The Bill Simmons Podcast - NFL QB Chaos, Gambling’s Future, Napping Tips, and the Coronavirus Panic With Kevin Clark and Stephen Dubner | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Clark to discuss the potential NFL QB upheaval for the 2020 season (2:04). Then Bill talks with author and podcast host Stephen Dubner about cowriting 'Freakonomics,' the evolution of sportswriting, the future of the NFL, getting ready for legal sports gambling, the science of napping, athletes after sports, vaping, the coronavirus, and much more (30:54). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the BS podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by zip recruiter, finding key players for your team can be challenging as the Patriots are about to find out if they lose Tom Brady cafe, Altura CEO, Dylan Miskiewicz could relate. He needed to hire a director. Coffee posted his job at zip recruiter, found the best person for the role. In just a few days, four to five employers have posted on zip recruiter, get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. Try it for free at zipruiter.com slash BS.

ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Meanwhile, don't forget about the rewatchables this week. I am not on it, but it is Ocean's 12. And put up the last episode of Book of Basketball yesterday. It is about Bill Russell, and it is about why he is a pioneer, a genius, a 1960s civil rights legend, and why he wouldn't go back to Boston unless it was for work for four and a half decades. And it's my favorite one of the bunch.

It's the season finale. We'll be coming back with more down the road. But that was the 22nd and last episode of this season. Check it out. Coming up, Kevin Clark and I are just going to talk about football, which is about to get super weird. And then one of the Freakonomics guys, Stephen

Dubner, we're talking about all kinds of stuff. Sleep, the coronavirus. Oh, man. It gets super, super wonky. You're going to enjoy it. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Kevin Clark is here. He writes for TheRinger.com. He's one of the hosts of the New England NFL show. He's had a personal crisis recently.

Al Pacino was dressing in all black outfits, which was kind of, I don't know if it was your corner or his corner. You guys worked it out. I tried to steal it, and he stole it right back. He stole it back big time in the awards run. He was wearing all black everywhere, everything. Now you're wearing a nice little... A shacket? Yeah, you're wearing a nice like a... A shacket?

Yeah, you're wearing a shacket. There's a lot of shackets around the ringer today. I saw, yeah, I saw Pat Muldowney, Logan Rhodes. Is that what those are called? I believe so, yeah. Shackets. Shacket. It's a shirt you wear as a jacket. Yeah. It's beautiful. Thank you. Football's about to get super weird. Very weird. It's already gotten

weird because they tried to shove the 17-game season down the players' throats. That didn't work. It might still work. Because they'd have to pay them. Yeah. Well, I mean, so they got rid of the cap on the 17th game. It's no longer going to be capped at $250,000. But it seems like the

CBA, which is being given to players fairly soon, there's people in the league that think that's probably going to pass. So they would just get one 17th more than they were supposed to get. Basically, it's with the lawyers right now, but the cap is gone.

So when I talked about it on Sunday night, neither of us liked the idea. Do you like the idea of more games? I think that it plays with the competitiveness competitiveness like how can a team have 10 home games and some teams have nine home games excuse me uh nine home games they get 10 dates so what would happen essentially is that owners want to keep their reason i say tennis uh and that was obviously a mistake but the reason you have 10 some teams will have two home preseason games and get to keep the money. That's the whole thing. It's a very, this is a

very bad strange situation. So three preseason games, 17 games, and then 14 playoff teams. The league has decided this is a great idea. The league has decided to get more money in any way they can. I think competitively this hurts the league. I understand getting rid of one

of the buys. I think that the one or two seed always makes the Super Bowl because the one and two seeds are the best team. So I'm not I'm okay with the one seed being rewarded more. Yeah, that's fine. I've been pushing for this for 12 years. I think that I would be okay

with an extra playoff game and 16 games. Is there a reason? 32 teams, 16 games. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. So we don't, why screw with this? Except to get a package. I don't understand.

The very basic thing just seems add a second bye week. Figure out a way. So you have maybe two weeks in there. We only have like five or six games, but you make sure they're signature games. So like the late game is Dallas versus Green Bay and you know

there's no way that's not going to be a bad game and you just do it that way. I really like the playoff thing. I like the idea of waking up Saturday at 10 o'clock

LA time and I just get three straight playoff games and then I wake up Sunday at 10 a.m. and I get three straight playoff games and we're good to go. I don a.m., and I get three straight playoff games, and we're good to go.

I don't understand the night game part of it, though, for Sunday night, because that seems like a competitive disadvantage. There was even a rumor there could be Monday night games. Yeah, that's bad. Yeah. Listen, I think that there are more rumors than... I think that at this point,

the level of the NFL and the NFLPA thinking this out hasn't... There's just too many rumors. And I don't think that they've really come to any conclusion. I don't think they know. I don't think they've come to a conclusion because they're just trying to get the 17th game through. And then they're going to try to get the extra playoff game through where they are once TBA is ratified.

And then they'll figure it out. So I think everything is at a rumor stage right now because the NFL itself doesn't know. Would Tony Romo get one 17th more if there's a 17th game? I'm really worried about that. That's a great question. That kept me up last night.

Is Bill O'Brien going to screw up this extra playoff game? That's what I'm worried about is whether or not he screws up the 10 a.m. Pacific game or the Lakers. Put it in London. Make it worse for the players. I've thought about that, yeah.

Do a Monday night playoff game in London then have them fly back and have to play on that next Saturday. Then they could basically disadvantage everybody at all times. Just make everybody angry is what you're proposing. Yeah. Why not? They've proven that they don't care about the players.

Can we play a little game of QB relax? Yes, we can. I'm going to give you some names. You tell me what team they're going to be on next year. Okay. And we'll see how you bat. Okay. Phil Rivers.

Indianapolis. I have them as well. Could be Tampa. I have him written down for Indianapolis, which leads me to Jacoby Brissett. Oh, my God. So I don't think he's going to be a starter anywhere. Kyle, what do you think of that? Yeah, makes sense.

I'm still in on Brissett. I think he was hurt the second half of last year. I think if he's healthy, he could be a starter anywhere. Kyle, what do you think of that? Yeah, makes sense. I'm still in on Brissette. I think he was hurt the second half of last year. I think if he's healthy, he could be a starter. He'd certainly be better than 10 QBs we watched start NFL games. Can he be, is he in the mix for the fake starter in Cincinnati week one? The fake starter? You always have. The Tyrod Taylor spot?

Yeah, you're always like, oh, it's going to be accomplished. Joe Burrow's not going to be handed this job. We got veterans. And then it could be anybody. Ryan Fitzpatrick, not available. He's in Miami. That's a Ryan Fitzpatrick type role. Yeah.

Why can't Jacoby Brissett have that role? And he's younger than Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow is a couple months older than Lamar Jackson. He went to high school together. Listen, that's more about Lamar. The fact that Lamar Jackson is younger than Joe Burrow says more about Lamar Jackson and his ability to be so successful at a young age than it does Joe Burrow.

Joe Burrow, he was a transfer. He was there, you know, 50 years. Lamar, like, at his age, being 0-2 in the playoffs, it's hard to believe. 10,000-hour rule. How did he do it? So you think, I think Jacoby Brissett is a Patriots backup. That's what I want to imagine.

If Brady's out, I think Brissett is the QB next year. I'm planting my flag on that, Alan. Yeah, Jacoby Brissett will be the Patriots' starting quarterback next year if Brady leaves. Because Phil Rivers is going to go to Indianapolis. Belichick will be like, hey, what about a fifth rounder for Brissette? We'll take the salary off.

Then you have more to give Phil Rivers. Wow. I thought about saying New England, but then I thought that was going to give you a heart attack because that would be me implying that Brady was going to be gone. But I don't think Brady's going to be gone. Well, we're in this game of chicken with Brady that I can't tell if he's secretly filming a documentary

that is trying to build dramatic tension where he's like, I might leave. Hey, Tom, Gotham Chopra is like, Tom, can you do a thing where you walk with your hands in your pockets, just walk toward that tree and seem sad like you're thinking about what your next move is going to be? Cool. Done. Hey, Tom. Can you go to a Syracuse basketball game for some reason? Yeah, can you go to a Syracuse basketball game with Julia Edelman? Tom, can you ask your younger son, daddy, where are you going to be next year? And then just look at him and say, I don't know, son.

And they're just filming all this right now. We have no idea. Tell me that's not in play. It's in play that this is a lot of theatrics. A lot of theatrics. A lot of theatrics. A lot of theatrics because I think that, I think Brady wants to make this

slightly painful for New England. I mean, he's given up a lot of money. He's bought into the quote-unquote Patriot Way for a long time. And I think that if I had to guess, he would come back, but he's going to make them sweat it out a little bit.

He's treating them like a spouse who got cheated on, who isn't sure whether he or she wants to take the other spouse back. And it's like, I don't know. Maybe we should go away for a weekend and work on us. It reminds me, at a previous job one time, I thought I was going to leave and I was in a negotiation. And not to come here. But I was much younger.

And I made a big show out of cleaning out my desk in front of everybody. So if you do that again, I'd be concerned. I don't younger. Yeah. And I made a big show out of cleaning out my desk in front of everybody. So if you do that again, I'd be concerned. Here I go. I don't think you actually, because no, because the fact that I was cleaning out my desk in front of everybody,

I wasn't actually going to leave. Right. It was just that I wanted everybody to see I was cleaning out my desk. Right. If I was actually going to leave, I would have just left. So you think that's what Brady's doing?

Yes. He's like, I'm cleaning out my $45 million mansion now. Yes. I'm moving to Greenwich. Is that real? Is Greenwich House real? Do we know yet?

Here's what I know. Here's moving to Greenwich. Is that real? Is Greenwich House real? Do we know yet? Here's what I know. Here's the info I have. His oldest son, the one he had with Bridget Moynihan. Okay. She lives in New York because she has to work. Yeah. And Brady's an awesome dad and wants his kid to be. So the people who are like, oh, he's going to play in Vegas.

If he's going to Vegas, the family's not coming. I think they want to be somewhere in the New York vicinity because they, they, they're big family people. They want to keep the family together. So if he plays in Tampa Bay or he plays in Vegas or he plays for the chargers, I think he's going to be like flying home private on Mondays to see the kids for a day and stuff like that. The family will not be coming with him. That's what I have been told. Okay, so. I don't know if it's true.

I'm just passing along. That seems to make. Aggregators, please add the part where Bill Simmons is like, this is what I've heard. Please don't say I'm reporting this because I'm not. This would seem to make, if this is true, the West Coast teams less likely. That's a long flight. He's coming back to the

Pats. I agree. I agree. Is there a scenario where we have the out of nowhere who the fuck could have guessed this team was going to be in the mix

like the Bears where it's like oh my God the Bears are going to sign Tom Brady for this is why the Jags are shopping Nick Foles. Are they shopping Nick Foles.

They should shop on a team that uses them correctly. We know what Nick Foles is good at. Winning Super Bowls? Yeah, and what are you putting Leonard Fournette behind him? What did you expect was going to happen? Foles should not sign with anybody.

And then the deadline to make the playoff roster just become a hired hand for whatever team. Just like December 1st. That'd be great. Let's go. Well, where's Brady next year? New England. So that's our next. So I say New England.

New England at a big number. So we agree on both of those. Yes. I still have Brissette as the backup. Who's Brady's backup? If Brady somehow leaves, who is the backup? Who's your backup pick? Oh.

Brady's out. Yeah. Pass it. Need to find a quarterback. Andy Dalton. God. I'll tell you this. That would kill Kyle.

Jameis. Bring him on. I think Jameis is way too volatile. Like the 30 interceptions that would drive Belichick crazy. I think he has Charger written all over him. I got a long email from a listener this week comparing Jameis to Donald Trump. How the volatility of hit or miss depending on the play and laid out this whole thing with Trump. He's had some successes.

Then there's also been some failures, much like Jameis' 30 interceptions. And it was this whole thing with Trump. He's had some successes. Then there's also been some failures, much like Jameis' 30 interceptions. And it was this whole case. I was like, this is amazing. The Jameis Trump email I've been waiting for for six months. Jameis needs to go to the Chargers. What else would make the Chargers fun?

I have Jameis to the Chargers. I'm with you on that one. We agree. I think that the stadium there is going to be an issue. I think it's going to be a little too big by about 50,000 seats. By his eyesight? No, I just mean it's going to be a little more

it's going to be very depressing to see Jameis Winston, even though he threw a lot of interceptions in an empty stadium in Tampa. To see in that nice new stadium and the Chargers going 5-11 and Jameis throwing 25 interceptions. It's going to be, it's going to be legitimately tough scene.

You know what else is going to be sad when they have to do the Oakland A's move of putting a black tarp over the upper deck because there's 32,000 people at a Chargers game and 18,000 of them are rooting for the other team. That's going to be awkward. They have to, they have to do something like sign Tom Brady. Otherwise there can be a failure. We should do something like sign Tom Brady. Otherwise, there's going to be a failure. A straight failure.

We should do a thing on a podcast where we call and pretend we want to get a seat license for the Chargers, but can you call me back at this number and see how fast they would call back? I think it would be like 10 seconds. They would drive over here. They're here right now. Oh my God, they're coming in the door.

We said Chargers today. Dean Spanos is outside. He's like, how many? Three? Four? They've charged our credit card. It's crazy when the LAFC is a hotter ticket than the LA Chargers. A team that didn't exist a year ago. I will say that people talk about LAFC

in like bars and restaurants, stuff like that. I've never, again, I've never heard anyone talk about the Chargers in my entire life. Yeah, there was no can you believe Phil Rivers left? That conversation was not happening in LA. There was more

can you believe the Chargers are here than can you believe Phil Rivers left. Can you believe there's a second NFL team here? Tough one. They'll move. They'll end up moving somewhere.

But where? I don't know. London is still the, that's the one that's sitting there for somebody. I think there seems like the Jaguars have, maybe they're going somebody I think there's seems like the Jaguars have maybe

they're gonna add a second international game the Jaguars are so incompetent like you can't you can't rule them out screwing up anything do they have any good players left? just for net

well they traded AJ Boye today yeah that was smart wanna get rid of him his passer rating last year against was over 100 so and I will say this

everyone on that team lost the will to live when they traded Jalen Ramsey five weeks in. I will say this. If you're giving away a guy and a fifth round pick is giving away a guy and the guy who buys is John Elway, that I'd be wary.

Yeah, that is a buyer beware on both ends. Yeah. So, wait a second. We got to do more QBs. Yes. Andy Dalton goes where? If he doesn't go to New England. Oh, God, stop it. I think he would doesn't go to New England. Oh, stop it.

I think he would, he would be a great fit in Chicago. Oh man. Yeah, because they're just looking for a B minus. They just got to have some consistency there. Trubisky is just, I mean,

you, you cannot, with, with a defense that has talent, with a coach who's one coach of the year, who can, has at least shown something, they've gotten to the playoffs before,

they got double doinked out of it. You just can't go into another training camp with the misguided belief that Trubisky can be anything. I mean, he's bad. Dalton is basically like my daughter, who's a very good student, not great at math. She'd take an 83 in a geometry test like right now. Be like, I'll take the 83. I'm happy with that because a geometry test like right now. Be like,

I'll take the 83. I'm happy with that because I'm good at everything else. I just don't want to get a 63. Right. Deal me out on Trubisky. Dalton's the 83. Cash out the bet.

Dalton's the 83. It's like, oh great, I'm going to get an 83. I'll lock that in. Thank you. Derek Carr is like in that zone.

Where does he go next year? I think he comes back to Oakland. Only because, I think Gruden tries frantically to upgrade. Oh no they leave him in oakland yeah sorry i forgot where is everybody um he's playing for the age he moves to vegas uh i think gruden tries to frantically upgrade because that's just what he does so they're the brady dark horse they're the brady dark horse they're here's 70 million for two years right and all cash all guaranteed okay we don't care that you'd be 44 at the end i will say this that the idea

they're going to overpay you know there have been some cash flow issues with the raiders in the past been reported that you know true colo mac was was traded because in part because they just didn't have the money to put in um well the owner is not a conventionally rich owner. He is not. There's a handful of those guys, and they didn't, you know, their families have either had, you know, Al Davis did not get the Raiders through conventional means.

And so if you look at the history of AFL. What do you mean, he killed somebody? No. Committed a murder? He basically just kept getting more, incrementally more control of the team until he was the controlling owner. He didn't found some company.

That's how I'm going to get this out. Yeah was the controlling owner. He didn't found some company. That's how I'm going to get this out. Yeah, it's not. I'm going to creep in. All of a sudden, I'm going to own them. He just became the controlling owner through a series of very savvy moves. It wasn't like he just founded some tech company and bought it for $4 billion with the guys now. He's not David Tepper.

Come from Wall Street or the hedge funds and buying in. David Tepper's like, I'll just wire in the $4 billion in cash at noon. Yeah. Cool. He wrapped that up in about 30 minutes. Let me call my guy. He wrapped that up'll just wire in the $4 billion in cash at noon? Yeah. Cool. He wrapped that up in about 30 minutes. Let me call my guy. He wrapped that up in about 30 minutes. $4 billion, right? It was $4,000,000,000,000? Cool. Noon. Al Davis did not do that. It was different.

And so, I think there might be, I have no idea, but with Vegas, the cash is probably a little more free, but the idea that they're going to, I don't know. I still think that that Raiders team, why would you go from a Patriots team that has the best defense in football? For 10 weeks last year, they were historically good.

Why would you go from that to Vegas? I understand Tennessee. You wouldn't unless you're just trying to prove a point. And you want to live in Vegas. No, point salary-wise. Like, guess what? I made $70 million for two years. Fuck off.

I already won my six rings. I'm cashing in. I think Gruden has proved something in last year. I think that team is coherently built. I generally like some of the Raiders' young players. Good drafting. Yeah. And I think that if you're 42

years old about to be 43 in August I think you probably want to sign with the Titans rather than the Raiders. I think the best movie to sign with the Patriots with the

Titans infrastructure. I mean Frabel is a good coach. They have young talent. They have veteran talent. They're just a

legitimately good franchise right now. That would make me the happiest. Non Patriots division. Well because it would take out the happiest. Non-Patriots division. Well, because it would take out the Titans. Because I don't think he would necessarily be better than Tannehill was for them last year.

Because he's 43 years old. I don't feel like the Titans are far away. They can only... Everything, all the groundwork they laid last year, assuming Derrick Henry can do what he did last year again, which I think he can.

I mean, there's a lot of free agents in that team. Super human. Yeah. Yeah. They have one more run. You're just throwing

a new quarterback in here who's used to having this system that's a certain way with everybody doing anything and is so used to the continuity and all this stuff. And you're just

throwing them in there. I don't think that works for Brady. Maybe. I mean, Arthur Smith's a good OC. I mean, I think part of it, this is something I've talked about with a lot of old quarterbacks,

and they talk about having cohesion with your offensive coordinator and the ability to, I don't know, Rich Gannon, Matt House, these guys, they talk about this all the time, where if you've worked with a guy for five or ten years, the advantage there is you can say, this wasn't in the playbook, but we had it in 2013, and we're going to bring it back right now, and we're going to throw it to the one guy on the team remembers that play and we're just going to run it we're going to score a touchdown yeah let's do the

chargers 2014 game exactly i mean institutional knowledge is so important in that regard and now you're going to start fresh with i think this was a very good offensive coordinator but now you're going to start fresh with him you don't know you know you have basically a couple of weeks now with the way training camps. And by the way, OTAs and training camps are probably going to get cut down in the new CBA. You're going to get on the same page with everybody that quickly. I do think that there's... He's too smart to... I mean, Tannehill did it.

Tannehill took over midseason and thrived. But I think that if you're Tom Brady... But he was there at least the whole year and he was in practice and stuff like that. And he was also Ryan Tannehill. Our expectations were pretty low. Expectations were low. This is Tom Brady. And he had Derrick Henry just bowling all over even though that might not matter on quarterback performance.

Same coach, same OC, same number one target. And when he's struggled in the past, it's with these dudes that get thrown into the system. It worked with Antonio Brown because that guy is the highest football IQ possible. And they just were immediately aligned. Well, I mean, with the two weeks where they were like, where Brady was like,

wow, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. He's still upset about it. Yeah, I know. I mean, there's rumors like there are going to be a package deal. Yeah.

I'll say this. If, if Brady, if I ran one of those teams and Brady was like, AB is coming with me, I would politely decline. Yeah, I'd be like, so you're 43 and you're bringing an insane person

with you. That's the deal. Oh, and I have to pay you $30 million. I'm good. I'm going to run it back with Ryan Tannehill or Andy Dalton. I think Tannehill stays in Tennessee. Okay. Well, we also think that Brady's going to be in New England. So yeah, so there's tracks. Tannehill sounds a nice extension there.

Bridgewater to Tampa? That makes sense. That makes sense. He's from Florida. It's either that or bring back Jameis, but Bruce Arians has this look on his face like, look, I've had some health issues in the past. This guy's bad for my health. I went out.

I just want somebody steady. Here's another one. He's like, I don't want an 83, but I'll take like an 86. I think the Bridgewater can make a nice chunk of change. Remember Bridgewater, he tore his knee up the year before he was eligible for an extension. And that was one of the things Dr. Rick Spielman about this, the Vikings GM, about how the Kirk Cousins signing basically happened because they had money. It's not one to one, but they were planning a mega extension for Teddy Bridgewater. They thought they had money is not one-to-one but they were planning

a mega extension for for teddy bridgewater they thought they had the guy right like two years out or whatever and that didn't happen so you know a couple years later that your cousin's ready for million teddy bridgewater would like a big contract is my guess and tampa can probably give him that and give him a starting role and he doesn't have to compete with anything he doesn't be behind drew breeze and i think that, I think Bridgewater signing with New Orleans was such a freaking, I'm sorry,

he got traded there and then re-signed there. But I thought that was such a good move to just be with a smart coach behind a smart guy and just build your value up. He was with the Jets

at one point. I mean, thank God he got out of there for his value standpoint. The fact that he re-signed there for one year, I mean, that's what guys like him should do.

Instead of just going around and chasing starting jobs, just slow down, take a year in Peyton's system, play really well when Breeze is out. That's a nice career move, Teddy Bourgeois. So the guys that are on the fringe are Foles, Dalton, Brissett, Jameis. Mm-hmm. When I was in Indianapolis last week, I think everybody in the league...

It seems like Rivers is gone there. Well, I was going to say everybody in the league at the combine said there's never been more quarterback question marks ever. Really? Ever. I mean, how many moving parts...

You could simulate thousands of different ways that this lands. I mean, I think Brady's the first domino. I think we'll probably know that before March 18th when free agency starts. But, I mean, that changes everything. And then, I mean, I think Brady's the first domino. I think we'll probably know that before March 18th when free agency starts. But I mean, that changes everything. And then I mean, there's just and then how does that how does that sort of move the market? If there's a lot of guys who

should be worth 18 to 20, does that depress their value? Does the CBA matter when it comes to that? I don't know. Is Mahomes signed some $40 million a year deal at the beginning of free agency and that changes everything? There are so many question marks about what happens to the quarterback market. Do you like the idea of quarterbacks not counting in the salary cap? No. I don't like it either. Because it's so unfair to...

If Mahomes didn't have to count against the salary cap, they would win the Super Bowl for their foreseeable future. Yes. Or he and Lamar would just go back and forth. Or you'd have to do what the Patriots did is just pay Brady under the table. Pay him less. I'm joking, Kyle. I just want to make sure you were listening.

Yeah, I mean, he'll sign a $40 million deal at some point Mahomes, and I think that they're going to have to make do with, and I've talked to Brad Veach about that, and they're pretty open and pretty upfront about it, but he's going to sign a huge freaking extension. But I think that that's kind of the price you have to pay.

By the way, the Niners had Jimmy Garoppolo in their contract at a huge number. He's at about 25 a year for the rest of his deal, and he's not all that good. So let's stop this idea that you have to have a cheap quarterback or an elite quarterback on an elite contract, whatever. You can win with a very expensive quarterback who's not that good. Niners almost won the Super Bowl. If Jimmy hits Sanders on that pass, it's the all-time if this pass goes differently sliding doors

NFL quarterback moment. They'd probably win. Chris Jones batting a pass down had something to do with the win, too. He got the ball back. I mean, yeah. True. Yeah. But Sanders is open.

If he hits him, they're leading by four points with a minute 30 left. Yeah. Right. If he just hits that pass. What did you think of the Brady to San Francisco chatter today?

Was it chatter by people who know anything? I saw some report i mean tom curran said on said on one of the radio shows that he thinks it might have some legs there could be i don't know trade garoppolo wouldn't they take a massive cap hit they would well no it's structured because they gave him 42 million or something like that in his first year to smooth out the cap hits later. I don't know what the dead hit would be. So trade Garoppolo back to the Pats? Kyle! Buying low, selling high, or is that the opposite there?

No, because they sold low. They got a second rounder. But they wouldn't have to trade him to the Patriots. It would be a nice thing to do. Because Brady's a free agent. It would be a nice thing to do, though. We gave him to them two years ago for 37th pick. When the Browns were offering.

They wouldn't have to do that, but it could be a logical thing. I mean, listen. How many teams would say no to Tom Brady? I mean, there's like 10 off the bat who have top 10 quarterbacks. He's 43 and he's going to cost $25 to $30 million a year. I just don't think it's that enticing. I think it's pretty risky. I'm in agreement with you, but we're not.

There's one team that. We don't own NFL teams. NFL owners see ticket sales. There's one guy that we both know would do it. Jerry. Jerry Jones. Yes. It's the most Jerry Jones move ever to let Dak Prescott go

to sign Tom Brady for two or three years. It's a very Tom Brady move because if you leave the Patriots, what's the only place you go? You go to America's team. Try to bring them the first Super Bowl in 20 plus years. It would be very funny

if Jerry Jones entered into this offseason with Byron Jones and Mario Cooper and Dak Prescott as free agents. And everyone's been talking about the way that they make that work,

the cap jujitsu that makes three of those guys work. And instead, he lets all three go and finds a 43-year-old. And he's like, I got Tom Brady.

He's won six Super Bowls. I got a real coach. I got Tom Brady. You know what these guys like? And Jerry's in this, but he's won six Super Bowls. I got a real coach. I got Tom Brady. You know what these guys like? And Jerry's in this, but he's had so much success. But what these guys like is going into these owners meetings and being big deals. Yeah. Swinging their dicks.

Yeah, and Tom, the thing that you learn when you're an owner, and I've talked to owners about this, is you can have $7 billion dollars or ten billion dollars or more. But if if the Mara family who don't have nearly that much money or the Rooney family who don't have nearly that much money, their families just bought in or founded the teams 100 years ago. Those guys are way bigger deals than people with ten billion dollars. And it drives some of those billionaires crazy because no one cares about the company they found. No one cares about, you know, this deal they did. They got them an extra $2 billion. They don't care because they didn't. They went four and 12 and it drives them up a wall.

And so Brady's the type of reckless move that some owners love because they get to go into Palm Beach, into the owners meetings or Scottsdale or whatever, and get to say, I signed Tom Brady. It could be a good David Tepper move. Could you imagine a rebuild? Matt Rule just, hey, Matt. I signed Tom Brady. I got you Tom Brady.

I wired him the 30 million in two seconds. Just send it over. It's on the table that some owner loses his mind temporarily. There's going to be a wildcard team. It could be Dallas. It could be Chicago. It could be the new... I always look at new owners,

crazy owners, or a big city that would have appeal to Brady. The Bears, Chicago, that's a huge market. Short flight back to New York, all that stuff. I can't wait to see how it plays out.

Kevin Clark, you have a ringer NFL show coming tomorrow? Friday. Friday. All right, there you go. Good to see you. Great to see how it plays out. Kevin Clark, you have a ringer NFL show coming tomorrow? Friday. Friday. All right. There you go. Good to see you.

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That's Tecova's, T-E-C-O-V-A-S dot com slash BS. I hope you listened to the Book of Basketball podcast this week with Bill Russell. It's the final one of the season, and it's my favorite one. It's 25 minutes. Go check it out if you have a chance. All right, let's bring in Stephen Dubner.

You can hear him, his Freakonomics podcast, as well as Freakonomics book and Super Freakonomics book, both of which did very well. We're going to talk to him about that right now. All right, so when did you write Freakonomics? Freakonomics was 2005 with Steve Levitt. And then I remember reading that book going, what the fuck is going on here? They're merging all these different things, and it's working,

and I just feel smarter after i'm done with it good did it did it last did it no it was it was it was a short term i feel smarter fix but it did seem like that was right around the time there were more books like that this became like a target audience for these people who would be like in an airport i'm gonna read this book i'll feel i I mean, we kind of got lumped in with the – so when we get lumped in with Malcolm Gladwell, that makes me happy because I think Malcolm's really good. I do too. When we get lumped in with – right. When we get lumped in with like kind of business leadership or the genre – I mean, I don't want to disparage the genre.

It's just not for me. It's like the success porn genre, like how to be awesome. Like, I enjoy doing what we do as journalism that kind of helps people figure out the world so that they can figure out their corner of the world. But I'm not really in it to be a life coach. You know what I mean? So that's the genre that I'm not a big fan of. When you were conceiving that book, when did you know you were on to something with the actual idea in terms of, wow, this is really going to work?

All right. So here's the way it works. I'm a writer. That's what I do. I'm not an economist. I'd done a bunch of things. I'd been a musician for a bunch of years, and now I was writing for The New York Times. And I'd actually just left The New York Times. And I'd actually just left The New York Times.

I was working on a book about what I call the psychology of money because I feel that money is one of these things like sex and religion that people do things about it that are often fairly irrational or seem irrational. I would say. Right. So I was really into – I started to read a lot about economics, a lot about the psychology of, like I said, what's now known as behavioral economics. And I was already writing this book, and then I was asked to write this profile of Steve Levitt, this economist at the University of Chicago, who had just won an award, but he was really famous for having written this very controversial paper linking the legalization of abortion with the drop in crime. So that was controversial. I knew that work, but I also knew that Levitt as an economist didn't have anything to do with money or the psychology of money. He'd done all this other stuff. So I actually turned down this assignment to write a magazine piece. I turned it down like three or four times stupidly. And then finally,

I was going to be in Chicago for something else. And I thought, you know, let me read a bunch of Levitt's papers. And they were so interesting. He'd written about like collusion among sumo wrestlers. He'd written about cheating high school teachers, about baby names, real estate agents, all the stuff that ended up in Free Economics. So I went to interview him for a piece for the New York Times Magazine, wrote the piece. It got a lot of interest. People would ask Levitt to write a book. And he and I weren't partners. He was, you know, I was a journalist. He was a subject. So it wasn't like we were some team. So people would ask him to write a book. He said, I can't write. I don't want to write a book.

People asked me to write a book about him. And I said, that doesn't seem to make much sense. I just wrote an article about him, not going to write a book. And then my agent, who's smart, Suzanne Gluck, now with WMA, she said, why don't you guys think about doing it like together? Become a team and do it. And the journalist in me said, well, that's a little weird because I was just like a journalist writing about him. And now we're going to be partners. Doesn't that feel a little squishy? And then, you know, we kind of talked it over.

I thought there'd been no intention. You know, it wasn't like I was courting him for anything, quite the opposite. So we decided to team up, wrote the book. Publisher paid a pretty good amount for it, more than we thought it was worth. But even then, we thought it would just disappear. We thought of the title. Oh, so this is Steve Levitt's sister, who unfortunately died of cancer a few years ago. She was crazy brilliant.

She'd worked in publishing and maybe advertising. She came up with about 200 titles. This one was so bad that it was great. We brought it to the publisher. They immediately hated it. They rejected it, rejected it, rejected it. Then the 11th hour was nothing better. They finally accepted it and then later claimed all the credit for it.

Well, I mean, that's the thing. It's one of the all-time great book titles. It's a good title. It's funny that nobody liked it. Because I remember even buying the book like, man's the thing. It's one of the all-time great book titles. It's a good title. It's funny that nobody liked it. Because I remember even buying the book like, man, great title. Really? Yeah, I don't even know what Freakonomics means, but that just sounds cool. But is that not like the way of the world?

The things that end up being dynamic or popular are often hated by almost everyone at first? We had it with Grantland. Yeah. That was like a temp title until we figured out a better title. Could not figure out a better one. All of a sudden it was called Grantland. So nobody under 80 knew Grantland Rice, I assume. Right, right.

Which is perfect. The designer of the website, who was an older gentleman by the name of Walter Bernard, he just put it in as a temp and he liked Grantland Rice. And then at some point, John Skipper, who ran ESPN, was like, I kind of like Grantland. It's growing on me. And I'm like, and I was like, no, we can do better than that. And he's like, well, top it. And I couldn't top it.

All right, here's the question. Did Skipper then later end up taking credit for it? No. All right. No, he wouldn't have done that. Was Grantland Rice the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse guy? Yeah. He was like one of the first great sports writers.

He might have even been the first. So let me ask you ask you this when the thing is it was an easy title to remember which we didn't realize at the time you could spell it you could remember it and that's really all that matters with the title and it sounds like a place too which is cool yeah totally um when you go back and read that early sports writing it's weird it's weird it almost reads like fiction even if you go into the 50s, like the first decade of Sports Illustrated, a lot of it reads like short stories. All right. So who do you think is the first kind of modern sports writer whose writing still holds up as like writing now? Because I have my answer.

Well, I mean, you'd probably say Dan Jenkins, right? Because if you go back and read his— I could go back a little further though. Maybe. There's one, one guy. Who? Red Smith. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

He's a good writer. Yeah. When I was young, wanting to be a writer, I read him. I read Ring Lardner. I loved Ring Lardner, but he's very dated now. But Red Smith, what I appreciated was how hard he worked. And he used to show up at the press box at a stadium before a game and write a children's book just to pay the rent. And someone once asked him about, you know, does writing come hard? Does it come easy? He said, yeah, writing is easy.

You just sit down and open a vein. That's a good way to put it. That's, you know. Well, the style of how the – especially how they wrote newspaper columns back then, it was a lot of like short paragraphs. It just had a different rhythm because of the way people read stuff back then. I think online has definitely changed that rhythm and there's a lot longer paragraphs and things like that. Just, you can always tell what decade something's been written, I feel like. I also think the huge difference in the relationship between the writer and the athlete, you know, it's gone under a few revolutions by now. And I don't like where it is right now.

Oh, it sucks. It sucks. Let's talk about this now. We can get back to the free. I want to hear the other part of the Freakonomics story later. But, yeah, the dynamic shifted because the athlete doesn't need the writer anymore. Right. And there was a time when they used to really need the writer and now they don't need them at all. There's also the, the kind of the socioeconomic thing, you know, um, I knew us, I knew some sports writers who are now probably

in their seventies, eighties, and they were talking about when they were doing it, if you were covering, let's say the Yankees on a beat in the you know 60s the salary between the athlete and the sports writer wasn't that different right and even a lot look uh you know famously like frank didn't frank gifford used to work in the offseason as a football player still i know all the celtics did they like is that right frank ramsey sold insurance in the off season and stuff like that. Right. So, you know, there was this whole idea that the guys who are covering you, they're working guys just like you. And then obviously it changed.

I don't begrudge athletes the money they're making. But the dynamic between how we think about them has exploded. And then the race part is interesting too, because, you know, when you've got a lot of white sports writers writing about a bunch of black athletes who are making 20 times more than the white sports writers' parents ever could have made, it becomes an interesting window on the world. When I was researching my basketball book, I was kind of stunned by how some of the NBA players are written about in the 60s and 70s. Give me a for instance. A lot of the Sports Illustrated pieces, because that's where I found a lot of my profiles about people like Moses Malone and George Gervin

and the way they wrote about them. It just would not fly now. As if they're an exotic. Yeah, people, the way they would quote them in real dialect. Right, right, right. And kind of some of the stuff they would say they would make it clear that the guys weren't that smart and it's it's uh it's awkward to read i just remembered i have a problem with you and that book which one the book of basketball oh yeah i have i have a

few problems with it too no no it's not that kind of problem um do you remember the pub date of that book? Yeah, it was, uh, October like 27th, 2009. Uh, that sounds right. So that same week we were, or whatever the week was, we had published Super Freakonomics. I think I remember this. You were one of the people I knew I had a chance to get to number one. You were on the radar. Yeah. And we thought we had a chance to get to number one.

Yeah. And we thought we had a chance to get to number one. Yeah. And we thought we had a really good shot unless there was some new book that week. Because we knew that no book that was already out was going to sell more than we were going to sell. Yeah, like Mitch Albom had been out for a couple of weeks and Gladwell's thing had been out for like two months. I remember. But then we were number two to you.

Congratulations. I gamed it. I did the Billy Bean money ball of it. You picked a bad week? no 05 they released my book and all the pre-orders

and I'm pushing the book in like two months before it came out not realizing the pre-orders just counted for that week oh so then when I got when the book actually came out

a lot of people bought it didn't count for the first week and I I'm just competitive so I was like so if I ever do another book I gotta figure out figure out how the system works. They changed the pre-order thing. So it counted for the first week. And then all the signings you do at book tour stops, that all counts. So I was like, all right, if I do all these book signings, these seven days,

that will count. I was like psychotic about it. I hope you're happy with yourself because- I'm embarrassed by it, to be honest. I don't know why I cared so much. Well, if it matters, I'm really... Levitt and I, we're the only ones that you really hurt. And I forgive you. Maybe Mitch Album a tiny bit. I don't know. He had somebody who was dead. But he was already out that week,

right? No? Or you're saying that was... He had a street going, I think. Yeah. But nowadays, though, I'll never read another book, but. How come? I just don't want to. I don't want to put the time in like that. And I would rather put the time in, you know, like we're just too busy. I don't have the time to disappear. But can you, so this is something I think about all the time doing a weekly show.

Could you envision a time when you want to get off the weekly or in your case, daily hamster wheel and say well i have a two day a different kind of hamster wheel because i'm doing like five things but one of them is three podcasts a week and then a rewatchable so i know i have the four but i'm sure you identify with this like you just had the 10 year anniversary yeah so i just feel like i can do the pods now it's just it's like breathing right i pods now. It's just, it's like breathing. Right. I can prepare for them a certain way.

It's not, I'm not like, oh my God, I'm so tired. I just did a pod. It's like, I could just do, I could do eight in a week if I wanted to. I understand that. But can't you envision, or maybe this is me asking the question myself. Can't you envision a time when rather than putting out something once a week or four times a week that you'd rather say, you know what, I'm going to have a window of two years and take one big idea. In other words, write a book. Cause that's what I think about now,

which would also, which would almost at this point feel counterintuitive or counter cyclical to the way the business is. Cause everybody says, you know, books are whatever still declining, right? But we don't know that. I mean, podcasts are just radio on the computer. Well, the audio book part of it has grown exponentially. So if you did a book now, the audio book part would be probably as big of a reader listenership as the readership. And what I like about audio books now is they're starting to get good. Like Malcolm's book, did you listen to Talking to Strangers on the audio by any chance? No, I read it. I'm still not an audio book guy. So the reason I would argue most people haven't been audio book guys is because they're terrible. Yeah. Because the narrators, um, a lot of writers are not good narrators. And then a lot of paid

narrators, especially for nonfiction are very stiff, right? So you don't feel the writing, but I think now like Malcolm did it with that. that, the Beastie Boys, Beastie Boys put out a great book that was kind of like a scrapbook maybe six months, a year ago. And the audio version, they conceived it as a totally standalone audio experience. And it's great. It's got music, obviously. It's got all different kinds of readers. So I think, yeah, I think writing the next book and making the right audio version will be worth it. I just did. So I did the book of basketball 2.0 basically as a pod and cause I didn't want to write another book, but I figured there's all

the stuff that happened in the NBA the last 12 years or things that happened in the league the last 12 years that made me change how I thought about certain guys like Reggie Miller. And could I do a mix of pods, some written stuff, things like that. I really had a good time. I liked the immediate response to it versus when you write a book, you basically go into a bunker. It's true. And you're just doing it for a year. You have nobody to talk about it with.

And I wrote, I think, two-thirds of my book or 60% of it at this one, at this LePan coded in in my neighborhood. And I can't even go in there anymore. I have like PTSD. I just, I look in there and I just think of like hundreds of hours of just typing. But doesn't a part of you, I mean, maybe not, but doesn't a part of you love that deep immersion and walling yourself off from the world? I did.

I just, for what we're doing now, where we have all these people. I'm not saying you should write one now, but I'm saying like five years from now, you're going to say, man, there's nothing more I'd like than to not have to look. I used to drop my daughter off at preschool and then right at this weird Starbucks near a preschool in the valley.

And like all these weird people would start coming at 10 o'clock. Like, I was like, is that a porn star? What's going on there? Get into the set. You think they thought you were as weird as you thought they o'clock. Like, I was like, is that a porn star? What's going on there? Getting to the set. You think they thought you were as weird as you thought they were? Yeah, meanwhile, I'm like, I have my giant glasses on.

I'm typing in the corner, drinking some 20 ounce coffee. I did miss that whole process though, but it's lonely. When did you move out here? I moved out here in 02. Why? To work for Jimmy Kimmel Show. I like how you flipped this podcast. I know.

I know what you're doing. This is what I do. You're like the host now. But I do want to ask you about, so the Spotify you sold, the ringer has been sold to Spotify. Wait, can we get back to Freakonomics? We can in a minute, but just give me a little bit on that because it's fascinating. Yeah, we sold the ringer to Spotify. So what is, when you sell a property like the ringer, it includes what? And what I really want to know is if you can tell me, it includes you for how long? It includes how much on that deal includes how much of you for how,

I don't mean money. I don't mean money. I mean, what's your commitment. How does that work? I have made a major commitment. Right. So that means you're, you're going to do basically at least what you're doing now for the next X years. Right. Okay. What do you mean? And more and more years or more than you're doing now trying to help them figure out a whole bunch of stuff, like all their plans going forward. I also like, I just need to work. I don't know what I would do. I'm not one of those people who, I remember when I got suspended from ESPN and I was, it was done for three weeks and I couldn't work. I wasn't allowed to go to the office. Yeah. What'd you do? And I was, and you know,

you don't want to work. And normally I would have been like, well, I'll bank some columns. I was like, fuck those guys. I'm not working. And I just like played golf and I drove my kids to school and like, I just went to get like coffee

at two in the afternoon. I was like, this is great. How long did that last? Not working is awesome. Well, then you get back in the grind right away. Yeah, but if you hadn't,

let's say you hadn't, would you have been happy doing that? No, because then after I finally left in May 2015, when I was figuring out whatever the next thing was, and I was like, oh, it'll be like when I get suspended, this will be great. And within a week, I was like now trying to figure out what the next thing was. What's your handicap? I'm not that good. 18?

No. 15? No, I don't play enough. 12? 20? It depends. If I'm playing like twice a week, I can't play enough. 12? 20? It depends. If I'm playing like twice a week, I can be in the 90s. Why do you play?

Yeah. I took it up maybe 8, 10 years. I mean, it's one of the LA benefits. There's a lot of golf courses. The weather's nice. It's great. It's relaxing. But, you know, it's a lot of time.

Also time consuming. It's a lot of time. Yeah. Even if you play at like 2.30 or 3.30, 6.30. My strategy in New York is to play First Thing in the Morning alone fast. So it can be like an hour 45. Can we go back to the book? Sure.

Yeah. Book comes out. You mean Freakonomics? Book comes out. Yeah. And it's a massive hit. No, not in the beginning. It was definitely a surprise.

Oh, it was like a slow riser? It was a very slow. Okay. So I don't mean to. It wasn't a failure. It was definitely a surprise. Oh, it was like a slow riser? It was a very, so, okay, so I don't mean to, it wasn't a failure. It was a success at first. We hit the Times list our first week, which surprised and delighted us. We were number five, I think. But then when you looked at the numbers, like you'd be shocked at how few you have to sell to be number five on there. And you know, especially if it's off season or not, mid-October. And for people who don't know, it's like, the Times has a lot of lists.

There's like hardcover, nonfiction, paper, you know, now there's even more. So we were number five on the hardcover nonfiction list, which if I had died right then

as a writer, I would have been thrilled. But then you get a little greedy and then things started going better. But like, the publisher and the publicist that the publisher had tried to get us on TV and we just got no bites, zero, zero, zero, zero. And then even when the book came out and it got a great review in the Wall Street Journal,

which helped and some other good stuff started to happen, but we still couldn't get on TV, which the publisher seemed to think was really important. And then we did, then we wrote an op-ed or yeah, I guess an op-ed for USA Today. Oh, wow. Remember USA Today? I do. It's still there, you know. I know, I'm aware. It's at hotels. And it's funny because, you know, I'd been at the New York Times and USA Today was not the kind of newspaper that was considered like the classy outlet to excerpt a book in, right? But we did it there because we thought there was something about this book that like actual normal people, not necessarily pure intellectuals would really, you know, gain from. So we wrote that. Then as it turns out, all the morning show bookers read USA Today.

They don't read the Times necessarily. They're like, who are these guys? So then we went on, I think, the Today Show first. Matt Lauer, the, what's the proper word? Not discredited. Disgraced. Disgraced. Thank you.

And at the end of the segment, he literally said, whoa, this is really interesting. What else is in this book? And so we said, there's baby names, there's real estate. Then I said, would you come back and do some more? And then we started to do that. And then like ABC got involved and they said, hey, why don't you come do a regular gig on GMA with Diane Sawyer? So it started to build. And then it became like this thing where, you know, for two or three years we're on the list. And that was remarkable. It was an incredible run. It was, you know, it was very fortunate. I mean, most of my friends in New York are writers. Most of them have better education than me. I don't know if I think I may work a little harder, but, you know, a lot of

people write a lot of books that are pretty good and full of smart stuff and you just need a lot of luck. So we got it. And then it's kind of the podcast I started 10 years ago because books are, as you said, a little boring. Yeah. And and sitting in a room alone, my co-authors in Chicago. So we collaborate. But, you know, it's not like you're having a party. So I thought starting a radio show slash podcast would be a nice way to have a little bit of collaboration sometimes. And then the flip script and podcasts became bigger than books. And so I, this is what I do full time, you know, 40, 50, 70 hours a week now. Yeah. You formed that, that 09, 10 range when

like, that's when Corolla got in, Mark Maron started. That was when people started to see the potential. Yeah. I mean, to me, the big podcasts at the time were just the big public radio shows, This American Life, Radioolab. I had mine for two years and I had no idea how well it was doing. They wouldn't tell me. It wasn't ESPN. Oh, really? I had like the first big sports one, but I had no idea what that meant. It started May 2007. Wow. And I started to feel like it was doing well because people were saying to me in the street, they're like, hey man, I love the podcast. And I'm like the podcast. Really? I was always so surprised. And then I would have a couple, I remember Seth Meyers, we were emailing and he's like, I really want to

come on the podcast. I love it. And I'm like, what? I just said, it just seemed inconceivable. But then the big thing that happened was it was right after this, it might've even been 08. I can't remember. It was right after one of the Super Bowls and ESPN all of a sudden was selling a couple of their podcasts to Sirius and they did this press release and my podcast was in it. And I'm like, this was 09. Not as one that was being sold, presumably.

And I was like, hey, saw this deal. I'm not getting paid for my podcast. It's not in my contract. So, yeah, let's talk about that. And they were like, oh, yeah. Oh, like. So I was visiting here, L.A., a few weeks ago with my wife and daughter. And we were driving through.

Is it Century City? Is that where all the tall buildings are with agency and studio names on? Oh, yeah. And my daughter, who's 18, she was saying like, and we're from New York. So she kind of knows what happens there. So what do people do? Like, who are these people? What do they do here? I asked that question every day. And I tried to explain to her that these are the people who get rich by having other people do work. And then these people kind of roll up the work and dice

up the work and distribute the work. And the people that do the work often don't get compensated fairly or well. Once in a while they do. And you hear about those, but basically they're sitting at the top of this, you know, kind of Ponzi, not a Ponzi scheme, but a pyramid scheme. We're seeing that now at the writer's strike. Exactly. Where Hollywood might shut down pretty soon. Right. Although it might shut down for other reasons if this coronavirus gets worse. But yeah, it was the whole packaging thing and agents double dipping or agents being

involved in multiple ways in the same projects and things like that. And I know everybody on both sides and it doesn't seem like there's an answer to it. I have a lot of friends who are on like the agency side. I love my agents. I do. And they've, they've created a lot of value for me. No kidding. But, um, the idea that the people who do work are compensated in a kind of haphazard random way with so many opportunities to not have it work out. I don't I just don't like it. Look, I'm not a socialist by a long shot. But the reason I left The New York Times, honestly, was because I was a union employee and I was pretty young

and there were older union. I was an editor at The Sunday Magazine and there were older union employees who were getting paid way more than I was just because they were older. They'd been there longer, but some of them had been dumped at the magazine as a kind of, you know, just to get them out of the way of foreign or whatever, because they weren't so good. And they would do very little work. And I was doing a lot of work and that's just the way it was going to be. And I thought, man, when you're an employee with no leverage over your output, but additionally, no leverage over your IP, it's just not a very good situation. So I just decided I was going to go and become a freelance writer, which was a little hard to leave the Times because when you're at the Times, every phone call you make, people jump and reply. Well, the Times, I would say in 2020 is

probably in the strongest position it's been in 40 to 50 years. I don't— They made some good bets on different things, and the competition has been weeded away in a lot of different respects. Yeah. And it's—I don't want to say they're a monopoly because they're not because there's other ones in place, but they're certainly as powerful as they've ever been. Yeah. And I think they're as dominant in the journalism sphere as they've ever been. No question.

And the podcasts have been obviously a really good. And that's a big growth area for them. Because I don't even feel like they've tapped into it yet. You know, they've been doing podcasts a long time. Maybe as long as you were. Maybe longer, actually. Because when I started, actually, Freakonomics Radio started when we had our blog on nytimes.com. So it was just like we were the first separate outside brand, I think.

It was before Nate Silver. Yeah. So it was Freakonomics blog where we just had all kinds of writing on there. And we were on nytimes.com. And they would promote us from the homepage. It was really good. A lot of traffic. And it was really fun.

And then I started the podcast. And then we published the podcast from the blog because you needed somewhere to say, hey, there's this podcast. And it did well. The podcast did it off the bat. And then I went to the Times and it was like you. People would start to say, hey, you know, I heard the podcast like a lot more than I thought.

So I went to the Times. I said, this might be an actual viable thing, a business. Do you want to be my partner? Do you want to sell the ads? And we'll do it. And this is 2010. They said, no, we've been in podcasts for a while. It's a total waste of time and money we're getting out of it. It took them another like seven, eight years to figure out that they, the New York Times, what they should do is do the daily, which is take the resources that are in that building and all over the world and turn that reporting into a daily news show. But all the big institutions didn't see it because I was fighting. That's really why things fell

apart with me and ESP and everything else, because I wanted more resources for Grantland. I thought we had a chance to be a really great multimedia site. We had 45 people. It was like, we should have 70. And they were like, well, you know, we're not making a ton of money on the written side. I'm like, yeah, but the podcast side you can make money on. And that's, we could dominate that space, sports and pop culture and make real money. I know what the prices are out there that people are getting. And they just didn't see it. I had the head of radio at the time telling me like, yeah, we just don't think there's money in podcasts. And do you think they didn't see it or couldn't focus on it because they were just too worried about being behind the game in terms of switching from, you know, cable, et cetera, to digital? Was that their concern?

No, I think it's more simple. I think it's, it's a common theme where you have somebody who has a huge lead and is really strong in something and just wants to protect the lead versus thinking about, oh shit, instead of just protecting the lead, we should actually be throwing on first down and we should be taking chances. They did take chance when I, from 09, 10, 11, 12, 13 13 the company did take chances with stuff like it was weird that i mean 30 for 30 etc and grantland they were there at a website they didn't need to do that but they were doing a lot of stuff like that they didn't necessarily have to do even the undefeated places like that um but with the podcast the people that ran radio it was small

potatoes to them yeah and know, they just didn't see the value in it. They didn't say they're going to sell it. It was a boutique thing and they weren't a boutique company. They were a meat and potatoes, giant company that wanted to have giant. Well, also what you're describing is pretty much the way most firms and industries are, which is they're good at, I mean, I don't mean to disparage big firms and companies and institutions, including government. They do really important work, but on the creative side, that's not what they do. So I'm guessing you've had the same experience with book publishing, with film, TV, book publishing. Book publishing actually is probably my worst experience.

Because why? Because they're bad. They do a bad job. And it's a really high risk, low return market. And then they all don't understand why it's so high risk, low return. Yeah. And because I was just stunned by my experiences. They were really bad. And then- I ran out of books at every book tour stop I had in 2009. And I was like, we knew the book was going to sell.

You had an idea. And then if there's a success, they immediately commission a hundred like imitations of it, thinking that their brilliance is to make. And part of the problem is that Hollywood has been fairly successful with sequelizing things. So I think that's set a standard for all companies, but I just don't think that creativity, like I just don creativity – I think that creativity and actually coming up with ideas and originality is really undervalued. And people don't understand how creative people actually work. They think it's just some magic dust. Right, a formula that can be replicated by the, by the big firms.

But then when you hear an actual original thinker like Steve Leavitt, my coauthor, he's, he's a lunatic. He just has ideas that other people don't have. And 99% of them might be really bad, but the 1% is like nothing you would have ever thought of, you know, Richard Feynman, the physicist. I love people like that. When they talk about the way that they see the world, and that's, this is a lot of what we try to seek out in Freakonomics, is people who actually understand how things work beneath the surface. And that's really rare. And I don't think it's celebrated enough. You know, we kind of – we embrace imitation.

We embrace, you know – and sports is interesting because there actually is a lot of innovation. But you see, even with that, like look how long it takes for something a little bit out of left field to get fully accepted into sports. The minute there's a coach who says, you know what? No, I'm not going to punt ever. Or I'm going to have, you know, a starting pitcher go two innings instead of seven, you know, start with the close or whatever. The minute anybody has that kind of idea, they're almost immediately ridiculed as the idiot. We've seen in basketball right now with the Rockets, where the last decade we had where they realized more and more, more threes, more threes, faster pace.

And now the Rockets, they took everything that was happening and they were like, we're putting this on steroids and HGH. We're throwing away a center. We're shooting 53s. We're spacing the floor completely. And we're taking all these different ideas and we're just throwing the kitchen sink at them. And how's it working? It's been working so far. Yeah. It's interesting. But when you're talking about creativity,

and apologies, people have heard me mention this before, but it's really frustrating to me. I think people miss over and over again where really good things happen, whether it's a great TV show or a great movie or a book like the one you wrote or whatever. It's usually one or two people in that set. Yeah. And I think where you get in trouble over and over again, and we're seeing it right now with Apple TV, there's 10 people involved in that. Whereas like Game of Thrones, for example, they were just like, hey, these two guys, can you figure this out as a show? They're like, cool. And they went off and they figured it out and they left them alone. And they, you know, I'm sure they had some notes process, stuff like that. But for the most part, it was those two guys driving that. The Wire was

one guy. Breaking Bad was one guy. You go through all the, Mad Men was one guy. You go through all the great TV shows. It's one person or two people. That's it. It's not eight. And yet you see these TV networks. They're like, yeah, so we're having a big note session. There's 20 people at the table. It's like, this has never worked ever in the history of mankind. I couldn't agree more. But that's the way it's got. That's why they have the big buildings in century city. They've stacked the economy to work in that direction for them, but then they need to sustain it.

So they have to have the best thing that happened to us with 30 for 30 is everyone ESPN thought it was going to tank. So they left you alone. Yeah. For nine months, me and Connor show, we just got to plan the whole thing. Everybody else was like, well,

they're never greenlight in that. That's not working. So nobody else kind of got in there. And then from a position of strength, we were able to add the right people and we had the idea and we had the momentum and then it worked. But if we'd had nine people in the first nine months, it would have been a disaster. Now your warm relationship with Roger Goodell notwithstanding, what's your position generally on football in the future thereof as a sport and a business? I'm actually buying football stock. Yeah. And I wasn't for a while, but. You weren't

because CTE, because. I thought the CTE concussion. Was going to be bigger. I didn't think they would be able to figure out how to take out some of the violence. I just thought it was ingrained in how the guys played. Right. And I just didn't see a path to like a safer, smarter football. And you do now? They've done a better job than I thought. And I also think like, here's the reality. Most of these sports are unsafe in some way. And it's like, if you go to a hockey game versus a football game,

football is going to be more violent, but guys are getting nailed in hockey. Guys are getting nailed on the boards all the time. Guys are getting hit by pucks. You go to a soccer game. Yeah. All the headers. I mean, even like high school, my daughter just finished a high school soccer season. It was three kids on the team had a concussion.

She got crushed twice. It was just so much more physical than I was prepared for. And, you know, football is the worst part of it and has the possibility of like you might put your head down and get paralyzed. Like there's more variables to terrible things. But for the most part, most sports have a variable. And I think lacrosse is another one. Lacrosse is really dangerous. A lot of head injuries.

So it's basically like unless we're just going to end up in a world where everyone's playing golf. Hey. Hey, not a bad idea if you're going to play a contact sport or a running jumping or physical whatever like there's no 100 safety right backgammon's pretty safe i find chess chess yeah i don't know even tennis you know did you read about that uh there was a piece going around fight maybe it was no it's not a chess fight it was about the caloric burn from playing chess. And it was huge. It was something like you're burning 2,500, 4,000 calories during a chess match from purely cognitive mental energy. Yeah. Can you believe

that? That's how they always say like sex can be like 600 calories. That's a little physical. Yeah. But that makes sense. It's less than chess well imagine uh sex with chess maybe that's your heavy chess yeah hey this is how great ideas happen but the football thing i think live rights have become so much more important than there's more streaming partners for it the tv rights are going to be the highest they've ever been yeah and people still really care people still watch super bowl they and all the highest ratings are always football games. So to say, like, this is the beginning of the end, I don't know. I mean, I think the NBA is more global and more interesting from a ceiling standpoint.

As long as Daryl stops tweeting. As long as he stops tweeting and crushing countries. But, yeah. Do you know him at all? I do. Yeah. I feel so bad for him because obviously not his intention

in the whole thing but he felt like he was being active the same way Steve Kerr was being active or Popovich. Right.

And at the same time he had friends there he knew there would be some stakes to it. I don't think anybody could have predicted it would make the salary cap

go down. Did you do the MIT Sloan conference this year? I didn't do it this year because I'm... I know you were there. I was there last year. I know you did. Oh, yeah. You interviewed Stern.

No, I didn't. Silver. Silver, yeah. And we talked a lot about mental health and it became a big story, which I didn't realize it was going to become, became like this five-day news cycle about him being concerned about the mental health of his players.

Launched all these side arguments. And I got to, sometimes if I'm doing an interview or a pod, sometimes I'll know like, Oh, this will turn into something that time. I didn't know that was going to happen. And it was,

it meant the whole mental health and mental happiness, all that stuff was, had become a storyline anyway. And it just kind of piled into that and became this bigger thing about athletes and how we treat them, how we talk about them. 2019 was fascinating for that. Agree. I also think this is something we looked at. We did this hidden side of sports series where we tried to get a bunch of different pieces of sports that are a little more freakonomical. One of them was this idea that I've been interested in for a long time. I wrote a book about Franco Harris years ago, who was my childhood hero. Oh, yeah. And then I tracked him down as an

adult and spent some time. And it was the same question I had back then is what is the afterlife of an athlete really like? Because, you know, for the average fan, they see this person on TV during a game. First of all, during a game represents like 3% of their life as an athlete. They're training. They're doing stuff. So you're seeing them only in this most packaged, celebrated moment. You don't see all the rest of it. But then afterwards, you know, you're 28, you're 32, you're 35 and you're done. And the thing that you've always been good at, the thing you've always loved, the thing that you've made your living on. And, you know, again, we focus on the tip of the iceberg, the guys who make 40, 100, 200 million million, but most of them don't. So what do you do? Like, what are you supposed to do then?

And how do you navigate that? And I find that to be, and the mental health components while you're playing of trying, because there's that conflict. Everybody's telling the players, you gotta prepare for the life after. But if you prepare too much, then your career goes sideways. If you're spending all your time trying to make investments, trying to line up something else. So I think that I love sports. I think that America loves sports.

I think we generally look at it the way we look at Hollywood, however, which is we see the veneer and don't really understand much how it works. And that's a bummer because I think you I think it would it would behoove everybody to have a greater understanding of how everybody does their stuff. But the minute somebody is kind of elevated and celebrated, we turn them into superheroes and they don't count as regular people. I think that's kind of stupid. I think it's amazing how the NBA has evolved in that respect. How so? Where you have these guys that retire and they still stay relevant in whatever way. I mean, you just saw it with all the month long discussion about Kobe, but all the things he was involved with just after he retired. In the old days, it was like

John Havlicek retired in 1978. And it's like, well, what's he going to do now? Is he going to maybe open some hardware stores? You didn't know. And now these guys, they're either in TV or they still are able to sell shoes or they're just around the game. The NFL has had a lot more trouble with that. Unless it's a quarterback, you see running backs, receivers, linebackers, defensive ends who are the best at their position for five, six, seven years.

And then you never hear from them again. Also, you're talking volume. I mean, 53 guys on a roster in the NFL. It's a lot of people. Shorter careers. Yeah. So somebody like LeBron, he's been in our lives now almost 20 years, dating back to when he was a junior in high school.

And then when he retires, guess what? He's still going to be in our lives. He'll have some weird TV show or some podcast. He'll have some company. He'll probably try to buy a part of the ownership of a team. Like he's not going away. You follow esports? Yeah.

I haven't really fully bought into the esports thing yet. I don't personally care, but it was just, I think for a couple of years there, everybody was like, this is the next big thing. But the people that seem to be pushing it the hardest were people who own stakes in the difference. Exactly. Rich guys. They're like, this is the next big thing. You got to get in.

It's huge. And it's like, oh, you own 25% of the Houston force. I think, I mean, probably most NBA teams own a team at this point. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, but the numbers are good. Numbers are great. The turnover is, I think,

what makes it hard for me to imagine it's the next big thing where you have stars that are just done by the time they're 23. Right. Stars that aren't a star all of a sudden. Right.

It's almost like professional wrestling multiplied by a million. What's your favorite sport at the moment? Still basketball? Always basketball? I'm basketball and football. And I used to be baseball. What happened with you in baseball? Those used to be the three equal. Yeah. Oh, really? And then I just, baseball is really hard during the regular season. It's just not as fun to watch. Do you gamble? Oh yeah. Yeah. Does that not make baseball interesting enough? Everyone who listens to this podcast is laughing that you just asked about my gambling. Yeah. I love the gambling. Cause that not make baseball interesting enough? Everyone who listens to this podcast is laughing that you just asked about my gambling.

Yeah, I love the gambling. Because that's all you talk about? No, it's a topic during football season. But has gambling not made baseball more interesting is what I'm asking? Not enough. Yeah, they, no, not really. I think when they'd have in-game live betting, that could be the thing that saves. They have to figure out how to do it so that the people in the park don't have an advantage

and all that stuff. And maybe it's just between innings. Right. Between batters or how you time that. That's the part they haven't grabbed. But, you know, when we used to go, we used to have all these different games when we used to go to games

when I was in high school and college where you have the home run pool where you pass the hat around. If you're holding the hat, when somebody hits a home run, you put pass the hat around. If you're holding the hat, once somebody hits home run, you put everything in the hat or you pick half innings where you think there's going to be a home run

or whatever. It's perfect for that stuff. So if they can figure that out, I think it would really help it. Yeah, yeah. Hey, companies around the world are solving their most important challenges with Google Cloud, like PayPal,

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a pretty active political week. I don't know if you know this, but Super Tuesday is happening right now. When we put this podcast up, we'll probably know who won the different states. Larry Wilmore, Black on the Air, has been on fire lately. Great guests every week. Had Stacey Abrams a couple weeks ago,

Lester Holt. Check that one out. I enjoy it immensely. And then the Press Box, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker. I'm guessing they're doing an emergency podcast later tonight about everything that happened on Super Tuesday. But that is one of my favorite podcasts.

You know what I like about that podcast? It starts the same way every time with the music. Curtis goes, David! And then he launches into his thing. That's just a really good podcast. I'm proud of that one. So anyway, check those out. Check out the Ringer Podcast Network. Back to this podcast. In general, what's

your take on the whole gambling thing? People seem to feel like this is like the big untapped revenue stream right now. Something like $300 billion. Every time they think there's going to be eight, nine, 10 more states by the end of this year, probably 25 in three years.

And they just feel like there's so much money coming in. I was also really impressed with how DraftKings kind of played it. You know, maybe FanDuel as well. I don't really know as much about that. FanDuel's caught up. Yeah. But the idea was, you know, to build

a fantasy sports product and market, which was really a stalking horse for when actual sports betting happened. And that was just smart because now they're, they're there, they have all the infrastructure to do it. So. Well, they also have, they're getting in real time, day-to-day a sense in these small sample size markets, what could work for 50 states and the rhythm of like, oh, Superbowl. Like there's, even in the Superbowl, the recent one that just happened with the Chiefs was third and 15 down 10. Mahomes, the famous 44-year-old play that turns the game around. There was a big instant replay break before that where they overturned a cost. So you have like five, six minutes there and everybody's live betting.

And they made the Chiefs line too high basically everywhere. So it was like the Chiefs were plus 700, Chiefs were plus 800. And anyone who jumped in on that, the next play, 40-fire yard pass, all of a sudden they're in scoring range. And then it flips back down. All of a sudden they're plus 150. But for that six minutes, they got crushed. Everybody. And that's the part where if you get crushed in those six minutes, it ruins all the other momentum you had and all the other bets during the day. So stuff like that, I think, is really

interesting. The science of that, how it's reported, the technology, there's so many variables to it that I think are going to be really interesting to follow how they solve. Yeah. I mean, I generally think legalizing something that's got when there's a black mark, when there's a big black market that generally doesn't serve that many people very well. So I think it's obviously if it's something that people are going to do, whether it's drugs or, you know, gambling, that some kind of regulation legalization is almost always better. One issue. We also have test cases like in.

Yeah. In the UK, they have. Although in the UK, they've actually they're pretty concerned about sports gambling among a certain cohort. There's a lot of like 14 to 28 year old men who are ruining their lives from sports gambling, or so they say. Really? Yeah, yeah. I haven't seen that yet. Yeah.

And they keep dialing back the, you know, they keep regulating a little bit stricter. But, you know, it's really interesting. There's a lot of issues of regulation between the UK and the US that are very, very different. So, for instance, vaping, like vaping here. So there was the vaping crisis here where people were dying. Yeah. And immediately that made everyone think

that all vaping was dangerous. But it turns out that the only people who were dying were using THC products, most of which were bootlegged or black market, okay? Coming from China. Wait, don't tell Kyle vaping's good. No, I'm back on the regular cigarettes. I'm happy.

All right, good. Okay, great. Kyle had a big vaping phase, and it was big. We had a family intervention. Are you serious? No, not that bad. There was no intervention.

Are you really back on cigarettes? No, so no offense. You shouldn't be. I know. No, vaping is much better. Don't tell Kyle that. Well, maybe you should tell him. He was the one giving me all the grief. So no, at this point, the best science would seem to suggest at least

that vaping like a regular, you know, I want to say approved. They're not really FDA approved, but like, you know, a regular American made safe vaping product is definitely going to be better than smoking cigarettes because, you know, nicotine is not a bad drug. You can get addicted to it and have too much of it. But caffeine is a drug. Alcohol we use all the time. So nicotine is really not the problem. It's really the combustible stuff that's in a cigarette. So you're saying vaping. So it's the chemicals and the smoke that might be the problem. Yes, I am, including the arsenic and so on. And again, this is not saying that vaping is totally safe,

but from what the best public health people can tell so far, and it hasn't been going on that long, is that a good safe e-cigarette is definitely going to be better long-term than actual cigarettes. What happened is- Let's take a break and talk about Marlboro Lights. Marlboro, no, no, sorry. Keep going. But in the UK, so the problem problem there was like a kind of knock

on problem here of young people starting people who would never have smoked cigarettes were now taking up vaping and getting addicted to nicotine so this was a problem yeah so when the thc related deaths were happening people wanted to throw out the entire vaping category to make it illegal to everybody all the time and this is you know we're still in the middle of it, but there's, but they've backed off that regulation in the UK. There were no vaping deaths because apparently people weren't using these illegal products that were tainted. But additionally, they don't have this huge problem with teenage nicotine addiction the way we do here. And when we looked into why this was, it turned out there was a very obvious answer, which is the UK got in early and they

regulated it. In other words, they saw that people were using e-cigarettes and they said, well, we have some choices here. We can either say we're going to ignore it or we're going to ban it, in which case people are going to probably use illegal stuff, which might be dangerous, or we're going to come up with some sensible regulations, knowing even though we wish people wouldn't consume nicotine, we know that people want to. So we're going to kind of try to come up with something. So what they did there is they allowed and regulate e-cigarettes, but they have about, I think, 20 percent the volume of nicotine that American e-cigarettes have.

And so they don't have this massive youth addiction problem. So to me, that's a great illustration of, I'm not saying the UK solution is perfect. I'm not saying the US solution will be terrible, but it's a good example of how you want to regulate early and smart. And with gambling here, sports gambling here in the US now, I think there's a good chance to do it right because it's big, it's happening fast. But I think one thing that you have to really watch out for is what they call the problem gamblers. Because if you've got a teenage son or if you're the teenager, you don't want to ruin your life by being addicted to chasing something. Nobody under 18 should be able to do it. And it should, I don't think this is rocket science. Like you should just have a card and the card should keep track of all the bets you

made. You should be able to look at it on a website. And if you lose, I don't know, $1,500 in a month or a thousand in a month or whatever the number is, then everybody decides the card shut off and you can't gamble with card anymore. And that's it. You're not gambling legally in the country. And I don't think this is that hard. And when you talk about the

regulation of vaping, like, look, the, the vaping thing was a big thing in the LA schools here. I obviously have a daughter in the ninth grade at an LA school here. And I've heard a lot of the stories and the horror stories and different things. The lack of regulation, you think about like if we did this with condoms, right? Where you'd be like, I could just buy condoms at a grocery store or these other ones, they seem like they're condoms. I'm just going to put them on. Nobody would do that. But we were doing that with vaping. It was like, hey, I have this vape pen. It's like, where'd you get it? I don't know. I'm just going to suck it in my lungs. And you think how stupid that was. And obviously teens are stupid anyway,

and they're always going to gravitate to the dumbest things possible. But in this case, it was like, wow, there's no way to even discern what's legal and not legal with vaping. And then you have poor Kyle. Well, the good ones were like 40 bucks. It's always like, you know, Juul is the one that runs it. It's like, I guess we have to pay that or you end up getting the stuff.

So what's your story now? Kyle, you're smoking how much now? No, he's fine. A pack will last me two days. All right. That's like 10 a day. Yeah. I mean, you know. That seems a little low.

Am I drinking? Am I not drinking? I don't know. What's coffee do to your smoking appetite? I switched to green tea because no sugar. So I, you can have coffee without sugar. Yeah, I know. I know. But I got to do the milk. It's legal. So I got rid of my second coffee during the day. I would have, I have a big coffee in the morning. It's like my favorite part. What do you put in it? Nice 20 ounce coffee, a little half and half, a tiny bit

of sugar. All right. I would have like a second, usually like a, like a latte at like four o'clock, 4.30 or something. I got rid of it. And the first two days, my body was like, hey man, what about that latte? Like I was like a cocaine addict. And then the third day, it was, my body was going, this is great. I feel much better. Thanks for not throwing that second latte in there. So now I'm down to one coffee. So what, what, what about that? So wait, the first one was not a latte

though. It was just a coffee with a little half regular giant coffee. Right. But a latte is a totally different drink than the coffee. It's a little more espresso, but sometimes I would have a whole lot of milk, right? Right. Which is right. So that's a different drink. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just different. But wait, uh, what's your concern with that second cup of coffee? You didn't want the caffeine? No, it would just kind of wake me up at four o'clock because your body's conditioning you. I'm tired. Go get me some of that thing.

And you didn't want to be woken up at four, you're saying? No, I just, now I feel more alert the whole day. It's great. Oh, really? Now I just have, I have like a green tea with like a tiny bit of caffeine in it. Do you know about the caffeine nap? You ever heard of that? No, what's that? So do caffeine nap? You ever heard of that? No.

What's that? So do you nap? I wish I could. It's one of the, it's, if I could buy one skill on the internet, I honestly would be a nap. I think naps are the fucking best. My daughter, my daughter can nap on command before like practices and games and is like great after. You just can't do it.

I can't do it. Well, all right. So I say this as a serial napper. I nap almost every day. I'm so jealous. And, um, but not for too long. Do you meditate? No, it's supposed to be like 20 minutes. Perfect. Right. Exactly. Do you meditate? No. You ever tried that? All right. So anyway, I kind of built my nap schedule the way you build a meditation thing. Like you kind of get in the zone for two or three minutes and you meditate for like 20, but meditating, I usually just fall asleep. So I figured I might as well just nap.

And so I have like a 22 to 27 minute nap. But the key is like after lunch, I get up early, I write all morning, have some lunch, then try to do some like work that needs to be done, but doesn't need your real brain. And then you drink that second cup of coffee and then immediately go to sleep for like the 22 to 27 minutes. The coffee makes you sleep. No, no, no. It doesn't make you sleep. You drink the coffee, but it usually takes between 20 and 30 minutes for most people to metabolize the caffeine.

Yeah, that makes sense. So if you go to sleep right when you finish the caffeine, the coffee, when you wake up, you're caffeinated, you're ready to go. It's like a whole second work day. You're like bionic. You're like the bionic man. Pretty close to bionic, yeah. You can see better. That's interesting a whole second work day. You're like bionic. You're like the bionic man. Pretty close to bionic, yeah. You can see better.

That's interesting. So I learned it from doctor. You know, when you have young residents who are working these crazy 18-hour shifts, they're making all these terrible mistakes. So they try to encourage them to nap. The problem is often when you nap, you wake up really,

it takes you a long time to get out of it. They use a lot of caffeine. So they started to use caffeine in a more strategic way. Interesting. Pre-nap. Steve Nash in the late 2000s was doing all this stuff that everybody does now. And half the people thought he was a kook.

And then his teammates were like, hey, man, can you teach me how to do that? But it was like no sugar, naps, certain diets, cutting out certain certain things when he ate dinner when when when is this 07 or 08 or 09 to eat dinner if you have a night game

we that's the thing when you're an NBA player part of the problem for them is they would have the game then they go out to dinner oh that can't midnight

that can't be good right and then they're up till 4 in the morning and then they you know and they're also flying all over the place there was all this science to it and now there's been a bunch of pieces that have been written the last few years about how these teams have made this an actual science of what and that they have stuff that stuff you can wear i think it's called whoop

and it's like a time release it's no it's a thing it's like a almost like an apple phone on your wrist it monitors everything like when you're asleep, what your heart rate is, all that stuff. Teams have all kinds of variations of that. So if you have a 7 p.m. game, let's say you're the player. Supposedly, you're supposed to nap. You practice late morning. You have a nap in the 2 o'clock range, I think. I'm going to tell JJ Reddick to talk about this on his podcast. Nap like two o'clock range i think jj i'm gonna tell jj reddick talk about

this on his podcast nap two o'clock range you want to eat around like four right big meal right and then after the game you want to restock with stuff but yeah i'm pretty sure you don't want to like really have a meal at midnight they say that the optimal nap is uh 12 hours from the peak of your nighttime sleep cycle. So if you sleep from, let's say, midnight to eight, let's just say, right? So 4 p.m. would when you'd want to take that nap. I found that your body, as you get older, the things that work for your body three years ago don't necessarily work anymore you know i've been trying this new thing where i only eat between 12 and 7 midnight midnight and 7 a.m you're talking yeah 12 p.m 7 but cut off at 7 yeah and every time i cheat then i notice i don't sleep as well the next day

but if i have nothing in my body like for the five hours before I fall asleep, I feel like I sleep better. But is that in my head? Right. No, I don't think so. So, you know, a guy won a Nobel, two or three people won a Nobel for studying circadian rhythms a couple of years ago. These guys, one guy was at Brandeis. He's the one I remember. And what's really interesting about that is, you know, circadian rhythm is basically how your body adjusts to daylight and night.

Right. So the argument is in the old and old and olden days before electricity and so on, even before, let's say, lamps, gas lamps or whatever, people would go to sleep when it got dark and they'd wake up when it got light. Now, depending on the time of the year, that might be 12 hours. Yeah. So nobody would sleep for 12 hours. Most people would wake up in the middle of the night and do some stuff and then maybe have a snack and then go back to sleep. So obviously, we're way, way off from that now. But the thing about circadian rhythms that is important, especially in an age where you can manipulate your environment, you can stay up all night, you can have all the lights you want and so on, is that the body still has this kind of built in software.

So the Nobel, what that was about was understanding how the circadian rhythm affects your health, but particularly medicine. So, for instance, I don't know a ton about this, but I think the story I'm about to tell is roughly accurate. Chemotherapy is notoriously ineffective for many, many people, and it's brutal. And a lot of medicines are pretty effective for some people and not for others. And there's a lot of mystery as to why that is. Now, granted, everybody's different biologically, genetically, and so on, but there seem to be more variants than could be explained by just that. What the circadian research seemed to indicate

is different people's biology works in concert with their circadian rhythms so that what you really want to do is understand every individual circadian rhythm to give them, let's say, their medicine or their chemotherapy at the time when they're most optimally receptive to it. So that, to me, is like what science is supposed to do, right?

You got the guys doing the actual bench science to say, hey, everything that we thought that we knew, we actually only knew like 5% of it. And now let's figure it out. So that's good stuff. One of the inefficiencies right now is the iPhone, the iPad, light like kyle has these special glasses now or what are those glasses called they're just for staring at stuff for staring at a screen is that whether that's the technical term the staring at stuff no blue light blocker i think right yeah but you know people if you read about it because my daughter does this and it fucking drives me crazy she's

falling asleep dark room and she's on the phone looking at tiktok before she falls asleep every story says don't do that that's terrible you're going to sleep badly and i think we haven't i'm one of those people that likes to watch tv when i fall asleep i i'm pretty sure that's bad that's a bad way to fall asleep when when a tv is playing in the background that's terrible you're's a bad way to fall asleep when a TV is playing in the background. That's terrible. You're not totally out and all that stuff. And it feels like the science of that this decade will just get more and more public

and prominent. Yeah, I agree. I definitely have heard a lot of smart scientists, sleep scientists talk about exactly this. So to me, the problem is this is like the same thing with vaping or bedding. It's like, if there's something that's really attractive, if there's something that you want, people are going to go get it. So you have to say, well, what are we going to do about it? We're going to like punish them. We're going to ban them. So to me, like in the sleep thing, I like using the positive incentive, which is persuading people how unbelievably good sleep is for you.

Yeah. It's like you can tell people, and this would be mostly true, you could eat a lot more garbage. You could be a lot stupider, et cetera. But if you sleep really well every night, then you're going to be a healthier, happier person, which is, which, which is I think pretty much true. So in other words, you know, look at the benefits of it. Cause I'm a, you know, I'm a kind of sleep fiend. I think it's super valuable. What if you're vaping and gambling with a blue light while you're sleeping? Is that perfect? Yeah, no, just sleep a little bit longer. You'll be all fine. I'm, I'm going to write a new book about the massage chair that my wife got me for Christmas. Kyle's favorite thing that exists in LA.

So we were in Vegas doing this Caesars Palace thing for The Ringer. Right. And we were staying in this giant suite they gave us because we were filming stuff there. And it had these two massage chairs. And everybody was, you'd go sit in them and they would do these things and people would just zone out and they'd get out and be like, oh, yeah, you just feel great. And I was like, I love these chairs. I went home, I Googled different ones. And so for Christmas, my wife, who's the all-time hit or miss Christmas gift giver, it's like either it's a grand slam home run or it's like a disaster. It's one or the other.

And she got me this massage chair and I got to say it's improved my life like 15%. I feel my head doesn't hurt anymore. No, this was December. All right. My head doesn't hurt anymore. I feel more limber. I feel just better. Anytime I'm a little like what it's so when Kyle comes over to my podcast, usually we

eat dinner and then he's just gone we're like where's Kyle he's in the chair he's just in the chair for an hour I'm doing three cycles if I got time doing different cycles who makes this chair? I don't even know

I got it as a gift but that I mean I'm sure they're all over the internet do your legs too? whole thing yeah it locks you in yeah and it just makes you its bitch

it flips you around it sticks your feet up no really? moves No, really? It moves you backwards. It beats the shit out of your back. It targets different areas. And I swear it's improved my quality of life by like 15%. Wow.

I feel better every day. I'm not even going to give you the brand because I don't want to make this a commercial for the massage chair. But yeah, it's stuff like that where you're like, oh yeah, that totally makes sense. My head doesn't hurt because I worked out all this dumb shit I had going because I sit too much and whatever. Anyway. It's a good argument for technology too. So like, you know, when we have all these discussions about like the disappearance of jobs, right. And everybody says, well, the more machines can do, the lesser is going to be for people to do. So you could say, I mean, this is an interesting example. You could say it lowers the productivity of people who give massages.

This chair does, but it raises your productivity. Yeah. And then you can hire more people who need more chairs. I think 2020 by somebody. I'm having a strong 2020. I know the chair is partially responsible. So wait a minute. I've done really good work so far.

How do you know now that the coffee is beneficial? That's helped me too. No, no, how do you know you got to separate these variables? It might just all be the chair. Oh, interesting. So if I went back to the second cup, give it a shot. You got to, whenever you're doing personal experiments, you got to just do one variable at a time. Otherwise that's why golf is so hard. You think that all you're doing is like tucking in your elbow, but you're doing two other things that you don't even know. That's why it's maddening. Let's face it. The real appeal to the cigarette, other than the cancer-causing addiction that ends up derailing everybody, does it?

It's the process of I'm going to go have a cigarette. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to have a smoke. i'm gonna go outside i'm gonna have a smoke i'm gonna think about my life i'm gonna get this instant brain stimulus and it's just that five minutes was always great and i was when i was at writer's block in the 90s i would have a cig at like 1 30 in the morning like the the clouds would clear for me nicotine is a good stimulant. In fact, nicotine is being used and experimented with clinically for a lot of things. ADHD, depression, Parkinson's even. So nicotine. So how do we get nicotine in people's bodies without also causing cancer?

I mean, the nicotine gum. Yeah. I mean, I know tons of people, as I'm guessing you do too, former smokers who've been chewing gum for 30 years because nicotine is addictive. That's the problem. It's like any substance that's addictive is too much is not good. But look, caffeine is addictive, right? If you've ever, anybody's ever been a coffee drink that went cold turkey or like on Yom Kippur, you don't drink coffee. Every Jew in America has a headache.

That's just the way it is. So you can cheat and have some no-dose. I get mad when people disgrace caffeine in any way. Caffeine's wonderful. Yeah, so I still don't understand why you gave up that second cup. That feels like a little bit of a capitulation. Well, I had the tea. The tea's been good for me.

You want me back? Well, I think the latte, a lot of cream. Yeah, that was a mistake. The latte was a mistake. I'm not saying it's a mistake. I'm not judging here. I'm just the latte, a lot of cream. Yeah, that was a mistake. The latte was a mistake. I'm not saying it's a mistake. I'm not judging here. I'm just saying that's a lot of caloric intake. That could slow you down a little bit.

It's a little bit like eating, you know, like when you eat a steak, like you feel your body saying, okay, we got to get down the engine room and get to work on that guy. So what do you have coming up on the pod? We should wrap this up. Yeah. Anything good coming for you in 2020? No. Nothing? Pretty subpar stuff.

Same here. No, we're doing, I guess we're doing a little bit more political. I hate politics because it's stupid. Yeah. But I care about the actual stuff.

So we're putting out a piece. Well, we just put out a piece on what socialism is or is not. We're doing a lot of stuff. What was the lessons of that? It was really interesting. So it turns out that nobody actually on what socialism is or is not. We're doing a lot of stuff. What was the lessons of that? It was really interesting. So it turns out that nobody actually knows what socialism is, including Bernie Sanders.

Not that Bernie doesn't know, but when Bernie talks about him being a democratic socialist, it's really a pretty poor use of the word as expressed by his own foreign policy advisor, Jeff Sachs. Jeff Sachs is an economist at Columbia. He's worked for the UN and all these other institutions. Wait, so you're telling me Bernie Sanders is full of shit about something? What? Shocking news.

What are you talking about? Bernie? Bernie? So what Bernie likes to talk about is Scandinavia and Scandinavia is not socialist. They're what you call social democracies with a mixed economy. Yeah. friendly, especially for people down the income bracket, which I think almost everybody does. Yeah, there are really good lessons to be learned. But most of the lessons that get talked about in the political discourse are not the right lessons. That's that's what we learned. We're doing stuff on health care costs. We're doing but mostly, you know, every week we try to come up with some idea that is just going to peak a little bit more below the surface at how the world really works. We're working on this piece right now about a group of gold star families who are suing

all these Western firms who were doing business in Afghanistan. And these firms were paying off the Taliban to not attack them and to not kill them and to not blow up their facilities. And as a result, they argue in this claim, U.S. soldiers were instead being attacked and killed. So it's a question of like, kind of, do you remember the club? Remember the thing that you put in your car to lock? Yeah, I had the club. All right. So when you had the club, what you did by having the club in your car was basically make the people who parked near you more susceptible to being broken into.

Right. So car thief. What do I care? It's not my car. It's exactly right. So you have the club. And what happens there is you deflect the risk onto the people next to you. Great.

Then along came LoJack, which worked and it's invisible to a car thief. So you don't know if a car has got LoJack on it. And if you steal it in 10 minutes, you might have the police chasing you because they got a call from the beeper, basically. That's a car Russian roulette for the stealers. Exactly right. I don't know. You don't know.

Exactly right. Is this bullet going off or not? So it's the same idea of like risk deflection when you decrease the risk for yourself do you increase the risk for others because there's this kind of predator out there and that's uh so we're working on this piece about that with the taliban which is pretty interesting so um you know kind of all kinds of stuff this seems like it's in your wheelhouse, just how the coronavirus is being dissected in the media and on social media. It's really our first social media panic health scare. I guess that's true.

You could have said SARS, but SARS was early Twitter. Ebola was, right? Like this, though? No, not as big as this for sure. This is like within a day. And I look at Twitter and there's eight tweet threads from people who I think are doctors about the eight things I should be doing. And then other people like, here's how bad it's going to get. Here's what you have to do. And people lecturing me and people getting mad about the lack of information. And, and I think this is actually a really, I'm actually buying that this is a really serious virus. I

don't think this is a full shit thing, but I also think we, the way the infrastructure is set up now, we can pretty much inflame hysteria about anything. Yeah, we're good at that. And it's hard to separate. Are we inflaming hysteria or is this a real thing? It's obviously a real thing because it's popping up in all these different cities and states. And now we're heading to this thing where people start looking at sports and entertainment and Coachella and NBA playoff games and the Olympics and start going, wait a second, these things might not happen. So the short answer I would say is no one knows for sure, because predicting the future

is pretty close to impossible, especially when there's variables like these. The longer answer would be that if you read a little bit of even science journalism, you don't have to read scientific papers, although there's a lot of work going on at the moment. But just don't read the regular journalism, at least read a little science journalism. People will learn a lot more and will probably be a lot less scared. Because look, we have influenza in this country. It's one of the leading killers every year. People die of it all the time. People die of a lot of stuff all the time. What I think is interesting is basically what you said, which is the degree to which the panic will either turn it into

something worse or just, you know, if there's a huge panic and the actuality turns out to not be that bad, is it a boy cries wolf? And the next time there's something that's more serious, that's another problem. So we're actually starting to work on a piece. So there's a guy at the University of Pennsylvania named Phil Tetlock, who's done a lot of science of prediction. Yeah. And he's going to work with another psychologist there, Angela Duckworth and a couple other

people. And what they're doing right now that we're kind of helping them with with Freakonomics is recruiting a bunch of people to make predictions about how coronavirus is going to play out. And then after it's played out, look back and see what are the characteristics of the people who are good and bad at predicting. And this is something that Phil Tetlock has done for years and years and years. And what he's found generally, when people try to predict, whether it's sports, geopolitics, stock market, whatever,

that the most visible people, the most high-profile pundits are usually about as good as a monkey with a dartboard. They're not very good for all kinds of reasons, including incentives. I'd like to include myself in basketball. I'm sure the beauty part is you can always make the boldest prediction you want. And as long as you don't get punished for it,

for being wrong, this is where betting markets are great. You're putting your money where your mouth is, but mostly people don't do that. So just go look at like the NFL pundits predictions. Then again, look at it versus any market and you'll see that they're mostly pretty terrible. Yeah. So the people who are the best generally at predicting anything, if there's one thing you want to be, it's non-dogmatic. You just don't want to,

you don't want to be too arrogant about it. You don't want to think you've got the whole thing figured out. You want to assess it. You want to take in as much information as you've got available and then assume that the future is probably much closer to the past than it is different. Yeah. Then you'll be a better predictor. Interesting. And except that you're predicting something and you're not going to be 100% right. You're saying I'm probably 71% right here.

71 is great. Are you kidding me? If you're 71 in the stock market, 29% chance I'm wrong. And that's it. This is where weather meteorology did a really smart thing years ago. First of all, they got better, but they're still not great. But they put a probability on it. So if they tell you 30% chance of rain tomorrow and it doesn't rain, they can say, yeah, but we told you, Bill, it was 70% chance there'd be no rain. Well, Nate's over this, right, in 2016.

He's like, hey, I didn't say Hillary was going to win. I said she had a very high probability of winning. Didn't really work out for him, though. Yeah, and people got mad anyway. They got mad. that anyway they got man i think with the coronavirus look this is a bad comparison because one is completely dopey and the other one is really dangerous and people are losing their lives all that stuff but do you remember when karmageddon happened here did you ever hear about that in a way no they had to close down the 405 for two days because there was because they had to work on it so there's this one weekend where it was karmageddon and everyone was like

stay you don't want to go on the highway it's going this one weekend where it was Carmageddon and everyone was like, you don't want to go on the highway. It's going to be a nightmare. It's going to be the worst traffic we've ever had. And just people put the fear of God in every driver. And then it was the greatest weekend ever to drive because nobody was out on the highway. Everyone was terrified to drive. And it was the one weekend ever you could go 120 miles an hour. I think we have the ability to mobilize panic. And in that case, it was funny. It was like, oh, haha. After all, it was actually really good to drive. In this case, I don't know the mobilizing of the panic, how real it is yet. And I think that's the scariest thing about this. Cause it's not one of those things like in Carmageddon, if you're wrong, you're just sitting in traffic with this. It's like, if you're wrong, this could become a Steven Soderbergh movie. And

I didn't really makes me nervous. Like, I don't want to go to, I wouldn't want to go to South by Southwest right now and be in some festival, but I might be a giant pussy about it. I don't care. I'd rather be safe than sorry. That's what you remember. Um, the Olympics and the golfers in the Olympics? Was it Spieth who decided not to go because of Zika? Yeah, the Zika. Remember that? Yeah. I mean, a lot of people pulled out then. Yeah. So I think this one, it affected the stock market, which made it even worse because you could point to real. Whereas when SARS happened, the recession had already happened. It wasn't like going to do a lot of damage. This case, it was like Disney dropped

20 plus dollars. I just think people need to understand magnitude. If you look at the death rate of... I'm not saying that the coronavirus could end up being really, really bad. Also, calling it the coronavirus is pretty weird because there are a lot of coronaviruses. That's just a particular shape of...

COVID-19. Which is on coronavirus ID 19, so it was 2019. So like, I mean, look, we have a pretty good public health system. A lot of other countries do too. Some don't. We tend to be fairly transparent with information in this country. Other countries aren't necessarily. So there's all kinds of reasons.

Plus, which the smartest people I know in medicine have always said for years, the thing that they worry most about certainly is pandemics because hospitals aren't really built to deal with it well. And then the minute it starts to get a little bit out of hand, the worst thing that happens is none of the health care professionals want to come to work. And who's going to blame them? What do you do then? And if there's no treatment or vaccine. But I don't think that what we know right now so far about COVID-19 deserves the level of panic by a

long shot that we've seen. You know, then Trump will say, well, the press, which is liberal, is politicizing it. Then that becomes a political statement. and then it just becomes more stupidity. So I'm just like what to me, what we've always tried to do with Freakonomics is just like be the party of anti-stupidity. It doesn't mean that bad things aren't going to happen, but just let's all be a little bit less stupid. Maybe it just ends up killing handshakes. Maybe we just pointed each other now. Did you see the video with the guys? I think it was in Korea where they're doing these little foot things.

They come up. One guy goes out to shake hands. The other guy pulls back. Then you do this little like inner foot exchange. When did you fly in here? Maybe two nights ago. Yeah. No masks in the airport.

I'm going to shake hands with you after the pod. And then I'm going to cover it in Purell and wipe it for a good hour and a half. I appreciate it. This is really fun. Thanks for coming on. Plug your podcast. Freakonomics Radio. Very findable. I think you have to spell it right though because you know

the podcast portals. Oh my god. You get one letter wrong. It's unforgiving. Yeah. So ours is F-R-Y-Y. No, it's F-R. It's freak. Onomics. Pretty easy. All right.

And it's not bad. This is fun. You'll have to invite me on sometime. I'd love to. Yeah. All right. Appreciate it.

Thank you. All right. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to Kevin Clark. Thanks to Stephen Dubner. Don't forget about the Book of Basketball podcast about Bill Russell.

Last one of the season. And you can go back. They're pretty evergreen. So you can go back and listen to any of them whenever you want. We'll be back on Thursday with a little bit more on this feed. Looking forward to it. I don't have feelings within on the wayside I'm a person

I never was I don't have feelings