The Press Box - Aaron Rodgers Gets Paid, a Braves’ Clubhouse Controversy, and the Long-Form “Nobody Believed in Us!” Club With Jason Gay

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Bryan is joined by Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay to run through some media topics, including the Braves’ clubhouse controversy over a writer quoting an overheard conversation (01:13). Then, they discuss the report that Pat McAfee is paying Aaron Rodgers for his weekly show appearances (14:12), the idea of the NFL buying a television network like ABC (23:06), and a few writers who are saying “nobody believed in us” (29:24). Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Jason Gay Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Final Edition. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Eduardo Ocampo, who's sitting in for Erica. Joining us once again today. You know him as a columnist at the Wall Street Journal as the author of I wouldn't do that if I were me. It's Jason Gay.

Jason, welcome back to the press box. I appreciate the invitation as always. Happy to run across 7th Avenue to be. a guest on your show anytime, Brian. You know that. A couple of media topics to spin through with you on a Friday afternoon. Yeah. The first is a little controversy and accent on little from the Major League Baseball playoffs. Game two of the Braves-Filly series last week.

Afterward, a Braves player named Orlando Arcia was overheard in the clubhouse saying, ha-ha, at a boy, Harper, referring to the Phillies Bryce Harper, who'd been doubled up to end game two. So the writer and podcaster Jake Mintz heard Arcia's bit of trolling. He put it in his Fox Sports column, Jason. And that, of course, led to some amazing theater in which Harper stared down Arcia in the next game of the series.

Great content for us. Do we have any problem with Jake Mintz reporting something he heard and saw in the locker room? No, absolutely not. But as far as like overheard conversations that would lead to international dustups, like ha, ha, ha, add a boy. I mean, like, are we in like a Saturday evening post-comic strip? I mean, it's about as anodyne as it gets. I mean, come on. the whole hullabaloo over this thing is absurd.

I totally agree. And of course, we both know that the minimal unit of bulletin board material, especially for a team in the postseason, is even less than ha-ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-boy. Oh, absolutely. And it's only bulletin board material, Brian, if you actually come out the other end with some result, right? Bryce Harper doesn't get, you know, picked off, or rather, if Bryce Harper doesn't hit two home, runs in the following game and stare down the shortstop, non-story. But it's this whole association that just turned it into craziness. I found it highly entertaining. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it

thoroughly. I mean, those death stares. That was, and that got me back, by the way, for last night's game. I was much, much more interested in that game because of the story. Yes, you know, anytime you can combine a national sporting event with a media clubhouse controversy, you have Brian Curtis's full attention. It's like having the World Series at the Neiman Fellows. Now, the controversy such as it was, proceeded from this. Not that Jake Mintz had misquoted Arcia, later admitted that Mintz had quoted him correctly. Yeah. The reasons given were, and Jason, please dive in after any or all of these. One is that the clubhouse is the player's sanctuary.

Yes, a sacred space, I believe. A sacred space, even when it's swarming with reporters. Now, you and I would probably agree that our houses are sacred spaces. But if we invited a reporter to come in and write about us, something would probably be less than sacrosanct about that space, at least until the reporter left. Depends on the reporter, but yes, I'm with you. So that was a weird one.

Yeah. Second one was that Mince was not talking directly to Arcia. Oh, okay. Not interviewing him and therefore is unable to quote him because of that. Again, I'm less than moved by this idea, especially since Arcia was saying this out loud and clearly wanted people to hear. this. Brian, can we just stop for one second to say that ha, ha, ha, Adaboy, Bryce. Was it Adaboy Bryce or Adaboy Harper?

Adaboy Harper. Adaboy Harper is the most innocent thing you could possibly hear in a major league locker room or clubhouse rather. I mean, it just, the idea that this is somehow, you know, a grand expose of inner Sanctum language is bizarre. It just is a goof because Harper hits the two dingers and decides to make a big theatrical move out of it. Totally. We're okay with bat flips, but we're not okay with, you know, a little spirited ha-ha after a game. You know, to quote the late great Sidney Pollock and Michael Clayton, when did we get so soft? As a sports media class, that's an excellent question.

By the way, and speaking of which, the third reason given that Jake Mince did something wrong somehow in the clubhouse was that he was a quote unquote, wait for it, blogger. Oh, yes, bloggers, yes. I know Alana Rizzo has already apologized for this, but oh my God. What a time machine back to the early 2000. Well, you need to clarify the Rizzo gate aspect of this. So she was on MLB Network, which gave it an interesting kind of heft to make those comments about a Major League Baseball reporter. She was on with Mad Dog Russo. Okay.

Yes. And she was criticizing Jake Mintz for being something less than an official Dick Young merit badge carrying reporter of baseball. Right. And that he violated some kind of code. Do I have this correct? Yes. That he broke the code by reporting the ha, ha, ha, attaboy, Harper. That was her allegation.

That was her allegation. It turned out that was real wrong for reasons, including... Well, I mean, this guy is a legitimate credentialed member of the media and has been so for quite a long while and is a member of the baseball writers of America, I believe. Pretty official. Yeah, pretty official. More official than you or I, for sure. Definitely. Definitely.

I only cosplay as a sports writer. Yeah, I don't get that fancy, I don't have that fancy badge. I think when you have that fancy BWA badge, you can walk into any baseball game anywhere. And they have to give you popcorn and a steak. Absolutely. And your co-worker Lindsay Adler pointed this out on Twitter today that even if he had been a blogger, quote unquote, with a credential. and not a holder of that mighty BBWAA card. Who cares?

Of course. Of course. Who cares? What we're really doing the blogger thing? The mom's basement, the try to get attention for himself. Thing again, that was just,

that was very bracing. I mean, there's a whole bunch going on here, which I find super amusing. Let's go back to the show, Brian. I want to remind you that these comments, These Rizzo comments happen on a show called High Heat, okay? Not medium heat, not off-speed heat, Brian, high heat.

So if you're coming on to high heat delivering lukewarm takes, well, you're not going to last long. So that's probably where that energy came from. But the other part of it is that, yes, she was absolutely wrong. Apologize for it on Friday. Very, very abject apology. But there's just something media on media about this in a very sort of self-obsessed navel-gazing way, which is really comedic as well, right? It's like we love nothing more than to eat our own and to protect our own when we see

one of our own being eaten, if that makes any sense. It just was this uroboros of media self-obsession that really kind of carried into what was a pretty exciting upset series. with Philadelphia and the Braves. I liked it. I found it a lot more interesting than Thursday night football. So fully in favor of it. Never, never, you know, can't be on a show like the press box

and complain about internecena media violence. But no, I'm not, nothing was done wrong here. Two more quick points for you. One is that this really reminded me of the Luca Evans situation we had out here with USC a couple of weeks ago. Oh, right. Where sports writers who've already had

their access minimize. Yes. Who've already found it much, much harder to go out and do the reporting they need to do. Then at some point are told either by the team

or by their peers in this case or by the players that you're no longer able to use your ears and eyes even when news happens right in front of you. I draw the line at a lot of places

when we talk about keeping the locker room open making players available. but I would definitely draw the line that I cannot write down something I see or here. I mean, that is just the most basic form of reporting humanly possible. In 2023, if you are committed to going to baseball games and writing about them, they should be handing you out warm apple pie at the door and telling you, thank you, thank you for being here.

They deserve your great gratitude. I mean, what do you think drives this game? okay it's that kind of attention that kind of i mean another just fine point of this is that a little bit of this falls on the braves and if in fact this player did feel that there was some sort of code it's the team's responsibility to disabuse them of that belief now very innocently he might have believed that had he not been in a formal interview that somehow those comments are not out there into the world but at this point in the season you'd explain expect everyone would know.

And the other part is that, not like the media sneaks in, especially in a postseason game. The players are notified well in advance. Reporters are about to enter, and we enter. And it looks like, you know, the worst men's warehouse ad

you've ever seen in your entire life coming in there. It's hard to miss. So, listen, I support my colleague Lindsay's positions on this. She is as skilled and pros, pro as it gets in this business and she knows her stuff and whatever she says I go with.

That might have been a tad insulting to the men's warehouse when we talk about sports writer outfits, but I take their larger points in totality. My apologies to future press box sponsor men's warehouse. Yes, and George Zimmer and anyone else who was affected. But I will say this to your point about telling the player, because I think there's something interesting there too, which is that in sports writing, I think a lot of concepts like off the record exist largely as an unspoken understanding rather than something that's actually negotiated on a comment-by-comment basis.

It depends on the environment, but yes, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, at least among regulars in a locker room or a clubhouse setting. Yes. I remember a few years ago speaking of cosplay as a sports writer. I went to Dallas Cowboys training camp. And the coach then, Jason Garrett is doing his podium spiel and doing his daily press conference. And he steps down from the press conference and all the writers go over. And clearly that was meant as background material.

Now, I walk up there and I'm like, oh, what's this? I can start listening to him. I just remember him looking at me like, who's this guy? And of course, nothing Jason Garrett said then or ever was worthy of being out of phone and actually tweeting out. Right. But once he started talking, interview over. Yeah, exactly.

I actually just left. I didn't want to hear it. But, you know, I didn't agree to anything. I didn't know about whatever arrangement had been set up among the regulars. Yeah. And you're right. But it, to me, it's on the team to make those distinctions clear to the players if there's ever any doubt.

And if there's an unwritten rule, quote unquote, journalists are not obligated to follow. I mean, the hilarious part of this is the notion that somehow this cost the Braves, the National League Division series. That is the best. That wasn't Jake Mince's fault? Yeah. There's going to be a Pointer Institute seminar taught on the lessons learned Atlanta Braves Clubhouse protocols.

I hope I will be contacted to be on that panel. Second topic for you today, I want to talk about the Pat McAfee-Aryon-Rogers story. Story was broken for those who didn't see it Thursday by the New York Post, Andrew Marchand, who reported that Pat McAfee is paying Aaron Rogers, his weekly Tuesday guest for his interviews. So for Rogers' takes on football and public health,

he is being paid upwards of one million dollars, or I should say has been paid upwards of one million dollars. And Marchand's sources indicate that it may be that much money per year for this interview arrangement. What do you think of paying Aaron Rogers for interviews? I thought you were going to say, what do you think of paying guests to be on podcast? Because I'm 100% in favor, Brian, as you know. Where's Jason's check?

I've done this podcast probably a baker's dozen times and I think I got a free hat. Okay. I am not Aaron Rogers. I'm not surprised that there was some sort of arrangement here. I thought all along, and this is way before the ESPN part of this, but, you know, didn't McAfee had a big deal with Fanduel, I just assumed that Rogers had a piece of equity in this podcast, that this was a big part of what made it such a phenomenon that you had this newsmaking quarterback who said wildly eccentric things weekly,

go on there and give an hour interview. And, you know, we both know there is a long, long tradition of the sort of Monday morning post-mortem interview with the franchise quarterback on the local radio station. Sometimes it's the head coach as well, sponsored by the local muffler store. And there's probably some muffler trade and also a few dollars that exchange hands

in exchange for some rather banal commentary. Rogers is giving a lot more than that to McAfee. In fact, putting all the ethics aside here, he's probably underpaid when you think about the value that Aaron Rogers has delivered to the McAfee show over the past year a half. I mean, what are the most newsworthy moments in the history of the Maccuffey show?

It's sort of like NFL ratings. It's probably like nine of the top 10 McAfee moments are Aaron Rogers things. Totally, totally. But the losses, like the interviews after losses in the playoffs, you know. Even just the clarification of where he was going to go sign a free agent. The fact that he went on McAfee, I think was the first confirmation of the Achilles surgery and all this stuff. I mean, Aaron Rogers, for better and for worse, has made news and clearly delights and making news and clearly delights in using this forum. And yeah, so Aaron Rogers, talk to your agent. You should be getting a little bit more out of Pat Mac.

One million, that's peanuts. That's what really interested me about it, because if we accept that sports radio stations all over the country are paying for these regular interview hits, and I saw Jason Barrett, who runs his own media website now and was a program director and consultant for years saying, he spent $100,000 to $200,000 a year in San Francisco. on athlete hits, then economically, again, on that scale, Aaron Rogers is worth a million

dollars. Plus, Aaron Rogers is on there, as far as I can tell for like an hour a week, rather than 10 or 15 minutes and doing the desultory, you know, we need to play harder. We need to get the game together stuff, as you said. I'm also interested in the implications for ESPN, because I think that is part of what is making people rear up here too. The idea that ESPN is paying a player for an interview. Right. This ain't just sports radio. It ain't just an ESPN affiliate of sports radio.

It's a line item. Yeah, this is the mothership, right? And even if it's coming out of, it wasn't totally clear, but even if it's coming out of Pat's own salary from ESPN, like he's saying, okay, I'm paying my staff this, and this is something we need to do because you just say it's made the show so much more interesting.

it is interesting the way it becomes de facto ESPN policy in a side door kind of way because somebody's doing it. I think if your ESPN brain here, you basically are making a distinction that Pat McAfee is part of the entertainment package. He's not part of the newsroom. He's not a quote unquote journalist. He's not somebody, you know, on the par of a wicker sham or Van Nat or somebody like that. this is a guy who's there to make ratings, entertain, get people talking, and that this is a totally different thing, and this does not need the Columbia Journalism Ethics Patrol on the case. The challenge of it, I think, is if Aaron Rogers' availability to ESPN is siloed off to McAfee, and by that I mean that is Aaron Rogers not game to do other media within ESPN because he's got this thing,

with McAfee, and so I'm not going to talk to other personnel because I already got you. I do this other thing. And he's a big newsmaking presence in the spot. It's weird to talk about this also because he's like uninjured reserve for crying out loud. But if he is blocked off, and I don't know if he is, or if he is less likely to do those other options, then it becomes a little stranger. Yeah. I guess it's, I guess to me, to your point, the interesting part is where you draw the line around entertainment. and news at ESPN.

I mean, he makes news on the show. That's the part of it. He makes news on the show and hard news reporters listen to the show for him to make news. Can confirm, absolutely. Which they've also done for years and years to quarterback shows on local radio networks. But they wait a long time for news to come out of those things. I'm telling you. It's true.

Rogers is a cut above. But yes, yes. An order of magnitude above. But you would write it up if somebody said something. on a paid appearance if you were the newspaper. 100%. If Bill Belichick gets on the next day and says quarterback change, that's a news story.

Everybody runs with it, for sure. Never would do it, but hypothetically. But let's follow you down the path there for news and entertainment because I think that's interesting. We know ESPN has paid athletes and former athletes to be part of documentaries. Tom Brady was active. Yes, Tom Brady, active quarterback, executive producer on Man

in the arena. Yeah. So, and that wasn't probably not terribly cheap. We know the last dance, Michael Jordan, his production company was a partner and his business associates were executive producers on that show. So the documentary part of that already has that going on. Then we say there's an entertainment part of it. Maybe that's a talk show.

So if Stephen A had somebody on on a weekly basis, something like that, some player would that, you know, would that be okay to pay on? We know we're not going to get to the Seth Wickersham, Don Van Natteer tier. That's journalism. But then you can talk about there's a whole lot of things on TV kind of between those things. There's, you know, is sports center okay? Oh, no, is that a news product so we can't pay somebody to come on Sports Center and do an interview? There's stuff like NFL live with a lot of newsy people on it and also a lot of former athletes on it.

Are we going to have, is that okay to have somebody come on if they were to come on and do a, you know, fun 10-minute segment every week? I actually don't know what the answer is here. And I also don't know what ESPN's answer to this question would be anymore. Well, let's also cut to the reality that if you get almost any active athlete on any kind of media forum in 2023, somebody's paying for something. Because we, you've talked about it on this show endlessly, the amount of sort of, sort of, pay-for-appearance, advertorial-type interviews that happen is epidemic. I mean, what I'm talking about is the, you know, tell us what you're doing here with Jason's mufflers, Brian.

I mean, that sort of thing, which is, again, epidemic across podcasts and television, drive-time radio, all kinds of stuff. I mean, we get offered it all the time in newspapers. We don't do it. Yeah, no, same here for me personally. You mean Adam Nagorney wasn't sponsored by like, you know, Fanta? He did not. No, he did not come with.

Adam Gorney, tell us what you're doing with Dr. Pepper. Story number three. You sent me this very interesting piece from front office sports. It's by Eric Fisher. The headline is, should NFL buy ABC? Analyst argues league, quote, fiddling while Rome burns. Yeah.

Always enjoy that turn of phrase. What do we think about the idea of the NFL going out and purchasing a television network? I love the hypothetical because I think it is grounded in a genuine concern, which is that as the cable bundle disappears before our very eyes, which is leading to the economic decline of cable for not just cable providers, but cable partners, like, you know, things that have been part of that bundle, you are turning to tech to fill the gap. So that means you are going from traditional broadcast partners,

traditional cable partners to streaming partners. To date, the reach is significantly lower with those type of streaming partners. And if you're the NFL, at least certainly the NFL in this day and age, your whole market advantage is scale. You're just so much bigger. you get so many more eyeballs, you have so much more attention than anything else. And what delivers that better than anything still in this incredibly stratified era is broadcast television.

And so basically what they're suggesting here is, you know, instead of chartering a boat, buy your boat, like have your own vessel here. They're not saying buy ESPN. We should be clear about that. They're saying, have a pipe that you can send out your product to the masses, including the still substantial number of people with rabbit ears at home. That's important. And I've had conversations over the years with NFL people, team owners, who do really genuinely

value the idea that this product is to. I mean, look at all the weird blackout rules that still exist within the NFL. They are very protective of that idea. So it's an interesting suggestion at a time when the conversation is mostly in the other direction, which is ESPN taking on strategic partners from sports. I think none of us should underestimate how fat the NFL has gotten off of broadcast television. All through the age of cable, all through the age of the Internet, all through the age of streaming. That baseball game that was so compelling last night, if you don't have Turner, you ain't watching the baseball game.

Yeah. And yet the NFL can guarantee that all 17 regular season games are somewhere on broadcast television in a home market. And a huge ton of their product is on free broadcast television. And the whole economics of NFL media is sort of based on the idea of that mass audience and that giant local regional carry and national carry. You know, part of the issue that the streamers, are running into and you're seeing this consolidation all over the place with programming, sitcoms, dramas, you know, peak TV, whether or not that's over, is this idea you just carried over this big fat model and you put it into a tech business which can't support it, at least not yet.

You know, maybe we will get to that point, Brian, where, you know, something, a streamer is commanding the same kind of like 100 million audience, you know, that a Super Bowl can. But right now, it definitely cannot. And so, yeah, this, I mean, I know John Skipper's been talking about this for a while, the idea that the Super Bowl will eventually go pay-per-view, which I've been very dubious on because of this exact thing, that the NFL does not want some sort of friction between the general population and its product. They want every eyeball possible, and they will, because they can sell that to advertisers, of course, or their network partners can. So it's, it's a, it's, I don't know, It's interesting.

I like the column. It would just require them fundamentally changing their outlook, which is, no, no, we're going to take all the money from our broadcast television partners. Because our broadcast television partners know if they don't have the NFL, they will not exist tomorrow. So we will just take all their money. And instead, we will become one of the broadcast television partners. The great thing, if it were a sitcom, would be that the NFL buys it,

but there's some sort of contract language that the NFL has to keep running like ABC News with like David Muir and like, you know, they decide to bring back nightline. Maybe they have old Mr. Belvedere's that can run. I mean, there's only so much NFL you can run. I mean, I know they don't think so, but there's only so much the public wants to watch. And yeah, you can't just program ABC with football stuff all the time. Or could you? I mean, you know, what do you do?

I want to be in the meeting. I want to, I want to overhear Jake Man. style the meeting between Roger Goodell and David Muir. Takeovers. Travis Kelsey hosting World News Tonight. Sure. Yeah. I might watch it again.

Travis Kelsey did that. Last topic for you. You know how obsessed I am about the athlete nobody believed in us? Oh, yeah. Storyline of which the whole Bryce Harper thing was kind of an offshoot. Yes. Let me introduce you to... Can I just stop one?

Sorry, just that point of this baseball thing. I mean, because now everybody wants to revisit the idea whether or not the playoffs are fair. It's hilarious to have people sitting there saying, like, can you believe a team that won 90 games beat a team that won 100 games? That's my favorite one. They won 100 games.

They won 100 games. And they were beaten by a team that won, let's see, 11 fewer games. What is the world coming to? Truly, truly strange. Sorry, I interrupted. Not at all. Not at all. So we know about the athletes saying nobody believed in us.

I would like to introduce you to the narrative nonfiction masters who are also saying that nobody believed in us. There were amazingly two examples this week. First is Gay Talese, whose new book I just bought, haven't gotten a chance to open it yet. He tells Esquire, Jason, quote, I can't remember one good review in my life. Not one good review? Not one? Not for honor they father for the kingdom and the power?

Not a general feeling of veneration for those stories about Sinatra and Jolt and Joe. I mean, I feel like there are literally journalism schools with like Frank Sinatra has a cold carved into the granite outside. I mean, come on. We call this segment the haters and losers have a cold. Our second long-form master who is not feeling the critical love is Michael Lewis, who you and I talked about last week. But not about his new book, Going Infinite, about an old book. Michael Lewis tells GQ's Brett Martin that the reception for Going Infinite,

quote, has reminded me a bit of the Moneyball publication when there was such outrage. I couldn't turn on ESPN without somebody saying rude things about it. Now, perhaps someone in baseball said rude things about it because Michael Lewis noted in the book that they were doing their jobs completely incorrectly. That might have produced some pushback. I certainly remember pushback about analytics. Moneyball was a bestseller. It was a huge movie. It changed the trajectory of Michael Lewis's book writing career, if not his magazine writing career.

Are we really holding on to the pushback to Moneyball? if you're Michael Lewis. Listen, one day you're going to be walking around Chez Panisse and you're going to get a tap on the shoulder and it's going to be Michael Lewis and the fur might fly, my friend. I mean, you are really on this beat. But this is also part of this Philly story. If you win, you get to write the history of it. Right? It's like Moneyball, I think Shoemaker has said on this podcast that every nonfiction book pitch in the last 20 years has been Moneyball meets blank.

Right? it is inarguably one of the most influential nonfiction books ever, certainly of its time. And, you know, it would really take some archival research to figure out if these reviews were en masse negative. I find it hard to believe. But that's kind of the privilege of being Michael Lewis at this point, that you get to kind of rewrite or tell the history because you're the person with the megaphone because you're still Michael Lewis. you're still incredibly relevant as a non-fiction writer. And look, I mean, goes on 60 minutes, gets every possible eyeball, gets the attention of a great writer like Brett Martin to sit down and interview him for a few hours.

If I'm obsessed with this storyline, it's because I probably feel it a little too close to home. I don't know about you, Jason, but I'm sitting here at the computer, trying to give that nut graph, that extra layer of polish. and what do I do when I get stuck? I try to make myself mad by thinking of people that have doubted me over the year. Thinking of that editor who didn't give me that extra attention I so desired. I really do that. I don't do it consciously, but I find myself getting worked up about something.

And I have, I am not Michael Lewis or Gay Talese, but I have absolutely no claims that I've been mistreated in the world of journalism. but it works, right? And you understand why people, whether it's an athlete or it's a writer, why you tell yourself this story, because there is no faster way to get yourself fired up than that. There is not a reporter left in front of a laptop who sits down and says, I feel totally appreciated. And there is no coach who has ever stood in a locker room and said, everybody out here believes in you.

Your parents all love you, and no matter what happens, everything's going to be okay. Yes, you create the mythology or you inflate the grievances in order to motivate yourself. It's a tool used throughout sports, certainly used professionally by all kinds of craftspeople. but yeah I mean it might not be any more complicated than that everybody believes in you Jason K your Wall Street Journal column

I wouldn't do that if I were me I used to be able to in my youth I feel like I've calmed down a little bit but I used to be able to like work myself up into such a lather like that like just on a walk around the block I could quit the profession

like three times just as an active rage. And the problem with doing that is that the moment you quit, it's like driving a new car off the lot. Like the quit only feels good in the moment of quitting. And then the moment, then you're like, what's next? I mean, you're in deep trouble because you got this big car. Thank you so much for coming on the press box.

The $1 million check is in the mail. Thank you very much. And next time I'll come on. I'll give you some advice about pharmaceuticals. That's a press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Eduardo Ocampo. Thank you, Eduardo.

Shoemaker and I are coming back Monday, and he just texted me that he's got some more notes about this whole McAfee Rogers thing. So we will stay tuned for that, plus more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic weekend.