The Bill Simmons Podcast - The NBA’s Summer Return, The Quarantine 'Bachelor,' and the MJ Doc With Casey Wasserman, Chris Harrison, and Mike Tollin | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Casey Wasserman to discuss safe and effective ways to bring back pro sports including golf, baseball, and basketball, and the Olympics (2:50). Then Bill talks with the host of 'The Bachelor' universe, Chris Harrison, about 'The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart,' how COVID-19 could affect The Bachelor universe, and more (31:15). Finally Bill talks with Mike Tollin, producer of the upcoming Michael Jordan documentary series, 'The Last Dance,' about making the series (1:13:55). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by world central kitchen. Their relief team working across America to safely distribute individually packaged fresh meals and communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily and some of our biggest cities. And they're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting on the front lines while keeping local restaurants in business as well. You can directly help the heroes in hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us. And you can help your local restaurants stay alive. Go to the ringer.com slash WCK to donate, please. We're trying to raise $250,000 this month through all of our podcasts. We'll see if we can do it. I would say we're an underdog right now, but we're trying.

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One was The Wire, Way Down in the Hole. We put up the first two episodes. You can subscribe on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Van Lath and Jamel Hill breaking down every wire episode one by one. We also, we launched Flying Coach with Pete Carroll and Steve Kerr this week. And now that is going to have its own feed by the end of the week. And there's a new episode coming where they talked a whole bunch of draft stuff. It's really interesting. That, I don't know when that pod's coming, but it'll be by the end of this week and it'll be on its own feed. Subscribe to that podcast. They're doing it because they're trying to raise awareness for

a whole bunch of different COVID-19 charities and just in general, trying to make people a little more optimistic by the time the whole thing. Coming up, I have a podcast, Casey Wasserman. We're going to talk about the future of sports in 2020 and how fast things can come back. We're going to talk to Chris Harrison, the guru of The Bachelor. Not only the host, he's really, I mean, he really kind of is The Bachelor. But he's coming on. He's somehow never been on before, but we're going to talk about what happens to The Bachelor.

Is it like sports? Does it just go away? What happens to the show? And then my friend Mike Tolan, who's been on this podcast a few times, he produced the Michael Jordan documentary that is coming on ESPN this Sunday. So we talked about that as well. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. My friend Casey Wasserman is here. Quarantine. Like me.

It's weird. I don't think I've seen you just in a t-shirt probably like 10 years. It's our first lunch. We, uh, I was going to talk about the 2028 Olympics, which you're in charge of in a second, but you you're connected to a bunch of commissioners and owners and you run an agency and you know, basically you hear things, you talk to people. Are sports coming back in 2020? I am certain you will see sports played in 2020, whether you see that at first with no fans

and later with some fans or full fans to be determined. But I'm certain you're going to see definitely sports played with no fans. My view is golf and baseball probably first in terms of calendar, because they have the most natural ability to be socially distanced, if you will, within their sport. And then, you know, the obvious basketball and hockey next. And then the big question will be what happens to college football without fans, since so much of their revenue is driven by ticket revenue and then the NFL. But I'm certain this summer we won't be watching reruns of the 88 world series. Like I did last night or two nights ago.

Or the, or masters over and over again and stuff like that. It is fun to rewatch some of the old games. I got to say, I haven't not enjoyed it, but I'm ready for sports. Let's be clear. I teared up when Kirk Gibson hit the home run again. There's no question. All right, let's go. Let's go in order. So golf.

So you figure you have all the golfers, you have their caddies. You have to have all the production people that are there, the people working the course, things like that. But it's only four days. Plus the practice round on Wednesdays. How do you quarantine people for a six day thing? You'd have to have tests at some point, right? Yeah. Look, testing is probably the gating factor to all of this. And, uh, I think everyone believes that there will be

some version of rapid testing before the summertime. And if that's the case, uh, that's clearly, uh, it's, it's, I would imagine you'll be tested in the morning and at night. If you're an athlete, maybe even people going to normal work will be tested morning and night. And, you know, whether or not people in America will sign up for apps on their phones that track their contact and all that stuff in terms of tracing like they do in China and other countries, I'm not sure. But rapid daily testing, a test, frankly, you might have in your pocket, will make a lot of this more doable for sure. Yeah, the Reddit conspiracy board and places like that are not happy about the app that tracks all of your behavior, which I get. It's about as un-American of a concept as we can come up with.

But on the other hand, it might be something that saves lives for a couple of months. So I don't know. It will. And look, I think as I like to think about it, you know, on September 10th, 2001, you could have gone to an office building in New York City with a big bag and a hat and sunglasses and gone up to any floor without getting a bag checked, a mag, an ID, or being escorted to the floor. And on September 12th, 2001, that changed forever. And that's a normal we've accepted, which is you go into an arena, you get magged and searched and wanted and bags checked and only bags of a certain size and all those things that we've now become accustomed to. And I think you'll see a health version of that in sports. At a beginning, it may be more intrusive, temperatures, frankly, taken and things like that.

But over time, I'm certain there will be new normals, whether it's more grab-and-go's and standing in lines for hot dogs, more cashless transactions, face masks and gloves for all food work. All those things that will be probably normal in lots of other places will probably be accelerated and tested first in sports as crowds start to gather. And then some of the more intrusive stuff may exist in the beginning and may ease over time. We talked about baseball. You and I were talking a little this morning. Your theory is that baseball can happen in Arizona. And you were telling me about the universal thing going on in China. Explain that whole thing. Well, the theory for baseball is, or as you discussed with Ryan over the weekend, which is quarantining players in a singular location,

sort of in the bubble, if you will. Universal Studios China, which is being built in Beijing right now, is under construction again for about six weeks. They have 12,500 workers working every day. Those 12,500 workers are in the bubble and tested at morning and night, and they have not had a positive test. So what it shows is that the bubble works. If you can quarantine people and show that they're free of the virus going into the environment, that that environment stays safe and secure. And so whether it's 30 NBA teams in a certain city, Los Angeles or Las Vegas or somewhere else, or a bunch of baseball players spread out in a couple of hotels in Las Vegas

and going to games as opposed to on buses, they may go in individual cars and being cautious about some of the more at-risk constituents in and around baseball, whether it be some of the managers are older or have, or trainers or staff of the teams or umpires who may be a little more susceptible given their age, as opposed to the players being extra careful, but the bubble works. And, and I think sports leagues are relying on that and, and, and understand that. And I think the federal government at the right time is going to be supportive of that because it knows that not only is it good for the psyche of this country,

it can also in many ways be a model for what going back to work looks like. What does it mean to go back to work responsibly? Obviously, not every company is going to quarantine their employees, but what does it mean to be safe in terms of hygiene and distancing and masks and all the things that will probably come with these sports? Coming back to play can be a great sort of visual example of a positive work environment in the face of these times. Well, it seemed like it would be easier for the NBA than baseball because baseball, the NBA, it could be a 12 team playoff, an 18 playoff, whatever they end up, but baseball, you got 30 teams, they got to play every day. You know, you're going to have, you have to play at least like 80 games

to have like a real season. There's a bunch of different locations, the games. It's much harder to guess how long the games are going to take. Like, would they have time limits? How many stadiums they could use that? That's a lot more to navigate than just putting the 12 best basketball teams in LA or Vegas and 12 players, a team, you know, how, you know, when the games are ending,

that seems way easier to me. Uh, sort of operationally, no question. Uh, obviously people talk about, um, you know,

basketball, more of a contact sport. So the, the, whether it's sweat, the ball, all the, you know,

all those things that are more involved in baseball, which obviously all the players are quite spread out except at home plate. But the operations of the baseball, it's a couple thousand baseball players. Clearly, you'd have to use a variety of spring training facilities. In a place like Arizona, you'd have to use at least a half a dozen or more spring training facilities. And I think the hope would be it's not the whole season. It's that you start in that environment, and then you can slowly transition

back to playing in their home ballparks. But operationally, for sure, a basketball playoff tournament with a limited number of teams and players, as long as they're healthy, is a way more easily executable plan. Well, in basketball, not only does your agency represent some people,

you're tight with Adam Silver, you know, a lot of these guys, and it did seem, I know you talked to a lot of different people. It did seem bleak a couple of weeks ago where it was kind of like, this is probably not happening. We're gonna have to cancel everything. What do you think changed? What was the turning point? Um, well, I think the first thing is, you know, what used to take months in terms of things accelerating or evolving are taking days now. So decisions that were interesting a week ago or not interesting a week ago change so quickly. And so I think the environment is changing. You are starting to hear a lot more talk about on a daily basis, going back to work,

obviously not just about sports, but in the world, whether it's restaurants or stores or the like. And so I think that in the ether of the conversation means the opportunity for sports to come back without having to be kind of grotesque about it, I think is a real opportunity for them. And I think that's a real opportunity for them to take advantage of people wanting to view something on TV to watch their stars play. And I think the NBA is being very cautious. And, you know, I think what you see the sports leagues doing rightly so is they're not making decisions today for the rest of the year. They're, you know, as Adam has said, we're going to make decisions in May for the balance of the 1920 season. And that's the appropriate way to handle it because nobody at this point is able to predict the future. I mean, certainly it's hard to believe that it was

March 11th that that Thunder Jazz game happened. I mean, that's, you know, a month and a few days ago. Look what's happened in a month and a few days. It's inconceivable. And so I think that in mid-June or early July, you know, they could put a tournament. And if you're talking about no fans, they don't need to be And if you're talking about no fans, they don't need to be in arenas. They may not even need to be in practice facilities. There's lots of places they could put a court and play and create a really awesome viewing experience for people

and a very fair playing experience. So do you think LA or Vegas is more realistic for basketball? Well, I mean, vegas is is obvious because the whole city is literally shut down and every hotel is literally empty uh and so the league could go in very quickly um they obviously the basketball in the summer in vegas is a thing whether it's youth basketball or usa basketball training camp or obviously the summer league uh and they know how to operate there um and as i said you don't need 10 practice facilities. You could build courts anywhere inside a ballroom, in a convention center, wherever it may be. LA is obviously

home to two teams and two playoff teams, ironically. So essentially two of the 12, if you're having 12 teams, are based here. So it's just less to deal with that way. And it's a city that a lot of players live in. Um, so that's a huge advantage. Uh, I think it's frankly probably a coin flip at this point in time. Um, and, and we'll come down to, uh, whichever city offers, um, the safest and most flexible environment for the league to operate in the way they want to. So, I mean, if everyone's quarantined and you're using that bubble strategy, then it doesn't really matter if it's LA or Vegas. It's probably what's easier. LA probably has a better airport situation than Vegas.

Right. LA has a better airport, but then, you know, it's municipalities, whether it's the governor or the mayor, may be less interested in supporting that. And they, because of the stress on the system and the size of the city, so Las Vegas may be less affected because it's such a city driven by outsiders. And when they shut it down, they probably slowed dramatically the influx of viruses in the city and the state, and they may be more welcoming. So that may be singularly, politically speaking, what drives the decision for the league. So like if they didn't LA, they could just put everybody at, you know, they'd put them in three different hotels. They could put everybody in the same hotel on different floors.

Only one, only people come in and out. That's it. And then the, wherever they're playing is right next to that and they're going from point A to point B. That's it. They stay in the bubble. They are in the hotel. They're connected and, and to, to wherever they're playing is right next to that. And they're going from point A to point B. That's it. They stay in the bubble. They are in the hotel. They're connected and, and to,

to wherever they're playing. And, uh, and it's a safe, secure environment. There's obviously plenty of hotels that could have the capacity and that are literally empty right now. So you could,

you could house a dozen teams or however many it was and keep them safe. And frankly, have enough for them to do in that, in that facility so that they didn't go crazy when they weren't playing basketball. Right. So arenas are out. This is either they use practice facilities or they build something like in the MJ documentary that's launching on Sunday.

They have a shot of the little indoor court they built him on the set of Space Jam. They basically built him a little dome, state-of-the-art. They could build 20 of those and people would have practice places and whatever, whether they're Vegas or LA. No question. And by the way, filming a game in a cavernous arena with no people is not a great viewing experience. Designing a court built for television might also be a unique opportunity to think about camera angles for broadcasters and different permanent cameras.

So you don't have to have as many camera operators and, you know, there's, it is an opportunity. And I think the NBA show and their willingness in the past, whether it's with the changes they made to the all-star game this year or other things that they're going to experiment and, and they're not going to experiment with the game in the playoffs, but they can experiment with what happens around the game when you have this unique moment in time and you have this unique opportunity to create a venue for viewing. And also owners that are willing to,

I think they're a little different from the NFL, which is older and a little more, no, no, a little stuck in their ways, I would say. Whereas NBA, a lot of these guys are pretty innovative and would actually probably relish the chance to try some stuff, I'm pretty sure, uh, um, the NFL draft might get a 50 rating next weekend with how much pent up demand there is for sports. It's unbelievable. And then even golf or like if, if some tennis tournament was able to come back, people are starved at least. I mean, there's very few silver linings from the past six weeks.

Uh, it's probably less than five, but, uh, I guess one of them would be, it, it did make people appreciate some of this stuff. You know, that the cycle of sports had just turned into this 12 month a year, week after week. Oh, we go to this thing. We go next thing. Here's the next thing. And, and you kind of never take a breath and take a step back and go, Oh, really miss this. I've really felt it this month with April is always my favorite sports month. Always. Well, I just, you know, when you started talking about it was master's weekend this last weekend and just the, you know, Augusta, whether you like golf or not is one of the most magical places on earth and the experience there. And, and it's

always incredible television being there live is,. Obviously, March Madness, all those things to start a baseball season is just always such a fun weekend for those of us who like baseball. It's just all this stuff in, as you said, in April that starts and to not have that makes everyone appreciate it. What you realize is, you know, while some of these sports may be doing better than others in the big macro sense, they all have deep followings of people all over the world in that world, whether it's broadly or specifically, or truly missing those sports as a, as an attraction, you know, unlike, you know, a terrible event or a recession, like an 08, 09 or 9, 11, this is literally affecting every inch of the earth.

So that's everyone's suffering the same. Were you surprised that they canceled the Olympics in 2020? Knowing, you know, now, no, because I think it would have been untenable from a health perspective. But I will tell you, when they canceled the Olympics, it's interesting. What drove that was as an athlete competitive issue, more than a perceived health issue. I think the Japanese government really felt that they could have created a safe environment. Might not have been as many foreign fans, but they figured they could have quarantined athletes before they came over and

made sure the athletes were safe and had mostly Japanese fans who they thought they had a pretty good handle on their health. But what athletes started to realize, and American athletes, I give them a ton of credit for speaking up, was as our country was late into the cycle of the outburst of the virus, you know, they were no longer allowed to train. I mean, take swimmers like Simone Manuel and Kay Ledecky, who we represent. You know, they are training up north in Northern California. Stanford closed the pool. So here you are four months before the games and your trials for that sport, and you literally cannot find a pool to train in. Whereas in China or other countries, they'll quarantine their athletes or break rules

or do whatever they're going to do to create a training environment. So I've put certain countries' athletes at a truly competitive disadvantage, which obviously doesn't produce a great Olympics when, unlike other sports, it is a once every four years opportunity to showcase yourself. And then the second piece, which not a lot of people talked about, but I think would have become a real issue, is how do you ensure that there's fair drug testing in this environment? How do you, you know, the opportunity, I think, would have been truly rampant because every drug lab on earth is not focused on performance enhancing drugs right now. They're focused on other things.

And so the opportunity for drug deets to enter the Olympics undetected would have been significant. And I think those two issues really forced the IOC and the Japanese organizing committee to evaluate the decision. And there was no point in delaying it because September would have been no more certain than July. And so 2021 for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, here we go. Are we sure it happens? Are we sure 2021 happens? Well, my bet would be that you'll know this fall because if we're not in a place

where you've got some line of sight on medical, either treatment or vaccines, that you couldn't ramp up enough of those by july of 2021 to guarantee an olympics but if you have line of sight by the fall i think with with relative certainty you could you could see those games happening well and the the training is the other big thing if the if certain countries just don't have the ability to train properly, to get in that swimming track, think of all the different things you have to do

when you're around a bunch of people. If you can't do that, how are you going to have an Olympics? And all those facilities are closed. And think about countries who are less, have the less financial resources than we do, or China or England or Canada. Think about some of the African countries.

The outbreak is just hitting those places, South America. So as it has moved around the world, it has created these issues on a rolling basis, which that's the other part of moving to 2021 versus the fall of 2020, is it hopefully will have created a much more level playing field and allowed for these athletes who were ought to be right now at the peak of their training for 2020 to back it off and essentially restart their cycle as they come into into 2021 with a little more clarity and opportunity for training. Does part of you wonder if the 2028 LA Olympics will be the last Olympics? Well, I don't want to think of it in those terms,

but I can assure you, Bill, that when we have thought about, you know, that you always have sort of disaster planning and that a global pandemic where no one would be allowed to leave their house was definitely not something we'd ever thought about. I'm not even talking the pandemic. I'm just saying like in general,

it was, I mean, it was so hard to sell the rights for some of these things, especially the winter ones. And just, it seemed like it was i mean it was so hard to sell the rights for some of these things especially the winter ones and just it seemed like it was getting weirder and weirder and weirder and we were hitting a point where either la was going to have to have every summer olympics or i don't know what the alternatives were well i uh i certainly hope not i do think uh if there's some medical um successes to be had between now and 2021 and the Olympics go off in Tokyo, I actually think it has the opportunity to bring the world together in a truly special, unique way. And it may just reignite people's passion for hosting the Olympic Games and the

value of what people talk about as Olympism, which when you get lost in whether the trouble cities have or the commercialization or all the things that happen around the games and you get lost in whether the trouble cities have or the commercialization or all the things that happen around the games and you get back to sort of at its root what it is i think it has a true opportunity and you know the winter games have other issues obviously around are there enough places with snow um summer games you know there's already people lined up for 2032 and uh and so i certainly hope uh we're not the last games in the 2028 of any kind. Well, that's a relief. Cause you know how much I love, especially the summer. I'm way more summer Olympics than winter Olympics, but, um, you know, it's in third

normal times, I would be making fun of you for how many arenas and stadiums LA has. Like even since the last time he came on the pod, when we were talking about the Olympics, now we have this giant LA football stadium and now bombers building a state of the art basketball arena in Inglewood. LA has 40 arenas. I don't even, I don't even know where you're going to put everything. It's, it's actually,

I explained to people that there is an environment and I'm not saying this is what's going to happen, but if baseball, which is not in the Olympics in 2024, so if we were to not put it back, which I'm not saying we're doing, but if we were to not put it back for 2028, and we decided not to play the soccer final at the Rose Bowl, you could have an environment where you didn't use the Rose Bowl or Dodger Stadium or any venue in Orange County. So not the Angel Stadium, not the Honda Center, not the Anaheim Convention Center for any Olympic games. And in most Olympic cities, those would be like treasure troves of venues.

And we could host a game easily without having used any of those venues, which is a really staggering thing. Yeah. I remember the London Olympics, they built that makeshift football stadium basically, Remember? And then it was done. It was like, what do we do with this thing? That's right. Like development, U.S. soccer shut down the development academy and teams are moving to ECNL, but it's just kind of chaos for whenever youth sports comes back. When do we hit the point where we can combine some of the Olympic stuff we're doing with U.S. soccer, with all this stuff, so everything is governed? Like if we had a sports czar, if we had somebody who's just in charge of this, who right now would be very busy trying to figure out there's going to be a NBA playoffs. A sports czar would really try to figure out how do we use all these different resources, have some real administration over it. And how can we do this so that our youth soccer is awesome. That leads to real soccer and the MLS, all these different things. It feels so disjointed.

Is there any sort of way we can save that? Well, I'm worried about it. I mean, obviously, I saw what happened with soccer yesterday. I think you're going to see multiple governing bodies, whether it could be someone as big as a U.S. soccer if they don't get to play games soon or some of the littler ones go bankrupt. I think that's an entirely possible scenario. I worry about college athletics

and the power that college football has and missing one football season if they were to miss it. I'm not saying they are, but if they were to, we'll do two things. It'll decimate all the Olympic sports in those colleges,

which frankly disproportionately hurts female athletes, unfortunately. And two, I think it will accelerate the number of schools that play football or decrease that number. And so most countries, to your point, actually have a sports czar that's a cabinet level position. And I think if there was ever time to, you know, even think about it as crazy as it may sound, it's now because people now realize what a big part of our society is, what a big industry it has, how important it is to the lives of kids in so many ways. And whether it's your daughter's soccer team or my daughter's horse riding, that's what turns them from girls into women in many times and gives them confidence and opportunity and access to things that they otherwise never

would have. And something like this is something that can really rip apart the fabric of that. And I'm concerned. So if there was ever an opportunity and time to fix a broken system, I hope it's now because we need it. Well, I don't think any of us really realized how important sports was to the economy in so many different ways. It's just like, when would you ever have that conversation? And now you think... I first really started thinking about a couple of days ago when there was that stuff about Trump getting all the commissioners with Bob craft and Jerry Jones, like he basically this little makeshift coalition to figure out what do we do?

And it's like, somebody should be in charge of that. That sounds like that should be a job for you. Wouldn't do it. But somebody like you who has a lot of different connections and thinks about stuff in a business way and could deal, you know, figure out boxing regulation and college sports. And there's 90 different components to that job. And it does make sense. And by the way, I mean, you could imagine that person solving things like sports gambling issues, drug doping, supportive athletes,

you know, unfortunately, some of the things that have happened, some Olympic sports, the abuse that's happened, you know, having someone who's got authority and power at a broad base, not on a limited base, but, you know, again, it's clear how important sports is in our society. And, you know, going back to your point about Olympic sports, what most people don't realize is not a single dollar of government funding goes to support Olympians or Olympic athletes or Olympic athletes in training. So that flows through the system. So U.S. soccer doesn't get government funding.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee doesn't get funding. USA Gymnastics doesn't get government funding. So, you know, in an environment where private funding is going to be hurt dramatically, it has a really direct effect on those organizations because all of their money comes from ticket sales, sponsorships, or donations of individuals and corporations. And if those are down 20%, you're going to see programs like the development program at U.S. Soccer that was eliminated yesterday. That's not going to be the last. That's the first. And beyond the programs, you're just talking about how do we fix fields? How do we build more ice rinks? LA has one ice rink in basically an hour

radius. It's crazy. It's the second biggest city in America. The soccer field situation is a disaster. And I'm sure that's the case all over the place. Like you have older facilities or, you know, it just feels like it's completely ungoverned. And I wish there was some coherence. This is the time for the sports hour. I'm ready. I'm ready.

Where's my call? All right, Casey. Thanks. I I'm feeling more and more optimistic about sports. Thank you for, uh, thank you for helping us with this. Thank you for having me in elevating my office Q rating for the year. What are the odds Westbrook coming on my podcast? Like one in a million. I mean, come on. It's a unique time. We got to lower those odds. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. Has he ever done my podcast? Like one in a million? I mean, come on. It's a unique time. We got to lower those odds. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. Has he ever done a podcast?

That's a good question. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no too. I'm going to call him tonight and see if we can get him on. Come on. If there's ever a time. There's no way he's still mad at me

about joking about the hardened trade. It was a million years ago. It was a million years and a pandemic ago. He should forgive me. Casey, thanks for doing this. Thanks, Bill. Take care. All right. We're going to bring in Chris Harrison in one second. Wanted to remind you of our new ringer podcast that is called The Wire, Way Down in the Hole. It is hosted by Van Lathan and Jamel Hill. And what they did, they decided to watch every single episode of The Wire

and do a podcast about each one. Our first two episodes went up. You can already find them on the feed, whether you subscribe to Spotify, Apple, wherever, and we'll be putting up two-week until they're done. There's winners and losers at the end of every season, podcasts, all that stuff. So subscribe to that now.

It's really good. And speaking of Jamel, she's on the rewatchables this week. We put it up on Wednesday, Love and Basketball, one of my favorite movies of the 21st century. I'll just say it. I absolutely love this movie.

I watch every time it's on, I get sucked in. So Jamel and I broke down all the reasons we think that this movie has aged unbelievably well. Check that out. Ferris Bueller is coming on Monday on the rewatchables. So be ready for that one too. All right. Here's Chris Harrison. All right. From his bachelor lair in parts unknown, California, Chris Harrison. Hey, so we lost sports. We didn't lose the bachelor because you already banked, uh, listen to your heart, this very successful music series, but at some point that's going to end. And I think people are going to be more upset that the bachelor has disappeared than the NBA and

the NFL. What are you hearing from people? Yeah. I mean, I, you know, we were really fortuitous in that we shot this show in a time when we don't shoot shows. We crammed it in right between The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, where we usually are taking a little bit of a break. And we're just lucky in the middle of all this that we had at least six weeks set up of television. But you're right. I mean, when we get to June, that's going to run out. Then we got to figure out, you know, what can we produce? What kind of content? But the overwhelming response I got Monday night, when listen to your heart premiered bill was, it's just good to have you guys back. It's just good to see you out on a wet driveway. It's good to just escape for a minute.

Yeah. Made things feel more normal again. It was like, Oh, Monday night, the bachelor's on, this is normal for two hours. Plus it, it, my wife was delighted by normal again. It was like, oh, Monday night, The Bachelor's on. This is normal for two hours. Plus, my wife was delighted by the show. It hit two of her favorite things. One is The Bachelor. And then two, people singing who might not be as good as they think they are. Which is really every month. Yeah, true.

Those are like two of her four favorite things in life. So she was like out of her four favorite things in life? So she was like, out of her mind, delighted. I was telling you by text, it, it seemed like a American psycho, John Mayer might get voted out because the girl that, uh, liked him pick somebody else. And, and her and my daughter were like, Oh my God, he's, he's got, he's the best singer on the show. He's got, I'm like, they've got this. Don't worry. He'll he's going to be sneaking Ryan go just yet. How many times have you just intervened with the people and just been like, Hey, I know you're on the fence. You know, it'd be really good for the show. If you pick this person, we really, you know, especially for the bachelor and bachelorette, I think people give us way too much credit as producers of picking certain people. Like, you know, you guys hold on to the crazy or whatever.

You don't really, A, you can't do that. And B, you don't have to. There's enough crazy to go around. It would have really sucked to have lost Ryan because he is a really good singer. But there's other stories out there. If any of those other guys had stayed, maybe other than Hot Touch. Hot Touch had to go. But other than that, we would have been fine. So by our friend, Juliet Lipman, her concept of the producer pick,

that's an urban legend. The producers making a call on the final one. Well, early on, here's what we can and actually do is early on, you know, night one, and this is for bachelor, bachelorette, this isn't really about listening to your heart, but night one, say there's 30 women there. You know, really the guy has, you know, about 10 to 12 to 13, I don't know, it depends how many he's really got his eye on, how many he really has gotten to know. And then they get to a point of, let's talk about the rest. Who are some people I might have missed?

And honestly, as producers, we're not really looking for crazy as much as, here's some great people we've seen in casting that we think are going to be awesome, man. These are really good women. And it doesn't always work, Bill. It's worked to the opposite of what we've thought before. I'll never forget Ben Flanick's season. There was this girl, Ben was the winemaker from Sonoma. Then there was this girl who was a blogger from New York.

And we thought, this is great. Winemaker meets Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw. This is going to be an awesome story. The blogger went crazy on night one in tears. And he's like, guys, I'm getting rid of her. And we said, look, give this girl a chance. It's night one. Give her a mulligan. Crazy stuff happens. Night two, she was even worse. Ends up in tears running through a vineyard. He's like, guys, I got to cut this girl. And we're like, we failed. We thought this girl was going to be top

four material. And we absolutely failed. And so sometimes it's where we really go into it with the best of intentions and we give them a crazy. Well, it sounds like that's almost like an NBA draft or an NFL draft where you were super high on a receiver and it just, it didn't work out. People are going to choose Joe Burrow in this draft and they're going to think they got a good one. They're going to think they got Ryan Leaf. They're going to, and then guess what? Yeah. The best of intentions. You don't know. It really is like the draft.

You don't know until, you know, a few years down the road and all of a sudden it turns out you had, you know, Tom Brady. I'm always amazed by how they can remember as many names as possible in those first couple of nights. I know they have some help. They do. And you, you know, again, there's another little behind the scenes thing. People go, do you write the names on the roses or do an IFB? We won't use an IFB.

We don't want to put an earpiece in because that's still us telling you what to do. And I know it's this weird gray area, but we'll stop. You memorize as many as you can, then we'll stop and we give you the list of names that you've chosen. So it's still your list and you have to memorize and you have to say it. And so at any time, if you want to change your mind, we're not saying, you know, Bill Simmons, Bill Simmons. It's up to you to say Bill Simmons. If you want to change your mind or go a different direction, you can. So you're not with the headset on like Andy Reid calling in the place, them homes. Exactly. No, there's no Belichick telling you what to do. You're on your own,

man. How many times, how many bachelor seat and bachelorette seasons have there been now? Like 35, 40. I don't even know. Oh, 40,

18 years. We just celebrated our 18th anniversary. Yeah. So how many shows is that? Like 35? Yeah, easily. Yeah.

On top of that. Yeah. Yeah. So how many times bachelor and bachelorette did it seem like on the first night it was like, oh man, he's probably going to pick her or she's probably going to pick him and we might not have a lot of drama this season? More of the bachelorette, less of the bachelor. I don't know if you know this, but your listeners may know women are better human beings than men are. Yeah. They're more sincere. They're more serious. I think honestly, when they get to be the bachelorette, you realize it sucks out there. Dating is hard. This is a great opportunity.

And I think they just take it more serious off the start. And so I think early on, bachelorettes, a lot of times, you can really see where they're leaning. It doesn't always end up that way. But usually, that person goes pretty far. Sometimes with the bachelor. But those guys ebb and flow. And look, if you ask them now, revisionist history is wonderful. It's like, oh, I saw my wife and I knew the moment I saw her.

Like, did you? Did you really? So the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. It's also tough. I'm always amazed when, especially when it's The Bachelor with the women who make like the final four, final five, who have obviously seen the show but have no idea how traumatized they're going to be when it gets down to the fantasy suites and stuff like that. It's a complete revelation shocker to them that this guy might've been down the road with some other women. They can't get over it half the time. This is why these relationships crater

post season, right? It is tough. You know, early on, we had a really difficult time with that. I think we weren't really equipped as producers. We were doing a television show. We didn't really see the bigger picture until we really got into it because we didn't know what we were creating. And we got better at facilitating these relationships, helping them along the way, especially, as you mentioned, when the show airs. That is really the tough part to kind of handhold and walk them through this process. I mean, I'm a pretty confident man. I'm older and have some experience. I wouldn't want to see my girlfriend or wife making out, dating and hooking up with a bunch

of guys. I mean, that would be difficult, awkward at best. So that is the difficult time. I always tell them, if you're happy, don't watch the show. There's nothing you're going to gain from watching the show. Just talk about it. You can come clean and discuss it, but watching it is a whole lot worse. I mean, who has to suffer through that in high definition TV? Well, it's like, don't look at your Twitter replies. Don't go on message boards when there's posts about you. And definitely don't watch The Bachelor if you're on The Bachelor, especially if you made it to the final three. I would not do that.

It would be like, you know, think of the worst Super Bowl loss ever. Yeah. Watch that over and over and over again. You are, okay, you are Everson Walls. I'm going to make you watch the Dwight Clark catch for the next six weeks. Why would you do that yourself?? You know, you got beat, you know, it's horrible. You know, he's going to come across and inexplicably catch that over your

head. Why you always do the most dramatic ceremony ever thing. I don't always believe you, but now, now that we've had 18 years of this, what really was the most dramatic rose ceremony ever? And it doesn't have to be the final one. What do you think was the single most dramatic? I think you're probably Jason, Molly, and Melissa, the switch. Um, I'll never forget shooting that because it was so new to us and we didn't know what to do with it at the time. We were just getting into the whole, we're doing live television shows at the end, and we're doing these kind of recap shows. We were still inventing that when all this happened. And we never had a situation like that. And I remember we went to the Extra Studios where they shot Extra at the time. We took over a studio, no studio audience.

And Mike Fleiss, the creator of the show, was genius in kind of putting this little nuance to it. It's just going to be you in a really dark studio, just you and Jason talking. And in kind of putting this little nuance to it, it's just going to be you in a really dark studio, just you and Jason talking, and then we'll bring Melissa out, he'll break up. And then we're going to bring Molly out. It's going to be really quiet, no music, no applause, just really serious. And we're going to own this story and see what happens. And that to me, because of the timing, it had never been done. I, we were just really going with the flow. We didn't know how it was going to show up. We didn't know what Melissa was going to do.

We didn't know if Molly was going to say yes. It was just kind of wild television that we were making that to me personally and TV wise was the most traumatic. What was the least dramatic? What was the least dramatic ending? Was there a season where you're like, oh, fuck, there's no way this is going to be entertaining or dramatic at all?

Lorenzo Borghese. You know, Jesse Palmer, speaking of sports, Jesse Palmer really popped the balloon. He had gone around us and somehow had an intern illegally go to the airport, buy her like a first class ticket. And I don't know if you remember, he's like, here's a ticket, come see me. So Jesse Palmer was a big disaster.

But I think, look, Jesse told me early on, I want to be on ESPN and I want to be a sports caster. And I even told him, I said, you're a lunatic, man. This is never going to, you know, you're never going to parlay this into becoming a sports announcer on ESPN. Right. Well, there you go. That's how smart I am. you're a lunatic, man. This is never going to, you know, you're never going to parlay this into becoming a sports announcer on ESPN. Right. Well, there you go.

That's how smart I am. It's turned out pretty good for him. Yeah, it happened. And he kind of distanced himself from the bachelor thing pretty early, but it turned out to be a pretty good strategy.

You look at him, Travis, Travis Short did the same thing with the doctors. Travis got picked up. He was the doctor. His season wasn't even that great. And he's had a, what, a 12, 15 year run on with the doctors. Travis got picked up. He was the doctor. His season wasn't even that great. And he's had a, what,

a 12, 15 year run on doing the doctors. I remember when you had Jerry O'Connell's brother that year. Charlie. I don't know how many seasons in that was like seven, eight, whatever. And that was the first season where I was like,

yeah, this is probably running its course. It was a good run. I enjoyed it. But I feel like we're heading, I can see the finish line with this now. And that was like 15 years ago. That was, there was this lull where a typical show, as you know, you're a pop culture genius too,

where things have an arc, especially in our business. They go up, they peak, and then we start going down and you have the Lorenzo Borghese's, the Charlie O'Connell's of the world. And you're like, okay. And this generation that loved you is kind of waning. And the next generation does not watch you. That's the way things work. What your parents watch is not cool to you and vice versa. And so we did get to that lull and Charlie was a part of that and it just, it wasn't working. And then all of a sudden we got to Travis Stork and we got to, um, uh, Jason Mesnick season, but also, uh, uh, Andy Baldwin, officer in a gentleman's season. He was a naval

doctor. And all of a sudden we, we kind of lightning again, and it caught on. And the next generation really dove back in. And all of a sudden, we made that generational leap. Whereas some people are jumping the shark, we jumped generations and inexplicably just took off again. Yeah, I remember my wife used to, before she had our second kid and stopped writing completely, but she used to write little recaps. And the Andy Baldwin season was a good season. It was a sneaky comeback season. I mean, Jake Pavelka is still the pinnacle. It's like Michael Jordan. It's not worth arguing about. That's the pinnacle of the comeback.

That was really the switch where we had Travis Stork and Mesnick and we had some of those others. And then we got to Jake Pavelka. In that season, all of a sudden, the network realized we can't turn this thing off because if we do, someone else is going to pick this up. And they are one season away from having a breakout hit again. And that can't go to NBC.

It can't go to Fox. It can't go to NBC. It can't go to Fox. It can't go anywhere else. ABC has to hold on to this because it really is just one season away from a Jake Pavelka. And next thing you know, you have a runaway hit for five more years. Yeah, I remember when we started Grantland in 2011.

By that time, it was, you know, it had really rounded into shape. And, you know, The Bachelor, we were treating like it was the NBA or something. You know, especially we would rounded into shape and, you know, the bachelor we were treating like it was the NBA or something, you know, especially we would try to get content out of it in a whole bunch of different ways. And I do feel like, you know, we're around the same age when Melrose place in 90210 had that run on Fox on Monday nights and everyone in this certain demo from like college all the way to age 35, they, they just kind of were watching, they were versed in it. They knew it was going on. If you're at a bar at two o'clock

in the morning could come up, half the people knew what you were talking about. And somehow the bachelor crossed into that way. So you think that happened somewhere between Travis and Jake Pavelka? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I think early on the show was successful, but it wasn't successful like this. And you and I have a unique perspective because of what we do, and I have a background in sports as well. I understand why people watch sports. I get the March Madness, and I get the Super Bowl effect, and I get the mask. I get that because it's a community. I'm a Cowboys fan. You're a Patriots guy. That's a community. We belong to something. Whether people understand it or they don't, that is a thing. The Bachelor created that too. We are a community. On Monday nights, you're a part of something.

Whether you're man, woman, child, whatever, and listen to your heart is now giving that too of like, you get to belong to something on Monday night. And early on, I would argue, we didn't really have that bachelor nation. It wasn't in those five, maybe even eight years. And then all of a sudden, it was really that next generation, the Pavelka effect or whatever, when all of a sudden sororities started watching and they piled into their homes and people started having these huge viewing parties. And now, I don't even know how you quantify the ratings, honestly, and no offense to Nielsen,

but it's so antiquated and so out of date. You can't quantify the fact that 50 to 100, this is pre-pandemic, piled into their homes to watch the show together. You can't quantify that. It was even much bigger than the numbers that we were getting. Well, and you knew it was working because that's when abc started to skin it in every possible way they could to keep it going and turn it it's almost like the wwe or something where it's like how could this be 52 weeks a year is that possible and then that led to paradise all that stuff

well you mentioned something and you know the grant lands of the world and all these other kind of offshoots started a taking advantage of what we were doing, but B, also perpetuating it. And you introduced it to a whole host of other people. And Howard Stern did, too. And Jimmy Kimmel did, too. So now you have so many other people that really have this insatiable appetite. And it does. It has a 24-7 news cycle.

These people don't turn their lives off. Even in the pandemic, we have three amazing stories going on during quarantine, Bill, with Peter and Kelly quarantining together. Hannah went down to Florida with Tyler C. And now I'm hearing that Victoria F. is in Iowa with Chris Soules. So our show is still creating storylines

and we're in a pandemic. That's crazy. I social media, I think really helped too, you know, and once people could kind of share the show as it happened, I still think like it's on the West coast. I just wish it was on at five o'clock here. So people, I feel left out of the social media thing. Cause I see all this stuff popping up. I have a tough time. Do I like tweet with the East coast and the Midwest, which is three quarters of our country, if not more. Um, but then I'm an a-hole for doing it and I'm releasing all these spoilers. And so I try to kind of like go down this middle of the road, answering questions without being too detailed and ruining it for the West Coast, Hawaii.

So it's tough. I agree. And it's interesting. I think Mike Fleiss created something 18 years ago, perfectly suited for social media when we had no idea social media was going to exist. Right. Well, I remember one year I was with Kimmel Kimmel was doing the up fronts and I was in New York for something it was at least like 6, 7, 8 years ago and Paul remember Paul Lee was running ABC

so it was whenever he was running it and we were backstage I had done some other stuff and then I came in to hang out with Dixon, Kimmel's agent and Kimmel and he was going to do his up front thing and it was backstage with Paul Lee some other stuff. And then I came in to hang out with Dixon, Kimmel's agent and Kimmel. And, and he was going to do his upfront thing. And it was backstage with Paul Lee. And I, and we were just talking and I was like, Hey, why don't you guys bring bachelor in paradise back? What are you guys doing? Cause remember they had had it on a couple of times and then they got rid of it. Well, we did bachelor pad. Bachelor pad. That's what it was initially.

Yeah. And it was, it was, there was something inherently wrong with it. And that's why we took it away, was it needed a break to come back as paradise. Because Pad was, we put too much emphasis on the game show. And that was a lesson learned. If it was about the money and the prisoner's dilemma at the end of the show, and less about all these relationships. And so, yeah, after your conversation and that Paul Limo, and they brought it back, but we brought it back as paradise. Well, I like bachelor pad just for the record. I remember, I remember I was talking to him about it and he was surprised and like semi horrified and was just like, yeah, that was too over the line. It was like kind of too risque for them.

They were like, we just, it kind of crossed the line. It was like kind of too risque for them. They were like, we just, it kind of crossed the line. So he was basically like, there's no way we're putting that back on. And then three years later, it was back on. And then all of a sudden now it is what it is. I won't name names, but it had to do with one executive in particular, who was very, very high up. It wasn't the president, but right below. And she's kind of an East Coast elitist. And she just didn't like the fact that she couldn't go to her little cocktail parties. And people would talk about this, you know, pond scum, the bachelor pad.

And sales loved it. It was massive because the whole concept of the show was put something on in the dead of summer when there's nothing on TV except for reruns. Give us some content that we can launch the fall shows off of. So we did. And then the show ends up being bigger than the fall shows. Bachelor of Paradise is massive now.

So the sales department loved it. Most everyone in the network loved it. It was just these higher-ups who just couldn't go to their highfalutin East Coast parties and answer, how is this on your network? And so they killed it for no other reason than that. And then once those people left or were fired or whatever, the next regime came in and said, yeah, we're going to sell the hell out of this. Let's bring it back. What you just mentioned is one of my favorite theories, cocktail parties and elevators, two of the, the, the two most influential paces for powerful people. Because, you know, if, if you're a super powerful person and you're like living in New York, you're in some fancy apartment building, you're taking the elevator down, you're getting into

your car, you're going to the office. You're basically not seeing anybody, but there's that two minute stretch where somebody might say like, Hey man, I love bachelor in paradise. Keep that up. And then it just kind of registers. And same thing with cocktail parties. If you're, if somebody is coming at you at a cocktail party about, you know, and you're at some foofy political thing and they're like, why the fuck is bachelor in paradise on, you know, and that sticks with them in a bad way. You're good about this. And I know this from the things that you've created in the broad spectrum in which you really allow your people to go.

Because I'm such a fan of all the stuff you guys do. And it's, you have to be careful to not surround yourself with just a bunch of like-minded people that say exactly what you're saying and think what you're thinking. It's like, you have to have people that, you know, are on the right, are on the left, are in the middle. And, you know, these people in New York and I, I'm not

bashing on New Yorkers, but we do it here in LA too. You get surrounded by your own people out here and you're like, oh, this is so artsy and genius. And then, yeah, guess what? You've just alienated three quarters of the country. They don't care. And so, you know, you have to be really careful of who you're listening to Who you're surrounding yourself with So as The Bachelor hits Decade 3 How long does this go? How long do you go?

No You can't leave You and Probst You guys you have to write it out You two and Alex Trebek You can never leave You have these jobs forever It's just going to be one of these old folks homes. It's like, uh, you know, there's, there's the secret suite. There's, you know, there's, there's Harrison and we're like walking down in our rascals.

Um, we're hosting shows that don't even exist. We're not, you know, it's like, it's like the old coach, our headset isn't even plugged in and we're calling plays. You know, Howard Schnellenberger, right? So Howard Schnellenberger, I was a sportscaster when he was at Oklahoma and, um, you know, he was a little bit past his prime when he made it to OU. And, you know, I, I heard stories that he would call plays, you know, from his Vinny Testaverde days back in Miami. I said, that's what we'll be. We'll be old men just hosting shows that aren't even on the air anymore. I do feel like this has become like WWE. It's just going to keep going and going.

There's no sign of decay, lack of interest. If anything, the fan base is so rabid. It's actually like if they turn on somebody, it's almost like the Bayhive with Beyonce. Like if they get mad at somebody, you don't want to be in the other end of that. No. And that's the thing is it regenerates. It's now it regenerates, it refreshes itself. And again, one of the genius things that Mike did is the story isn't about Trista Wren, the bachelorette. It doesn't follow Trista her whole life. You know, I love Trista,

but now she's a 40-year-old mom married with a couple of kids. Well, that's not interesting to kids that are in high school or kids are in college, whatever. So you're following Colton. You're following Peter. You're following, you know, Hannah and Tyler down in Florida. These people are as young as they are.

They're hip, they're relative, and they're on TikTok. They're doing all the crazy stuff that normal kids are doing in pop culture right now. They're not this 40, 50-year-old woman that we met 18 years ago. So it refreshes and regenerates, but we don't lose our core audience. Your mom, your grandmother still watch, yet we also have your daughter. We also have your grandkids. So it's really interesting how this spectrum of people that watch the show. How do you handle, especially this decade, people are going to come on that show and leverage it and try to become Instagram influencers, YouTube influencers, whatever. Would you say that's like

two-thirds of the people that are trying to get on the show at this point versus trying to find love? Season two, we came in with Alex Michelle. Season two was Aaron Berge. We had 33 million viewers watching that show. Then there was Trista Brand, the first Bachelorette. And that was the highest rated season from start to finish. So everybody after Trista knew what they were, you know, this is a big deal. Now that there's social media, it's just different. It's a different, you know, coming into a relationship, insincere for the wrong reasons, whatever you want to say, this person's hot. Do I want to just marry the guy with abs or marry the supermodel? Or do I want to see if there's someone with substance here, you know, who has a job who

doesn't live with their parents or whatever, you know, that's, that's your job. But that's also your real job when you're going out to a bar or anywhere else. It's like, there's the rich guy. Do I want to just marry the rich guy because he has money or do I need a personality? So you know, the show's never been predicated on the fact that it works. You have to figure it out. there's the rich guy. Do I want to just marry the rich guy because he has money or do I need a personality? So it, you know, the show has never been predicated on the fact that it works. You have to figure it out. And part of the allure of this is that,

yeah, there's some insincere human beings out there that are going to try and take advantage of you. Are you going to fall for the fact that they're just hot or smooth talkers? Or are you going to see right through that? Um, the quarantine thing. I've been talking on this podcast a lot about

can sports come back? What would it look like if we did the NBA playoffs? How would we quarantine everybody, put them all under one umbrella? I'm sure they've talked about this with The Bachelor, right? Quarantine in paradise or any of that stuff. What would be the reason like not to do that immediately? Well, yeah, I mean, I've been talking with Mike Fleiss nonstop, you know, you know,

cause we have listened to your heart on, but we're like, we realized that's going to run its course. And then what can we do? And we need content. We want to produce content because a ABC needs it, uh, go beyond the reality shows. There's no pilot season. There's no scripted shows on the horizon. So next summer, next fall, who knows? We'll be watching The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Which, by the way, not such a bad call.

I'm not against that. Charlie's Angels? Highest rated Love Boat ever. Do you know it, Bill Simmons? It had to have been like a location, some sort of gimmick. You can think of me and think of my connections.

What was it? I don't know the answer. Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Oh! I should have guessed that. Do you remember when they came on board? Of course! Come on. Highest rated episode of Love Boat.

That's amazing. I know. So that was like probably the sweet, like 78, 79, 80, somewhere in there, right? Yeah. So it would have been probably like Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, like when they were, Tom Landry, when they were really America's team.

But yeah, so Fleiss and I have been talking about what can we create in the interim before we, you know, decide, can we do a quarantine version? Could we maybe move everybody into one place and everybody, when tests are available, everybody takes a test and then you're just on campus, you know, you know, we're just throwing out ideas. It's all premature right now, But there's also maybe specials and retrospective things we could do looking back in the meantime, pull up old seasons like a Jake Pavelka season that a lot of people haven't seen. And it's genius television. And then maybe do it in kind of a, you know, rewatchables fashion, that this is a rewatchable

and go back over it with that type of attitude and reintroduce it to a whole new group that hasn't seen it. All right. Well, we're here if you need us. That sounds like it's in our wheelhouse. We could definitely do that. The whole quarantine thing though. It's right in your wheelhouse.

The bachelor in paradise just seems like a natural quarantine move because it would be tough to do the bachelor do the bachelorette with like the trips and the dates and stuff if you actually couldn't go anywhere. But in paradise, you could just, and I don't even know if the coronavirus would be the scariest, you know, thing floating around in paradise.

You know, God only knows. We've had worse in the hot tub. But, you know, the thing is logistics. It's like, you you know getting 20 or 30 cast members is one thing getting 100 to 180 crew members and putting a director in a truck next to the producers you know you got 30 people in a little trailer and we're all on top of each other producing the show you know that's another thing it's not as easy as just people at a bar and you're filming it. There's a lot of logistics that goes into it. But yeah, trust me, we are on it, man. We are all chomping at the bit to get to

work, but we want to create content as much as anybody. We really do. That makes sense. So a lot of people like you and me are quarantined, trying to still pop on interviews, make content. You're in the rare situation. You're dating a friend of the ringer, Lauren Zima. Yep. And she's also doing her whole thing. So you have a quarantine situation, but different cameras and setups. And is there like a quarantine camera competition? Is there some one-upsmanship going on? Who got to pick the best spot in the house? I'm the crew. So I, you know, I grew up in this business as far as, you know, I used to have to light, produce, edit, do all my own sports casts and stuff and, and shoot sometimes. So we have, we didn't have this before. We now have two lighting kits in this house that

luckily entertainment tonight has dropped off because Lauren works for entertainment tonight. So she's shooting all of her shows, roses and Rose. We have, I mean, I got signed, we got signage being, we got, we got, I could change this set in four minutes, man. The golf clubs go away. We bring in wine bottles. So we have broken down my house, my bedroom, the TV room. I'm in the office right now. So we have different sets where we shoot things.

It's really insane because I'll be doing something. She's actually upstairs right now shooting entertainment tonight. I mean, you guys, I don't know who America's favorite couple is, but I hope, I hope you at least get mentioned. We're in the running. Um, you know, it's funny. What do you do when you trap two TV hosts together in quarantine? We created our own, we created our own talk show. We've been doing this thing called group date at night at like six 30,

we'll open a bottle of wine and go live. We've had a bunch of guests. We're a mess, man. We got nothing. Well, and the other thing people don't know about you is you like to play golf. You're a golfer. You're a diehard. And that's just been cruelly yanked away from you. I mean, not to dwell on things that I know there's more important things in the world, but Lauren realized how hurt I was on Thursday of the Masters opening day. And Jack Nicklaus's replay was on from 86 when he won. Oh, yeah. I was really melancholy. And I said, this has really hit me. And she's like, I can't believe this is what it took. Your job, you're unemployed right now. All this stuff is happening. And it was the Masters that really, I said, yeah. I said, this has really hit me. And she's like, I can't believe this is what it took. Your job, you're unemployed right now. All this stuff is happening.

And it was the Masters that really, I said, yeah. I go, this is a bit of Easter holiday for all of us. Like, this is part of our thing. Baseball starts, the Masters. We have the Kentucky Derby. And then we get into the meat of things in the summer. And when the Masters wasn't on, I was talking to Jason Day. I was talking to some of these other guys that I know,

and I texted a little bit, you know, back and forth with tiger as well. And man, this is crushing. It really is for it mentally and emotionally. It's a lot. I know that Matt right there. Come say hi to Mr. Lauren. Yes. I was just telling him how I was so melancholy about the Masters. Bill? Hi, Lauren. Hi, how are you?

Oh, we're good. Bill, when I tell you, like, he's a really positive, even person, you know? I have been so leaning on him. He's so been my rock in all this. I'm a little more up and down. He had to put the show on hold. You know, his kids have been through so much, all these things. And he remains positive. And then I looked at him in the morning on what would have been the first day. I now know of Masters being on and his face had fallen. And I said, are you all right? And he said, no. And I thought it was a

good cry, Bill. It really hurt hurt it was one of the best weekends of the year I was watching the Tiger the 2019 Masters on Sunday like it was like a live sporting event my wife came in and she's like are they having the Masters this year and I was like no this is last year's and it was

kind of a double take from her like why are you watching it like it's happening live I'm like cause I missed the Masters you know what was great for me so I and it was kind of a double take from her. Like, why are you watching it? Like it's happening live. I'm like, cause I missed the message. But you know what? You know what was great for me? So I actually did watch it as it was live because I didn't get a chance to watch it. Last year I was on a transatlantic flight

and I had master's radio on. I was trying to get it and I didn't really get a chance to see it. So this is the first time I saw it in high definition from start to finish. I obviously had seen highlights and all that stuff. Yeah. But when, when Molinari on 15 is over on the left and hit the tree and goes in the water, I was actually flabbergasted. I knew the result. I'm like, Oh my God. Oh my God. He just, he just went in the water again again I know I've been doing that

He covered himself in this He covered himself in that And he drank She's showing She's showing Masters cups In Augusta National For people who can't see Bye Lauren

So Bill what do you miss What do you miss the most What is it about the sports Which sport And what has hit you the most? And again, all the awful subplots, the structure of just week to week, month to month of being a sports fan that had been thrown out the window for a couple of weeks. But it was, you know, it's like there's way more important things to worry about. But when it hit this stretch, that's when I took a step back and I was like, man, this is like my favorite time of the year. You know, this is masters right into the NBA playoffs and those first two rounds. Games every day, heading into that Kentucky Derby weekend. There's always an awesome fight that night, NHL playoffs. And it's just the best all the way through to the finals and the NBA draft.

And then free agency. This is like my favorite part of the year. And so I think what's hit us too, is you're in California with me and you know, Gavin Newsom, who's like, we're not doing anything this year. Like this summer baseball's over, as you know, we're not going to go to a Dodger game at all, which I was talking to Justin Turner the other day who plays for the Dodgers. And I'm just like, you know, they were at spring training. they were moments away from tipping off their season. And he's just like, this is gutting, man. It's, you know, he, and what was funny is from a athlete's perspective, Justin's like my entire adulthood, people have told me where to be, when to be, what to do, what to eat, how to, you know, it's like he, they have all this free time. He's like, I don't even know

what to do with my life. Right. It really is gutting when you think long-term and really we are talking football season. I don't know what the NFL or what college looks like September, October, November, who knows? Well, and also just, you know, the thing I love about sports is just being in crowds and being cheering and booing and just being with people.

And to, you know, that part, too, it's almost going to be strange just to be back in that and then not knowing like, oh, man, should I be here? And it feels like that stuff so far away from being realistic. My son is a senior in high school and he's going to TCU next fall. I hope we'll see. And, you know, we're talking, is there going to be the housing situation? Are they even going to go to school? Are they going to move into the dorms? What's his college life going to be? And, you know, one of the things we loved, he and I, was we went to TCU last year and we went to some games and the tailgating.

As you said, it's not just about the football. The football is awesome, but it's everything about that community of going to the tailgates and being around thousands of people in this shared moment. And like you said, I don't know what that looks like. Just watching a game on TV for cameras, that's fine. The ratings and all that, I get it. And that'll be a great first step. But that community, that's what really drives everybody that loves sports. When do we get that back? If, if ever. Well, and not just pro sports, but, you know,

high school and college and these, these people that spring athletes, like if you're a softball player or something, and you're a senior. My son was a big lacrosse player. He has had an amazing run at his school. And he finally, you get to be a senior and now he's the big kid on campus. He gets to throw around the freshmen who are 70 pounds less than he is. And he's two feet taller than everybody. He paid his dues. And now, you know, even for a dad, senior night, I was looking forward to that last walk on the field with my son, with my arm around him and getting them to play one last time. And I don't get that now as a dad. And that, that really breaks my heart. He'll, you know, I was looking at his uniform the other day. I'm like, you'll never put that uniform on again. It's over. Um, and that, that really crushes me. He's going to go to college. He's going to have

a great life, but there's just those memories that these spring athletes and these seniors are not going to have. And he's taken it probably better than I am. I, it really hit me hard. Yeah. Even my daughter, who's only in ninth grade, she, she kind of slowly realized school wasn't coming back. And she was just like, man, I'm never going to be in ninth grade again. It just kind of ended. And that was it. I was only in ninth grade for six months. And, you know, I feel so many terrible subplots from this whole thing, but hopefully life will get back to normal at some point. It will, but it's just tough. You know, this, this pandemic class of 2020 and

heading into college is, is going to be difficult because they're not going to get that, you know, go to rush. You know, you're going to go to a fraternity or sorority party? I don't know. Do you? It's going to be weird. Well, we got five weeks left of The Bachelor. Listen to your heart. Another tour de force for the Bachelor universe. As soon as we're out of the whole Zoom world, we're doing victory for the rewatchables. That was... The only thing I ever asked Bill is, I'm a psychotic rewatchables fan. Thank you for putting up the new ones. Your solo version of Cast Away via the pandemic was a stroke of genius.

Thank you. Absolutely awesome. You know, I have some new ones because I've been stuck here watching Apollo 13 over and over and over again. That's a gimme pot of rewatchables. All right. We'll include you on the Apollo 13.

The anniversary is coming up. 25th anniversary, I think, is this summer. It was last week. Well, for the movie. I just mean the anniversary of the actual Apollo 13 was last week. I think that's why they're replaying it over and over. Honestly, it is. That is the definition of rewatchable. I don't care where it is.

I have to tune in and make sure Tom Hanks gets home. Well, we're doing Ferris Bueller for Monday, and it's another one. It's just an OG rewatchable of rewatchable. I can't wait to hear you get into that because that was supposed to be such a darker film right yeah it's true and it has dark moments like Cameron you know a couple times there it gets uh it gets kind of gritty with him there were pieces of it where if you really watch it with that lens

you're like oh yeah I see Ferris Bueller really wasn't a good guy. And they tried to save it with Matthew Broderick and make it kind of this, you know, better for everybody. But if you really watch it with that lens, you're like, oh yeah, this could have been really dark. He was a bad dude. The sister was really dark too. And those relationships really weren't great,

but they turned it funny thanks to, you know, some creative editing and all that. But yeah, it would be interesting to, I can't wait to hear the podcast because yeah, it was a totally different film. All right. Well, we're doing victory at some point when we could be in the same room. Chris Harrison, this was a pleasure. Uh, talk to you soon. Stay safe. All right, buddy. Okay. Mike Tolan coming in one second. Wanted to tell you about flying coach, the new podcast with Pete Carroll and Steve Kerr. It's own feed.

Yeah, that happened. And they, in the second episode, talked about the NFL draft, which Pete is prominently involved with next week. And then Steve preparing for the NBA draft, which will be at some point this summer. And just how different their approaches are with the different leagues. And Pete's got seven rounds.

Steve has two. Pete's looking at hundreds of players. Steve's looking at 40. They go into every single variable, what they like, what lessons they've learned. It's an awesome podcast and awesome episode and an awesome podcast. So Flying Coach, Steve Kerr, Pete Carroll, they started it to raise awareness for a whole bunch of different COVID-19 charities.

And, uh, we're really proud to have it. So check that out. Okay. Let's bring in my friend, Mike Tolan. All right.

So since 2008, nine Clipper season, Mike Tolan and I have shared tickets and not And not a lot of fun times for us. But a couple fun times. Not a lot. I don't have a lot of great memories. The playoff series with Houston was pretty fun. Sure.

Game 7, the Chris Paul one clutch shot of his career in Game 7 versus San Antonio was fun. Right. So we figure they empty the barrel. They trade a thousand first round picks and Shay Gilgis Alexander. They get Kawhi and Paul George. There's three teams that can win the title.

They're one of them. We figure, here we go. Finally, the Clippers tickets have paid off. I've had the tickets since 2004 and now no basketball. So the good news for you, this Michael Jordan documentary that you've been working on since the 1980s, I think. I think since

before he came in the league, you were trying to get him to do it. And this actually happened. When he got cut from the varsity at Laney High when I started with it. But can we just go back to the NBA for a second and say how much money I saved by not being on the line for the Sixers over 54 and a half

and eight to one to win it all bets? Oh, so those get wiped out? They have to, don't they? Yeah, well, at least the over-unders definitely have to get wiped out. Yeah, you're right. There's like 17, 18 games left. Yeah.

And what's the over-under on when we get our refund on those 18 games? The eight home games. Yeah, so the Clippers, they've kept eight or nine regular season games, but then our bill is still getting charged for playoff tickets. I don't know what's going on. The sports team just figured out they're just going to charge us for stuff. It's going to be more than the over-unders for sure. Anyway. Yeah. So Laney high. Um, it was actually, uh, it was only 2016, just four years ago, but, but when did you first find out about the mythic footage?

So Connor and I found out about it. I had heard about it all through the mid two thousands. Once I had started to make friends with people at the NBA and they were like, we followed them around for a year. The footage is amazing. We don't, it's going to win an Oscar, all this stuff. And then after near the tail end of 30 for 30, that's when we got the DVD. Right. And that's when,

I mean, Connor and I, I remember we gave it to at least one pretty famous director to watch this and look at it and see, you know, whatever. But at that point, between the NBA and Jordan, who, you know, controls his likeness in just whatever respect,

it wasn't going to happen. Are you going to name that guy now that you called him pretty famous? No. I don't want to betray his trust. Okay, well, I'll name one because he's really more famous as a producer. So they shot in

97, 98. I was doing Arliss, your favorite show. Pause for eye roll. You can't see Bill. Seven years. We had like 350 guys on, but not Michael Jordan. But David Falk did this bait and switch where he said, hey man, I'm going to bring Michael Jordan. So have me on and Michael come with me. And then David came without Michael and we going to bring Michael Jordan. So have me on and Michael will come with me. And then David came without Michael. And we had to put Michael on.

That's when I learned the secret, which is that the real gatekeeper was Estee Portnoy. Right. So Estee Portnoy and Curtis Polk took over and are now, you know, they're basically partners and they run all of Michael's business. In 99, Frank Marshall, famous producer slash director, was already circling in and was trying to make a deal. So we just kind of tracked it, right? And you hear all these names. And all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, millions of years later, the world shifted, right? First we did 30 for 30 and now people's appetites completely changed about documentary language and what they were up for, like different kinds of stories. And then

all of a sudden the long form became in vogue and more is more like OJ premieres at Sundance, eight hours, Netflix does how to make a murderer, 10 hours. So I started to think, you know, I saw the one-off that was done which you probably saw right yeah i saw it was a one-off documentary i just really feel like obviously i wasn't involved in the conversations but it just wasn't big enough the the the deal was we should tell the andy and alan uh the the andy and adam story right because in 90 yeah the quick the quick version is in 97 um andy thompson is a great guy nba longtime field producer cameraman brother michael thompson uncle of clay thompson thinks it'll be a great idea to follow the bulls in 97 98 because it's

clear they're breaking up right ph? Phil and Jerry Krause are at odds. And so he goes to the head of NBA Entertainment, was this guy we might've heard of named Adam Silver, who says, great idea, Andy. Goes to Jerry Reinsdorf. They have to go to Krause, to Jackson, to Michael. And the deal was basically, give us all access, let us shoot, and we won't do anything with it until we have a mutual agreement with what to do with it. So it basically just sat on the shelf for all these years. They did a sample doc. No, no, no, not ready.

They tried to get Spike Lee at one point to take it over, I remember. And that was like another year, and it just time kept passing. Yeah. So now all of a sudden in february 2016 everybody knows about this great footage um the world has shifted the landscape has suddenly said you can do multi-part long-form docs as a as an event and um we're coming up to the 20th anniversary what a perfect opportunity little did i know i'm sitting at the the Toronto All-Star game with Curtis Polk and Estee Portnoy thinking, we got two and a half years. We'll just have this come out in the summer of 2018, right? So we started having the conversation.

Michael comes over for a quick hello. We start going down the road. It took a little longer, but, you know, we only missed it by two years. So it took about four months to kind of have materials that we put together and get invited to see Michael. And it's now the day before the NBA draft in June of 2016. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to give you a quiz. If you, if you get this right,

I'll pay for the Clippers tickets next year. Ready? No, you won't. Okay. Maybe the hornets have the Laker game. 2016 draft. Yeah.

Estee and Curtis invite me down. I take a red eye to Charlotte. They know he's going to be there he's in the war room with his team preparing for the draft the hornets have the 22nd pick in the 2016 draft blanking i can't remember kai richardson from syracuse wow pretty obscure yeah for Wow. Pretty obscure. Yeah. For Marco Bellinelli, draft day trade. Oof. Yeah. Anyway. So the three of us, Curtis, Esty and I sit down with Michael and we have one of those meetings you kind of never forget where he read my little book. He took out his reading glasses. He read this open letter that I wrote to him like, Michael, every day people come into my office wearing your shoes and they've never seen you play. It's time.

He smiled. He engaged. He asked questions. We talked about the Cavaliers having just come back from 3-1 and beating the Warriors. His boy, Steve Kerr, who was now coaching the team that broke his record for best all-time record. It was really, it was great. And it finally gets down to the last page of this little book where you kind of put

your company credits. So he's kind of going through it, looking at Hank Aaron, Kareem, Varsity Blues, Coach Carter, whatever. And he sees Iverson because we made that talk on Allen Iverson. And he goes, you did that? And I'm thinking, it's over. Right. Who knows? So I kind of go, yeah. And he goes, you did that. I'm like, yeah. He takes his reading glasses off and looks up and goes, watch it three times. Made me cry. I love that little guy. And that was kind of like the clincher. He said, you know what was cool, Bill? He goes, I'm on board, and he does a shrug,

and it's like all of a sudden we're in the 92 finals against Portland, the shrug game, with the six threes in the first half. He just basically did a shrug and said, I'm on board, shook my hand, said good luck. We talked about how it would work, and off we went. Well, I remember I'd always heard there wasn't enough money for him to do it and that he didn't really care. And just the footage, you know, he's pretty harsh. The thing that struck me the first time I watched

it was like, oh, this is the real Jordan. Some of the stuff with him going to teammates, you're like, this is the guy I've read about. I've never actually seen video of the way he was really like how sarcastic he was, how I almost borderline withering with this. He always had to get the one dig in and it captures a lot of it. It also captured, I was fascinated by that.

And I captured how lonely he was, you know, that last year, cause he was so famous. Couldn't really go anywhere. He's just hanging out with these four security guards, you know, that last year, cause he was so famous. Couldn't really go anywhere. He's just hanging out with these four security guards, you know, playing dice with them and some janitor closet. And that was kind of what his life was like. I never expected he would actually do this. Do you think I theorized beyond the money and that it was time he's probably older. I

theorized that as LeBron kept ascending and then finally won that 2016 title, and for the first time, the under 30 people were like, LeBron's the best ever. I don't want to hear about Jordan. LeBron's my guy. Do you think he was aware of that?

Because he was so competitive. I feel like he was. Well, honestly, we didn't talk about it because I just didn't think it was appropriate and I didn't think we needed to because it was going so well. It's certainly fair speculation. He was certainly aware of it because he watches games and he knows what's going on. Clearly, the Warriors had just broken their record for best season record, but they'd lost in the final. So I think you could still make a case for the 95, 96 bulls being best team ever. Right. Yeah.

We didn't really talk about it. You know, he loves Steve Kerr. Obviously he was his teammate. So he's happy that they won. Yeah. I'm asking you to analyze. Just do you think that was part of his process?

My, my, my thing was kind of a legacy play. I'm looking at a guy who's 53 years old at the time, who's got a great new wife, two new twin daughters, three kids who are pretty much grown up. It's been all these years, almost 20 years. It's like, you know, if you're going to do a definitive piece,

like the time has come. But I also think your other point about how his the reputation of being super intense and critical and bullying his teammates and all that in a one-off documentary you see that and you and you sort of cringe a little bit a big part of my pitch was look if you know it's kind of like if you're doing a scripted series you're doing these these deep dives into character and story arcs. And if you see how it pays off, if you see Michael Jordan

picking on Scotty Burrell relentlessly, and then you see him score 23 points, Scotty scored 23 points to win a playoff game against the Nets in 98, you see the payoff and you see the motivation. And I really believe this.

I see Michael having fun, having these shooting contests from the hash marks. I really believe this. I see Michael having fun, having these shooting contests from the hash marks. I see him joking with his teammates. I just feel like it was part of the regimen in order to get you guys up to my level, to care as much as I do. He says really eloquently, as you know, because you saw the episodes, I never asked those guys to do anything that I didn't fucking do myself. Right. So I think he felt like if we have 10 hours to explore this and see the payoff and see the journey and see where it goes, you know,

people take it for what it is. I remember we were, we were hanging out. You'd had the meeting with him. You were super optimistic. And we went to one Clipper game, whatever that, that winter or whatever. And you're like, you know, this MJ thing, I think it's going to happen. And we went to one Clipper game, whatever that, that winter,

whatever. And you're like, you know, this MJ thing, I think it's going to happen. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. There's no way that's happening. I wasn't even being a dick. I was just like, there's no way he would have done it by now. I don't believe it. I don't believe he's going to do it. And, and then we were using Jason for Andre the Giant, Jason Hare, the director of this, who did a great job. And it was like, hey, when Jason's done with Andre, maybe he'll move right into MJ. And I remember telling him, don't get your hopes up for the MJ thing. I just think there's too many moving pieces. This doesn't happen.

When did you actually become convinced like, holy shit, this is actually happening. We're doing this. The chalk was clearly on your side. Like I remember that game and I looked at you and I wanted to say, shut up, no way. But I realized you were probably right. There were a million obstacles. In fact, here's what you probably forget.

The chronology was that, you know, immediately the next move after MJ says yes is who's going to direct this thing? Because I couldn't. And that's, you know, you need a filmmaker who's going to devote his whole life to it. And Jason had done Fab Five and 85 Bears and hadn't done Andre yet, but really talented, great guy, perfect place for perfect time in his life. So we had dinner. He had this 14 page outline actually we went to a mets game together i don't know if he ever told you this i just took him to a game i figured we'll hang out we'll go to a game and it was before the protective netting was extended down the foul lines the two of us are sitting there above the dugout and a foul ball did you

ever have this happen at a game where the foul ball comes whizzing by your head, like inches away? We just turned and looked at each other. Like neither of us could say a word. It was so, it was, it was a scary moment. Anyway, I guess that was a sign, but, but the cool thing was that was before Andre and he was ready to do it, but it took us so long to actually get it together that I just said, you should just go, take the bird in the hand, make the film, and we were just finally ready when he finished with Andre. So it worked out. To answer your question, though, so MJ said yes in June of 2016,

and we actually got the green light in the spring of 2018. So it was like two years. And I still didn't believe it was going to happen. And then Jason texted me a picture of MJ being interviewed by Jason the first time. And he's like, look, it's happening. And I was like, oh my God, it really is happening. I just, to the bitter end, I was like, MJ's going to back out.

He's just like, something's going to back out. Something's going to happen. It just never happened. Now you're here. I think that really actually was the moment for all of us. Not only did he sit down with us, but you know Jason. He's extremely prepared. He's got it all mapped out. He's got his clipboard.

He's got questions. Probably three or four hours worth of questions. You figure we'll be lucky if we get half this. The first interview went more than three hours. And that really emotional moment that you see at the end of episode seven, where he talks about his motivation and his intensity, that happened in the first interview. And you just got a sense.

The reason he said yes is he was really ready to be honest and candid and tell the real story. He was totally in. You know, um, Jason did this one trick with him. I don't want to spoil the doc too much. Cause I, I hate when people spoil stuff for me. Teasers. Well, he does this trick a couple of times. Cause he had interviewed,

you know, so many other people where he would hand the iPad to MJ and have him watch the, a clip of Isaiah Thomas talking about the famous walk-off and then just getting MJ's reaction to it. And I felt like in those moments, the real MJ came out the most where you could just see it. Yeah. There's a really great one where his mother's reading a letter that MJ wrote to her from UNC where he says,

I know my phone bill's more than the money I have in my bank account. Please send stamps, that sort of thing. There's one you might not have seen at the end where he and Reggie are going at it in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, I saw it. And he's watching it and he's talking to the rep. Don't break it up. Let him go. Let him go. He was just loving, loving the whole thing.

Well, because I had seen it. I wrote about it in 06 when I was at the All-Star game and just randomly handed up at the next table and we're at this hotel bar and they started playing cards and Oakley was there

and it was just, you know, and it was the real MJ and he's busting everybody's balls and the whole thing. And, and it felt like that guy was in this documentary. I mean, there's different, different, you know, he has different moments. He's poignant at some point. He's thoughtful, but, uh, the kind of get the fuck out of here, MJ, that, that looked like that sneer, like that was there a few times, especially with the iPad stuff. I really liked it.

The thing, that was a great technique by Jason. It really worked a lot of times. The thing about Michael though, is he's so good at compartmentalizing. I mean, for somebody as intense as he is, who has the warrior mentality that he does,

he's so affable, right? He's so cordial. You meet him, he's smiling, he looks you in the eye, small talks, asks you about your family. I mean, we had a lot of fun with him. We did some of that. Jason had some stuff on his iPad and he showed him like off screen,

some stuff that wouldn't make the film. And he just hung out with us in the kitchen and all. And the other thing is, he's so present, right? He's so, the intensity, whatever he's doing, whether he's playing basketball, whether he's playing cards, whether he's doing an interview, I mean, you know, that cliche of 110%. I mean, I mean, I think Jason was worn out more than Michael was because he was just bringing it and every answer was complex and well thought out. I mean, like, you know, the big challenge, I think, for us,

which you've kind of already answered by your reaction that you felt like this was the real MJ, was could we establish the credibility that this was unvarnished, not pulling any punches? Are we going to really deal with the gambling? Are we really going to deal with the conspiracy theories? Are we going to, are we going to deal with the conspiracy theories? Are we going to deal with Atlantic City and the events surrounding his father's death

and Republicans buy shoes? And like, he was like so ready for all of it and almost relished it and felt like it's finally time to deconstruct this and get to the real story. I mean, I don't know. How do you feel about the conspiracy theories now? Well, I will say I appreciated that all that stuff was on the table because I do think we're

in an era now with athletes when pretty much any famous athlete under the age of 35 just wouldn't, wouldn't play it that way. I think they would, they would look at it and you could see it with a lot of the documentaries that people are making now about athletes. They're infomercials. I call them documershals. It's kind of a documentary, but it's not. It's an infomercial for whoever it is. And this documentary or series is not an infomercial. Thanks, Bill.

Well, that's the other thing. 97, 98, there are no iPhones. You know, the proliferation of, you know, basically movie cameras in your pocket shooting high-def images, they're everywhere now. And also, they're posted on social media that night or in the paper the next morning. I think there was a comfort level when these guys saw Andy and Greg Winnick and the crew showing up,

and there was no repercussions. So you see these guys just relax. I mean, the dream is to be a fly on the wall, right? You want them to kind of forget you're there and you really feel like their behavior is unaffected by the presence of the film crew, which is the ultimate goal. Well, it's, it's a, a wee bit bittersweet for me because I was hoping HBO would get this.

I know I kicked a lot of tires trying. Did you kick any money toward the license fee? I probably should have. But one of my cases was that I thought, I mean, Andre, I think is probably the most watched sports documentary just for how many people probably saw, you know, I don't know, the re-airs of some of the old 30 for 30s. It's almost not fair because they've had a 10-year head start. But the case for the MJ thing was like, I think this could be the most watched sports documentary ever like easily but now you have this weird this weird kind of you know moment where all of a sudden everybody's in quarantine there's no sports and this was supposed to come out in june you're able to move it up and now it's coming out at a

point when people i i just think the rating is going to be staggering and i think people are going to be really into this. Well, you know, it's funny to think about the original notion of we'll have this out for the 20th anniversary in the playoffs during 2018. So it's kind of like this crazy conspiracy of the universe. Everything gets pushed back for all just sort of natural, organic reasons. And here we are with a chance to, like, fill this void and give people some joy and a welcome distraction. So we started talking about it, you know, right, gosh, right when we were all quarantined on Friday the 13th, it immediately started the clamor in social media, right? And we all had a conversation. There's a lot of us, you know,

there's a lot of constituencies. There's the NBA, there's Curtis and Esty Jump, there's Manilay Sports Media, there's ESPN and Netflix. It's five entities. And there was a pretty clear consensus that we should try to do everything to do this. And then I got to say, Jason sort of adopted the MJ warrior mentality, like, okay, like, you know, we got injuries. Scotty's on the bench. You know, we're playing 48 minutes, but we just got to do this. And got to give him kudos, man.

This incredible last ditch, because we're still not done the last episode. I mean, we will still be working on 10 after seven and eight air in three weeks. So, um, and, and, and Jason had to like marshal this effort to take all the material in a downtown Manhattan cutting room and migrate it all to like six different locations. There's Jason cutting in his apartment. There's five other editors cutting remotely. And then Jason has to get all these pieces and cobble them together and,

you know, the music and the graphics and everything else. So it's really been wild, but I think it's been, I think, I think everybody feels really great about it. Cause as you said, people are just so psyched for it. I don't think,

I mean, you just described it, but unless you've done one of these things. I don't think, I mean, you just described it, but unless you've done one of these things, I don't think people, the normal person would not understand how hard it is

to edit anything when everybody's in quarantine. It is a thousand, it's a thousand times harder than you would ever imagine it was. I don't even, I can't come up with an analogy that would explain it,

but to have different people in different locations, mailing edited files that then somebody has to figure out how to mix and match them is not a good way to do the process. But at that point, well, Jason will explain it to you if he survives. Um,

I think he will. I think he's, he's actually been in great spirits lately. And I think the last couple episodes are great. I think episode 10, um, where we finally see, you know, it come to fruition. There's going to be really a sense of you and I have been talking about this and like the Beatles were rock stars. They were like the Beatles. And, you know, we're going to dig up some of these celebrities. I mean, Leo was in the locker room after they won game six. Can you name, here's one more chance for you to get me to pay for those Clipper tickets. Name Leo's movie from 1998.

The Beach. Man, The Iron Mask. That was after Titanic? 98, man, because Michael had seen it and was referencing it. And you should see, where do you see young Leo? You know, Obama, Clinton. There's some Seinfeld. Seinfeld shows up in the locker room. That's funny. I remember that from the original cut.

You remember the moment where Seinfeld looks at the board where Phil had drawn all the plays, and he just casually goes over to one of the plays and he goes, that's not going to work. Well, there's also a couple of unbelievable Larry Bird, Michael Jordan moments that I don't want to spoil that I'd never seen before. That, uh, it was probably some of my favorite stuff in here. Were you at the, uh, 63 point-as-Michael-Jordan game? So, I don't think I was. I was at so many great Celtics games that there's a couple that I can't remember if I went to or not.

I don't think I was at that one. I was at a lot of them. I think, I weirdly think I went to the 49-point game, the game one. I don't, I feel like I didn't go to game two. It's so crazy about that year um first of all he only played 18 games because you know he had the foot injury this is a guy who played 82 games nine seasons um right who just you know um just never wanted to be taken out and when when he was training secretly, he went back to Chapel Hill to try to train and swim. I mean,

you see all this footage and then he comes back and he's like, you know, chomping at the bit to play and they put him on a minute's limit and they kind of accused him. It was kind of the origin story of tanking in a funny kind of way. Right? Like, why aren't I playing?

And then. Right. Well, cause they were tanking. So we, should we tell the headache story? It's really one of my. No, no, no, don't, no, I don't spoil this for the people. Right. Because they were tanking. Should we tell the headache story? It's really one of my favorite. No, no, no.

Don't spoil this for the people. Okay. Okay. But Jerry Reinsdorf really does come across as the truth teller in this show, doesn't he? Yeah, he was good.

He's a big winner. Yeah. He's one of the winners. Hey, I have a question for you. So if you see Jordan now, is it a handshake, kind of double shoulder, you slap his shoulder, he slaps yours?

Is it a handshake, half hug? Or is it like a legit hug? Is this pre-pandemic or post-pandemic? I'm saying everything's normal again. There's no germs anymore. We're all good. It's a hypothetical world. This is in a world where Dr. Fauci has now said

we should never shake hands with each other ever again? No, this is President Fauci now admitting that he was wrong. Oh, man. And now we can all hug again. It's a real warm handshake. Shoulder slap? Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Okay. Yes. I mean um there are a lot of people coming at michael jordan all the time right and he and he does a really great job of making you feel special like i said earlier which is in real art um obama has it clinton has it um there's some footage in uh not barry not barry bonds um nah for people listening mike did bonds on bonds i don't i don't know if you just got barry the same way no not exactly um barry barry didn't have the social and emotional intelligence that michael jordan has not quite um but it's uh he's very he's very gracious look i and emotional intelligence than Michael Jordan has. Not quite. But he's very gracious. Look, you say lonely.

He was lonely when he was on the road, and he was lonely because he was trapped by a celebrity. But it's really great to know that a public figure of that magnitude, there aren't many of that magnitude, has a lot of friends, like genuine friends, right? Yeah, that's true? Yeah, true. Yeah, that he's had for years. And, you know, whether they play golf with him or not,

this is a guy with a very full, rich life. And I think he feels really good about it. I sure hope so. Did you try to get World Wide West? I told World Wide West, you can't be in this show. No, I mean, my thing about World Wide West, people don't know is a guy named William Wesley who was given that nickname by Reggie Miller. And like, you don't really have to do much if your nickname is World Wide West. You're just cool. But he happens to be super cool. And he's very much a part of Jordan Brand. And nobody really knows what he does, but he's kind of always in the mix. But Wes's mystique comes from not really being seen. So we had a conversation about it and I said, I'm not interviewing, I'm not even like Jason and I discuss it.

I already knew him. I told Jason about him. Jason obviously read about him. It's just that it's a non-starter. I said, I'm going to save you from yourself. He was there for a lot of the Chicago MJ stuff. at him. It's just that it's a non-starter. I said, I'm going to save you from yourself. He was there for a lot of the Chicago MJ stuff. Look, the thing is, I still think he's the best player I ever saw. And it's not even debatable for me. He's just on another level. And I think the thing we were talking about, I was calling you yesterday, we were talking about the first

nine. I haven't seen the 10th one yet, but just how famous he got those last couple of years after baseball, when he would come to Boston twice a year and they would just kick the shit out of us. Although we did beat him in Rick Pitino's first game ever. And the people would show up 40 minutes for the game and wait for him to warm up. And when he, when he came out, it was like, you know, the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show or something. There's never been an athlete like that other than him, at least in my lifetime. I can't speak for him before that. Wait, wait, you see the beginning of 10 and he's just, you know, got his headphones on and

he's listening to Kenny Lattimore and he's so relaxed and he's about to go for this sixth championship. Um, again, that's what I mean by like presence, by the way, a great musical surprise by one of your favorite bands. I won't reveal that to finish the 10th episode. Very cool. It speaks to the theme of it. You know, he's still playing like that last game. He didn't want to, he didn't want to come out ever. I mean, he's completely exhausted, right? Bob Costas keeps saying, Michael Jordan's got nothing left.

Scored 45 points, made that last shot. He always had something left. That was his genius. Yeah, it's really a privilege. I mean, you know, there's only one Michael Jordan. I mean, greatest basketball player ever, greatest athlete ever. Kind of hard to argue.

It's him and Ali since I've been alive. Yeah. I would say those are the two. Tiger got like 85, 90% there, but did not have the mystique charisma when he walked into the room. He was immediately the center of attention for everybody the entire time. That's right. He never had that last element,

but he had everything else included in the greatness and all that stuff. All right. Well, listen, this premieres ESPN Sunday, first two episodes and every Sunday, two episodes. I'm sure there'll be running rerunning it a million times. I'm really happy and proud of you. Congrats. Thanks for doubting us every step of the way. Every step.

Plus, we should mention, you're an original 30 for 30 guy. So I like the lineage. What was yours? The fourth? Third. Third? Yeah. USFL.

You can find it on the ESPN Plus app. Small potatoes. Mike Tone, thank you. USFL. You can find it on the ESPN plus app, small potatoes. Uh, Mike Tone. Thank you. All right. Thanks to Casey, Chris, and Mike coming back on the BS podcast on Sunday. We're also going to have a new redraftables 2003 me and Chad Ford. Uh, keep your eye out for that one. That was a fun one to record and a whole bunch of good stuff coming next week. Stay safe. Listen to the doctors. Listen to the scientists. Listen to the experts. The light is at the end of the tunnel. I can see it. Hang in there. Enjoy the I don't have