The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - People We Miss Hearing From - Tim Brando

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 1202 in H-Town. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you. And welcome to a Tuesday edition.

You had to think of what day it was. Like all of us. Hey, Joe George. Is that you or is that Gary? I can't even tell you. tell who's right there. I'm like half the hide of Garrett. You should know it's me. Well, Joe's bothering to produce the show today. Yeah, I was going to say, first of all, thanks for being here. I was here yesterday. I was here yesterday. I was in spirit. I think you were

looking at variety of websites. I was working. And you were down the hall, but that's okay. Did you hear we had our, we had a call on line one yesterday. His name was Bumby? No, I was listening to most of the show yesterday to see how he was doing, and I definitely heard that entire exchange. Oh, man. He'll never live that down. No, and he shouldn't. No, he shouldn't. He's young kids today.

That's permanent. Like, for the rest of his career at 790. Yeah. That's going to be, I mean, I'll just call him. Bumby Garrett. Yeah. No, you know what he is? Garrett Bumby.

He's just Bumby. Yeah. That's his gloss. He's been glossed, as Jim Rowe would say. It was an excellent take. He should change his Twitter handle. Just go all in. Yeah, I would agree with you.

Bumby. All right. Today's show will feature, we have another part of our series people we was hearing from. Tim Brando from Fox Sports. Wonderful. We'll be with us at 1 o'clock today. He is, I mean, Chris Fowler is the number one ESPN, ABC,

college football guy, but he doesn't reek of college football, right? He reeks of game day. That's his bit. Doesn't do it anymore, but he just doesn't carry the authoritative voice that a, like a Keith Jackson would carry, Vern Lundquist, when he was going.

I mean, he's the guy now, though. He is the guy, but it just doesn't carry the swagger. I think Chris Fowler does a great job. I like him. You don't? He's okay. I'm a big fan of Chris Fowler. Maybe it's because he called Stephen McGee Bush League when he was showing up when he kept on getting crushed

by the Longhorns. That'll work. And then throwing his arms up. Yeah. That has forever, that even might be in my personal audio. That that endeared me to Chris Fowler more than anything in my life. I am Chris Fowler number one fan because he was calling he literally on a national broadcast called Stephen McGee Bush League. Yeah.

So maybe there's a personal to it. I'm side. do it. Okay. I'll admit my personal biases on that. But the college football guys today, Brad Nessler, who does the games, the SEC games on CBS, he replaced Vern Lundquist. And I think Tim Brando is in that mix, too, of the guys that call the big college football games. And we look forward to having, and Tim's been with us coming up in about an hour from now to talk about. What I think is the biggest, we talked about this on the Monday night meeting last night. Thanks for watching on the Facebook page. I didn't catch it. I think it's still the biggest question mark of all the sports that are.

returning. How does college football when it comes back and how it comes back? It feels like to me, Ross, and we talked about this on the show Friday, that May 15th needs to be the blank or get off the pot day. And I'm just throwing that out as a day just to do it, okay? But if you're going to start playing games in June or in July, you got to have prep time for that. Spring training, training camps, practices, fake games, real games. that you just can't wait until June 1st say, okay, we're going to sit down and figure this out. I think that May 15 to be, maybe it's just because I'm just trying to put that out there myself, feels like it's a very important day for or some sort of artificial deadline.

But we're now seeing a lot of different people, and we'll talk about Trevor Plouffe, former Major League infielder, has brought up a lot of possibilities of what he's hearing. And that is that we're going to be starting up baseball training camps in the not too distant future. Right? Yes. And playing. Yeah, June 10th, he says, is spring training two, the reckoning. Is that what he's called it?

The Reckoning? It's spring training too. I would have totally bought into it. He doesn't say Arizona and Florida and these pods. He's saying in the Major League Baseball Stadium. Spring training as well in their own major league stadiums. Well, that was a report we talked about late last week was that in order to save a little bit of Mula, don't send the boys to West Palm Beach or to Arizona.

or to any other with their normal spring training places, have them have their own spring training in their home stadiums. Because at this point, I would assume everybody in America can have a spring training in their stadium, even places like Minnesota and Cleveland, some of the colder places. Who's going to get your 40 men and have a bunch of inter-squad games or something? Yeah, it'd be a level playing field because you wouldn't have multiple fields to work on. That'd be one of the differences.

But I think, honestly, setting these teams down to spring training in Florida and Arizona, while, again, would give you all the creature comforts of the world, cost is a factor in this. And if you don't, if you put these guys in their home stadiums, you don't play them for per diem and you don't pay them for accommodations. So if Major League Baseball is already taken the shorts this year for some things, obviously not having a season, any way you can save a little bit of money is the way to go. But it feels like to me in the last 48 hours, we have a lot of people trying to push the, here we go, let's start talking this out.

Yesterday, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami where the Dolphins play put together a plan of how they're going to social distance their fans that seats 65,000 at that stadium, I believe, is the number. They have a plan in place, and again, it's just all conjecture at this point, to put 15,000 people in a stands. So you'd have at least some fan interaction in an NFL game this year. You have the NFL Ross putting out their schedule this Thursday, which I don't know how that's going to look, frankly. because there's rumors they're going to push the season back. There's rumors they're going to keep it as is. You can take the first three weeks and blop them to the bottom three weeks. I mean, I guess while there's a lot of uncertainty,

at least it's encouraging that some people are talking about having seasons as compared to. I don't know. Should we just crap this season? Yeah, there's a lot more smoke coming, especially if MLB is the one where it continues to be more and more smoke. Now, I mean, I don't know what the credibility level is of Trevor Plouffe. And you also had yesterday, I think Phil Hughes, the former pitcher, talking about it and saying that he can confirm what he heard from Trevor Plouffe. But then you also had a guy like Keith Law saying that it wasn't in place.

But maybe that's just basically what's being talked about, and they're crossing their T's and dotting their lower-case Js, and they're going to figure this out, and it's going to be put in place rather quickly. As you and I talked off air, why would Trevor Plouffe want to put out erroneous information? He is from John Boy Media, so. How did he do that? Why did he? Can we isolate that noise that Matt just that visceral from Matt that he just put out?

A very jag major league baseball player. Yes. It wasn't controversial. Wasn't an All-Star. Wasn't a, I mean, he was a guy that basically went back and forth between AAA Major League Baseball for most of his major league. league career. Phil Hughes was good for a bit. Yeah, Phil is, but I'm talking about Trevor Plouffe.

Maybe it's because the ESPN said, man, we don't need you. Maybe it's because MLB Network said, no, we got plenty of guys. Is that the next place you go is John Boy Media? It's like going like this, Ross. I can't get a job with the Houston Chronicle. I can't get a job with the

Athletic, so I'm going to see if I can go get a job with the National Enquirer. That's what he did. Right? I don't know. Maybe he's just boys. with John Boy Media. I don't know. But he's a former player.

He played last in 2018. He's probably going to have some connections with former players and possibly former managers and etc. Players association people probably. So, I mean, there's no reason to believe he's not going to be completely clued in. Now, is this all going to come to pass? I bet you this is basically something that's been proposed and he kind of ran with it. And maybe he didn't have firm confirmation. Because here's the thing.

If he's right, he's going to get a lot of credit. and if he's wrong, he can go to, well, it's just Twitter. Oh, my sources got it wrong. Or, yeah. Or they change their ideas and plans at the very last second. Mm-hmm. Something has changed. But it's a big deal when you do that.

When you go out and say, I just heard from multiple sources. And we know how we feel about multiple sources, Chris Broussard. That on June... Sosses. That June 10th spring training will two will start. July 1st, be opening day, and all teams will be playing at their home ballparks. That does make sense. I mean, the timeline does, I mean, we're all thinking about July 1st, playing 100 games,

which will put you what, to late October probably, give or take with some off days in there? No all-star game this year, I don't think. But yeah, I mean, of all the random people to come out with this kind of information, it's Trevor Plouffe, a basically utility player for much of his major league career. All right, so that's to be good to get to today. ESPended a survey said that most fans, want sports to resume. Stop me on the breaking news on that one.

So we'll go through some of the list on that. We have an opportunity for you to bet on Texans and other NFL teams regular season win total. You'll get different odds based on what you think they're going to do. We'll talk about that on the show. We mentioned Tim Brando on the radio program. And what else we're going to get to today? Oh, I have gotten into a YouTube rabbit hole of Jeff Rawls. roast?

That's a good one. You know it's a good one too? I got in a YouTube rabbit hole of Greg Geraldo roasts. May he rest in peace. A couple months ago. Yeah. Recently. So this weekend for me it was Jeff Ross.

And if you have not heard, Jeff Ross's past All-Star game roasted the NBA on TNT crew. And I shrunk it a little bit. It's about three-minute clip of some of the best jokes put at those gentlemen. And I'll just say Kenny Smith really got it. If you haven't heard, it will play for you in the show today. Time is 12.12. It is the Matamama's show. We look forward to having you with us all today at 713-212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790.

If you want to reach out to us on Twitter, it's at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Joe George Radio. We are back with more in a moment. Hey, it's Jeff Blum. Blum fact number 14. I was on the White Sox in 2005. Yeah, sorry about that sweep, H-Town. But we're all good right now, right? World Series champion. Back to your lunchtime champion, Matt Thomas.

As you peruse the Internet during your lunch, hope that you enjoy an afternoon delight. Her name is Arena, Dr. E-Y-T, Arena. On the what's on Matt's Mine Show page. Sports790.com. There are one, two, three, four photos. of her. She has a tat over her left shoulder. Although that's probably not the first thing you notice. What is the first thing you notice, Matthew? I'll just say bulbous. Hmm. Perfect. Check her out.

What's on Matt's Mine Show page? She's definitely on my mind at sports 790.com. Tim Brando is going to join us at 1 o'clock this afternoon to talk up college football. Let me ask you all the question. This is where we always invite you guys to join the show at 71321. 125-7-90. When you hear Major League Baseball players, when you hear, and we're going to play Dan Patrick from his radio show,

I think it was either today or yesterday say this. He's got an idea of what they're doing for college football this season. The NFL is going to release their schedule on Thursday. Is this wonderful, exciting? I'm interested. Can't wait? Or are there enough people

that are like, we're doing this too fast? Because I'll say this. I follow a handful of people, about a thousand people on Twitter. And I would say anytime there's any thought of restaurants reopening or malls reopening or parks or the carnival cruises going out, you know, they're going to start cruising this June. Yeah, I'll pass. I get a lot of people to say, this is great. Can't wait.

I want to get out. And then I get just so many people that will say, why are we doing this? Stay in your homes, lock your doors, and don't come out until we have a vaccine. Do you think we as America are really split about when things should get back into some normal Sam? Absolutely. And it's mostly along political lines. And I think on like a lot of different political issues, there's two sides to every story. There is, what should we do? We probably should just all stay in our homes and social distance and not gathering groups and wear masks. And there's all these measures that we should take that should help this blow up.

over. But you understand on the other side that people are losing their livelihoods. Businesses are closing. People are struggling. People need money. People need to make a living. And a lot of this is destroying a big part of our economy. So I mean, it's just

the fact of the matter is the global pandemic, nobody wins. And nobody's going to be able to win. In a perfect world, we should be able to stay in our homes with the mask and not come out until everybody says, every doctor. We're all, we're good.

We're going to treat this like the common flu. But we don't know how long it's going to be. And if we wait until that moment comes in, we're probably screwed. We're probably going to go in a prolonged deep depression. So it's up to our government leaders. It's up to our businesses. It's up to our whomever to say, let's slowly work our way back in. Now, for the sake of this radio show, we talk about sports.

So that's what the, I think, these professional sports and these collegiate sports are trying to figure out. Do we put our feet back in the water again to see how it feels? Do we put our whole body in or do we put that toe in and go, oh, maybe we're not ready to go here? That's where I think there's still a lot of hesitation. I believe there's a lot of hesitation at the NBA level, probably more so than else, because let's face it, they're the most socially conscious of all the sports leagues. They don't really hide it. And I think they feel like if they come back too soon,

that they're going to be taking away tests. from people that they think may need them more than their players do. And I think they wrestle with that. I think that college universities are wrestling with, how do we have this college football season that's going to fund our athletic department when we don't even bring our students back? They're wrestling with that. Baseball is wrestling with, do we do this in their home stadiums?

Do we put them in a pod where Mike Trout and other people that are players like, Well, if I want to go see my children or go see my birth of my child, you're going to take me out of my game for two weeks to do that because you're going to have to quarantine me. This is what I think is everybody's wrestling with. I'm just saying, is this the responsible thing for us to be thinking about pushing this agenda of sports? Let's get going. Because I do think we need it, don't you think?

I think even non-traditional sports fans and Ross believe that we need something to kind of lift our spirits up. this Korean baseball organization bit, I watched 10 minutes of highlights today. Yeah? What'd you think? Who's your squad again? They won, I think. Okay.

I can't pronounce it. Yeah. I want to make sure I pick one of the best teams before I... Which one that I pick? You know which one I want. Yeah, I'm going to look. I believe you put the KT. Whiz.

KT. Wiz. Because you wanted the Wiz. Yes. A great late 70s movie starring Diana Ross. That's true. And Michael Jackson. And Nipsey Russell. as a scarecrow.

Sidney Portier involved? He might have been. I can't remember. So who was your team? You know, I hadn't picked yet. I wanted to see the league favorites. Did you guys see the highlights? They hit home runs.

They made some, they got some strikeouts. I saw there was a weather delay and a fire delay. Well, fire delay is going to happen. Oh, I know what it was. I have a friend who lives in Seoul. I meant to text him and see whoever his team was and I was going to pick that one. I'm going to go. K.T. Wiz lost seven to two today.

Damn. You okay. You can't go 162 in all every year? Well, do they pay 162? Do we know how many they play? But for the sake of my argument, I'll say they play 162. All I'm saying is this. The Dusan Bears are the reigning champs, by the way.

I want slow openings of restaurants, and I want slow openings of sports. Is that wrong to say? No. But I feel like half of my Twitter line is, what are we doing? And if we continue to be in this, what are we doing? thing, we're going to, everything's going to be shut down. Forgetting about your favorite restaurants about it, we're talking about major industries. I mean, everything, radio, TV, department stores, J. Crew filed for bankruptcy yesterday.

I know you're devastated, aren't you? Well, I mean, it helps my credit card bill a little bit, but, you know, it's on the here nor there. Boy being is that I trust. Is Mrs. Thomas like the J. Crew? No, no, it's all the entire family. No. Okay.

That makes sense. Kingwood, J. Crew. Can you use stereotype. I don't want to get, I don't want to get political on. I'm just saying that. I do. I'm encouraged, but I feel like if any of you, if anybody thinks that sports isn't

being very delicate, you're wrong. Because look at how many scenarios, Ross, have been put into playing this. Because nobody knows the exact right answer. And yeah, there's a lot of money to be made on this. And let's not forget that. these NBA and NFL and major league baseball teams want their television contracts to keep their leagues alive. But we as America need it too, don't we? We need it.

I'm fine. Binch some shows. Well, that's why I'm benching Jeff Ross Roast. Yeah. When are you going to get on, it's always sunny in Philadelphia? That's a series. That's a lot of work. They're 22 minutes.

Yeah, but I'm like 12 seasons behind. Yeah, but they're like 10 episodes. seasons. It's fine. That's still a lot of work. You don't need to bother with like the last four a very hidden mess. Okay. I'm getting the meat and potatoes of it in the middle of the series. That's where it's really good. Let's go to Benjamin and Columbus on 7-90. Hi, Benjamin.

I'm in Columbus, about an hour outside of Houston, or maybe outside of Katie, you are coming and clean. Nice. Coming in nice. So, yeah, you know, I'm watching this show, you know, game where they're playing online. It's a Blake Snell and like Lucas Giolyto. And they asked Blake Snell, what do you think about this ball player? And he's like, oh, he's great. And I know

you guys interview a lot of guys, and some people tell you more. I mean, I'm not asking for dirty laundry on people. I just wish these guys would give you a little bit more than, you know, he's great. Tell me a story. I mean, Blum comes on and gets them great. He gave Lou Pinella stories on 790 before. They're awesome.

And I want the, I want the baseball season back. But I could go for some stories in the meantime. what I'm getting at. You mean you want me to call up athletes and tell us, tell them stories about their current teammates? No, just like, funny stories, you know, funny stories from the road. Tony, you know, oh, this guy, you know, forgot his socks.

I don't know. I hate it when they don't give me anything. They think if they say anything, they're breaking the brotherhood of silence in the locker room. Well, that's a diamond against them, not against us. We'd love for them to tell stories, but they're, today's athlete, today's athlete is very, very cautious, way more than. yesterday's athlete.

I know, man. We love this sport. I mean, you know, Astros line, listen to you guys, the day games. When I'm working, I love listening to the day games. And we, give me some meat and potatoes. I don't need the, I don't need to know the dirty laundry, but that's what's something. You know, make up for the fact there's no baseball right now. All right.

All right. All right. Thank you for the phone call. That's her friend, Bad Joke, Benjamin. is that who that is? Yeah. Sweet kid. Sweet kid.

Appreciate you listen. Yeah. And Benjamin, I'd love to be able to give you that. But if they're not going to come on and tell the stories, then I can't help you. Let me just tell you something. Someone has done this for a very long period of time. It's a lot easier to tell stories about yesteryear when it's yesterday years compared to here and the now. You are not going to get Justin Verlander to open up.

First of one, Justin's not coming on the show. show. It's not going to, it is what it is. Why not, Matt? Because it's, we're not a big enough show. Oh, that's true. He only does national shows that have a lot of viewers. And don't get texts in the middle of the show. I don't what you're talking about. Okay. Yeah, they're not going to give up, they're not giving up their stories. Not until they retire. Am I right about that? Yeah. So you can make some money off a book or something.

Yeah. I'm just going to give it to the Matt Thomas show free. No, they're going, well, they'll tell stories, but like, could you imagine if I called Bregman and say, hey, Bramman, give me a good dirty laundry story. Matt, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. But now when Bregman's 38 years old and retired, oh, he'll tell me some stories. Well, you may tell me on air? Oh, no, no, no, no.

He'll write a book about it. Then he'll tell you to promote the book. That's exactly right. To promote the book. Will they have books in when he's 38? It'll just be a podcast. Yeah. Full-time podcast. People will read out the podcast.

It was like audiobooks, basically. That's probably, I got to get a new job on that. Maybe I could read people's books for them. Oh, yeah. Why don't you do that? Contact the people at Audible or whatever. Yeah. We could have you read books.

I, by the way, got signed up for Cameo. I wouldn't do it because I listen to you three hours a day. I don't know. So I'm now a member of the Cameo family. We're proud of you, Matt. Go ahead. I haven't made any money yet. Go ahead and plug yourself.

No, I haven't put up the introductory video just yet. Wow. What are you going to say? Well, what the plan is for me is to do PA of your family or your kids or your son's daughter's baseball teams or football teams, whatever. Because why the hell would you pay for $25 for me to say, hey, Greg, it's Matt Thomas from Sports Talk 790. Hope you having a great day. Happy birthday. What is the process like with this? If I say, so let's just say I'm whoever.

Yeah. And I'm going to put up my 20 bucks and I say this is what I want you to say. What if it's something that you don't want to say? Then I can say no. Okay. So you have to say, you find out beforehand, then you can decline? I'm assuming yes. I haven't done it yet.

I mean, what's the process? Do you get an email? Yeah. And then they ask you when you, I think they ask when you want it back. And then you can say, can you do it or you can't do it. What if it's like Steve's Clan Rally Inviter and he wants you to, you know, introduce the Grand Wizard and stuff like that? Oh, you think I'm going to do that?

What if they said 500 bucks? No. A thousand. Keep going. And you put, don't put your name on it. 10,000. Oh, you're. Oh, you're saying, you're saying, okay, don't put my name on it and also disguise my voice.

And now it's the Grand Wizard. Who's the Grand Wizard? Let me Google. Yeah, you can Google it on your computer. Go ahead and do that. Oh, no. I'm flagged by the FBI. I know.

713-212-5-790. The Dinos beat the Lions this morning and the K-B-0-4-0-0-0. For those of you playing at home on that. 7-1-3-2-1-7-90. What Dan Patrick, not our lieutenant governor, but Dan Patrick that a radio host is hearing about college football. I'll tell you about that in a second, but right now, for over 40 years, you can be thinking of only one place for the best when it comes to your eye care, and that is Berkeley Eye Center. And if you are over the year, over the age of 40 and considering LASIC, you may qualify for a national LASIC study underway at Berkeley Eye Center. All qualified candidates who complete the study will receive LASIC at little or no cost.

That's right, little or no charge for LACC. But this study is limited, and you must be over the age of 40 to qualify. So do yourself a favor and text the word study, STU-D-Y to 48-48-48-48 to see if you can qualify. Again, this is a participation in a national LASIC study. Text the word study, S-T-U-D-Y to 48-48-48-48 for your chance to have LASIC at Berkeley I for little or no charge. That's STU-D-Y, study to 48-48-48-48. Hey, it's Craig Ackerman.

Listen to the home of the Rockley. on your smart speaker. Just ask. Hey, Google, play Sports Talk 790 on IHartRadio. We had a Viter High School graduate not purely pleased with your most latest reference. Oh, okay. Well, you know. Well, you know what?

It is what it is. All right. We will not be speaking to the Viter Chamber of Commerce anytime soon. Mm-hmm. 1235, Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk, 7-90. I didn't write their sort of history. Hey, all right, so we're talking about people predicting things about the upcoming seasons. We got Chera Plouf doing it on Major League Baseball.

And Phil Hughes. And Phil Hughes. Here's the Dan Patrick show on his well-play source. Here's a consensus going around among the major conferences if things progress at a predictable curve. We're going to have 10 games. Now, this is somebody on the inside of source saying 10 games with a later start. and that means later in the calendar year, nine conference games. Regional games take preference, less travel.

You won't have any FCS games. Players returning mid-June, maybe early July. So Ohio State would play Akron or Kentucky. Illinois would schedule Northern Illinois or Missouri bus to more games not flying. The conference that is struggling is the Pact 12. California is a concern when it will open. and they stretch from Washington to Arizona. Money will be a concern.

Attendance will be limited. In some cases, Rutgers wouldn't necessarily fly to Minnesota for a game. Pack 12, not many regional options, UNLV, New Mexico, Portland, State, Reno. So those are just some of the things that they're looking at here with the college football season. Man, he's just throwing stuff against the wall, right? That didn't seem like it was well-placed. that was more like, all right, we're kind of... He says sources.

I don't know that Dan Patrick would come out and say something like that. No, I think what he's doing is he said a consensus, meaning these multiple viewpoints. Okay, well, before that, I cut that audio. So there was music under it, very heavy. It says according to sources. So he did say that. I don't think that's anything out of what we thought would be out of the ordinary.

I think we kind of talked about what college football might be changed for next year. Less games, right? forget the non-conference long trips. Yeah, so that's what he's saying. He's saying one non-conference game, nine conference games in a shortened season. But the American, let's use the American example. There's no close game. I mean, Tulsa's a bus drive.

It'd be a pain in the ass, but you could go to Tulane as a bus drive, and you could do SMU. But the rest of the trips are plane rides. Bus anywhere, theoretically. Just to leave on Wednesday or something. Oh, really? Yeah, okay. That's going to make a lot of sense. You want to put 160 football kids on a bus together for two days.

Look, it's not our fault that Houston's in this leftover piecemeal conference, Matt. It's not our fault that Houston got left out because Ann Richards insisted on Baylor, but that's on the here or there. But, like, he brought up the Rutgers, Minnesota one, and, like, I just don't understand if Rutgers isn't going to fly to Minnesota, are they just not going to play football? Like, the only team close to them in the Big Ten is Maryland. And Penn State.

And Penn State. So, like, every conference has this problem. Masoo has... ACC is from Syracuse to Miami. Yeah. Everybody's got to fly. So I get the non-conference idea of where, you know, U of H wouldn't play a team in New Jersey for their non-conference game.

They would play UT or A&M or something like that. Yeah, you're going to have to fly. If you're playing college football, you're going to have to fly. Sorry. There's just, there's none of this. If you're going to keep in conferences, you are going to have to fly. Because, first of all, it's not feasible to bust it all. your opponents. Secondly, if you're going to give teams maybe a competitive advantage because

they're closer to you? No. And most of the teams in the Big Ten are in the Midwest. Most of the team, I mean, in the Big Ten, far east, it's Penn State, it's Maryland, and it's Rutgers. The rest of them are in the heartland are in the middle of the country. Even for Iowa to go to Michigan would be probably a 10, 11, 12 hour. Yeah, that's not close. Yeah, there's none of this driving bus crap. I mean, if if there's a private way to fly and you're, I mean, you're avoiding

most contact with other people. They're flying charters. Yeah, why is flying that big of a deal? It's not going to be. It's not going to be. I feel like we're, not us. I feel like it's nationally when we come up with stuff being thought of as big as a bigger deal than maybe it is. I think, I think, how is it about how is it much different than how much is it that much different than

busing? Here's what here's what they're worried about. They're worried about any human being being on a plane for two, two and a half hours all breathing the same air. But my thought is this. That's what happens on a bus. So it's better to be on a bus for 10 and a half. Yeah, that's why it's preposterous argument. Like, Matt, you fly the charter.

Like, how much more in contact are you with the common folk than when you rough fly commercial? I mean, I don't know. I'm asking you. Well, we fly with the rockets. We don't go through a hobby airport. We go to a private air terminal. That's what I'm saying. So you don't really even come in.

contact with the regular problem. When I fly with, you ready for this, guys? When we fly with U of H, we go through security at U of H. They bring the T-A, not the T-AV-S.A to the University of Houston. Okay. We get patted down, go through the little monitor, whatever they call it thing, a metal detector.

We get on our bus. We go from the bus to some vacant part of the hobby airport runway. and we get off the bus, we get on the plane, and we take off. See, then, yeah, what's the biggest, how's that a big deal over busing? It's not. What I think, when I'm hearing about this busing, I'm thinking about you're going to play a non-conference opponent within busing distance. You're going to save one airplane ride.

But though, does that really do it? For instance, let's say you of H said, we're going to play LSU. If you bust the LSU, that's four and a half hours. Yes. That is four and a half hours. do you tell the guys we're not stopping? And there's a bathroom in the back of the bus that is helpful. But that's still putting 45 grown-ass men together in a very small space.

You hit the stuckies on the way out. You're fine. No, I don't think you do because you've got to take care of a Stucky. You got to lice all it down when you get in there and make sure nobody gets hurt. So it makes way more sense. What I'm saying is it makes way more sense to fly than bus, really, when you think about it practically. From a cost perspective, going to Washington State. for the University of Houston

or playing Texas State is a no-brainer. Like if you said we're going to play the full conference schedule and instead of playing Washington State and BYU and non-conference, they're going to play Texas State and rice. Good, let's go. Get that by you bucket fired up.

Be smart about it. Be smart about it. It just feels like an excuse to play teams closer to you out of conference. Like maybe you're eliminating Alabama playing some terrible team and said they got to play at least someone that's relatively near them

so it's more like a rivalry. It just seems like what's the point? I honestly, I don't get it unless they want this to happen and they've wanted it to happen for a while. Maybe, well, here's the thing. If you're using Dan Patrick's, what he's believed to be true is you're talking about nine conference opponents and one

warm-up game. Which I'm fine with that. If you're Alabama, you know what you do. You play UAB. Birmingham and Tuscaloosa's 45 minutes. UAB plays Division I football. Knock it out. Done. Then play your conference late. There's just about everybody in America could find somebody within reasonable driving distance. Problem is he brought up, Pac-10's a hot mess right now. California schools don't have any

shining interest for reopening or playing football games, right? Maybe they have to all cancel the seasons or something. Maybe Pac-12 takes a year off. And then guess what happens then? They have a lot of money, George. They don't collect that money for a conference. and needs money, perhaps more than the ACC or the SEC of the Big 12 of the Big 10 does. I mean, it's just like a normal year. The PAC 12 is irrelevant to the college football playoffs. Yeah, that's what they need to say. You know, Pac 12, look, I know you want to play, but you really haven't been relevant in about a decade. Good luck with that. Shell Federal Credit Union is here for you when it comes to auto loan rates. And now they're here for you for all of their branch locations open in their lobbies.

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in the month of May or June with the Shell FCU. Shell Federal Credit Union, online, shellfcU.org, welcome home to ShellFCU. Good morning, strippers. Shower with the Matt Thomas Show. Wash off the glitter and daddy issues. NFL schedule coming out on Thursday, by the way. Be curiously how they formulate that. NFL news.

Marshawn Lynch, his agent, speaking to the Seattle Seahawks about a return there. What does he got left in his game? Who? Marshawn. Do you need money or something? Are you all right? Did he get your chicken? Didn't he save his chicken?

Getting the chicken? He's got nothing left. He's got, yeah, I don't think, I mean, I remember him being basically a pretty big disappointment with the Raiders. I mean, he, yeah, I think he was, I think he was injured. I think when he was on the field, he was okay or something like that. But he had injury issues. And speaking of a running back who never wants to leave. How about this analogy?

Frank Gore is the Vince Carter of the NFL. How you like that, boys? Good. Strong. Thank you. I come up with one decent reference per day. Yeah, his first year there, he had seven touchdowns, 891 yards and 15 games, so decent enough. Second year, he only played six games.

He was hurt. and then last year he only played that one game and then in the playoffs do you play in the playoffs from two right he did yeah he's 33 now do you remember when his to me his moment of glory was against the saints right the beast quake

when he's one of the all-time great football plays period yeah I mean he took five or six guys with him for about 25 yards yeah he got hit a number of times on that play and that was that was the one they were seven and nine right and they were hosting the playoff game and everybody was upset about it and they ended up winning that game.

Yeah. See, I think I fell on the minority on this side of this. If you won a division, you should have a home playoff game. No. The NBA disagrees with me. It's basically like, we don't care what your record is, where you are in the standings who you play against. It's basically conference. I could honestly see both sides of this.

But I do believe if you are the best of your division, there should be some reward to it. Seven and nine? Yeah. It's better than the other teams in a billion. Bill O'Brien's been getting home games at 9 and 7. Let me tell you something. Bill O'Brien loves a rule. Do you know why?

Yeah, of course he does. Because there's no way in the world they're going to Buffalo and winning in Buffalo in January with that team from last year. Was Buffalo's record better? Were they 11? No, they were a division champion. They were one of the two wild cards. I know, but I mean, who had the better, because Texas were 10 and 6, who had the better overall record. What was Buffalo's record last year?

I'm trying to find it. I think they were 10. They might have been 10 and 6 as well. Or maybe they were 11 and 5. I'm not sure. Then it goes to head-to-head matchup, but they didn't play each other, and then they would go to conference record. But point being is this, I think there should be some sort of trophy given.

They were both 10 and 6. 7 and 9s don't happen that often. They just don't. So give the angle of carrot out there. You win your division. You are better than anybody else in division. You should be able to host at least one game. I'm okay with automatic playoff bid,

because they wouldn't even have made the playoffs in that scenario. playoff bid yes home game no I can buy into that but I still think playing having the one game but man it made a difference that's for sure I'm surprised the NFL didn't put more of a push towards changing it because the NBA has changed that over the years I think you think they felt in some way that the rule was validated because they won that game like if the Saints would have went in there and beat them like 31 to 3 it'd have made it look even worse it should be like see this team doesn't even deserve being the playoffs let alone host a home game

you got to change this rule but it isn't it Maybe that. Isn't it funny that there was no talk of that? Like, you remember a couple years ago when the Rams and Saints, that horrific non-pass interference call? Would the NFL do that next year? Change it right away. Granted only for one year. It didn't work.

But the point being is that when something is so egregious, they go, we got to fix this immediately. No one worried about that. I think coaches, and Bill O'Brien's brought this support, is, you know, it's hard to win a division. It's hard to be able to be the top of your ladder, no matter who's with you in that group. So, you know, again, I like it, but you could convince me otherwise. So Frank Gore is going to sign a one-year deal with the Jets. He's got something left in the tank. I mean, he's giving the Texan some problems over the years when he was a cult, right?

Yeah. How was he? 36ish or something. He'll be 37 on May the 14th. Happy early birthday from all of us here at Sports Talk 7. Oh, wow. Happy birthday, Frankie. third leading rusher in the history of the NFL.

Mm-hmm. If you and I went to a normal sports bar. Yeah. Perhaps a big city wings. Yes. And it was an NFL Sunday. We're all watching games on a Sunday ticket. Mm-hmm.

And you went and said, can you name me the number one running back rushing guards all time? They would probably say Walter Payton. Who else is in that top? Emmitt Smith. Or I'm saying. You'd get mistakes. Okay.

Emmett Smith. You would get Walter Payton. You would get Eric Dickerson. Who else would be among that group of heavy, heavy carriers. Been around a long time. Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders would be in the mix as well. I don't know if the three of us went to a bar, whether it was in Chicago, Illinois or Houston, Texas.

If Frank Gore's name would be brought up one time in the entire night. Well, I mean, it's a big deal when you pass number one. If you're asking for number one, if you say gaming top five, Frank's not even coming up in there. Isn't that crazy, though? Because it's not like, I mean, granted, he's in it because he's trying to pass that a little bit, but it's not like he's embarrassing himself. No, he's been great.

That's the thing is that he, it's like Vince Carter. I mean, now Vince's scoring numbers have dropped. He's not nearly good of perimeter shooters he was back earlier in his career. But no matter who he was playing with the last four or five years, he wasn't, he wasn't an avatross around a team. He wasn't starting, wasn't playing 30 minutes a game. but Vince Carter was good to give you 7,8.9 points a night when you needed him to. That's what Frank Gore is.

Frank Gore is not going to carry the ball 25 times for you, but if you need a third and four, put him in a good spot, he'll take care of it for you. Frank Gore, 37 years old, still going to go to the NFL. Early and young in his prime, though, he was one of the best running backs in the league. As a nineer for me. For a few years there, he was just a devastating running back. He was really good, complete running back. You know the Niners have had sneaky good running backs for a long time?

Like Roger Craig, 1,000 receiving yards and 1,000 rushing yards in the same season. I mean, just really, really good. You know, obviously what Frank Gore did in his heyday with the Niners is good. I'm telling you, if I had an NFS, like, if I had to absolutely pick an NFC team to root for, it might be the 49ers. You've been Kyle Shanahan fan? Well, I was a huge Joe Montana fan growing up.

You were? Huge. Even though he beat Houston in the Coddle? Well, yeah. But that was, but he was naive. He went to go win the game. And he got a lot of calls. Notre Dame did.

Oh, God. A lot of calls. And then it was Steve Young. Speaking of a great running quarterback. He was one that was able to do the job. And they've gone through all different changes. And they suck for a long time. And then they're back.

The Niners are the ultimate roller coaster in the end. NFL the last 20 years. Either really awesome or embarrassingly bad. Hmm. Like the Marlins? That's right. The Niners are like a really good up and down roller coaster that your body's being thrown all over the place. The Texans are just on that straight line path. There's no dips. There's no 360 twirls. There's no climbing up something and dropping down. Hold on. I think you got something here. What? So the Niners are like the Texas Cyclone.

Yes. The Texans are like Excalibur. Or no, not even that. What is that little serpent ride? What was that called the... Well, you know what they... Or perhaps a bamboo shoot. You know what they are?

They're a tilt-a-world. They're just spinning around in the same direction. Oh, they just spin around, around, around, around, around. I don't go anywhere. I think they're the bamboo shoot. Remember the bamboo shoot? It was in the water, and it wasn't like rapids or anything. You just kind of just wring, you hung out there in the water.

You didn't get drenched, did you? No. It was in the water and you didn't get wet. You're like, what's going on here? Why am I on the bamboo shoot? I guess, whatever. I'll do it again. And you waited 40 minutes, didn't you?

Well, the line was shorter. That's why you go to the bamboo shoot because it really was nothing. And the serpent was like kind of for the kids. It was really slow. Okay. I can go with that. But when I want a roller coaster, I want one that's got lots of twists and turns. The Texas is just, it's like they're going to the kitty land over there.

The Viper had that. that big drop with the green, you go into the mouth of the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the serpent was like the smaller, slower one. Yeah. Texans are the serpent. The Niners are what? Magic Mountain.

Grease lightning. Grease lightning. Loop to loops. God, I miss Asterold. I know. Tim Brando, Fox Sports. In a moment here on the Matt Thomas show. First a message for Woodhouse Day spas.

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It is 102 on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas show with our number two of three. If you guys want to jump in in our conversation about trying to plan for a fall of hopefully a plethora of activities. the resumption of the NBA season, to the NMLB, to pro football, to college football. We could have the greatest fourth quarter of sports in history, maybe the business as well. We'll talk about that and other things with one of my favorite play-by-play broadcasters in our series of people we miss hearing from. We say hello to the pride of Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Fox Sports College Football,

game of the week with our good buddy, Spencer Tillman. Tim Brando, it's Matt. taking some time. How are things, my friend? Matt, it's great to be with you. How are you? We're doing well. I've got to ask you, we obviously live close to Lake Charles, and it's a huge casino land. You're up in the Shreveport area, and then there's a lot of casinos up there. How is industry right now, is everybody just gasping and hoping that we get the resumption of normalcy up there as well, I'm assuming? Yes, very much so. We also are huge in the medical

industry as well, and so our hospitals are jam-packed. You know, we've got an Ashtner LSU health facility in a medical school here within the LSU system. And we have Willis Knighton, which is one of the larger conglomerates of medical centers. And they're all full. And, you know, Louisiana's been hit pretty hard. Now, we've crested, and we seem to have hit that area where we're maybe going to level out and begin to come down. And the governor, as you know, decided to wait until, May the 15th, did not reopen, and I think that was a wise choice.

And hopefully shortly thereafter, we'll get back up and going again. I have a son-in-law that's a doctor now beginning of second year as a resident in Jackson, Mississippi, at UFC. They've got a similar story there. And my other son-in-law is an administrator at LSU Med at Oshner, and he's been working out of his home and probably will until mid-May. So that with the combination of the casino industry, which, as you know, has been huge here, the loss of revenues from that, particularly from people from Texas, from Arkansas. And in some cases, Oklahoma even coming down here and spending their time and their money has been, you know, huge, a huge loss for us. So we certainly want to see things turn around just as I'm sure you do.

Yeah, amen to that. Help me out a little bit. Were you at the Big East tournament when everything came to a crashing halt? Is that where you were broadcasting? I am forever the dubious distinction of being the Sports Jeopardy question. I'll take the NCAAs for NCAA basketball for 500, Alex. This man called the final basket of the 2020 season and his name not Jim Nance, who is Tim Brando. That's great.

That was me. That's great. We were on until the end of the first half, and we're told at halftime that the plug had been pulled. And frankly, even as we were starting, we were suspect as to whether we should be or would be finishing the game. As it turned out, the game actually was pretty exciting, but was called at halftime. It needed to be. The optics were really bad. But I kind of understand why it happened that way.

I do, given the circumstances within that league. You know, the Big East is a basketball-only league. That is, in fact, their Super Bowl. They don't have college football as the other power conferences and college basketball do. But it was strange and surreal. And when I do write the book, which I'm working on, and hopefully we'll get out in a couple of years, it'll have its own chapter. Trust me.

Because no sooner than I got out of the building, I was well aware. that what we were doing had become a news story because all the games elsewhere had stopped. Yeah. We were the last, we were the last ball bouncing in sports, even to this day. And there was nobody in the stands except like families and a couple of team personnel, right? Yeah. Right. There were, I think, an allotment of 200 tickets per team, which enabled friends and family, close family, to come to the game.

Now, they also did have their, they did allow their bands and their pet bands and their cheerleaders to come. And if you turned up the, as we do at Fox, we're big on audio. So we turned up the microphone so you could hear the squeaking of the tennis shoes on the floor at the world's most famous arena. It actually, once you got into the game, it seemed somewhat normal because the game was being played at a really high level as games this time of year tend to be. But again, you had to have your eyes elsewhere, and we were, we were very much aware that play had been stopped in Greensboro at the ACC and Nashville at the SEC and Indianapolis at the Big Ten. So at that point, we were frankly surprised, and I think it sounded that way,

at least I hope it did, because the tone of our broadcast, I thought, needed to be that way, because the world was truly shutting down at that point. No question about it. Tim Brando, Fox Sports with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Now, Tim, you brought up Sports Jeopardy, so this is a perfect segue. My audience knows, besides doing the Rockets and doing this show, that before my life is said and done, I want to host a game show. You, my friend, auditioned for the hosting of Wheel of Fortune when they decided to... Yeah, the biggest game show. Yeah.

Splitting up between when Pat Sajajok decided to do just the nighttime because he was going to host show on on i think on cbs so take us how you got to where you at least because i i've seen it on youtube i've seen you host and it was just a dry run or whatever it was but how did you get to that that part of uh potentially hosting the will of fortune what you saw uh and i don't know how i got out but what you saw was my audition that was it that was the audition real it's about i think 11 or 12 minutes long and i got it in one take which i was thrilled you know you don't have an IFB, you're not getting a producer talking to you in your ear as we do at sports. You're working off dummy cards and some memorization, you know.

The top dollar value on the wheel is $1,000. Do not hit bankrupt because if you do, you lose your cash, but not your merchandise. Now here's the puzzle. You've got to have that down, you know. Well, now it's all cash, so it's a little easier, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But I was doing Sports Center, and I was hosting college game day. This was the summer of 1988.

And I like you, because I'd grown up in the business, I'd grown up in the industry. My father was a local television pioneer, and he had about three different shows, all of them entertainment. He had a four-show band that toured SAC Air Bases, which I was part of. So I had always thought, what if not sports? What would you have done if not sports? And I always thought game shows would have been the direction. And like a lot of guys of my generation, I began as an announcer slash disc jockey. So spinning the heads and talking to people and having dialogue with people was something that I thought quite comfortable with.

So that's what that job is. So it came out of the blue. Literally my agent who at the time was in L.A. had gotten a call from the producers of the show saying Merv Griffin really likes Tim Brando. Could you get him out here? Well, that very rarely, if ever happens with game show hosting auditions. Usually it's a cattle call with a bunch of stand-up comics or daytime radio show guys that are out in L.A., at least in those days it was, 70s and 80s, all the guys, Gary Owens,

Martin Dale, Tommy Kennedy, all the guys from that generation were working at KMPC and Los Angeles doing daytime radio, Jeff Edwards, all those guys. And so for me, as a young sportscaster, I'm only 31, 32 at the time

to be called out of the blue to be flown out. I thought, gosh, I've got a great chance to get this gig. So I was excited about it. And so was ESPN, because we only had about 25, 30 million homes then. they actually promoted the fact that I was going out there

because it was the number one game show. And it was the daytime version on NBC, and that was the reason Sayjack was no longer going to be available to do it. He was going to go up against Johnny Carson on CBS with a late-night talk show. It had a short run, and it was canceled. But that's why I went out there. I watched Say Jack do a few shows, and then during a break where he was changing clothes for the next round of tapings.

they tape about a month's worth of shows in one day. And during that period, as the guys were going to break with a skeleton crew, we did the audition. And it went beautifully. And when it was over, the producers and a lot of the camera people who knew me from sports, they knew me from calling games and working at ESPN, they were kind of talking, hey, what are you doing here? And gosh, that was good.

And, you know, you're the best we've seen so far. and blah, blah, blah. So I felt good about it. But I think the problem, to be honest with you, I was told in the aftermath was I was, when standing next to Vanna, I was a little too tall. You know, Pat, Pat's about 5'8,

short guy. And when I was standing next to her at 6'2, I was sort of looking down at her. And I think maybe there was this thought that, gosh, you know, Tim's looking really way, you know, down. You don't think about those things in our business, at least not on the sports side. You know, your size and how you project on camera next to somebody. So I think that was part of the problem in the aftermath.

But the other issue was Ralph Banerchka was an incredible story. You know, he had been very ill, fought through a tremendous illness as a player. He had done a piece, I think, on KABC out in Los Angeles. Merv saw it, fell in love with it. He'd never done TV. They hired him instead of me. It didn't go well, and the show was off the air in about two months. But because I did it and because it went so well, they asked me to come out for about two or three more pilots to other shows.

One that actually hit, but I turned it down after doing the pilot, a show called Rudge Bad. You can look that one up. Okay. It was, and had a two-year run. I think they had 26 episode shot, and Marv Albert's brother, Steve. Oh, okay. There's an NBA broadcaster with the Warriors for many years. Steve wound up doing the show.

I turned it down. It was sort of a WWE meets People's Court with Judge Wachter, you know. And I was working. It was like being a game show host, but being a sportscaster of a parody, nature, you know, with Jesse the Body Ventura and the late Lyle Alzado with me. You know, and these, they would go into small claims court and get these people who had lawsuits, calamity-like lawsuits against one another, and they would duke it out, you know, to win, you know, their lawsuit. It was fun, but the kind of show that I felt I didn't need

to do at that time, I thought it might hurt my sportscasting career a little bit. Probably the right decision. In those days, it might have. I don't think it would now. You know, I look at these guys, that show that I'm trying to think of the comedian now that does work with Fox and Joe Tessitore does. Oh, the golf game, whatever that thing is. Yeah, I watch that, and I mean, to me, you know, 30 years ago, that would have been a career killer for a sportscaster. But in today's, you know, the line between sports and entertainment now has been blurred tremendously.

since, you know, those days. All right, before I let you run, and we've got Tim Brando with us from Fox. Great storyteller. You guys will see him with Spencer Tillman over the course of the college football season. Let's hope so. Yes. You've never been afraid to give us good, thoughtful opinions about college football. A variety of different things are out there.

What do you see should happen and what do you think is going to happen in terms of length of schedule? When we're going to start? Are you concerned about the Pact 12 schools having issues about opening up? How is this thing? again, I had to do this in about a minute time frame for you, but how do you envision this season coming to play if we're going to play major games with people in stands because that's how college athletics works with people in stands?

We're going to all have to adjust and adapt to whatever the new normal is, Matt. I mean, that's just the bottom line. I was asked this question earlier today on Twitter, what's your major concern about sports and its role? And I think the best way to handle it in the minute's time that you gave me is this. as was the case in the aftermath of 911, sports to our country should always be a healing quotient for all of the psyche of our nation. It was after 911.

We knew appropriately not to play the first Saturday after the towers went down in New York. I think that we have to hopefully come at a time when the country can pause and say, gosh, this is a relief. We've got something else to think about. And I'm sincerely hopeful that that's the case. College football, however, only has, from a financial standpoint, they have got to come up with a college football season some way somehow. And that means leadership needs to consolidate and say, this is what's in the best interest of our sport. And they've got to think both about their part of the country, but the game as a whole from a national standpoint. and I need our leaders need to be thinking about that

and need to be drawing from other leaders from other parts of the country. Something college football historically has not done. We need to do that. We'll leave it there. Tim, I wish we could get you back on as soon as possible. I just have a feeling that college football could go a lot later than normal. As long as we get it, that's all we're asking for them to get you.

Well, I think, well, you know, if we move in a month later, I've got no problem with that. I've oftentimes thought college football ended too soon anyway. And that's my thought right now. You put a gun to my head. I think college football does play out. It plays out fully in most parts of the country,

but it starts probably three to four weeks later. We'll leave it at that. Tim, thank you very much for the great storytelling and your thoughts on the college game. And we look forward to seeing and hearing you on you on Fox very, very soon. Thanks again for the time this afternoon. Thank you, Matt. All the best to all the people down in Houston.

That sounds great. Thanks again. Tim Brandel from Fox Sports. with us here on the radio show. 118 is our time. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 is how you reach our show if you want to get in. Everybody's got their thoughts and dreams and hopes about when college sports resumes.

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No worries and no hair. It's the Matt Thomas Way. Houston Sports Talk continues with the Matt Thomas Show. 124 Matt Thomas show with you today until 3 o'clock. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-790. Did you know there's something called the ESPN coronavirus lockdown fan study? Did you?

I had no clue, no. Have you, has ESPN ever called you about anything? No. Joe, have you had a survey, I mean, or a network or a sports group calls you and ask your opinion about something? Definitely not. So how of the three of us not? And we've all been worldly travelers? You know what?

I did get called about a survey. It was like a political survey, maybe a year ago. Did you answer it? Yeah. Was it painful? It was like two minutes. It was automated. Yeah.

Took me like two minutes. All right. This includes 1004. sports fans older than 18. And I've argued for years about sample size. But these surveys do sample size and they can say, well, without a shadow of a doubt, we can back up that the number of people we asked was plenty. Like the one of the biggest shams we believe in in our business is the Nielsen system of the

Patriots. Well, yeah, that's doing it. And the sample size for six million people seems absurd. What's just a matter of statistics in finding a statistical significance. samples significant sample size. I'm going to let you stay with that because I can't even say that. Okay. So of this survey of 1,000 sports fans, 1004, not 1,0003, 1,0004.

There is a margin for error, right? I'm sure there is. On the ESPN coronavirus lockdown fan study says that 65% favored sports leagues restarting their games, even with no fans in the stands. Usually America is split 45, 4510 on everything. 45% think Trump is the evil. 45% love him. 10% are can't figure it out.

Right? I mean, it feels like you could do everything on the national poll, but 45, 45, 10. I don't know. Well, he lost the popular role, but... You know what I'm talking about. Just trying to make people angry. You're working right.

About 76% said they wanted sports to return with no fans in the stands, even if players had to live out of hotels and were strictly monitored. So more than three-quarters of those fans don't care where these games are played and don't care if the athletes are inconvenienced. That's the way it should be. If these players want to win, go for a championship and they want to pick up most of their paychecks, you're going to have to live by some different rules.

When sports finally make its comeback, 88% of them who call themselves avid sports fans report of their, would watch as many games as possible. My question is, why isn't that 100%? Maybe it's just because there's no way in the world you're going to possibly watch the Nets Charlotte game, no matter how much you love sports. Yeah. Yeah, it's like the last dance thing where they started off with 6.1 million viewers

and dollar down to 5.5 per episode. I don't get those people who stop watching. That's a good retention, though, I think, I would think. I guess. But why would, in theory, and again, it's a ratings monitoring system, so there's flaws all over the place. Yes. But the series is only getting better.

It's been good. How could you after episodes one and two gone, I'm good? I think, are they not making them on demand immediately, I think? Or are they on demand right now? No, you can get them. It just doesn't, I think it takes a couple days.

Do you have to have ESPN Plus or no? No, they're going on Netflix first. Oh, that's right, because it's in conjunction with Netflix. And then they'll be on ESPN Plus in like a year. That's what I was trying to figure out, because I heard that they weren't going to be on plus for a while. 88% of fans who call themselves avid sports fans reported they will watch as many games as possible.

I mean, what does that mean? Does that mean I'm going to be watching as soon as I get home and noon until midnight every day? My guess would be that if you're in front of your television, you're watching a sporting sports. Okay. Because right now, my television, viewing habits are I'm watching more local news I've ever had before because I want to see how

the virus is affecting us in Houston. I watch all of the night shows between 7 and 10 and all three the networks to get three completely different spins of what's going on. And then I get in YouTube rabbit holes with Jeff Ross. Which I'm going to play the Jeff Ross one here and Richard Dawson and Richard Dawson and Tim Brando hosting a Wheel of Fortune. Okay. That's my life. And I listen to to music a lot. That's good. 70s on 7 and I heart radio app. And weekly top 40 with Casey, Kason, we're back in the day. So you're just listening to the same songs you've been listening to? Pretty much.

What's the most? What's a new artist that you heard? And you're like, you know what? I like that. And you got into them and you listened to a couple albums. What's the newest? Lately? Yes.

Most recently. What's the most recent time? And it could be an artist from the 50s or 60s or whatever, whatever. And you're like, man, I like them. I'm going to go download a couple of their albums and you listen. And it's songs that you haven't heard a thousand times. So this is something that can be old. Yeah, they can be old.

You just kind of recently got into them. Like stuff, like songs of theirs that you hadn't heard. I feel like you just live in top 40 of the 70s land, Matt. You got to dig deeper. Bill Withers passing. Okay. I've listened to the song, Lovely Day, 500 times in the last week. That and because the Monday night, or no, the Good Morning Football Show on NFO Network,

their commercial, isn't their commercial? Yeah, so I see. tweet them. How do you feel about Grandma's hands? No. You don't like that song? No feeling about that at all. Let me tell what I've downloaded lately. Okay. Bill Wethers. Yeah.

1970s. Yeah, just as I am. Boy, a lot of his stuff. Let me see here what else I've done. When's your birthday? June 1st. June 5th. Close enough. The pretenders I've gotten into lately. Oh, the pretenders, really? Back of the chain gang. Okay. That's a good jam.

I mean, that was a, that was a same cook song that they remade, but that's okay. That's fine, right? And I think that's about it. I'm listening to what I grew up with and appreciated. Okay. I mean, I'm still going to listen to Paul McCartney a lot. There isn't anybody today that I'm listening going, man, I really like that stuff.

But today's music, people don't build songs for me. Okay. Who is your new artist? The newest artist that I got into? I'll say Latin. jazz with Pancho Sanchez, Matt. Okay. Here's some other recent downloads.

Islands in a stream because of Kenny Rogers passing. So somebody dies. You go download all their stuff. Yeah. That's basically what it takes. I was in a casino in Phoenix when a guy named Burton Cummings was there, and he has a song called Stan Tall. Have you heard that song?

It's pretty popular. It was back in the day. Bernie Cummings? Burton Cummings. Burton. Burton, B-U-R-T-U-U-N. Burton Cummings. Burton Cummings.

And I also download some old association. I'm not a huge 60s fan, but I do love the association. I've never heard of Burton Cummings in my life. We'll play some stand tall. Play the stand tall chorus when we come back. Plus, we're going to get you into a rabbit hole that I got in time, and that's Jeff Ross roasting the people on T&T. It's three minutes of just funny stuff.

We need to laugh a lot, don't we, don't you think? Sure. A lot of sadness the last handful weeks. I'm having a good time. Let's laugh in the next segment. It's 131 on Sports Talk 790. At home say, Alexa, play Sports Talk 790 on I-Hard Radio. again this is in the matt thomas hall of fame right here he was at a casino i was in phoenix so i just

happened to see him i think i know one of his songs burton cummings you didn't pay for did you no i didn't go i just there was a sign it said tonight burton cummings performing apparently this was a number one hit on the canadian ac charts adult contemporary for those you're playing at home all right that's enough of that I don't even I don't need this show to me to make fun of my music you guys make fun of me for a lot of things I'm not letting my music I'm just making fun of him because this guy is in like a salmon

jacket with a huge 70s mustache gold chain it's like your traditional 70s music video where he's just jamming on the piano but then it's his chest hair out yes and then like there's like a soft fade of his hands playing the piano like just that it's so 70s

it hurts what year was it 76. Ooh, that's the height right there. Yeah. That's prime MT music catalog music right there. What type of music would you call that? Soft rock. Okay.

That's fair. Not Yot Rock. Yacht Rock is more like 81, 82, 83. Mm-hmm. Christopher Cross. Oh, yeah. So Michael McDonald. He alive and paralyzed, unfortunately.

Oh. He says the Rona has gotten his that's what it was. I knew he was in the use of his legs. Ross again. Well, he was in the news for some, I thought, I couldn't remember if he was in the news for dying or contracting coronavirus. I couldn't remember. So, but apparently he's going to, he's hoping he's going to recover. That's good. I believe it's temporary. Okay. Now that we've, how's Bert Cummins doing? Apparently, I mean, since February, I'm guessing he's okay. He's out running around the country doing concerts and in the casinos. Is he, is he selling these things out? I don't know. I just saw the sign.

And I'm like, that's, that names. And then I said, that's, he sang something familiar. And then it was Stan Tall. Like, I like that song. All right. There we go. Yeah, I'm, I'm fully embarrassed about my music taste. No, you're not.

It's fine. You shouldn't be. Whatever you like is what you like. No, I'm laughing at Ross because I think you just missed his reference completely. What would he say? He put another, he just finished the lyrics to whatever you were saying. You said, I saw the sign. I said it opened up your eyes.

Oh, that's true. I got you. I got you. That happens at least once. By the way, we're not getting in there. We are due for a fantasy five of worst number one songs. The Dekeye We're next would be the 2000s.

There's some bad ones. That's going to be a good one. That's what we're doing on Friday. And then we've got to go back to women. Because when in doubt, top afternoon delights of the last two weeks. Every one of them, apparently. Let me tell you all something. I'm going to peel the curtain back on the radio show.

I could write a 1,000-word essay. about the problems of the Houston Texans. You could give two blanks about it. But if we put up a picture of today's afternoon delight, which her name again is... Irina Durate? Yeah. And Ross, how is she doing on the old internet Twitter account? She's doing great, but so is yesterday's Nelly Cronin.

Do you see Nelly on the blog, Joe George? Parts of her. I did. The initial picture is just her ass. That's it. Matt. I mean, I know. I shouldn't have given it away.

Her posterior, Matthew. Her rear. All right. Now that we've depressed people talking about my music selections. I've been catching up in a variety of U-2 rabbit holes. Jeff Ross was a part of a, you know, he's the legendary roastmaster. Of course, yeah. He is the goat of roasting.

I don't know. Greg Geraldo is pretty good, too. He was just that much more. Well, he died. Did Gelesnik die too? Anthony Jezelnick? He's alive. Okay.

He's a roaster, too. Yeah. But I think he had a Netflix special recently. But Jeff Ross at the end of the day is probably the most recognizable roaster. He during the All-Star break, roasted the guys on T&Ts inside the NBA. And I had not seen it until about a week ago. Oh, yeah. I saw it when it happened.

I think we played some on this. Maybe not. Maybe it was my Saturday show. Yeah. The Saturday show gets special treatment. The Sports RV show, 10 to noon on Sports Talk 790. I think we need to laugh in these times. Okay.

That's enough. I think we need to laugh a little bit. So I shaved. down to about three minutes and 15 seconds. Jeff is ruthless on all of them, really except Ernie Johnson. The rest of them don't get spared. Here's Jeff from last year's, last February's

All-Star Game. Give it up for our guests of honor, the four hosts of Inside the NBA, Shaquille O'Neill, Charles Barkley, the other black guy, and the guy who's dressed for an impeachment. Shack is best known for missing free throws. Charles Barkley is best known for missing court dates. Kenny Smith is best known for knowing Charles Barkley. And Ernie Johnson is best known as the assistant coach of the Quidditch team at Hogwarts. Congrats on a great season, coach.

Shaq, you and me, we've been friends a long time. I've been following your legendary career. There's nobody like you in the world, Shaq. You, sir, are an anomaly. But don't ever quote me on that because nobody wants to hear you say anomaly. It wasn't easy for young Shaq growing up. He had a lot of trouble in school, mostly getting in and out of the desks. Poor little Shaquille, always running out of lunch money at breakfast.

Face it, Shaq, you are gigantic. That suit is bigger than the one against Harvey Weinstein. Charles Barkley looks like he puts his whole mouth over the drinking fountain. When the great Charles Barkley speaks, he keeps it real. He doesn't sugarcoat anything except his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Charles Barkley only agreed to be in the movie Space Jam because he thought it was about jelly that was out of this world. I loved basketball, but I was never very good at it.

Kenny Smith, you can relate, right? Kenny Smith, Kenny Smith. Sounds like a name Charles Barkley gives to the cops. Actually, Kenny Smith played on the same college team as much. Michael Jordan. And that's where the comparison ends. You're a cool guy, Kenny. But your eyebrows are a metaphor for your playing career.

They start out strong, but then they retire early. By the way, Tiffany isn't just a comedian and a movie star. She also wrote a great book. Shack. A book is it's like paper talking here with your eyes. This was fun. I feel like us basketball fans needed a laugh right now.

so thank you for inviting me to the party we all need to laugh right now he was ruthless towards Kenny that's pretty good yeah um Kenny the jet he glossed himself after yeah you really want to have a night of just laughing go to Comedy Central roast

on YouTube and just watch Bieber get annihilated Alec Baldwin get annihilated Rob Logan and I mean it is I would I mean I would love to be up we were going to We were going to do a roast here for somebody. We were we going to roast Uncle Greg or something at some point?

Were we supposed to have Uncle Greg roast? Maybe before he left? Yeah. I don't know. I'd be willing to do that. I could come up with some good stuff. We should do a sports RV roast. Why are you going to roast me?

Because we do it for a good charity or something. I can handle it. And take all of us here on 790 to annihilate you for a hour and a half. I'd love that. Okay. Joe, did you come up with some materials? Yeah. It's pretty easy.

Hey. Pretty easy. Matter of fact, let's do a rehearsal right now. If you want to roast Ross, 713, 21, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 5, 790. Let's go. 713. The guy who gets roasted,

he gets to go up at the end, right? Yes. Yeah, you're the very end. Oh, yeah, I'm in. I think that's part of the appeal if we roasted Ross. Yeah. At the end, he would...

Wait a minute. Maybe then I want to go last. Oh, geez. Hmm. Yeah, how could you handle not being the center of attention for that long, Matt? Well, I could host...

They roast everyone. Like, the roaster's everyone up there. It's true. Yeah. All right, we're doing the roast of me. Let's do it. We'll do the roast of Ross.

Y'all just call on a night item. On Zoom. Oh, yeah. And we'll open up to everybody can come in and watch. Oh, let's not do that one. That didn't work out too well. 7-1-3-21-5-7-90. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90.

Win totals for the Texans. You can bet on them. How many they're going to win? We'll have bet it for you in 15 minutes. Since I know all of you are big sports fans and we need some sports soon, why not fly the flag or banner of your favorite team? And you can do that with a crombo. flags and flagpoles get together.

What you can do is call them at 713-661-922 and say, hey, I heard Matt talking about you guys. And I heard you've got a lot of great college and protein flags. Matter of fact, during the baseball season, we give away astro flags, courtesy of Cronbergs. And they also have a tremendous selection of patriotic national and state flags as well. We're talking about flags that are durable, heavyweight, made of 100% nylon or polyester, and they're finished with the heavy duty stitching for longest durability. So if you want your flag to stand out at your place of business or in front of your home, I want you to get that flag or banner that you need from a Houston-based company that will take tremendous care of you.

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Wave Busters. Houston Sports Talk continues. With the Matt Thomas Show. You know, if there is no fans, there is no wave. Yeah, I never thought of it that way. And no woo. Well, there may not be much woo this year. Hmm.

If Kyle Tucker comes. comes in there and takes that spot, eventually. Maybe not right away. Or maybe Wu gets traded before it. Is there going to be a trade deadline? Yeah, they'd have to be. Yeah. It's still one that's going to be.

Hmm. By the way, we are efforting for James Click to join us on the radio show later this week. Oh, really? Yeah. That's cool. People we miss hearing from, Frank. We haven't heard enough from him. We haven't heard any of him.

People need to hear more from. Do you think he's benefited in some way that you don't have to start the season rolling as quickly as possible so he can kind of learn the system and get settled in a little bit more? Or do you think, I guess this will be a question for him, obviously? I think he's super anxious to run his own baseball team. Yeah, but I mean, he was just going to have to hit the ground running rather quickly with the season starting. And now this kind of levels of playing field a little bit more. And just to give you, again, not an indirect benefit, but Verlander would not be pitching right now.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, I would, well, again, yeah. If you're going based off of Erlander, the virus was a good thing. But if you're going off of, you know, he's anxious to run his own baseball team, he probably would like to have made a move or something or, you know, formulated in his 25-man roster by now. Although there wasn't a whole lot of decision-making to begin with.

Yeah. Except for maybe the fourth and fifth starters. So, yeah, we'll hopefully get James either on to the show tomorrow or on Thursday. Wonderful. 713-212-5-790. Texans win totals. You can bet them. depending on what you think they're going to do.

You'll have certain odds based on what their win total is. Okay. Well, they're at the top of the hour. Let's go to Jay and Cyprus on 790. Hi, Jay. Hey, how you doing there, Mer? Good. Huge fan of Burton Cummings.

Oh, good. And I think I saw the same concert as you did. But you know, his greatest hit was American woman. That's his song. That's his song. Pull it up. No, American One

No, is it really? It's not the guess who? Yeah, that's not him. Who do you think Was Sputeman for the guess who? Do you write it? Who do you think was Fruteman for the guess who? I don't know. I don't know.

He was a lead singer? Yes. Oh, there you go. Well, then, okay, well, I trust you then. I don't have a great memory of him. So I just know that I like that song. That's it. Okay.

Pull it up, you'll see. Thank you. Thank you. We got some people that know their music on the show. Burden Cummings apparently was in The Guess Who? He's correct. Well, I didn't think he was lying. Well, no, there are people that make mistakes all the time, including us.

You don't call in and be like, hey, Burden Cumm's in the Guess Who? If he's not, I wouldn't think. Well, that's why Jay is our official music historian of the radio program. I was a fan of that song. Also, I think I had, I think my parents had the Guess Who Greatest Hits and we used to listen to that one as a kid. No Sugar Tonight. Oh, great song. I guess when I'm downloading between 3 and 4 o'clock,

The guest who would raise it? Hey, don't tell Clinton the Waxx, I'm downloading the songs. Why not? Because I'll get mad if I don't listen to the 18. Will they? I don't listen. I'm down the hall. Oh, that went sideways quick.

Unless I'm really bored. No, they're an entertaining show. No, they're a great show. I've got stuff to do. I got to upload T&A to this website. Yeah. We have the best T&A in the radio. We just do.

Excuse me? We do, right? Our website, yeah. Yeah. We have our digital guy. Joe does a great job for us. He's like, you know, you guys could do this. You could put up some old videos of some games and you could put up some, you know,

why don't you break down the four quarters of the Texans match up and all that kind of thing? And it's like, that gets like 75 hits. I'm looking right now. Top 11 posts. Now this is out of like, we post, especially Michael in the morning. He's cranking out blogs like crazy. Top 11 are all women. This is like women from last week, like last week's.

This shows you. How horny y'all are. The top 11 post at Sports790.com. All women. Yeah. And funny, all I'm said punched by Joe George on the website. Yeah, he's getting them all. We got your browser history going on.

That's not true. Then I want my browser history. I was Googling the KKK and stuff today on the show. Yeah. What? We were talking about the Viter thing. You weren't listening to the show at the time. Yeah, sorry.

He's busy back there. Doing what? running the website, running the board, answering phones? I'm on Joe's side. Line one, go ahead. See nobody that calling the show? Well, you just had the Bert Cummings expert on the show. That's true.

Burton Cummings. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention this. There is a Texans opening, a job opening at the Texans. Did you see this? I'm not kidding. Was it social media manager again? No, I think they keep moving. They rotate those guys.

I think they take it off the website and then they had to it. It's like nobody wants this job. Let me see if I get the exact title. Radioactive. The new... Where is it? Where to go? Is it off the website? Yeah, you're lying to us now.

What are you looking for? Oh, it's a job to clean the place. What do I see jobs in sports? Oh, God. Y'all talk about each other for like 30 seconds while I find it. How's it going, Joe? Pretty good, Ross. How are you?

Pretty good, man. How's the Twitter account at Joe George Radio doing? Pretty good. We're almost like 1100. That's good. Here it is. The Texans are looking to fill a new role. A facility hygiene coordinator.

Facility hygiene coordinator. As COVID-19 changes the world of sports, cleanliness and safety have become top of mind for teams and players. This is sports business journal to the story about this job and many more. Facility hygiene coordinator. Now, no kidding aside. I'm zero kidding on this. That's a tough-ass job. That is, think about this.

That's 80 players, 20 coaches, five to six, maybe 10 equipment people, four or five trainers, there are a couple of hundred people going into that germ-filled, bacteria-filled, sweat, gross locker room. every day for multiple hours. And they're going to hire somebody to be in charge of making sure there are no germs and no bacteria and no fungus.

Rossi, that's got to be a high six-figure paying job. Because let me tell you something. You'd have to give me $500,000 to take that job. Purell everywhere, everyone wearing masks, we're done. That's the reason why you wouldn't get past the first round of the interviews. Easy peasy, baby. Facility hygiene coordinator. Any idea what that makes?

I don't think I want to know. Joe George, 70? Joe, no. Joe, if I give you $125,000 for a yearly salary, you have to get to the facility at 7 a.m. You have an assistant, but the two of you, nobody can leave that locker room for the day. You're the last one literally to walk out.

Pass. $125,000. No, because if Bill doesn't leave, I have to wait to clean his office. No, not on, no. You can hire a team. You're a coordinator. Yeah, doing it all yourself. Yeah, you're hiring people.

But the buck stops with you. And by the way, Bill O'Brien's office is not on the same floor as where the guys are. The locker room is on the lower level of energy. They're up above. What do you think? $125,000? Yeah, I'll do it. Temperature checks when you come in, Purorelle, masks.

You don't see you don't. Get my hand on some tests. It's not that easy. That's scrubbing every one of the locker. I'm not scrabbing. I'm hiring somebody to scrubble. Yeah, but you're not going to be, they're going to ask you to do it too.

No, I'm not, you know. You get like two janitors, we'll be fine. I don't know. I don't know if $125,000 would be enough. That's a dead. Yeah, well, nobody's making Matt. We're not making me and Joe aren't making Matt Thomas money. But, okay.

I'll give you a chance to make, you know, 125. You're going to make sure that every day. that locker room is spick and span. I mean, 10 times more than it used to be. You're ready to do it? Okay. Just get everybody on the same page. It'll be fine.

Well, let's send an application in. See how far you get along in the process. I don't think I'm very qualified. The only thing on my resume is working here and it chitters. Wait, wait a minute. So how do you become a facility hygiene coordinator in college? You don't do that. You can probably have some kind of medical background, I would imagine, like a nurse or something.

Or a janitorial background, I guess. or both preferably. Just saying. Somebody's got to help us find out what that job makes. I'd like to know. And is it what would be worth it? All right, Texans win totals. I've been updated from Vegas.

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