The Josh Innes Show - How The NBA Can Fix Tanking

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Well, the obvious answer for the NBA's tanking problem is relegation. But, that will never happen. The tanking talk leads to a big picture discussion of issues with sports. Where has my love for sports gone? Why do I seemingly hate sports? Do other people feel this same thing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, let's see here. reads NBA looking into new ways to prevent teams from tanking NBA looking into new ways to prevent teams from tanking. Boy, this sounds like something

that we need to get into here, right? Let's do this. Let's just get the commercials out of the way right out of the shoot, and then we will get into it. All right, let's see here. Here's an idea. Source is NBA looking into new ways to prevent teams from tanking. I don't know. Let's go all madmen with it. That's what the

money's for. There, I think we solved it. That's what the money's for. I don't understand why this is so difficult. Why is it so difficult to get professional athletes who make millions of dollars to try? How is it this difficult to get franchises to not sit a bunch of losers or play a bunch of losers and lose on purpose. Like, how is it? How is it that difficult to get rich dudes to do their job? Now, of course, it's one of those things where, and I'm fully aware of this,

that I live in some sort of weird idealistic world, and I get that these guys are rich, and I get that they don't have to play every game, and no one's forcing them to do it. And big picture, they don't give a fuck about the people who are buying tickets. They don't care. These guys do not care.

This is a generation of people who do not give a shit. None of them do. They don't care. And by the way, the team owners don't care about you. Like this is, you know, the bigger picture story here is it's not about like, you know, about NBA players, you know, not wanting to play. It's a bigger picture. The bigger picture is across all sports.

And that bigger picture is that these people don't give a shit about the people who buy the tickets. How do I know they don't give a shit about the tickets? or why do you think they don't give a shit about the people? They don't give a shit about the people because they don't have to give a shit about the people because we are in an era where these people just assume that these leagues will exist forever. They think there is no way that one day

there will not be an NBA or an NFL or a major league baseball. And maybe we'll never come to that. Maybe there will never be a time that these leagues fold. Maybe they're just too big to fold, right? But hear me out. hear me out when I say that there are too many athletes and too many current players who think that these things are just ordained by God they are of the belief that it's just like a God-given thing to be in the NBA

it's just understood that there will be an NBA they don't realize that there's still an economic factor in the NBA or in the Major League Baseball or in the NFL right what is that factor you need consumers the only way you have consumers is if you give them a product that they want to watch. The only way that ABC, NBC, CBS, ESP, and Fox will pay billions of dollars for rights fees is because people need to watch it. What happens here, and I understand that this is kind of a Pollyanna, idealistic way of looking at things, but too often these leagues and these teams take the audience for granted. They do not operate in a world where these people matter.

They do not operate in a world where the consumer is important. We have lost sight of what's important here. What's important is your consumer, but you don't care about the consumer because you take the consumer for granted because people are obsessed with sports and people watch because of gambling

and people watch because of fantasy football, people watch because they've always watched, people are addicted to this shit. So what you do is you take people for granted and you take the consumer for granted. And when you take the consumer for granted, it will be the death of you. And it may not happen in five years, 10 years, 15 years. But there will come a point where the longer and the more consistently you take your consumer for granted,

at some point the consumer's just not going to give a fuck anymore. And that's what you get whenever you've got guys who sit out 10, 12, 13 games and you tank and you give load management and all that shit. Look at New Orleans. New Orleans is a phenomenal sports town. phenomenal. Great town, great town to visit, great vibes, great food, great music, passionate sports fans. Now, if the team sucks, they ain't going to go. That's most places. That's a myth when people tell you that even when the team is bad, we go. There's not a city on the fucking planet

where that happens. Not the most passionate sports city in the country, not Philadelphia. Trust me, I lived in Philly when the teams were garbage. You know where people didn't go to the games, Sixers games, baseball games. They didn't fucking go. So lose me with that kind of shit. But if you look around sports, look at New Orleans. The pelicans are abysmal. They are a joke of a franchise. They're 8 and 22. They are unwatchable. The owner is a clown. And no one goes to the games. They'll have entire sections of people open. So what ends up happening is we look at New Orleans and we say, well, they can't sustain having teams. They're too small of a city.

That's what the NFL and the NBA and all these people want you to believe. They want to tell you that these small markets can't survive. What they don't tell you is the truth. The small markets can survive. The problem is you don't want them to survive because you don't want them in those markets. So you're fine with these teams tanking and then everybody wants to point the finger and say, well, they can't support these teams. Yeah, they can.

New Orleans can support basketball, it can support football, Kansas City can support these teams, St. Louis, St. Louis could support the NFL. The idea that St. Louis couldn't support the NFL is a joke and they were set up by the NFL and Stan Cronky. It was a long play and they got butt-fucked, okay? St. Louis can support the NFL and would be supporting the NFL right now. But it was a long play of a decade of shitty football combined with an owner who fucking led people along and the whole time was waiting to move the team. because it was more money for him in L.A. All of these markets, I'd bring up cities like St. Louis and Nashville, which Nashville is not a fair comparison because Nashville's like a boom town right now. But like these places can all survive. The problem is you take your audience for granted. And that's what we go back to with the idea of tanking. That's what we go back to with the idea of load management.

You take the audience for granted. And then what ends up happening is your consumer gets bored with your bullshit and stops going. Then you blame them for not going. it's always the fan's fault it's never the team's fault it's never the ownership's fault it's never the general manager's fault it's never the league's fault it's always the fault of the people who don't want to spend their extra disposable income to watch your shitty product because you are doing a bad job of putting a product on the field or on the court that's watchable yet you blame them it's always the fans who get blamed and it's always the fans who get punished and that's what ends up happening in situations like this it's total and complete bullshit So NBA looking into new ways to prevent teams from tanking. I don't know. That's what the money's for. I know it's idealistic.

I know it's Pauliana. You are paid millions of dollars. Play the fucking game. Get on the court. Play. You want to prevent teams from tanking and load management? And this will never happen, obviously. But let's make it difficult.

Let's treat these guys like hourly employees. Not salaried employees hourly employees. hourly employees, game by game employees. If you play, you fucking get paid. If you don't, you don't get paid. That'll never happen. But it should. Why not? Fuck it. These players and the leagues do not care about fans. And they take you for granted because they assume you're going to be there forever. They assume there will always be an NFL, always be an NBA, always be a major League Baseball, always be in NHL. There's no guarantee that that will

exist forever. Because eventually fans are going to start getting bored. Real talk? Fewer and fewer fans are consuming sport for love of the sport or love of the team. More people are watching sports for fantasy football gambling now. That's me. I know that I'm bitter and jaded

and cynical. And maybe it's because all my teams are terrible right now. But I'm bitter, jaded, cynical. I watch sports strictly for a financial reason. season. My passion for who wins and loses games is almost null right now. It just doesn't exist for me anymore. I'm empty. I'm dead inside. And I wish I wasn't dead inside. But a large part of why I'm dead inside and why I'm numb as it relates to sports is because this is what the leagues have done. And also a big part of why I feel this way is because of media and fans. Hot take here.

Way too many people have way too many voices. Way too many people who don't or shouldn't. have a voice have a voice and it's turned me off social media has turned me off to sports it's just it's this emptiness i feel i just have an overall malaise at this point in life in general for whatever reason you know not a lot of things bring me super joy anymore it's just kind of how i am i'm just kind of a bitter cynical person right now and maybe i'll come out of that at some point i don't know why i feel the way i feel at the moment but i was talking with somebody about this today i was like for whatever reason like radio and i think part of the reason why media and radio doesn't bring me the joy that it used to is because of social media

and the people I see on social media and the ridiculous amount of people who are now considered media people when in reality they're just dipshit fanboys with a podcast or a blog who offer no real insight other than Homer shit that gets them a bunch of fucking clicks you don't even want to get me started on that shit like I'm watching this stuff about D.K. Metcalf and and you know the guy is suing D.K. Metcalf. Obviously the guy that was fucking with him was a troll, but D.K. comes back. Oh, he said the N-word called my mom this, blah, blah, blah. Every Pittsburgh fanboy blog in the world is crying foul over, uh, over D.K. Metcalf getting suspended. Oh, it's wrong. And the league's trying to

fuck us. Go read any fanboy blog and people who get credentialed, credentialed media people that you cannot take seriously because every single thing they do is the league's out to get us or the reps are fucking us and the refs want us to lose and then they get their little people riled up and how they have credibility I don't understand. Part of the reason I'm super turned off to a lot of stuff is because we're giving credibility to dipshits who are not worthy of credibility. And by the way, I don't believe that you should lose your podcast or lose your blog or your website or whatever.

More power to you. Your YouTube channel. More power to you. what bothers me is that there are people who are dumb enough to follow your shit anybody like i think there are way too many voices out there and way too many people who say way too many dumb things and they they're rabble rousers and they get all their dipshit people going my biggest issue is that we've created a world where like the video and the hot take and the quick opinion and all that shit is what people flock to and you got to get people

to your blog how do you get people to your blog you give those people what they want what are they want, they just want confirmation. They want you to reassure them that everything about their team is good and that everything that everybody else is doing to their team is bad and that they are getting fucked and all that. And I think that's been the death. I don't even want to say of journalism, just of interesting media because now it's not interesting anymore.

And I think that's part of the reason why I don't feel the same passion for it because I see the way shit trends and I don't want to be that. And I don't want to do that, you know? I'm not trying to be holier than now and act like I'm saying. some sort of God's gift of whatever. I'm the puppet master. I'm a better person than anybody else. I don't like the way these things trend.

I don't want to be that. I don't want to be like the thing that everybody thought I always was is never, is what people are now. What you're seeing now, when people used to call the radio shows, be like, oh, you're just hot takes and you're just making up shit for a reaction. Bullshit. That's never been me. And that's what everyone is doing now because that's the only way to make it.

And I can't fucking do that. It doesn't interest me. I'm not into it. It's just, it's gross to me. It's just not interesting. And like I see like, like I get irrationally annoyed. I know that I've kind of turned this into a different topic than the tanking thing. But like I get so annoyed when I watch like the D.K.

Matt Caff thing. It bothers me that people don't look at both sides of some story and come up with a rational response. because it happened to your guy no matter what happened this guy is wrong this guy is right because it's your guy like how do

it bothers me that people give it credibility and take it seriously it bothers me that like some guy who's like profile picture is Travis Kelsey

tries to offer you like takes on the chiefs like bro your picture is Travis fucking Kelsey your takes don't matter you are biased why would anyone take your shit seriously because nobody wants real information all people want or real opinions all they want is is their opinions to be validated that's all and that's just

not a world i like to be in it just doesn't do anything for me it just i don't know man maybe throughout christmas or something not having to go to work for a couple weeks i'll kind of get my mind back around shit and everything but just the more i see shit and the more i see people covering things the way they cover them. I just get disgusted by it. I'm just more and more disgusted. I'm more and more disgusted by college football. Now, more and more disgusted by the chiefs leaving Missouri to go to Kansas and playing in a fucking dome stadium. It's in December, in a sterile bullshit spaceship shopping mall stadium like everybody else is going to have. It bothers me. I'm disgusted by the Chicago Bears possibly moving to Gary, Indiana.

Like, I, I'm so disgusted. I'm just disgusted. I'm listening to a podcast today, an LSU podcast than my buddy Matt does. Well, LSU is battling for Kiwan Lacey, who's the running back at Ole Miss currently. Old Miss is offering him $1.8 million? Is LSU going to give him $2 million? I'm like, what are we fucking doing? What are we fucking doing?

And then you know what's going to happen? You're going to pay that dude $2 million and the next year he's going to go somewhere else? Because there's no consequences or repercussions for any of these dudes in college athletes. Then go to your place for five minutes. Take your money. See you later. I'm out. I'm on to the next one. There's no loyalty. There's nothing. And I don't know. I just feel an emptiness about all of this stuff. I'm not trying to depress you. I love you guys very much and I appreciate you. And maybe at some point I'll come back around again. But I'm just sitting here and like I hope there are other people like me and then I don't. I hope there are other people like me because it's like I want to know that I'm not alone. But on the other hand, I kind of hope you don't feel this way because I I hate that I feel this way about sports. I hate that I watch college football and don't give a shit. I hate how, I hate the way it's all set up.

I think it's gross. I hate that USC is in the same conference as Rutgers. I fucking hate it. I despise it actually. Like everything about it is great. I hate that Oklahoma and Texas are no longer in the Big 12 that they're in the SEC. I hate it. I hate media.

I hate blog. I hate the stupid podcast. I hate, and not, like, and I'm not saying there aren't good ones. What I'm saying is I despise people who just are there to perform, to the biased people who are uninteresting to me. There are just so many things. Shoot me a message. Let me know I'm not alone.

Hit me up on a DM on Instagram. I'll respond. Shoot me an email. Josh and his show at gmail. Am I alone here? Like, are you listening to this like, God, Josh, you bitter fuck? Or are you like, no, I get it. You just sound like a normal.

human like i don't know that i'm a bitter fuck it's just like i'm in this weird i'm almost 40 years old and like i'm sitting here concerned with whether or not some asshole 19 year old kid who's gonna play for five fucking college teams is gonna get 1.5 or 1.6 million a guy who doesn't give two fucks about the school that i root for who's just going there because that's where the money's at and then the money's over here then the money's over here like some guy like when you watch these guys sing the alma mater after the games you think any of these guys even know the fucking words to the alma mater? No, they're hired guns. And I'm sitting here reading stories. The NBA looking into new ways to

alleviate tanking. Dudes and franchises that are worth billions of dollars losing on purpose. How about you make them go out and dance for their fucking dinner and then maybe they'll dance for their dinner? You never will and it's ever going to come down to that. Relegate the sons of bitches. Oh, you know, you want to, you want to alleviate tanking? How about you send them down to the fucking G League? There's an idea. You make less money if your team finishes in the bottom five teams of the league. Do that.

They never will. All right, I'm asking you. I want to hear from you guys because I want to know you're out there. And I know you are because I see the download numbers, but I want to hear from you. Josh Ineshow at gmail.com or hit me up on a DM on Instagram. I do love you guys. I'm not always this bitter about shit. It's just I'm in a, like, I just see shit.

And I'm like, what are we doing? It bothers me that, like, when this D.K. Metcalf thing happens, there's only two answers. Either D.K. Metcalf is a lunatic or this guy is a racist. There's no, hey, D.K. Metcalf shouldn't have done this. And the guy's probably not a racist. Where's the middle ground? Doesn't exist. It's either a white dude tried to bait him and the black guy has no responsibility or the black guy is an evil demon that punched this guy. There is no middle ground. Ugh.

We have no common sense. There's no middle ground on things. There's no common sense on anything. I was talking to a guy about a talk radio job, like a general talk radio job. And he was asking me people I think are good. And, you know, they could do that. And I'm like, I could fucking do it.

But the problem is nobody wants the guy that's down the middle. Now, granted, that doesn't mean I don't have hard opinions on certain things. I'll give you my opinion on it. But I can see both sides. And in a lot of things, I find myself kind of, you know, split down the middle on certain things. And that's okay. But you're not allowed to be that in 2020.

because that doesn't look good in the video. That doesn't look good on the real. That doesn't look good on the ground. You got to be angry and you got to be on one side. All right, hit me up, Josh Ennis Show at gmail.com. Let me know you're out there. What's on your mind about it? Do other people feel the same way?

Or do I just sound like a curmudgeon? More to come.