The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Erika Ayers on Barstool & Dave Portnoy, Career Advice, Sports Podcasts

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Colin is joined by Erika Ayers Badan, former CEO of Barstool Sports and author of the new book ‘Nobody Cares About Your Career’. They start by diving into the reasons nobody cares about your career (3:00) and the first changes Erika made when she first arrived at Barstool (5:00). They get into the reasons why starting a business isn’t pretty (9:00) and she gives her definition of success (12:00). Next, they debate the state of sports betting and the podcasting business (18:00) and talk about why it’s so important to be willing to grow (21:30). They discuss the problems with young people not being challenged enough (26:30) and how long you should commit to an enterprise before it returns a profit (33:00). They weigh the downsides of “getting the bag” (36:00) and share their feelings on the state of the economy (40:00) and stories of big swings they took that missed (45:00). They wrap up the discussion by stressing the importance of knowing what your company is paying you to do (50:00) and knowing when to bail on an idea (53:30). Finally, Colin gives his take on Donald Trump being found guilty on 34 felony counts and why the process wasn’t “rigged” (55:00). (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates!  #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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guest from time to time. I DM, but it was totally appropriate. Formerly Erica Nardini now, Erica Ayers-Badon is the first CEO of Barstool Sports, now the CEO of Food 52. She has written a book, Nobody cares about your career, which I laughed at because I watched a stand-up comedian on TikTok a couple of days ago. And he said, you know, that thing about your anxiety, nobody cares because we all have it. You care, your therapist cares. talk to that person. So when you say nobody cares about your career, what do you mean by that? Yeah, I think, so it's always great to see you.

I'm so happy to be here, you're one of my favorites. I think nobody cares about your career is exactly that, which is it's a good reminder that really nobody cares what you do all day. And I think a lot of times people get tripped up in their careers, especially when they're young, of what's everybody else going to think? what will people say if I take this job or I don't succeed at this job or I'm an absolute mess, all of which will be true. And I really thought it was important just coming out of my barstool experience,

coming out of 20 plus years in media and marketing and sports, of, you know, hey, like, nobody really cares what you do all day, so do something that makes you happy. You know, when you first took the barstool job, Dave's a very, driven, very polarizing, but hardworking guy. And I viewed Barstool as a viable brand, a bit of a tornado that kind of needed guidance. It was just kind of flying all over the place. When you got to Barstool, what was the first thing as you kind of take a couple of weeks to kind of get your arms around the girth of it, the size of the company? What was the first thing

you said, okay, this is good, but this we have to course correct? So the first, there was a lot of things like that. I'm like, where to begin? I would say the biggest things were, there was two things that were very distinct at the beginning. One was that Dave wasn't exactly sure who was on the payroll or not. It was a lot of like, there were a lot of guys in Boston with Barstool, JJ. Barstool insert first name here. And they seemed like they worked for Barstool.

They didn't work for Barstool. Dave wasn't clear if they paid them or not. So there was a lot of like, who is this person and do they actually work here? That was, I would say, the first chapter of like, okay, we've got to solve for this. And then the second was, you know, those first couple of years, we had a lot of people who had barstool in their handle that had nothing to do with Barstool. They just liked Barstool. They were fans and they just looked like they worked for us. And then the second was the P&L.

So no one at Barstall had ever seen a P&L, managed a P&L, thought about a P&L. The Barstool P&L had horses on it. It was, you know, it was just this cockamamie assortment of costs. And Dave had run from the beginning of, you know, really profitable business. Like once he got this thing up and running, it was profitable. and it was private, so nobody ever looked at what the costs were. And one of the things when I got there was like, okay, we actually need to get a handle on what the costs are. So those would be the two things.

Yeah. And, you know, sometimes your greatest asset can be your greatest liability. Dave is very strong-willed, obviously. And it's a controversial, maybe that's too strong. It's a polarizing brand to some. I don't think its audience sees it as. that. But you were put in the position multiple times in the first couple of years to defend it. Were you always comfortable with it? I mean, did you have to kind of shift who you were from a

Microsoft and a Yahoo that are more corporate to barstool? Did you find yourself in the first couple of years thinking, man, this is a little bit of a tsunami I haven't faced before. Yeah, yeah, it's like the tiger by the tail. I remember the day I got hired, I was watching the rundown, which was live from Dave's apartment in Manhattan. And they had a guest on. And the guest, it was live, which they rarely did, but I was really pushing them. I had worked for Barstool probably for three months by the time I actually started. Like from the minute I got into the interview process, I was working for Barstall.

But the guest made a bunch of racial slurs. And I remember watching it and watching it live. and just being like, oh my God, like, what am I walking into here? And Barstool was very, you know, much smaller at the time. So the only people that picked it up were local Boston, you know, kind of Boston sports media folks. But it was a very, it made me realize how fast it was and how what a tightrope Barstall was on. And, you know, one of the things that I think really,

the Barstall talent, Dave, Dan, Kevin Clancy, they're very disarming. They seem very affable. They're very charming, you know, to some, maybe not others, but they're wickedly smart. And so to keep up and to tread the line of comedy, it was very difficult. So, you know, there was a lot of that. I was never public. I was, you know, I had worked in startups and at big companies.

Barstool was just very a lot, still is very alive. And that it was real time. It was building a company. real time in the in the public eye um so i worked in Oregon for several years and uh befriended phil night um and i'm a broadcaster but i've always liked business my dad got me into the stock market when i was young my kids my kids have been in it since they were like eight nine years old um and so he had a manifesto an opening manifesto when he started nike um like number one was we are in the business of change.

But number nine is something that I've experienced at the volume, my little podcast digital company. Number nine, and I talked to my staff recently about this, was it won't be pretty. Yeah. And that's something I think as younger people tend to be a tad more fragile and easily offended. I've talked to some people and said, I'm not sure you're a good fit for my kind of. company, I view fragile as a weakness and relentless as the ultimate strength, that we all step in

shit and you've got to get over it fast and don't let one interception become two and one bad day become a week. So at barstool, it's anti-fragile. But there are lines across that. And so was there ever a line for you that you, even with Dave, a strong-willed person that you had to say, you know, because he's a bright guy, obviously. Yeah. But, but, but let's talk about that. That it's not pretty. Starting a business is not, it's not pretty all the time. It's rarely pretty, you know, and I think, I love that line.

And that's really the essence of this book, which is your career is built over a lot of mundane, ugly days with a thousand mess ups. And if you cannot, you know, if you can't fail, you're screwed. And. And, what was brilliant about Barstool was that it was always trying to understand the line. And that's what made it so interesting and also so alive and so captivating to fans, but also so difficult on the business where I always had to have multiple lines of revenue because I didn't know Tuesday afternoon, we could be offending an advertiser, we could have said something that's flaring up in the New York Post.

I never knew what was going to happen. So safety and calm could come from having multiple levers to keep payroll going and the business happening. But I agree. I think the bigger, you know, it's funny, it's cool not to like work now. I think there's something leisure seems more fun than work. And building a company and a brand and a business like the volume or building Barstool is, it's a mission. you're, it's going to be ugly. Everyone's going to screw up.

You're going to yell at people. You're going to get yelled at, you know. So it's, and it's, it's a, it's becoming a smaller and smaller number of people who want to sign up for that, which I think is really unfortunate. Yeah, well, it's fortunate for us boomers who like to work and get great. I love working. I, you know, it's interesting how people view success. For me, in my little world, I view success is the ability. without meddling to create the best creative content I can with a team.

It could be a podcast, television radio. If I have a team, we're being creative, doing the best we can. I thought yesterday I had my best show in six months, and there was nothing going on. Our staff had a really good meeting. That, to me, is success. When, how, and in a company with multiple units and platforms, there's varying degrees of success. Did you have an overarching theme or belief system on what success was for now Food 52 or Barstool? Yeah, it's similar.

I'm like you where success is hard earned and hard fought. And it also can feel it can be quite small. It's a good show. It's a great meeting. It's accomplishing something, getting something done. You know, look, when I got to Barstrel, I just didn't want to get fired. Like my, I was like, I don't know what I've stepped into. Everyone was like, this is going to be your last job because there's no way this is going to work.

But success was it, for us, it was really always about learning. Like, can we do something we don't think we can do? Can we go someplace where we've never been before? Could we invent a way of doing things that hadn't been done? And Food 52 will be, will be the same. It's a startup. It's, you know, how do we create content? How do we showcase stories and products and bring joy to people's homes?

And Barstle's different. It's making people laugh and talking to guys and mostly covering sports and entertainment, but it's really not that different at the core. Yeah. You've got multiple things here in terms of advice, and I wrote some of them down. I'm always a little reticent to give advice. I'll give an opinion. Okay.

But my life, but my life, child of divorce, growing up rurally, kind of a lonely kid, I always feel like, well, nobody had my childhood. So I'm not going to give advice. Yeah. Yeah. But I do have strong opinions on advice. Have you ever, I'll give you the best piece of advice I got. And then I'll ask you for the best and worst. piece. So I was in college and I was broadcasting and I called the Seattle Mariner announcer.

And I said, I want to be a baseball announcer. What should I do? And he said, go to the baseball winter meetings. Peter Ubroff, was commissioner and pass your card out. And sometime over the course of a year, I went to a Mariners game. Dave Nehouse was a legendary broadcaster of the late Dave Nehouse. My, oh, my big, you know, resonant, rich voice. And when I got into the upstairs, I don't know how the hell I talked my way into it, but I got into the Mariners booth. And he grabbed my program and he was just about to do the pregame show. And he was a classic smoker.

He had his rich. He was kind of intimidating. Like a Marlboro man. And he wrote this down in my program. I think this was the best advice. And it was so simple. He said he had one of those Sharpie pens. He goes, if you want to sit here, really want to sit here, you will.

And so he put it all on me. It wasn't about his advice. It was about my willingness. And I always thought, God, that's great advice. What's the best advice, Erica, you've ever received? The best piece of advice I've ever received. I've ever received two pieces of advice. One for my dad, which was, you know, my dad was a philosophy professor.

And his advice. No wonder you're so smart. I don't know. His advice was always the best control is no control, which paid out handsomely in my barstall time, I will say, but that you shouldn't try to hold anything so tight. Like you've got to let things, you have to move with things and you have to watch how things move. And then the other piece of advice was just to work your ass off in your 20s, that you will

never regret just doing any job humanly possible in your 20s, learning as much as you can, doing as much as you can, working as much as you can. God, that's great advice. It's just good advice. Nothing to lose. Well, you generally don't have kids. You don't have a lot to lose. You have tons of energy. I mean, in my 20s, I could drink back-to-back-to-back nights. Show up Thursday. Ready to go. Ready to go. And then like start it up again Friday night. Now you're like, Erica Ayers, Badan joining us. So when, so any, in my business, this is almost me asking for your opinion. I kind of feel like we're in the fifth inning of sports betting is that the easy money,

the handout money is gone. You have to earn it now. You have to have a following. People have made their big bets on personalities and companies, but there's, it's, still we have many states, California eventually, that will have legalized sports gambling. And I think podcasting similarly isn't about in the fifth or sixth inning. I still think there's tremendous growth, but people have made their bets, and we'll continue to. Am I wrong?

Do you think I'm, I think we're middle innings to middle to sixth inning on both sports betting and podcasting. What say you? I agree. I think sports betting, there was such high. at the beginning, right? The Paspa repealed and the frenzy and the energy and the delusion that the Tam, which would be the total addressable market, was infinite, right? Like, every state is going to legalize. There's going to be millions and millions and millions of sports betters.

They're going to spend all of their disposable income betting. A lot of that proved to be false. And, you know, what I think you're also seeing in sports betting is it became very quickly an arms race between really two big players, maybe three on the outside, but two. And it became increasingly prohibitive to play. And the business itself isn't that great. I think the big sober, you know, sports betting has has sobered because it's it's quite an ugly business if you cannot take that customer and convert them into something else. So I'm with you. I think that you'll see in Betting, you know, Texas, California, you see bigger states roll out. There'll be a mini, a mini hype. I think affecting both sports betting and podcasting, though, is a bigger trend,

which is it's impossible to break out talent now. You, you know, if you look in music, when's the last time that you, that an unknown star out of nowhere became huge on the pop charts. Like, it's not happening anymore. Same out of TikTok and YouTube and Instagram. Like, you're not seeing the come-ups of stars the way the way you did two years ago, four years ago, five years ago. You know, one of the things that made Barstool so powerful was we had built enough scale so that we could launch our own stars inside of Barstall. And you will do the same. But unless you have that platform, unless you have that lily pad to launch from, it's becoming very hard to get talent.

And so I think that will affect both the sports betting business, obviously, but certainly the podcasting business. Yeah, it's, it was a double-edged sword when FS1 lost Shannon Sharp. It definitely really punctured my network or our network. Yeah. But I remember telling my staff, we're going to do whatever it takes to find the money to pay Shannon Sharp. And we created a show Nightcap with Ocho, Gilbert Arenas and Shannon.

And it's been good for everybody. He wins, we win. But I remember, I remember telling people like Logan Swain that this just doesn't happen. This is basically Matt Stafford on the market and the Rams get him. Like, you just do whatever it take. Jim Harbaugh is on the market. Yeah, you've got to get him. Hired him to be your coach.

Yeah. Right. And we did, I was literally, I was literally like, do I have to buy him a range rover? do I have to do. What do I got to do? I didn't know. I'm like, he's a Hall of Famer. What do I do? How do I get him? And then I didn't want to intrude on his life, so I had to wait like three weeks before I, you know, I made an offer. Yeah, I don't want to be weird guy jumping in. He worked for my company, our company. In Chapter 6 of your book, and the book, again, nobody cares about your career. And I strongly, just so many little lessons in

here. In chapter six, I'll start the sentence and you can finish it, but it's an interesting chapter. If you're not willing to grow, tell people what that's about. Oh, so I think you're wasting everybody's time and mostly your own. And what I really have come to believe about work, and I'm more like you, Colin, which is, I don't think anyone should really follow my advice. I wouldn't necessarily follow my advice, but I do have a lot of opinion and I've spent a lot of hours. doing this. But I think work is tuition you get paid for. So, you know, when you sat in the Mariners box and, you know, a luminary said it's up to you to fill the seat, work is tuition. It's you are getting paid to learn. You're getting paid to be smarter. You're getting paid to do the

reps. You're getting paid to work out. And I think that kind of mindset is very important to being fulfilled at work and happy at work. I'm very fulfilled at work if I'm busy and I'm learning and I'm doing things. I'm fixing things. I'm jumping in things. If everything is great and easy sailing and you're coasting and it's, you know, it's predictable, that's when I get nervous. And I think that mindset of being willing to put yourself out there to fail and try things as much as you can is ultimately what gets people the opportunity for that dream job or that dream moment or that dream experience because you have built yourself into a new person who is ready for that and capable of it. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that

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Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay and I'm Alex English Each episode we pick it here

unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill Waxing all about crack in the 80s To be clear 84 was big to me not just because of crack I'm down to talk about crack all day But just so y'all know I mean at this point Mark this is the second episode where we've discussed crack so I'm starting to see that there's a through line

We also have AIDS on the table right now So Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You know, it's funny. My sister and I talk about this, that we had a British mother and a successful optometrist, small-town optometrist dad, who later in life was an alcoholic, but never, he was like a happy drinker. He went to work. He was sober. He was never cruel, mean-spirited. So I didn't have any of that kind of stuff. But I've said to my sister, we lived in the same house, I said, you know, I like to sort of, you know, it's probably some psychological term.

I'll project when I talk to people about my child and how rough it was. And oh, boy, small town. And then I think to myself, my stepdad was my little league coach. My mom was British and really funny and had a British accent and just saw the world differently. My dad was really a bright guy, like had these little nuggets of wisdom. But the one thing my parents gave me is they didn't helicopter. Maybe they were, my mom was huggy, kissy. Dad wasn't.

Most dads weren't. And that I was allowed to fuck up a lot. And my mom, my mom grounded me one summer. You know, I started a small fire that was not great near the house. So, but one of the things I see is that I think parents think they're doing a great job. They're calling on their kids behalf. They're getting them internships. They go to prep schools.

Yeah. And I got to tell you, it creates this sort of personality where you just. things are easy. It's like, and there's just something about being allowed to mess up. And you're, and I've told my kids before, you know, my kids are really good students. And I'm like, they'll ask questions. And I'm like, you figure it out. Yeah, exactly.

It's not my paper. And I don't, I'm not harsh on my kids if they get a, you know, they struggled in a class. But when you were hiring a lot of people, um, at the bar at bar stool and it's something at the volume we've really we really vet who we hire definitely like we really vet and and still you know sometimes you miss but the average person you were hiring you were you impressed were you disappointed um was it what you expected talk about and now that at food 52 talk about the process of what you're seeing bill mar complains that all of his young writers see the world the exact same way and he doesn't want that yeah yeah yeah

I think, you know, I think one thing we did well at Barstool was we just hired, it was misfits. You know, it was, we hired young and we hired out of college and we mostly our best hires had worked for Barstool for four years being interns for us on, you know, doing the Viceroy program, which is the college program. But I would see the kids roll in from the prep school. or the big, you know, the nice college and they were, A, were boring. And B, they were vanilla and kind of uninteresting. And it was all, we always hired the kids and the people who I like now, and always frankly have liked are, you know, it's the, it's the guy who's editing basketball trick shots in its bedroom instead of going out and like, you know, drinking 4,000 high noons. You know, it's not, it's not the popular.

kids. It's not the kids who did everything, right? It's the kid who had something they were interested in and worked really hard at it. And I think resilience, you know, I think there's two things. I think kids right now are very, very rarely bored because they mostly have phones, which just placate them. And two, they are, they are helicoptered. You know, it's funny. I remember interviewing a guy once, and he was like, hey, look, if I'm to take to take this job, I really need you to talk to my mom. and I was like, bro, like, you know, like, sure, I'll talk to your mom, but like, if you need your mom's approval to do this job or you're, or somehow I'm beholden to your mother because you work like, I was like, forget it. I've had people be like, I need you to talk to my wife. And I also

was like, I don't love that either. So I think people are codependent in weird ways and people aren't able to think independently. And you know this. If you're in a startup or you're in the heat of the moment or whether you work in something glamorous like content or radio or sports or, you know, whatnot, or you work at like a computer company, you got to be able to make decisions. You have to be able to work under pressure. You have to be able to mess up and be like, oh shit, I fucked up. I got to fix this. And if you can't do that when you're young, you're kind of screwed by the time you're 50 because then you, what do you know? What have you learned? What have you done? I cannot imagine. First of all, I wouldn't hire somebody who said you got to talk to my mom.

100%. And the reason I wouldn't is because your judgment is so poor. When that came out of your mouth, you thought that was a sales pitch. Like, for fuck's sake, what are you saying? Like, you should literally say you have to talk to my mom about. Her casserole. It's the best casserole. You love casserole. God, you got to stop that sentence right there. You know, it's interesting. I saw something, you know, browsing the internet.

And I do think there's really a lot of smart people. I've hired people off, you know, X. I called you one time for advice, and I said, should the volume, should I be on TikTok? I said, I don't know how to monetize it. And do you remember the advice you gave me? I probably said, like, get on TikTok, who cares about the monetization? That's exactly what you said. You said, get on it, build an audience, you'll figure out the monetization later. And that's an interesting part because when you're at Barstool or now the CEO of Food 52, How long are you willing to commit to something before you see profits or at least reasonable monetization?

Oh, if I see audience growth forever. I am a highly impatient person. But if you put talent on a platform or create content for a platform and it gets traction, you've got to let The longer you do that, the more you let that marinate, the further you explore with it, I will wait weeks, months, I would wait years. Because the reality is if you, the more audience you grow and if you find you've got to first, you know, first you have to have something to say, right? And then you've got to find people who actually want to listen to you and care what you

have to say. And then you want them to play with you, right? you want to engage with them. And then you want them to advocate for you. And maybe then you start not just saying one thing, you're saying three things or doing three things. The longer you wait to monetize that and ask them to do something for you in return, which is to buy a product or support a sponsor, it creates this pent up demand that is really,

really palpable. You know, if you look at Dave's the best at this. If you look at Miss Peaches, Miss Peaches is arguably the biggest personality of Arsenal sports right now. Do you know Miss Peaches? Oh, sure, the dog. Yeah, the dog. So. Who eats his remote and stuff.

Yes, exactly. But there were a lot of companies, I imagine, who were like, oh, Dave, like, pimp our dog food. And Dave, like, you know, support this, support that. And he held. And the hold is that pause, that hold before you monitor. is not lost time. It's actually a huge advantage. And that's how I think about platforms. If you can grow, it's like having a baby. You know what I mean? You're just like really pregnant and then you have the baby. Like growing audience and waiting to monetize is a very powerful tool that most people don't have the stamina to wait for.

Yeah, we didn't at the volume take any, you know, VC money. We, it's, it's, we just, I just said, I won't. We bootstrapped it. Yeah, we bootstrapped it. And I don't necessarily know. I'm not a control freak. I like to pass the ball. I've got really smart people. What is the value?

You don't get the big payoff. What is the value? Because whether I sell it or not, I think I want the control to make sure I don't feel responsible necessarily for. Fox Sports employees or I heart employees. I feel incredibly responsible for volume employees. I lose sleep. Yeah. They're your people. They're my people. They're my army. And so, you know, it's, it's, and I'm being selfishly, I'm asking this. And I've thought about this before because people say, oh, you're just, you built it to sell it. And I'm like, no, I didn't really. I would, I would consider a really cool partnership. But, you know, Obviously, Dave at some point, could have didn't. Now, Dave was different. Dave bootstrapped it for a decade before he made the money.

A long. People don't know. Dave was out there making nothing forever. Twelve years. Of nothing. Just hustling. Just love. I get that.

What is the downside, I guess, to the bag, to selling it big? The bag has huge downside. And I think you're right. I think you're building something. Look, if you, Colin, wanted to be like, I want the highest ROI on my dollar invested. You would not probably create a media company. You would put it in the stock market or buy a piece of art or do something. So this is a labor of love, I think, and that's partly what makes it important. I think. The bag is tough because the bag, when you sell out for the bag, unless you have a huge motor to keep going and you have a big reason now that you're richer and, you know, more comfortable than ever before, if you, you have to find, that's an obstacle to overcome with fans. And I think a lot of times when people get the bag, they become a little lazy. Like, you get better taste. You want to travel. second house. Like you're not hungry to go build the mission, continue on the journey. Like there's something to being hungry. You know, the best years at Barstool, I think people would

say were probably the earliest years. And then they were the beginning of my years. Because it was such a grind, we, you know, we didn't know if we would make it. We still had so much road to climb. The best years were not after the Penn acquisition. So I think getting the bag also comes with responsibilities and changes things. And that's hard for a mission-driven, passion-driven brand. Yeah. My favorite part of the Barstool story is my least favorite part of traveling, which is turbulence. So I love, I hate it on planes, and I love it when I read the Phil Knight book, by the way, people have no idea how close. They were out of money multiple times. All the time. All the time.

So when you entered Microsoft, what years were those? Oh my gosh. That was like early 2000s, like 2001. Okay. So they were established, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Barmer. Big time. But what were the challenges of being, now Apple was a rival, but what were the challenges of a company where everybody was at least stock wealthy?

Yes. I mean, what you find, I think, is you become more bureaucratic. You become more inwardly focused. The problems become turf wars inside of a company or which group is going to get. I mean, I worked for a group that lost, I think, $500 million a quarter. And we traveled first class all around the world, like, nobody cared. And but it was a lot of politics. And I think those are, I think that's what you trade. You trade politics and posturing and bureaucracy. That comes with cash. When you're hungry and you're on the jump and you're on the come up, it's so satisfying because it's all new and it's all fulfilling. Yeah, there's the old axiom.

It's a truism, actually, is that in wartime, comfort food sales skyrocket in America and in peacetime, bungee jumping, skydiving, adventure sales go up. People, right, your problems are different. Your fun is different based on your economic set. Yes. For the record, there is some argument in America. I don't think the economy's great, but I also don't think it's in a free fall. I mean, if it was, then volume wouldn't be growing at the rate.

It's growing. Your CEO of Food, 52. I often mention that I get on planes, there's no empty seats, and these are not rich people. I don't fly a lot of private, if at all. Hotels, try to book them. They're busy. You tell me, as a CEO of Food 52, how is your economy? What do you see? I see that people are spending.

You know, I think there's angst. I think there's, like, low-level angst. You look at the housing market and the interest rates, like, that, you know, houses aren't moving, which is actually kind of interesting for the food 52 business, because if you don't have a new house, you don't need so much stuff. You're not redecorating. You're not setting new tables, all that kind of stuff. So in my economy, that's an interesting factor that I'm watching. But by and large, people are spending. Americans are great consumers. And that, you know, Americans like things. They want new things. They want to entertain. They want a t-shirt.

They want better cookware, like the consumption. Americans like to buy things and to consume, and I think we'll always like that. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions,

my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that

not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told,

and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English.

Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. So,

I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, one of the lessons we learned early, and it was hard because we looked at Barstool and we watched the ringer and a lot of different companies. And one of the things very early, I said, is there are things Barstool does well that we never will.

I said, I'm not into selling merch. If we could sell some hoodies, but that's a merch company. I said, we're not. Yeah. And we fooled around with it. And I said, guys, it's just not what we do. Yeah. There's things that I think the writing arm of the ringer.

I'm like, I don't have the passion for writing. Yeah, it's not my bag. so but I love doing live stuff and YouTube stuff and gambling stuff and that's what we did well. But it's, are there things, somebody once gave me advice, double down on stuff that works and bail immediately if something doesn't. Don't fall in love with your ideas, fall in love with people. Is there anything you did at Barstool that just didn't work? And you're like, okay, bad instincts. Yeah, a thousand things. I think you're right. So, you know, Barstool thinks in T-shirts. That's how people signal their part of whatever brand.

And what we did well was we grew, you know, grew 90 brands in my time there. And, you know, 20 of them were pretty successful. But because we thought in T-shirts, everybody thought in T-shirts and we showed T-shirts the same way we, you know, pimped out podcast. But there was a lot that we failed on. One thing that we failed on was we built this really stupid subscription. product called gold because at the time, and this is also like, I think, a cautionary tale of having an investor is, you know, the Terenin guys, and I love the Ternan guys, but they were like, hey, at some point, somebody's going to need to buy you. So you need to hustle up and figure out,

like, who's that going to be? And until PASBover's repealed, it always looked like it would be a media company. Now, it was very obviously not going to be a media company, but media companies wanted subscribers, right? Everyone's moving to the race to. subscribers and the race to streaming. So why athletics sold to the New York Times. Exactly. So we built a subscription product, but the barstool guys and girls are such, you know, they're horrors for attention. And I say that in the best way possible. The idea of putting something only behind a paywall was, it was against the religion.

And it was so stupid. And we built great tech. We built, you know, know, a seamless way to do it. Stoolies to their credit bought it. But it was a really, it was forced. You know, you know when you feel like you're doing something wrong and like your heart's not in and you know isn't working, that was one of those things. We launched a grooming product called wood, which, you know, I still think was, you know, kind of an interesting concept. We've partnered with a company. We made a line of grooming products. But there wasn't a talent or personality behind it. and no one felt like it was their own, so it became nobody's and it was a failure. So we had things like that littered all over the Barstool Road.

You know, it's interesting the paywall. I've been, again, kind of reluctant to go there, but I have Sirius and Netflix and Apple TV and Amazon Prime and I buy UFC. Is it inevitable? I mean, is it just, I say to myself, I don't want to go behind a paywall. But frankly, I'm behind eight of them. I pay for eight of them, nine of them. Where are you on the paywall? I don't, I, I don't love a paywall.

Neither do I. I get the paywall. I get it. My friend Barry Weiss created an amazing, you know, she created the free press. She created an amazing paywall business, which is news. But it's not, I don't love it. I'm more interested in how many people can you entertain or how many people could you talk to? And the idea of only talking to a certain group, I think, one, I think it's kind of problematic for society where everybody's just in their own little echo chamber.

And two, I think it's, for me, it's less interesting and that probably is wrong from a business perspective. but I think broadcast is interesting. You know, I didn't like when the MLS went to Apple because my takeaway is they lost casualties. Yes. And that what happens is you only get a tribal following. Yeah. And I don't want just a tribal following. I like pushback.

I like, I like, I want to hear from my haters. I want to, I don't want to go and just be comforted with all my opinions. I like to know, I say my audience drives the bus. They tell me where to go. I don't form my opinion on them, but I pick my topics based on my audience, what they're interested in. And so I am a believer that if when MLS went to Apple TV, now I still watch it because I have Apple TV for a lot of things, the Patriots Dynasty.

But that's an example where I think you lose casuals and I like casuals. I want to, there's, there was a chapter on this book that you talked about, know what your company's paying you to do. Yes. And I, I think it's the downfall of Belichick in New England is that Bill always said, do your job. And then he got successful and the rings. And he started doing the general manager's job and the coaching job. And he's a lousy, he's a lousy GM. And, and I want to talk to talk about that, know what your company is paying you to do.

Yeah, I think, look, I say it in the book, which is the stupidest person at your company is the person who doesn't understand how your company makes money. And that may sound harsh, but I think it's true. Like, if you do not understand how your company makes money, who your company's customer is, if your company is making money, then you really have to be wondering, like, what are you doing all day? And the reason I think this is important is there's people get really whiplashed with layoffs and reorgs and job changes and retitling. And the reality is if you don't understand what your company is paying you to do in the context of what your company does at large, you're probably not on a great path. And it's, you know, to the Belichick check example, you know, when people aren't clear on what their job is or their ambition is for two jobs when they're really getting paid for one and the second is more interesting, you make yourself vulnerable. You know, Jeff Zucker always had this like really great quote, which is like, don't give your company the gun that shoots you. And I always liked that.

I think that's a great quote, which is don't give your company a gun to shoot you. and beyond like a sex scandal or whatever, like cause, the way your company is going to shoot you is if you're not doing your job. And I think that's sometimes work, you know, you get lost in the Mondays and the Tuesdays and this and that and this project and that deadline and whatever. And you lose sight of like, why did they hire you in the first place? And I think it's just good to keep a firm hold on that. Yeah. So when I started the Voltaxie, You know, it's like Jerry Seinfeld used to joke about his show. He goes, I'm the world's worst actor. That was my show number one. So I like business, but I didn't go to Pan or Wharton, and I don't know business. But I only had a couple of things that I was really strident on. One of the things I would say to my people, and I would say, let's not worry about being right. Let's get it right.

So I don't give a shit about your ideas. If they work great, if they don't, they're done. Yeah. Just I don't keep score. Yeah. And I said, let's find what works. Do that. Yeah.

Don't be loyal. Don't be loyal to your idea. Now, it sounds smart, but give me an example. What is the line on bailing? Have you ever had an idea that you're absolutely sure works and you stay with it too long? Oh, yeah. I mean, so much. I had a startup before Barstool that was a brilliant idea.

It was a social network for Justin Bieber and 40 other music artists. It was going to compete with Facebook and, you know, Instagram and Google. And it was a good idea. It did not work. And you can only put your head in the sand so long where you're like, hmm, this isn't working. I worked for another startup in the fashion space. really interesting concept, which was, hey, Vogue and the idea of one editor-in-chief and one way of

saying fashion is is dead. It's going to be very democratized. The company was pre-social, so it never had any distribution. It didn't work. So I stayed in a lot of things, I think, too long. I think what's hard is kind of manifest in two ways. You either put your head in the sand and you're like, I don't want to know, I don't want to see, I don't want to know. I love, you know, I love my idea. I love this. I love the image of this thing. Or the second is like everybody plays like sixth grade soccer or fourth grade soccer where

like everybody's glommed on to the ball and it's such a pack that like you don't know who's kicking it. You don't know who's receiving it. You can't tell who's good or not. And I think that happens a lot, which masks both success and failure. All right. The book is nobody cares about your career. Erica, you know how highly I think of you, and you did not have to spend 30 minutes of your day. I'm so happy to. For the record, and I'm not flirting because I'm happily married, but you have the best hair

of anybody I've ever interviewed my entire life. It's so dirty. I'm like, oh, this should have like zudged up for you. Now, you're a rock star. Hey, thanks for doing this a thousand times over. Well, I have to talk about Trump. I've said this. I've said this. this for a long time. I've always considered myself sort of a left-leaning independent. I'm kind of a conservative on fiscal issues. More of a private liberal. I don't know. I don't think pro-gay marriage is liberal. I don't think pro-pot is liberal. I think those are moderate stances today, but I was in, you know, supportive of those 25 years ago. So I kind of consider myself a moderate that if I am up in the air on something fiscally, I'd go conservative, socially, I'd go

left. But, you know, I've said this about Trump before. He's trying to sell me in America that doesn't exist. Like, I'm 60. I don't remember anything before like six or seven years old. But for the last 53 years of my life, outside of the pandemic year, I've loved America. I've lived everywhere. Tampa, Vegas. I've been kind of poor, middle class. Now I'm better off than most. But he's trying to sell me this America stinks. And I just don't see it. I live in a nice neighborhood in L.A. It's not a top six or seven neighborhood in L.A. It's not a Beverly Hills, a Malibu, a Brentwood, a Bel Air, Hancock Park. It's not like one of those swanky neighborhoods. But I don't see crime. I'm not stumbling over homeless people. I see happy people. Dodger Stadium's full. Leads major league baseball in attendance. Laker games are full. NFL games are full. People, they have money in their pocket. L.A.X is packed. I just saw record airline revenue over the weekend. I'm constantly being sold. in America by Donald Trump, crime rates are skyrocketing. No, they're actually not. Starting in 2023, they have plummeted coast to coast over 200 cities. Violent crime rates are down.

I mean, Los Angeles and some cities may tick up in certain areas. But it's in America. He's selling me. It would be like watching your football team and they play well and win, and your neighbor says they're playing terribly and keep losing. No, they're winning and they're not playing terribly. Like, you can't keep selling me on how bad the country I live in is because it's not bad for me or my friends. I have a friend that's a stay-at-home dad. He's not rich. I have friends who work part-time, starting up businesses, who have worked at the same place forever. I have middle-class friends. They're not complaining about their life constantly, and I don't know what they are politically. I really don't. I don't talk about politics with my friends. I talk about my wife.

I talk about sports. I talk about, you know, we talk about guy stuff. I'm not somebody that is, if you don't have policies that I connect with and you're always grouching and bitching about the other side, I'm not really interested in you. You know, Trump once tried to sell a vodka and acknowledges he never drank ever. He's never really drank alcohol, but he tried to sell a vodka. So I've thought for a long time he's just kind of a con artist. But I was sitting there thinking this morning that if, let's say I got busted for some really bad crime in court, a drug crime. And my wife did too in a separate case. And then so did one of my kids. my manager, my agent, and my attorney. It would be reasonable to conclude that I'm shady and involved in a business that's not terribly legal.

Well, Donald Trump is now a felon. His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager. His personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his national security advisor, his trade advisor, his foreign policy advisor, his campaign fixture and his company CFO. They're all felons. judged by the company you keep. It's a cabal of convicts. It's not that I'm not willing to vote for conservatives. I said I would have voted for Mitt Romney. Seemed like a decent family man. Now, he looks like he's the publisher of yachting weekly, so he's not terribly relatable as a big money guy. But I'm not somebody that I liked the second Bush, Bush senior son. I liked him. I thought he was a decent American, a decent human. I guess he's got some artistic quality now. He paints a lot. I liked his wife, Laura Bush. I thought they were decent people. I like the

Obamas. I didn't understand the outrage. Good family. It seemed like nice people. But if everybody in your social circle is a felon, I don't think it's rigged. I don't think the world's against you. And to get people to agree on anything, 34 counts, 0 for 34, I mean, that's a batting slump. Even the New York Mets could be impressed with. O for 34. So when you're constantly trying to sell me on an America that I don't see, I'm not saying inflation is not an issue, but I get on airplanes all the time. And it's not a bunch of rich people. I don't fly private. I couldn't tell you the last time.

I fly private maybe every couple of years. It'll be a family thing. We're trying to get everybody in the same flight. But not very often. I don't live in a fancy neighborhood. I get on planes. There's people in normal clothes. Don't look rich to me.

And the planes are all full. and the hotels are all full, and the freeways are all full. That means people are going to work. You're trying to sell me on this story and this narrative that's just not true. Well, Colin, you're out of touch. Out of touch to what? I have single people that live next to me, young families that live next to me. People aren't grousing. They're not miserable all day. Now, they're not talking politics, but, you know, Trump's entire game plan is the country isn't a free fall. Maybe in the Trump-centric neighborhoods it is, it's not anywhere for my sister who lives Ruraly, didn't have a lot of crime in her neighborhood.

I don't. My friends don't. We live all over Los Angeles. In one of those big scary cities that voted for liberals. Oh, scary. I don't know. Everybody was saying hung jury. I didn't know.

But when everybody in your team, everybody in your group, your group, your Cabal is a felon. Maybe the world's not against you. I mean, it is New York City. It is New York City. I get it. They're going to appeal. Maybe it'll drive up his fundraising. But stop trying to sell me on everything's rigged. The country's falling into the sea. The economy's terrible. The economy's okay. It's not like on fire. But get on a plane. Find all the empty seats. I don't see them. Those aren't cheap. Either hotel rooms over Memorial Weekend. I like living in Portland. I like growing up on the coast of Washington. I like living in L.A. I have a place in Chicago. I love it. I have really good friends and go regularly to Rhode Island. I love that. Maybe some of you are just unhappy. Maybe you're only happy when you're unhappy. But the America that I live in is imperfect, but compared to the rest of the world. world, I think we're doing okay. And if you're not, is it possible? Just possible. I'm not even saying probable. Is it possible if your life has just been miserable for the last four years?

It's not exclusively the fault of somebody in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Maybe it's not all their fault. Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, take a moment, rate and review. Hey, everyone, it's Jason Tip, host of Hoops Tonight. Make sure you check us out live after games on the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel as we provide instant reaction and analysis of all the big NBA playoff games. Again, that's the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel and wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter Streeter. Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast.

In 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year.

It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman.

Human documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.