The Bill Simmons Podcast - The A-Rod Problem, Sox-Yanks, Confused Democrats and 16 Years of Trump With JackO. Plus: Fanatics owner Michael Rubin | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: July 30, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by JackO to discuss the MLB trade deadline, Yankees–Red Sox, A-Rod's announcing, the 2020 election, and more (4:04). Then Bill sits down with owner of Fanatics and 76ers part-owner Michael Rubin to talk about sports team ownership, player empowerment, the 2019-20 76ers, sports apparel trends, counterfeit merchandise, streamlining production, and more (56:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's never felt better to look your best. We're also brought to you by the world's greatest website, TheRinger.com, where we're in the depths of a content abyss. And yet, The Ringer is here for you. Last week, we had Tarantino week, which I thought was a raging success leading into Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which came out Friday. I am seeing it at some point in the next 36 hours.

I can't wait. We did a bunch of podcasts and wrote some pieces and all kinds of things. So check that out, hashtag Tarantino Week. And then this week we are celebrating the year in music, 1999. If you go hashtag 99music on Twitter, you can find all the stuff or just go to our website. Did the 40 best songs and albums from 1999, as well as a whole bunch of pieces. I thought this was an atrocious music year, but a lot of people love it because it was a great pop year. And it was like a transformative pop year in a lot of ways.

There was some good rap, hip hop stuff as well. It was really an abominable rock music, alternative music year and set the stage for the renaissance that would happen in the O2 range, except for Californication. But it's just a bizarre music year and we're capturing all the pieces of it. So check that out on the website as well. Coming up, Jacko and Michael Rubin first, ouring this Tuesday morning. Simmons family went to Hawaii for the last six days. You like how I snuck that by?

You didn't realize I was gone. I'm really good at this now. That's why we ran the Costner and Bacon podcast last week. Costner was one of my favorite ones ever, an all-timer. Bacon was great too, really enjoyed those. We are going to talk about the Yankees Red Sox series and a bunch of political stuff in a fun way, not in a polarizing way with Jacko.

And then Michael Rubin's going to come on, who is the owner of Fanatics as well as a minority owner of the Sixers and all that stuff. So yeah, so I was away for six days during one of the most dead content times I can remember in the last few years. It was really, really nuts. It was kind of soothing in a way. It was nice. I missed the Tarantino movie. I'm behind on that. I'm caught up on everything else,

but it was really fun. It's fun when your kids get to an age when you can travel with them, when they're not a complete pain in the ass and they're actually fun to hang out with. So good times all around. All right, we're going to call Jacko right now. All right, it is the end of July.

There is nothing going on at all in sports, barely anything in pop culture, but we do have the baseball trade deadline, which used to mean a hell of a lot. And now it still means something, but I don't feel like it has the same fervor that it used to engender, unless you're a fan of the Red Sox and the Yankees

watching this whole thing. Jacko on the line. How are you, Jacko? Good, buddy. How are you? Our teams just went at it for four straight days. It had Boston Massacre potential. And then Chris Sale, the ace, our guy,

once again, came up short. Do you feel like the Yanks own Chris Sale now? What's your feeling going into these Chris Sale starts from a Yankee perspective? Well, came up short. Do you feel like the Yanks own Chris Sale now? What's your feeling going into these Chris Sale starts from a Yankee perspective? Well, it's funny. I was down at the, some friends of mine have a cottage down at the beach, and I was down at the beach on Sunday with a bunch of guys, and some of them are Yankee fans, and some of them are Red Sox fans.

And so we were talking about how horrid the Yankees had been, and I said, you know, we were talking about how horrid the Yankees had been. And I said, you know, we were talking about it was a Sunday night baseball game. And I, frankly, was so disgusted I didn't know who was. I knew Hermann was pitching for the Yankees, but I hadn't paid attention to who was pitching for the Red Sox. And so one of my buddies said, oh, Chris Sale's pitching. And I was kind of like, ooh.

And then I thought about it for a second. And I was like, ooh. It really didn't. You know, a couple years ago that would have been like, oh, that's a loss. Forget about it for a second, and I was like, ooh. It really didn't. A couple years ago, that would have been like, oh, that's a loss. Forget about it. But not so much anymore because he's been a little shaky, and that was borne out on Sunday night. It doesn't put the fear of God into me that I once had.

Yeah, we have this trade deadline, and everybody wants the Red Sox to get some closer, and Edwin Diaz is getting thrown around. I don't think that's realistic at all. Shane Green, the immortal Shane Green is in the mix. Not sure that's that realistic either. To me, the bigger issue is the whole sale thing because Eduardo Rodriguez is kind of turning into the ace of the Red Sox. That wasn't really part of our game plan.

I feel like they can patch together the bullpen and kind of hope and pray of all they can come back. But the sale thing, I'm just flummoxed by because when you watch the inning by inning, start by start with him, it's like the shitty guys in the lineup that end up getting him. You know?

Yeah, Austin Romine hit one. Not to say know Austin Romine but he's not a front line superstar Austin Romine went deep the other night he went really deep I think Urshela did something too he had two bombs and it's those are the guys that keep getting him it's like he can't sustain it through the whole lineup

so you know it's weird because this red sox team the offense the top four now this one two three four we have might be the best one two three four we've ever had just like i i it's it's like just a gauntlet endeavors is out of his mind now and you go through that and you just feel like how are we not how are we not, how are we not, how are we 10 games back or nine games back? Now it's like eight games back, but how is this even possible with these four guys?

You have to be, you have to be scared going through that gauntlet. The four games. Yeah. As much as Chris, Chris sale did not put the fear of God in me, your lineup absolutely does. And for however many years I've made fun of Hall of Famer

Xander Bogart's success. A guy sent me a tweet last week, and he's like, that might actually be one. And I was like, Jesus, he might actually be. And he's been out of his mind. And J.D. Martinez is phenomenal. And Mookie Betts is now heated up. So, yeah, it's the top half of your lineup,

but anyway, it's very good. And Ben and Tendi always kills the Yankees for some reason. He's sort of mediocre against everybody, but he lights it up against the Yankees, which is the opposite of what Aaron judge does, or he's pretty good against everybody and awful against the Red Sox. So yeah,

Ben and Tendi had hit this point where we were all kind of looking at each other going, wait, is this not going to happen because we're talking like a year-long sample size going back to last summer i think it was like 160 games he had nine homers it just didn't seem like he had the power that it seemed like he was going to have he seemed like a fine player but i was ready for this to be like fredlin 2.0 and it oh man, this isn't happening.

And I think he just got in his own head. Now he's starting to come out of it. But the guy for the Red Sox is Devers. Yeah, he's been big. The last three months, his stats are basically as good as any Red Sox hitter we've had really since I can't even remember. I've been on a whole bunch of text chains trying to figure out if he's the best young Red Sox player of my lifetime.

How about that, Johnny? Wow. I can't believe you're throwing your idol Fred Lynn under the bus like that. I went, I, you know, I was. You carried a Fred Lynn baseball card in your wallet. I still have it. You may still to this day, and you're downgrading him for Raphael Devers? So Devers is 22.

He's still, I think, one of the youngest everyday starters in the league. And if you look at what he's done the last three months, and not just what the stats are. I could list all these stats for you. One of the things I think everybody hates about baseball now is it just becomes this. Yeah. We're like scientists, like giving our formulas.

Well, if you look at it, the stats will back up what I'm saying. He's just hitting the shit out of the ball. And there was this one stat. I do like the mile an hour stat where they talk about it? On the stat cast, the hits, you mean? Yeah, like how fast the ball comes off somebody's bat. I kind of enjoy that one. I think it's informative.

And Devers has, Devers I think has the best mile an hour ball coming off the bat, whatever the fuck that stat is. Right. But he's only 22. It's one of those things, like it's a new stat,

but you have nothing to base it against, really. Because there's no historical perspective of like, you know, that home run was 113 miles an hour. And you're like, wow, that's pretty fast. But like, I don't know, did Willie Mays hit one routinely 125? I don't know. You know? I guess it's good.

You're hitting it hard. You know, that's good. Do you want that? I mean, they do it on singles now, too, at Yankees games where Judge hits a single up the middle. They're like, ooh, that was the hardest hit single in two months. Yeah, that's good. You know, I guess.

It's good contact. You were right on it. I think baseball is just so boring now that everybody has to figure out all these. It was 124 miles an hour. It's like, okay, that sounds cool. So Devers, listen to this, Johnny. 79 games going back to April 25th.

He's hitting 344, 385 on base, 641 slugging, 21 homers, 77 RBI. That's up there with just about any Red Sox streak we've had. So I was like thinking, because my dad and I were texting about it. I was like, is Devers, what's going on here? I feel like this is the best young guy we've ever had. And I went through all the stats. Fred Lynn, I think was 23 and 75. Nomar, obviously he was a little bit older,

but kind of in the ballpark. But Mookie Betts really, you know, three years ago was when he really took off. He was 23. Bogarts is only 26 now. But for what he's doing now, and I was thinking like, is this, is this George Brett? So I went back and I was looking at the George Brett stats from the seventies and that's kind of who he reminds me of. Like he might be our George Brett,

Johnny, he might be in your life for the next 20 years. I'd be ready. Wow. I hope he's not George Brett because George Brett used to murder the Yankees. So does Devers. He's a line drive machine. He'd probably be a pretty good backup to DJ LeMayhew or Gleyber Torres on the Yankees, I think.

Because I was thinking about... He'd have a valuable bench role on the Yankees infield. Well, I was thinking about... He'd have a valuable bench role on the Yanks infield. Well, I was thinking about... I think Betts will resign. I'm not worried about that. And Betts... Doesn't he want a Mike Trout contract, though?

Well, I think he's probably worth it. You're going to give him a Mike Trout contract on top of what you're paying price and sale and all the other contracts. And he just gave Bogarts a big contract, right? Do I have to pay for this? Well, no, but fans do,

buying tickets and what have you. The fans are already getting milked with all this stuff. Why do I want to lose 26-year-old Mookie Betts? That's insane. I don't want to do that. I know, but you're going to give him $400 million? I don't think he's going to I know, but you're going to give him $400 million? I don't think he's going to get $400 million, but I bet he gets $300.

I think he wants more than three. He's negotiating. It's funny that people are getting mad about him kind of using the leverage that he has and be like, yeah, I'd love to come back, but blah, blah, blah. And people are like, oh, why doesn't he want to, he should care more about coming back. It's like, who's playing the game? I think he's coming back. You think so? All right.

Listen, losing a 26-year-old free agent who has put up the resume he's had over the last four years is not good business in my opinion. I mean, the other thing is like, you know, these guys can ask for what they want, but really they have a limited market. Like the Yankees aren't going to bid on him because they have too many outfielders as it is and too many big contracts. So they're not going to be in the market for him. I mean, are the Dodgers, you know, who are the big players, the Dodgers, the Yankees, or the Angels have any more money to throw at people? The Angels, yeah. The Angels always seem to find an extra $300 million. Right. So I don't know where he's going to go to get his Mike Trout contract if the Red Sox are

like, here's the number. Here's what we'll give you. Go find more. I don't know where he's going to find more. I'm always worried about the dumbass Mets with this stuff because they're just like, it's like the old George Costanza. There's spotting dimes on the highway. They can't see. There's no way that Wilpons are signing anybody a $300 million contract. Who knows? They just traded for Marcus Stroman out of nowhere. They're not even a contender.

I don't know what's going on with that team. Yeah, but that didn't involve money. There's no way they're spending money. They just took Cano's contract last winter. It was one of the worst contracts in the league. I don't know what to expect from them. That's true. Well, that's because the GM represents him as an agent.

Unless he represents Betts, he's probably not going to get them on the hook for a lot of money. Did you see that trade they made this week where they traded for the guy who was Wilpon's son's college roommate? It was like a dump trade. Yeah, and then the guy they got back was somebody's roommate. God, they're so dumb. The thing with the Sox, and I think the same goes for the Yanks,

we're in this new era of the rivalry now where there's not the testiness. It was funny because the anniversary of the Veritech-A-Rod fight was a couple days ago. Yeah, I saw that. And A-Rod, who I want to talk about in a second, was talking on the broadcast about how during that time, which wasn't that long ago, the guys, it was so much less friendly and so much more adversarial than it is now. But, you know, when you think about this, what the Red Sox have with Devers, Betts,

Bogarts, all 26 and under, JD's, I think, I think he's 30 now. And then, and Benintende is under 26 too. And then on the Yankees side, all the young guys they have. And it does feel like the foundation of something, but there's just no bitterness. There's no... No. It's just something's missing.

And basically what I'm trying to say is we need somebody to throw at somebody to really get this going. Yeah, we need another like, you know, Greg Nettles, Bill Lee thing at third base or whatever. We need something like that. But there's no more of that in the game, because these

guys, you know, they're all buddies off the field, and they're all just, you know, there's not the rivalry like it once was. Except with C.C. Sabathia and the Rays, who he seems to hate. But other than that, and vice versa, but other than that, there doesn't really seem to be any, like, who he seems to hate. But other than that, and vice versa, but other than that, there doesn't really seem to be

any bad blood generally in baseball. All right, so let's talk about A-Rod, because I think this is really important. The national treasure, yeah. I feel like 99% of the time, I get it, just with anything. Even if it's not something I like personally, I get it. If there's some movie that's taking off and I was like, well, I didn't really like the movie,

but I understand why this has become successful. Or a TV show. Like This Is Us. I don't watch This Is Us, but I get it. Right, sure. I know why somebody like my wife would watch every episode of This Is Us and get into it. I don't personally like it. This A- episode of This Is Us and get into it.

I don't personally like it. This A-Rod thing is the 1% for me. I don't get it. I've never really gotten it. And now I really don't get it because I had to spend four hours with him on Sunday night. Yeah. Not only do I not get it, I feel like I'm, I'm taking crazy pills. I think he's an abomination as an announcer. I really do. I don't want him to be super critical.

You and I talked about when he first was, I guess, I think it was actually when he was sort of like semi-retired or suspended or whatever. And he started doing post-season games on Fox and he was doing the studio stuff and he was great. And we talked about like what a natural he was and he knew like how to throw it to guys and segues and which camera to look at. And he was like almost like a better like studio host guy than he was as a baseball player, as good as a prodigy. And for some reason ESPN was like took that where he was like, I won't go so far as to say natural, but he was at least smooth at it, and they put him in the booth.

And that, I don't think, is his strength. And he feels the need to give his ridiculous strategy. He had this conniption fit earlier in the season. I think it was the Yankees-Red Sox game on Saturday Night Baseball because they didn't have somebody lay down a bunt in the situation where it was ridiculous to even contemplate a bunt. And he went on and on about it for like two innings. I was like, A-Rod, get off the bunt thing. My God, enough.

I'm just stupefied by it. I remember that first year when he was good on the studio. I didn't think he was nearly as good as the second year. But the first year, it felt like they had stumbled into something and there seemed like to be something genuine about it. And then the second year, it seemed like he was just really trained and polished and the fake laughing would open the mouth. And it was like, all right, now I, I get it. Now he's,

I guess he's playing the studio character. You can't play a character during a four-hour baseball game when you're hanging out with two other people. The funny thing is I'm not one of those people who thinks the local announcers are better than the national announcers. In fact, it's usually the opposite

as you find out with your Yankee broadcast. But the Red Sox... Oh, I beg to differ on that. Yankee announcers are fine. Well, what's the one... Paul O'Neill and David Cohn talking about the 98 team. I can't get enough of that.

No, what's the one with Sterling and Susan Waldman? Well, that's the radio. That's the radio, not the TV. Yeah. For the most part, yeah, like the Red Sox radio guys, it's pretty, pretty rough. Their TV guys, when they have Eck and Remy and,

and O'Brien all together, like it's actually really good. And it's informative. Yeah. And I learned stuff. And then spending four hours with this crew and A-Rod just, you know, it's like,

they don't know what to do with them. So they make the whole broadcast about A-Rod. It's like, hey, A-Rod's here. A-Rod, remember that? Remember when that happened? Remember on that team when this happened? Hey, you must remember that from 04. And it's like, I don't fucking care.

I don't want to think about A-Rod anymore. I didn't like him when he played. Why am I thinking about him now? I didn't see very much of the game because, as I mentioned, I was at the beach and then we left and I was driving home. So I only watched the very end of it. But I did manage to tune in to see the awkward part where A-Rod and Jessica Mendoza were actually almost negotiating a trade for Syndergaard. Yeah.

Because he's an advisor to the Yankees and she's an advisor to the Mets. And somehow they're a national baseball broadcast talking about other teams and their players. But he's talking about how the Yankees could use Syndergaard. And he's like, hey, Jess, why don't you give us Syndergaard? And then she's like, well, what are you going to give me? And I'm like, are they actually negotiating a trade right now? And she didn't seem to have much of an understanding of who was on the Mets roster or the Yankees roster. She couldn't like list off players that she would want to have on the Mets. So, um, and admittedly he may have caught her off guard, but, uh,

I thought maybe she'd say, well, I'd walk labor Torres or whatever, but she was like, well, who are you going to give me? And it was like, oh my God, this is so painful. And it's never going to happen in a million years. So why are we wasting precious airtime even contemplating it? Well, I mean, this is their signature broadcast, right? It's Sunday night. This is supposed to be the best of the best. And there's all this baseball stuff going on. Like the Marcus Stroman trade had just happened, which was one of the most confusing trades

in recent memory because this was like one of the big chess pieces. This was the guy rumored to go to the Yankees. And we have a four hour game where everybody takes 25 to 40 seconds between pitches. And there's just not a lot to talk about. I would have loved to have heard like a real nuanced conversation about, Hey, what the fuck are the Mets doing? But that can't happen because Jessica Mendoza is an advisor to the Mets. Why the fuck is she in the booth? And then A-Rod who's an advisor to the Yankees, what is he advised them with, by the way?

I don't know. What do you think, they're really calling A-Rod and be like, hey, A-Rod, can you study some Shane Green tapes? What the fuck is going on? He's out to dinner with J-Lo. He's like, hang on, I gotta take this call. It's just so forced. It's these three people that would never be together

under any other circumstances trying to pretend to have these conversations. And then if it's not bad enough, we come back from commercial and J-Lo and his two daughters are in the booth with a fucking birthday cake that says happy birthday. It doesn't even say A-Rod. They couldn't even like find five extra seconds to write A-Rod on it.

And they have to do this fake false thing with like A-Rod just fake laughing. And it's just super awkward and nobody's going to eat the cake. And then you're watching it going on. Nobody, definitely nobody's eating that cake. Not one of them is going to even try it. And then three hours later, Pete Abraham, who covers the Red Sox for one of the papers, he tweets the picture of the uneaten birthday cake, which was then eaten by all the sports writers. Right.

Why the fuck did that have to happen? Well, all I can presume is that ESPN was hoping for some like celebrity crossover because of JLo, that that was going to draw eyeballs to the game. I don't think that was going to happen. And maybe they couldn't get a cake that said happy birthday, A-Rod, because they were in Boston and they went to every bakery and they kept getting cakes that said happy birthday,

asshole or something on it. You know, they should have gotten a cake. Let's just leave the name off. Happy birthday, asshole. It should have been happy birthday, two time cheater and liar

who got suspended for a whole fucking year. Why are you announcing games and why are you like America's sweetheart now? I don't understand this. Does Lance Armstrong get to come back now?

We went to get a cake and it said steroids on it again. So we're going to try another bakery. We're out in Worcester now, but we're still not having any luck. Well, why is Barry Bonds

an asshole? Wait, like, does Barry Bonds get to come back now? I don't understand. Clemens? Isn't he the batting coach for somebody, or wasn't he? Yeah, but nobody likes Barry Bonds. Every A-Rod's in my life on Sunday night for four hours. The guy was as flagrant as anybody we had with the whole cheating thing.

I'm just so confused by this. I really am. I honestly don't get it. I I'm just so confused by this. I really am. I honestly don't get it. I don't understand what happened with this. Yeah, I don't know. It's a weird thing. He's got good PR skills. He's a good looking guy. Celebrity.

I wish you had seen the game because at one point they came back from commercial. Maybe this was when they brought the cake. And they had video of A-Rod's 50th birthday party. And it was just this, must have been 20 seconds of A-Rod and J-Lo just dancing in a nightclub.

Nice. And it's like, oh, and Matt Vesgerzian, who, you know, that's another issue. But he's like, A-Rod, still got the moves, huh? And Mendoza's just giggling, you know, probably getting texts about Marcus Stroman from the Mets GM. And I'm like, what the fuck?

This is, Red Sox have a chance to sweep. Why am I watching this? Who is this for? Well, here's the thing, though. See, like, you do not care for A-Rod from a Red Sox perspective. And I get all that. And, maybe just in the general perspective. But I am subjected to games on Fox with John Smoltz, who has the most anti-Yankee bias of anyone I've ever seen. I remember when they played the Astros in the playoffs, and they called it a ball on Verlander or somebody, and he actually groaned to the point where

Joe Buck was like, oh, you're groaning or something. And he's like, well, as a pitcher, you really want to get that one? I'm like, no, you hate the Yankees. And I had to watch like a 14-hour game from London subjected to his 14-hour rants against the Yankees. So I can understand not being in love with the broadcasters because I have a visceral reaction to hearing that John Smoltz is going to do a Yankees game. That visceral reaction is blind hatred.

See, I think John Smoltz is great. Of course he would. Of course he would. Instead of having John, like when they play the other team, they should just have the other manager mic'd up and do the play-by-play because that would be about as fair. I get your visceral reaction. I have no idea if Mendoza is good

because apparently she's really good on the College World Series. And as somebody who's been in TV situations where you can be with the wrong cast member sometimes, like there's no, you, there's you, you can't overcome it. So I have no idea if she's good. She might be, she's not good on these games with those guys and the crew is bad. And I just don't understand over and over again, we get in these situations with the national announcing team where they think entertainment has to be part

of the package. You know, it's like, guess what? I'm watching for the game. Sorry. Like, just, just teach me stuff about, about baseball. I don't need to see clips of A-Rod's 50th birthday party. Sorry. But see, this is, this is what they do in every circumstance though, circumstance, though, because I'm not a big NBA guy, but I watched a good portion of the NBA finals, and I've seen enough Drake shots to last my lifetime. Or like Beyonce and Jay-Z courtside. Like, okay, they're at the game. That's good.

I don't need to see their reaction every 10 minutes. So I think every media thing is like they try to get a celebrity connection because, you know, between the Internet and all the various ways you can consume media thing is like they try to get a celebrity connection because, you know, between the Internet and all the various ways you can consume media now, as they say, there's a limited market, so they're trying to expand it. A guy called, you know, speaking of A-Rod and J-Lo in the booth, I listened to Mad Dog Radio on the way home from work, and I was listening yesterday, and I didn't hear the call, but some other caller reacted to it.

A guy called up and said, well, J-Lo has, you know, 40 million followers on Instagram. So when she's on ESPN, like maybe some of her followers will tune into the game because she's going to be in the booth and then stick with the game. Like, I guess ESPN is banking on that logic. I mean, that's honestly the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my life. Of course it is. So some 14-year-old J-Lo fan in Kansas City is going to be like, hey, I heard J-Lo might pop in the booth with a birthday cake. I'm going to sit through five innings of this Red Sox-Yankees game. What is going on?

I know. I think it's exercise. I'm so confused. People think that way, and maybe there's TV executives that think that way. I don't know. I'm tired of fighting these battles, Johnny. All I can tell you is it was a long four hours. Let's take a quick break.

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I think it's like a two-night debate because they still have like 25 candidates. Two-night debate. Who wins your unintentional comedy award so far through this whole democratic process? Well, he's out of it now, unfortunately. But this guy, Eric Swalwell, who was a congressman from California. He might be your congressman, actually. I don't know. I think he represents part of LA.

And he was just so bad at everything I saw him do. And forget about Viewpoint. He's just so smarmy. And everything he does is so forced and fake and cringy. I literally was like, I can't believe this guy has ever been elected to anything in any capacity. I understand that's certainly an overwhelmingly liberal district, but you can't tell me there's not some more authentic liberal candidate that could have beaten this guy who was just so, so bad. So he's painful to watch. He dropped out. He's gone now. So, and the other thing I like is,

you know, I'm a pretty, I follow politics a lot. Like I have my whole life and I'm pretty versed in candidates and elected officials and what have you. They showed some pictures for this debate. I literally couldn't pick some of these people out of a lineup. This guy that used to be the governor of Montana, if that guy walked in my office right now, I'd be like, hi, can I help you? Who are you? He wants to be the president. It's not going to happen. I mean, come on.

So there's too many candidates and these people that do it. I mean, I understand why you do it, because you can raise your profile and raise your speaking fees and everything else and, you know, get your name out in the news. But it's just it's patently ridiculous that you're doing this. I think the funniest thing has been the Beto, the Beto campaign. Oh, my God. Yeah. Talk about. Yeah. He's just talking about nothing to say. Oh, no. Oh, my God. I don't understand what happened with that, but I think it probably came from just America's desperation to have some young, hopeful person who was the complete opposite of what the president was. Well, it helped him that he was running against Ted Cruz, who most Republicans don't like.

And he looks like Bobby Kennedy. And he had the rolled up shirt sleeves and the Irish last name. And everybody was like swooning that it was the reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy. And he, you know, narrowly lost to Ted Cruz. He did better than most Democrats would because, you know, he got a lot of press and a lot of favorable press. And, you know, did his tour of Texas and caught fire to some degree to only lose by two or three points. And so then somehow that was translated into, this guy should run for president. And he got the Vanity Fair cover and he went out and ran. And then they were like,

what do you think about climate change? And he was like, yeah, we really should think about that. People were like, wait, what? No, no, we want to be the president. What do you think? He's like, what do you think? Well, I know what I think, but I'm not the one running for president, champ. So how about some other answers? And he was kind of like, yeah, I'll get back think, but I'm not the one running for president, champ. So how about some other answers? And he was kind of like, yeah, I'll get back to you. I'm going to be on my skateboard. And people were like, Jesus Christ, what are we doing here? What do you think of the Mideast?

So where's that again? Exactly. Like, we should do something about that. It's the best. That's where all the oil is, right? Yeah, he just had no takes. He had nothing to say. If we'd anointed somebody as the next Colin Coward and then he came on,

it was like, baseball trade deadline. Whoa, trades. Trades are crazy. It was so funny to watch him in the debates. He seems like it's like the old NBA, the second year I did the NBA draft joke and this guy Bruno Cabasio got taken and Fran Fischella said he was two years away

from being two years away. That's kind of how I feel about Beto. And yet he's running for president. He's like fifth. It's like, I can't name one thing he stands for. No, nobody can. That was the problem. And now he's gone in the complete opposite direction

where he's like, now he's going to be the wokest of the woke, so he's basically like, America sucks and everything's white supremacy and everything's awful. It's like, come on. Come on, man. Come back to us. Well, he got a documentary

out of it, so I guess that was a win. Yeah. He can show that to his kids. And you know, he lost his Senate race. And if you read his biography, you know, he seems like someone who's always been, he comes from a lot of money, and I think he has some guilt about that. He went to Columbia, and he had no real direction, and he's done like a million different things. He was in a punk band. He was like a nanny for a while.

Yeah. You know, he was in a hacker group. He's never really, quote unquote, had sort of a real job. His father was in politics. So he kind of felt the need to go into politics, got elected to city council, got elected to Congress. And like I say, he made a splash run against Ted Cruz. But you know, after he lost Ted Cruz, he went on this like road trip around the country and was kind of like finding himself and sending out, you know, sort of philosophical tweets. So it's like if he doesn't if he doesn't become president, I think smart money would say he's not going to be. I wonder what he's going to do now. Like, is he going to go backpack through Europe, write a book?

Like, I don't know what's next for him. I feel like the ringer is possibly in this for a ringer podcast. Political analyst for the debates. Beto, what do you think of that? Oh, man. debates Beto what'd you think of that oh man what'd you think I don't know not so deep thoughts with Beto on the ringer podcast network I would listen to that podcast

that'd be pretty great he breaks down the best punk albums of the 90s it's a pretty good podcast, actually. Well, I don't know what's going on. You know who my other favorite candidate is? Mary Ann Williamson. Yeah. Also from your neck of the woods. Her claim to fame is she's like a guru, essentially, right? So she's like a guru. Maybe she's like a life coach, but she's like the guru to the stars.

So she has this philosophy of basically like preaching love and astrology or whatever. And she wants to be president based on never having been in any kind of elective office. She did preside over Elizabeth Taylor's seventh wedding at Neverland Ranch though. So that would be an interesting resume for a president. Well, I like the fact that everybody was allowed to be in the debates. Right. Well, you had to meet certain thresholds. You had to raise like 60, I think you had to raise 50 grand,

and you had to have so many individual donors. But you could escape that by getting, like, if you ponied up a dollar for somebody, that counted as a separate donor, and it got you towards your goal. So that's how she did it. No, you needed a head and and it got you towards your goal. So no, no, we did it. No, you needed a head and two arms and two legs too. That was the other thing. They were very adamant about that. There's just so many.

And then a couple of them were mad that their, their mics were allegedly turned off. Yeah. Which is like, yeah, cause nobody cares what you have to say. That's why your mic was turned off. Because we're all here for the five people who might actually have a chance to be the president. The crazy thing, though, the polls are even coming out today that Biden is way ahead. And then Sanders is second.

And Warren's third. And Kamala Harris somehow fell down. Yeah, she had a big moment. And then she couldn't sustain the momentum. And Elizabeth Warren has had sort of a moment too, but I think she and Bernie Sanders kind of fight over the same pool of voters. So they're kind of splitting that vote, I would think.

They need to attack Biden because Biden's going to run away with it. As semi-inept as he is, he's going to run away with it as, you know, as semi-inept as he is. He's going to run away with it because the vast majority of voters, I think, see Democratic voters see him as the most electable and, you know, because it ties to Obama and, you know, the experience and he's like the safest choice. I think, you know, usually it's going to be the next guy in line and he's the next guy in line. Trump has some epic collapse or, or somebody really like taking the reins and catching fire to mix metaphors. If it's going to be Biden,

Trump has the napkin tucked into his neck with fucking steak knife and forks and steak sauce. And he's ready to roll. I mean, he has 90 different ways to go to be cruel and mean to Joe Biden. Probably. I mean, the Biden. Yeah, probably. Probably. I mean, the interesting thing is, you know, I know I'm going to get tweets about this, but, you know, if you look at the various metrics,

the economy is doing pretty well. I know there's people left behind. You don't have to tweet me and et cetera, et cetera, and student loan debt and health care, yada, yada. I know. I'm just saying generically. The economy is pretty strong. The country, I know we're still in Afghanistan, but generally there's no major wars or conflicts.

Not to say Afghanistan is not a major war, but sort of a police action at the moment. So you talk about like general peace and prosperity. He should be like rolling to reelection, one would think, with a super low unemployment rate. And yet here we are because he's such a fucking moron. It's so polarizing that people generally despise him. That's why it makes it an interesting horse race. And that's why there's 25 candidates that think they can unseat them, even people that are barely recognized by their family. That's my synopsis.

2020, USA, USA. God bless America. I feel like this is going to get so ugly and so awful. Oh, God, yeah. It's going to be ridiculous. I bet it will be. It's almost not prepared for it emotionally.

Yeah, it's going to be it's it's i'm almost not prepared for it emotionally because yeah it's gonna be because trump's already he's already he's already ratcheted up seven notches and we're not even in august yet and once it becomes clear biden's gonna be the guy um it's he's just gonna bring out the missiles and everything and go right at him while also doing all the other stuff he's been doing. It's not great. The interesting thing to me, and I've said this until I'm blue in the face on podcasts with you, but I always feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode when I think about that Trump is actually considered by people to be like this heroic genius, right? So I was recently with a group of guys, and we started talking about things. And they're smart guys, like smart, successful guys. I generally don't know what their politics are.

And we started talking about politics, and this was like a couple weeks ago when Trump had his tweets about the squad, as they're called, you know, the four congresswomen. And so I said, you know, we're talking sort of generically, strategically. And I said, you know, I think it's probably good to some degree from Trump's perspective to tie the Democratic Party with some of their views that are, you know, maybe outside of the mainstream. And I said, you know, somehow he sort of stumbles into these things. And these guys were like, no, no, he doesn't make stumbles because time and time again, he always comes out on top. It can't be stumbles. And it's like, there's actually people that are smart and successful that really think like that he has some grand strategy that he follows. And

like, that he's like this master, you know, general, like moving pieces on the maps to make everything fall into line the way he wants. And I'm just like, am I taking crazy pills here? Like, what? Really? So there are like sane people that, you know, I don't think these guys were full blown MAGAites, but there are people that think like, wow, he really knows what he's doing and things are working out. And I'm just like, wait, what? It's a crazy, like a Fox. Yeah. That people actually think like, he doesn't just sort of like stumble over himself and like fall into some luck that, that, that people actually think like he's, you know,

he's had these grand plans and he's like this master businessman strategist or whatever. I like when, I like when he gets defended, you know, cause almost all the time he's going after minorities or whoever, these dog whistle ways. But when you mention that,

I'm like, no, no, he's terrible to white people too. Right. That's like a defense. He's like, oh, all right. That's right. Yeah, you're right. He's awful in general.

Yeah, I didn't realize that. It is, I've never, you know, Conspiracy bill loves a good conspiracy. It is weird to have a president who, where everything's on the table with any possible conspiracy. Like I have a friend who's convinced that Trump manipulates the market where when the stock market's doing really well, Trump will say something about, yeah, I'm cutting off that trade deal with China.

And then the stock market will dip because this person is convinced that he's shorting it the other way. And he's just basically controlling this yo-yo thing with the stock market and just making money both ways. And then he quiets down and it starts going back up. Like lately, it's been good again. And my friend's like, watch this.

He's going to say something crazy. He'll do a trade war. Yeah, he's doing. Like banning products from China or something, right? But he does have the ability to do that. He can say something nuts and the market will go down. And then he can stay quiet for a while and it'll go up. And look, it's ludicrous.

I don't think he's actually doing that. But as my friend was laying this out, I was like, yeah, it's ludicrous. I don't think he's actually doing that. But as my friend was laying the set, I was like, yeah, maybe he's doing that. This is the president of the United States. Right. Well, I'm sure he's doing this. I'm sure he's in this to make money, but the way he's making money is like through his hotels and everything where foreign governments can curry favor by, you know, buying out the top 10 rooms at some Trump hotel or whatever, letting him know about it. Or like, you know, that when he does fundraisers and business at golf courses that he owns and,

you know, he takes the money from donors and puts it in his pocket, essentially. So I'm sure there's a lot of skim going on, but I'm not sure about the market thing, because he would probably prefer a high stock market. You know, maybe he could manipulate it to have it higher by the time of the election, but he wants it to be as high as possible because that's one of his talking points. Yeah, but it's never a crater, though. It's dip, but then it rallies back. Yeah, maybe that's his thing, like a comeback.

I mean, one of the things is the economy probably should be doing better except for his asinine tariffs that are just, you know, killing things in terms of trade. And, you know, he keeps claiming, well, China's paying all this money. Well, no, they're not. It's the consumer that's paying more for goods from other countries. Like China's not just going to eat that money. They're going to like pass it on to people. So he has this, and then we have to subsidize farmers because they, you know, they're paying higher rates to sell their goods in China. And then we kick in subsidies and he thinks it's all working out wonderfully. But who do you think has the best chance to beat him?

Probably Biden, honestly. Oh, my God. I think if you had a Biden-Harris ticket, I think that would be tough to beat. Because I think Kamala, I always mispronounce her first name, Kamala Harris, I think she would appeal to the, you know, more woke brigade of the Democratic Party. And Joe would be seen as non-threatening to, you know, swing voters in the Midwest. That's the theory anyway. I think that would be a tough one for Trump to beat. I think Biden can compete as, you know, good old, you know, Scranton Joe and like Pennsylvania and Michigan and, you know, places, Wisconsin, places that Trump surprisingly won last time, which was the difference maker in

the election. He doesn't seem like he's out of touch and, you know, too far to the left. Do you think Biden is going through two hour sessions every day where they're training him not to put his arms around people? And not to hug people? They just put a shock collar on him and they bring in a 20-year-old woman and he wants to go hug her and they just have him. Oh, who's that? Who are you?

Is there no beer? Are those your grandkids? No, no, Joe, no, no! Take them out and they tackle them. Are those your grandkids? No, no, Joe, no, no. Exactly. Take them out and tackle them. They're just bringing all these different grandkids in as bait. Joe's like, so I'm not going to go over there, right?

I can't. I shouldn't. I should just wave, right? Aside from all that where he's just like, you know, friendly Uncle Joe, like, you know, where he brings up this thing about like, like nobody asked him and he's just randomly brought up like working with how well he worked with segregationists in the 70s or whatever. If you were his advisor, you're like, no, don't bring that up. Don't say that. Like you, maybe you did. Everybody you're saying like, okay, even people of extreme views, we have to get along for the good of the country, but like, don't volunteer that.

Like, don't bring that up in today's climate. You know, how wonderful some segregationist senator from Mississippi was. Don't do that, Joe. Don't do that. The thing is, he's in his mid-70s. I know. That is the thing. I mean, you're just like, come on.

We all have people in our lives who are in their mid-70s or older. And it's just a fucking rollercoaster ride. It just is. You know, Robert, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, testified last week, and he was not great at the testimony, and at times seemed a little lost, and he couldn't hear anybody. I saw Jake Tapper or somebody comment on it, and he was like, you know, well, he is like 74 years old, you know,

maybe he's not as strong as he once was. And I thought to myself, Biden's like 78 and Trump is over, he's like 70 something too. And I'm like, well, that's great. This guy is a lot. He's not capable of testifying before Congress, but one of the two guys likely to be president are both going to be at that age too. Fantastic. Good stuff. The Patriots have what? 78 78 or 79-year-old Bob Kraft who celebrated the AFC

championship game by going to a weird spa in... Where was that, Kyle? Florida, right? Florida? Yeah. Hopped on a plane, celebrated the title game, and, you know, it's like, alright, the dude's in his late

70s, but yet both of the people running for president right now are the same age as him right and the excuse for him is like ah he's old give him a break come on he's a widow and yet here we are with Trevor Biden crazy time

maybe we should just see I think there's something to be learned from Beto's success Crazy times, my friend. I don't know, Johnny. Crazy times. Maybe we should just... See, I think there's something to be learned from Beto's success, given his complete lack of credentials. People really want the next Jack Kennedy, right? Absolutely. So what we should do is we should find some 27-year-old right now who wants to be an actor.

Maybe that kid in The Bachelor, Tyler. Everybody loves Tyler in The Bachelor. The Bachelorette. I don't watch The Bachelor, but all right. The Bachelorette. There is this contestant who made the final two, Tyler, former football player. A bunch of my coworkers are in love with him,

including Mally Rubin and Juliet, who did a whole podcast about how much they loved him. He's just got it. He's got something. We take that guy. We just put him through the Bobby Kennedy, Jack Kennedy training school, teach him how to, how to talk like just in generalities. And he could probably, you know, be a governor in five years. Well, absolutely. No, no question. I mean, the country now there's like so much hyper-partisanship that, you know, Trump says one thing on Monday and you got the Hannity's of the world. And unfortunately a majority of the Republican base that's like, yeah, right on. And then he changes his mind on Wednesday and

they're like, yeah, right on. If anybody thinks otherwise, it's nuts. Like, so it's just like, it's like the old Jerry Seinfeld thing. You rooting for laundry so you know if the guy had the the guy could be completely vacuous empty suit and as long as he had the right party id next to him people are going to be like wow he's so wise it's like the manchurian candidate right exactly exactly that's yeah that's where we are now like it's justisanship, and it's even more so what they call negative partisanship, where it's not even so much like you love your guy necessarily, but you hate the other party so much. You're like, I can't let those socialists get in there, or I can't let those fascists get in there. So I've got to vote for my guy, because we've got to beat the Nazis, or we've got to beat the commies. It's craziness. I think Trump's going to win. And if I was betting money, I would say pro I mean right now, probably, but I don't know. I just find that I find that so hard to believe,

but I found it hard to believe that he was even running and I find it hard to believe that he's the president and all those things are true. So, so maybe I should stop believing. I'm looking at the odds right now. 2020, he's minus 110. He's basically even. Biden's 5-1. Harris, 6-1.

Beto's 100-1, if you're interested in putting some down on that. Wow. Maybe he's got a comeback, and I'm the comeback kid. Beto, should I bet on you? I don't know. Should you? That's a good question. We should really look into that. Let me think about that. Let me chew that over for a second. I think Trump's going to win.

And then I think it's going to be like a LeBron, LeBron Jr. thing where he starts laying the groundwork for Don Jr. to take over in 24. Well, I think that's the plan to the extent that they have a grand plan. And that's what's almost more frightening is there's two schools of thought as to what happens with the Republicans after Trump. Is Trump so branded the party now that they're forever a Trump party? Or do they just pretend like, boy, that was weird, huh? That just never happened. Like just move on and be like, let's forget all about that and just move forward. It'd be like when Garth Brooks had that alter ego.

Yeah. Chris Gaines. And then it's kind of happened. And then it was like, all right, so that happened. And that would just be an entire presidential term. Yeah. I think Don Jr. is starting to think about it. I'm sure that's the plan.

I read somewhere, and I think I didn't finish reading it because I shuddered so much, and it said, like, Don Jr. is like the most popular figure in the Republican Party or something. And I'm like, no, no, no, that can't be true. Please, please don't let that be true. So he may poll super high. Who knows? You know, they've been saying maybe he should run for, he should run for governor against Cuomo or something.

So maybe they're already grooming him. Wow. Don Jr. God help us all. President Don Jr. Oh man. I'm trying to figure out where I have to move to. I know.

It doesn't seem like any other countries are doing a lot better. No, the whole world's on fire. It's crazy. Yeah, it'd be crazy. Everything. The media's awful. The politicians are awful. Everything's awful.

Yankees can't get a starter. There's nothing good going on. Well, at least we have sports. Thank God. Johnny, next time we talk, can you catch up on The Loudest Voice? Because I really want to go deep dive into that. Absolutely.

I promise I will watch it. I will watch it. One of my favorite shows. I also think that you need to watch three episodes of Euphoria. I would like your thoughts on that. All right. That's my homework.

Okay. Don't watch that one with the kids around or looming or lurking in any way. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. All right. That's my homework. Okay. Don't watch that one with the kids around or limbing or lurking in any way. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Johnny. This is a pleasure as always. Talk to you soon. Good times. All right. We're going to bring in Michael Rubin in a second. First, we've all made some bad choices in life. I know I have. God, what's my latest bad choice? Oh, I don't know. Saying the Celtics were going to win 67 games. I still haven't gotten over that one.

That's been a year. Oh, betting on the Celtics to win the East. Yeah, that was a bad choice too. Hey, this isn't about me. It's about you. Don't make where you play fantasy football a bad life decision. Play Yahoo Fantasy Football. Yahoo offers up free expert advice.

It has the best player experience. They'll never delete your league history like other apps. Yahoo also has all kinds of fantasy football. Yahoo offers up free expert advice. It has the best player experience. They'll never delete your league history like other apps. Yahoo also has all kinds of fantasy games like the new best ball, just draft and you're done. No trades, no waivers, no drama, all season. Yahoo, the number one rated app by the FSGA, make better choices. Choose Yahoo fantasy football. Speaking of fantasy football, the Ringer NFL show, the Danacy football guys are back. Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz. And they're breaking down fantasy

in seven parts, Kyle. I could use that. QBs went up yesterday. They broke down the QBs. Running backs is coming, I think, later this week. So you can download the Ringer NFL show and get all your fantasy advice right there.

Hey, speaking of podcasts, have you heard about Luminary? It's the only place you can listen to the newest show on the Ringer Network, Break Stuff, the story of Woodstock, 1999. We are a couple episodes in. It's a podcast you won't want to miss. A festival that went wrong

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Terms do apply. All right, coming up, Michael Rubin. We taped this a couple of weeks ago. So I think there's one spot where it'll feel like it was three weeks ago when we're talking about Ben Simmons's extension. But other than that, excited to have this guy on. I think he's really interesting and somebody that feels very 2019 how he succeeded and the kind of people that he's dealing with day to day. So here it is, Michael Rubin. Michael Rubin is here.

He's a part owner of the Sixers and he owns Fanatics, which I would say is the biggest apparel boom of this decade. Is that fair? We're a humble, small company that's just getting started with huge market share to gain. Can we talk about the Sixers first and being an NBA owner? What year did you guys form the ownership group when you hijacked the Sixers for $280 million?

Well, we paid full value at the time. Yeah. We bought the team, a group of us bought the team in fall of 2011. It was great timing. There was like 10 franchises for sale at that point. It was good timing. Yeah. And the crazy story, I think most people don't actually know this.

So Ed Snyder, who started the Flyers and owned the Sixers, was my direct next door neighbor for a good chunk of my life. So when I sold my company, GSI Commerce, to eBay in March of 2011, Ed called me and said, hey, I want to come over and celebrate. And he comes over with a bottle of wine and a bottle of comes over with a bottle of wine and a bottle of champagne and actually a bottle of tequila because he could drink a lot. Yeah.

And he said, hey, you should buy the Sixers. I'm like, man, I got no interest in this. This team loses a ton of money. I couldn't afford the losses. And I'm focused on my business. And I never thought about it again. And he's like, you know what, Michael? And he wasn't a basketball fan.

He was all hockey. He's like, I don't want you to buy the team. And then Josh Harris and David Blitzer put together the you to buy the team. And then Josh Harris and David Blitzer put together the deal to buy the team. And when I realized the economics were much different than I had thought, and then David Stern actually really convinced me to get involved.

That one, the Philly and Golden State were the two ridiculous ones. Golden State, I think it was like 400, something like that. Yeah. And it was just, it was a gigantic city that was growing in every conceivable way and had a ton of money and had great basketball fans. Yeah.

Look, Philly is an incredible sports market. It's absolutely without question, you know, one of the top few sports markets in the world. And Philly fans are incredible and they bleed for their team. So it's a great market. Those are two good purchases. So now you look at, I don't know, heading into 2020, like what are the Sixers worth? Do you even think about stuff like that? I don't think about it. It feels like it's 2 billion per big market franchise now, I would say.

Yeah, I think that's fair. But I don't like, look, I don't think, for me, I'm a business builder. So whether it's Fanatics look, I don't think, you know, for me, you know, I'm a business builder. So whether it's Fanatics that, you know, I bought Fanatics in 2011 back from eBay. It was a $250 billion company. It's going to be over $3 billion in revenue next year. I don't think about, like, I'm not sitting here thinking about values. I'm thinking about what do you want to do with each business and how do you want to build it? And then I think generally good things follow.

So you're in like a real ownership group where the people that are in there are all independently successful of each other. And I'm always fascinated when this happens in the NBA because ultimately one guy is the owner. Definitely. And that seems like that's gone wrong a lot of times, especially in the NBA over the last 20 years

where somebody put in a bunch of money, but they still don't really control anything. And within about two, three years, they're realizing like, oh, I basically just have season tickets and I own the equity in this team and that's about it. Yeah. I think there's a reason in sports that one person is in charge and that is the right structure. I think without that, you end up with the league having to get involved and figure out how to fix fights that come up. So the structure of having one person that is responsible is absolutely the right structure. That's Josh Harris in our group. He's the person that put the deal together.

He's in charge. But you're used to being in charge. Yeah, by the way. And we joke about it all the time. In my day job, which is fanatics, rule of law and guilt, and shoprunner, I am in charge. But I also started something called the Reform Alliance, where myself, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft, Meek Mill, Dan Loeb,

Mike Novogratz, the family just bought the Brooklyn Nets, Joe and Clara Tsai, and Robert Smith started this massive criminal justice movement. And I'm not in charge of that either, but I started it and I'm super passionate about it. So to me, you don't need to be in charge of something necessarily to be able to have tremendous impact on it. And I use the best example with the Reform Alliance. How has there ever been a Sixers situation where there was just like severe disagreement on a path or something?

Like a trade or something like a trade or a phrase signing? Yeah. Well, first at the end of the day, we have a great GM and Elton Brand. He's responsible for basketball operations. Ultimately, Josh is responsible. I think generally speaking, my belief for ownership in sports in general is that the time that ownership should get involved is on the things that really move the needle. I think often owners get involved in things that they shouldn't. I think you gotta figure out

how to make a really positive impact on what matters and then get out of the way for everything else. And so, you know, in our group, Josh and David are very collaborative. I happen to probably be the only person from the sports business. I've been in sports my entire adult life. So for me, you know, we bought the team in 2011

and everybody in the, you know, around the organization, the league, or people I did business with already. So there weren't new faces to me. So I think, you know, it's an area I'm very comfortable. Do you think that this decade, there's been like three to four times there's been any rich guys who were just like,

I want a sports team. Like there's been a trend. Cause it seems like, especially when you think about how Golden State was available and you had all those people in Silicon Valley who could have bought it and then Lakob gets it. And that's one of the crown jewels of Silicon Valley, right? He's in charge of where everybody's sitting at the Warriors games and who gets to go in the little special club.

And it does seem like more and more, it's just harder to find a team. I don't even think there's more than two NBA teams for sale right now. And they're not even really for sale. So I think the pace of teams that are available are actually consistent or even higher than they've ever been. But I do think there are more buyers.

So if you look and say, the leagues keep a list of qualified buyers, so they know exactly. Yeah. I'm not on the list. Yeah. No, I heard you were on know exactly. Yeah, I'm not on the list. Yeah. No, I heard you were on the list. No, I'm not there.

I'll get there someday, but I'm not there. We had you on the GM list. Not qualified. I get to do 200 podcasts a week, and I think I can make it. That's fine. You just got to, I mean, I believe in you. You can do this.

Let's get motivated. Let's make it happen. Nothing's impossible. So each of the leagues keep a list of qualified buyers because what generally happens when someone's not familiar with the sports industry, make it happen. Nothing's impossible. So each of the leagues keep lists of qualified buyers, because what generally happens when someone's not familiar with the sports industry, which most buyers aren't familiar with the leagues, the dynamics, they go to see the commissioner, they go to see a few owners, they say, hey, I'm interested in buying a team. And the league will start qualifying. Is this person real? Is it someone who would want to be an owner? So I'd say

my belief is there's never been more qualified buyers of sports teams than there are today. But I also think the pace of teams for sale actually picking up a bit, you know, in the NFL, if you want to name some names. Well, look,

we just had the Panther selling that in the NFL. Yeah. You know, obviously in Seattle, there's going to be selling the future. There's questions of what will happen in Denver. So, I mean,

there's the team team sell. I mean, it's, I think the pace is picking up. You got a lot of old owners will happen in Denver. So, I mean, there's the team sell. I mean, I think the pace is picking up. You got a lot of old owners across sports in general. I'll tell you something that I think is really interesting. The smartest commissioners, they focus very much on making sure they pick the right owners going forward.

Right. Because owners do have a big impact on not only their team, but on the success of the sport long-term. I think getting the right owners into each league is something that is super strategic for a commission. I think it's actually a core responsibility of a commissioner to make sure they do that. I think that's one of the reasons the NBA has been so successful in so many different ways this decade is because they put actual thought into who was coming into the league

with a couple exceptions. But for the most part, I think they were bringing in a lot of younger, smart, self-driven business people who thought outside the box. I think NBA's not a terrific job. Then you all get together in some giant room when you do your owner meetings or whatever, and there's actually good ideas and people pushing each other. I think that's what the NFL is missing right now. The NFL is a lot of old rich guys that own the league. And at some point, they need new blood and people that are thinking outside the box a

little bit more. You don't agree? Well, you love Bob Craft. I love Bob Craft too. You know, look, I could tell you, I think we agree on the NBA. I think as it relates to the NFL, I think the difference with the NFL is it's easier to own an NFL team because they make a lot more money. And so one of the reasons, you know, so I have two sports I love. I love the NBA. I love the NFL. After that, there's nothing that I, like,

I have huge passion about. And one of the reasons that I was so interested in buying the Panthers, even though I failed, was not only did I love this... I forgot that you were involved in that. To be honest, I should have got it done. I screwed it up. I didn't get it done. What do you mean you screwed it up? You misread it? I think...

It was like a poker hand? You didn't go all in on the right kings? No, I'd say that I think, first of all, I think Dave Tepper's going to be a really good owner. I really do. You hate him, though. I actually like Dave Tepper. I really do.

I think he's a good guy. I think he replaced someone who needed to badly go. Like, I look at Jerry Richardson. He was bad for the NFL. Yes. And there were people I look at, and, you know, Jerry's out of the league, so I'm free to speak on it. I'm not going to talk about current owners,

but there are people where I just cringe when when they speak and jerry richardson was in that in in that category so i think they got rid of a really bad owner they put a good owner in place in dave tepper um you know it was a the you know the process didn't go the way i thought it was gonna go i think the price that was paid for it was very fair and appropriate and something that i would have you know loved to get done at that value. So that process, what is it? You're down to the three finalists? How does it go?

Are they keeping you in the loop? Is there somebody in charge? Yeah. I'm not sure that Jerry... At the end of the day, it was Jerry Richardson's decision who to sell the team to. And I don't think I was the type of's decision who to sell the team to. Right. And I don't think I was the type of owner he wanted to sell the team to.

That's just the bottom line. Why weren't you the type of owner? I just think, you know. You're missing a couple of things in the checklist? I, you know, he, I don't think he desired to sell the team to me. It was that simple. Do you have, so who are you dealing with when you're trying to buy an NFL team? Are you dealing with Goodell?

Are you dealing with, is there a person who's in charge of like? Yeah. In any of these situations, there's a lot of people involved. Yeah. And each league is different as well. You know, it's what you might do with the NBA might be different than what you do with the NFL. They had an investment banker who did a really good job with it.

Steve Greenberg of Allen and Company. Oh yeah. They had the banker. Yeah. And that's more normal than not. Sometimes the league will just get involved and help do a deal. I think you got out good not getting the Panthers. Yeah,

look, I think for me... Cam's having shoulder surgery. I don't know. It would have been a great situation. It's a better market than people understand. And for me, what I was starting to talk about and I didn't finish the thought was for a guy like me who would buy a football team, I'd be going all in financially to do it. It's a ton of money for me to do something like that. And so to buy a team that makes real money is

something that's very helpful. So when you go back to ask the question that we asked about difference in owners amongst sports leagues, one of the things in the NFL, these teams are so profitable, it may put less pressure on you to do other things. But that could flip over the next 20 years, NFL, NBA. And I think- Well, I think that's- I would say the NFL, you could argue it's at the peak right now. Yeah.

Look, I still am a big believer in the NFL and I don't think it's at the peak, but I can tell you the reason that the average NFL team and the average NBA team have values that are so much similar today is because the NBA has got such a great growth trajectory based on, if you look at that, you're going to say, look, it's got, it's a truly global sport. I mean, I can tell you that I traveled with the team to China this past October for preseason game. And for me, I haven't been in China for 25 years. Last time I was there, I was making shoes as a kid. Okay. So I go there and in this experience, and Sasha's with me as well, this experience, Joelle said to me, hey, let's go to the mall.

So I'm like, okay, whatever. We're going to check the mall out. And we're walking through the mall and I've been hundreds of places with Joelle. And literally, I've never seen more people chase an individual than being in the mall with you all in this luxury mall right next to our hotel. And I tell you this story only because the fandom in China is so incredible. I think we had 50 million people watch our preseason game in China. 50 million people. Okay. Now, when you think about that- Football is not competing with that. I don't think. Might be a couple hundred thousand people who watch a preseason game in the NFL or something like that. So when you look at the NBA, you have great global growth.

And China is this incredible market where the NBA dominates. I think the NBA has been incredibly thoughtful on really supporting players to speak on issues that are important to them to make the world a better place. I think it's actually helped the sport. So a lot of people were scared of that. I think Adam has really embraced it. I think it's been very good.

And that's certainly, obviously it's well-known. That's my mentality as well. So I think we're very aligned on that. And so I think the sport is very well positioned. And the players are just much more famous. And I don't know how that translates to the successes of the two leagues flipping a little bit, but the reality is, you know, even somebody like Kawhi who barely spoke for eight years is more famous than

anyone except five football players right now. I think that's right. And look again, I go back to NFL and NBA. They're my two sports, the sports I love and my dream situation. One day I wake up and I own an NFL and an NBA team in one market. That would kind of be Nirvana for me. Denver. Step in. Yeah. I don kind of be Nirvana for me. Denver. Step in. Yeah.

I don't see the Cronkies ever selling their basketball team. And they're great guys. I mean, this has happened before where somebody was a minority owner. It happened with Joe Lacob. Yeah. Where a team becomes available. They've kind of been vetted by being a part owner of another team. And it just makes the whole process easier to grab a team becomes available. They've kind of been vetted by being, you know, a part owner of another team. And it just makes the whole process easier to grab a team.

Yeah. And people always talk about that. For me, to be honest, I don't think that was ever really an issue because I've grown up. I mean, I know most owners in sports because of Fanatics. Remember, Fanatics is the largest retail in the world of licensed sports merchandise. You know, I think people talk about Nike, Adidas,

and Fanatics as the three exciting companies of licensed sports merchandise. You know, I think people talk about Nike, Adidas, and Fanatics as the three exciting companies within the sports industry. I mean, we're revolutionizing retail. We've got this V-commerce model that's changing, you know, retail in a pretty significant way. So, you know, I know these people really well. Yeah. So there was never, you know, an issue of, you know.

What do you think about where we are with this league right now? I mean, we've had yet another summer where it just became NBA 2k and all these dudes switch teams. And I think we've learned over the last couple of years that even when somebody signs a new contract, that doesn't mean they're going to stay with the team. You guys sign, did you sign Ben Simmons yet? Or it's going to happen. He's not been signed yet, but certainly there's rumors that it will happen. It's rumors that it will happen. It's rumors that it will happen.

I mean, we would assume it would happen. It's a lot of money, but now we're in this point where he could sign that giant extension. Then a year from now, I'd be like, Hey dudes, I really want to go here.

And in the old days, it would have been like, well, sorry, you just signed a deal with us. But now it actually seems like the players are controlling where they want to go. Even when they have long contracts, is this a good thing? Well, a deal with us, but now it actually seems like the players are controlling where they want to go, even when they have long contracts.

Is this a good thing? Well, I think for us, it is a good thing because the way I think about it is, it's the question of what kind of organization are you building? And you said something to me when I walked in here about culture and about how people work together. And I believe, I think teams fall apart all the time based on people not working well together. And to believe, you know, I think teams fall apart all the time

based on people not, you know, working well together. And to me, I think that's something, if your organization works hard on it, you can really, you know, make that a strength versus a weakness. And it's easy. You got, look, you have these incredible superstars who all have really strong personalities and getting people to gel is something that it takes works amongst the team and it takes, you know, work from the organization. So what I've noticed is it does seem a little generational because some of the people that work for the ringer, especially the people in their twenties are like, this is great. The players should be able to do whatever they want. They shouldn't, they look, everybody should bounce around what's wrong with this. Why we root for

players, not teams. And I think that's one of the things that's definitely shifted the last 20 years. Well, certainly the NBA, I mean, we one of the things that's definitely shifted the last 20 years. Well, certainly the NBA. I mean, we see it in our, in our, in our fanatics business where you have, you have fans of the players and we see that. So I can tell you from a fanatics perspective, we're like, this is the most exciting thing on the planet. You've got all these great free agents moving around.

It's driving business like crazy. Last year you had LeBron and it was the biggest free agency move in the history of, you know, in the NBA. And now this year you come back and you have move after move. You have Kevin, Kyrie, Kawhi. I mean, our jersey sales are just astronomical. So we love it. But if you go back to, you know, the question you were asking from a basketball perspective,

the way I look at it is certainly LA and New York are very popular free agent markets. Very obvious for all the reasons that are easy to understand. Philadelphia is an hour and 10 minute train ride. It's a 30 minute helicopter ride from New York City. The taxes are 3% versus 12%. So when you're making $200 million in a contract, there's a lot of money in the tax differential of, you know, eight points on a $200 million contract.

And I think, you know, Josh and Blitzer and Elton have built a real winning organization. And I think, I think, you know, I look at that as if you say there's 30 teams in the league and let's say half are not going to like it and half will like it. From my belief, I think these are things that, you know, I think we can, as an organization, come out on the right side of that. You don't feel like the league is hitting some sort of crossroads, though? I like where it's headed. Just from a competitive standpoint? Well, listen, first of all, the way I think about it is

the goal of any sports organization, whether it's the Patriots that we were just talking about or the Eagles or the Sixers, is to win championships. That's why you're there. I believe that the dynamics that are in sports today, I think that, in general, as an owner in any sport, I'd that the dynamics that are in sports today, I think that, you know, in general, as an owner in any sport, I'd like the dynamics of the way sports are headed.

I just wonder the continuity of something. I mean, maybe it just doesn't matter anymore. Maybe it's just because I remember different eras where, you know, in the 80s Celtics, the 80s Lakers, the 90s Bulls, even what Duncan and the Spurs had. And Duncan could have left in 2000. He didn't.

But now you even look at the Warriors for the last six years. If you replace Barnes with Durant, it's basically the same nucleus of a team for six years. And I really liked watching them. And I was used to them. And I think basketball depends at least a little bit on the continuity of the guys together. Now you could say, well, Toronto won Kawhi was there a year. Yeah, sure. But I also remember last year when LeBron beat MJ's scoring mark and he did it in the Lakers and nobody cared. And it was a weird moment. And I do wonder like that connection. I feel it with Embiid in Philly. Like Philly loves

Embiid. I could see him retiring there. And if he was able to play 12, 15, 16 years and stay in the same place and make as much money as he would make, I still feel like that's more meaningful. But other people disagree with me. But what I would say is for a well-run team, they're going to stay in one place. Right.

And so, you know, I think that's an opportunity. So I think, you know, I think- I would say they might stay in one place because I think the Celtics are a really well-run team and they just lost two guys. And Celtic, look, Wick is a really good friend of mine. They are a really well-run organization. It really depends on the player.

And then I think it's, again, I look at chemistry. I think so much in business. Like when you ask me, and somebody asked me this question yesterday, like when you go to hire people, what do you look for? And one of the three attributes I said was people that play well on a team together. And I think you've got to lead a team together. It's the same thing in business or in sports.

If you take a bunch of great athletes in business and you can't get them to work together, your results are going to be shit. It's the same thing, you know, on the field, on the court, on the ice. So to me, chemistry and getting people to play together, it's something that a lot of people don't get. I'll tell you, look, it's widely known how close I am with Robert, Robert Kraft and the Kraft family. Probably the biggest thing I learned from him. And I started like, I'm a sponge. Remember, I barely made it out of high school.

I didn't go to, I didn't go to college. So all of my learning is from having smart people around me and from being able to watch them. And I think the biggest thing I learned from Robert and Jonathan Kraft is they sweat every little detail of their business to keep it together. And it's not an accident, the dynasty that they've built. It's by leadership, okay? And yeah, you need to get luck and timing.

But he hired his coach. He's had Tom Brady. These are two big personalities. They've kept them working well together. So I think that is a, I think that I could go through, and I would never do this, but I could go through and look at every owner of sports and tell you I could put him in three categories

of perennial winner, in the middle, perennial loser. And it's easy, and it doesn't mean someone won't have good and bad runs within a long period of time, but it does start with ownership. But then the flip side of that is you just have a team like the Lakers that's born on third base and is in LA and is one of the most famous franchises we have. And that's a strategic advantage. You can fuck up for six years and still end up with LeBron and AJ. Yeah. Agreed.

Yeah. So the strategic advantage that they have and a couple other teams have. I started by saying that if you're in New York, listen, I believe in sports. If you're in any great major market, you have a huge strategic advantage. And that's just, you know, to me, and if you don't exploit it, then you're not doing your job. See, I worry. I don't know. I worry we're heading for a reckoning because if nobody, you know, we have 30 teams. So maybe we have too many. Maybe it starts there.

But I don't think there's any chance we have too many teams. I think if anything, I think I'm speaking on behalf of entrepreneur. I'm not speaking on behalf of the Sixers or the NBA. I think we have, I think there is demand for more teams. I think, you know, I think Adam could sell as many teams as he wanted to sell. And I think the league could handle more teams. I don't think there's any. History says that's a bad idea, but I think they could add two teams. Right. And that. And I think the league could handle more teams. I don't think there's any. The history says that's a bad idea,

but I think they could add two teams. Right. And that's what I think would be logical. I think Seattle and Vegas would be cool. Yeah. Look, I don't want the NBA should speak on that, but I think,

you know, the way you're thinking about it's logical. Yeah. But I mean, and these things take years and years. Cause my thing is if we're at 30, we might as well be at 32 and have 16 per conference. But I wonder if there's a day of reckoning down the road where maybe we have

relegation and stuff like that. And if you're just completely incompetent for years and years, and guys are fleeing your team, maybe there should be a price for that because in soccer it works. Yeah. I would personally love it because to me, again, I always think that I'm going to outperform.

Yeah. So, but you know, for the people that are on the, but you know, again, split the league in half, there's gonna be half that hate that.

There's gonna be half that love that. I don't think, you know, if you ask, you know,, you know, again, split the league in half, there's gonna be half that hate that. And there's gonna be half that love that. I don't think, you know, if you ask, you know, the best owners in sports, they're going to say, yeah, we love the idea of relegation. Let's keep pushing people out, you know, because they're not scared of being relegated. When, when the owners get together, what are the dynamics? You have all these rich people, rich, successful. Yeah. I would say high, high self-esteem people and they're all in one place and they all think they're right yeah so for me it's actually

interesting because i don't participate as you know josh and david are the the owners that represent the sixers but i probably have the most owner interaction because of fanatics there's not a day that goes by that i'm not dealing with an owner in sports. And so I, look, I, I have a lot of people I learn and grow from and pick information from it. There are, look, there are getting owners to work together is, you know, also it's, it's a, it's a core responsibility of the commissioner. I enjoy it. I enjoy all the little secret stories. There are many of them.

Yeah. You need to come in with like some Grey Goose and beer if you want to get the secret stories coming out you uh you kind of know and beat pretty well i do know give me one story about and beat that would surprise people um the story about joe that would surprise people is he does not drink alcohol and everyone thinks he does because he's got such a big personality yeah i've seen him and there are people think like everyone thinks he drinks and joe is i'm super close with joe i've seen him consume alcohol twice in his life and i've been with him hundreds of times he does not drink alcohol he hates it he's scared of it um and by the two times he did

drink which they scared me i'm joking obviously but yeah but joe doesn't drink alcohol i mean that's certainly you know that's a i don't know. I mean, that's certainly, you know, that's a, I don't know. I think a lot of people, I don't know if that surprised you or not. I'm getting some head shaking, yes, over here. Kyle drinks alcohol over there. Yeah, I do too. But fortunately, Joe doesn't. He used to love Krispy Kreme donuts, but he's over that.

He's very focused on his conditioning now. Yeah, is that a real thing now? Are we going to get 35 pounds lighter Joe Willem Bede this year? Joe is determined. I've talked to Joe. He actually just texted me as I was walking in here. He just got back from, from a vacation and he's, you know, I talked to him a few days ago. He's, he's on a mission. I think he's on a mission. I think, listen, I can tell you one thing. Joel is, and I like, look, I think we're so fortunate with Joel, with Ben. But, you know But you asked me specifically about Joel. Joel is a really smart and intelligent guy.

Also, I think a lot of people might underestimate his intellect. When he went through what he went through last year, he's not just like, shit, we lost and let's move on. He's saying that's going to drive him like crazy to be better. And I think he also knows he's got a body he's got to take really good care of. So I think I would, I'm a huge believer that he's got to just, I think his condition will be the best ever. I honestly think he's,

he's doing himself a disservice if he doesn't think otherwise. I thought he was too heavy last year. But he, look, he, he'll get to whatever he thinks the right place, but I know he's very focused on, on great. Especially with big guys. When you're carrying extra weight like that. Well, I can speak for that myself. I'm definitely carrying some extra weight now. And it's definitely, it hurts me in every way I move my body. When you're talking about a seven foot two guy, they're like a skyscraper, you know? And the more weight you add, the more stuff it could screw it up. But I thought you guys at least should have made round three last year.

And Milwaukee kind of had your number during the season. I don't know if it would have been as simple as- I don't hear that. I think we actually had Milwaukee's number. Well, yeah. Giannis was a problem for you guys. Yeah. I mean, I was-

Look, here's the thing. Once you get the outcome like we had, you just need to move forward and say, you know, what's next and how do you build and learn and grow from that? But certainly, it wasn't the ending that we should have had. And certainly, we shouldn't have been in that position to start with. We should have just, you know, we should have been in a stronger position to not come down to a lucky shot that I think all Philadelphia will see for the next, you know, they'll imagine that shot until we get our first trophy. We stole Al Horford from us. I'm not feeling bad. I didn't enjoy that. That makes me happy. I mean, now that I know you really But you stole Al Horford from us. I'm not feeling bad.

I didn't enjoy that. That makes me happy. I mean, now that I know you really love yourself. Al Horford's great. I did not like Kyrie, especially year two. I liked him year one, but was happy to see Kyrie go, but I loved Al Horford. He was a great teammate.

I'm glad that some misery is coming your way. He was a great Celtic, and I look forward to the Celtics getting revenge. I feel like the Celtics aren't on your radar anymore. You've moved on. No, you know, listen. To this like mediocre Brooklyn team that they're going to have next year.

I'll tell you, I have huge respect for Wick as an owner. I think he's a really good owner. I think they built a really good organization. I think anyone, anytime you don't respect, first of all, Boston may be the most successful. I don't know that anyone's ever, I mean, how many rings has Boston got? You've got the Patriots have six, Celtics have one.

We have 12 of the century. 12 of the century, right. Yeah, I was just, so you- We have four times as many as the Yankees this century. Yeah. We don't think about last century with baseball. We just talk about this century. Let me tell you this.

So we just had the Blues beat your hockey team. In game seven, yes. And the sales were spectacular you know why for for the bruins or the blues for the blues yeah they were they were spectacular because that market had you know st louis hadn't won a championship it was the first championship it was literally as big as a hot market as we've ever had for fanatics was the the blues hot market and by toronto what was incredibly painful for me to watch was also spectacular.

I mean, these were two great hot markets for fans. Well, when you haven't won a title and you win that first one, you're spending at least somewhere, depending on how much money you have, somewhere between $50 and $300 on T-shirts and hats. Right. And most hats come from us as well, which we enjoy and appreciate.

I remember when the Pats won in 2001, we hadn't won a title in 15 years in Boston and they won. I was just like, what is it? I'll buy the SI set, I'll buy the hat, I'll buy the t-shirt. I'll give you an ownership story that you'll like and this will resonate with you really well.

So, I was with, I've been with Robert at certainly last couple years Of him winning the AFC Championship Games And I've been with other teams when they've won You know the NFC Championship Game And when you watch

The Patriots win an AFC Championship Game They don't even care Yeah we don't even look at this They're like okay There's no celebration You lose money when the Pats win the AFC title. Now I'm not even talking about the sports purchase. I'm just talking about the mentality of the Patriots,

which is like, we're not here to win the AFC championship. We're here to win a Super Bowl. That's it, period, end of story. Right. And that talks about great ownership. I mean, there's, you know, focused on what's next. Let's take a quick break to talk about Google Fi. Doesn't it feel like most phone plans

just weren't made with us in mind? Between bad coverage, paying too much for data you don't ever actually use, and crazy roaming charges. Google Fi is a phone plan by Google made with features that people like you and I actually want. Features like free international roaming

so you never have to worry about calling up your provider to let them know you'll be traveling. Three networks in one so you can stay connected wherever you are, from your home to your office and everywhere'll be traveling. Three networks in one so you can stay connected wherever you are, from your home to your office and everywhere in between. GoogleFi works on your favorite smartphone so you don't have to switch phones just to switch plans. In fact, it's as easy as downloading the app,

and you only have to pay for the data you use. Plus, with bill protection, if you ever do use a lot of data, your bill is capped at a reasonable amount. Learn more at fi.google.com. That is fi.google.com. Switch to Google Fi, a phone plan by Google. Back to Michael Rubin. So this is a good question for you. I've always wondered why people don't do this. They make the extra t-shirts and hats. They make them for both sides, not knowing how it's going to go. And then the team that loses,

they have all this stuff and then they like send it to Africa. Why can't I buy that stuff? So that's the way it used to work. It doesn't work that way. So we, just so you know, so Fanatics, and I think most people probably know the business, but it's the largest retail in the world of licensed sports merchandise. In addition to the Fanatics site, we also operate the NFL shop, the NBA store, the NHL store, the MLB shop, MLS store, and 300 individual college sites. So we make all of the championship merchandise in the NFL, in hockey, in baseball, and a lot of it in the NBA. And so the way it works today, and it's such a better experience. First, you know, our business is really a, you know, we've kind of

invented this category of vertical commerce. It's kind of like, if you think about like a Lululemon or a H&M or a Zara, they're like these great vertical brands, primarily brick and mortar based. We're, you know, primarily e-commerce based. Okay. So what that allows you to do is, you know, in sports, there's moments that happen in sports every single day and it allows us the opportunity to merchandise around this moment so what we do for a championship like the blues when they're playing in game seven against um you know boston is we have printers in both markets everything's set up online and then the second they win oh so you haven't actually made it yet there's very few merchandise that's made so the only people we make merchandise for is very small quantities of merchandise that

will go to stores for the first couple hours. Everything online is not made until the second there's a winner. So both the Blues and the Raptors were major hot markets for us. So everything online, the manufacturing starts the second they win. And then for retail, there'll be some very small orders if it's a game seven. And that's the only merchandise that gets destroyed and thrown away. But it's a teeny quantity of merchandise, not me. I mean, you're talking about thousands or hundreds of T-shirts.

But why is it destroyed? Yeah, but the internet is allowed. If you just think about this, the internet's so efficient. Like those two hot markets were probably $30 million in revenue over a short period of time online. And so we're able to really effectively make that merchandise as we sell it and get it to the customer and not have that waste and excess. And that's why FNAX is such an interesting business because we can see these moments happen to sports and then merchandise around them without having to waste inventory. All right.

I get all that. But why can't I buy like a, like a Lakers 2008 NBA champion t-shirt? I know, but I would wear that around the office. Cause I hate the Lakers, but you guys didn't fucking win. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do for you.

I'll probably get a legal letter for someone, but you pick the t-shirt that you want in the next championship. I will send you the winning t-shirt of the team that lost. This is a true story. This is a true story. I will do that for you. This is a true story. I will do that for you. So long as it's not anything Sixers related. That I will not give you the pleasure of.

2002, the Super Bowl, February. We beat the Rams. I'm leaving the Superdome and they're selling stuff for both teams because this is before the Fanatics era. And I bought this Champions Rams mug and t-shirt. And then I wore the Rams t-shirt for like six years. And it was like my favorite t-shirt. Cause it was like,

fuck those guys. So I'm telling you, this is a, this should be a market for you. Yeah. Like the Toronto fans should be wearing golden state warriors, 2019 NBA champ shirts right now. And just like get the hugest kick out of it.

I'm not sure. I'm spiteful Bostonian. Here's the good news. We've gone from $250 million in 2011 when I bought Finax back to over $3 billion next year, and we're just getting started. This sounds like another billion. We've got a lot of growth without focused on the wrong team that didn't

win. The spite purchases. The joke purchases. We're not going to... You should have it on your website. It should be spite purchases. Maybe we'll give you a license. We'll let you run the spite section. We have a Rams fan at the ringer. i absolutely would have given him a rams superbowl champion shirt be like sorry this is close i do you've got one a year per now you can take you got you got four champions per year you get one per year you tell me what it is and we'll give

you a losing team and you can torture one person we're in a slump now we haven't won a title in like six months it's tough i i mean i i feel bad for you this is we're heading into august it'll be six months kyle we're gonna be all right we'll be all right the past haven't won a title in like six months. It's tough. I mean, I feel bad for you. Heading into August, it'll be six months. Kyle, are we going to be all right? We'll be all right. The Pats haven't won a title in five and a half months. I mean, they haven't had another Super Bowl, but it's still, you know, you start to get a little jumpy. The only thing I really want to happen is that I just don't want the Patriots

and Eagles to play again against each other because that puts me in a really difficult situation. So that's the one thing I want to avoid. Yeah, I thought each team that win the Super Bowl. It's faster than you wrote it for the Pats. Look, I mean, look, to me, you know, if I, you know, sold my stake in the Sixers one day and owned another team and they play the Sixers,

I'm not rooting for the Sixers. I'd be rooting for the team I own. You know, Robert and John LeCraft are literally the family to me. So I don't, you know, it just, it felt wrong. That's what I can tell you. I really hope that they never play each other again in the Superbowl. What's the most surprising apparel trend that you don't understand right now?

The most surprising apparel trend that I don't understand right now. That's a great question. Or maybe there's no trends. No, there's lots of trends, but I understand them. The question is trying to think of one that I don't understand that doesn't make sense to me. The trends that are driving business right now are logical trends. I mean, for us, but if you go back to really how we've grown so much as a company, I mean, the first thing is think about you grew up in Boston. Now you live here in Los Angeles. If you went out to buy a Celtics jersey or a Boston Red Sox jersey, you're not going to be able to find that. So the first thing Fanatics did was captured anybody who lived out

of market, who was no longer be able to buy that inventory in the new market they live, where their school that they went to college at, where the pro teams, that was a big market for us. So just kind of fulfilling the unmet demand. And then the whole license industry was always, you know, you really think about Nike, Adidas, Under Armour. These are great performance brands. They really partner with the leagues and teams because they want to elevate, you know,

their brand to sell more branded footwear and apparel. And so they didn't chase the business, the license business, the way we do. We wake up and go to bed every day, obsessed about how do we maximize every sale in the licensed sports business. So I think for us, what's been incredible is we've seen so supply chain is to really be able to, in real time, meet the demand of whatever moment gets created. So I don't think a lot of- So the immediacy would be the big trend. Yeah, so talk about Kawhi coming to the Clippers.

Boom. Five years ago, that couldn't be capitalized on. Now, that's going to be an enormous moment for us. And the moment that the NBA proves each of these proves, you know, each of these, these, you know, transactions, we're out there selling that merchandise. So Kawhi, he signed today. Yep. So when can you have the jersey out? I don't know. I'm assuming it's today. I'm assuming, I'm assuming it's, it's live.

Saj is going to take a look right now to see if he can buy a Kawhi jersey yet, but I'm assuming it's already. I mean- What about a Terry Rozier Hornets jersey? Maybe not. You don't rush order that one? You know, so I'll tell you something really interesting in the NFL. The way it used to work is Nike made players jerseys for about five players per team. And we actually went to the league five years ago and said,

look, there's 1700 guys to play. And yeah, it's bullshit given a year. We never liked that. We want to sell all 1700. Yeah. And so now we make all 1700.

So if you go to NFL shop and you go to fanatics, you can buy any player anytime. We do the same thing in the NBA. We do the same thing in hockey. So again, that's why, you know, Fanatics has really helped to better satisfy fans because fans want different things and you've got to be able to give the fan whatever they want, the home model, the way model, the alternative model, men's, women's, kids. And by the way, players get hot and players get cold and somebody get injured and things change. And so the idea that the way it used to work, you bought your inventory a year in advance

and guessed who was going to, what teams would be hot, what players would be hot. Now you flip it. Yeah, now everything's done in real time. You should start making the Westbrook Heat jersey right now. Put it online. Yeah, you can get them. You can get them?

Yeah. So he's more focused on getting the uh can we get him can we get him the oh so the choir there yeah oh you like that no i think we're on it i think it's a really interesting time because i even remember two years ago my son's name is ben so he's ben simmons love it and when he was all excited for him to go to the boston ben simmons they have met and there's a picture of them together good i don't think taller ben simmons was all excited for him to go to the Boston. Has Ben Simmons met Ben Simmons? They have met, and there's a picture of them together. I don't think taller Ben Simmons was as excited as shorter Ben Simmons. Tall Ben Simmons is a good guy. No, he is a good guy.

He loves his fans. So when he got drafted by the Sixers, my Ben Simmons was like, I want Ben Simmons stuff. Actually, by the way, I told Ben Simmons last night I was doing this, and I told him he should, because I was with him at dinner last night, I was going to actually drag him in just to be funny. I've met Ben Simmons. He's a good guy.

You could have had him this morning. That would have been great. Yeah. He's far more entertaining than me. You might not talk about fanatics as eloquently, but. My Ben Simmons wanted the Ben Simmons thing. We had to order it and it took like a couple of weeks. It seems like even in the last couple of years, it's faster. Yeah. Because the way it works now is we bring

blanks in of every team and then we keep them domestically and we print them on demand. So the way it used to work is you might've had to make the blank first. Now we have blank jerseys here for each of the teams. And then you can print them as you go. What about the ones where teams make their, where people want to make their own jerseseys but it's kind of a fuck you to the team or well you can't make your own jersey don't sucks and you get a next jersey yeah you have to like yeah we have lots of things that you can't do and yeah and certainly so do you have somebody who's who vets all that stuff it's done with technology and leagues give you words as well that you can't use and then once every year you screw something up and you get screamed at. And that's just part of the business.

So people are trying to get through the sensors. Every day, every day. We had a, God, I shouldn't even bring this up, but we had, this is great. We had a horrible situation with the, the tragic who is the I'm embarrassed that the animal who, who passed away in the zoo a couple of years ago. Yeah. And so we, we were without getting into which league it was, we were, customers were making them like crazy. And then the league told us to take them down.

Then fans went crazy. And the league said to put it back up. And we, you know, we people get, you know, we create some good social media banter when people are unhappy with some of the things that we either screw up or the leagues ask us to do. What about like Chinese jerseys? Yeah. I mean, we have we, we have, we, in the NBA, we do,

we do different versions that have the letters and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. No, certainly one of the big risks in our business, one of the things that we fight against very much is counterfeit. And there's, there's, you know, there's a big problem with counterfeit in the licensed sports business. And that's actually really enabled through marketplaces. The most counterfeit merchandise is sold through, you know, Alibaba's, eBay's, Amazon's.

I think all these places are working to clean it up right now, but it's been a big problem of kind of illegal merchandise, not authorized, not properly made. And that's something that us in the leagues, you know, always want to make sure that we're, you know, protecting fans from that. Do you think the throwback jersey thing, that's kind of tailed off?

No, I think it's good. And I think license actually going, going through a really strong period. Now we see, you know, tremendous momentum in the business. And one of the things we think about actually is how do we grow the overall category? Cause the, the, the global category of licensed sports, about a $25 billion category, but apparel is about a trillion dollar category. So what I think about is like sheriff closet. So I'm looking around in this room right now and I don't see any licensed sports merchandise that any, we got, you know, um, six people, no licensed sports merchandise. So we got to think about how do we, um, I see some headwear behind me.

No one's wearing it. Um, we got to think about how do we keep, you know, growing the share of closet? How do we get more, how do we bring new categories? I'm going to test my closet as a lot of stuff oh yeah i get i get kyle got kyle got a lot of freebies for me from stuff i have stuff i've had from the past the problem is when you hit your 40s it's a little harder to be like i'm gonna wear my red socks jersey today my friend daniel who's like in his 50s now he still wears red socks jerseys and we make fun of them. I do feel like there's a point. Some people don't care. I'll still wear mine from time to time.

I never wear jerseys ever, but I wear lots of licensed sports merchandise. I wear a great t-shirt. It's weird for us to wear NBA jerseys after age, what, 42? I've never been one to wear jerseys myself. I'm just not that cool. Football jerseys have stayed pretty cool for the most part.

But look, we sell more jerseys than stayed pretty cool for the most part. But we look, we saw, I mean, we, we sell more jerseys than anybody in the world in all the sports. But our job again is to maximize each category of merchandise. So we don't just want to maximize t-shirts, hoodies, jerseys,

and headwear. We want to figure out how do you get new products into the marketplace? So the hoodies have gone way up. That's like five, six years. I'm actually, I generally wake up and go to bed in a hoodie this is i'm out of character today the hoodies are uh i would imagine that that blew up and by the way you gotta keep making better hoodies and elevate hoodies and you know i even had something by the way this weekend in vegas someone talked to me uh actually meek mill said to me this week in vegas like michael you gotta do a collaboration with off-white and literally's like, I want to reach out to the guy. This is a great idea.

Like we should be doing Off-White licensed sports merchandise. I was like, Meek, it's a great idea. Literally just like, so that's an idea. How do you grow the market? So it's a perfect example of literally three o'clock in the morning, Meek just gets on his performance. We're talking about Fanatics and, you know, Meek is now an owner of Lids, which we're partners in together with him. And, and all of a sudden he's talking about Off-White and I hadn't thought about it. But, you know, he thinks from, you know, kind of that kind of fashion forward, you know, perspective. What is the most popular hat right now? Style? Most popular hat would definitely be the New Era 5950 hat, which it's the classic hat.

It's the baseball hat that's, you know, on field, the NFL hat that's on field. And that's still the number one hat. And that's been number one for a couple of years? It's been number one for a long time. It's been number one hat for a long time. Are there Fanatic stores? Yeah, so our business- Or you just, you have satellite places.

So it's interesting. We started only as an e-commerce site. Yeah. So we started with Fanatics and then NFL Shop, NBA Store, NHL Store, and MLB Store. And then what happened is the e-commerce business kept growing and growing. Owners were coming to us saying, hey, we need you to operate our venue because we want to give an integrated experience to a fan so that if a fan walks into a stadium, they want to be able to buy it online at the league store and pick it up in the stadium or be

in the stadium if the stadium's out of merchandise. Hey, they can use the online inventory to service that fan. So we now have about 50 individual venues that we operate. In San Francisco, we operate most of the teams in San Francisco as an example. And so that's, it's a relatively, it's about, you know, again, next year will be over $3 billion. It's about a $200 million piece of our business. But it is growing nicely. And I think it's very strategic to best service in the fan.

We are also a large investor in Lids, which is the largest licensed sports retailer as well. Have you noticed what those little Amazon pop-up stores, they have a couple in LA. It's like these small spaces, and you basically order online, but they have a couple sample sizes. Yeah, I haven't actually seen them in person. It's an interesting model. I don't know if it works, a couple of simple sizes. Yeah. I was wondering like what person, but I don't, I, it's an interesting model. I don't know if it works, but it's, it's definitely noticeable. Yeah. I haven't spent enough time to really understand. I can tell you for us, we want to make sure that we make the merchandise that the fan wants available

in whatever channel they want. So whether they want to buy it online, whether they want to buy it mobile, whether they want to buy it in an app, whether they want to buy it in a venue, whether they want to buy it in a venue, whether they want to buy it in a store, whether they want to buy it at a bookstore, whether they want to buy it in whatever. Our job is to grow the market. For me as an entrepreneur, we have this company that's... I'm starting to think about how do we get it from $3 billion to $10 billion over the next decade. So the most important thing we need to do is keep growing the category and get a bigger share of that trillion dollar apparel market. Is Amazon a competitor or a partner or both?

So Amazon today is a competitor. They do sell licensed sports merchandise. I'd say most of the better products, you know, you can't buy at Amazon. Yeah. You know, the leagues want to sell them through their own direct-to-consumer business and through their, you know, kind of their strategic retailers. That makes sense. I do think as a big growth strategy for Fanatics long-term,

we believe that every global marketplace from Amazon to Alibaba to eBay to Walmart, who we just did a deal with here in the US, to Coupang in Korea, to Rakuten in Japan and so on, each of these marketplaces, over time, I think you'll see fanatics, you know, making a broad assortment available through these marketplaces because we want to be where the customer is. But it needs to be, we think very much about our brand

showing up in the right way and it needs to be brand right for us. I mean, we're responsible for the intellectual property of the sports leagues. That's a huge responsibility. And you need to make sure when you represent the brand, you do it in the right leagues. That's a huge responsibility. And you need to make sure when you represent a brand, you do it in the right way.

Have they thought of, you know, now that it's just a merry-go-round with the NBA every year, nobody's, did you see there was a stat, Steph Curry has been on the NBA team the longest out of anyone in the league. And Giannis is like in like eighth. I did not see that. Yeah.

Klay Thompson's like third. So somebody buys a jersey, you know, you buy your Warriors KD jersey. Some dude who loves KD spends $200 on a jersey and then KD's gone in three years. Is there any sort of exchange program that we could do? So American Express came to us together with the NBA and we created a jersey assurance program with them that we started in the last year or two. And it's been incredibly successful. I think you see Shaq in the commercials with the NBA American Express jersey assurance ads.

Yeah. And that was something that we did together with the NBA and with American Express. And I think it's been an incredibly successful program. I think it gives fans extra comfort. And so I think it's been a really good program. So that Kyrie, the Brooklyn Kyrie jersey, I would get that one insured because who knows what that guy,

a year and a half from now, he might just be like, I've always liked Miami. And that's it. He's gone. You're just smiling at me because you can't say anything because you're an owner. I just don't trust any of these guys. I think they could hop teams tomorrow.

Look, I think people can hop teams, but I think that it's an organization's responsibility to do everything they can to create the right culture where people are working well together. Or the guy just has people around him. I'm not saying Kyrie, but just anybody. You've seen these guys all have the five, six, seven people around them. They're all like, why aren't you getting more shots?

Why aren't you the guy? I don't know. I'll also tell you something that I've been really impressed with. And I mean this with complete sincerity. I think that NBA superstars are the most sophisticated and smartest and most advanced that they've ever been. Like when I think about conversations that I had, there were so many NBA superstars that are hitting me up about business opportunities. And I'm having really intelligent conversations with guys about this. And people are like, even this weekend, I was with a couple of people. And they care deeply about business. So I love to see athletes in general and certainly in the NBA, these people becoming real strong

business people. And I think it makes them better on the court as well. Because if you have such a good, if you start to develop good business sense, I think that helps you be a better player as well, because you just learn to win even that much more. But I think the NBA superstar has never been more sophisticated and more intelligent. And I think making really good decisions on the road. Look, there's always special situations, but this is a smart group of guys. I think that's why Katie and Kyrie went to Brooklyn. I think the business, because on the surface,

it makes no sense to pick the Nets over the Knicks. The Knicks are a 70-year franchise with 100 times as many fans playing in the most important NBA building we have. Team was bought by Joe and Clara Tsai. He's a co-founder of Alibaba. He's built one of the most important companies in China. He's, by the way, they're my partner.

We're competitors on the court. And you just told me how many people watch? By the way, they're my partner in the Reform Alliance. They're a major contributor to the Reform Alliance. You just said 50 million people watched a game in China. So, and to me, I believe any sports organization that I want to be involved with, I think should always be on the right side of that.

That should be an advantage to us. Yeah. I think that was a huge asset for them. And those guys go there and they're looking at it, not just as a basketball decision, but as not just Alibaba, but also like Roc Nation and all the stuff they're trying to do. And they, I think, really sold them on a whole overall thing. Look, Roc Nation's in, I got to tell you something.

I didn't know anything about rock nation until two years ago. We got into a force. I don't know if you really understand this. We got into a forced marriage because, um, you know, Meek Mill was one of my, you know,

closer friends. And I sat next to him in court the day when I thought he was going for a 15 minute routine hearing. And I watched him get sent to prison for two to four years for not committing a crime against the recommendation of both the DA and probation officer who said he shouldn't be sentenced. And I literally, you know, they took him away to prison. And basically, I started crying. He started, you know, tearing up.

And I looked at him. I said, I'm not going to stop until I get you out of prison. Well, sitting right next to me was this woman, Desiree Perez from Roc Nation, who kind of runs Roc Nation. And Desiree said, I'm not stopping. I'm like, who are you? Who are you? And we joined forces. And I got to tell you something, going through what I went through with the past two years with Roc Nation, they stepped up for me in a way that I think most people would not step up for somebody. So I can tell you, people, someone's just asking me about Jay. You know, I didn't know, other than to meet Jay socially, you know, five times in my life before, you know, a year and a half ago, watching the way they stand up for things that they believe in, in this world, whether they're, you know, nothing to do with sports. Just when Jay sees something that he thinks isn't right, they're going to go deal with it.

When 21 Savage was in prison, you know, for, you know, really for no reason, you know, he went and, you know, just said, go fix it. And, you know, it got fixed. So it's interesting to see, to see the inside of, of Roc Nation, because I've gained so much respect for, for kind of the core values of how they think. It is a weird time as we head into the next decade, you're signing an NBA player and you're not just trying to entice them with the organization and the city. Now you have to bring all these extra things to the table I feel like which isn't a bad thing so I think what what I generally hear from um athletes start like from the best athletes forget about the NBA just stars in sports is the first thing they want to think

about is you know are they going to go to an organization where they can win championships? Most strong competitors, they think about that first. Yeah. Okay? Two, how's the chemistry going to be with the people they're going to play with? And this again, this is any sport. Three, how do they think about the organization?

Is it a winning organization? Okay. They're smart. The same way a sports team evaluates a player, a player is evaluating the quality of the sports organization that they're going to go to play for, for money. But generally, there's a lot of people. The money almost works itself out because there's multiple people wanting to do that. And then they'll look at a city and say, is this a good city to be in where I can get additional business opportunities?

What's going to be my endorsements? So I think that, and that's why I said, I've never seen more sophisticated athletes and stars than there are today asking all the right questions. You know, the internet, social media, it's educated people in a way that we didn't have 10 or 15 years ago. The world's changed a lot. I agree.

And when they enter the league, I think the league has done a good job of looking out for them, coming out of the gate and teaching them a couple of things. But I think about it with my daughter. I mean, my daughter, the access she has today, I mean, you know, she'll come ask me a question and if I don't want to answer the question,

she's like, she's got it from the internet in two seconds. It's not like, it wasn't that way when we grew up. True. So you seem very confident about the six or Celtics thing. I'm just going to say, don't count us out. You know what? Don't count us out. Let me say this, I'm not confident in anything.

Don't count us out. I'm not confident in anything because my mentality in life, in business, personally, in sports, until you've accomplished your goal, you haven't done shit. I just might like to banter with you a little bit, and I do the same thing with Wick. Wick and I have actually, we have ongoing bets.

I had to, last season after we lost the playoffs, I had to literally send a helicopter with how many cheesesteaks to Wick? A dozen cheesesteaks because weick? Dozen cheesesteaks because we had a bet on cheesesteaks and I didn't want to squelch on my bet. So after the BS, I had to fly cheesesteaks to him. Was it lobster rolls or was it cheesesteaks? Oh, we got lobster rolls if we won. Yeah. Lobster rolls. High stakes bet.

Overrated in Massachusetts. Yeah, well, he got the cheesesteaks. He said they were delicious to him. Everyone in the office enjoyed it and said like, yeah, you know, Michael Rubin's, you know, feeding this warm cheese steaks because, um, you know,

the Sixers, uh, did an advance against the Celtics. Uh, thanks for coming out. This was fun. It was my pleasure. All right.

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Yes. When is that coming out? Yes, I think only they know, but I'll be buying it. Are they just going to drop it and it's going to be like a nuclear bomb in the video game industry? It's got to be around the holiday season, right? It'll dominate. Oh, absolutely. This game has been running for like seven years or something and people are still going crazy.

Still great. Still great. All right. We'll be back later in the week with another podcast. Until then. On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within