The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Local Hour: The Pressure of The Second Seat
Episode Date: March 18, 2025It was a crisp night in the Spring of '77... Today's cast: Dan, Greg, Chris, Billy, Jeremy, and Jessica. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
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Who told you that? I want to know your source.
Is it true or is it untrue? Or you just want me to betray my sources?
Because I feel pretty confident in my sources that you feel like the third seat is the place that you do your best work,
there's less pressure, and that you deflate whenever you come in and you hear, as many of us do, as many in the audience do, that Stu Gotz is not here.
Wow, isn't he? Stu who? I'm kidding. I don't deflate, however, it is more pressure
in this seat. You know, I'm used to staring the show because of the Greg
Cody Show podcast, which has my
name in it, so it indicates that –
Darrell Bock Twice, the Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody.
Greg Cotty With Greg Cody, right.
But no, I'm thrilled to be in this seat, honored to be in the Stu Gott seat.
Darrell Bock So you're denying what sources say, but
you just confirmed it beforehand, and then you denied it.
You said –
Greg Cotty What I confirmed was that there's more pressure in this seat being the second guy instead of the third guy
It's like there's more pressure batting third in the lineup than batting eighth, you know, that's that kind of thing
What about batting second and batting third not much difference?
Lead off the the only pressure spots in a baseball lineup or batting first
Third and fourth.
What?
That just doesn't make sense.
Everything else is gravy, you know, that kind of thing.
Because, you know, if you're batting seventh or eighth,
you're on a holiday.
Yeah, but after a certain inning,
you could be batting fourth that inning.
Well, that's true.
You know, the guy batting eighth could bat fourth that day.
Right, so what are you doing?
And you know that the best hitter in a lineup now
more often than not bats second.
Yeah, that's a new thing.
Is that right?
It's new.
When did that happen?
About a decade ago.
Really?
What's the rationale behind that?
More at bats over a long season,
you get like 40 or 50 more at bats.
I think third's probably more stressful than second though.
I would think so too.
But that's...
No, you're right.
I mean, we're on the same page on that one.
Second, that's an easy spot.
If the leadoff guy gets on, you're in a no-lose situation.
You know, you're bunt.
Anybody still bunt?
The sacrifice bunt used to be a thing.
Like, Otani bets leadoff.
Some managers just go with, if I bat him first
over the course of a long season,
he's gonna get X more at bat, so I'm gonna put him first.
Back in the day, if you batted a home run hitter lead off you were laughed at.
You were laughed at in the league.
It never happened.
Can I ask you just a quick question here?
How is it possible that you have been trudging out to Marlins games for the last 10 years
and it has escaped your attention that the best hitter in baseball now hits second. I don't
Acknowledge it. I don't think it's true. Oh, is there any quantifiable proof proof to that name name one team?
Yes, it's all of the best hitter batting
Every team is good hitter on the Marlins. How would he know what a good hitter is? No you can't
I mean it's ridiculous the Marlins. Greg, how do you not know this?
You've been you've been going to baseball games for the last ten years long long enough to have earned a Hall of Fame
Vote how do you not know that baseball has switched to its best hitter now?
They I do love when baseball brilliant people suddenly discover. Oh, yeah, get our best hitter more in bats.
It's like, we've been doing it wrong for 100 years.
Black Guerrero Jr. with the Blue Jays,
one of their best hitters batting second
in their projected starting lineup.
Gunnar Henderson for the Orioles batting leadoff.
Never heard of him.
Guerrero projected as batting second
for someone other than the Blue Jays.
We're gonna skip past he's never heard of Gunnar Henderson?
Yeah, well, we're gonna just start the show and see where we end up with him not feeling at all the pressure of being the second chair.
This is the Don Leventor Show with the StuGuts Podcast.
That's Budcast! We're in for an experience today because if you guys are not aware of what happens to
Greg Cody the week before his annual I'm Going on a Cruise and all I care about is just please
put me at a bar for seven days so I can stand in the middle of the sea drinking from the drink package.
Greg Cody tends to mail it in
right before that annual trip.
He is already sort of, he's sailed to sea on vacation.
Chris, are you taking this trip with him?
Is this another family trip?
How often does your father lean on you
or get carried back to his room by you?
Because that free drink package is something that he really he attacks with vigor. I'm gonna give him credit
I rarely have to carry him back to the room
I would say that there's a lot of pointing we go to the elevator that way that way down
Did you a cruise ship for those who haven't cruise shipped long hallways?
Yeah, long ass hallways and depending on what flight of stairs you walk up
You're never quite sure are you starboard or you the other you know
There's pictures clearly that say that near the elevators and help you out with that like anything
Do you know where you're going we're going to the Caribbean be more specific
st. Kit.
Kits.
Whatever.
St. Kits.
Okay, that sounds like a small island.
That's a name that implies it's a very, very small island.
Yolga nailed it.
Okay, St. Kits and something.
Tobago.
Nevis.
I don't know where we're going.
We're not going to Trinidad and Tobago.
They have a nice rainforest there.
Where, Nevis?
No, it's St. Kits. Oh, okay.
You can zip line, it's fun.
Nevis doesn't even sound like the name of a country.
Okay, great.
I was told that the Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody
has a reveal today that was both embarrassing to you
and that you didn't realize until several minutes after announcing it
that it should be embarrassing to you.
Why?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Well that you apparently reveal when you lost your virginity on the latest episode of The
Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody.
Yeah, it's an estimate.
Who can remember that far back, to be honest with you?
I mean, you know, it's so, you know,
I could have been off by a year.
I think I might have been a year younger than I estimated.
How did this come up?
Well, we have a March Madness special that dropped today.
Yesterday.
Yesterday.
And by that, I mean, we don't talk about college basketball
at all, but I do my Mount Greg more which as everyone knows is a top five not a top four
I do my Mount Greg more of marches
brackets
baskets and balls and
Under the category of March was top five marches of all time
Yeah, I happen to lose my virginity in the month of March as I recall and so that
was one of the five marches and there's a poll online today under my Twitter feed, it's
always Twitter to me, still not X, that includes a vote on which of the five should be the
number one seed. March. March 77, running away with it. I Think it was 76. It was 77. You're just embarrassed about this now. I'm not I was in my early 20s
I'm you know it happens. I don't lie like most people you know everyone else is lying
I mean, I think why would I be embarrassed about that?
You know I hadn't found anybody or should I say no one had found me you know I was playing
Stratomatic baseball when I should have been dating in high school. What can I say? You know, I'm living my life. I'm doing all the
best I can.
R.C. Your son said that afterward you were sheepish and wandering around saying, is 23
old to be losing your virginity?
J. Well, Christopher was howling with laughter as if it was like
abnormally old. Maybe it is, I don't know, but say I'm not swayed by
whatever anybody else thinks. Like you say I should be embarrassed by that. I
didn't say you should be embarrassed. I didn't say you should be embarrassed by
that. I said that it was reported that you were embarrassed by that. For the
time that feels a little late for me. I'm not shaming you. A lot of people wait for marriage.
There are a lot of reasons to not do that.
But it was just funny to me because you, I think,
thought that that was the average.
You thought it was OK at the beginning,
and then you were meant to feel shame that you
didn't feel like feeling.
And now you're defying about not having felt that shame
because you're just sort of covering up
and hiding the shame.
Well, what way does psychoanalyze me, you know, without it.
But that's just, I just gave a timeline. I just gave a timeline of factual
information. I was somewhat surprised by Christopher's reaction because to me I
I have never and and still don't think of it as abnormal, you know. So it was
the FAU dorms?
It was afterward.
If he's 23, he's out of college.
It took him a while to get on.
It took me a while.
Keep in mind, I worked for the Miami Herald.
They had me work 39 hours a week,
so that I was essentially full-time,
but they didn't have to pay me like a full-time employee
or start my benefits clock.
That should have been your first warning,
that journalism was trying to do it on the cheap. Yeah, but back it was the heyday of journalism. You kidding me 70s and 80s. That's when we were king
But what is a heyday?
Hey day, is that for horses like on days? I don't know but I don't know what a heyday
No, because it's he why it's not ha why so what is it?
What is a Hay Day?
A Hay Day is the best of times.
I know, I know what a Hay Day is.
The answer to it is Willie Mays.
I know, I don't think.
Let's say Hay Day Kid.
That's right.
Speaking of Hay Day in journalism, there was a Yale Review story that I saw yesterday
that said Vanity Fair's Hay Day, and the guy in it, Graydon Carter, for 25 years was the
editor there and made $166,000 per article
that he wrote. And he wrote like three articles a year and was just raking in cash.
Wow.
That was the heyday of journalism.
That's crazy. I probably get about $78 in our column.
I want to go through again what is on the Greg Cody show featuring Greg Cody?
You said top five marches. Yeah, final five marches
brackets
baskets and balls
Bracket five brackets of all time or is that like tournament years?
Like I love the 99 NCAA bracket like what does that mean? No, it's it's I'll give you an example
What does that even mean? No, it's...
I'll give you an example.
One of my top five brackets is the, carpenters know it well, the angle bracket, which is
a classic 90-degree bracket which affixes together two different types of wood.
I was making my...
I once had a tall table around my avocado tree and I used angle brackets to attach the tabletop
to the 4x4 legs. That's an example of a classic bracket that nobody ever gives respect to.
Nobody knows what an angle bracket is.
I've got to tell you, I'm shocked that you would be so ambitious as to think you could
find five brackets and the reason this has made the top five
is because of how hard it is to find top five brackets.
No, it's not a carpenter over here, he doesn't know.
There's brackets aplenty.
Yeah, there really are.
You can do brackets for days.
Give another bracket, give another teaser.
I believe there, I think one of them was
the short-lived television show called brackets. Yep
Did you include the brackets
Races right where you that's where you sort of put like the rubber bands when you're trying to fix the way that your overbite
Might work that did not make the Wow. Oh, I that's gotta be a bottom bracket though
This thing well keep in mind. It's tough to make a final five. It's tough to make a Mount Greg five.
But that is not the way that is said.
A Mount Greg five?
Yeah, a Mount Greg four.
What is the name of that?
What is it?
It is not a Mount Greg five, is it?
I don't know.
What do we call it?
Mount Greg Moore is his top five.
Greg, it is so great to see you on your own podcast that has your own name twice.
Always go, I don't know, what is it about this thing that I do, Chris?
Tell me more about it.
I can't be bothered to answer questions or retain information about my own podcast.
And you just point to your son and say, I don't know, Chris, go ahead and tell him what
I think about things.
Well, that's, he's my executive producer.
I pay him as such, and sometimes I rely on him
to fill in the details.
Chris, you just rolled your eyes
that he pays you as such.
Well, yeah, I mean, he knows how I feel about that.
Okay.
Different conversations.
But anyway.
Well, wait, wait, wait,
what, no, it's not a different conversation. It the one i want to have now where he thinks he's paying
you well and you think he's not so he'd he'd just he'd just said
i don't have to retain my own thoughts because of how well i pay my executive
producer who then rolled his eyes at how well he's not paid. Well, he's feeling a little bit entitled.
I'm gonna, if I ask Christopher how much time he devotes
to the Greg Cody Show podcast on a weekly basis,
I don't know whether he's gonna exaggerate it or not.
I'm saying some weeks, it's maybe an hour.
Of actual recording, you know,
then there's creative, like thinking about the show.
Okay. Of creative. Repeating your thoughts that you can't retain yourself the stupid call
you and yet you want to have every Wednesday the point is stupid call
called an organizational meeting oh wow you like meetings for your own show we
have a phone meeting we don't have a meeting where we're all in a room here's
the meeting he's saying anything that's worthwhile.
Here's the meeting.
Greg Cody goes, we should have a guest this week.
For like 30 minutes.
Christopher, get on it.
Yeah.
It makes, it's like.
Who books the guests, Christopher or Yeti?
Both.
Sometimes I do.
If there was budget cuts and you had to choose one,
Christopher or Yeti in terms of who is more responsible
for the putting out of the Greg Cody show with Greg Cody?
Good question. Who would you choose? That's a tough answer because Christopher is the
second-in-command on air, like he's my Robin to Batman, but Yeti does most of
the producing work, most of the social media work, and stuff like that, so I
need both. So Yeti, which of your top fives did you feel the best
about? Balls, brackets, baskets, or marches? I think all four of them came out
fabulously. The idea for this was Christopher's but my execution was
top-notch and I would not say that if I didn't believe it. Will Lucille
Ball appear in top five balls of all time?
Yeah, you know, she was very important in my life.
I love Lucy.
I mean, Lucy and Ricky, you know, that was ahead of its time.
Ricky, a Cuban guy, speaking in a very thick accent, almost like Poppy, maybe more so, and that was a time in TV when there were very few people
of color or foreign nations on TV.
So that was trailblazing.
Lucille Ball, one of the great women, dynamic women of the entire 20th century, politics,
screen, no matter what the category is, she was just fantastic.
So chances are, I'm hinting that she might have been one of the
One of the final five seems like stronger than a hint
It suggests that if we tune in to the Greg Cody show featuring Greg Cody there will be prominent placement where we would get some
Redundancy on what you just said about your admiration for
Lucille ball you want to reveal one of the baskets now? I feel like we've dipped our toe in each one.
Is it Lucio Ball?
I don't know, the Lucio Ball, I don't wanna give it away.
I wanna get to Billy's tournament here,
which we have not updated, which begins on Thursday,
our March Sadness tournament that involves the fans.
That's something that we must get to at some point today.
But also, I wanted to get to the fact
that Jessica spent an hour recently
just listening to Jeremy.
And that sounds like that could...
Awful?
Well, unless it's a back and forth,
listening, just listening to him talk for an hour,
listening to anybody talk for an hour can get droning.
Yeah, that's true Dan.
So yesterday, Lehman and I got tickets to Unrivaled,
courtesy of DraftKings, it was the final.
So we had to drive all the way to Medley,
which is not a short drive in rush hour traffic.
And Lehman turned on his favorite Knicks podcast,
because the Knicks were playing the Heat last night
at Madison Square Garden.
And we turned it on to the Knicks film school,
I think it's called, and Jeremy was the guest.
And so we turned it on and I was like,
oh, you know, it'll be a short drive.
We'll listen to 20 minutes of this.
Well, no, it was, it took like an hour and a half
to get to Medley, which is like west of Doral.
Like, it's not close.
And so I listened to an entire hour of Jeremy break down
the Miami heat in the car while we sat in traffic
in the baking hot afternoon sun.
Did you love it?
I, you know, I want to do the bit and say,
no, you're annoying, but actually like,
when he's not being interrupted and purposely being annoying,
it was, it was pretty informative, I hate to say.
And how did that play out based on the results?
Because the Heat, Tracy Morgan last night.
Yeah, well, Jeremy actually was 100% correct
in his analysis of when the Heat lose every game.
Jeremy, if you want to jump in here so I don't get it wrong.
It's not that they're starting out the games in their ass
the entire four quarters.
They're actually playing well well and then they sort of
lose the plot in the second quarter
and then get blown out in the third quarter.
That's exactly right.
They start the game hot, starting lineup,
kind of no matter what the starting lineup
has been recently.
Nine nothing.
It gets off to a hot.
Nine zero last night.
It was 12 zero last night.
And they were up, I believe, 27-14.
And then they brought in a certain backup point guard
and things went awry,
and all of a sudden it was 33-31.
And this has been the issue for Miami.
They go up 13, they go up 17,
and they haven't been skilled enough
to end teams early in the game, go up 25 or 30.
They let teams get back into it,
and you have a single digit score at the half,
and then everything goes awry in the second half.
So as an unbiased member of the media,
would you say it's coaching is to blame
or is it roster construction, lack of talent?
Like as someone who's just fairly judging the teams
and their failures, what would you say is the reason
and how do you fix that?
Little bit of column A, little bit of column B,
little bit of column C, everybody's failing right now.
They've lost eight games in a row,
it's the most games in a row
Eric Spolstra's ever lost
as a head coach.
Ever.
No, I'm messing that up.
He sounds broken, he sounds sad.
People are trying, getting tired of the trust process.
Spoh, Jeremy Cortez, you, which, who?
Who's broken and sad?
Spoh, Eric Spolstra sounds broken and sad.
Let's play the sound of Eric Spolstra sounding,
you know, we're pretty annoyed at this point hearing this coach talk with these
words because it doesn't sound as brilliant or entertaining when they're
not in the finals.
That's the thing that we've been trying to, we've been racking our time, our brains,
everything, you know, trying to find solutions for that.
We have not come up with solutions and we've pretty much tried everything.
That's why I say I haven't been able to come up with solutions for that.
This has been one of the biggest challenges
of a regular season that I've been a part of.
And we just have to stay the course.
This is the NBA.
So we'll have another game on Wednesday night.
They have blown more leads than anybody in the league.
They've now tied Utah for most blown double digit leads.
And as Jeremy mentioned,
Eric Spolster has never lost this many games in a row
and he's wearing it.
Yeah, stay the course is sort of an odd thing to say.
Right.
Well, he's just used to saying it.
Like there are certain phrases that he has.
Jeremy, I believe a number of Heat fans
can do a top five of phrases they are done
hearing Eric Spolstra say, but he's so used to saying it
that yes, you need a different course.
Go to a different course, whether it's a path
or whether it's an instruction
that someone's going to teach you. You're in the wrong course. You're in the wrong classroom.
We have enough is one of his hits. They don't right now. No, you don't coach. You don't
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Don LeBataard!
What do I got here?
I got a Magnum condom.
Um...
We won't get that out.
That's shocking!
What?
Stugatz.
Here's a picture of Christopher when he was like three years old.
Right next to the condom?
Yeah.
That's a subtle reminder.
Never forget.
This is the Don Lebatard Show with the Stugatz.
Never forget. This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.
I do give him credit for honesty because you, as you said, you rarely hear any coach at
any level in any sport say something to the effect, I'm out of answers.
We've tried everything and nothing's working.
Well, the last, essentially what he said.
The last two games, They're not really in them
Like whether you start or not, you're losing the games by 20 points to Memphis and New York. That's different
the There were a couple of odd basketball results last night, right?
Denver ends up winning at Golden State sucks for the Warriors, huh? They're terrible
Stinks for Jimmy Butler.
Man, crazy.
They lost a game?
Without Jokic.
What?
This character.
Without Jamal Murray, it's the one that, you know,
gets interrupted around here and isn't allowed to speak
for an hour straight.
Why are you like this?
You are so normal on that podcast.
I'm sorry, everything's tough here.
Jamal Murray doesn't play, Jokic doesn't play,
and then after the game, Kerr says,
of Kerr, we need to get him rest, he's tired.
Kerr, he says, I'm not tired, my back hurts.
And then Kerr says he's been carrying the team for a month.
And then you get the weird result of Indiana
beating Minnesota when everyone is watching Minnesota
and saying, huh, they might be playing recently over the last six weeks like they can climb into
a championship conversation that only has four or five teams in it but
Minnesota loses at home because of course I'll be topping and Indiana I
would love to have Indiana as my team I would love if if I can't have a
championship team,
something that looks or feels like Detroit or Indiana
is something that I would love to be watching,
falling in love with because of,
because they can play in a game like that
on the road against Minnesota and put up 132 points
because they're gonna get their offense against anybody.
What's crazy for Obie Toppin is he had a historic night last night in Pacers
history. Not only did he hit the game winner, but he joined Paul George as the
only Pacers ever to have multiple games in a season with 30 plus points, 10 plus
rebounds and five plus made threes. Like Obie Toppin is having one of the
special Pacers seasons. It's so bizarre.
Maybe Mike tries to sell it now.
Oh, then.
Better time than ever.
Dan, I feel like you could just jump
on the Pacers bandwagon.
Like, no one's gonna judge you for it.
Just.
I feel like I just did.
Just do it.
You, I don't know whether you were jumping
on the unrivaled bandwagon last night,
but was that your first game attending?
Because what you got was a stunner in the final, right?
Like, that's
Nafisa Collier's team the Owls they had only lost one time all season and they
were leading in that game by 20 points that is an inventive experiment by the
way that John Skipper and others are investing in Steph Curry is one of the
investors as a made-for-television event that is allowed to that is created to bolster an economy outside of the
WNBA for women who are complaining about their pay have been right to complain about their pay and now
recent others are mentioning the idea of
You know
Creating a work stoppage in order to make sure they are paid better So this league is a made-for-television event has been what kind of success can we say because in terms of conversation?
They've gotten a lot of conversation and if you don't need fans and are just existing as a tournament
That's meant to be televised because people need programming
This seems like a smart idea with women who are underpaid taking their fame putting the I've heard that they've got these great
Facilities and stuff but there is a little bit of cabin fever because as you said, it's medley
It's not a part of Miami that most that anybody is traveling to for tourism. It's over by the airport
It's a place where my father grew up working in factories There's just not a lot over there except for a number of enormously famous women basketball players
Who are better than most people in the world?
Yeah, so the vinyl upset the owls in the semi-final
So last night was Rose verse vinyl and the Rose one it's Chelsea Grey's team
She was the MVP of the final game
It was a lot of fun like you said it's a made-for-tv event because it's not Gray's team she was the MVP of the final game it was a lot of
fun like you said it's a made-for-tv event because it's not in a huge arena
it's in like a soundstage and there's not I don't know the total seat count
but it's very small but the inner arena atmosphere is actually really fun and
there are tons of fans there it was just a really like entertaining environment
tons of celebrities there Dwayne Wade and Gabby Union were there.
Asia Wilson was there.
Francis Tiaffa was there.
There was a lot of celebrities.
Court side watching the final last night.
So it was really fun.
I think the basketball itself has been really fun to watch
because it's three on three,
but it's not half court three on three.
It's like a condensed like two thirds court.
They have a target score fourth quarter, you know, ending, so every game ends on a buzzer beater or a
game-winning shot, which is really exciting.
The pace of play is really fast because it's three on three, so they're constantly running
the court.
And so it's been really fun to watch.
It's been fun to watch the crossover teammate of like crossover teammate, you know, like teammates that have
never played together before coming together and playing together on a team like this in
this like small setting is cool. So I think fans have really enjoyed it, especially because
usually in the WMB offseason, your favorite players are abroad, you might not get to watch
all their games. And so this has been on TV a couple nights a week and has been easy to
follow and there's like tons of, like tons of engagement coming out of it.
And I think from what I understand,
the players feel like they're getting
like an ownership stake in the league.
So they feel like a sense of ownership over it
and like making it fun for the fans.
And I think you can really tell that like,
this is a fun thing to get people engaged
and get people excited about.
It made me really excited
for the start of the WNBA season. It is easier, obviously, to just take a couple of concentrated
months where you can make some money outside of the season and you don't have to go and run the
risk of ending up in a Russian jail the way Brittany Greiner did because you're trying to get
money overseas because they pay better overseas. But when you say it's a soundstage a warehouse do you feel while
you're in it that it's not quite an arena that the that the fans make it an
arena or the environment makes it an arena but that you might as well be on
the soundstage of a game show no actually they they make it really feel
like it's an arena it's just not you, it's not like 20,000 people.
It's like a thousand people or whatever it is.
But like the, there are some really bad in arena DJs
and entertainment in basketball.
I will not name names, but whoever they have doing
all of the in-game stuff for Unrivaled is very good at it.
So like, it doesn't feel like you're on a TV set at all.
It actually just feels like you're in a small arena. I've
been to a number of college basketball games in the last
year. And this unrivaled in stadium or in arena was much
more lively and exciting and was like a fraction of the number
of people that have been at those games. So I really enjoyed
it. I didn't know what to expect because it is not a lot of
people. And like the farthest seat from the court is I think they said 20 feet away like it's really really close
but the energy is great. I mean three-on-three basketball is is really fun. I enjoyed watching
it during the Olympics this past summer so I was a little bit familiar with like how the pace of
play works but this is not quite the same rules as that. This is more of a full court experience.
So I just really enjoy it.
Like Chelsea Gray is, I think,
like the perfect athlete for this format
because she's so good at like shot creation.
She can shoot from anywhere on the court.
She can pass really well.
And so I think it was very fitting that her team won
and she was the MVP.
Angel Reese was out last night
cause she re-injured her wrist, I believe.
But she was the defensive player of the year and unri re-injured her wrist, I believe, but she was the
defensive player of the year and unrivaled and so that was, you know, she helped that team get to the
you know championship game. So it's a bummer that she wasn't there, but I think, you know,
it just sort of highlights different characteristics of players that maybe don't always come out in
five-on-five basketball and like really shows how different skills are
more important there and like being able to play two ways in three-on-three is super important
because you're constantly hustling back and forth. It's an 18-second shot clock, it's moving really
really fast, you're just running up and down the court like constantly. It's amazing that the league
was this successful after they tried so hard and
and gave the moon offered the moon to Caitlin Clark to play and she's really
the one prominent player who said no thanks but it was a great season anyway
good for the league that the Lunar Owls lost because most of the regular season
it looked like they were gonna waltz to the championship almost uncontested they
were 13 and won the next best record in the regular season
was 7 and 7 they ran away with it and the fact that they lost in the semis was
great but that place seats 850 people and I don't know how they can sustain
that formula because the bigger they get the more popular they get there's going
to be a demand beyond the I will keep saying to you guys that the future of sports doesn't
require uh... fans to be in attendance and it doesn't even require fans to be
watching on television it's just all programming and that
television uh... streamers
need the programming sports is one of the few places where people
tune in at the appointed time. Like, there's so few right now. What are they? Name all of the others.
Like, I know occasionally, Max has on Sunday nights something that everyone's watching, whether
it's Game of Thrones. Actually, you'd be surprised how low the numbers are on something like Succession or something like White Lotus but I don't
even know what I would say. Is it award shows? What in programming, what is
second place to sports on thing that you do not on your time. You go and make sure
that you are there. America goes and make sure it is
at the television when sports or something like sports summons us. It's
no longer, we have moved so far everywhere in America into convenience.
Bezos is basically everything that he is because he's better at convenience than everyone else
So what's second place here on?
Something that all of you feel like you have to watch and be a part of at the time the watch so that you can
Talk about it with your friends as it's happening and you don't feel like you're left behind by it
Jeremy said like maybe award shows fit in that category
because I think like the reason sports are unique
is because you obviously don't wanna know who wins it
like after it happens.
Like if you don't watch it live,
then it gets spoiled for you and other things don't.
So you can watch it on your own time
unless you're listening to this show
and you haven't seen The Righteous Gemstones
or White Lotus yet, in which case it will get spoiled
for you on Monday morning.
Yeah, you spoiled gemstones.
But I think you did.
Because there's a frontal nudity scene?
Yes.
It would have been better if I didn't know it was coming.
But I knew it was coming, and I was like,
there's going to be a penis soon.
And then I saw it, and I was like,
well, I knew that was going to happen.
I was still like, huh, oh my god.
But it would have been different if I didn't know.
Anyways, I think Unrivaled is different, though, Dan,
because it's a limited
It's a limited season. It's not like the full year It's it's very like small and I think it works for what they're trying to create
I think that like if the WNBA went to empty arenas and empty stadiums and no one was watching it like yeah
That would that would matter and it would suck for fans
Like I think the reason that the WNBA has been so exciting the last few years is because they have been packing arenas,
they've been breaking attendance records in various cities.
So I think having fans at the games does still really matter
to the television.
Oh, I agree, no, but it just,
it doesn't matter to the business, that's all.
It doesn't matter all that much to the business.
Well, and when you're talking about trying to get eyeballs
at a specific time, like Netflix is trying this right now.
Last week, they debuted John Mulaney's new show,
Everybody's Live, where they took something
that they did for a week and had people
tuning in every night for one week.
Now I believe this is gonna be a 12 week run
where every Wednesday night they're doing something live
and the way they're producing that show
is such a,
honestly not dissimilar to this,
where it's this high wire act of
are they gonna mess something up?
And watching that live, I find myself,
as someone who knows I could watch it the next day
or the day after, purposefully tuning in live
because I kinda wanna see if they can pull it off,
and that type of programming is interesting, seeing a late night show that is putting themselves purposefully tuning in live because I kind of want to see if they can pull it off and
That type of programming is interesting seeing a late night show that that is putting themselves in the position to not just be clips
I thought something interesting that happened recently because of all the money that netflix is pouring into
Live and the danger of live
I saw that kill tony is now doing a version of its show for Netflix that begins in April and that Killtony's fans are beside themselves with anger about
having to share that with the biggest thing. With that that that they feel that
Killtony will end up getting diluted by whatever they believe, I guess, is the corporate interference of Netflix.
An interference that they're assuming
that I have yet to see play out anywhere with Netflix
in terms of content control.
I found myself actually confused,
even while understanding that when you have
your own little thing, that when you have the indie band and then
Everyone makes the indie band popular. It can be something that first arrivers don't like so much
I found confusing Dan if you like kill Tony watch kill Tony or fear that kill
Tony will be diluted by the Netflix experience because it's something I'm hearing a lot about but I'm not a Kill Tony person.
I've seen clips of it, I don't watch episodes,
but yeah, I mean, I think you're right,
it's just audiences want their thing to be theirs.
It's also oversight, right?
Like, we all saw what happened when Tony Hinchcliffe
got a national microphone
and the way that people reacted to that.
And I would imagine the people watching Kill Tony
who hear those types of jokes all the time
know that when it gets to mainstream and when it gets
to Netflix either some of that stuff around the periphery
is gonna get squashed out in the mainstream
or it's gonna kill Tony.
Okay, so that fear.
What are you doing, Dad?
Wasn't it prevalent for Pat McAfee as well,
and has it to date not been misguided,
that particular fear of, oh, now it's going to become
a corporate thing and change,
but it hasn't actually changed, right?
Like it was-
McAfee's tame in comparison to what we're talking about.
Okay, but not tame for Disney.
No, but he's gotten away with a lot of stuff
that normally wouldn't have happened at Disney,
and then there were also conversations
about Aaron Rodgers and others
that changed because he was there.
At the very least, it becomes a controversy
even if the end result remains the same way, right?
Okay, but whether there's a controversy or not,
has it actually been changed?
Do McAfee fans who feared that Disney would ruin
their thing that curses and behaves differently
and is outside of the mainstream,
that fear to date has been misguided, has it not?
Like, I understand why it is that people
would fear corporate oversight.
I don't understand why anyone would fear Netflix's
corporate oversight.
They have been a leader in terms of allowing comedians
to do whatever the hell comedians wanna do.
They don't interfere.
Yeah, I think that's totally fair.
You're right.
And in that respect, I don't know that anything will change.
I just think that I would imagine most of the people
who have that specific niche audience
that's watching Killtony on a regular basis
are probably looking at any sort of corporation,
any sort of mainstream, anything,
and what it's been for the last decade or so
would mean that some of those jokes
that are made on their show
wouldn't get to a national platform.
I think we've seen a shift.
I think we've seen a shift in what's allowed
and what's prevalent in our modern conversation. So maybe they won't have an issue. I don't know
Kill Tony from Adam. I assume it's a very popular person or thing. So if you're buying, if you're
Netflix buying that, why would you change what you know to be successful if I'm Netflix I'm saying hey kill Tony
Don't not only don't change turn up the volume. I don't think they're saying that I mean why wouldn't they they know what they're buying
Controversies good for business. I would be like let's keep the volume right where you have it
We don't want to change you, but let's not go let's not go louder. I'm just saying right here. It's good for business, right?
Attention attention controversy attention at the moment Let's not go louder. Let's just keep it bright here. I'm just saying, it's good for business, right? Attention?
Attention?
Controversy?
Attention at the moment.
I don't know that there's anything, including currency, more valuable as a currency made
valuable by younger generations that make everything popular and just something that is valuable from everyone from Kill Tony to Elon Musk,
no matter how much money you have,
it appears to me that attention is the currency of the day.
My Zion take, huh?
Ahead of its time.
That has aged so well.
I mean, he's so right.
That was seven years ago.
You guys are like, what are you guys talking about?
Any pub is good pub. Again, not good for Nike. That was seven years ago. You're just like, what are you guys talking about? Any pub is good pub.
Again, not good for Nike.
No, great for Nike.
Everybody was talking about Nike.
That's all that matters.
Not good for Nike to.
Oh, Nike, you're right.
They've been really hurting.
Not good for Nike to have a shoe be something
that could possibly injure the foot of Zion Williamson by not behaving as a competent shoe.
Ha ha ha.