The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Grand Symphony of Ego and Narcissism (feat. Mark Kriegel)

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

"I, uh, duh, um... no?" Mark Kriegel is here to discuss his coverage of Mike Tyson. He also settles the debate of write and wrong between Roy and Mike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the Don LeBattor Show with the Stugats Podcast. Dominique, our next guest here, Mark Kregel, is one of the best. He's the foremost boxing writer in America, but for a long time, he has been one of the best sports writers in America. He's currently a boxing analyst for ESPN. And like the best sports writers, he gravitates toward the boxers because they're weird and fascinating and often vulnerable publicly courageous and his latest book

that is man the making of mike tyson is available now and this writer with this project i'm fascinated by tyson because i just think he's the most interesting athlete of my time for a lot of different reasons just interesting and it's at least in part because he'd reveal himself to you and is somebody that was more comfortable in prison than outside of it didn't want to leave prison when he got to prison because it prison had more order and i'm just sure that kregel has found a thousand things about this man's life because he's one of the best reporters to that there's been so mark thank you for joining us and and just start us here on like you tackled this project because I imagine you too find him more

interesting than anyone else you've covered I tackle this project because I owe the publisher money and he broached the idea of Tyson and My first thought was like what what body part would I rather impale? my first thought was, like, what body part would I rather impale than revisit all the crap I wrote in the 90s and the schmuck I was back then and, you know, in large measure who he was back then. And I started to think about it. And, you know, no writer wants to give back money. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to consider him not by who he had knocked out or all the stuff he had talked, but by what he had survived. And by that measure, I got to love the guy I'm writing about if I'm going to live with him for a biography.

And by that measure, what he had survived to me was monumental and a sign of virtue. I mean, booze, coke, the death of a mother, the absence of a father, a neighborhood in Brownsville that, like, calling it a ghetto to me seems entirely insufficient. It was a full-on dystopia. Molestation, incarceration as a juvenile,

and this is largely, you talk about wanting to remain locked up. This is largely a tale of incarceration, especially juvenile incarceration. He was locked up as an adult, obviously, as a kid. He survived boxing. And one of the reasons we are drawing those of us who love melodrama to boxing is because the third act

is inevitably the tragedy, and it's the noir, and it's the reveal, and it's the curse. The odd thing about Tice, is he turned the third act around. The third act has become like the most likely triumph I've ever seen. The book opens with him watching his daughter play tennis. I should say also that he survived the death of a child, which I don't know how the hell you do that.

But I'm thinking about him watching his kid play tennis and what he's actually done is He's outpaced our capacity to imagine him Like who the hell could have imagined Mike Tyson watching his kid play tennis and Dana point I couldn't can you help me for? Can you take me through a little bit about what it is that you would say to others is? Most interesting about Mike Tyson if you can only select a thing or two. Damn, I'm not BSing, but 2019 you did an interview with him that begins with the DMT and the Toad and it seems like it's going to be a goof, this hallucinogenity.

He talks about the death of the ego. And he was, fighters need that ego, especially to play the role he did heavyweight champion of the world, and a particular kind of champion. But this is a story set into motion largely by the trainer's ego in custom model. And I think that there's something in that interview with him that you nail that goes right to the core

of his being. He loves Cuss for rescuing him, but he created this ego monster. And I think in large measure, it was about Cus's ego. And Mike pushes back on this, but this is, but he was asking a kid 13 years old, he pulls out a lockup to make him, Cus de Matto, live forever. So you're fascinated by the psychology of how people are made. You're saying that he, by environment, sort of perfectly built to both be a menace and also be conquered by an assortment of temptations.

Yeah. I mean, Cuss wanted him to be Alexander the Great. And in fact, he was. But in Tyson, he had like the perfect mound of clay. And when I mentioned this to Tyson, we had two conversations, basically to establish ground rules, no more. But when I said, hey, you know,

Cuss is asking you to live forever, he pushes back. He goes, well, what do you think would have become of me otherwise? And he says, well, didn't I? And in fact, he did. As long as people know Tyson's name, they will know the name of custom model. My question is, at what price? How did you approach the most disturbing aspects of his life? Addiction, abuse, incarceration, rape, loss? I mean, by accident, this book ends in 88 at the Spinks fight, which was a term of art

in boxing, fight of the century. And it's there with Trump, it's center stage, and it's the high point of Tyson's professional career, but everything's in place for his life to fall apart. So it ends right there. And boxing's like a grand symphony of ego and narcissism. And you can see it's like the caboose or whatever it is

gets all the way up to the top of the roller coaster and it's about to fall. So it ends in 88. But I don't deal with the 92 trial or anything beyond that. But it's the same way you excavate, like, the interior of anyone's life. I think, you know, from my perspective, the great wound, the hole that he's only recently

been able to fill, is his mom. You know, he has this theory about, like, all great conquerors, including Alexander the Great, were mama's boys. But to me, the most brutal fact of his life is that he never gets a chance to earn his mother's love or to get his mother's love. She's broken.

She was broken when her man ran out and something fractured inside of her and the drinking picks up and, you know, Mike is a great basketball player by the name of Lloyd Daniels, you may remember. He actually grew up next door and was essentially a shelter for single women. He says, man, you know, I had it easy. I had like my alcoholic uncles and whatever else, my grandma. But Mike's family, Mike's family was the street. And I think that's really the original wound with Mike, you know?

And in some senses, fighters became his family. He loves fighters, but they're, you know, dead or alive, real to him. Put it on the poll, please. Was Alexander the Great a mama's boy? And what he just described was our show when he called it a grand symphony of ego and narcissism. Boxing is what he called that, and that is also, that would be on the tombstone of our show, a grand symphony of ego and narcissism. Thank you for the vine. Mark, I have a question that might appear

like we're getting sidetracked here, but you're a member of the prestigious Boxing Writers Association of America. Oh no, oh no. In 2021, you were honored with the Nat Fleischer Award. What was the criteria to enter your writers association? Can you just enter your writer's association without having written anything?

I think you just need a cell phone. Ha ha! Whoa! I think you just need a cell phone at this point. It used to be the great literary sport. All you need is this piece of, you know what? Well, that backfired. Well, no, no, no, hold on.

That's it, here, I'm a boxing writer, here. Hold on, but you need a cell phone about this right you need a cell phone to write Yeah, so but so my question is no can you enter a writers association without actually having anything? Writing is optional you don't actually have to get anything published to be a member of the boxing writers association in this no No, I'm being I'm being facetious. Oh, thank you. But at this point, like, yes, okay, Writers Association. At this point, they're just letting anybody in, right? At this point, they're just letting non-writers in, right?

This needs to stop right now. Oh, I'm sorry, was I just right? You need to. Yes, I was. You're not right about him not writing. He did write, and the accusation is a quality one. Oh, me? Oh.

Mark, you're a writer. I need you to look my Chris. You got into this writers' association by doing it the right way. Can we explain it to Mark? Yeah, yeah, you got Mark to do it. We have someone in this show. No, no, no, let me explain.

You guys have done enough. And now that I'm right, you want to pile on. We have someone in this show that is a member of the Hockey Writers Association. My question is, oh, I didn't know that you wrote. What did you write? I wrote an article in Op-Ed for the Hockey News. All right, that makes you a writer.

However, he wrote that after he was granted access into this Writers Association. He was a member of the Writers Association without having written anything, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy because I asked that question. Now, Mark, you're accomplished. And I know I don't sound crazy right now.

Would you have been granted access into your illustrious boxing writers association of America without having written anything yet? I've seen it done. I've seen it happen. Yes, another victory for Roy. He's seen it done. And he's seen of it.

And he's seen of it done. What do you write for the hockey news? What is that? Because times have changed. It can't be the hockey news. What is that? That's offensive. You can't say... Hold up. Hold up. If you write like a... Go ahead. If you write something like a season roundup like in the hockey news or something in boxing, like the state of boxing writing is such that I think that you might be elevated to like Proust status. There we go. Proust-um. All right, this is more of a state of the industry thing that I want to get bogged down in.

Like, you got access by writing. Yeah? And I'm, please, I'm sorry for my tone. I'm just, my back is up against the wall here. I'm being framed. I walked into something, I don't yeah, my back is up against the wall Yeah, that's okay and and Chris has been yelling the entire time explain it to him I'm taking this as a dub guys you would prepare for that question All right. Thank you mark. Sorry that we confused you. He's very interested in being easily confused It's but last question though. You also wrote very well a long time ago, one of the best to ever write

well about Pat Riley and I'm curious on a couple of fronts, A, how do you look back on what you wrote about Tyson in the 90s? What does that say about who you were back then and how much remorse do you have about how you wrote about him in the 90s and what could you tell my snotty producer there, Mike Ryan, when he blasphemes about Pat Riley saying that, you know, Pat Riley's time with the Miami Heat the last five years has been a bit of a failure. I'm less enamored with Pat than I was 30 years ago for reasons I'll get in with you later. I do think he falls into the category of grand accomplished narcissists.

I had an idea about Pat that I wanted to do prior to Tyson, which is really about his life as a symphony of ambition and what do you do? And I think this was true of his father as well. What do you do when the game you love more than anything in the whole world doesn't quite love you back? And your physical talent isn't commensurate

with your ambition and especially your desire. So I saw Pat and I still think, I still think it was the greatest mistake the NICs ever made. Now you can do the faxing, the resignation, but not signing him, not locking him up, was the biggest mistake in the history of the NICs organization. I grew up like two blocks in the garden on Eighth Avenue. If you look at the, you know, you want to talk about the last five years, that's great, but also consider the last 30. So Pat's career, especially in Miami, you know, he got what he wanted, is a case of like empire building. And it's also a case of enormous ego. What was the question

about Tyson? Do I regret? What you wrote about him in the 90s, when you look back at it, right? Because we created a mythology around him as we were coming up in sports writing. You were a young man, I was a young man. We were enjoying writing about somebody who was crazy, deviant, scared, vulnerable, probably mentally ill, and we only knew

the beginning of the story. And we wrote about him in a way that mythologized him as things happened around him that were, you know, anarchy. How do I feel about it? Some things I was right on, some things I was overboard. I mean, like, beware a guy in his late 20s, early 30s with ambition and thinks he's cool.

Like, you know, a lot of it was smoky, a lot of it was overboard, Some of it was right on. Most of it lacked nuance, which is, you lack nuance at that age. I will say this, and this is peculiar to Tyson, unlike anyone I've ever seen. The guys who were like, one in particular, Pete Hamill was my rabbi in the business, great columnist and novelist in New York. He was one of the... He wrote a beautiful obit for Cus de Mato, and he had known de Mato and Jose Torres, that whole scene, since the 50s.

So did another great writer, a seminal magazine writer, a nonfiction writer, Gay Talese. But because Cus was such a great character and he gave the writers what they wanted, there's, he had seduced generations of writers prior to Tyson coming on the scene. Tyson comes on the scene and now you have this ready-made fable of Cuss and the kid, which also lacked nuance

and it wasn't entirely the whole truth. So the peculiar thing with Tyson is that he had, and this is unlike anyone else, he had literary cachet before he had street cred. It's only later that he becomes like an icon of what we now know as like the hip hop generation. But what came first and what seduced a whole assembly of TV executives was the literary cachet that,

oh, you're writing about someone important, and he's keeping the old trainer's dream alive, which might be the greatest trope in all of boxing. But Tyson was a very peculiar creature like that. From one writer to another, as well said. Oh, come on! Don Lebatard. What is the worst part of the life?

Stugats. The worst part of the life of what? This is the Don Lebatard show with the Stugats. Last thing before we let you go, the name of the book, Baddest Man, the Making of Mike Tyson, the Pat Riley observation you wanted to give us at the beginning, you can give it to us at the end. But didn't I give it to you already? Well no, you were just, you were saying that you have your, you've rethought your position

on how you wrote about him 30 years ago And I didn't know what it is that you'd learned there very Really good reporter not just with Tyson. Well this started I was gonna write a biography of Pat and I kept sending him like genealogical material and books I had written and all sorts of stuff. I wasn't going to go ahead and do it. I can't be in a position where I ask the subject's permission. And I tried to make this clear to him.

I got a call from a guy on his staff, we both know, and he goes, will you please stop calling people? I said, I'm doing this book, man. I love Coach, you know, I think the world of him. That's why I'm doing this book. He goes, I didn't realize it. No, I said, I'm doing the book. And he says, well, next week I'll talk to him. And you know, by this time next week,

you'll hear from me or from him. We'll get back to you and tell you what we think. And again, this is a guy I adored and I did not hear from either of them. That's what pissed me off. Instead, I get calls from like, I get texts and called one of them from Jason Williams saying like, hey, I got this email.

I think it was an email, not a call. Like saying, you might be getting a call from so and so, don't talk to them. Like, I guess he sent, like, they contacted everyone who ever played for him, coached with him, or whatever it was. And that's okay. That's cool.

I understand that. But Elise, tell me first, in my face. That's the answer. Coward. Scared of him. Coward? It sounds like it. Scared of him.

It sounds like it. I mean, it sounds like Pat Riley is a little concerned. Scared of who? No, no, no. I know you're not scared. Bone crushing. He ain't scared of me. I just, I just, I mean, it sounds like Pat Riley is a little concerned. No, no, no, I know you're not scared. Bonecrusher. He ain't scared of me. I just, I think, no, I think there's something different.

I think with Pat, it's an issue of control. I think that Pat has this idea and he may well be doing it already of this, of writing his own epic biography. And he, above all, looking back, Pat doesn't want to relinquish control. One word answer, do you go rankings top three or top five, Pat Riley?

Five to 10. Ooh! Maybe five. Five to 10. Yeah, but I mean, hey, I don't mean that as a goof on the guy. Right. No, man, look, you are an exceptional writer and an exceptional

reporter and you're not wrong that he's an ego beast and that he likes control. And I'm guessing he knows what kind of reporter you are and if you get close to skeletons of truth somewhere in his past, he's going to want control over that. Like, and you know that, he knows that and that's where your relationship ended on that book I'm sounds like Dan's angling the right to biography See you later you could write a hell of a you could write a hell of a Pat bio You'll be a hell of a mouthpiece puppies. That's right I want to hear the unauthorized version of that ego monster. That's right. For that narcissist. Oh wow, you got it. I wanna hear the unauthorized version. For that ego monster.

That's right. No, see, but Mark writes about people, flaws and all. And so that can be scary. It's too intimate. It's too close. The Miami Heat wanting to control the message? What? Can I add one thing?

Like for all the excess and muddiness with him, he changed the game in the most fundamental way. I remember like Wode's telling me, with him, he changed the game in the most fundamental way. I remember, I remember like Woj telling me, you know, this guy practically invented free agency and the guy who could achieve no power, no agency as a player who's hanging on to stay on a roster empowers the greatest players in the world

in a way that no one could have imagined decades ago. That changes the game in the most fundamental way. And I think it's changed the game in a way he could no longer control. Thank you, Mark, for the time and the book. I would recommend anything he writes to everyone because he is exhaustive. Baddest Man, the making of Mike Tyson. Good seeing you again, sir. Appreciate the time. Take care, Darren. Take care, fellas. Thank you.

All right, Mike Ryan making faces back there. What is the problem? What do you think the problem is? I think I got a little awk for you. You did? Yeah. Why? Yeah, because if I can deduce anything from that interview is I kind of want to hear Mark's

book. Yeah. I want to read it with my ears. About Pat? And it seems like Pat's ducking Mark. Pat is trying to find a friendly. And Dan, you might be that friendly. Oh.

Um, no. Wait, am I a writer? Um, they, no. Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Wait, am I a writer? No, what? Was that in, did I just deliver the news? Yeah, you did. Dan, I might have just delivered the news to you. I have been wondering why Pat Riley

would not tell an epic story like that or have someone have it told for him when he is you know he's got five screenplays that he's written in his house I would assume that he would want to tell his own story he doesn't seem to want to do that from every angle that I have seen I would say that that would be you know what having now being in the documentary business I would say that one of the gets that would get done no matter what not like unlike Jerry Jones getting a ten-part series

On Netflix is if Pat Riley Pat Riley can write his number right now if he tells people I will tell my story Is he waiting for a better ending? I mean, I don't think he thinks he's ever going to die Like I think he's going to just crawl and try to beat everyone till the very end and then stick a hand out of the Grave and say, you know with a middle finger toward the Celtics. That has a championship ring on it. Yeah, just like. Because he realized that Terry Rozier is getting $27 million next year.

He's a part of this whole equation. Riley has told his story. On the art of conversation. So has Tyson, by the way, in an interview mentioned by Mark Kregel, which is the only reason we had him on right there, is for that little bit of flattery. Yes, yes, Tell me about that episode of

Art of conversation that enlightened you five screenplays five or six. Yeah He said there's a creative buried somewhere in there that never got to be creative and a guy that was around tinsel town for quite a while Focus on roster construction. That is the height of entertainment, Tinseltown created Showtime, learned, yeah, created fashion in Hollywood, Armani, made Armani famous, ridiculous legacy. Does he still have that deal or was that like an urban legend where he can walk into any Armani store

and get a seat? He denies it and A-Rod denies it, but I had reported that the two of them did have that deal, both of them, had the deal with Armani where, and I think, if they both denied it, it seems like a- Do you think that's good journalism then by then? Yeah.

Good job. From one writer to another. You dicks. Did Kriegel take out the hockey news? Did he say- Yeah, yeah. I wish he played with me a little bit better because what he was doing was like his own opinion on the current state of writers

because they just let anybody in, which I'm like, that's the point, I'm trying to make your pal. He ultimately did agree with Mike. He did, you saw that? You weren't prepared. Shame on you for booking a member of a writers association today.

You put my back up against a wall, claws come out. He didn't really agree with Mike though. Ah, yeah, whatever. He did, he was sarcastically saying that nowadays they'll let anyone with a phone. It was just a point I was trying to make. Hey, huge race this weekend in Mexico City! Wait a minute, what kind of transition is that?

I saw the gearhead. You've had a lot of influence over today's show, including a first hour in which you've insulted Roy. Jessica reprimanded you. It seemed fair to me. You ignored it. You barreled on. You're saying you're right about everything.

You're annoying people. Charlie hasn't talked in a month Yeah, sorry about that, but Charlie you're not on the cast Dan did you really want more of me as fake Dan yes I wanted to go to you until it fell apart, and then I would be victorious But I'm saving that for the end of the show the NASCAR Cup series More awkward than that interview was. We'll edit it out though.

It was long. I fell apart there, man. I'm leaving it all in. I fell apart there. Oh yeah, we're live. Three of you shouted it at me. I heard it. I developed a third ear to hear it.

Oh, it's good to hear on live. We'll clean that up. Yep. NASCAR Cup Series goes to Mexico City. This is the first time the Cup Series is going to be there. Man, it's three shows in 24 hours. It's like, come on. How about us? We don't do that.

We don't do that. The accountability day. Those haulers went from Michigan Motor Speedway and drove all the way down to Mexico. Interesting time in history to do that, especially for NASCAR. Daniel Suarez, a homecoming in Mexico City. This is a road course, people. They're heading over to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Did that from the top of my head. Nailed it. Did that from the top of my head. There was some Zagaki in there though because you sounded a little scared. Yeah, well, because I'm like, this is, which one is it? Oh, the Hermanos Rodriguez Autodromo, of course. That translates loosely into the Autodrome Brothers Rodriguez.

Yeah! Or Rodriguez Brothers. Anywho, Daniel Suarez, everyone's going to be rooting for him. He's a hometown favorite, but this is a road course and there are plenty of road specialists in the NASCAR Cup Series. Chase Elliott, although he is on bad form lately, got to be wondering if he's at the end of his time at Hendrick Motorsports. You got Kyle Larson, who's proven that he can win in a road course, Tyler Reddick, a

bunch of specialists, and the 11 car of Denny Hamlin seems to be in proper form. This is going to be an excellent race. It's going to be on Amazon Prime, and I love Amazon Prime's coverage. Their whole approach to sports fits in perfectly with NASCAR's presentation. GearHead is presented by NASCAR. For all the latest insights and storylines, and to find out when and where to watch, visit NASCAR.com.

This should be a great race. And for this race, they're doing something totally foreign to NASCAR. They're gonna have a podium. The top three finishers are gonna get celebrated. In NASCAR, they usually generally celebrate, if you ain't first, you're last. But this time... The GearHead seems to be falling apart and missing pieces. NASCAR, they usually generally celebrate, if you ain't first, you're last.

But this time. The gear head seems to be falling apart and missing pieces. We can do better than this. But this time they're acclimating to a more global tradition, not being so myopic. The top three finishers make the podium. I thought all races were on roads. Guessing, ICE not gonna be at this one.

They're, yes, but they're ovals. You know, your super speedways and road courses and the occasional roval. How much time do you have? Let's have a coffee. Yes, at another time we will have a coffee. Dominique, I wanted to ask you based on the conversation we were having with Jessica earlier because it is wild to see happen, you know, greed, capitalism, private equity, college sports being such an untapped market for, oh, if we stream softball and people

watch, yes of course a softball player will be worth a million dollars if she can dominate a game. As market inefficiencies are exploited in the business of sports and as kids and young people get devoured by it when you see an eighth grader being paid to play football like at what at what point are any one of the people listening willing to put a line on that's too far like that that's too much childhood stolen in the name of business paying an eighth grader to play a line on that's too far, like that's too much childhood stolen in the name of business paying an eighth grader to play football.

Yeah, I mean we talked about private equity firms coming into college sports, which is outrageous how professionalized that's all, or is becoming, but this point in the article in the New York Times, it starts off by saying that the mother of this DC kid Who is now in eighth grade headed to the ninth grade at the math of which is a sports powerhouse in that area that she? remembered when he was 10 years old that coaches of like Youth the rec football teams were giving her

Thousand dollar handshakes in order to get a 10 year old to go play football on his team. And I assume that some of the reason of that is ego, but also some of the reason for that is money. And it's, I think the part of it is not that I'm arguing that these players are not that valuable or don't have value. They do have value. But the scary part is that they become commodities and they become stepping stones, which happens

so often and we're more accustomed to it become stepping stones, which happens so often, and we're more accustomed to it with basketball players, which doesn't make it any better or worse, but they see a kid with some level of talent, and it's not necessarily like, let me help cultivate this kid's talent to get him to where he deserves. It's where can I springboard onto

after I take some credit for making this kid something? Because you'll get attention. You have the dominant kid on your 10-year-old football team. You're then using that to springboard your way into being a trainer for other kids who will never make it, but you're gonna say, I'll make you just like that kid because I made that kid. Or into being a coach for one of these powers,

into being a college coach. Like that's the part that offends me. I understand child actors, child musicians, children with unique talents deserve to be compensated for it. The scary part is the same thing that happens in those industries starting to happen in one of the purer places,

or the places that we feel are pretty pure. It's like youth sports. It's getting grosser and grosser and I hate it. I hear your perspective and it's a very American one, but over in the UK, if you're 15 years old and you're a hot soccer talent, you can sign at the age of 15 for about 175,000 wages. So this is not without precedent and they don't have these concerns across the pond. Right, if you don't like it, Mike, you can leave. You wanna go live in Europe, beat it.

Show me your papers. Did you just love it or live it from me? In the face of a good point, is that your default? This exists and there aren't the concern for the humanity of the children and the bleeding heart stuff that you're doing, which is, it's very shocking to the American system, but these are, if we're looking at these programs

as actual pro programs, which they've been for a long time, then they're well within their rights to take an investment in a younger person, and that younger person is well within his rights to maximize his value. No, I certainly appreciate the pushback, and I'm not gonna pretend as if I'm an expert on international football rules. But I mean, you were born in the UK.

I was born in the UK military base, baby. But my guess is that that professionalizing at a young age has its drawbacks. I don't. Oh, yeah. And I think some of these people are pretty dumb. And I also think that they have a system that's designed To operate that way we don't we have a system that's very different and so without the rules That's the more concerning part like again

I'm not an expert on that but my guess is that there are some rules But they're also very ugly things even though I don't know everything about it I know that they raid Countries that that don't have the infrastructure and go pick out the athletes and then take them and exploit them. So like I'm not looking. I work for one of these clubs. Chelsea had a very well run robust academy and they had a scouting network

that would go into other countries, countries that did not have this infrastructure and they would really boost their academy to the point of being one in the tops of the world. So I appreciate, and on my show, Charlie does this a lot where I try to fall, I fall into this easy defensible stance is I'm the bleeding heart, I appreciate, and on my show, Charlie does this a lot, where I try to fall into this easy, defensible stance as I'm the bleeding heart, I feel sorry for everybody.

And I think it's fair to push back on that. I'm not in this position trying to say I'm a bleeding heart and feel sorry for everybody, but I'm saying that we cannot also close our eyes to the position that we're putting these players in. And so, okay, I get it. His mom said that her goal is for him to make a million dollars by the time he's a ninth grader. I'm fine with that. That's a fine goal to have. And maybe it'll all work out for him. But what tends to happen in these situations is while

there's a top few that we point to, and we celebrate, and we talk about how successful they were and how unique they are, there's a whole other group that have to go through the grinding the machine, get injured or don't have the talent, and then end up on the other side without the resource that we had. And then we put them into these adult systems without having put the protections. Oftentimes those protections come after someone has failed, after someone's taken advantage of. So again, I don't want to pretend like I am only pointing out the issues with it. I agree. I want these kids who have talent and have value to get paid. I don't wanna pretend like I am only pointing out the issues with it, like I agree.

I want these kids who have talent and have value to get paid. I don't wanna go to a world where he's not getting compensated for the value that he's creating, but I also don't wanna turn a blind eye to the human cost. But when you make it this commercial, this greedy, I'm gonna say distinctly American Mike, even though you're saying and correctly

okay this is how they do it overseas or across the pond for some reason is the way that you decided to say it uh... and they do that with fourteen and fifteen year olds but the place that i would stop you and i'm not saying that soccer doesn't also have its physical perils uh... bonix played with a broken vertebrae like it's a whole this is a whole different machine. Combat sport, not a contact sport.

So now that it's visible, you think that it exists? Or have you not watched high school basketball in this country? Oh no, okay, but football, come on. I hope all that's been happening, dude. It happens at private schools in low-rank districts across America. This happens all the time.

The fact that it's actually transparent is not a bad thing, and it is actually a better thing, I think. No, and I'm not arguing against that at all. I'm just saying that as we go through this process, we have to acknowledge that these other things are happening. Saying that it happens in other sports or this is not new does not remove the fact that there are still perils in the situation.

So, like, that's my point. I sincerely appreciate your pushback, but it's not an actual pushback. It's saying, like, oh, it's happening. So I know it's happening. That doesn't mean that everything about it is completely on an up and up. And I think having an academy system is probably more structured and probably protects the players more than now where it's a kid in a middle school in DC where you Parachute in and promise him a bunch of things in hopes that you can use it to springboard yourself into some other stretch

Do you think I mean we just mentioned with custom auto the idea of the the hell you can Reek on a great young athlete by just putting on him all of your adult ego Shit, but when we're talking about, I don't know where I'd have to put the age for just us to get a consensus. Yes, I believe it is wrong to pay a eight year old. And that's the thing, that's the hard part about a conversation.

I don't ever believe it's wrong to pay somebody if they're valuable. Okay, to play football, okay. Concuss yourself, nine year old.