The Kevin Sheehan Show - Motivational Friday With Coach Walker

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Kevin joined by Doc Walker to talk NBA Finals Game 1 and a ton of Commanders' talk. Kevin was also joined by Dave Wakeman/"Business Of Fun Podcast"...Dave is an entertainment/sports ticket expert who weighed in on whether or not Washington is getting it right with it's 55,000 seat stadium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Chean Show. Here's Kevin. To start the show, my good friend Richard Doc Walker is with us. And I got this Apple podcast review from Stephanie. Stephanie writes, I love when you do the show with Tommy Cooley,

but I love when you have Doc Walker on your show. two of you for years have been priceless together. Well, thank you, Stephanie. We both appreciate that. And we've always enjoyed working with one another, including when we did a show together many, many years ago, and then Doc left me to go with Coach after that. But Doc is with us. Doc's doing his own podcast.

You can get it at patreon.com slash Doc Walker. Of course, you can follow him on Twitter at Rick Doc Walker. Don't forget to rate us and review us, especially on Apple. and Spotify, it's a big help. So I wanted you... I appreciate that stuff. Yeah, I wanted you on the show to begin with because I want to talk about the game last night,

and I know that you watched the game last night, and you are into the NBA, and you're into the NBA playoffs and the NBA finals. You know what I did think of is just the Celtics coming back and winning, and when Coach was alive in doing the show with you and B. Mitch or you and Al, just when the Celtics were in the finals, especially those years when they played the Lakers in the finals,

how you and coach would go back and forth Lakers and Celtics. Yeah, and my son, Austin, oldest who is a Celtic, he lives in green, he's got green pajamas, every Christmas he's all this green crap. He had my mother in green yesterday, and she had doctor's appointment, took her out. He's in town. I watched him beat the heat with me.

and it's the first game I had to watch from Tip to the end because I don't do that. I was picking up at half time. I tape them and then I go because it's just, it's just my attention span is so limited now if it's not purple and gold and it's the Celtics. I think of John, and I know he's smiling up above, I don't hate them because of the way they play defense

and they're unselfish. so I love their style of play so it was cool but last night it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I've had watching this because believe it or not we're working people laugh at it all the time but I go hey I got to watch this

what you mean you got to watch I'm working because to be a pro I could just listen to you as I do every morning if I find out what happened but I do have an obligation and I love it and last night was epic. And even if they win the whole thing, I'm not hating because of the style and which they play.

I thought last night's game was incredible. First of all, Steph Curry's first quarter performance was incredible. Like he's hitting him from everywhere. And that was so much fun. And then to see the twists and turns during the course of the game, I will tell you in the fourth quarter, for those that, you know, are waiting for kind of recap of the game. Well, you should have watched it, and I told you to watch this. And a couple of you did tweet me to say, you were right, this is a great matchup in last night's game was thrilling.

It really was. I mean, it was a 12-point final score, but Boston was down 12 entering the fourth quarter, and they won by 12. They outscored Golden State 40 to 16 with a, but with just a barrage of threes. They were nine for 12 from behind the arc. Horford made them. I thought Doc Jalen Brown was so big for Boston early in that fourth quarter because he hit a lot of big buckets that got them back to within striking range with Jason Tatum, who had 13 assists and played a good all-around game minus the scoring. But when you got your best player going three for 17 and scoring 12 and you still win, that could be trouble for Golden State. Well, as Coach Thompson taught us all, that most guys defined themselves by their offense,

but the fact that he was a, he distributed the ball, but his minutes played. You would think that he was lousy just because he didn't score, but he had more minutes than anyone. So coach trusted his ability to compete, and Brown, a cow bear, he's home. I mean, he grew up watching step. He got to hang out with these guys, and you could see the emotion. He doesn't play with a lot of the emotion. but I saw him in a different light being back home. And we all know what it's like to play in front of your own people.

So it was just a great that, you know, Shaq coined the phrase and David Aldrich, who I had on my podcast today, he said the others. When Shaq has made that famous, and when you get the contribution that they had off that, quote, others, you're going to be hard to beat. And they play defense. And Al Horford, I know he's thinking he could have been a wizard. and I know thank God for his sake that it worked out the way it did

no matter pit stops in Atlanta didn't matter I love the way he played his first NBA finals and to play like that and it's not over Draymond Green was right you don't win it after one game

but it is going to be worth the price of admission I had Jimmy Pee on the show today Patsos on the show oh Patzo he talked about you know one game Game one doesn't matter, and he went back to 1985 when the Celtics beat your Lakers, 148 to 114, a game labeled the Memorial Day Massacre. And then the Lakers came back with Kareem having a big game in game two, and they won it, and they went on to win the series in six. The difference here is that Boston was the road team and won in Golden State's home building, which puts a lot of pressure on Golden State Sunday night.

If not, that series is going back to Boston with a chance to never come back to San Francisco. Now, you mentioned the others. Yeah, the others were great. Derek White's been phenomenal for Boston over the last couple of weeks. He was great. But one of the others, and I don't even think it's fair to call him one of the others, because he's such a dog. And I just think that this is a guy that you probably love.

Marcus Smart. Oh, defensive player, the year? Other, no, he ain't no other. He's the main attraction who, when he didn't bitch, he lost the minutes, but his team was playing well. And I watched his demeanor. And he was leading to charge. He was cheerleading.

And then when he got in, he hit big shots and continued to play the kind of defense he plays. And against a team that moved to movement, you as a coach, you know, ball movement, how to Golden State Warriors, they're conditioning. It's like Kip Kino. I mean, they're like marathon runners. But they are constant movement.

And to defend like that in space, I was like, wow. I mean, I thought both coaches, both of them are excellent, but for to be a rookie and to have your team down on the road coming off a seven-game war. And the way they finish that war, and you go through Jersey, and you go through Milwaukee. Really, the Celtics, I will be standing and applauding

if they're able to pull it off and be no hatred whatsoever because of the style in which they play. I think they are going to pull it off. After watching last night, I think they are going to pull it off. And I'm kind of rooting for Golden State and Steph Curry. I'd like to see him win a fourth title. But I don't hate Boston. Mark is smart like Jimmy Butler and Kauai Leonard,

I love the great two-way players. I love the great competitors and the guys that come up big. You know, you and I end up kind of having similar tastes in players. Marcus Smart is just a badass, relentless high-energy competitor, like Jimmy Butler was, which I was rooting for him to do it in game seven. But I didn't want a minute. I was rooting for him, but it was kind of like, and you did say this, and I'll give you credit for it, which.

Tommy and your picks because I killed you this morning with solid and just and playing and hugging you. Because you said, you know, if you, I didn't make my prediction and you didn't. Oh, on radio. But I did on the podcast. I did on the podcast. Yeah, I did.

So I'm laughing. Oh, we had a whole segment on you this morning. Of course you did. Why wouldn't you? Of course. This is what, it is my ratings. Right. And so I go, but he did say it.

And I go, it's one of those things. where, man, isn't it cool that either team can go? There's no bias. They're not really our particular teams. But when you love sports, this is what it's all about. And even hockey, and you and I joke over the years, but when you watch them playoff hockey, and even if it's just a turn in the third period,

it's phenomenal. You know, lacrosse and what Maryland did, I go back to having to watch the UVA game. They're only blemished in that game. And I felt it's like lose. the Super Bowl. You can never get over it, and it stays with you longer than winning one, because it's what it should or coulda, and you want to fight to do it. And you and I over the years, we've talked so much about little things like OTAs. And every time I read the story,

I think of you, and it really has the Green Bay. So this morning I talked about Aaron Rogers, and I got my all-jackass team. Okay, so Aaron Rogers, Baker, Mayfield, Kyle, Murray. And he's quarterbacks. And I go, but you're the interesting part, Sammy Watkins hadn't played with him, Christian Watson. He's a great prospect, but don't know it. What did he have killed him? And I said, oh, no, he had a golf event. I mean, it's always about Aaron. And so I have no pity for him in the playoffs when he comes up flat, because these are the little things that I go, a guy like TB12, never, ever underachieves in. Yeah, but TB12 is not at OT.

No, but TB12 is in full gear in the offseason working out. TB 12, nobody doubts the fact that TB 12 is going to be in everything. He's going to lead everything. It's a difference. That's why TB 12, he's not on my all-jacket team. But these three guys are, they're poster boys at Baker Mayfield in this situation. Kyle Murray, at least he showed up. But it's always about him.

So we'll see. we'll see, this is what makes it interesting and what we do. You like certain people based on things. You don't know them, but you hear about them and you watch how they go. You're talking about the commanders. And I go,

they're poodles and the guys who show up. All the big hoopla over who was there and who was not there. And I go, don't you folks understand? They're never going to do it on their own until they start playing for their teammates and not the team. It's not about Ron Rivera and Jackdale Rio.

It's about the guy your locker next to. That's how we were able to, in a short, strident year, we were able to go work out in Herndon at a high school with no coaches involved and have 100% attendance. Because we had Thaiseman as a leader. You know, we had Oak Dogg. We had Mark Murphy. Look at the people that we played with what they're doing now.

It tells you about everything. Whereas you're trying to get guys who are not leaders, you get the wrong guy seeds. They pass these seeds around. It shows you how they don't get it. They don't have a feel for it. It's like parenting. I never had anybody with our kids

was never with them that didn't have a baby. I would never have somebody keep my kids that never had a baby. You've told me this one before. You'd never have a babysitter babysit and be alone with your kids if they didn't, if they hadn't had kids themselves? Never. Never. Are you kidding me? Yet we give the kind of baby a C on his chest. He don't show up and you get man. He don't know how to. He don't get it. He's doing it for the co-leys. No, it's about your teammates. Everything you do to win. And I had a chance to be a part of their rookie meeting this week. Mark Schlerler was there, you who you had on one of my favorites. and it was unbelievable.

And I wish I had to have that when I was a rookie, dumb as bricks, and having somebody say, hey, by the way, you know, make sure you do this or don't do that. And so no matter who you are, you're going to make mistakes, man. You don't know, but you need somebody to count it out for you. Travis Johnson, can you remember this is why receiving practice squad guy with Tampa Bay? You're in a practice squad. You're out at 3 a.m. in the morning, you get a DUI. And good God almighty, thank God they're cutting.

What are you doing out drunk at 3 a.m. in the morning on the practice squad? You haven't busted great yet. And you're living like a pro. And guess what? They got rid of them. We need guidance, man. And you got blind leading the blind and you wonder why they run into a wall. Well, that's on you.

But, you know, the thing that you said, you got to do it for your teammates. you should be doing it for your teammates, not for your coaches. And I can envision back in the day, you know, during the strike and Joe calling, you know, the practice sessions that you had and everybody, you know, showing up, except for Rigo, right? Everybody. But did Rigo show up for any of them? Didn't he miss some of them? Rigo is the best teammate you could ever have in life. I know that.

Because he'll never let his teammate down. He may tell the coaches to go cramp it. I know that. But what I would say to you is. is that this new generation or the latest generation of players, they all seem to have Chase Young's back when he was the only one that didn't post last year. And so I don't know if I, doing it for your teammates, okay, and maybe the teammates are too afraid to come out and say, no, I wish he were here.

You know, he's our team captain. I wish you were here. But they don't say that, and I don't think they feel that. I don't think they think it's a big deal. No, no, no, I disagree with you. They're not going to say anything against Chase because they know how Chase is revered in this area and how to staff how they eat up everything he does and says. So, no, they're not stupid.

But I guarantee you teams that haven't won yet, there's a reason why. Everybody asks, shocked, why are you shocked? Until you taste that and you win, then you convert it. Then you're on autopilot. be told what to do because you want to get back in that arena. You want you want to do that. Even though they made the playoffs and even though they had a little bit of taste of that without a winning record, it just shows you that it didn't stick.

And so they're in the process. I like the roster. As a matter of fact, I'm not negative about anything as to where they're going. But until they learn how to lead themselves, you're going to have these issues. The undisciplined comments you hear about the sly comments, those are all true. But that's on them. If you bring back your staff in this entirety, you're saying everybody, I'm good. We're good.

Okay. Prove it. Because your results don't tell me you're good. Yeah, I want to get to the, you know, we're good here in a moment. But I do, you know, as you were answering the, my thought that the players of today don't care about that stuff. There are a couple of players that I think did care. Like, I think John Allen probably cared that Chase wasn't there. But the bottom line is that was last year. He showed up this year and he's coming off this injury and he was there. So, you know,

you give him credit for that, right? Because Ron told us he was going to be there. He would have made the coach look pretty silly if he didn't post for any of these. Yeah, but that's the pressure. We shouldn't even have to deal with that. Trace is not going to play right now. He's coming off rehab. So it's skulls the sessions for him. It's all blackboard stuff, which is important. He lives here.

If you've got to beg a guy who's in town to come to case closed, I don't even want to discuss it. It'd be different. He's on the West Coast. He lives here. If you can't get the people who live here to come down the street and do, that rest of my case. Do you have any thoughts on Terry McClure not showing up for any of these OTA days?

No, he's my favorite player. He and John Allen because it's a business decision for him. He's got to protect himself. And I would hope that he gets out of here. If you love him, then you want him to be freed and go get paid and get somebody that can throw in the ball properly. Oh, no question about it. I mean, if it works, quarterback situation might favor them. it could work for him. But my advice to Terry is to run.

I mean, because you don't know what's going to happen. If Wince keeps his head on straight, they could be really good because he's the guy is very talented. But we don't know what's going to happen. But he's got the ability to. It's going to be the best we've been in a long time. You would tell Terry to run, just to run from this place. I would go, I'd go get paid. I would go, do you want to play with Aaron Rogers? Do you want to play with Pat? Oh, come on, man.

I'm not talking about, I want them to be successful. You ask me about terror. I'm giving you my advice if I was to say to him, we're going to go on your track record. Plus, we get rid of everybody really good anyway. We're the only people give away Hall of Fame talent. So, you know, Trent Williams is going to Hall of Fame. We got even your guy, Kirk Cousin, we have not topped his performance yet.

Okay. Tell me about the rookie meeting that you, you were a part of. There were a lot of alumni players. I had Mark Schlwreth, as you mentioned, on the radio show this morning. He was back in town for this thing. I saw you, you know, you tweeted out pictures or somebody tweeted out pictures of you in Santana, and I saw Mosley there. And what was this? What was this about? It's classified. What was this about? Well, it wasn't classified because the pictures of it were sent out. It's classified in terms of content. It was one of the best things I've ever been a part of.

So share with us some of the classified. You've got a chance. You've got to, no, well, they're misclassified. I, um, being able to share your mistakes with people. Mentoring is one of the greatest gifts you can give anybody. I mean, you would a group of young broadcasters. You would a group of coaches. That's priceless.

Your mistakes. We know what you've done. We know you success. But we don't necessarily share our errors. So when you get a chance to fellowship with young people, I didn't know any of these people. It was great. It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever been a part of because I could hopefully help and encourage someone and give them that lend that knowledge branch. You don't know this unless you've been transplanted.

You come from California, you're on the East Coast or you're on the Midwest. You don't know anybody. Imagine going somewhere. See, everybody knows you. Everybody here. You're getting a champion. chin. But when you go somewhere and nobody knows you,

we talked about this, Dodson out of TCU, and you had background because your son, Casey, was with him. So I felt like I knew him just because of that connection. He was lonely. He's the only child. He got away from his family. He couldn't adjust to the loneliness, and he got hurt.

And what I shared with him, having broken my arm as a rookie, you've got to be able to tell him what is like to be on an island or to be left, when the team's gone, and you're left back in a hotel or in a training camp by yourself. You have got to be able to deal with loneliness. You have to be able to deal with being disconnected from the group. When you're hurt in this league, it's ugly.

I mean, people walk right by you don't even speak because you're not relevant because it's about winning. It's about competing. And if you can't help me win, then really you don't have a value. So, you know, just apartment, I always encourage young people, meet people in this community. Some of the people that I met 40-some years ago I'm still engaged with, because I didn't hang out with players when I got off. I had friends in the community. So people that I met who would D.C. people, government employees, that's the key to it, to me. Because we have a great metroplex, but you've got to get to know people.

and not as a player, but as a human being and a citizen of a community. And if you do that, even if you drop the winning touchdown pass or your team is oh and whatever, you'll still be applauded. But if you live off this football thing, now you've got a base on the record. And you can't control that record. And it's not like it used to be here. So brace yourself. And like I addressed the kids, I'll let you in on this one.

I just told them, stop blaming people. Take charge of your own damn team. It's not about staff. It's about you guys. Claim it. Come in here and be that group that turns things around so we can get stuck off stupid and get back to what we're used to

and what we grew accustomed to. I want you to take it personal because to me it's all about the team and the unity of the team. Rules are for undisciplined people. If you understand what's at stake, I'll have to tell you when to be here. We had quarterback here.

they had to beg him to come to practice. What are you talking about? Everybody knows the quarterbacks are there when it's dark. And if the guy ain't there when it's dark, then you pick the wrong guy. Or you don't have anybody to train the guy. Somewhere it's a disconnect. The guy or the staff.

So you've got to be able to get to people. You cannot say failure is not an option. What do you mean you didn't get the guy to do what you want to do? That's on you. So that's my point to them is stop pointing the finger. around here. I'm so sick all these damn excuses. This why I said this year, 11 wins minimum. This is where we got to go. It's time to go. I'm sick of the talk. Let's go. They got the talent. They got enough people there. And if this kid a quarterback gets his head straight,

then they got a chance to be special. Rules are for the undisciplined. If somebody's got to tell you that you got to be there, you're not the right guy. Brilliant motivational speaking from our friend Doc Walker. I want to ask you more about this rookie symposium or rookie meeting that you were invited to speak at. We will do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So in this message that you gave to these rookies as part of this rookie alumni get-together that was secretive. Was that your main message? That's classified.

Did you get up and speak in front of like the whole group? Or were these more one-on-ones? It's classified. Oh, stop. Come on. Tell me. Classified. Stop it. Did you get up and speak? Because if I were...

I know you're Kevin Sheehan. Stop. I know you're Kevin Sheehan and you got seats on the floor at every arena you go to. I don't go. Everybody parts of the... games anymore. And when you go to PGA, when you go to congressional, the guy at the front book, oh, it's Mr. Sheehan. Okay. It's Mr. Sheen. Okay. Oh, you go to your club. You go to Columbia. Okay. Oh, it's Mr. Sheehan. Okay. Can we stop with this for a second? I'm being out with you.

I know. I'm, and I'm, and I'm, you tell me it's going to be 10 minutes. It's already 20. Well, it's, I didn't tell you 10 minutes, first of all. I told you 20 minutes. And 20, in, in our, in our conversations, usually means 30. So you should have known that going in, because let me tell you something, rules are for the undisciplined. If you came in onto this podcast, and you didn't know that it might have gone 30 minutes, that's on you. What I want to know, I'm not because you're bullying me.

This is what you do to your callers. I want to know. Lou and Landover is your creation. Lewin Landover is your creation. You were so rude to Sabah yesterday. You are so rude. And I told Sabah. Stop.

You don't have to take that from him. Can you stop for a second? Can you stop? I mean, Sabah with the audience. I love Sabah and I now direct message back and forth all the time. But Sabah, like Ian and a few others, there is with the audience, there's just a shelf life where if you don't cut them off, people are going to start getting angry. Now, back to you for a moment. I'm in a Ronnie comfort.

Can you, can you? I love Ronnie. I love Ronnie's one of my all-time favorite. Pee's in love, Ronnie is one of my all-time favorites. Lou and Landover is your creation because I'll never forget when one of those fears when they just sucked. And you had, you guys had the coach on. You had Gruden on, I think maybe one of those years.

And you started with the George Michael thing, which is, George would never ask a question directly. He would say people are saying. People are saying. And you did the thing where you said, look, Lewin Landover, who calls in all the time, he wants to know. So that was your creation. But back to you for a moment, because most of the people listening know this about you. You are a paid motivational speaker.

And so Jason Wright, or whomever it was that put this thing together, was it Jason? Jason and Tim Hightower, yeah. Okay, so Jason and Tim Hightower, who heads up the alumni group for the team now, because Tim was here, Tim was here for such a long period of time and won so much. But I'll let that slide. I know Tim's doing a great job and doing his best. He really is. I know.

So, you know, Jason obviously wants you to be involved, and he wants you because of that group of players, and no disrespect to any of the other former players that are there. you are a professional motivational speaker. So the thing that you said about rules are for the undiscipline, no excuses, this is on you, 11 wins minimum. Was that an address to the entire rookie group that was there that night? Or was that something where you were just addressing that one-on-one with the players? I hope they put you up in front of the entire group and allowed you to do your thing.

Did they? That's classified. Oh, God damn it. It's not classified. Stop it. I would appreciate if you didn't use profanity in my presence. Why are you doing this? There's nothing classified about the other night.

Okay, give me... Let me take it. This is the most... This pod, what I'm on right now, there'll be more people that will listen to this than I'll have all week. Okay. And again, and so... I am not going, I took a vow.

This is a cool thing that they did. It's out on social media everywhere. So if it was classified, it's now declassified. Well, you didn't hear what I said. Did you hear what I said? Is that on social media? No, it's not. And it will be either.

Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this. We'll go with non-identifying information here. Okay. So just generalities. Is this the first time that this has happened? First time I've been invited to anything. Yeah, like that.

Secondly, were all of the rookies there? Was it just rookies? Rookies free agents. Everybody knew to the program. It was I tell you. It was phenomenal. So was Carson Wentz there? Is he a rookie? No, but he's a new acquisition. Well, no, this was rookies. Well, you said new to the program. But to my deal with rookies, Carson was not there. I would pay to talk to Carson Went. I would pay them to be in a room with him.

Was it an impressive group? You usually have a sense of this. Very impressive. Oh, my God. Very impressive. Four of the guys spoke, and I'll tell you what, I still got goosebumps over it. It's one of the greatest things I've ever been a part of.

And because I know that I wish I had had that offer to me as a rookie. and because I had Glenn Harris, and I had James Brown. You know, I had Glenn Brenner, George Michael. You know, I had Andy O. So I just look at the people, George Solomon at the Post. I look at the people that I was privy to have contact with and be around and how it helped me climb this ladder.

And it's about having people that drop knowledge on you. So they get you off that being stuck on stupid. it's about experience. You can't buy it. You can't buy it. And so it was so important for that. And I look at my path. And so you just want to give back.

And you don't want people to be confused. Like I told him, it's amazing. You come to a new town, and I always think about Michael Jordan's first round pick with the Wizards. And I think about, now this kid is very vocal now. But when he got here, what was he, 18? I think he was 18. He was young.

He was young. He didn't even know how to go to dry cleaners. He didn't know how to do grocery. He didn't know I'd do anything. That stuck with me because I go, man. Imagine how lonely that kid was. And now to hear how articulate he is, he's one of the great podcast listens of all time. And so that's why you want to put that out and extend it. And it's the first time I've ever been privy to this.

I don't know if it's happened in the past, but I thanked Tim Hightower. immensely for this opportunity to develop and was able to really fellowship and extend a number and an email and they have an access to where anybody wants to go one-on-one with me, just let me know where. You said that there were a few players, I think you said four that stepped up and spoken were really impressive. Yep. So just tell me one of them.

Classified. Tell me one of them. I'm not telling you anything. Was Jahan Dotson? one of them? That's classified. Oh, God. You're going to tell me right when we stop recording this.

I'll not going to tell you today. I'll tell you what I'll tell you. Get me on the show. Next time you bring me on, I'll talk about it. That's not bad I want to be on this again. So next time you bring me on, I'll do it again. Okay. Was Jahan Dotson, was Jahan Dotson impressive as a person? He was there. Yeah, I know he was there.

Was he impressive? Because I've been told that he's a very impressive young man. Classified. Okay. Do you want to talk about the stadium? Nope. I don't discuss the stadium. I listen to you guys, and then I actually, I go do, I go get me out. I don't give a damn where they play, I care how they play. I told you, Audi Stadium.

I told them what to do six months ago, nobody listened to me. Play it out of it. Play it out of it. 22,000. 22,000, we'd be great there. Standing room only. Be all members of the Berksney Go, and nobody other fans could get in. We dominate that, and we'd be downtown.

and you could actually have a social life after the game. Yeah, you know, we could go to Audi, we could go to a game, and then we could just drive on over to the MGM afterwards and have a few cocktails, gamble a little bit, and watch the rest of the games. Yes, amen. Last one for you. Okay.

Because you've given me a lot, but you also haven't because of this classified meeting. Do you agree with me that Ron Rivera, with kind of what he has said here in the offseason and really what they've done has created very much kind of some self-imposed pressure for 2022 that he didn't necessarily have to do or not? I'm the wrong guy for that because I'm completely abnormal when it comes to approach.

I don't really care what any coach says because he doesn't play. Now, Ron was a hell of a player. We could suit him up and Jack. They were hell of a player. I'd love to suit them up. They don't play. So what they say, I'll leave that to you talk show host.

I'm not into that. You talk show hosts. I judge them by their results. And the results are average. And so if that's good enough for you, good. So be it. Not for me. So the scoreboard, they got to light it up.

It's how we play. It's not what you say. I don't get what you say. I've seen your work. I've seen what happens. I'm not satisfied. It's not acceptable. by my standards.

Now, I might make you some money, and that's great. You can do all you got to do. But I don't care about any of that. I don't care where they play. I don't care what their name is. I don't care what the uniform is. I don't care about none of that. All I want to know is that,

call we going to kick somebody's ass that comes into our place. And it's got to start with the Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants. That's the priority. We play them twice. It's unacceptable to lose to anybody twice in your division. It's unacceptable. So what I want to know is that can we put a product out on the field that's going to represent this community the way we've seen in the past. Because we've been there before, and we didn't start off great.

We lost five games in a row. And Joe Gibbs, you know, but we were able to because of the affection of the teammates, the Jeff Bostics of the world, the Nick Giaquino's of the world, to Tony McGee. This is what I'm talking about. All the first round of pick. I don't give a damn what round you're in. I tell you my favorite day is Monday the under-restricted free agent day. When you bring in some dogs. See, I'm not looking for showponies, poodles and all that.

You can have all them. Give me some cats out here that are playing for rent. They got kids, wife's pregnant. And, you know, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for some cats that's playing for rent money. You know, not their second Bentley or their convert. I don't give it. This thing is eroded.

It is garbage based on the intent. What I'm looking for right now is results, and that's all I'm going to accept. I'm not even talking about anything other than that, period. And I hate to be a jackass, but I've got to go. Yeah, I know you do. Thanks for spending 20 minutes with me, which is exactly what I told you. It was over 20 minutes. I don't know if it was.

I don't know if it was. So I can come back on again. I mean, if you hadn't had a bunch of stuff classified, we would have been done in 15. If I know if I was Chris Cooley, I'd be on every week, you know. I'd know if I was Tom Leverro, that I'd be on every week. That's the difference. Patreon.com slash Doc Walker. When Jack talks about it, I'm the other with you.

Patreon.com slash Doc Walker. By the way, you know, I'd love to get invited to be on your podcast. Whenever you want to have me, just call me up. You can't because we call me too early. It would be a pleasure. It would be a pleasure to be on the air. And you've got a three-hour bucket. All right.

I will talk to you. Thanks for doing this. Okay. Tell your family, man, that I love them. Tell. Yeah. And we'll talk. Tell all the A's, the boys with A's as a first name.

And first letter in their first name. Tell them hello. Tell Carol hello. And we'll talk soon. Thanks. Talk to you. God bless you. Bye.

So is 55,000. Yeah. we're going to do some stadium talk. Is 55,000 the right number for Washington's next stadium? I've got a guy that's going to join us next that is an expert on attendance in sporting events, ticketing, where this thing is headed. He'll join us next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Well, we've been talking a lot over the last few days about what Michael Phillips from the Richmond Times Dispatch reported,

which was that the next stadium for Washington will be a 55,000 seat stadium wherever it goes. And that that's kind of been the trend in sports, smaller stadiums. Buffaloes is going to be 60,000. And I've got somebody on the show with me right now that really understands ticketing and live gate, you know, in sports and in entertainment in terms of where it's going. Dave Wakeman is the head of the Wakeman Consulting Group, He's also got a podcast called The Business of Fun. Dave's worked in sports.

He's worked for the dolphins and the Seahawks for Paul Allen, the owner when he was alive of the Seahawks, been involved with a lot of different big brands over the years. And he's joining us right now. And Dave, I appreciate you making time for us. And really, I do want to get to sort of Washington's idea of building a 55,000-seat stadium and what's that, you know, what that is sort of based on? Because we're kind of guessing from our end.

But before we get to that, just what is the current state of LiveGate, live attendance, you know, at sporting events in particular? You know, in North America, maybe you can speak to what it is around the globe, but in North America, in the professional sports, in the big college sports, where is kind of LiveGate going, right? now. Well, thanks for having me, Kevin. And we'll start with the big picture. So, like, globally, big events and sports have come back pretty strongly. The Australian Football League is seeing attendance that's hired than it's ever been. The Premier League has seen their attendance to come back very strongly. Teams in the National Basketball League in Australia, which is the second biggest basketball league in the world, they've had some really strong attendance. And when you come to the state, it's been more of a mixed bag.

Big events like the NBA playoffs are selling well, big baseball matchups. So if you saw our Yankees Red Sox game, which I don't know, they haven't played yet this year, but those numbers will be high. The average game is struggling a little bit. So the current state is a little bit up and down. It's not necessarily the V-shaped recovery that people were talking about as far as like things rebounding right away. But it's sort of, you know, not a catastrophe, and it's, you know, and the big events are

selling really, really well. But you're kind of referring to sort of the bounce back off of the pandemic when we had no fans. Like, what is the projection? What is, are people, like, there's this impression that I think a lot of us have, and that is that the convenience of watching from home with the, you know, obviously the lower cost, the avoiding of the traffic, the avoiding of the crowds, you've got your big 75-inch, you know, 4K television, et cetera, et cetera, that the, this is one of the reasons that, you know, say NFL attendance, major league baseball attendance, NBA attendance, has kind of been going

down in general over the years. Is that accurate? I think there's probably several things that you open up the door for here. You know, first of all, there's the convenience factor. of coming, you know, staying home and watching it, right? Like you said, I felt like you were hiding out in my closet and waiting to see what I was doing on the weekend because you described me perfectly. There's the convenience factor. There's, I mean, in the DMV, there's the travel hassle of getting to the game, right?

That's not even the hassle of going to the game. You know, there's the pricing that, you know, that's involved. And then the pandemic, there's severe changes in behavior. You know, all of those have come back. to make it much more difficult to get people to come to the game. The big challenge, though, is that just an overall disconnect and the value that people receive for the price that they're paying to go to a sporting event and what's being charged.

And it's a huge disconnect. And when you take all of these other factors into consideration, it makes it much more difficult for somebody to decide to go to a game, right? If it's $50 to park for a national scheme, why do I need to bother? I just watch three or four innings on TV, crack open a beer in my living room, and I'm totally fine because fans aren't at the building,

so then the atmosphere kind of has been lessened. Traffic's bad. The ticket prices are probably overly high for a rebuilding team. All of these factors are at play, and that's the same for every sport, because it's happening across the board. The scan rates for many, many teams are down at levels that they haven't seen in recent memory. What's a scan rate?

Let me just interrupt. So scan rate, sure. I'm sorry. Scan rate is the people who are actually coming through the turn. Okay. So a lot of times when you get the attendance numbers, those are tickets distributed. So that might be comp tickets that people who bought a ticket they're not going to go. It could include any number of groups.

It doesn't necessarily mean that those are the number of people. the scan rate is the people that actually showed up. Gotcha. Is the downturn in scan rate? Is it demographic-driven, age-driven in particular, or older people steering clear of going to games, but maybe younger people aren't? Give me a minute on that. It varies from market to market and circumstance to circumstance.

I'm sure that depending on the data that we saw from one team, it's going to be different for each team. There's no universal reason for that. For a long time, there was, it did skew a lot younger. Corporations have been slow to allow their employees to entertain or go back to events. So that's one thing. Older people who were more at risk than catching the COVID virus and having adverse effects, they were slow to return.

Young people, you know, they might have been slower to the COVID virus. turn just because of the pricing because the younger people's incomes and their ability to spend cash freely on entertainment has been compromised, you know, less than due the inflation. You know, so there's a number of reasons driving it, but not one that's necessary like, oh, this is the one problem we can solve and people will come back to a state. So, um, sport-wise in this country, I've, for whatever reason, and I don't know if I'm right or not, but I've always had this sense that college football continues to drive massive live attendance numbers at these massive stadiums, you know, 100,000 plus seat stadiums in state college and in Ann Arbor and, you know, at Ohio State and, you know, LSU and Bama, et cetera,

because college football fans in particular, even more so than college basketball fans, they treat these games as like a, weekend. It's not a go to the game for three hours and then go home. It's a get in on Friday night and spend the entire weekend there. A, have we seen drops in attendance in college football? And B, is my theory even close to right as to why maybe some of these places continue to fill up these massive stadiums weekend and week out year after year? Okay, so the first part, is your impression true that the intention is, you know, is still off the charts and that people are still going no matter what. It's actually not as true as it used to be.

The University of Alabama sometimes struggles to fill the stadium. Ohio State has struggled recently to sell out. I don't want to say Michigan necessarily has much trouble, but Notre Dame has been struggling to sell out and to sell tickets. So like those things are not holding as true. But your second part of your premise is, Absolutely correct. I went to the University of Alabama, and it wouldn't be people giving out on Friday and stayed through the weekend.

It would be people arriving on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and camping out in their RVs through the weekend. So it was a huge, huge deal, and that definitely drives it, and that gives there, there's a little bit of stability in the college sports realm that there might not be in other places. But one of the big challenges that the colleges are dealing with is there's a change in tax law. A couple years back, I think it was with the Trump tax cuts that made it so that the deduction was no longer there for people to write off their college tickets and their donation that they had to give with the tickets for tax purposes. And that changed a lot of people's behavior because it wasn't as easy to write off those ticket purchases any longer.

Now, you combine that with all of the issues we talked about before as far as TV and convenience and some of those other things. And it comes together to create a more challenging environment for the colleges as well. Yeah, that's interesting, the tax law piece, because I know that, you know, certainly like memberships into, you know, like, I'm a Maryland grad, and, you know, the Terrapin club is the athletic thing, and it's all tax deductible, and it isn't anymore, is what you're saying, and that's impactful. Right.

So let's cut to the chase on the primary reason that I, called you. Before we get to the Washington piece of this, is it smart that the NFL's new stadiums, Buffalo is the next one, Washington still doesn't have a location yet, you know, even more recently Allegiant and Vegas, et cetera, that these stadiums are getting smaller and smaller. Is that the right thing for NFL teams to be doing? Okay. So I may not give you the most fulfilling answer ever, but I'm going to try to do my best. And I'm going to say that it depends on market to market, right? Because it really should be driven by research.

In the case of Buffalo and D.C., I would say that shrinking the stadiums from, what, 93,000 when FedEx Field first opened to something in the 65,000 seat, range, probably makes sense. Because the side of FedEx Field was always a challenge, I believe. in Buffalo, there's not a huge corporate base, right? There's probably not as much sponsorship money. It may be more difficult to draw fans back and forth, you know, back and forth between Toronto and Canada right along the border, which I think they've historically had success bringing fans in for.

You know, some of those changes, you know, the location of the stadium probably make that a wiser decision. The Regent Field is a pretty decent-sized stadium. but it also has a different market, right? Because it's going to be much more of a glitzy premium product. And so if your market's glitzy and premium, then you don't necessarily need as much because part of the premium aspect is that it's exclusive. So it's more of a market-by-market decision,

and it really should be one that's driven by research. All right, let's a couple questions to finish up. Let's talk about D.C. and the plans that were made public last week by Michael Phillips, our friend down in Richmond, that the next stadium would be a 55,000-seat stadium wherever it goes. I know you don't have all of the data and all of the research that the team has, but what's your gut feel on 55K?

Too small or just right? So it'll be tough to say if it's too small or just right because it depends on the location, right? Because if it's in D.C., you're going to have constraints on the size you can build, where you can build, all of these things. But bigger than that is teams have seen a trend down in attendance in a lot of markets anyway. And the idea of selling out a 93,000 stadium like FedEx Field currently is probably far-fetched, right, because of any number of factors that we talked about in this conversation.

my gut reaction is that it's probably a wise decision in this market because of the population shrinkage that we saw in D.C. during the pandemic. I think we lost three or four percent of our population in the area, which was the most significant shift anywhere in the country. Really? I'm sorry. Was that just from D.C. going out to the suburbs? So you had more room, you had more space because you were working from home because you had kids at home, et cetera, or was that the actual overall DMV? So how they did it was a little funky, and it talked about the area within about 30 or 40 minutes downtown.

Okay. And so, but then they also counted people, they said they moved if they moved an hour out. So let's say, like if you had moved in northwest D.C. like I do, if you move to Frederick, you might have counted as move or maybe if Frederick's not close enough, but maybe move to Baltimore, you would still count as having left the area. So it was three to four percent is what they gave as their estimate for the number of people who left the immediate D.C. area. Interesting.

I didn't know that. The smaller population could change things. A shrinking corporate base, right? Less willingness for corporations. to spend on sports and entertainment, or not entertainment, but sports as an entertainment option. You know,

inflation, people, you know, people then are really, really conscious of what they're spending their money on now. And then changing behaviors. You know, so people aren't necessarily going out to sports as much as they used to,

right? We're seeing that across the, you know, every, every sport, right? You know, you can see it with your eyes.

So I think maybe 55, thousand sounds a little small, but it could end up being right. All right. What's the hardest ticket in sports right now? Or typically in a given normal sports calendar year, we're not talking about the last two years, which have been obviously different. Sure. What's the hardest ticket to get for a sporting event?

The hardest ticket to get for a sporting event is a really good question. Probably, gosh, I'm not. Maybe the Masters. The Masters can be a tough ticket. Super Bowl, there's tickets around. You can get into the World Series. It's usually pretty easy. I think if I had to put my money on it, it would be the Masters.

That would be probably the hardest ticket to get. Yeah, I've heard that over the years. The Duke Carolina game at Cameron Indoor, Coach Shoshvsky's final game there, that appeared to be an unbelievable ticket. to get in terms of how much you had to pay to get into that building. I mean, you've got some experience with this over the years. I mean, where does that one rank? And does anything else kind of come to mind in terms of, you know,

a specific event that just was super hard to get into? Well, I think the dirty secret is that if you have the money and you're willing to spend it on a ticket, you can almost always get a ticket to anything. Yeah. The toughest ticket I have ever tried to get. And this is not a sports ticket, but it might still work for the audience, was Pearl Jam played a show at Webster Hall in New York City.

And I think it holds about, I'm going to say, 700 people. And it was a record, like, promotion party. And that was the hardest ticket I've ever tried to get. As far as sports go, some of those old Yankees of Red Sox games to get a good seat were tough. They were expensive. I'm talking about like the Bloody Sock game and then the game seven after that.

Those were pretty difficult tickets to get. And you'd see those to get a decent seat, maybe somewhere in the lower bowl between the bases. You'd see a pretty substantial cost on those. I've seen a couple NBA finals games with LeBron and then there was

basketball game. LeBron, his rookie year, they played the Knicks, the final games for the Cavaliers versus the Knicks. That was a pretty tough ticket. In New York. At the time, yeah, in New York. Yeah, because everything you've given me so far is in New York,

which is interesting because I think, and I think it makes sense. He's not a tough ticket, no, no. New Yorkers have always been willing, you know, they love the big event and they love the hometown big event, You know, the Webster Hall thing that you threw out with Pearl Jam, I mean, that's a small venue. I know that.

What year was that? That would have been about 2006 or so, 2005, 2006. Yeah. Yeah. So they would have still been a huge band at that point. Yeah, of course. What was that? Not that they're not a huge band now.

So what would have, I mean, you can pay almost anything to get into an event. That's one of your all-time memories of the toughest ticket. what would have I had to come up with to get into that event that night? In retrospect, it does not seem nearly as bad, but it was probably around $3 or $400. Oh, yeah. That doesn't seem bad at all now, right. No, not now. It doesn't seem bad at all. But as a 30-year-old, Dave, it definitely did, or not even 30. It seemed like a lot.

Anyway, Dave, thanks. I really appreciate this. At Dave underscore Wakeman on Twitter, the business of fun podcast. Get it anywhere you get a podcast. Dave, appreciate it. Take care. Thanks.

Thank you for having me. All right, that's it for the show today back on Monday. Have a good weekend.