The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Sports Repodders With Jason Gay and Bryan Curtis (Ep. 298)

Episode Date: December 8, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Bryan Curtis and The Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay to talk podcasts and journalism in 2017 (2:08), reinventing studio sports shows (27:15), the 2018 World Cup and Winter Olympics (55:55), and how millennials can break into sports media today (66:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Sports Reporters on the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor for $20 off your first SeatGeek purchase on NBA tickets. All you have to do is use promo code BSNBA. If you live in Chicago, you might be able to get Bulls tickets for negative dollars if you use that code. Download the SeatGeek app or go right to SeatGeek.com. We're also brought to you by Orbi. Wi-Fi is something you don't have to worry about unless you don't have it or it's not working, like the video's buffering, Wi-Fi dead

sounds, everyone's home for the holidays fighting for Wi-Fi. That sucks. If you want better Wi-Fi everywhere, check out an Orbi Wi-Fi system from Netgear. Super strong, fast, more reliable, whole home Wi-Fi from your basement to your backyard. Change your Wi-Fi world. Get Orbi, O-R-B-I Wi-Fi system from Netgear. Visit netgear.com slash Orbi. We're brought to you by theringer.com. That's where you can find my column. Every Friday this week, I try to make up NBA trades.

That could actually happen. The hardest year ever to do it. Man, the salaries are just unwieldy, Brian Curtis. I don't like when my NBA salaries are unwieldy. I did my best. I fought through it. Tried to come up with some good ones, but man, hard year. Check it out, theringer.com.

Don't forget about our new podcast that we launched at JJ Reddick podcast, as well as the relaunch of binge mode and Brian Curtis's podcast with David Shoemaker. The press box is on channel 33. It's been getting some buzz. Some media takes. It's been, it's a lot of what we're going to talk about in this pod too,

but yeah, you're, you're grabbing that media corner coming up. We are doing the sports reporters, Brian Curtis from the ringer, Jason Gay from The Wall Street Journal. But first, Pro Jam. All right, the sports reporters. We haven't done this one in a while. We were waiting for Jason to call in,

and Brian and I were talking about Kaepernick, who's getting now it's end of the year. Have you noticed the end of the year stuff now is like beginning of December? It's like whatever happens in December, it's not eligible for the end of the year. It starts before the Christmas stuff starts. It's like between Thanksgiving

and Christmas. But we were just talking about how Kaepernick has played 2017 really nicely by not giving interviews. The no interview thing was brilliant. The no interview thing is maybe a move now. You build up a little mistake.

What do you think of that, Jason? A hundred percent. I mean, pop stars don't need to do interviews anymore. Have you seen an interview with Beyonce in the last couple of years? I mean, this is a person who can now put out an album, win awards, you know, continue on a career without having to do any kind of regular media sit-downs. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift's got a big album out. Of course, you know, a very sort of divided conversation happening about that, but I haven't seen a word from her. It's a Leo strategy that he has employed basically the entire time. He'll do like those, sometimes he'll do the little float around fluff junkets, but you'll never read like the writer who spent five weeks with Leo DiCaprio.

Nicholson, we've never heard from in 20 years. No. Kaepernick's funny, though. Unusual for an athlete. Yeah. Yeah, he's an athlete. But also I think it's the Trump dynamic is kind of incredible because it would have been so easy for him to try to dunk on Trump on Twitter every week. Right.

Or actually any of these guys in the NFL, you know, Jenkins, Eric Reid to try to go one on one with him. Yeah. Because there's a obviously there's a huge audience for that. But they're all just kind of, you know, been like, no, not going to do it. Like Trump is the most available person media wise in our country, maybe the history of the United States. He's gone the other way.

And Kaepernick is the least available, right? And it's just like, I'm just not going to talk. I just have nothing to say. It's not just that Kaepernick's not talking, you know, for the sake of many of the thousands of stories that have been written about him. He's not talking to GQ for being named one of the men of the year. I mean, he's not even talking to the people who are writing rapturous things about him. He is flying completely below the traditional cloud box.

Yeah, and that's what's so amazing about this. Because we have this thing in sports. I think we talked about this before. We have this thing in sports where if you have a problem or you're out of the, you know, in Kaepernick's case, doesn't have a job, if an athlete has a problem, you go to that sympathetic guy. TV guy, GQ guy, Esquire guy, right, Thompson? And you say, hey, we're going to do a profile. It is by its nature almost certainly going to be sympathetic.

The writer's going to take you up and you're going to say everything and you will have, quote, talked. You will have done it. And Kaepernick just didn't do that. He didn't do it once. Usually you do it once. He didn't do it once usually you do it once he didn't he did it he didn't do it at all it's a what i found is that it seems like celebrities and people of high profile actually like the podcast format more than just about anything else if they're going to do an interview because they can control every single quote that they have that comes out of their mouth versus giving a writer all this

access. And then ultimately you're ceding the control a little bit. And I wonder if like long form interviews are going to be where things start to drift. I've noticed it with my podcast this year. We've had like unbelievable guests this year, like by far the best year of guests we've ever had. And the people that are coming in to do that now, they're no longer surprised by, oh, what's a podcast? Or wow, I didn't realize this was gonna be so much fun. They know what they're doing. Their PR team has prepped them.

And they're like, yeah, you're gonna go in there. It's like when you go on the Stern show or you go on my show or Marin or a couple others, this is what happens. You're gonna be super candid for 70 minutes. And this is how it goes. And they get it. And if I was a celebrity, that would be, I think,

a better move than having a magazine profile, right? I have noticed on yours, they don't ask at the beginning, oh, wait, this is 60 minutes long? Yeah. They used to do that, right? Like, wait, this is going to be like an hour? Graydon Carter was the most recent one I've had that was just completely and adorably confused

by the whole thing. It's like, all right, we're going to start. He's like, what? You're just going to press the button? And then like, it's how long are we going? And then after we were done, he was like, wow, how long was that? Jason, have you noticed people,

you know, you still do these glossy magazine profiles. Like, you know, you're a man out there. Have you noticed the celebrities more self-aware with interviews or are they the same? A hundred percent, a hundred percent more self-aware because, you know, we live in such a atomized culture with social media that the smallest verbal misstep can become a two day story. I think part of what the appeal with the podcast are is that it's a conversation

in context. People can listen to an hour and a half of Kevin Durant or whomever else, and they're getting a bigger portrait of what these people are saying within the context of a bigger picture, and they're not getting just that bullet quote

that just becomes kicked around sports media for 24 hours. I think that's a big part of the appeal is you really can sort of put yourself out there in context. And I would say from the journalist point of view, that a lot of profiles don't get the person. And so they had left with the bullet quote thing. Yeah. But that's often a failing of the journalist.

Yeah. You didn't get the person, you know um but that's often a failing of the journalist uh yeah you didn't get the person you know and and as a i want by the way the person not to do podcasts i want them to come to me and let me do the profile i'm not rooting for this to happen um yeah and some of them do but you have a great responsibility to figure them out and sometimes they don't give you anything you just you can't do it. But, you know, the cool part about the journalist in this exchange is you get to explain the person in a way sometimes they can't explain themselves. And you also get to call their friends and you get to call their family and you get to, you know, bring all this context in.

Again, if you do it right and if everything works out. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to fake it in a podcast. It's too long of a conversation. I would say the world's greatest actors could probably do it, but I would think most normal people, you kind of are who you are. Maybe you're presenting a certain way that you are hoping people perceive you. But for the most part, when you're just shooting the shit with somebody,

it's really hard to fake that. Yeah. It's our, you know, let me ask you a question, Bill. If you were able to get good L for an hour, would you take it?

I think I would. Of course you would. Come on. Well, I say no to good L. Yeah. Well, he would never do it though.

I know. But, but if he said yes, he would say yes. If. I know. But, but if he said yes, he would say yes. If he was like an hour, everything's worthwhile. What would it not be worthwhile? I guess it would.

Like I I've had people, I've had people offer to me that I've turned down that I think would surprise both of you guys. I don't want to say it just because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I really do think about it. Like, will this be a good podcast? Good. Del, I think would be a good podcast from a train wreck standpoint.

And he'd probably be really defensive. I don't think it would be a good conversation. I don't think he's capable of having one. Yeah. I was just going to say, the podcast reveals whether you're a good hang or a bad hang. And Goodell seems like a tough hang. He's Jason Concepcion's Twitter thing. He seems like a tough hang to use Jason Concepcion's Twitter thing. He seems like a tough hang,

but it's so worth it journalistically. Right. Yeah. Because you have a billion questions you want to ask him. Right. It was like a, on our Slack, Kevin Clark,

a couple of weeks ago asked in our, in our movie Slack, Daniel Day-Lewis, good hang or bad hang. Yeah. And a bunch of people weighed in and we, I was in the good hang camp because he's Irish. I just feel like Irish people are just, I just had such a good-

That's where you came from. Yeah, I'm 25% Irish. I've had such a good success rate hanging with the Irish that I feel like that's lurking there. But other people are like, no way. Terrible hang. I would love the BS pod. I just want to say Daniel Day-Lewis. So we taped Paul Thomas Anderson, me and Fantasy. We interviewed him two days ago and it's running

Christmas week. I thought he was going to be good, but I wasn't positive. He was awesome. Really? But that's one where it's like, all right, this is the best director of the last 20 years. Seems like a fairly serious guy, but the thing is he's not, he's married to Maya Rudolph. Like there's comedy boogie nights. Like he's a child of like my generation. Like he's, there's was more there, but I, I didn't know. You see you never really know until you you're hanging with somebody. Directors seem like weird hangs. It seems a tough.

Directors are tough. Yeah, they are tough. I mean, I think another thing about podcasts as a format is that you can't really do talking points. I mean, you're going to run out of steam within three minutes. And you think of somebody like Goodell, you know, his interview style a little bit, but that's really it. There's really no more going beyond that. And, you know, if you're doing 45 minutes, even if you're doing 20 minutes on a podcast, you can't get out there and just simply recite talking points and stay on your message because they're just, you're going to run out pretty quickly. Yeah. The closest you see is, you know, when somebody like Brady will do a 25 minute interview with WI, he might get a little groggy at the 20 minute mark and give it a little nugget. But for the most part, people who are in the spotlight all the time,

I think most coaches are just horrible interviews. I never, ever understand when radio shows are like, coming up, we have the coach from blank, and it's always terrible. It's never, oh, the kids out there. You know, I'm so proud of the kids. You know, everybody's's working so hard he's a great kid and they're not saying anything this is the nfl you know you gotta do this and this and this and that coach the coach could do talking points for an hour for even for five hours they would never they never get groggy they just keep they just keep going back to that you know subroutineoutine. We got a tough matchup this week.

It's a grueling season. Got to keep your eye on the prize. They're awful. But I think like Belichick would be, if Belichick was into it and it was like, we're going to sit down for five hours and just talk about football. And he got into it. I think he would be amazing. That would be, he's in my Mount Rushmore of dream podcast.

Of course. Of course. That would be incredible. Like removing all the Pat stuff. I just think he's, I think he's dying to talk about football. He did this weird, he's this weird weekly thing. I think it's on patriots.com or somewhere, somewhere, some weird website where he breaks down a play from the game the week before. It is the most riveting, like three minutes on the internet.

They're fabulous. I've seen them. It's in there. Nobody can get to it. He can do a five-minute soliloquy, as he did the other day, on the punt blocker. I think if you were to get him in a podcast, he would give you grunts to

what's it like to win five Super Bowls, but if you got him going on college lacrosse, or you got him going on college lacrosse, or you got him going on, you know, any number of sort of the idiosyncratic things that he does as a coach, he would be amazing. I mean, there is sort of a funny list of people who are on the Mount Rushmore, great interviews who are publicly sort of boring.

Yeah. And Bill Belichick would definitely be one of those. I think Popovich is another one, right? I think people know he's probably a great interviewer, but they also know him at the halftime interviews or the between-quarter interviews when he won't give anyone anything. And the reason he won't is because it's beneath him.

He's so aggravated that he's trying to coach a game and he's got to give this generic fluff thing. But I think guys like that, like if you went to Belichick, you know, he's in a press conference and guys are like, Hey, Stefan Gilmore is playing really well lately. Huh? And then he's got to come up with a soundbite off the question or talk about how well Dion Lewis has been playing lately. And he's got to do that.

I think he's dying for anyone in the crowd to be like, Hey Bill, can you talk about how the headhunting rules have changed how you approach throwing the ball over the middle? He'd be like, oh, I'm so excited to talk about this. And you go for 12 minutes. Gruff guys often make surprisingly good interviews. Yeah. Because we all want to talk to schmoozy guy because he likes you. Oh, I'm a huge fan of your work.

Oh, just great. Your piece the other day was fabulous right and you talk for an hour and you feel so petted and schmoozed up and then you look at the transcript afterwards and you got nothing yeah nothing but gruff guy guy who's not not let's say non-schmoozy guy you often get great stuff i've interviewed george lucas once who is not famous and he is, he was great because everything was, you just had to just kind of, you know, get him in.

Oh yeah. And he's kind of, you know, little bitter about things and honest and a little angry. And it's, it was fabulous. He was great. Who is the best person you ever interviewed Jason?

Just for just like, you were like, Oh my God, I got so much stuff. I'm falling over. Letterman. Wow. Really? That's not schmoozing that's not that's exactly what i'm talking about that's perfect because he he feel i mean he first of all he does it so

little he's done a lot more in the last couple of years you know because of national geographic i'll be talking to more people now off television than he did when he did television but at the time that i spoke to him he probably hadn't done a print interview in you know half a dozen years and years. And he just feels like, look, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to go all in. I'm going to tell you everything you want to know. I'm going to answer every question honestly, because that's what I want as an interviewer. And so there just wasn't one dishonest interview in the two or three hours that we talked. He just was completely on the level throughout. And this was at a time when, you know, things had kind of settled down between he and Leno and he sort of conceded the feet in

the ratings at least. And, you know, he just was super candid. And it was a funny interview because he was half in person and half on the phone. And weirdly, the phone was a little better, if I remember correctly. But yeah, I mean, look, he's just, I mean, he's an oracle. And it really lived up to every expectation I had. When I interviewed Jake Gyllenhaal like two months ago, I didn't know what to expect. I just figured it was going to be like, and he'd actually done research and listened to my podcast. Yeah, I remember that. And then he was kind of just ready to talk and talk about stuff.

And by the end of it, I was really convinced that he loved acting. And I don't think he could have faked it. Like the way, how excited he was and seeing like the look in his eye and the different things he was saying. I was like, wow, this guy loves acting. Those are always the fun ones when you don't really know beforehand. Like you don't have a finished opinion on somebody or you think a certain way and then they come in and you're just like, wow. I didn't realize this. What about Obama?

Obama, what'd you get? What'd you get, an hour? And my main question with that is like, how the hell do you interrupt? Because obviously he can just pick one question. You can't. You can't interrupt? Well, he can just take one question and you can't, you can't interrupt. Well, I did. So I did it twice. I did it twice.

And the first time we had a 20 minute limit and we had cameras, so he didn't filibuster. That was on in 2012 when we did it with ESPN and he was ready to talk sports. And it was like just back and forth sports. The second time we did it was the Gq thing i had like an hour but there are no cameras and he was near the end of the presidency and he kind of knew he could control it and if he talked longer that was less questions basically so the best part of that interview was when i did speed run with him yes and because it was like he had no it's like fast fast go and that was when it started to come out.

But that first 40 minutes, I probably didn't do a great job either. So it's a really unnatural place to interview somebody because it's basically a museum. It's a place that's been there for 300 years or what, 200 and how long the White House? 250 years? Yeah. I can't add. I was going to say, I don't think we're 300 years or what? 200 and how long in the White House? 250 years? Yeah. I can't add. I was going to say, I don't think we're 300 years old as a nation. 240 years, whatever.

But you have, you know, these paintings, uncomfortable wooden chairs, sofas that feel like they came from 1930 and it's super quiet and creaky and it's not like a hang. You're in the White House. And it takes a while to get used to that. And, you know, he was interesting because he uses certain things to his advantage. Like I wrote about it. It was like a home game for him, right? He's got, he's home.

I'm away. He uses sarcasm. He immediately goes in. He makes fun of you. Like he's one of those. He keeps you on your toes. You're playing defense right away. And it was still really fun to interview him. I mean, he's exactly what you think he's one of those you keep you keep you on your toes you're playing defense right away and uh it was still really fun to interview him i mean he's exactly what you think he would be who's the most fun person you interviewed brian um most fun or about most i guess most surprising

most surprised you were by what you got out of it i mean jamelle hill was pretty pretty fun and i'll say because she never used the words off the record in the three and a half hours we spent together not once which was fabulous and we were having dinner and having a glass of wine and and she just she's just a very frank honest person yeah for being a person as big as she is yeah it's funny about obama because it's an interesting combination of he likes the sparring right he's he's smart so he likes the give and take yeah but he can also be professorial so bill oh you asked the question. Here's my 10 minute round the world answer to that.

I'm going to give you the complete answer. And you're sitting there as an interviewer going, okay, I didn't actually want that much, you know. A good trick that I've learned over the years when you're interviewing somebody is you always have to put yourself in their shoes for what they want out of it. So like that first time with Obama, it was clear. He just been in the president for four years. He loves sports. He was so excited that I was coming to,

that this person was coming to talk sports with him and not healthcare and all these things that he's talked about forever. And he's like, I just, I get to talk about the Bulls and Derrick Rose. This is the best. And I think when you put, when you put yourself like Coates was on, I had Ta-Nehisi Coates on a few weeks ago, who's fantastic. And the one thing, the one strategy I had was, I don't want to talk about, he's given the same interview 12 times.

I don't want to hit those same points. I know there's like other, and we ended up talking about all this cool stuff that he probably never gets to talk about. So I don't know. That's one tip I've learned over the years. I've had that experience with Russell Westbrook, who I think won an award recently among basketball writers for the worst possible interview candidate. Right.

Not undeserved. Interviewed him twice on the topic of fashion, which we all know is one of Russell's favorite hobbies, or more than a hobby, and once on stage for an hour. And he will talk until your ears fall off about the business of fashion, his taste, how it applies to his everyday life. And so it could not be more interesting and courteous and just, you know, smart about all this stuff. And then, you know, it's a complete contrast, of course, to the NBA, which I think by comparison bores him. Yeah, I mean, that's the strategy, right?

We're going to talk about this other thing and you're going to be really loquacious about it. Now let me ask you about KD. Uh-oh. to be really loquacious about it. Now, let me ask about KD. Oh, yeah. Interview over. No more. Don't sneak them in there. No, you can sneak those things in there in that kind of context. I think, I mean, once you've built up a little bit of goodwill on the topic, I mean, you know, we have this conversation all the time at the journal about product placement interviews with athletes. I mean, you guys get the same kinds of offers we do, but they're like, oh, you want Joe Montana to come in and he'll talk to you about what's it like to win four Super Bowls

plus half avocados. And we have a pretty standard rule that we don't do them, but it has really become this huge economy that's out there of high-profile people who will come in and talk to you about something, but it has to have some sort of product tie-in, which is oftentimes completely weird and not even related to the individual. I mean, it's a different ball of wax when you're talking about Jennifer Lawrence, about a movie she's got.

I mean, that's technically product placement too, but at least there's some sort of compulsion artistically to talk about it. But I hate those sort of commercial athlete interviews. ESPN would, a lot of the car washes, the person would have to plug. And you're here for PD90X, right? And they would like shoehorn those in at the end. And there's meaty ones now. Like I saw Sam Ponder doing, you know, kind of water or something.

I can't remember what it was. I'm like, wait, now we're on this? To get Sam Ponder, you have know, I kind of water or something. I can't remember what it was. And like, wait, now we're on this to get Sam Ponder. You have to do the native ad interview. I remember that started like 10, 11 years ago. And I was always blown away. Like there was one ESPN person. He used to wear the, I think it was marquee jets or net or net jets. He'd wear the hat when they did Mike and Mike.

It was just every time it was clearly like, you know, it's like, is the next one he's going to wear a NASCAR suit? I think it was Mark Schlaire. Hold on. We're all looking for something. For some, it's love. For some, it's purpose. Unforgettable experiences.

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it'll never happen, would be LeBron. Really? I think he has the most to say that he hasn't said yet. And I think it's in there. And I don't think he'll ever do it unless it's on the uninterrupted platform with like Maverick Carter interviewing him. He'll never take the chance. By the way, gun to your head, LeBron or Jack Nicholson, who do you take?

What kind of state of mind is Nicholson in these days? Let's say he's, he's, you know, he's happy to talk and he's, he's, let's say both of me, we can only, we can only do it if they're both in the mood to,

to go. Right. So Nicholson's like, I haven't done one of these in 10 years. I'm ready to talk about everything. 30. I'd rather have Nicholson. I think so.

It's like 60 years of stories. You got to do Nicholson. What do you have, Jason? I mean, I have a lot, you know, Jason? I mean, I have a lot. I did want to, just to keep this right going, Stallone or Cruise, if you had to choose between those two.

So they offered us to go to London to interview Cruise when he was filming Mission Impossible, and I couldn't pull it off because of the schedule. But I think I have a chance to get Cruise in 2018. And if I have him, I'm going to ask for like five hours. I might just duct tape him to the couch. I want to do the IMDB game with him and just have it go on for the entire day. It would be incredible.

A nine-hour podcast series. It would be incredible. Bill, let me tell you about Val Kilmer. Just going all in. I would absolutely love that. And you've never done Stallone? No. Why is Stallone not doing it?

He's not into his own nostalgia? I'm afraid of that one. There's certain ones that I worry that they might not be good or they might be jerks. They'll ruin it? I don't want to ruin Stallone for the rest of my life. I love Stallone so much. I was going to say, imagine if he

came in and treated you like an asshole. That'd be crushing. Jacoby, when we had my old Grantland buddy and our old Grantland teammate, when we were able to get Larry Bird in Indiana in 2012, I almost didn't do it because I was like, what if he's an asshole?

My whole life is going to be flipped upside down. By the way, he was an asshole. We probably all three have had Larry Bird experiences. Fabulous. The best. Absolutely. Cause he's from Indiana.

Who's not a great person from Indiana. And you used to just be able to call the Pacers and, you know, like 10 minutes later, Hey, Brian, it's Larry Bird. You know what? No clue who I was. It's kind of that Letterman thing too. What do you need, man? One time he, I missed him, you know, and he left a message.

And he called back like three times to get me. I mean, it was just fabulous. He was great. Yeah. Hey, Jason, we're going to Audible. Jason wanted to talk about the future of play-by-play and studio shows, which I think is an interesting topic. Because Chris Ryan mentioned to me the other day, watching NBA TV and how NBA TV has this old model for how to do studio shows that's from 20 years

ago. They have the generic set, the typical host, a couple of ex-players, a couple of ex-coaches, and they just do it the old way. Chris was saying, isn't there a new way? If you're NBA TV, is there a new way to do this? And then I started thinking about the pregame shows, most of which the ratings have dropped precipitously. It's so easy to get information in so many other places. You don't necessarily need a pregame show for your info. Fox's football show still does well. ESPN Sunday show tanked. I think all the other ones, it really depends on what the game is beforehand. Let's talk about studio shows first and we'll do play-by-play. Where do you see studio shows going? Is there a level we can get to that for whatever reason we're just not hitting?

I think the biggest single thing that's changed with studio shows is that hardcore sports fans have gotten so much smarter, right? And medium sports fans have probably gotten slightly smarter, but mostly stayed the same. So if you're a hardcore sports fan, that studio show is just on a completely different level than you. It's like 10 rungs down the ladder from you. It's beneath you. Yeah. I mean, but like, I think in the, in the night, you know, early nineties, late eighties, definitely you wouldn't have been that far off the studio show in terms of knowledge. It would have been a little elementary, you know, a little basic, but now there's just such a huge separation.

So do you think that's why Fox is football show, which I got to say, I wouldn't say it's phenomenal analysis. You're talking about Terry Howie and Jimmy? Yeah. It's characters. There's the Puff Pieces, Rob Riggle, guys I like, but I don't really take their opinion seriously. It's guys that have been big stars for 20 years.

It's people that are laughing and fake laughing. Fake laughing. And it's noise to have on Sunday morning for casual fans. Like a morning show. It's a casual fan football show. It's GMA for football. You know, that's what it is. What do you think, Jason?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a hang, you know, to use the term we were using before. I think that's what it is. These are comfortable, you know, voices that you're familiar with and you've grown up with in some instances. I think the same can be said for inside the NBA. I mean, that is not a show with, you know, deeply complicated analysis, but I find myself very often at the middle of Turner games that I'm saying, I can't wait to hear what Chuck and Kenny have to say about this.

I mean, I don't think I'm alone in that. And they are funny and they are irreverent, but they're not like giving you some sort of like, you know, insane breakdown of what's happening. Yeah, it's why Pedro is good at this. Martinez. It's like, or David Ortiz is good at this at some level. Are you sure he's good at this?

I think he's decent at some level. I'm biased because I love him. I couldn't. My ears perk up because I kind of want to know what he has to say. And he seems nice. And, you know, it seems like a guy I want to spend time with. I didn't think the A-Rod show was nearly as good as it was last year. Oh, that's interesting,

because they had too many people? I thought too many. First of all- You miss Pete? I can't remember if we've ever talked about this before, but when I see five people on a studio show, I laugh my ass off. Oh, gosh.

I've actually done- Oh, Jason has too. But yeah, at least when you did the Regis show, you guys had a bunch of time. When you have a five-person, you guys had a bunch of time. Like when you have a five person show and it's a half hour and it's four or five minute segments and you have to work five people in, it's a disaster. There's no way you're going to have a normal conversation. It's never going to happen. And I always used, I remember I wrote about this 10 years ago. I used the table of

four analogy. If you go to dinner, the best dinner you can have is usually you and two other people. It's a three-person dinner. Four people can be good, but sometimes it'll break up and it'll just be two people talking, two people talking, and it's two separate conversations flying. You have five. Now you got to put the table at the end. I always think four people works pretty much with everything. It works when you're playing blackjack. It works when you're getting a cab. The fifth

person is like the monkey wrench. The studio shows, they just can't resist. They love it. They love another Hall of Famer. ESPN Countdown, do we need five people on the Sunday NFL Countdown show? I like hearing Randy Moss. You need a host.

Just give me two more. I'm good. What do you think, Jason? I mean, part of it probably is just like a policy of wanting to hire people away from your competitor, right? You're like, well, we don't want them going over to the competition, so we're going to hire them. We're going to find some place to stick them. And it's funny, the rotations, how guys will move from one channel to one channel to invariably the NFL network, whatever the network is for their sport.

But I have to admit that I turn down the volume now in most major sporting events because the volume of information and the depth of the analysis that you can now get on the second screen is oftentimes superior to what they're giving you in real time on the telecast. It's stunning, especially with things like injury reports, instant replays, statistical data. I mean, all the things. Think of like, you know, we heard these stories years ago about Joe Buck's right-hand man

in the booth. Well, now we all have that virtually, right? You know, the person who's just feeding you information and backstory on things that are happening on the field. All of us have access to that. So these things feel extraneous to me now. I don't know. Curtis is old school.

I don't know. First of all, these, I write about this. So this is my Stallone and my Tom Cruise writer cruise writer joe buck and marv albert and everybody i just feel it's one of those things we say that and then when you have a big important game yeah and it's done well and somebody's in control uh or you have like a play when the pats last won the super bowl when russell wilson throws that interception you want chris collinsworth explained to you what happened like right away you now when it's bad, you just, I do the same thing. I started looking at Twitter.

I don't pay attention at all. Can I agree with both of you? Yeah. Yeah. I think I've hit the point where I only had the volume up for a couple, for a couple of people. Buck. I thought Buck and Smoltz were fantastic during the playoffs.

I really thought they were good. Romo. When Romo calls your game, it's like a gift from the gods. Sunday night. And the Sunday night. And what's amazing to me now about the NBA is I have it on mute. Unless it's Tommy Heidson. I still love Tommy Heidson.

I love the something he does with Tommy. Amazing exception to make. Oh my God, Aaron Bates. But if it's TNT or ESPN, I turn it off. But that's when I'll listen to like ringer podcasts and catch up on stuff because you can have the game in the background. I don't need, nobody can, during a basketball game can tell me stuff I'm not going to recognize watching the game. I'm not going to get any sort of information, anything. So I might as well do second screen it.

Now you are a rare in that case. You are on a different level of NBA knowledge. But I don't think there's a lot. They will tell me some stuff. I don't know. It's not a lot to say. I mean, yeah, but I don't know all that stuff. Yeah.

But my thing is, I'm not sure there's an analyst right now who will actually tell you stuff that you really need to know. By the way, you've not talked about this before. The lack of a great NBA color guy. It was Steve Kerr. We had one. And then he became one of the three best coaches. But even he was in a, he was short.

He had that run with Marv, right? Remember? And now we go to our segment, Steve Wonders, to break down the first half. I don't, you know, like he's, I remember liking him, but I don't have a lot of memory I remember liking him but I don't have a lot of memory of Steve Kerr we just haven't had it there's no John Madden there's nobody Collins was phenomenal when he was at his peak just

like uh do you disagree yeah he was he never did it for me remember he'd always talk about how teams finish quarters like that every game there was some stuff he went back to Hubie's the most polarizing guy like if I hear Hubie's the most polarizing guy. Like if I hear Hubie, I'm out immediately because I just feel like he's lecturing me the whole time.

He's a nice guy. I think it's amazing that he's still doing it at his age, but I just don't want to be lectured when I'm watching basketball. I never got that cult of Hubie. Some people love it. Karelabob loves it. We sound like a bunch of people

talking about our favorite print newspaper columnist, that there is a whole new viewing habit that exists out there. Of the most desirable viewing audience, there is the younger demographic. And those folks aren't watching sports in the way that you and I or all of us grew up watching. They are not sort of watching it in a linear fashion. They're not like, oh, the basketball game's on. Let's watch the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter. They're multitasking.

And I'm interested to hear that you're actually listening to podcasts as you're watching a basketball game. That's kind of interesting because you're kind of crossing the streams there a little bit. But it's entirely possible to pay attention to a basketball game now on Twitter and feel like you're not missing much. Yesterday, last night, it was the Sixers-Lakers game. And I felt like every big thing that happened in that game, I was seeing within 20 seconds of it happening and not feeling like I was really missing out.

And you're seeing around the world now in terms of rights fees and people reconsidering what they're paying for them, that there's real concern that there's a whole generation coming up of people who are not just couch-bound viewers anymore. And how do you market to those people? And are sports overpriced because of that? Or that the red zone generation, which has definitely changed how people watch football. There's no question like nephew Kyle over here, but I've noticed I'm actually watching, I'm more locked in with NBA this year, watching different teams than, than I have been in a couple of years. And part of it is because the League Pass app is so good now that I can,

I love watching fourth quarters. I think fourth quarter, you can really get by. You watch, you want to watch big, big hole games every once in a while, like Sixers, Lakers last night. You can learn about bench play, all that stuff. But you really want to watch fourth quarters because that's when the game slows down. That's when it becomes the hardest to do what you want to do,

especially in a close game. And you really learn a lot about teams. You can go on the league pass. They have the 15-second advance button. And you can bang out fourth quarters in like nine minutes. Guy makes a shot. You press the 15-second advance button and you can bang out fourth quarters in like nine minutes. Guy makes a shot. You press the 15 second advance button. The other team's about to set up their shot and you can just, you can rip through them. And if you, if you want to go backwards, you can do that. And I feel like I have such a good feel this year for what teams want to do at the end

of the games, just from that. Now we didn't have that 10 years ago, you know, 10 years ago, you had to sit through. The other thing the NBA did that was really smart was they got rid of a little bit of the timeout clutter. They got rid of four during the game. They move it along in the last five minutes a little better. And it's just, I think it's honestly one of the reasons that the ratings have gone up, which I know we want to talk about.

Which the NFL has tried to do. NFL started to do it. The commercial with the players still on the field, I think is really smart. I'd one thing to jason talking about you know comparing it like us talking about our favorite sports columnists i totally agree and i'm amazed at how that position is still a giant highly paid position on network television which position the play-by-play guy the main color main and play-by-play in color i mean because you look at like newscasters network newscaster who is hosting the cbs evening news you two right now who just got named the

host anybody anybody name it name the guy jeff glore oh my gosh jeff glore you could you could be making that up and i wouldn't know if i believe it bill looks like you just named it rare disease or something he has no idea jason you have jeff? You got to get that treated. I had Jeff Gloor, yeah. That position has shrunk so much. And yet, Joe Buck, Al Michaels, all these guys, they're huge. Mike Tirico, you know, like, it's still a huge job. And you make a lot of money doing that. And Doc Emmerich's another one. Doc Emmerich, I have the volume up for Doc Emmerich.

There you go. That's a good one. Yeah, he's, I have no idea who his color guy is. And I don't really care. And I don't really know why we need a hockey color guy, but Doc Emmerich's amazing. Golf. There's something about those Nance tones.

Nance is a perfect sport for Nance. I gotta say, I feel comfortable when I hear him. There's no other golf person. Faldo's pretty good. Yeah. Is there anybody who's like completely indispensable? Not indispensable, I don't think.

Tennis, the McEnroes are fantastic. I like when they're together and they don't do it all the time, but when they're together, I enjoy that the most. I still, I still miss the,

but see, I always felt like the wild card guy who didn't coach or play putting them in the booth is still something that we, we've panicked and forgotten to experiment with because cornheiser monday night football dennis miller and dennis miller and it's like this doesn't work and it's like this actually should work this is how we

should be thinking about stuff when you have like some random wednesday night game between memphis and new orleans like have justin timberlake come in for two quarters. I love when Adam Silver comes in. I would love more stunt color. Yeah. Absolutely. Jalen and I did a game. Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say Jalen and I did a game with Tariqo once.

I don't know if people liked it, but it was so much fun and it was just different and we approached it differently. We had a great time. It was just weird. It's like there's six months season. You might as well try stuff. Yeah. You would think that, you know, given the fact that the stakes are lower, I mean, people don't watch as much Monday night football, for example, and they did in the, even the colonizer era. So why not experiment more with it? You really see how traditionalist

coverage habits are when something like, you know, what they did, you know, a month and a half ago, when the Patriots had that fogged-in game and they had to go to the overhead, quote-unquote, Madden cam, and everybody went, wow, this is amazing. This is what football is supposed to be. We should be doing this every game. I mean, it really just makes you realize that we've been stuck in these old habits forever.

You know, like 40 years ago, you go, those big boxing pay-per-views, their gimmick was they would always have like a massive a-list celebrity as the third person in the booth pearl bailey called called one of the big elite fights right yeah it's sinatra it was don dunphy and pearl bailey and sinatra was in there once and uh it was like one of their gimmicks i can't there's a couple other good examples too but i kind of enjoyed that like with with boxing, why do I need, like Kellerman's fantastic. Yeah. And Lampley, really good.

I don't know if I need a boxer. I would almost rather have Charles Barkley as the third guy. Well, the third guy in the boxing is always, it's brutal. It could be really bad. I mean, Merchant was great. And then there'd be a boxer who you forgot was even there. Right. Yeah.

By the way, Jason Priestley did an Indy 500. Do you know that? Like, I don't know anything that happened with Jason Priestley. Amazing, right? Jason Gay, is the NBA or the NFL a real thing? Not at the moment in terms of just the raw numbers, right? You know, the NBA would, you know, go crazy to have the ratings of a very, very low rated NFL game. But I think the momentum there exists, both from a numbers perspective and certainly from a cultural perspective.

I mean, there's just a lot more excitement. I mean, there have been numerous instances over the course of this year where you've had competing NBA contests against primetime NFL games. And to me, it's been like no contest that I've been watching the NBA. And you could argue that the stakes are much lower

because we're talking about November, December NBA, how big a deal is that? And yet it's just so much more entertaining. And I find myself talking between the two sports less and less when they're competing up against each other. And, you know, just in terms of the volume of discussion, the number of players, you know, high profile playersile players. And frankly, I think a little bit of the joy of it is a huge part of it. The NFL kind of feels like a bummer, right? There's all sorts of things that are happening on and off the field, whereas the Warriors make people happy. The Celtics make people happy.

There's compelling stuff that's happening throughout the conferences. And I know at the NBA, they mean the NBA rather, you know, they're not looking at this and saying like, okay, we're going to take over the NFL in two to three years. But they're like, we like our odds a generation from now, especially when you consider, you know, all the long-term player injury stuff. Yeah. There's been a lot of momentum that built up over the decade that we've

discussed on this podcast multiple times, just about the marketability of the athletes and how smart the league is, how they've embraced social media, where the NFL has in all these different reasons. This is the first year it's really manifested itself dating, going back to the finals, to the draft, to free agency, to summer league, to the rookies, to the trades, to mid-August Kyrie gets traded to they moved the season up earlier to all of these fun stories I was talking with one of my NBA buddies last night we were saying like cannot remember a season where they're even like the bad to mediocre teams

are still fun to watch like I don't know if you guys watch Atlanta year, but like Dennis Schroeder has been really good this year. He's fun to watch him. It's not like they're this throwaway shit team. Brooklyn is really kind of entertaining to watch. They're well coached. You go on down the line and even like the 500 teams, they have guys. Everybody's got kind of an identity.

It's become like the gangs from the Warriors. Like Philly's got their process identity. You know, it's, and then you go, you look at the NFL Monday night, that Steelers-Bengals game was just, it just was dark. I thought McDonough was going to get up and just leave.

After the last Antonio Brown hit, I really thought McDonough was like, fuck this, I'm out of here. Just get up, leave Gruden thought McDonough was like, fuck this. I'm out of here. Just get up. Leave Gruden by himself. He was in a weird place. He didn't know what to do.

Yeah. It was like becoming like it had crossed some line. And I don't know, like when Hayward broke his ankle five minutes into the season on TNT, that was horrible. And people were traumatized by it for the rest of the day. Football has that all the time. They have these moments that you're like, oh my God. They've had it for a long time too, by the way. Yeah, but it feels like social media and our awareness of the damage is really making it.

Eric, he texts me all the time. He's like, this is bad. This is, football's not gonna recover from this. It just feels that way all the time. He's like, this is bad. Football's not going to recover from this. It just feels that way all the time. But football, still the ratings like yesterday. Sixers, Lakers versus Falcon Saints. And the NFL was three to four times. So it's not like the NFL is like dying.

Not in the least. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to hurt your feelings. But I also do feel, and I say this as a person from New England, that I think the Patriots thing has been bad for football. I think people are sick of it. They're sick of them. They're sick of the domination.

I feel that. And there doesn't seem to be anything stopping it. Yeah, there was a couple of weeks ago when we all realized the Patriots are definitely going to win the AFC and probably win the Super Bowl. But just this mass amount of depression went over all of us. It's the Yankekee syndrome, right? We're the Yankees again. I will say, I feel part of my job at the

Ringer is to be the check on the NBA triumphalism that just flows out of this place. It's crazy. My moment this year was game seven of the ALCS. I think I'm getting this right. I looked at Twitter and all my colleagues, and also just half of sports

Twitter was watching the Sixers game two and I was like what the fuck is going on are you people nuts game seven and you're watching the Sixers at the same time though baseball is interesting because baseball was super relevant

for that month and it ended what November 2nd something like that when was the last baseball conversation you had are you at the dinner table talking about where's Shetani Otani what's his name yeah I mean I've read pieces about where's he going talk to anyone about Seattle like have you heard that conversation at Starbucks or like who who are your top five free agents again working at the ring I feel my life is a little skewed I wonder who's having the conversations though like I I think the Red Sox I've noticed with the like the Boston people are nuts about the Pats and the

Celtics right now but the Red Sox who are they gonna get are they gonna get Eric Cosmer that was always like a real thing it was was way up there. And it's just different now. And I don't know whether it's because they won the World Series or what, but I don't know. I mean, it's different. It's unquestionably different. And we were saying,

Giancarlo Stanton getting traded. Like, think about when A-Rod became available in 2003. That was like a daily massive story where's he going? is he going to go here? like it was like that dominated everything Stanton should be a bigger deal

you remember where you were when it happened it was that kind of thing oh yeah and when he signed with the Rangers before that that was huge yeah I mean the Knicks are 11 and 11 11 and 11 and it's as if in New York City it's as if, in New York City,

it's as if they're in the playoffs. I mean, people are, you know, surprised by it. And they make people happy. I think Knicks games, for the first time in a long time, make people happy to watch. I think that's part of it, too.

You were in the city during the 48 hours when it seemed like they might trade Porzingis. It was like New York was under attack. I mean, all my friends who were in New York City that week were like, it was all anyone talked about. Just anywhere you went, people were like, whoa. Like they thought it was like having Phil Jackson, this crazy dictator who lost his mind.

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stupid i didn't care about my mattress sooner now you can get 50 toward any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com slash bs use offer code bs terms and conditions apply casper.com slash BS. Use offer code BS. Terms and conditions apply. casper.com slash BS code. BS. What were you going to say, Brian? I'm amazed with NBA fandom how people tolerate teams that are still in the womb, like the Sixers, like the Bucs. I like, the Sixers aren't going to win anything this year. They're not going to win anything, right?

They may show great improvement. Everything might pay off in a way, but it's not or begin to pay off. The Sixers aren't going to win anything this year. They're not going to win anything, right? They may show great improvement. Everything might pay off in a way, but it's not or begin to pay off. They're not going to win anything. But weirdly, there's this huge tolerance for watching this long runway, right? Giannis, it's the same thing. Well, the runway is more fun than competing. About to be good for years, right? And we've been talking about it for years and years and years.

But there's weirdly fandom. It just starts at an earlier place. Like if the NFL, you know, we're not really, we don't care about the team that's going to be good in two years in the NFL in the same way, or it's certainly not baseball. You know, it's like, you know, it's like you cared about the Astros when they got good, good enough to win a division, good enough to win the World Series.

It's flipped too far. I keep going back to the idea of a pleasure center, too, though. The NFL is starting to feel like work. Okay, it's Sunday. I'm going to sit and watch this for now six to nine hours. It feels like you're kind of dutifully doing it, whereas you check your phone and you say, oh, the Bucs are playing the Celtics.

Ooh, I need to get somewhere and watch that. Now, and there's just more and more of it. I also just think a 500 basketball team with the way that the rules are set up and the way that the game is flowing is a lot more fun to watch than a 500 football team by far. Yeah. Because you can sort of see exciting things happen regardless of whether or not they're getting the wins. So I think that's a change as well. Yeah. If you're a Bengals fan, if the Bengals were an NFL team, you'd be like, Oh, we got a tank. We're going to get into the bottom five.

I've noticed like I did this trades comp today, like where you were talking about the Philly fans with the runway. So it's actually flipped a little too far the other way. Cause I had a trade in there that I knew the Philly fans would hate, but I didn't care. It was basically Markel Fultz and contract and whatever for CJ McCollum, who's probably somewhere between the 25th and 30th best player in the league. And if you add him with Embiid and Simmons,

you could actually make a real run in the playoffs. And the point I was trying to make, I know they won't do that, Trey, but the point I was trying to make was people always try to preserve that long runway. And sometimes they lose sight of the fact that you can actually be good right now. And I think OKC is a good example of that, where OKC had that long run, right? 08, 09. It was like, oh, they've Westbrook and Durant. Oh, now they have now they have hard and oh someday this team will be really good and then they actually just were really good and they made the 2012 finals and people are they're gonna be here for the rest of the decade and then you know they trade hard and they have some injuries and they never get back

my point is you don't know with the nba you don't know when somebody's gonna get out the bulls thought they had the whole decade. Derrick Rose gets hurt. They're never relevant again. And Philly has Embiid and Simmons, who are two of the best 17 players in the league right now. If you add a third player, it's actually realistic. You can beat teams in playoff series, and yet everybody's infatuated with the runway. We can't.

Oh, we have Fultz and Capspace. It's like, well, maybe you should just go get C.J. McCollum. That's what's mystifying to me. It's a very meta sports fandom that the NBA is a lot of the time, right? And I think it's partly just because we consume sports so differently now with your league pass and all this stuff. Because if you were sitting at these games, I mean, I'd say this is an early 90s Dallas Mavericks fan.

If you were actually going to all these games, you'd be like, this is so boring. Yeah. But if you're watching 19 games at once and thinking of trades and doing fantasy and all that stuff, then you tolerate stuff like that in a way. I will say this about the NBA, and I think it's more true than ever. You can go to a bad NBA game and still have a good time. Kevin O'Connor and I went to the Timberwolves-Clipper game on Wednesday.

Again, top 1% of NBA fans. I'm going to make my case. The Clippers had everybody, Blake Griffin's in street clothes. Patrick Beverly's out for the year. Gallaudet just come back. He's hurt. Like they're a mess. Doc Rivers just wants to get bought out. He just doesn't want to do it. Half of the seats. Galladary had just come back. He's hurt. They're a mess. Doc Rivers just wants

to get bought out. He just doesn't want to do it. Half of the seats are empty. Minnesota comes in. They had this team that there's a weird vibe. I'm not positive the Timberwolves like each other. All of it was so fascinating. They're right there. These guys, you can watch

them. We're watching timeouts. We're trying to figure out if Jimmy Butler likes Carl Anthony Towns or not. We're enjoying how crazy Austin Rivers is and how good he thinks he is. And there's stuff to pull out of the game, regardless of the fact that it wasn't a good game. Whereas if you and I went to the Giants Chiefs game, that nine to six game, sitting in the wind with all the TV commercials and all these punts

and you're just in the stands. It took you an hour and a half to get there and a half hour to walk up to the third deck and then you're way up there and you're freezing. How is that fun? But also, you're not even watching action. I went to the Big Ten

championship the other night in Indianapolis and sat in the stands of a Wisconsin fan, because I would be too embarrassed to do it in the press box. And you're watching guys stand around for three and a half hours, more or less. I mean, there is, what, ten minutes of action comprehensively in a football game? So you're not even watching people do the thing that they're supposed to be great at. But guys, breaking news, Otani to the Anaheim Angels.

Wow. Really? LA's going to remember it has two baseball teams again. Oh my God. Sorry, the Los Angeles Angels. Yeah, I was about to say. Holy mackerel. Wow, right after we were talking about what's the next big baseball story.

There we go. Oh, yeah. Mike Trout, Pujols, and Otani. Okay. Pretty cool. There you go. We wanted to mention about things we're not sure people care about. 2018 coming soon.

World Cup, no America in it. Winter Olympics, no Russia in it. And I'm not even sure people cared the last time. Are we hitting the anti-peak World Cup slash Winter Olympics? I know the soccer nerds are going to care about the World Cup. Let's start there. Will Americans watch the World Cup knowing that America is not not in it because soccer fandom's kind of like nba fandom in this way right at least at least you and i know a lot of people that are well and that that kind of consume it in this intellectual way right they don't need the huge but this boy this is going to test it right it still pulled in casual people whose number one question was, when does America play? Are we any good this year?

For sure. Could we get to the next round? That was the basis of how most Americans followed the World Cup. Now we're going into this, can Argentina finally win with Messi? And all these conversations that are way more hardcore than my mom is prepared for and my wife and my children. So I don't know. What do you think, Jason? And not to mention a new network completely trying to figure out how to cover a World Cup and having to do it in Russia. It's not going to be easy.

I think it's a big blow. I mean, look at the numbers that Fox had for the reveal of the draw. I think they got less than 100,000 people watching it, I think, when ESPN did it four years ago. Close to half a million, just for the draw. You know, that bandwagon thing is real. You know, I felt it, you know, both in Brazil, but also when you came back to the States and people were really excited about it. I don't think it's like some sort of thing where there's such a new class of international soccer fan that they don't care whether or not the United States or anything. I mean, yes, those folks exist for sure, and they will always exist. But that's a big blow to that audience, I believe.

Yeah, I would even say it's, I don't know if big is a strong enough word. And the problem is it's every four years. So now we're talking eight years. Now, here's the counter argument. There's so much good soccer on all the time. And with the TVs and how the soccer watching has evolved, I don't know if we need the World Cup like we used to. Oh, that's a good question.

I do think the World Cup is helpful if you're mr casual soccer fan which i'm definitely in that category yeah because you just say country versus country and i have an opinion about most countries right right all right i i know who i i know who i want in this thing it's kind of the olympics in that way like you're a little xenophobic no i don't like italians i'm not rooting for italy well i mean if xenophobic means there are certain countries i root for the over certain countries sure yeah i mean like i don't i kind of want the south american team to win this one i'm sure i can do that randomly like anybody else i think england's in it i'm gonna throw

my allegiance behind england just because they're they're kind of like the pre-2004 red socks of soccer and by the way this is what we do with you miss the olympics this is what we do with the olympics Olympics every two years. Yeah. You pick a country. If there's not an American. Or you pick athletes. Yeah.

And also, by the way, I'd like to remind everyone, we do have gambling. And I'd also like to remind anyone that the U.S. team was terrible. And even if they had made the World Cup, would have gotten their asses kicked. They had one guy that really is going to matter for the future. And then they were just in the middle of two errors. Even if you have a bad team, you get two weeks to be in the thing, which is a huge thing for, you know, an audience built and for a television network.

I mean, look, I wouldn't get rid of the World Cup. It is inarguably the most popular television event in the world. I mean, and every game that I got the chance to see in Brazil is in the top 10 sporting events I've ever seen, just in terms of the passion, the scream. I mean, just it was insane. I just didn't think a sports event in the flesh could sort of reach that level of rapture. You know, there's nothing totally like it. And if we're not in the picture, it doesn't matter to the rest of the world.

Well, that is for damn sure. Yeah. I mean of the world. Well, that is for damn sure. Yeah. I mean, the Olympics, I mean, you know, I know you've had Casey on and people for LA 2028 at this point, just put them in Burbank, California, because they are effectively an NBC production. Let's just do it every two years. You know, there you can have sound stages for the ski slopes and so on and so forth. I mean, just the excess that exists around these games and the corruption.

And this week, we, of course, had the insane Russian doping scandal come to a head with them getting banned. Does anyone really feel good about the Olympic Games in 2017? I feel weird. I feel we've had this conversation every two years now. And we are depressed in the kind of nfl way oh god this you know stuff but then when the games start people get pretty locked in when the summer games start yeah i'm not sure about winter even winter when it's always less what are your top three things you care about the winter olympics

skating skating um i couldn't say hockey really with a straight face. Well, they basically, they ruined the hockey. Sorry, sorry. Figure skating, speed skating. I'll get, that will, that will command my attention. I like the speed skating. Who won four years ago in speed skating? No clue. That's the thing.

No clue. It's just like in one ear, out the other. Yeah. Just say the Dutch. They're pretty close. But that's always with, with the Olympics. I feel like I don't know who's in it until five minutes before it starts. But summer matters though.

Summer, there's a carryover to summer. But it's like, who's going to be the hundred meter sprinter this time? You don't know who's in the Olympics until 10 minutes before it starts. True. You start reading stuff and look at that sport. Remember the old days, that Sports Illustrated preview that was really big fat issue. You'd get excited. I do care about the summer though. Well, of course.

I like the track. The swimming's always fun. Phelps is what Phelps did last year. Downhill? You're not going to get into that? I do like the downhill. Yeah, see? I do. Here we go. Yeah, I guess.

It's just... Curling? Curling's pretty good. See? Curling always seems like... Curling and handball are the two sports that seem like they're always going to have a moment and it never happens. Bill's going to be on CNBC at like 3 a.m. watching that.

Jason, what are the times for when these things are even running? It's a nine-hour time difference, I believe. Everything that's happening in Pyeongchang at 8.30 in the morning will be available for him here in the United States. So, i.e., you might see some of the shifting that went on in Beijing where they put some of the big swim finals in the morning and so on, which, you know, is a pain for athletes. You have to sort of reset your competitive clock and so on. But, yeah, it's screwy.

These time differences are definitely not good for the U.S. market. And I agree. I think that the winter games have been somewhat diminished, not just for television audiences, but you can't find hosts. I mean, they basically gave the games to Beijing for 2022 because they couldn't find anybody else to take them. Yeah, I don't know what happens with winter. It seems like nobody wants the winter.

It's just not worth it. But it doesn't matter to us as viewers, right? I mean, that's always a big economic story, but we're not like, oh, it's in Korea again. I'm so upset. It might matter if nobody has the Olympics. Do you think we'll ever get down to olympics we might it's conceivable yeah what if these asian these asian countries realize like oh that was stupid then who's who's up next we just run out of people there will not be a putin to create a a sochi a town uh a little olympic village in Sochi that will never happen, that will run

out of people like that? I think that Lake Placid had the Olympics as one of the five most unbelievable things that ever happened. Incredible. I know. It's incredible. We go up there, you know, in the summertime and it's like, you cannot believe one of the most signature sporting events in the history of the planet happened in this tiny mountain

hamlet. It's unbelievable. There's a push a little bit with the IOC to try to go back to that. I don't think we'll ever go back to something as small as Lake Placid, of course, but the Lillehammer-type environments where they actually feel like authentic winter destinations, as opposed to something that's a major metro city, you know, sitting with a mountain three hours away. I mean, Sochi is, you sit with a mountain three hours away. I mean, Sochi is sub-Mediterranean, I believe.

It's a good ceiling-basement argument. Because you could tell me the World Cup, people are going to totally get into it, I would believe it. And you could tell me Winter Olympics is fine, I would believe it. You could also tell me both of them, an American interest standpoint are going to completely crater. And I would believe that too. What I couldn't believe in our Slack was how many people didn't know who Tanya Harding was that worked for the ringer. Whoa. I would say it was half the staff were like, who's that? Like, why are they?

What's I, Tanya? She was a skater. What? I would say that was the biggest TV moment other than the OJ car chase of the entire last decade. Oh yeah. When she skated. And the ratings, Vern Lundquist did it. The ratings were just gigantic.

You remember where you were, right? Yeah, of course. Do you remember where you were, Jason? A hundred percent. And the other part of it was like, Nancy Kerrigan was like New England royalty. I mean, she was probably the most famous women's athlete in Massachusetts history. That was a big, big deal there on top of it being a big, big deal everywhere else. Kind of an ice queen, literally.

Interviewed her once. Icy. Literally. One last break to talk about SimpliSafe. The holidays can be a crazy time. You want to make sure your home's protected through all of it. What better time to step in with SimpliSafe home security? SimpliSafe has made everything about security effortless for you.

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go to simply safe BS.com for 10% off yeah the we did I think we did yeah we did a Tanya

documentary in one of the 30s sure underrated tough hang Olympians yeah you know they're young

they're unformed. Michael Phelps, right? Love watching him swim. Do we need to, would you want hours with Michael Phelps? When you're in a pool for 18 hours a day, it's just not going to be some social ramifications. Not their fault necessarily, but tough hangs collectively. Last topic.

How would you get into sports media now if you're 21? I know Jason has some thoughts on this. Well, what I was wondering is that are there people who are coming up through the stories. Or are writers or quote-unquote journalists becoming more sort of 360-type personalities who have skills in digital, have skills in video, who can do kind of a bunch of things at once? I mean, it seems like that's what you need to be now, right? And that guys like us, frankly, who came up with one approach are increasingly fossilized. And is that great because, you know, now you're sort of diversifying yourself, you have more options in terms of places you can go, or is there potential for sort of the, I'm not saying the death of print to come in, but does print become less prioritized in terms of the way that sports are discussed. I was at Indiana university the other day talking to the,

the hot take artists of tomorrow. Ah, and I think the answer is actually fairly simple is they're like the young versions of the journalists of today, which is the cover Indiana soccer for the school paper. They have their own podcast. They're dabbling in the TV studio there and doing little updates.

They're doing sidelines. They're like us. They do everything. You know, they're not just coming up as I'm going to be the soccer beat guy. They have a blog. You know, they tweet a ton. They just, they're like adult sports writers.

The tweeting part worries me. I would say for the people in college, what an awesome time if you wanted to get into this industry. I'm going to go the other way. Wow. I'm doing a swerve. When I was in college, we had one school newspaper and one radio station. There was no other way to get seen, read, or heard. That was it.

Those were your two options. And I badgered the editor of the Crusader, Gary Cilentic, my old Holy Cross newspaper, and just convinced him to give me a column, like the second issue. Then he ran it, did well, and then I just badgered him, and I never gave up that column. I wrote it every single week. Radio station, you wait in line.

Can I do this? Can now it's like, like you said, you can have a podcast. Let's say I went to Holy Cross now. I guarantee I would have a Holy Cross basketball podcast, making fun of George Blaney, who was then the coach. It was terrible. Who would leave every game with four timeouts somehow. You could have your own Holy Cross Sports website.

You could, I mean, you could do so many different things. You could be on Instagram. There's so many different ways you can capture what's happening in your school that we didn't have 25 years ago. I would say that's a positive.

Yeah. It solves the problem of there's a dickhead I don't like who's the sports editor. Yeah. Or there's three people ahead of me and I can't get a column. Yeah, or so I'm going to go do my own thing. Oh, absolutely.

And the barrier to entry coming down is huge. I mean, we all had experiences with crusty sports editors that were us who didn't want anything to do with us. Bill, not to digress completely, but to put you on the spot, where do you fall on the whole Crusaders thing? Because that's come up quite a bit recently. I'm so glad you asked. It's led to some of my favorite Tommy Heinsohn ever. It's a bad story, though, right? That the Holy Cross Crusader's name has come up for deliberation of whether or not that, you know, the history of crusading and what it means, you know,

in the religious capacity is, you know, a lot of folks think it's time for a name change. Yeah, and we're going back to the 11th century. I was going to say, yeah. We're going back a thousand years and people wondering if they should be offended by things that happened a thousand years ago. I'm pretty sure we'd be offended by anything that happened a thousand years ago, right?

Like 99% of the things that happened. Tommy thinks it's outrageous. I always felt like the crusader when I was there and maybe my head was in the sand with some of the religious stuff, but I always thought it was a dude on a dude on a horse with just like a night and the crusaders was like, we're crusading for stuff. I never knew about the 11th century. And I think the problem is what we get into. And there's, there's, I've read both sides. Dan Shaughnessy actually wrote a column about the globe and there's two sides to the story. I see both sides.

Oh yeah, he's a Holy Cross boy, isn't he? Yeah, and he settled on that we should keep it side. My fear is that we've hit this point in 2017 where a bunch of people can get lathered up about anything. And instead of coming to the right decision or a thoughtful decision, people just panic and say, well, we'll just get rid of it because then we won't have to hear from these people anymore.

And I hope that's not what happens here. I would not get rid of it. You must have a backup in your head. For a name? Crusaders. Yeah. It just can go so badly. It's going to be so generic.

It could be like the Holy Cross Hill. You know, because it's on a hill. Like that could end up being the name and I'm just going to want to die. The backup name is always the most generic name. We had a lot of high school rebels when I was a young'un, right? Being in the South and in Texas. And they just all became like the Raiders, you know? And it was just like, uh.

And the Raiders probably, you could go back to the 500 AD and probably something bad happened with a Raider. They always, you just pick the least offensive thing, right? You just go with like the- We're going to end up being like the Holy Cross Pillows. The Cardinals or just some of the Cardinals, you know? Why not? I don't like it.

I get it in a lot of cases. Where do you guys stand on the Redskins? Like, I think they should change their name. Oh, sure. That's offensive. Why not? I don't like it. I get it in a lot of cases. Where do you guys stand on the Redskins? I think they should change their name. Oh, sure. That's offensive. Yeah, absolutely. Cleveland Indians?

Change the logo. Start. Chief Wahoo? That should have been gone a long time ago. That's the thing as well. Once you start crossing off names, then where's the line? All right. I actually think the Cleveland Indians should probably go away. Well, to your point about people getting lathered up and them changing, that's just what's always happened in history.

I mean, the tools are different. Yeah. But that's how these things happen, is a few people get angry and get organized and they make a difference. It's not a national referendum ever. I always look at it this way. Who's actually offended by the Holy Cross Crusaders? Who's sitting around going, I can't believe

I can't believe that we have this name. It's all I'm thinking about. Like, who cares? But I think it's the image you project to the world, right? Or to Boston or to America or to whatever. I mean, it doesn't have to be that somebody is deeply offended.

You know, saying, for instance, I don't like the Crusades or whatever. But there's a larger thing of saying these are the things we value. And this was okay, you know, 50 years ago. And maybe it's not okay anymore. Yeah. And also, sometimes in these disputes, the howling actually is coming from the opposite direction where it's the alumni and specifically the donors who get really worked up about changing the name and pledging that they're not going to contribute anymore if the name change goes through.

So, you know, it gets valuable on both sides. You know, it's funny. Like I was reading the stories about it and they said the St. John's Redmen were now the Red Storm. I had no idea. Yeah. That's- When do we even-

That's the thing. We never really talk about the names, you know? If you change it, no one will remember. It's Holy Cross. No one will remember the old name. Really? We should just get rid of names. Just call it Holy Cross, Harvard.

Like who needs a last name? Yeah. In college, you can kind of do it. It's the same in the NCAA bracket. I think my issue with the Crusaders, just because I went there, is it was so ingrained in every part of the college. Like the newspaper was called The Crusader. The satirical group that the troop that would have the eight people

that made fun of stuff at Holy Cross every year were the Crusaders. And to just get rid of, you're not just getting rid of the name, you're getting rid of everything. You're making Tom Heinsohn and bob koozie mad they're still alive why do we want to antagonize tom heinsohn and bob koozie they're natural treasures as if tommy heinsohn needed something else to you know needed a reason to get worked up i think it's unbelievable that he's still doing games i just want to be alive at 87. um so your advice for getting into sports media we can all agree is to have a bunch of different pitches keep busting your butt and do what it takes to get seen don't rely on the old structure of i'm in college i have to

get a thing in a newspaper like that might not necessarily be the thing you have to do. I'd have one great pitch, one great pitch and a bunch of secondary pitches. Right. Which is I think what all journalists are now, right? Everybody does one thing really well. That's, that's, it has a great job and then they do a lot of other stuff too. The one thing I will say about interning, especially when you're in college is when you can get some of those grunt hours

done when you're young and dumb and you're in college, is when you can get some of those grunt hours done when you're young and dumb and you're in college and just go into your local newspaper three days a week and get people coffee and taking high school scores and getting all that shit done when you're 19 versus when you're 25, it's a big difference. Reps. Yeah, reps and getting the door. And what happens a lot with those interns is

the people there start feeling bad that you don't have a better job. Nephew Kyle. Nephew Kyle is busting his ass for us. Now he produces 14-card podcasts. Yeah. What you're talking about is stamina, basically. Yeah. It's like, you know, you have more stamina when you're 19 years old.

You can go and watch a dumb high school game on a Tuesday night and stand there for four hours and talk to kids afterwards. I mean, it's embarrassing how little stamina you get as you get older. I went, again, at the football game the other night. You know, I'm in the stands. I'm standing up for the entire game. Like, don't we get to sit down at some point? This is ridiculous. What's going on here?

Get down! So true. When you look in the eyes of young journalists, you can tell who's like, I'm going to do this. This is the thing I have to do. And the other person is like, this is fun. Maybe I'll do this. And you're like, that guy or gal is going to do it because they're just obsessed with it.

They can't imagine themselves doing anything else. And that guy or gal is going to do it maybe if they get a couple of breaks, but probably they're going to drift into another job. That's something we've had success with at the last site. And this one, just kind of being able to tell who really wants it. You can tell. You can see the eye of the tiger. You can tell from the clips. You can tell from the emails.

You can just tell from, you know, what they're, what, what they're bringing to the table. All right, Jason, I think it's time for your parting shot.

Thank you, gentlemen. Yes. Well, let me begin as someone who lives in the wildly lucrative world of print newspapers i've never had to think a lot about money but the other day i was in the mediterranean on my yacht. Reading about Jimbo Fisher's new contract with Texas A&M. 10 years, 75 million. And I said to my yacht captain, it's time for me to make a change. So gentlemen, I'm here to let you know, I quit.

I'm going to become a college football coach and I will do it for half, half of what they are paying Jimbo Fisher. That's right. 10 years, 37.5 million. And I won't even ask for the jet except on special occasions like vacations, weddings, birthdays, gambling trips to Vegas, the Super Bowl Masters, and the running of the bowl. But gentlemen, I believe I am worth it. And that's why I bid you farewell, my ink-stained pal.

I'll see you on the sidelines, unless you two want to join me as assistants for $1.8 million a year. Wow. That was beautiful. You've mastered how to parody those. It's really, I don't, it's incredible. Oh my God. I love when people get so upset about college coaches switching teams, which has happened our entire lives and everybody is totally stunned and surprised each time. What about the kids? What about the kids they recruited it's like well when they didn't allow the transferring that was a little bit ridiculous but they never allowed the transferring but this yeah the answer is have more rights for everybody these rules have been awful every year for our entire lives yeah and they never get mad when the coach gets fired. It's only when the coach leaves.

The man just lost his job, brutally fired him from America. Ah, he sucked. This is why my decision to really not care about college sports other than March Madness and the two BCS playoff games is really starting to pay off. I think everyone else is starting to realize how awful college is. Probably for the best. And how awful the NCAA is and how unredeeming all of this stuff is. And what a fucking waste of time it is. And it's fun to watch the games and it's fun to see the

crowds, but everything about it is completely corrupt and morally bankrupt. And it fucking sucks. I don't feel bad about it. A lot of the same feelings. I mean, you know, professional sports by no means are perfect, but at least they're sort of more on the level, right?

Everyone's getting paid. There's at least some sort of agreement there, but yeah. I mean, you look at this like, you know, to your point, you look at the charges that are out there with the NCAA and the shoe companies and the AAU programs. This has been going on literally now for generations.

This is not some sort of new development. What's happening now is because of the information that's out there, people know more, so the hypocrisy feels more naked to people now. Yeah, guess what? If the Giants come to Jim Harbaugh and they offer him $70 million for five years to be the Giants coach, Guess what he's going to do? He's going to hug everyone at Michigan, give them the middle finger and leave.

That's it. Hey, there's no part of you. There's no part of you, like a tiny, tiny part of you that wouldn't be slightly panicked of Belichick going. Because you watch that old NFL film documentary and you see how weepy he is about the racquetball court and about the Giants and what they mean to him.

There's not a tiny, tiny part of you that's nervous. Oh, it's an entire part of me that's nervous. The Pats fans and the people that I text and email with and everyone who loves the Pats in my life, all we talk about is like, this could be the last year. Oh my God, how's Brady still doing this? Let's enjoy this like that the game when Jacoby Brissett was going to be the quarterback last year it's like this is our future like believe me the Pats fans know we know this is freaky this is this is a crazy two decade run and in five years they're going to be the Jets yeah the one thing he didn't

he learned so much from Parcells, right? But the one Parcells lesson he didn't take is after the first Super Bowl, Parcells would have been out of there and would have been coaching another team for even more money. Right. And then after that would have been down the road

with another team for even more money. He has not done that. He hasn't. They leave him alone and he's smart enough to know he still has the best quarterback of all time. I guess he did it with the Jets, but he hasn't done it since he got to the Pats. We talked about this with Lombardi in the podcast a few weeks ago.

I do feel like the Garoppolo trade made me wonder if it's the beginning of the end for him. Because he has no exit plan now. He's tied with this 40-year-old man who is probably still playing QB at an exceptionally high level. And once that goes, either he's, either he's the last challenge for him is going to be to try to still compete without a great quarterback, or he's just like when Brady's gone, I'm gone. I don't know. Cause Jimmy G is really good. The other thing that he's been able to do though, is keep that coaching staff somewhat intact for the last bunch of years.

That's pretty unusual. I mean, usually what happens is your coaching staff gets gutted. But, you know, he's at McDaniels and Patricia for a long time now, and it seems like guys are getting paid well enough that they know that they – I mean, they're not in any hurry to leave. I mean, why go to the Browns? Why go to a lousy franchise, you know, for double the money if you can just sort of wait it out?

And I think the Giants are sort of a classic example of that is sort of a wait it out team. You know, you want to get on that. That's a good job for somebody. And maybe that will be finally what gets McDaniels there. The best thing that's happened to him is the guys that have left the Pats have not had any success whatsoever. I was going to say, that's what I was going to say.

It's better beware. I don't want Romeo Cornell too. Romeo Cornell, Charlie Weiss, McDaniels went to Denver, flamed out. Bill O'Brien is on the bottom half of NFL coaches, I would say. It's not like it's been this tree sprouting coaching lemon. It's been actually coaching lemons. I was going to say coaching oranges. But I think my guess would be McDaniels has a job.

I think he gets one of these coaching jobs. It's time. Not sure which one. Brian Curtis, any last thoughts? No. You got them all. Okay. Jason Gay, any last thoughts?

Should I see Lady Bird? Yeah. Here's a take that's not even hot. The movies were good this year. It was a good movie year. Everybody had their panties in a bunch about how it was going to be this awful movie. What's happening to movies? TV has destroyed movies.

There's a lot of good movies. There's a ton of depth this year. Movies were fun. There's lots of stuff to see. There were even a couple good comic movies. But I watched Molly's Game the other night, which is like 15 minutes long. But that was good. I thought Lady Bird was great.

I thought Phantom Thread was great. There's a couple I still haven't seen. Get Out was fantastic. But I think this was a really, really good movie year. I was watching Logan Lucky on the plane. That's 2017, right? Solid watch. Not even in anybody's top 10 list.

No. And just a really great hour and a half. I think it was a good year. Thumbs up all the way around. Has anyone seen Downsizing. No. And just a really great hour and a half. I think it was a good year. Thumbs up all the way around. Has anyone seen Downsizing? No. I'm worried about that one, but people seem to like it.

It seems like they ripped off the Martin Short movie when he got injected in Dennis Quaid. Whatever that is. Inner Space? Yeah. Inner Space.

Inner Space. And on that note, Jason Gay, we'll read you on The Wall Street Journal. Thank you. Jason Gay, we'll read you on the Wall Street Journal. Thank you. Brian Curtis, we'll read you on The Ringer. Thank you. Thanks to SeatGeek.

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Get a special 10% discount when you order today. That's it. Don't forget my column on TheRinger.com. Fake NBA trades. We'll be back on Monday with Cousin Sal. Thank you, fellas.