but it's in the top 20 is the lack of facilities.

Yeah. One of the hockey rinks went down. I think there's one hockey rink within a 30-minute drive of L.A. at this point. And there's no place. There's no little basketball places. You look at the club basketball scene. Go to a soccer field. Soccer is the most, but even those are way out.

And they're still so crowded on the weekends. I mean, everybody, you know, there's the two teams lined up waiting for the team to finish. It's crazy. Anytime there's a big club tournament, it's always an hour, an hour 15 from here. And it's in these places that, you know, aren't anywhere close to LA. No, it's huge. I don't know how you fix that. Well, you can build some of these things up. LA is still a horizontal city.

Land is more expensive here, but it's not as difficult to find those spaces in old commercial areas and to build those sorts of facilities out. And that's definitely a part of, I think, what we want to leave behind. Because we have some of the best people in the world who come here from around the world. One of our pitches in Switzerland was the United States

Olympic Committee actually trains people from I think a quarter of the nations of the world to compete and to beat us. Like that, if that isn't, that's not America first, that's putting the movement first. And, and we want to have the same thing where the best, you know, ice skaters in the world come to LA to train. Like nobody would have thought of that, but they do because, you know, even though it's a hot city, we've had the facilities, we can't lose that. Same thing with basketball. I think people don't even realize some NBA stars live here because they think they're in other cities. Some. I think all of them live here in the summer.

They're all playing at Calabasas High and all these weird games. If we can peel some of that off. And all those guys would love to see kids in a neighborhood where there's not a good basketball court have that opportunity because they know that's what brought them up. But you guys seem like you have a pretty good team thing going on but what happens if he goes to rain on you what happens if there's a better well i mean people always talk about him as this hot property that he's gonna have higher aspirations after uh after they voted westbrook

yeah i'm no i'm not westbrook i'm wherever he goes So, I mean, not physically maybe for at least the next 11 years, but I told him I'd follow him anywhere he goes. Did you sign him to a five-year max deal to try to keep him until 2022? Actually, an 11-year max deal. He's got a couple opt-outs. He's got Westbrook skills for sure, so really it's his option. But there's term limits in politics, so thankfully I've gone either way. How long are you the mayor for?

Till the end of 2022. So even if it was 24 or 28 that's great yeah so i'm out of here so it's really casey's fault if anything goes wrong what what are your aspirations uh i don't know i don't live for the future too much i live kind of in the moment i think too many people in politics are like i want to be x yeah um i just love a job where i can do something in my hometown people keep asking where i'm going to be in 2028 i have no idea but i know i'll be in the stadium here with my daughter uh like my parents were with me so the rest of it will take care i think there's some crazy stuff going on nationally so i'll keep an eye i was gonna say you know we found out 2017 anyone can be president it's amazing how that works literally anybody you know

i don't think we need our first podcaster to be president just saying you think i have a chance sure these days i wouldn't say that makes anything possible um is that a possible benefit of 2028 is that there's some distance with maybe certain regimes in place or does that i'll say this about the president about both houses of congress and both parties it's the one thing that's united people is everybody was on board for this. People were nervous because of the executive orders, will foreign athletes be able to get in? And we have a deputy secretary. That seems like a fair concern. Totally fair concern.

But the number two person in Homeland Security was here for the committee that was evaluating L.A. saying everybody we guarantee will get in. And a letter came like that moment from the president that said the same thing. So look, we have plenty of disagreements in this country, and I certainly do with the administration, but I'm not worried that that will infect the Olympics. I don't think that the 2028 deal is about who's in power right now. I think it's literally about the resources that were offered. And let's be honest, it's a very European movement still. A lot of votes are in Europe. I'm sympathetic, not as sympathetic as for LA, but I'm sympathetic 100 years later, three losses

after all the terrorism. Paris, this is going to be good for Paris. It's going to be good for France. They're a friend of ours. So instead of us being competitors, Mayor Hidalgo, who's my counterpart in Paris, and I are really good friends. Emmanuel Macron, I got to know during this as well. President, he texted me this weekend to say like, congratulations. It's nice to be back in a world where we like each other rather than where we're making enemies. What's that world like? Did you have to deal with President Trump at all, Casey?

Not directly. We dealt with the administration. Look, when we started this, President Obama was the president. Yeah. And now it's President Trump. And obviously it's politics. so people come and go. But at the working levels of the Department of Homeland Security, where we really need the support around the security operation for games, those people have been pretty consistent. And they've been unbelievably supportive.

And so I've actually never met President Trump, but his team has been supportive. Every guarantee we've been asked to deliver the IOC from the federal government, we have delivered. And we have done that for 24 and again for 28. And so from our perspective, that's all been good. They have been supportive in the way we'd like them

to be supportive. This is such a politician now, Casey. I just never... Wasserman 28. Never seen him like this. It's good. I'm ready. You've got to get ready

for the handshake with him. He's going to be the next mayor. Oh, I'm ready. And I'll be... I'll take over his business, you know, representing... The flip-flop. And now that I understand how to be the next man oh i'm ready and i'll and i'll be uh i'll take over his business you know representing the flip-flop and now that i understand how to do a nike deal i'm ready have you shook hands with uh president trump i've never met him face to face though we talked three times on the phone after he was elected before he was sworn in and we talked about this and he was very supportive it's great it's great it's tremendous it's a great job great

you're a great mayor it's gonna be awesome it's great it's great so he look and he delivered on that he invited the head of the olympics for the first time in i don't know 20 years to come to the white house which uh he meets with every other head of state but for whatever reasons not in the u.s so credit to him for doing that um so we couldn't ask for more you know it doesn't mean i don't you know strenuously disagree and we'll continue to speak out on other things where we disagree, but, you know, call a spade a spade. So when you meet him, the move,

Trudeau has the move for the handshake. You pull him in. You put your hand on the shoulder and you hold onto his shoulder because he grabs the hand and he pulls you toward him. So you have to get leverage

on his shoulder. So it's like, it's a jujitsu. So you're actually, he pulls himself. It's like a self-defense almost. You're holding onto him and he's pulling you back, but you already have leverage from his shoulder.

Well, you remember with Macron, too. So when I met Macron, we had like a really nice handshake and we held hands for a little while. Not as long as, you know, he and Trump did later. But I was thinking about that. It sets the politics of a handshake. Yeah, it's a real thing. Maybe just a fist bump is safest with him.

Can we practice, Bill, later? I'm happy to work with both of you because I've studied the Trump hand chess. Trudeau really foiled him. It was like he threw his own defense at him. And his sock game was unmatched. So, alright, let's talk about LA

quickly, though, about the problems in LA. Because it's not all hunky-dory. It's not. I think the homelessness is as bad as it's been since I've been here. Number one in the country, unfortunately. The roads are in really bad shape. Traffic's bad still. Sorry, there's more to the list.

I would say those are the three biggest things right now, and it seems like the crime's going up a little bit. Crime has leveled off. It still was like the fifth or sixth safest year in 60 years so that's good and it and and the increases have been in certain areas it's actually tied into i think homelessness is we've had a lot of people came out of the criminal justice system everybody doesn't want people locked away for 20 years you know for having a gram of something too much but the savings that we're supposed to go to the street to catch them when they got out early isn't there. So I've been frustrated because these folks are coming out.

It's cheaper to get high than to get drunk. They're living in tents, Skid Row and other places, and we're not serving them or serving us. But the nice thing on traffic and homelessness is, which are my top two priorities, the voters, the same election that changed the presidency, passed the biggest initiatives in both of those in American history. So that money's just starting to come in. People are like, why isn't it solved today? It takes a minute. But over, it'll be, let's see,

$4 billion for homelessness over the next 10 years to build housing and give mental health services and the whole anti-addiction stuff. And then on public transportation, we're building 15 new rapid transit lines in L.A. And that was approved by voters and the maintenance of them. So, you know, everything from Elon Musk, who we're working with on new tunneling technology to speed it up to, as we talked about, bringing public transportation to the airport and downtown. It'll be a pretty transformed city.

And Uber and Lyft were just the beginning. Connected cars is probably the quickest way to resolve traffic because when you think about it, a car usually has 95% of the time isn't moving. So the idea you have to own your car, then park it someplace, which is valuable real estate, but takes away the city's green space, takes away, you know, increases the price of our rents and stuff. L.A. is going to be a pretty transformed place. And I think we're going to lead the way. So no question, we're number one in traffic, number one in homelessness. But I think those are crowns we can lose the carpool stuff seems like we

everybody could be better at that well the carpool stuff think about it in the old the old model of carpool was like try to work it out so that you and i go in the same place coincidentally and we can do that every single day the new one is essentially car share right which you can just car share i guess is a better way to put it. And the technology, too. I don't think autonomous vehicles, fully autonomous in complicated cities, are right around the corner, but interconnected ones are. So you know that frustration on the freeway? I don't see an accident, but why is everybody stopping and going?

If we just all hit the accelerator at the same time, we'd go. When traffic is at its peak, which is only about 10% of the day, 95% of the streets don't have a car on top of it. So it's just inefficient space. We think we're closer to the cars. We're stopping going. But once cars are connected to each other and can be a foot away and never hit each other, that's almost like doubling your capacity. So we have the money to do this.

I want L.A. to be the first big city in America to test that stuff. And like I said, it takes a minute. Nobody's saying tomorrow it's going to be no traffic, but think about Carmageddon. Everybody said it was going to be the worst ever. That was the best weekend ever to drive in the history of LA. Because you take a few people off the roads or Jewish holiday. I always said as mayor, I'll just declare more Jewish holidays.

You get like five, 10% of people off the road and it flows. So I was flying. It was awesome. Or the Olympics in 84, like enough people. So part of it is changing behavior. And if need be, it's also, in the future, charging people for the roads they use. So if everybody knew they'd have to pay more to come into the city every single day, we would figure out ways to do car share more often.

So three or four people would come in from the Antelope Valley to downtown to their jobs. The one transponder with that, cause you put the little thing on your dashboard and you can fly through. Yeah. And we're going to do more of those lanes, which people really like. Um, so, you know,

there's good things in the future, but no question right now, that's the toughest part of living in LA. So you have this whole, I mean, this is like a side thing for you, even though it's not a side thing, it's a full time job,

but then you have this whole business and you're up to a million things. This is my volunteer job. It's, it's, it's, it's own job. How big is your inner circle? Uh, look, we've got a great team at the, at the Olympic bid and obviously it's not about me. It's about a group of people who did a ton of work to produce this result. So how big is your inner circle?

Well, I mean, outside of you or including you? No, no, I'm not including myself. You're kind of in the inner circle, though. No, I'm in the outside inner circle. Okay. Not really, I don't know. I'm just a confidant. Okay, you are a confidant.

You're my secret weapon. Thank you. Look, I believe that, you know, in the end, if I can hire really good people who are, frankly, better at their jobs than I am at their jobs, I can scale myself and scale those businesses. So our company has 800 people now. I don't do those jobs.

I sort of lead the business. I think the dirty secret of becoming the CEO of any organization is that you don't actually really do anything anymore. Lots of other people do things. You're delegating. You look at other people's work and you're like a trained animal. They push you out and you shake hands and you do things and then they pull you back. And so you almost have to build your own company here, which you kind of have already.

Which we have, which is essentially what we have done and will continue to do for the next 11 years. And I made my commitment to the mayor and to the city that I would see this through to the end, whether the end was September 13th of 2017 or in this case sometime in the summer of 2028. 2067. Is there going to be a headquarters,

or is it going to be where you are? Or is it going to be a different place? It will be not in the same physical office, but it will be probably eerily close to where I sit every day. Okay. Eerily close. Because that's convenient. It's like a horror movie.

What is the most fair criticism you've heard of this? Why are you focusing so much on the future when we have problems today? But I think, you know, I always connect the two together. You know, there's a kid, Kalen Moore, who just left TCU where he played football. He grew up in L.A. His dad was arrested when he was young, had no role models around. He connected with the Snoop Football League, which was funded by 84 Olympic proceeds. Went to Verbum Dei, this great Catholic school here.

Got a scholarship to Marist and then transferred to TCU. Because of injuries and stuff, he didn't get to play much. But here's somebody who went to Division I. And this year he won a Rhodes Scholarship. And what I try to point out is you can't address today if you aren't thinking about the future. It's a fair criticism, but if you don't see those connections that the Kalins that are out there today need somebody to bring something like the Olympics, to bring the resources and connect them with something that'll keep them in school. So they don't become homeless. So they

don't become, you know, a victim of, you know, our criminal justice system. This is why we do both at the same time. And that's not us trying to spin some connection. It's real life. For most people, the impact isn't winning a medal. The impact is, did this change my life, make me do something that I wouldn't have otherwise done that's positive? And so it's a fair criticism. And for most cities, it's even fairer because it does cost way too much and you do go in debt and it does take your attention way away because this is a pretty terrible idea for the most part for a lot of cities which i think the olympics understand we've got to reform it in a way that again fits cities to the games not vice

versa if they do that then the core of what the olympics are is so amazing and so wonderful and so inspiring to everybody to that kid who watches on tv or sees it live that uh it's worth fighting for could you see a world where they just say every eight years LA hosts the Olympics? Yeah. I mean, we'd be ready. We could do it every four if they needed, but we should probably share. Did I hit everything? You guys have to go.

No, I mean, I think we're good. Now he gave me the sign. I've got to get to City Hall. No, he's got to run away. I'm reviewing all the general managers today. I know. I've got to fix traffic and homelessness. Is there any plugs you want to do, like social media, anything where you want people to go

check out more? We are fully flipped to LA28.org. Some guy owned it and made some money, right? Yeah. Not much, though. Was that true? Somebody squatted on it? That was smart.

Totally. It was smart. Somebody banged out 28, 32, 36, just got all of them. Well, after your suggestion of a permanent host for the Olympics, now they have. Yeah, now you got to do it. We already have laforever.org. I mean, you can make a case that LA just should host it every eight years. Yeah, or as some people have suggested, find like five cities, one in each continent, invest in those places, and move it around.

It should really be about the competition, not about the stress of what you build and the budgets. And we don't have to displace anybody with the Olympics, right? Zero people. Because in 84, that was, I don't know how much of that was urban legend and how much of that was true.

No, no, it wasn't. There was some urban legend about like anti-gang operations. Those were independent, but nobody, no houses are being taken, no displacement. We're just using existing stuff. The only things we're building

are where there's parks right now. Okay. And that goes away. All right. Well, I'm excited. Me too. I'm glad you guys pulled this off. I'm pro LA Olympics.

I'm not pro really any other city having the Olympics in America. I think it's a bad idea. But with all the arenas and the space and the territory and the transportation, it makes sense to me. But as a taxpayer and a constituent, you're like the most important voice in that. You know, someone who lives here, supports the Olympics here is a good thing. I have that.

You know, you said it was a 1% chance to spill some of the taxes, which would, you know, be obviously a huge bummer because there's just a better way to spend taxes than that. But if you guys figured this out correctly, and that's not an issue, then I'm on board anyway. It's not like I didn't need my vote. Mayory thank you great to be with you quick break to talk about the perfect mattress oh yeah you didn't know mattresses could be perfect well if they're obsessively

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Find out why so many people love Casper. All you have to do to get $50 off any mattress purchase is you go to casper.com slash BS and use offer code BS. Terms and conditions apply. Again, casper.com slash BS. And now the maester, Jason Concepcion.

Alright, we want to talk a little bit of hoops. And a tiny tad, just a smidge of thrones. Sure. With Jason Concepcion, aka network on Twitter, aka one of the hosts ofidge of Thrones. Sure. With Jason Concepcion, aka Network on Twitter, aka one of the hosts of Talk the Thrones. A wonderful show that I hope people watch.

AKA one of the hosts of Binge Mode. Yes. One of the surprise podcast hits of 2017. Fantastic. Who would have known that a bunch of people would want to listen to 62 straight episodes of director's commentary and craziness. You kind of knew that.

It's a popular show. People like it. People like it. It turns out people like Game of Thrones. It turns out. That's one of our big revelations. I had no idea. I want to talk about Kyrie because I haven't really talked about the Kyrie situation on

the pod in over a week. I know that's your dog in the background. He's fired up. Yeah. What's your dog's name, by the way? Milton. Milton. Milton's fired up. What's your dog's name, by the way? Milton. Milton. Milton's fired up, I know.

We had a thing on TheRinger.com yesterday about whether there was a possible. I love this idea. This was all wrestling work. I love it. And yet all the evidence says no. Yeah, that's awesome. That Kyrie has just had it. I like Juliet's point a lot that Kyrie is a guy who thrives on embarrassing his opponents. Yeah.

And this is clearly that kind of thing. Like, I'm going to cross up LeBron right here. LeBron is now my opponent. Is my opponent, you know? And it's an interesting, it's an interesting, like, dynamic over the past few years of the NBA in that rivalries happen in teams now. It's no longer like Magic versus Bird. It's like Westbrook versus Durant.

Kobe Shaq started this, I think, right? Kobe Shaq started it. You know, like LeBron versus Kyrie. That's where tensions occur now because players are just so powerful. So yeah, I think it's legit. It's real. You wrote a piece for The Ringer last week

about basically that people can't have it both ways. You can't criticize Kyrie for wanting his own team, but then also criticize Durant for joining up with the Warriors, which I thought was an interesting take. And the one caveat that I would add that I think people keep missing with this Kyrie thing is he won a ring. Yeah. He's won.

Pressure's off. Yeah. Go find out if you're good enough. Yeah. That's the whole thing. It's like, you don't have to chase the ring now. Also, he's 25. He's had a ton of injuries injuries this is his chance to find out how good he is and like i just love i just love the idea of a guy being like well i'm gonna find out if i'm good enough now i'm gonna find out if i'm good enough to be the guy and i don't particularly think he is like

his play style is if you look at the history of like sub six for three guards who take 19 shots a game and dribble a lot. It's not great. It's not great. So but at the same time, like he's just one of the most like fascinating players. And the fact that he can dominate a game, a clutch. I never thought he would be the guy who could win his team in championship ever. So I want to see like, can he turn into a playmaker? Can he defend a little bit?

Can he be that guy? I want to see it. Can he be a leader? Yeah. I think I've been amazed reading how this story was dissected and some of the takes and stuff and people being angry and like, how could he leave LeBron and all this? And it just seems like they've missed a couple basic parts of this

story one is which I believe they try to trade him before the draft I think I think that came out and I think Kyrie found out about it and whether he found about it before the draft or right after the draft or whatever they clearly tried to shop him right and I don't care man LeBron can play dumb with this. Oh, I don't know. That's the front office thing, but he's just too big of a part of that team, and he's on one-year contracts. They're not going to shop Kyrie Irving without throwing it at LeBron.

They're just not. It's not realistic. And if you look at it from Kyrie's point of view, he's got to hold the bag for this. He's got to be the guy who's got to be here getting bitched out by LeBon for another year when they're probably not going to win now they're probably not going to you know get the title and then when lebron leaves he's gonna have to stay there with dan gilbert trying to figure it out like this

house on fire that why would that be appealing to him like so make a power move yeah go back to 2011 all the coaches he's had yes byron Scott complete instability Mike Brown yeah they it and then he finally signs his deal to stay there and then LeBron shows up people have made this point and then it's LeBron's team he fits in they win a title together right last year they were unhappy I don't know how anybody can watch what happened last season. They only win 50 games, even though LeBron and Kyrie were healthy last season. They only win 50 games. The playoffs, they seem happy during the Boston series because they were kicking everybody's ass.

But I don't know. I went to three of those games, and I mentioned this at the time. I did not like the body language and the team dynamic, and it just did not seem like a tight team i think that kevin love that kevin love had this look on his face like i'm out i know i'm gonna be the scapegoat kairi didn't seem happy they're always the scapegoat that's i mean that's the great i mean that's you know lebron has earned this position yeah to you know as one of the greatest players that we've ever seen but it just would you can imagine it would just wear on you when

you're Kyrie or even Kevin Love if the team loses it's gonna be on you somehow yeah you know that's gonna be the narrative is it's gonna be Kyrie didn't defend it's the burden of playing with one of the best players ever is when things go wrong and the best one of the best players ever plays well then it's like well whose fault was this and he has to get all these questions like there's a clip from a few years ago where a reporter is like um can you talk about what kind of parental figure lebron is to you this asking kairi and kairi's like what like yeah i'm a grown-ass man i don't need a parental figure like that's the kind of thing where after a while you're just like well you know what i got my ring yeah like i want to see if i'm good enough i want to be the man and i'm just tired of being like this patronizing

attitude and of course like it seems weird that he would want to leave lebron but by the same measure this is exactly what we criticized kevin durant for doing is like going to play with great players making it super easy well it's a controlling the destiny thing. Yeah. Controlling your own destiny thing. LeBron chose, you could say this is a positive or a negative, but instead of signing for five years in Cleveland, instead of signing a four-year extension or a three-year extension, he basically year after year left himself out to use as leverage against Dan Gobert. I don't know how anybody could look at that differently.

I think it's a smart way to play it. A hundred percent. Because it allowed them to then trade all these draft picks to get these win now kind of guys that he wanted because he wanted to win a title. They won a title, so it worked. But then you go into 2017 and he's putting this stuff out there. The team's got to get better.

I always felt like when he said that stuff in December, I can't remember if it was December or January, and he was basically, he sent that message out like, we need help, we're not good enough. But there was no real way to help the team without trading either Kevin Love or Kyrie. We need a playmaker. Stuff like that. Yeah, but I always took that one moment as him saying in a subtle way, trade Kevin Love for Carmelo without saying it. Right.

I might be wrong, but that's just how I interpreted that because there was really no other moves to make. They have all these terrible contracts. They have no picks. What else are they going to do? You're going to go and you're going to get Andrew Bogut. If you actually wanted to make a move, I think he was saying,

if I have Carmelo, I have a better chance. And then he was right because in the playoffs, they couldn't play Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson at the same time against the Warriors. I also think you can't underrate what a terrible signal the stuff with Griffin sends. He's the architect of the greatest stretch of Cavaliers basketball in the franchise's history. I mean, you can argue about this move and that move, but he do that and then i think you could have done it for the record yeah but i'm pretty sure you could have traded seven first round picks still like working under tremendous like financial constraints uh delivering a title true in the finals every year how do you not give that guy a second contract like and it just it sends a bad signal

i think throughout the organization like if you're about if the team is about itself on that level then why shouldn't kairi look look out for himself well so people are asking me because i did a pod probably a little over a week ago about this and i was saying basically lebron's created this situation by the own uncertainty about his own thing. And then got some emails. People were like, well, what's he supposed to do? He's a free agent in a year. And he's leaving his options open. He might want to go to LA.

He might not. I'm down with all that. That sounds great. If he wants to leave in a year, that's the CBA gives him that luxury. And he wants to go to LA and become mogul, great. But you have to understand the effect that has on your teammates. Yeah, of course. That's the thing.

And that's the part I think people missed is like, it's been year after year, these one year deals or the, you know, short term and we'll see how it goes. And now people, everyone in the league starts talking about the LA thing during the finals. And LeBron, at that point, what are his options? Either he says, you know what, I'm a Cavalier for life and signs a long deal, or he says nothing, which is what he did. By saying nothing, he now opens the door for somebody like Kyrie to be like, well, where do I fit in?

I know you guys tried to trade me before the draft. I know you're probably leaving in a year since you're not saying you're staying, and you're going to leave in a year, and now I'm here with all these bad contracts and no first round picks. That sucks. I'm screwed. I mean, you know this from work relationships in an office or a team. A team is a collection of individuals who find some way to have the same goal. Right. Yes. But on an individual level, they have their own ambitions.

You know, like working here at The Rigger, like there's stuff I want to do. I want to fit that within the wider concept of what we do. But when you start to feel as if people are branching off and putting their own ambitions above the team concept, that's when problems happen. And this is what is occurring right now. Or Kevin Love, who signs his five-year deal to stay, but doesn't put a no trade clause in it.

And let's be honest, they probably don't sign the five-year deal if there's no trade clause yes and then really from the moment he signs that deal he's in trade rumors yeah from december on yeah like every time he blew a rotation or was slow to like close on a shooter you gotta trade kevin love yeah you gotta trade him every time you can't put him on the floor with someone, you're like, you know, it's like from day one, essentially. I don't know. People have somehow, it almost seems like people are thinking you either have to be for LeBron or against him.

It's turned into one of these polarizing sports things. I'm not really either. I actually think it would, it would make a logical kind of last chapter for his career if he moved to LA and played for magic and tried to basically become a multi, multi-billion dollar mogul, whatever the hell he wants to do. But I do think he has to recognize that the narrative that he established in 2014, I'm coming home. Right. I'm back,

to do that, but then to leave again, then it's like, well, what am I watching here? What's important to this guy? I can't figure it out. I think the tough thing with LeBron is he's always been, on the one hand, it's unsurprising that he is this kind of closed off off considering the pressure that's been on him since he was like 16 years old but he does a lot of communicating and like windhorse other people have written about this like passive aggressively through social media through the press yeah um and that has an effect positive and negative you know what i mean so yeah you're

motivating people but at the same time you're creating this yeah level of uncertainty that just seems to have followed him since 2014 with miami but then going back to to 2010 cleveland same thing and now it seems like it's happening again 100 and you know like some of you know some of the greatest teams that you've ever loved like there's this feeling about the team that that guy would kill for that other guy. And outside of the banana boat, have you ever felt that about LeBron? Like he would kill for,

I felt like he would like crawl over glass for Dwayne Wade, you know, but like Kyrie, Kevin Love. But then he left Dwayne Wade. Then he left Dwayne Wade because, so it's like, that's the thing where it's hard to pin down LeBron on, on that aspect of it. At the same time, like I a hundred percent understand it. No, I don't think there's ever been an NBA athlete that's been under more pressure for longer. I mean, he's, he, they were dissecting him since he got that escalate as a teenager. I think it's, I think how he's

handled it has been incredible. I've said it and written it. Like, I just feel like this has turned out about as well as it ever could have turned out. Absolutely. This could have gone wrong in so many different ways. And just like the course correction after the decision, like you can't look at the way LeBron approaches the media and approaches every story and like the way he uses his social media and not think he learned from the decision almost immediately. Like he learned how he effed up there. Right. And I think what he took for granted with this whole thing, though, was that he just assumed that Cleveland was a fixed roster.

And those guys were I don't think he saw the part where Kyrie was like, wait a second, fuck this. You're going to leave in a year and I'm stuck here? I'm out. I want to trade. Right. No thanks. Yeah.

I don't think that part ever dawned on him. Yeah. And I probably should have. Yeah. You know, I think it was a really smart move by Kyrie. I liked, you know, this has been the decade of these guys all controlling their own destinies. Yes, 100%. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that the contracts are shorter and there's more movement and all that stuff.

But, um, I don't know. I, you, from the basketball standpoint. Yeah, I agree.

If Kyrie is the best player in a mediocre team, right. You're not making the conference. 45 wins. Maybe. I think we said that about every guy in the league, basically. Yeah.

Except for LeBron James. conference 45 wins maybe i think we said that about every guy in the league basically yeah except for lebron james i think if durant's your best player and you have a mediocre team you might win 50 right but other than that you're where anthony davis is and all the in yannis what how many of the bucks win 44 44 ish yeah yeah so we could say that about anybody now if kairi is the best player on a good team, that's a different story because, I don't know, I went to the finals. It was LeBron and Kyrie versus Curry and Durant, and it was a blood

bath, and they were dead even. And the only reason the Warriors won that finals is because everybody else on Durant and Curry's team was better than everyone else on the Cavs team. The two versus two? That was dead even. It was. Neither team could stop the others team. The two versus two? Yeah. That was dead even. It was. Neither team could stop the other two guys.

And the thing I love about Kyrie, especially for this era, we're doing an efficiency week at the Ringer. Kyrie has really done more to rehabilitate the narrative of the gunner than any guy. You know, like we're in an age of efficient play, ball movement, three-pointers, corner threes, dunks, of the gunner than any guy. You know, like we're in an age of efficient play, ball movement, three-pointers, corner threes, dunks,

all those things being important. And then Kyrie has really shown that when you get down to crunch time, everything slows down, the wheels slow down, guys can't get open. Who can get you a shot? That becomes valuable at that time. And who can make bad shots? Yeah.

And I was like, who wrote the piece yesterday about Chris Paul for us? Jarks. Jarks. Great piece by Jarks, by the way. Great piece about the one inefficiency with Chris Paul is that he doesn't like taking inefficient basketball shots. He won't take bad shots.

He won't take bad shots. And in the playoffs, sometimes you have to. Kyrie is the best player I've ever seen in my life other than maybe larry bird and just making terrible shots there's times where i'm like did he even need to make it that hard you know where he spins it off the glass in a certain way that he didn't maybe need to do it's it's uncanny it's unbelievable especially for a guy who he's not i mean he can change direction like quicksilver he's not explosive He has really no vertical leap.

Everything's below the rim. Everything's below the rim, and he's challenging guys that are bigger, stronger than him every time. And he scores. It's amazing. I actually think he's somehow underrated, which is impossible because he's been on one of the two high-profile teams we had. But when I did the third podcast with KD, and we were talking about Kyrie, and i was doing my whole thing about i just the shot making in those finals games i was like i know you guys can't see it because you're in the game but just as somebody who's watched basketball his whole life the shots that the four of them were making then clay when clay would get high it's like there's

never been anything like that in the finals before and And then Durant started raving about Kyrie and how everything was below the rim. And he's just, he can't believe how he can always get a shot off and the shots he makes. And he was like, that led to the better than Iverson thing. And then the internet went crazy because God forbid. Yeah, right. The thing is like, Kyrie is a better shot maker than Iverson. He is. He just is.

That has no question about who's a better player. Right. But he's a better shot maker and he's more efficient and he's just better at it yeah it's he's like he's like nothing I've ever seen in terms of a guy who can get you a basket one-on-one in the last minute and a half of a game when everybody's looking at him and he's had the biggest games of his career have been against great teams in big situations. The most famous regular season he's had was the 60-pointer, the 50-pointer against the Spurs. Was it 50 or 60? I think it was 60.

Was it 60? Whatever it was. On TNT Thursday night. Yes. Just lays the smack down against the Spurs, one of the best teams in the league. Then you go to the last three games of the 16 finals. He's just out of his mind. Out of his mind.

After. In 45 in game five. After the game one strategy that the Warriors employed was essentially let Kyrie work. Let's let him play with the ball because that sucks the energy out of the rest of the team. Now LeBron's not doing stuff. Now Kevin Love's not doing stuff.

Just give him space to operate. And then for Kyrie to not, it's not even that he changed in anything. He was just like, I'm going to be more Kyrie. And he was. He's an incredible player. I'd really love to watch him. What he did against Boston in game four,

LeBron gets the four fouls. Right. And I'm an idiot Celtics fan who knows my team's not very good. I'm like, holy shit, we might tie this series. Yeah. This might be 2-2.

And then Kyrie scored like 33 points in 10 minutes. Yeah. But I think people are mostly wrong, but I also see the point like, yeah, if you put him on the 0-6 Lakers with all the crap guys Kobe played with, that team would actually do worse.

He's not meant to do that. But if you put a good team around him and he's the closer slash guy you go to in the last five minutes, a little like Dirk on the 11 maps, I always felt this way about your man Carmelo. That's 100. I believe this. Like guys who want to hold the ball a lot and are primarily scorers, they're just harder to build around.

That's just a fact. The degree of difficulty is higher. It's higher. And like LeBron, the issue, I mean, excuse me, Carmelo, the issues he's had, especially in New York, is just like the Knicks are incompetent and except for the one year, have never been able to surround him with guys

that would fill the holes that needed to be filled. And the 13 team was good. He's been on two good teams because the 09 Nuggets were good too. Right. And they were 2-2 against the Lakers. Right. And then they just didn't play well and they lost. Right.

The Knicks were the same thing. For whatever reason, they're in that Pacers series. Hibbert plays – Hibbert just annihilates – who was it, Chandler? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things I could say about it. Just the fact that they got to over 50 wins by playing an offense that was predicated on taking threes and spacing and moving the ball. It was threes and Carmelo. Yeah. They were taking, what, 34 threes a game, something like that?

Threes and Carmelo. And it was the closest to unlocking Olympic Melo that we've ever seen. And playing Melo at the four, allowing him to take advantage of his advantage in size and toughness and speed. And then you get into the Pacers series, and Mike Brown is like... Mike Woodson. Sorry, Mike Woodson is like, the East is big I'm gonna go big yeah and it just was like

what yeah so there's a lot of wrinkles there that I still think about and listen the Pacers were better but no but that that

Knicks team could have beaten the Pacers in a series I think that it was poor coaching and they didn't play well I feel the same way with the 0-9 Nuggets

yeah 2-2 Carmelo gets hot in two of the last three games, and they're going on, but he didn't play well. Yeah. So I look at Kyrie, and I still feel like the 11 Mavs are the model. Yeah.

Which I always thought was the model for Melo, too. Same. Just a very smart team, good defensively, the rim protector. Ball moves around, people are making threes, and then you have the closer. Right, and you hope you get hot so phoenix if i think he's gonna end up in phoenix and i think you think they let go of josh jackson first of all i think they're insane if they don't i just think they're flat out insane that's all i have to give up for kairi is eric bledsoe and josh jackson done call it in i that tomorrow. Like, let's just go backwards. If we're just playing a game,

like the old aliens analogy or whatever, like who do we want on the court? Kyrie's on that list of like the nine or 10 or eight, whatever guys. It's like, I'm pretty sure I want Kyrie out there. He's the best shot maker we have at that position. I need him involved somewhere in the game. So to get that and put him with devin

booker like i'll figure out everything after that's great right now could that go badly could that turn into a uh like a much more a much more high profile version of marbury and francis or a higher to compare him to that right a higher quality uh uh kyrie and dion waiters feud right or like a worse version of how mccollum and Lillard have been able to get along. Like, I don't know. Could it be your turn, my turn? Maybe. But I want to see it.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I can spin one of them later. If I think about Bledsoe and Josh Jackson, that's done. And now it's like, all right, I have these two guys now. I have these young forwards. Now I have these young forwards. Now I got one more trade. Now I might have a big three potentially. I don't know.

I support. I liked your argument. And I just get it from the Kyrie standpoint. Guy just wants his own team. He's tired of being yanked around. He didn't like being in the trade rumors. And obviously he doesn't want to play with LeBron anymore. And listen, no one knows how long an NBA career will last.

He's had a ton of injuries going back to Duke. Never played more than 72 games, I want to say, in a regular season. And has had three of those seasons significantly altered by injuries. This is his time. It's now. What would you give up as a Knicks fan for Kyrie? You got to find some way to move Carmelo and then you need a third team. But like, yeah, I, I like Kyrie and Porzingis is,

I would like to see that. You don't even care what else happens. I want to see that. As long as you have those two. Let's see that. That would be the best. See the other thing. Sometimes I kiss the Knicks fans butts too much and i should because of the boston new york thing i'm sorry but um i just think out of all the cities for him to go to a the most fun city sure b the city that would actually appreciate how great he is yeah because i think he's i think he's a great offensive player great and i think that city specifically would be like that style of play is like what everybody grew up with the culture of like playground basketball in new york yeah yeah so i think it would make him better i think the crowd would feed off him and we've seen it like a really good weird example

even though they're nothing alike is spreewell sure spree well goes to new york and it's like wow this guy's damaged goods he's a maniac he tried to choke his coach and it's but he's this passionate guy and the crowd just they just like them they fed off him and the knicks have had guys over the years that they just click with the knicks fans and i think kairi would be like well because new yorkers have this weird um especially when it comes to the knicks this is a I think Kyrie would be like that. Well, because New Yorkers have this weird, especially when it comes to the Knicks. This is a weird thing that people don't understand about New York sports fans. Like they see the Yankees and they think

that New Yorkers are like these front runners, like these Titans. Yeah. For Knicks fans, it's this weird, like we live in the greatest city in the world. This is the best place to live. We've got everything here, but also like we're underdogs.

So. Well, you've only won two titles and you've been in the finals once in a hundred percent so knicks fans love those guys that people reject yeah they just they love stuff like that and you know like i guess then the question becomes like can uh can kairi and tim hardaway jr share the backcourt oh my god yeah pretty sure I don't care about finding out. You just have Kyrie. Who cares? Right. If there's a way that they could, I mean, the French guy was the eighth pick in the draft.

Frankie Nicotine. In a loaded draft. Yeah. And it still feels like there should be a way for them to figure out Carmelo and him and a couple of future firsts or one future first, whatever it takes. And then for the Cavs, trying to satisfy their short-term objection of they don't want to waste this last LeBron year. You bring Carmelo in.

You flip Frankie Nicotine and Eric Bledsoe, whatever you have to do. That trade makes sense to me. And if you're the Knicks, man, all right, here's our team. Porzingis, Kyrie we'll figure out the rest later I would love to see that Kyrie goes off for two years kind of the perfect match

for Porzingis too well the thing I love about Porzingis is his skill set plus his size he can play almost like he can play anywhere like you can put him

next to anybody you know he's gonna create space that's why I want to trade for him he's like it's like spacing and rim protection are two of the most important things in modern basketball and he gives you those right he can play with anybody there's been some fair points about his sure even though he's got the long arms and the rim protection his d is still not yeah i mean he gets close to where it needs to go yet yes he gets pushed around still um charlie rosen loves to bring that up at the same time

he's 21 years old you know what i mean like let this kid develop i don't think i well the next fans know but i i don't think that was a big enough story that one moment when it seemed like they might trade him i happened to be in new york when that was going on and though the feeling like you'd feel it in the streets man people like my friends were like you can't imagine it it. Like if Phil Jackson was to appear on the sidewalk, like walking down the street. It's just people running him over. Yeah, people like throwing. It was just the acrimony was unbelievable. There's just like this feeling right now with Knicks fans, especially like of you took a

Lin from us and sure it was defensible on a certain level, but that was a homegrown guy who was like. That wasn't defensible on a certain level but that was a homegrown guy who was like that wasn't defensible though it wasn't like but i'm saying like i can understand from the point of view of mellows our guy whatever but it's like now you're gonna do this you're gonna trade this guy for an outdated offensive system and this weird like personal beef between like a uh the greatest coach ever who's shown no ability to build a team or get guys to buy into his system like no and it was just like it was like a real simmering anger the likes of which was really i'd i'd not quite experienced and i wasn't there but just like the things i was hearing from my friends that were nexticks fans. Yeah. So most fun team, you're biased,

but I would say the most fun team for him to go to is the Knicks. I mean, listen, I'm extremely biased, but I would watch that. As much as I love Booker and Kyrie together, I don't 100% know it makes sense. It's basically, as you said, it's the much, much better version of him and Waiters together. It's a your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn. I don't know if that works.

The history of high usage guards in the backcourt is not... Outside of Klay and Steph, it's not great. I guess you could go back to the old Lakers teams with Jerry West and Elgin, but it's still not great. Like Jerry West and Gail Goodrich scoring 30 points a game? Yeah. Outside of that, though, in the modern era, it's not great. On the other hand, we don't even know what basketball is anymore.

It's true. Maybe you do need three dudes who can just create their own shot and shoot threes. That's one of my favorite, like, um, kind of like sub themes of the NBA right now is like analytics has progressed to such a level that there's all the good teams are, are kind of like on the same, uh,

on the same ground with analytics, with how the game is played, that the efficiencies now are these weird places that were like you formerly thought were bad like kairi yeah so that's like yeah that's one of the interesting things about the nba right now is like everybody's playing the same way or trying to play the small ball like way so what is the inefficiency now that's really fascinating to me i would argue that kairi is both good and bad for trying to figure out the efficiency thing. First of all, there's no advanced metric that captures it's game five of the finals, we're down three to one, I got this, guys.

The game totally changes. Yeah, I'm going to score 45 points tonight. 100%. There's not that many guys who can do that. We don't have an advanced metric for that other than points and wins. Right. On the flip side, durability is also something that we don't have an advanced metrics for.

And people have made this point to carry a team night after night. It's hard. Physically is demanding to go into the paint. You know, the inside, outside, night after night, the whole team's on your back, the mental pressure of that. And he hasn't had to face that. Right. And we don't know.

We don't know. A lot of times with a guard, it's hard. That's the beauty of it. And that's really why I want to see it. Like, I want to see this guy right now entering his prime. He's 25, entering his prime. I want to see if he can do it. I don't think he can, but I just want to see him try.

Well, I'll tell you this much. I think he's special. I think he's special as a player. Yes. And I don't know if that's ever going to translate to another title, but I guess we'll find out. You missed it, Chris Ryan. We just did a Kyrie podcast. You're too late.

Top team you hope he goes to other than the Knicks? Other than the Knicks? Most fun? Huh. I mean, I don't see any way this is going to happen because their team is set, but Minnesota is intriguing just because of how stacked they are and everyone seems to think that's the floor for this trade right i just don't the spurs also like trade for wiggins and pay him 30 million dollars

a year that seems i don't i struggle to see how it would happen and of course the spurs like pop with a high usage guard like what is that what happens there like and they just don't have the they don't have it, right. They'd have to bring another team, spin off one of their young guys, Deontay Murray or something. All right, Talk the Thrones. Talk the Thrones, Sunday night. You, Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin.

Sunday night. In Greenwild, Sunday night. Sunday night after the East Coast airing of Game of Thrones. Come watch it. And then Binge Mode. You're doing those. We're putting those up late Wednesday night.

Yes. The belated director's commentary recap of each episode. Don't leave Chris Ryan. Sixers fan Chris Ryan. Four weeks, but then we have, there's a week off with the show. Is that true? Labor Day.

Is Labor Day, there's no show? I think they're going straight. They're going straight through. They're going straight through? Yeah. It's a death march to the end. Thrones. Yeah.

Sick. Seven, I want to say. Quick prediction for the high profile death that's coming next? Littlefinger. Littlefinger. Seven, I want to say. Quick prediction for the high-profile death that's coming next? Little finger. Little finger. Oh, Milton didn't like that. Milton agrees. Yeah, little finger's feeling himself a little too much.

All right, check that out. Jason, thank you. Thank you, Bill. All right, thanks again to Casey Wasserman and Mayor Garcetti. It's great to have them on. Really looking forward to see how they pull off this LA 2028 thing. Thanks to Jason Concepcion. Don't forget to watch him on Talk the Thrones Sunday night on Twitter

or listen to him and Mally Rubin Breakdown Thrones on our Binge Mode podcast. And also, thanks to SimpliSafe. Getting a good night's sleep easier said than done. You can have your Casper mattress. You can also have SimpliSafe. If you think you heard a noise downstairs, you don't have to worry anymore because you don't have a noise downstairs because you have SimpliSafe. If you think you heard a noise downstairs, you don't have to worry anymore because you don't have a noise downstairs because you have SimpliSafe. Install their home security system.

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Don't forget Against All Odds with Cousin Sal and House of Cribs with Joe House. I am on both of those podcasts. Don't forget about Tate, GM Street, Ringer NFL show this week. And we have a whole bunch of other good stuff on the Ringer Podcast Network. And we have good stuff coming next week, too, for TheRinger.er.com i don't want to spoil it but something big's happening next week more details to come uh on a podcast we're gonna do one more podcast this week at the end of the week i have no idea who's on it if you have any suggestions send them to us who knows i don't take what do people care about now it's a little too early for football still yeah we're like two

weeks yeah we're still on kairi watch yeah yeah we're on kairi watch if kairi gets traded i will do a podcast in the next four hours until then the bs podcast thank you I don't have feelings within. On the wayside.