The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Sports Repodders: Summer Edition With Bryan Curtis and Jason Gay | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 395)

Episode Date: August 2, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Bryan Curtis and The Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay to discuss MGM Resorts and the NBA's new partnership, unimportant sports shows, reaction culture, candid athletes, esports on TV, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Caused a lot of debate, a lot of consternation. People really enjoyed it. Celebrities are tweeting about it. I'm going to have my thoughts on tomorrow's podcast. Needless to say, I am upset with some of the things that happened in the list, but that's one of the reasons you do these lists. Check it out. We wrote a whole bunch of great TV stuff and guess what? It's August and there is nothing going on right now. So you might as well read about TV. Check it out. TheRinger.com. Coming up, Jason Gay, Brian Curtis, the sports reporters, but sports reporters. But first, Pearl Jam. All right, special summer edition of the Sports Reporters. It's been a while.

Brian Curtis, back from his worldwide tour. Jason Gay from the Wall Street Journal. He's been a lot of places this summer. Where'd you go this summer, Jason? I went to the Wimbledon Men's and Women's Single Championships. And I went to a week of the Tour de France. Oh, wow. Who says newspapers are bankrupt?

I'm an aristocrat. That's pretty good to me. Jason gave Sal and I a tour de France bet. That was like 30 to one, some dude and Sal and I were like, not totally interested, but at least like a little bit interested. And the guy just stopped like halfway through,

halfway through the event. He was just like, I'm not, I'm not racing anymore. And our guy like basically DMP'd the last 40% of the tour de France. So thanks for that. Yeah. I know you've never lost on a bet before. It was my first loss. Yeah. Sal and I, it was good for us to experience the other side, I guess.

Yeah. Being a little bit interested in a cycling bet is, that's an achievement in itself, don't you think? Yeah. So we, I asked people on Twitter, which is always dangerous. I told them we were taping the sports reporters and asked if they had any questions and was shocked to find out they actually had some really good questions. So we're going to zip through those in a little bit. But first, I think we should talk about there's two topics I think we have to hit, and then we'll hit the questions. The first one is this gambling thing that happened with the NBA this week, where they announced this partnership with the MGM. Curtis, what are the landmines? How does this go?

How does gambling enter our basketball fan slash media lives over the course of the next three years? It's so funny, right? Because this is the topic we've been dancing around in the media for going on 50 years. I think it's funny that it used to be like the old CBS NFL Today that we all grew up with. That was the thing gamblers watched, right? Because you might get a tip in those tender pre-internet days. The Greek. Yeah, I might get an injury. I might get some weather you know this this might help me out a little bit and now we're sort of saying that gambling is going to come actually into the media

and then it kind of went away right because you'd never you never care right you'd have your own tips but now i feel it's sort of it's it's entering back right and we just don't know how to do it um i just wonder is it like how do you want to get gambling information? Is it television? Is it a podcast like we already have at The Ringer? It feels very niche, but now high volume, high profile niche. Jason, do you think ESPN would have a gambling show at 4 o'clock every day on ESPN proper? I don't see it going that way. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, it's hard to tell, you know, standing still right now, but I feel like the hyperbole has been extreme. I mean,

it's been presented as nothing less than, you know, you know, holy grail for sports media. Anybody that is sort of ailing, trying to figure out what people are going to pay for now suddenly sees like, oh, okay, well, I can, you know, give readers an edge somehow in sports gambling. So sports gambling is going to simultaneously lift the entire professional and collegiate athletics world, but also save the media. And, you know, history has shown both from the legalization of gambling, gambling in other parts of this country or most parts of this country now, but also the experience of sports betting worldwide, that it doesn't become this sort of like all-consuming human wildfire that we somehow presented as. And I think that part of this is the hazard of, not to sound like a Wall Street Journal writer, but part of this is the hazard of when sports writers start writing about business.

And I include myself in that company that it's a far more complicated and much more deliberate and delayed situation than I think it's being presented as. Another question to this is how much did fantasy, the first semi-legal gambling, save, quote unquote, all this before already? How much has that propped up football, baseball, basketball for years and years and years? And now that we're doing gambling, gambling, is that just kind of a mini bump on top of daily fantasy, fantasy, all that stuff that's obviously increased interest in viewership in sports for a long time. I don't know. I feel like it's always been there. It's just more overt now. Because when you think about how the NFL has operated the last, I don't know, how many decades, there's a reason they have the injury report. Yeah, of course. There's a reason they find teams because they didn't reveal that the starting running back

has a hamstring injury. It's not because it's unfair to their opponent. It's because it's unfair to the people who need that information to decide which side to gamble on. So it's always been a wink, wink thing. I think one of the cool slash funny slash stupid slash maybe I'll be one of the few people who enjoy this is watching people like you and Jason try to navigate this whole world of gambling language, because there's most media people that have no idea like what plus two 50 means and what a parlay like Jason, you don't, you barely understand any of that stuff. Right.

I know what a parlay means. But, but, but no, I, right? I know what a parlay means. I do know what plus and minus means. But, no, I think it would take me a little while to figure out a teaser. And I agree, there's a lack of sophistication about the particulars of betting, but also just how the betting market works. I believe the expert Cousin Sal has talked about, you know, this does not mean the end of the world for your local bookmaker because

that person is, first of all, off the books and also operating on a line of credit often. And those are two things that, you know, legalized gambling, sports betting is not going to give you. So that was another case of sort of like people just thought that that was the end of the world for that world. And it's not at all. Yeah, it's a little bit like to me, reminds me when Sabermetrics came in. Yeah. And we all kind of looked at each other and went, oh, yeah. How do we how do we talk about that sounding like an idiot?

And it turned out you didn't have to know that much. You could you could fake a lot of it. You could fake. Well, you just incorporate a lot of it. You could fake, well, you just can't incorporate a lot of it, right? You incorporate some and fake some other stuff. Like there's this whole next level baseball language that I just don't care. So, you know, like Zach Cram has been, is an excellent writer for us. And when he writes about baseball and he's doing this ERA plus and stuff like that, I kind of remember what that stuff is,

but I'm not versed in it. And I would never say to you, have you seen Chris Sayles ERA plus? So I think it's very similar with the gambling and with sabermetrics and the different things where it has its own language. And like me and Sal, obviously we speak the language and we've been doing it for 12 years

on my podcast, the ESPN and this one. And, you know, same thing with me with writing and I just get the language. I don't, I think I'm in the minority though. And it's going to be really interesting to see if the language can go mainstream. I'm, I'm doubtful. I think it's going to be a primitive version of it where it's just like the Titans are favored by three and a half of the Jaguars, but we're not going to be talking about, you know, the MVP odds are out and it's not just

who's the favorite, but who's the best value. Right. And that's the part that you really have to study and understand. Like there's a difference between a good bet and a good value bet and all that stuff, whether the mainstream media is going to step into that i don't know but just getting the rudimentary stuff would be a big thing because if you look at like pre-game shows to go back to that model not that any you know anybody we know actually watches us but they make picks but they don't make picks against the line typically no they don't they don't do my they say the titans are gonna win but they can't they can't yeah but it was always like berman would keep his record though and it was really against the spread,

but they would never overtly say that. Exactly. But now you're going to say it. So just putting the rudimentary language into mainstream media is something, right? I mean, it's been your column for 20 years, but it hasn't been in other places. Not daily, not all the time.

Jason, what's your reaction going to be when you're watching NBA Countdown on a Saturday night and Beatle tells Jalen, OKC's favored by eight and a half against the Spurs. Why do you think the line is so high? Because I will never get used to seeing that on a studio show, right? Yeah, I wonder about how that programming will present itself. I mean, we have at least somewhat of a version of it with these fantasy football programs. And quite honestly, like, I can't watch one of those without wondering how to jump out of an

airplane. I mean, they're just really, really hard to bear. I do want to point out we're forgetting one important pioneer in the sports betting media landscape, which was forever there were those car dealer spreads in the backs of sports pages where 19 guys on the car dealership floor were picking their NFL bets for the week. And I was always, as a kid, fascinated by those. Those guys were picking against the spread or using the spread to make their determination. Remember Stu Feiner in the era of the sports advisors and those shows in the early mid-90s where you just had these four seedy guys, two of them had a toupee and they're just high strung, throwing lines around. And I used to love those shows.

And Axel. Axel was early on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. First player. Yeah, for sure. My thing, I always was fascinated by gambling and always liked it, but never really acted on it until I was in college after the Patriots went 1-15. That was like, I need a football team and I just don't have one.

But the two people that really had an influence on me, Pete Axelman's Inside Sports column, where the first two years of Inside Sports, the late grade Inside Sports, he just made gambling seem so cool and seedy and fun. And I was like, what is this? What's going on in this world? And then Jimmy the Greek, who we did a 30 for 30 on, who torpedoed his career with one drunk interview. But it really felt like, A, he had inside information. B, I trusted his opinion. He was just this degenerate Greek guy on CBS.

And he was like, I like the Cowboys over the Steelers You'd be like oh okay It's incredible that happened on television Incredible They did that now it would seem like wild But this is like 1979 1980 you know And he'd be like I have sources telling me that Terry Bradshaw

Isn't healthy And it would swing the line Because you had 20 million people watching the CBS pregame show in 1979. Just, you know, with Brian's point with regards to, you know, sabermetric, is there a way to divide the conversation about sports betting between the, you know,

hardcore, compulsive, perhaps degenerate sports better and the sort of casual fan gambler. Because I think one of the myths about this decision as it's been presented is that somehow this is just flipping a switch and making an underground economy, you know, an above-ground economy. I think that everyone's hope here is that a whole ton more people start the sports gamble, not just people who are doing it illegally start to do it legally. And that does that casual fan, you know, we have this image is being presented to us, you know, like a father with a, you know, teenage son, you know,

who's going to be the lead scorer of the third quarter of the Knicks game? And, you know, making a $20 bet on that? Or how quickly does it get, you know, consumed slash polluted by the quants and by the people who are, you know, seeking, you know, the most my chronic edges, you know, possible. That's already happened. You saw that with the referee analytics last decade and stuff like that, where I think most people, the edges are kind of have already been exploited. My question is, if somebody wasn't already gambling or caring about gambling, who is an adult, will this make them want to gamble more or will they be in the exact same spot they were before? Like if I'm in,

let's say I'm at the Grove in LA and there's a sports gambling shop in the Grove and I'm walking by it and I'm like, oh, Wimbledon's on today. Hold on everybody. I'm just going to run in there and put a bet down on Federer. I don't see doing that. I feel like this is going to be mostly internet-based. I don't,. If you go to London, they have these William Hill sports books everywhere. Sure. And people are in there. And there's TVs and they're watching games. I don't see a world where it's like when you go into 7-Eleven to buy a Keno or whatever, some bunch of scratch cards. I don't think that's going to happen. I do think the internet thing will happen. The other thing is

it could revolutionize sports bars potentially. It's the one thing I really feel think that's going to happen. I do think the internet thing will happen. The other thing is it could revolutionize sports bars potentially. It's the one thing I was really feel like that could be a dramatic difference where I'm at a sports bar in Koreatown and they're actually also, they, you know, they're, they're able to take your bets and you can run over there between football games and things like that.

I could see that world happening. That would be cool. Yeah. Thumbs up for that. Yeah. It's like the, you know, the Buffalo wild Wings commercial

where everyone's fake cheering when something happens which you've never actually seen happen in a sports bar. That could actually be true. Yeah, what if Buffalo Wild Wings just adds a sports book? Like, now we're talking. There we go, yeah. Hooters. We're all together in this, right?

Jason, you're back in. You might have a gambling problem in two years. Yeah, I mean, I think what you're describing is, you know, one of the saddest places on earth becoming unequivocally the saddest place on earth. I don't see the sort of group fun aspect of it. I see it becoming really weird. And, you know, I don't think there's been much attention paid to the social dynamics of this. I mean, Bill, you're at a basketball game instead of like doing your, you know, famous, uh, body language sociology down looking at your phone, Bill, you're at a basketball game instead of like doing your, you know, famous body language sociology.

Yeah. I'm looking at your phone like you're trying to place a real prime bet on the next play. Who says I haven't already done that? You act like my life's going to be different. I will say with the NBA, though, you know, they announced this when he was coming. And the awkwardness at the press conference basically came around the MGM suing the shooting victims, that whatever the hell was going on there. And that got awkward for a second.

I was absolutely stunned. People in the NBA are getting mad at me. I don't care. The Donahue thing should have had a resurgence this week. It's like, wow, the NBA is embracing gambling. 11 years ago, they had a rogue ref who wreaked havoc for two seasons, including in some playoff games.

And it was the worst scandal in the history of the league. And they've done a great job at sweeping it under the rug and pretending it, not pretending it didn't happen, but getting people not to talk about it that much, but it happened. And now it's more likely that that could happen again, I feel like. This brings up another meta media point of this that I want to bring up is when do we get the anti-gambling sentiment in the media?

Oh, that's like a good old guy take. It's an old guy take. But Jason, do it. But here's the thing, right? It's sports writing, sports radio, all that has become like a men's lifestyle brand over our lifetime, if it wasn't already. Yeah. And it's like gambling is cool. Gambling is something you'd go to Vegas to do with your buddies.

Gambling is awesome. All right. So now we have gambling. And then there's going to be this take that says, one, it could corrupt the games. We're so far away from not only Shoeless Joe, but even Field of dreams at this point that nobody remembers that gambling could be bad within sports but number two what if gambling is just bad like state lotteries and stuff are bad yeah they're depressing and bad yeah and and kind of bad for part you know society and what if when is that take going to come that's not old guy writing for the new york times op- page, you know, going, Oh, wait a second,

wait a second, kids that's coming. Right. And that's going to see is twirling his red Afro right now, crafting a thousand word piece on it. And by the way, that should be part of this. Yeah.

You know, after we all, you know, have that like first, like giddy year, it's like, Oh wait, you know,

what's happening in America? Pots legal, gambling's legal. Where are we going? Jason, the old guy on the couch is going to be in good shape here i just want it to be presented accurately i feel like the pendulum has actually swung super hard to the other side that you know now everyone is just like well of course gambling it's just like a no-brainer like it's just the you know it's the next logical step in the sports

economy. And we applaud Adam Silver for being in front of this issue and so on. And this, again, I like your idea of this somehow, that Monte Carlo Buffalo Wild Wings where the waiters are in dinner jackets and everyone's sort of

betting on the games. I mean, I spent some time when I was overseas in those Ladbrokes and William Hills and so on, and they're not happy spots. I mean, they're kind of dismal, sort of like, you know, semi-lit fluorescent corridors of truck stops. I mean, these aren't exactly great hangouts. I mean, the way that people talk about what sports betting is going to do, it sort of reminds me of, you know, whenever there's like a new renovation at the horse track and they run those commercials of people like in like,

you know, ball gowns, like, you know, it's going to be a great time at, you know, so-and-so horseshoe park and it's anything but. I went to Monmouth Park, which is one of the places in Jersey that has its book up and running, and William Hale has been subcontracted to do the whole thing, but you know what? You're sports betting on a horse track.

You know, this is not a James Bond movie. No, and the Vegas sports book, you'll see it on Twitter. Somebody's in Vegas when there's a great moment, like somebody covers at the last second. High fives. Or some game-winning three, and it's like somebody covers at the last second. High fives. Or some game winning three. And it's like the sports book was going crazy.

And look, nobody loves going to Vegas more than me. The sports book, 98.9% of the time is a fucking depressing place. It really is. It's just a bunch of dudes sitting by themselves, holding sheets. Half of them are smoking cigs. People are asleep. There's not a woman to be seen. Yeah, half of them are smoking cigs um it's just sad people are asleep there's not a

woman to be seen yeah the half of the half of the people are asleep or or about to fall asleep and there is no energy at all and it's a place the only place that's probably worse is in a casino is the poker area yeah the worst thing about poker is the people who play poker and you're just sitting at this table watching somebody eat a roast beef sandwich and dripping a one sauce all over their chips and another person coughing and another person smoking. And it's like, I don't want to I can't get over mentally is those moments like Al Michaels. Always, you know, creatively figuring out how to mention the line

and just him talking about the line with Chris Collinsworth openly. I'll never get used to that. It'd be amazing. That's a weird, that's a weird Rubicon to cross,

but it feels like we're there, right? Yeah. He'll be like, Chris, if they, if they score here, it'll cut the lead to three. But more importantly, they'll be covering. And then Chris Collinsworth, like, well, I don't understand.

You know me. I don't understand the gambling. Yeah, okay. I think it's going to lead to a lot of awkwardness. Jason, do you think, before we take a break, do you think ESPN will have a daily gambling show within the next year or not? Yes. And I think that it possibly will be in conjunction. I don't have no inside information about that, but we all know about what, you know, Peter Chernin has done with Action Network. He has people from ESPN already over there working.

And that sort of seems like this whole apparatus that's being built up to both inform consumers, but also work with sports media companies in terms of getting this stuff off the ground. So yeah, I would think so. I would say it's more likely for OTT than actually at noon every day on ESPN. But the funny thing is, it probably is what they should put on at noon every day on ESPN. But the funny thing is, it probably is what they should put on

at noon every day on ESPN. Isn't this what Katie Nolan was put on Earth to do or put in Bristol to do? Host a gambling show with a bunch of degenerates? Degenerates and take the piss out of them and make fun of them, but also kind of be one of them? Isn't that what she should be doing?

Every show, she's just dressed up in this extravagant dress with just these losers around her. It's like Beauty and the Beast, basically. I think I would watch that. Yeah, it would be doing. Every show she's just dressed up in like this extravagant dress with just these losers around her. And it's like beauty and the beast basically. I think I would watch that. Yeah, it wouldn't be bad. Let's take a break. Come back. Hey, let's talk about Full Sail University's Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting. The legendary sportscaster from the Dan Patrick Show on Sunday Night Football has teamed up with Full Sail University to offer an accelerated bachelor's degree in sportscasting, hands-on learning, immersive projects, faculty with real-world experience to prepare students

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Back to the sports reporters. Hey, speaking of ESPN, this is the other thing I want to talk about before we dive into the Twitter questions. High Noon, you wrote about it when it launched. It's a show that people seem to like. It's two relatively, one guy's relatively young, the other guy's young, shooting the shit about sports

in a very podcast style, a little like what we're doing now. The audience is, it is what it is. They have no illusions it's going to be a huge audience. It is one of the many talking head shows they have during the day. It's probably the one that stands out the most for not being like all the other ones. And just in general, the whole afternoon slate of just people staring at each other talking. The ratings for it, with the exception of Stephen A. Smith, seem to be just every year there's atrophy because there's more viewership choices.

At what point does the whole talking show head or talking head show thing, because FS1 is doing it too. And it just seems to be the go to move when you have a sports network is like, we'll just put people in the argue about stuff. At what point is this era going to either end or veer into something else? Do you think, Brian? One thing Eric Rideholm, who's a producer of this and a bunch of espn shows right told me when i did that story was our best case scenario here ratings wise is like desus and marrow yeah nobody watched nobody was like oh time to time to flip on viceland and watch desus and nobody the four days a week these is a mayor audience probably was not ample but weirdly i love those guys desus

and marrow just lived in your mind because you'd be on Twitter or somewhere and you'd just be like, oh, they're talking about something. And it's funny. And they did a great job from socially of like, I felt like I know what was going on in the show every day because I followed those guys. I liked the show. I would see the clips. I would watch the clips. But from a start to finish standpoint, by the way, not just sports programming. I think you say this about any late night show. Absolutely. Who's watching a show day after day after day after day.

I don't know if that audience exists. And that's my point, right? Is that these formats actually work quite well for Twitter and OTT and all this stuff, right? It's not, I think we're somewhere near, I don't know how close, but we're somewhere near the end of the sports studio show era, probably. Yeah. But, and it could be, it could be three quarters of the way there. i don't know how close but we're somewhere near the end of the sports studio show era probably yeah but and it could be we could be three quarters of the way there i don't

know somewhere but that format actually works in other media quite well right you go to twitter and you see two guys and you say like and you see the chiron yeah just like it is on tv and you're like okay i'm in i want to know i care if you care about the guys. Right. So I think if you care about the guys or if the take is just super crazy, right. I always ended up clicking on those skip Bayless videos where it's like LeBron's a coward for coming to LA. I'm like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to hate watch this, but that seems like what works for the most part.

Yeah. Because it's like lives at Twitter. Right. I mean, like what is Twitter, but, but like, here's a crazy take. But how do Pablo and Bomani fit in that, Jason? Because that's an intellectual show. That's basically a podcast that they're filming. And it's not really designed to be like, oh, did you see that two and a half minute clip of Pablo and Bomani arguing about concussions like that show? It's just not designed to do that. So what how does it win? I guess is my question. Yeah. I mean, to what Brian said at the top, you know, they don't have to get the whole pie anymore. They're sort of, you know, playing for a little atomized slices of, uh, uh,

of people's attention. And, you know, if you can say smart, interesting things about sport, maybe then they could be, you know, kind of programmed against or the more inane conversations that are happening elsewhere. But I think that what those shows are up against, and you see it in some of the more successful ones, that the hot take has been just co-opted by everybody. Within seconds of Urban Meyer's administrative leave yesterday, or even before that, you had people all over the place calling for his firing. What those shows need to have is sort of the theater of the tape and to take your friend Mike Francesa on Twitter doesn't translate because the tweet just sort of reads like angry old man,

whereas Francesa in the theater of the studio and going nuts about a topic, that's the thing that is what makes him him and what makes him just something you have to listen to. And so you don't, it's not even just the take that matters anymore. It's just the presentation of it. Yeah, and I do think... By the way, anymore. It's just the presentation of it. Yeah. And I do think,

but by the way, I think it was always the presentation of it. Oh yeah. But I think part of the reason these shows succeeded more than they do now this decade is we had less choices and a lot of it's killing time. Like I was in a hotel room last week. Yeah. I had an hour to go to dinner and it was five o'clock and I'm like,

all right, I need, I'm going to put something on. I was like, Oh, around the horn. All right. And had it on in the background as I did some other stuff. The problem is the other stuff is now transcending the, the whatever the people talking to each other stuff. And I just think that's going to continue to happen. Yeah. It's all. And by the way, it's always been about eating innings, right? Yeah.

These guys were valuable because they were talented and, and takey as, as Jason said in the theater, the take, but they also ate innings. They came out every day. I'm doing two hours. I'm doing three hours of this.

There are no sports. There are no sports on during the day, right? I'm going to get you from nine to noon and give you some, give you an audience. Hmm. And I don't want to attack Brian's corner here, but we spend an incredibly disproportionate amount of time

discussing shows which are so fractional compared to the actual sporting events themselves. And it's obviously fun, and people do care about it, they do engage, they do have opinions about these hot you know, hot take type shows. But, you know, in the sort of broader ecosystem, there are drops in the bucket. I mean, literally, who is home watching these shows at this given time? And if you're watching them, how long are you engaging them? I mean, I feel one of the things that's already happening is that if you actually sit and watch a show, a debate show for an extended period of time, it almost feels like you're watching someone knit a wool sweater because Twitter is such a faster way of engaging with a topic.

Within seconds, you're sort of like, okay, this is the take. This is the counter take. This is why this guy's an idiot. This is why this person is right. This is why he's wrong. Video evidence and so on and so forth. The digital, you know, system is so faster and, you know, honestly just stimulating, you know, than it is to watch a television show. It feels sort of old-fashioned to see two people arguing about sport.

Well, it's funny, like, you talk about Brian's Corner. I feel like Brian's Corner is separate from the other corner. There's two corners here. One is like, all right, what are these people like? There's a higher end version of what's going on. What's the vision? What did this person mean? The big picture stuff.

And the other corner, which I don't think is that interesting. And I also don't think, I think is its own little bubble, but nobody else seems to know about it, is the constant talk about like the get up rating. Like you joke about this on Twitter all the time. Get ups ratings are down from a year ago in that time slot. And it seems to be just these five media critics tweeting about it and then 10 other people reacted to it. But like somebody like my dad or pretty much everyone who works here at the ringer. And I, I just don't think people are even noticing that conversation's happening. Did you see the British open version of this the other day? No. here at the ringer and i i just don't think people are even noticing that

conversation's happening did you see the british open version of this the other day no sunday at the british open we have tiger fucking woods is back baby yeah we got the greatest leaderboard ever and i was finding non-media critics this is how much the media critic has just twisted their minds are like live look at nbc executives right now And they're like tweeting Scrooge McDuck gifts, jumping into the money bin. I'm like, wait a second. You're watching Tiger Woods potentially finally winning another major.

And you're thinking how much are NBC executives making right now? What's wrong with you? I didn't think that I don't care. You know, it doesn't not matter. I got to say, I did. I did think on Sunday, how NBC, which probably paid for the British open and which is. You know, it doesn't not matter to me. I got to say, I did think on Sunday how NBC,

which probably paid for the British Open, and was just like, yeah, it's the British Open. It's cool. People like it. Never thinking Tiger was ever going to be. Right. But yeah, for me it was like Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. There's some story there,

but this idea that right in the middle of it, like a normal person, you were involved in the sports media. You were involved in television. A golf fan is like i just i wonder how what what this does for nbc's bottom line i wonder what mark lasser was in the middle of the round yeah what yeah and it also it seems like you could do this with any show where you just bang on the ratings or whatever but it does seem like people pick and choose their

spots depending on if they like people get up Up, from the moment the Get Up salaries came out, the pitchforks were out. And it was just like, people did not want that show to succeed. In Bristol and out of Bristol. In Bristol and out of Bristol. And it's been unfair. And what's funny is ESPN's attitude with that show has been consistent all the time. They said it to you when you did your piece about it. They've said it in general. We're not going to judge this until football season. But when it's the summer and there's nothing to talk about, Jason, you know how this goes.

People start writing it, writing it. Every time it gets written, it gets passed around in Bristol, some story. Now stuff gets leaked to a sports blog and it starts to feel like a thing. And the problem is the people working for that show see it and read it it infects the show and it and and it becomes like this kind of roller coaster that's never going up and uh and so it in a weird way it does have power but yet it doesn't because it's this little bubble that I just don't feel like a lot of people even know what's going on. Are you saying I know this because of my experience on Fox or the spark

force on a crowd going wild. And I know it from my HBO show. It started coming for Jason Gay and Regis Philbin. No, no. I, I mean, I think, you know, for, for get up, GetUp, an essential part an essential hurdle for them and it's not them, it's that they're launching a morning television program in the Trump era where

the President of the United States wakes up at 6 in the morning and sets the agenda for the planet with a bunch of crazy tweets and that is what stirs the pot that's what everybody's talking about sports fans and not and so the idea of turning into a you know sports television program at seven in the morning that's talking about last night's nationals game feels like really off topic um and maybe almost a little bit irresponsible because you should know maybe we're on the brink of nuclear war yeah um and i

don't know how you clear that hurdle you know i, I don't know if it requires like, you know, a new presidential era or something like that, but, or, you know, especially because I think they've made a big point about the fact that, you know, they're not going to entangle themselves too much in politics. And I know there was a little bit of a mixed message there as to what they were going to do. Too much. They're not doing anything. They're completely out.

Not enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can notice it, like, in the tone of, like, the morning programs. I mean, you know, Today Show and whatnot, you know, those shows are, you know, drilling down and doing much more on Washington politics in the first hour, first, you know, part of their shows than they did in the past. The happy talk has, you know, is a smaller proportion of the program. So I just feel like there's a seriousness and a craziness with regard to Washington that it's just really hard for a sports program to get any sort of, you know, critical mass attraction on. It's so true. And I thought, I thought morning, Joe, if that was a model for this, or at least a notional

model for this, was it bad model? Because to Jason's point about how nobody's watching all the sports tv we're talking about nobody was watching cable news before trump you know those those were remember it was all game of thrones who's fired and who's all it was a game kept gabe sherman in business but nobody was actually watching that the poll it was like the late night shows the politics of them were actually more interesting than the shows 100 and then trump comes in and for both late night and cable news, all of a sudden it's like, here comes the audience. We have that chyron

on the screen every morning. Trump woke up and tweeted something crazy. And I think from ESPN standpoint, when they started taking shit for politics and Trump's tweeting about Jamal Hill and all this stuff, and it actually became bad for their business and it just became this

story that was quicksand. They could never get out of it. And they had to make a decision. Basically, we're out. We're not going near politics anymore. That's it. It's the third rail again for ESPN, which is where it was 10 years ago. Now what's left? What's left is a three hour show where you're just kind of like, whoa, I can't believe Julio Jones hasn't reported yet. What are your thoughts? We brought in Booger McFarlane. Booger, do you think Julio Jones will come in? That's fine. But for three hours, no. And I actually, sometimes when I turn any of these sports centers on, I'm kind of like, all right, cool. Show me some baseball highlights. I wonder if there's going to be a SportsCenter renaissance.

And that's, dude, remember like two years ago, what was the most boring take you could write in sports media? SportsCenter is dead as we know it. Yeah. It's over, right? It's not dead. Van Pelt, you know, after the game's okay. Maybe a little bit here and there, but SportsCenter as a franchise is over. No one would even write that take because it was so boring.

And now we're like, ah, maybe they should put SportsCenter back on. What happened to SportsCenter as a franchise is over. No one would even write that take because it was so boring. And now we're like, ah, maybe they should put SportsCenter back on. What happened to SportsCenter? At SportsCenter, the ratings drop to where SportsCenter is actually a good thing to have. It's almost like Friday Night Lights in the mid-2000s. The ratings weren't quite good enough to be a network show. But now 10 years later, if that was like a Netflix show, that would be like the best show they had all year. And maybe, maybe it shifted towards SportsCenter's way a little bit. What do you think, Jason? I mean, I think there's a bigger existential question here about like television watching as a behavior. I mean, what the great sale of ESPN forever was that they

were reaching an audience that was hard to reach on television, i.e. a younger male-skewing audience that wasn't watching traditional television. And that audience now has different ways of processing information. I mean, think about it. Just like 7 in the morning, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to have a cup of coffee, I'm going to watch people talk about sports. I'm going to watch it from the launch of the show to the first commercial break. That just feels, again, it's like watching someone carve a wood duck now. It just doesn't feel like part of the way the culture works now,

and especially young people culture, where they want information fast and furious. And if I can give a shout-out to my old colleague, Katie Nolan, I don't know if you've watched much of the Sports Center on Snapchat stuff. That's what I want. That's the way that I want to process that information. She's funny, and the highlights are there, and you get the information. You get a quick take on it, and it's done and over with. I'm not waiting for a block of commercials and so on.

We had the same thing with NBA Desktop. That's kind of where the future's going with these little seven minute trying to cover everything and you're out. I'd say two things. That, yes. But then there's also the guys who know stuff and gals who know stuff model. When I walked by a television the week before the NBA draft and Get Up was on and Zach Lowe was on for like an hour. Yeah. And it's like, oh, Zach's not tweeting and he's not writing.

So this is where I can consume Zach Lowe. I was in. Right. And now they're talking about getting Schefter. They did the ESPN did this alternate draft show on ESPN2 that had like Zach, Windhorst, Fran Fraschilla, Jackie McMullen, Rachel Nichols. And I'm like, these are people that know things. Yeah. These are these are the people. It's not the generalist who's like, you know, hi, good morning, everybody. You know, welcome to welcome to ESPN. It's like, oh, that's a person who knows about things that I care about. Well, and this is this is something that we've had a lot of success with this year. And I think ESPN has, too. And maybe this is just a model now. The reaction stuff like this is basically

TNT inside the NBA. What matters about that show is it comes on right after the games and they react to the games. There's never any videos and stuff coming out about, you see that pregame show that Barkley had, it's always the post game. And we're just seeing that in general. And I think the reactions cause of Twitter and all these other things and we're doing it the ringer,

like Kawhi gets traded, emergency podcast an hour later. And it just, it, it's weird that it feels late. These, these ESPN shows, but PTI is like an hour later. And it just, it, it's weird that it feels late these, these ESPN shows, but PTI is like an eternity now they're coming out at five 30. If there's not breaking news,

they're talking about stuff that happened 16, 17 hours ago. I thought the most interesting moment that ESPN had this entire year and maybe the last 18 months was when they did the live jump show on June 30th, heading into July 1st with the signings. And Brian Windhorst found out about Paul George's four-year contract and had like a seizure on the air. And it was, it was like a hundred percent genuine. It wasn't like this manufactured skip bailout thing. He's like, I don't understand. I just, I'm just shocked. I'm shocked right now. I don't know. And it was like, this is great. This is exactly what I want.

We still like watching people process news like that in real time. We really do. Sorry, Jason, go ahead. It's the NBA version of election night. I mean, that's what that thing should be at its best. I mean, they should definitely move the deadline up a little earlier in the day. But, you know, it should have those kinds of tensions and real-time moments and so on. But I also think one of the questions people have about things being fast and reacting to it is, what is responsible commentary? What is the action? Is it just to have the take, or is it to have the information? And I think one of the things that I find fascinating with the way that digital media has metamorphosized over a period of time is that it's not just, everyone says, oh, it's going to be this, it's going to be this person now, and so on.

But what always prevails, what always wins is news and reporting and people having scooblets. And somebody like Wojnarowski is just going to continue to be invaluable because he has information. And that's the thing that if you're going to stake your future on something, it's that kind of asset as opposed to anything else. Bill, I have a question, though. I had a fun follow-up thing on that. Is your question changing the topic, or is it sticking to this topic? No, it's sticking on this topic.

Okay, let's hear it. When you guys do the quick, like, so when you do like the Kawhi thing, like immediately afterwards or I can't remember, there are some other ones

like trades and so on. How does it rate compared to other material? Oh, they do, they do really well. They do, they do.

I think the one, the Rosillo trade deadline podcast we did like, like during the trade deadline, it had like 2.1 million listeners or something. There's a window. It was over 2 million. There's a window.

People were like, I want to hear about the trade deadline. Tell me stuff. Anything about what just happened, right? Right. And that, just to be technical for a second, you're getting that number on the basis of you're putting the information out on Twitter. People are getting notifications of their subscribers. And it's strictly on that because it's like people

can't necessarily expect it. They want it. Or turn to it a certain hour. Yeah, yeah. I have a great topic that relates to this topic. But first, quick break. Let's talk about Mint Mobile.

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My least favorite media trend in a long time. Can you guess what it is? It's directly related to this conversation about breaking news and information and intelligence. Shams versus Woj. No, no, that's his favorite.

No, my least favorite trend. Yeah. I do enjoy Shams versus Woj. My least favorite trend is the people telling me after the fact, after something happened, that they knew the whole time that was going to happen. They just chose not to tell us.

It's a, now they tell us. Windhorst going to happen. They just chose not to tell us. It's a now they tell us. Listen, Windhorst is my friend. I love Windhorst. I've eaten meals with Windhorst. I'm a Windhorst fan. He's been on this podcast. I'm happy to talk about this with him.

But he gave this Huffington Post interview where he said, he said on TV, he was 53% sure LeBron was going to LA, but privately he was 93% sure. He just didn't want to say that on TV. And he listed all these reasons. And I'm like, well, then why are you saying one thing when you know the other thing? How did we get here in 2018? Jason, what's your take on that? It reminds me of something that, you know, if you were raised in an old school newsroom, you heard your old school editor say all the time, which is like, I want the story that you're telling in the newsroom. There are sort of legions of cases of where reporters would get around, walk around to their colleagues, and they would tell this incredibly colorful version of the story that had all this like incendiary information and maybe even some factual information that we could definitely print. And then somehow this like super sanitized, bedded down version would actually be published. And, you know, part of that is legal reasons.

But also it's just like there's this sort of custom that happens in news reporting oftentimes that, you know, the good juicy stuff gets away because people are overly cautious or in many cases protecting, you know, sources and so on. And, and yeah. I get that. But if you have information and you're being asked on television, what do you think about this? And you give one answer when you know there's another answer and it's not something like, do you think LeBron James uses PDs and stuff like, do you think LeBron James is going to LA? And you're like, I don't know.

Maybe I'm leaning toward. Yes. But then after the fact, you're like, I knew he was going to LA. I was like, I saw you on TV. You said you did it.

I don't know how we got here, Brian. Here's, here's the thing. There is, there is a genre called the, now they tell us, right.

Yeah. Something happens. I go, well, let me tell you, let me tell you what's been really going on for the last year. I was like, no,

you could have told us during the fact that that would have been nice to know. Like, you know, oh, he's been arguing with the coach all year. Like, why don't you write that? I remember there is that, but let me, let me tell you the wind horse exception, which is that the insider character that Jason talked about when horse woge Schefter, they have become so all powerful, so oracular that if what I think Brian is saying is if he went on TV and said LeBron is 93% to LA, all the aggregators in the world would write, Brian Windhorst says LeBron

is going to the Lakers. And it would become a report rather than this is my best guess at this moment. So it's a fear of the Twitter. Like it's what happened to Rosillo. Rosillo was on my podcast last week. And there was this Paul George thing that Slam Magazine pulled out of context and he took shit for two days because he phrased it. It's happened to me on this podcast too. It was like he raised hypotheticals and it is frustrating.

But my question is why can't he say 93%? He can, but I think, look, that would be the thing, but I think I look, that would be the thing. But I think if you, you know, my best,

my favorite example, this is during deflate gate. Adam Schefter, when I think WI and said, you know, one person told me he thought that the Colts deflated the balls themselves. Like, and it was just one random person and Adam,

but Adam fricking Schefter saying that out loud, it became like, did the Colts deflate the footballs themselves to frame the Patriots? Because every utterance these guys give, they're so big now and they're so powerful that it's news, right? We can't distinguish between Brian Windhorst thinks, believes this,

but doesn't quite know it. And Brian Windhorst is reporting. So that's what I think that was. That's one piece of it. But the other piece, and this has been happening this decade and you see when guys get traded. And I remember this happened when Reggie Jackson got traded from OKC. Yeah.

And I think it was Royce Young who wrote a piece after the fact, like, here are all the reasons. Like, Reggie Jackson, he was this. He was in the locker room. He did this. And I was like, why didn't you write this stuff at the time? And I actually asked around, like, why does this stuff always tend to come out after?

Like the Cleveland, the three beat writers through the podcast, which we talked about on this podcast, where way after the fact, it was like, oh yeah, Kyrie and LeBron. And they listed all these different stories. Like, where was this? And the answer seems to be over and over again. If I say what I know in the moment when these guys are in my life, I burn my sources and I'll never get any more info. But my question, Jason, is it okay to just do it well after the fact? Why is that a better way to do it? I mean, you know, to be fair to the people who are in locker rooms day to day and doing those kind of stories, I mean, that, you know,

riddle is no different than anyone covering any kind of stories. I mean, that, you know, riddle is no different than anyone covering any kind of workplace. I think people have relationships. And if you're on a daily beat, you have to measure that against, you know, continuing that relationship. And I'm not, you know, excusing, you know, the management of news, but that's just a reality of beat coverage, whether it's, you know, a basketball team or the White House. I think that what gets a little comical in something like NBA free agency is that the stakes are low. This is not national security. This is not something that's going to change people's lives.

It's just whether or not someone's going to go to a different basketball game. And I think that the shame culture of the Internet, I think it's part of, you know, what Brian referred to is really what drives us a little bit. I hear people all the time, you know, on your podcast and other places, people say like, now I'm going to say something here and I don't want Twitter to go nuts here, blah, blah, blah. And like, break me over the cold.

Like, people started doing prevent defense on claims because they're worried about the internet going amok. And, you know, it's just dystopia, man. That's where we are. Brian said on his excellent Pressbox podcast on the Channel 33 podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network with David Shoemaker, they talked about this new culture of the friendly NBA, the friendly media. And Brian hypothesized that the NBA feature about players, you know, the, the big SI feature, the big Bleacher Report feature, whatever, has now replaced the Hollywood Vanity Fair type of feature where it is arranged by the

media strategist slash PR team slash agents. The two or three people around the NBA star will be like, all right, it's time to do a feature. All right, we'll go get writer X and here are the conditions and you get 90 minutes and here's the agenda we're going to push. And it's no different than Tom Cruise in 1995 when he has Mission Impossible coming out and he's on the cover of Vanity Fair. When did this change, Brian? It's become it's become a brokered piece of journalism, just like all those. Yeah, all those old Vanity Fair. Now we don't even get the Vanity Fair Esquire feature half the time.

Right. Because the person just kind of beyond that or just decides to tweet instead of, you know, giving an hour to a reporter. Yeah. You know, I think it's probably like it it's part of what we like about the NBA, right? Which is these players becoming bigger than life, you know, and becoming their own brands. Like that is part of the appeal of the NBA, right? We know these guys. Yeah. But I think the downside to that journalistically is

why are these guys ever going to talk to the press in a free way? Now there are plenty of exceptions. I'm not saying every single profile is like this, but i read so many of those that it's like it seems they only talk to the guy and maybe their agent and their team yeah like it's all about here's my feelings here's my feelings which is interesting but there's no like did you did you talk to other people on the team are there quotes from other people they're quotes from the coach is there something questioning this is there a big idea in this other than just we're downloading a guy about his feelings yeah you know in the

moment is there some what so i does feel like those hollywood features to me they read like what do you think jason i'm just happy that uh some left talking to print media uh you know compromised or not yeah uh you know like take for, take, for example, like, music, okay? Here's Taylor Swift. She has, you know, a number one record of massive, like, international tour, has done no press whatsoever. No covers, no interviews, no TV, no radio,

no print, no nothing, zero. They don't need it to have huge success. And there's something almost quaint about the fact that athletes you know are doing these kind of you know old school sit downs i think a lot of it is also like just a you know envious nature of i want that too right so i see this person on this cover like where's my cover why i want that you know and like nba players seem more interconnected than ever in terms of you know

recognizing what other guys are getting in the league and so on and i feel like that's just another sort of like notch on the you know career belt am i imagining this should acquire give an interview about fashion this spring when he was like the most wanted interview in the nba and he did he talk to him i imagine that he just talked to gq about his clothes i don don't remember this. I'm pretty sure his style interview is the best compromise thing, right? It's the only way to get Russell Westbrook. Hey, Russell, can we talk to you about your clothes? Great. I have an hour and a half for you.

Yeah, no, I've had that exact experience with Westbrook. And candidly, he will, you know, I think he might be more passionate about Balenciaga bags than he is about talking about, you know, inter-squad rivalries and so on. But yeah, no, I mean, I think a lot of it is also that too. It's like now everybody can't be simply a basketball player. You know, they have to be something beyond that and everyone's cultivating their brand and everyone's cultivating their, you know, eccentricities. And quite frankly, that's, you know, another part of like the basketball media culture

is the elevation of all these sort of like, you know, cutesy eccentricities that players have. I mean, I think, Brian, were you talking about how like NFL writers just must look with great disdain at, you know, NBA writers? Because, you know, there's all this just, it's all like, you know, whipped cream and strawberries for the NBA right now. The NFL is just like being like a World War I reporter right now. Yeah. Or, you know, like a Russiagate reporter, right? It's like every day there's something, you know, look at Urban Meyer right now. Look what we're talking about.

And yeah, you're right. It's whipped cream and strawberries. Yesterday, we were, you know were in the newsroom working on the Meyer story and a couple of colleagues were writing the news story. And there are elements of the story which are very much in flux. We don't have all the information and we have allegations which are serious and allegations which have been denied. And it's a little bit of a tightrope to write a story like that. But I was also like, man, we have so much experience with this now in football.

It is staggering the amount of highly serious, you know, football, you know, on field, off field type controversy topics. Like, you know, legal reporters are basically, you know, as essential as they're basically bench coaches now on football coverage. Let me ask you guys, because I think it's I think it's more than fair to throw myself into this. I did those five Durant podcasts. Not much of not much different from like what we're talking about with the range features and stuff like that.

The first one was basically like, it started because I had him on my HBO show and we just, we had a good talk with him and Nas and it was good. It was like this high level, um, kind of big picture talk about stardom and celebrity and how people perceived as OKC move and stuff. What I, what I liked about it and why I continue, I think we're done now. We did five. I don't think there's much more ground to cover at this point. But what I liked is here's one of the top five players in the league, top two. One of the best 20 players ever at this point. And unlike every other person who is in his peer group,

was willing to sit down and have a conversation and basically like, I'll talk about anything. The one third rail item for him was Westbrook. He, what's funny is Katie's completely honest, almost too honest, almost brutally honest. Like we would do these podcasts. There were still writing news stories about it nine days later, but he was never honest about the Westbrook thing. It was the one topic he just, even not, even when not doing the podcast, there was just the one thing that was still too raw for him, but everything else was on the table. And what I thought was cool about it was what athlete does that now? I feel like LeBron, like, have you, have we heard maybe this barbershop HBO thing will be the most raw kind of revealing LeBron

we're going to get. He's producing it, which makes me nervous, but we don't see LeBron in that situation ever where he's just like, here's how I feel. Here's who I think the best up and coming guy is. Here's what I don't like. I'm still mad at the Cleveland fans for this. Like he just, he doesn't go there. Here, here, what I think about the blog boys, you know, and where's the Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady version of that. Where it's like five hours of free form audio it doesn't exist which is i i think he katie doesn't get i think he's i think

it's crazy that he's on twitter responding to people i don't understand why he does that i've tried to get him talk about it he wouldn't or he wouldn't give an explanation that really made sense to me but um but the honesty that he has compared to everyone else, even on that CJ McCollum podcast, that was incredible. Amazing. He was genuinely confused why CJ McCollum was upset that they signed Boogie Cousins. He's like, what do you mean?

You guys aren't winning the title. What's going on? And I don't know. I just feel like I wish more athletes were honest like that. He takes so much shit for it, though, that I actually think he's going to deter people from being more honest. What do you think, Jason? But, but you say honest, and I think there are definitely moments of honesty.

But, you know, there were also times when surely he told you lies. And, you know, if you spend enough time listening to it, you could start to read the way that he presented, you know, things or he clenched when you ask certain kinds of questions, and you could get a vibe on how much disclosure was happening. I felt like probably the best thing that came out of it as a whole is that, you know, Durant, you wonder about what's the calculation on Durant's side, you know, is it a badger, a climate, you know, like, what's in it for them when they're sitting there saying, why

should we do this? And, you know, obviously they're looking to present, you know, a more multidimensional image of the person. Or maybe they're just curious about it as, you know, an intellectual exercise. But I felt like Durant came across at times as being this really interestingly snarly guy, like with a little bit of an edge to him. Like, I mean, this was not like some sort of like, of steam-pressed and sanitized version of a professional athlete, which is really what we got and got sick of in the 90s. This is a guy that

there are still third-rail topics, and there are still people he dislikes, and there's still a little bit of again, that snarl to him, and that's very human, and I like that. Usually, the way humanity is presented in athletes, it's like, oh, they cry like us. They think that, you know, he gets pissed about stuff.

And we suspected that athletes harbor these feelings all along. Of course they do, but it's seldom, you know, shown so explicitly. Yeah, and I do feel like, so you asked, like, what was in it for them? Why did they want to do this? I genuinely believe this is the answer. I think he just wanted to shoot the shit with somebody about basketball on a podcast. It wasn't like, how's this going to look for us? If we do this, then this will be, then we'll do this. And it was just like,

I like talking to that guy when I did the last thing, we should do a podcast with him. And that was it. And I think that's how he operates in general. Like why did he go on CJ McCollum's podcast? Probably because CJ asked him, he's like,. Like, why did he go on C.J. McCollum's podcast? Probably because C.J. asked him. He's like, all right, I'll go on. Sure. But I do think...

I think another thing that happens with podcasts and why it's a more interesting medium than terrestrial radio and, frankly, a lot of television is that the editing is just not done in the same manner. Like, to take, for example, the interview you did a couple weeks ago with Denzel Washington. Yeah. I listened done in the same manner. Like, to take, for example, the interview you did a couple weeks ago with Denzel Washington. Yeah.

I listened to in the French Alps. He was unbelievable on sports, and he was unbelievable on He Got Game, and then he sort of clenched up when he talked about his movie catalog and so on. If that were a television show, you would have cut that all out. You would have just totally made it seem like it was just a seamless experience. And what makes interviews interesting, I think, are the moments where people recoil

and then, you know, open themselves up and so on. And that sort of like, you know, organic process is much more interesting than seeing this sort of edited version. Yeah, and I knew that going in with Denzel. It was like he wants to talk sports. He was fired to talk sports, doesn't like to go backwards, was excited to talk about He Got Game because he played basketball in it.

I don't think as a movie he never really went into that part. One of the interviews that I did this year that I really enjoyed was Kyrie Irving, and it reminded me a lot of the KD stuff. He really enjoyed it. I think he liked it at M-Notes. Pretty much everything was on the table with him. He was really thoughtful. There were some third rail moments, but for the most part was ready to talk about stuff. And I can see why they're friends. And it's funny, like, I think they're pretty close. I could just see them going and talking until three in the morning in a hotel room. I don't think most NBA players are like that. I think Curry probably deep down is like that,

but is kind of brand savvy enough to never really go there. But we're going to see, I'm going to have them on a podcast this summer and we'll see i wonder how canada is like at my hbo show we had a really genuine moment at the end when we started talking i was like you know that last game you were ice cold but you still took and made the biggest shot of the game i was like there's maybe six players in history who would have done that and his eyes lit up he's like who are the six let's go through them. And it was like, this is cool. So maybe he'll be great on the podcast. I hope he is. But, um,

the curiosity of some of these guys is what's really interesting to me. And again, you have to sort of get through the sucky parts to get to the great stuff. I think of like what I think is like the best, like, you know, classic magazine story of this, you know, celebrity magazine story this year was the just incredible, uh, Rolling Stone feature on Johnny Depp that Steve Roderick did where it took literally hours and hours and hours of like hanging out and drinking glass of

wine or coblet of wine and wine with Johnny Depp. And Lord knows what else. Yeah, right. You know, all the above. And, but you, I feel like I know the guy now. I feel like I really, for the first time, you know, saw the true being underneath the image. And like, that's what, you know, these ideas of at their best, they're supposed to be.

Who would be your dream? Here's somebody just unfiltered on a podcast out of all the athletes we have now. If somebody basically did the KD motto and was just like, I'm ready to just shoot the shit with somebody for two hours. Let's go. Who would be your dream, Brian?

I feel, I feel it's almost all of them because I don't feel I know any of them. I mean, Russ would be fast. Russ, Russell Westbrook. The real Russ interview would be fabulous. Yeah.

Like, like Jason said, I don't think he wants to go there or he just has zero interest in that, but that would be amazing. Rodgers would, I had Rodgers on my HBO show. He's so smart with what he wants to give out. Yes. That it's just a constant chess match.

I'm not sure he'd ever go there. And then there's the ones that are just so over the top. Like it would actually be easy. The ones that are just so over the top, like it would actually be easy. The ones that are interesting to me are the ones like Kyrie where Kyrie had to go. I feel like Kyrie would have stayed for three and a half hours and just really started talking about shit. Who would it be for you, Jason? I mean, I'll answer your question. I'd be very curious if anyone over the next 150 years, however long he lives, ever drills down into Tom Brady. The reason I ask is that no one has offered a more manicured image of himself than Tom Brady. I mean, he has like he is selling this, you know, literally selling a, you know, a very, you know, handsome, meticulous version of himself. But I always feel when I've seen him

interviewed in short clips with Jim Gray, that there is this like seething anger under the surface. And part of it is like the, you know know snub draft pick thing that never went away but you know then there have been like numerous you know stories over the years where like he's never actually articulated his opinion about stuff he goes to some sort of a mega money like banker conference and for a huge fee like you know gives eight minutes of conversation and there's little sort of barbish kinds of comments that get made. I just feel like there's this guy who's ready to explode underneath all that. And I have real doubts as to whether or not we'll get any of it. But I don't think it's realistic.

No, I don't think so. Even 10 years ago, spent some time with him at one of the Super Bowl weeks because I'm friends with a couple of his friends. And he's just guarded. He's just, he's, he's smart enough pre prenaturally to know, like, here's what you're getting. And that's it. If get my dream, is there a room where he is himself? Like, is there a room? Very inner circle. Confidants and friends.

Yeah. He is actually the real person. I mean, I always thought it was interesting, even when he became the most famous athlete we had, maybe other than LeBron, he would go to Kentucky Derby every year with like Wes Welker

and Will McDonough and Kevin Brady, all his buddies. And they would just have this degenerate day and Brady's there wearing a hat kind of living vicariously

through his crew. Who do you think, I have an answer to this. I'll be interested to see what you guys think is the answer i have a dream athlete for i get a call from somebody who works for them and says person x is ready to do a two-hour podcast with you everything's on the table can you give us a sport no who do you it is? It's somebody who's still active, though. Not a retired.

It's not a retired athlete. Somebody who's still active. Yeah. Who do you think, Jason? JaVale McGee. No. That would be easy. I'd get JaVale right now.

It's not a baseball player. Serena Williams. Oh, yeah. That'd be good. I feel we've gotten glimpses. We've gotten glimpses, but I feel like, I just feel like I could have an awesome podcast with her. I feel like if she was ready to go,

I know how the beats would go. And I feel like by about the 50 minute mark, she'd be firing. She also seems likely to be ready to go. More likely than some people are talking about. I think it's in there. She did that HBO show, which had its moments.

I don't know if it needed to be five episodes, but it was pretty candid. Speaking of something needing to be five episodes. What? No, just the Durant thing. Oh, yeah.

True, yeah. I don't know if the Durant podcast series would be... But yeah, I think there's a great conversation to be had with her somebody will have it at some point but probably after she retires would be my guest can i just say how much i love we're talking about the concept of honesty yeah people the new twitter plug is a very honest interview i did with so-and-so i see that all the time that's the new in-depth and i just just want, whenever I see that, I was like,

now, can you also label the dishonest ones that you're publishing? Dishonest one was, because I would like to know that one too. Warn me about that one too, when you put that up. Well, sports has become like late night talk shows. Like Rachel have LeBron and Wade together for seven minutes. And it's basically like, tell us about your new movie.

You know, and that's all they want to do. They don't want to do anything else. They don't want, she's, if she asked them, Dwayne, how hurt were you when LeBron left? You guys were friends. Did you feel like he stabbed you in the back? They're never doing that interview again. So you have to like dance. And it's no different than if the lead star of Ocean's 8 goes on Kimmel show.

He's like, but like, Anthony Hathaway, what happened with you and that Italian dude? Kimmel Show. He's like, but Ian Hathaway, what happened with you and that Italian dude? That was weird. He's not doing it. We're taking a break. Then we're coming back and doing Twitter questions really quick. Let's go.

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the ringers calendula story. What did you learn about that kind of reporting? What would you have done differently in retrospect? That's from Dan diamond. What do you think? What did I learn about that type of reporting? Yeah. I don't know if I learned anything. I don't, I, learned anything. I was not the reporter. You worked for us, though. I was amazed at how that kind of story captured the internet's attention. Brian Coangelo, right? It's like, this is not LeBron, right? But that hit just all these just pressure points of NBA Twitter, which is online stuff, secret stuff, backroom stuff, hinky process.

I mean, it just hit so many things. I was amazed. Who did it? Who leaked it? Yeah. Who really did it? Yeah. It was weird. It reached to the point where my mom knew about it, which I always judge everything by.

My mom's asking about this. Whoa, this became a deal. What do you think, Jason? Did you learn anything from that? Or is that just- I mean, you're omitting a other part of it that was huge, the sort of forensic aspect of it.

I think that's what people really love about stories like that. I think there was the one a couple of years ago where Gawker unlocked to, was it Comey? It was Comey, yeah. A secret Twitter account or so on. And like,

you know, here's how we did it and here's how we broke it down. Um, you know, I'll ask you this, that story we read with, you know, huge interest and, you know, it was a phenomenon and it was a really great piece of work. It would not have been published in the journal as it did because, and that's not to like, you know, say the journal has some sort of, like, you know, the highest... I mean, we have very high standards, but I just feel like they would not have been comfortable with taking it up to the altar

but not, like, actually sealing the deal, like, knowing for sure. You know, I think, like, the circumstantial elements of it are tricky, you know? And you ended up, you know, obviously you're on are tricky, you know, and, and, and you ended up, you know, obviously you're on something as, you know, uh, time would prove, but, um, yeah, it, it, it, it, uh, you know, when did you reach your standard to publish is my question. Yeah. I mean, it was definitely more of an internet story than a newspaper story.

I think the way we presented it was, you know, there was a lot of thought and time put into it. How do you make this a story? Something clearly odd is going on here, but we also don't know what it is. And it was kind of like, just lay out all the things that happened. Like, what is this? And you're right. it's a different kind of journalism i never like we had obviously lawyers reading and all that stuff it to me it was never a

he did this or what what it was more like this is just weird why why did somebody tip us off to do this why were there all these burner accounts why did did when we told the Sixers, we knew about two of them, the other three shut down within an hour. It just kind of added up to this compelling story that was not a conventional story. And a lot of conventional journalistic elements that you just mentioned, like going to the Sixers and saying, here is what we reported. Here is your chance to comment. Now, in the fallout of it, Bill, was there ever a moment, because there were people, you know, when everyone was writing about it after the fact, and again, I don't mean to diminish ringer standards or anything like that, but in the fallout of it, when people were writing about it, there was the, well, what if they got catfished? What if this is a hoax? What if there's somebody who's tricking the writer on the outside? Do you have any of those sort of iron stomach moments where you're like,

man, I hope that did not happen? Not when the three other accounts went down. At that point, you're like, all right, there's absolutely 100% certainty that something's going on here. Next question.

This is going to be a tough one to just brush over quickly, but let's do it anyway. Should there be a truth commission where all pro athletes have a chance to come forth and be forgiven by the leagues and whoever else for their immature, racist, bigoted, whatever terrible tweets they did way back in the day? What is the forgiveness criteria?

That's from Rob Power. This has been one of the weirdest summer subplots is over and over again, these baseball players have these terrible things they wrote in 09, 2010, 11 on Twitter for- It was Josh Allen during the draft too, right? Yeah, Josh Allen. This happened in basketball too.

We saw some, Dave Millard had some stuff back then. It seems like it's, but it was more like attacking LeBron James, stuff like that. Over and over again, this seems to be a story almost every day now. What do we make of it, Brian?

Show me the tweets before I grant you forgiveness from the Truth Commission. Right. I mean, that's the thing with all these stories. They're all different. Yeah. You know, and show me the tweets and show me when you made them and show me what you said. Jason, do you buy the,

I was 18, I was stupid, sorry? Is that enough of a defense? No, I don't buy it. I don't think so either. I mean,

you're fully formed at that point. I like know that being bigoted is absolutely wrong and, you know, punishable,

but, you know, there does seem to be a sliding scale with this kind of stuff that it's proportionate to your age. Twitter launching in 2007 or 2008 feels like three days ago to an old person like me, but within the context of a 24-year-old's life, it goes back to when they were pre-adolescent or adolescent.

I don't know. We hold, hopefully, I mean, less so nowadays, but we're hopefully holding adults to a higher standard for pre-EOS commentary. The only... This is not a defense. The only kind of semi-defense I can think is

if you're a nobody and you're on Twitter, it's no different than being on a message board or wherever else where you're just saying dumb shit. And I'm sure there's way more people who were on message boards that have incriminating stuff versus a Twitter feed. The problem with Twitter is you can just go through anyone's timeline and read everything they ever tweeted. It's much more stuck to the person. But I'm sure there's other weirdos who have been on message boards on the freaking Oakland Athletics message board. They grew up in Modesta.

They're an A's fan and said all this crazy shit when they were 16. And there's no way to know they did that. So I don't know. But it's one of those stories. I honestly don't know what to do with and what my opinion should be on it. Should somebody lose their career because they had these crazy tweets when they were 17? No. It's one of those stories. I honestly don't know what to do with and what my opinion should be on it.

Like, should somebody lose their career because they had these crazy tweets when they were 17? No. But I also don't feel good about it. I just, I don't like the story. I don't like reading them. Yeah. And they all require a different approach. Yeah.

Quick one. We've talked about this before. This is from Gabe Q. Gunson. Great name. Putting aside the rise of the 365-day NBA offseason, why do we now only care about the NFL like three weeks before the season starts? Yeah, I think we've gone over the waterfall on this one. I think we have. And I say that from the middle of Ringer headquarters. I mean, truly the NBA offseason has expanded. Truly that

has happened, right? People really care about the NFL. I agree. They really do. And they care about the NFL in the off season. I don't think it's three weeks. I think it definitely does go away now in May. It goes, it hibernates for about four or five weeks after the draft and then makes a resurgence

right after the NBA finals and people start talking about it again. Yeah. Tom Brady's storming out of a press conference with a story the other day. I think the NFL off season is less fun than it's ever been, but it's still interesting. What do you think, Jason? I think it just is a

function of fun. I don't think it's even that people, you know, basketball is not more popular than the NFL, full stop. But it's more fun to talk about the NBA. It's like talking about the Marvel comic universe, whereas talking about the NFL, it's like law and order SVU, you know,

this is like one crisis after the next. And, and we haven't talked about this at all, but the anthem and the policy toward the anthem or the lack of policy or the conflict over the, I mean, it's just, the game has been so politicized and it doesn't matter what you say about

football now, you know, that's going to be another sort of prison for which everything is evaluated. And then on top of that, the whole sort of player safety and concussions and the demise of the game, all that stuff, too. So there's just a lot less fun to BS about football than it is to BS about the NBA. In basketball, it's like this guy was caught with weed on an airplane. And it's like this guy was caught with weed on an airplane. And it's funny. In football, it's this guy broke

into his ex-girlfriend's house with a gun and now he's arrested on three felony charges. It just seems like the league's kind of lost its mind a little bit. And then when you tie in the CTE stuff, it's just depressing. And I think we all kind of feel that way. Just start the game.

It gets no benefit of the doubt. Like, take the example of the rumor. And I know it's been denied by Draymond Green, but the rumor that was out there this year that, I mean, this week that Draymond Green and Tristan Thompson got into a tangle after the ESPY. If that happened between two NFL players, it would be treated like, you know,

with the severity of a congressional hearing. Whereas the NBA, it's this hilarious story. How funny is that that these two guys got into it? It's just comic relief. I mean, it's all context now. So wait till the next round of labor negotiations. I always put this asterisk on NBA talk. Is there anything to bring down the party?

Yeah. It's greedy owners saying the players deserve less money. Yeah. I heard that J-Mon Tristan thing was a lot more of a knockdown drag out than was being reported. Yeah. The aggregators just windhorsed you right now. I'm just saying.

Bill Simmons reports. They made it seem like it was a shove and they got separated. I think it was like a hockey fight. Wow. From Brandon Southward, dream NBA play-by-play analyst combo nfl and baseball what do you got right now you have to use available people oh wow i would mine what's your nba mine for nba would be either breen or harlan and no analyst uh no i would have doris and i would have chauncey. Yeah, I think Doris.

That was Doris and Chauncey. That one game I heard was the best I've heard in eight years of any combo. People are so desperate for good NBA. And I would pick Doris too, because I just, I almost dislike all of them. I think Breen, Doris and Chauncey is our best possibility right now. Or Harlan, Chauncey and Doris. What do you think, Jason? They have to be alive.

No, they have to be working right now in the hole. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to, like, this isn't for wimpish reasons, but I'm going to tap out because I've said this before, but I don't really listen to the play-by-play analysis anymore. I listen with the volume down. Fair tap out. You're allowed to tap out.

NFL, who would you like? I don't have very strong opinions about it. NFL? What would you like? We're still out? We love Joe and Chris Collinsworth Joe and Tony Romo there's going to be Tony Romo backlash this year

it's already started it's going to happen nothing can be enjoyed anymore we can't have nice things anymore he's too excited he is chatty I would say he is chatty have nice things anymore. He'd say, oh my god, he talks too much. He's too excited. He is chatty. I would say he is chatty.

I would probably say Al and Romo would be my dream team. This is all I like about this fantasy booking. I would love to watch that game happen. Let's just do one. Let's just do one together. Throw them together. And then for baseball, I think I'm actually good with Buck and Smoltz. Isn't it the World Series team?

Buck and Smoltz are fucking good. I was going to say. They're very solid. And hockey, Emmerich and whoever. Emmerich and a hockey player. Mark Harris wonders, what would the NFL currently be like if Trump was allowed to be the owner of the Bills? I'll tell you, America would be better off.

Yeah. And all the stuff Trump's doing with America actually would fit better in the NFL and he would be like him versus Goodell. I actually would have enjoyed that. Trump would have become Al Davis instead of president. Great. What a great sliding doors what if. Can we go back in time?

We got to go back. I'm like Jack and Lost. Let's go back. What do you think, Jason? Was it a really realistic scenario? Was it like, you know, or was it just one of those, you know, very Trumpy and like floating around names?

He was tweeting about it. I think he tried to buy it for $500 million less than it was worth, which is usually not going to make it work. But yeah. The closest celeb buyer was Bon Jovi. Wasn't Bon Jovi part of a bid that people feared was going to go to Toronto?

He was the number two, right? Yeah. Shu, SHU, wants to know, is esports going to make it on TV specifically, or is Twitch and online the future of that platform? Yeah, I think we're too late in the TV. I mean, will it be on TV somewhere? It was on ESPN last weekend the overwatch

finals and the ratings not to talk about the ratings but the ratings were actually abysmal i think we're too late in the tv era for that they're right yeah and that might not be a bad thing yeah by the way it should people like watching on twitch and youtube yeah i'm not sure it translates to conventional network tv or why that audience would want to watch commercials. I'm calling time Warner so I can get right. So I can watch e-sports who, who fits that demographic. Jason, what do you think?

You know, I just get a little wary around this topic because I feel like, um, you know, whenever you have, you know, old middle-aged guys like ourselves getting hyper enthused about young behaviors,

it's usually a signal that, you know, the hyperbole has left the barn. And like, I feel like, you know, a lot of the hyperactive sports, you know, I think the notion that it's going to somehow rival, you know, on-field sports, you know, from a performance standpoint, I just, I, you know, I don't know. I mean, and I've been to league of legends. I went to see it at Madison Square Garden. I'm not joking. I've not heard the garden as loud as I heard it for League of Legends. They said that about Barclays last week.

It was the same thing. 20,000 people sold out. People go nuts. It's a genuine phenomenon. It's not a confection. And yet, what I've heard from analysts is that it doesn't scale the same way. It's not like people are buying luxury luxury boxes to go watch like the League of Legends. It's a very smart hedge for existing sports teams

because it's really cheap to start one up. You know, you don't have to spend a lot of money. You know, the games change and so on. Here's a question for you. Do you think that it will be an Olympic sport? And should it? No. I would say no.

That's 20 years away. I think digitally, it's in unbelievable shape digitally. I don't know if it's ever going to translate to network TV, but I also don't think that matters or is a bad thing because that audience watches it on Twitch

and the audience it gets for that rivals what the Super Bowl was 20 years ago. You know? So I think that's a good thing. What is TV? That's the point. What is TV? Yeah.

What is TV? It's like, do you think that when you go to your son's house in 20 years to visit your grandkids or 40 years or whenever it happens, but like that, he's going to have a TV in his house? I think he'll have a TV that's connected to a bunch of apps and there's going to be no cable and no satellite.

Yeah. And it'll just be all these different apps that you go to. And we might be post screened by that. You know, we might have these all, you know, these could be, um,

you know, contact lenses. He'll introduce me to his robot wife and they'll have robot sex and have robot grandchildren. Um, we'll, Oh, here's a good one. wife and they'll have robot sex and I'll have robot grandchildren. Oh, here's a good one. I'm actually glad we're going to talk about this for two minutes. Abby's dad.

That's just the Twitter handle. How has the media stopped talking about the toxic atmosphere within the Dallas Mavericks? Story did kind of go away. It's like, oh, Luka Doncic. And meanwhile, that was by far the worst me too organization scandal that we've had in professional sports yeah why did that go away brian i'm on i'm it feels like the bark mark cuban is the kind of media figure right who exists in such a kind of public realm that people sort of forget about him you know in this context and i

see some more like mark cuban for president thing the other day or something like that you know he's just like he's just around in a way but yeah they shouldn't they shouldn't stop i don't think that got undercovered you know i mean that was a giant story in sports illustrated dallas paper did lots of follow-ups undercover but it all know who pants dj is that's true uh but i like my mom doesn't know about that story. It never became like a big. Does your mom know about the Panther story though? No.

Not the same thing. I mean, because I think these are in a way, these are not, they don't look, the reason we know about the Hollywood stuff is they have giant Hollywood names attached to them. Right. You know, and these are. Well, and they, yeah. And I would say also there are like two separate separate media tracks that are happening on these stories because it's not like the Weinstein Company was covered the way the Mavericks are. There aren't beat writers.

I mean, there are beat writers that cover the movie industry, but they're not doing day-to-day injury reports from the Weinstein Company and so on. As for in sports, there are people whose job it is to give you the day-to-day, the minutiae of what's happening with the sports club. And if those things, do you have to look at all of it through the patina of the scandal that's happening? Two more, and then we're done. Mark Savoy-Segal wants to know,

ESPN's new boxing deal, which was announced today, they did this huge deal with Top Rank. I guess boxing isn't dead? Yeah. Well, it's not. Somebody the other day was talking about how it's like this is a very non-Sk an unskipper thing to do right john skipper would not have gone in on but probably gone in on boxing in the same way that the new regime is i guess it started under skipper last summer it's ott driven i think that ott is all about that niche stuff that

will get 25 000 people to buy blank and it just kind of adds up. But it's like the wrestling audience, right? They will show up if there's a good fight. And by the way, I'm not a huge boxing guy, but when I see like, you know, people are like, oh, there's a big fight on tonight and it's on the app. I'm like, okay, maybe I'll have that on when I'm walking around the house.

Jason, I got the app. They're like, Pacquiao's fighting on the app on Saturday. I'm like, I'm in, here's my credit card. That was it. They got me. I haven't seen the particulars of the deal though, but does ESPN also get pay-per-view rights for a plus? Is that how it all is going to work?

I don't think they do. I think it's a combination of stuff showing on ESPN and stuff showing on OTT. But I think you can tell what they're doing with that OTT app. They're targeting different little demos and gambling and UFC and boxing. And I'm sure it's just going to keep going in that thing. gambling and UFC and boxing. And I'm sure it's just going to keep going in that thing. And they're going to pile them up because the reality is they're not going to be able to really put cool stuff on there for five years. So get the niche stuff now.

But also, shouldn't we be looking at the signal of what it sends from the boxing side of this, which is that, you know, no boxing promoter wants to fight on free television when they have the option of having it, you know, on pay-per to fight on free television when they have the option of having it you know on pay-per-view where the real money is and this is signal more about what boxing is in 2018 that you know they don't feel confident enough in the roster of up-and-comers that they feel like they're gonna have a big pay-per-view slate or worse like for a network like you're not getting the good stuff and you know that's sort of been the hazard of like ufc conversations

about deals and the value of those kinds of deals that you know the good stuff. And that's sort of been the hazard of UFC conversations about deals and the value of those kinds of deals, the good stuff, the big UFC once a month things. Those are pay-per-view. You don't get those on regular TV. The pay-per-view model for UFC boxing, and I think wrestling to a lesser degree, it's really the big ones still do greater than ever. I think there's been atrophy with the smaller ones.

And I have people in my life who love the UFC who got every card. Now they get, now they pick and choose, which I think is a dangerous model. Last one. Can I ask you a question? Just on, just I've wanted to ask you this for a while on the topic of wrestling.

Yeah. You know, ESPN now is pretty in on wrestling, WWE wrestling. Yeah. You know, ESPN now is pretty in on wrestling, WWE wrestling. Yeah. Um, you know, they don't cover in the way that they cover the NFL,

but they certainly, you know, it's not like they don't pay attention to it. And Brian too, like, you know, not to be like, you know,

the Columbia school of journalism guy here, but like, you know, is there a line that is a little weird about this? Or is this just, you know, strictly business that, you know, a segment of viewers cares about this? Is there a way that it should be covered?

Should you not be using all your talent to cover it? What are the rules here? I don't understand it from an ESPN standpoint. I just think it's in line with their, we want to cover celebrities. We want Will Ferrell to come on TV, So we want Brock Lesnar to come on TV. I think it just gets ratings. And that's it. Yeah.

And it's a total rating. It's a wink to the wrestling crowd that you can come here once a month and find a random piece or random celebrity interview. There's also a big picture thing where you had wrestling fans. And I would see this from when I had my own website. The wrestling fans were so grateful. Somebody was writing about wrestling from a fandom standpoint that actually

knew what they were talking about and cared and we carried that over Grantland we hired Shoemaker it's Wrestling Columnist we've had wrestling stuff here and they really appreciate it and they should but I think they were there was this whole element of those guys are burger eaters

like what Coward was saying those guys this whole element of those guys are booger eaters like what Coward was saying those guys are booger eaters those guys are losers wrestling's fake and they took so much shit from outlets like for ESPN to kind of wink wink embrace wrestling is actually a smart move for them because now those wrestling fans are like alright I'm cool with ESPN

they don't think I'm a booger eater yeah I saw people saying it was like ESPN's going in on this I was like I don't think ESPN can booger eater. Yeah. I saw people saying it was like, ESPN's going in on this. I was like, I don't think ESPN can. It's just part of their celebrity. It's just like, we like celebrating people. Last question. My favorite one from Eric Oakland. And then we're going to go. Why does sports media

take themselves so seriously? You're asking at the end of an hour plus podcast? Hour plus is 90 minutes. Why do we take ourselves so seriously right um do we take ourselves more seriously than other journalists probably not right i think we're just as self-serious as everybody else i agree i i think it's i think twitter probably plays a role in this right every all these every every sports media person is now

this public thing even more than they were back in the old days i don't know jason i like by the way i like this because when i interview these sports media people i want people who take themselves seriously right that's good copy somebody's saying i don't like to talk about myself i just it's all you know let me defer to my teammates i'm just here to help them that doesn't do anything for me that's i mean that's what I missed and loved the most from an ironic standpoint about the 1970s was you had, you had not only no internet, but no really anything, no checks and balances on celebrities. And you watch stuff like Battle of the Network Stars, the first one ever, Telly Savalas is a blowhard in a way that you can't even believe it. And it would just never

happen now. That's why people love the Johnny Depp thing so much. It was like, wow, this guy's crazy. Nobody allows themselves to be a crazy blowhard or whatever. And I do miss that. Jason, what do you think? I mean, I think part of it is the siege mentality. Journalists think that everyone's out to get them

and they think that the know the media is you know in trouble and so they you know they act with this you know seriousness of neurosurgeons about even the most you know silly um elements of the business but i have a theory here's what you guys think that i think for a long time that music journalists were the most insufferable journalists like anybody who wrote about like i'm talking about the classic rock era of people really writing seriousness about music. You read that stuff and it's like, wow, man, these people were serious. Then I think sports

writers had a run. It's sort of a literary sports writer era of those people. We were really the worst of it. Maybe a little bit of celebrity, but now I think the belt goes to the political journalists. They're the most insufferable people in the trade. I mean, come on.

You only have to turn on the TV for five seconds to see some political journalists going on and on about themselves. I thought Jason was going to say food writers. That's an excellent. Food writers had a run. They had a run. I think that's true. So we think political writers have the championship belt right now.

Yeah, they might have that. Well, maybe we can get it back. Sports Reporters, we're done. Wow, that was way too long. Jason, thank you. That was great. Wait, my parting shot. Oh, well, let's do it.

I didn't know you had one. Are we going into the third hour? Yeah, let's hear it. Parting shot. All right. Gentlemen, I want to get to a humiliating topic that the three of us men need to confront. I believe we are the last three sports writers left in America who don't work for the athletic. And I'm beginning to feel a little insulted.

The athletic roster is an incredible who's who of sports journalism. Experienced pros like Ken Rosenthal, Seth Davis, Richard Deitch, Rick Riley, W.C. Hines, Grantland Wright. Why not us? Was it something we said? Was it something we wrote? Well, not you, Bill. You don't write anymore. Do they feel we're not worthy of a 40% internet subscription discount?

After all, the athletic is spending and expanding. There's now the athletic Boston, the athletic Sacramento, the athletic Poughkeepsie. You mean to tell me they don't have room for us at the athletic Poughkeepsie? Bill, I mean, he has his own company. His salary demands might be a bit much, and the athletic might not be interested in Joe House. But Curtis, you can get Curtis

for a Rangers cap and a used copy of North Dallas 40. Me? I will write for two cents a word. They might be all bike racing stories, but they'll be two cents a word. So come on, Silicon Valley. You've hired everybody else in our business.

It's lonely over here. And Gen Z is coming for our jobs. Wow. That was magnificent. Wow. I'd like to title that why I haven't joined the athletic. The athletic DFW. Curtis is ready.

Oh my gosh. Cover the Cowboys. It really would. That North Dallas 40 would do it. I'm in. Make sure it's a first edition. Amazing. Yeah, you get 40% off this podcast right now for one year if you subscribe.

Jason Gay, phenomenal. Great job by you. Brian Curtis, great job by you. Thanks, Bill. We'll see you again on the Sports Reporters. Alright, thanks so much to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to check them out at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Don't forget to check out TheRinger.com

where we're doing the greatest episodes of the 21st century. And don't forget to check out the Rewatchables podcast, Die Hard. It's on there. Me, Chris Ryan, Jason Stepsio, and Sean Fantasy. Broke down, 30th anniversary, Die Hard. It happened. Brian, Jason, John fantasy broke down 30th anniversary. Die hard. It happened. Had some controversial thoughts about whether die hard was a Christmas movie or not or not.

I think I'm in the minority. What can you do? Anyway, check that out. And we were back tomorrow, Friday with one more BS podcast. Until then. I don't have.