The Press Box - Changing the Way NFL Games Are Called, the Debate Over the Debate, and the DNC Notebook Dump

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David kick off the show by discussing the state of sports color commentary and whether or not analysts should be ex-players (0:30). Then Bryan recaps his four nights at the upper deck of the United Center in Chicago (10:30). They also discuss the following from the Democratic National Convention: Their favorite moments that stuck out (19:26) Some media grumbling (30:17) The branded media place to hang out (36:00) Then, in the notebook, they discuss the following: Rece Davis introduces college football (42:17) ESPN brings back 'The Sports Reporters' (44:41) And then, in Only in Journalism, they discuss Deion Sanders’s reaction to an only-in-journalism word (0:00) Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the summer of 1999, thousands attended what would be the final iteration of the Woodstock Music Festivals. But unlike its namesake, Woodstock 99 was not about peace and love. Joining me as I dive deep into this story about music, mud, violence, and tragedy. From Spotify and the Ringar Podcast Network, I'm Stephen Hayden. And this is Breakstuff, the story of Woodstock 99. Available Tuesday, August 27th. David? Yes.

On Saturday, I can report to you that there was a Giants, Jets, preseason football game. Right, I'm aware. The final score was 10 to 6. Mm-hmm. Sounds like quite the barn burner. Yeah. But the people calling the game were pretty interesting. It was Ion Eagle on play-by-play.

Yep. Great. And on color, you had Peter Schrager, our friend from the NFL Network, and Good Morning Football. Yep. Jimmy Trayna tweeted this. Love hearing Schrager calling Jets Giants locally in New York. Dot, dot, dot, would be nice if networks realized a game analyst doesn't have to be an ex-player.

There was a similar tweet from Andrew Marshan, a lot of my colleagues watching preseason football. But I think they raise an interesting question, which is, have we hit the point in football where we need to rethink who gets to do color commentary for a game. I didn't realize it was quite so highbound, but I guess when you think about

all the conversations we've had about the ex-player's, you know, trying to leapfrog one another in the color commentary, color commentator, uh, positional rankings.

It, it does make a lot of sense. I just think there's too much, I mean, there's just so much name recognition. There's so much celebrity coming out of the, player contingent, that it would be crazy for, you know, it would be crazy for networks to not try to find a way to get those people in. I mean, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, these things are obvious. I mean,

we know, I think I said this a million times before, but like, you know, those of us who have worked for sports websites know that the power of putting Tony Romo or Tom Brady in a headline or in the art front and center of any, of any rankings, any football piece. I mean, it's, it's that, I mean, that's just obvious, right? And I'm, I mean, listen, I would have loved to see the alternate reality in which Tom Brady retired went up to Fox and he says, oh yeah, I want a job, but I want to do play by play. I mean, that would be interesting, right? Answer, yes, you are welcome to do whatever you want here. Yeah, exactly. But as long as people like that are coming up and saying, I want to do color commentary, I think they get it regardless of whether or not there's some world in which it makes a better show for them to, for, for, you know, the people. Peter Schrager's the world to do it. I mean, I guess my skepticism here is, I think that it is so, like, the player, the player color commentator is so unavoidable at this point that any conversation like this is going to lead us in the direction of a three-person booth, which I know you will take exception

to. But, you know, and maybe that's too, maybe the non-player and the multi-person booth at this point or too, you know, stained by the Dennis Miller era of Monday Night Football to really make a comeback. But I don't know. It does seem weird that there's not more non-players in that seat, kind of in the abstract. Especially, I mean, you're right. It is, it does seem inevitable now, though you don't have to, you know, dip very far into sports TV history to go, oh, wait, Howard CoSell was doing this 50 years ago.

Yeah. On the biggest possible stage. And yeah, then there was Dennis Miller, then there was Tony Corcor. Hornheiser and some other three-person booth experiments that didn't really work. But it does feel like maybe not at the top, tippy top of the broadcasting power rankings, that's not where you'd want to do it. But what about when you get into like the number three crew? Yeah.

Or the number four crew where those games are going out to, what, 5% of the country sometimes? And what is there to do there except experiment? and try to create stars or make stars you have into even bigger stars who could possibly do something huge for you down the line. Well, that's what I was going to say when you started asking the question, is that those, you know, third units are, you know, practice reps or people that they see as future stars. So again, you're going to have your outsized number of former players there

who are trying to work their way up that ladder. I mean, I don't know. Is the color commentary tater job for the non-player, at least in particular, less desirable than it was? I mean, when you look at the names of the people that could potentially be doing it, I mean, listen, if Pat McAfee wanted to be doing color commentary on NFL football games, he could presumably make that happen, right? If Stephen A. Smith wanted to do it, I mean, he could presumably make that happen, right? But when you look at like the next tier of people, people who are working talking head shows at ESPN, for Fox, I mean, for for the NFL network, stuff like that. I mean, listen, there's a lot of people who would just be happy for the exposure, happy for the work. A lot of people who would think that would be incredibly fun. Probably a lot of people in the broadcast field who dreamed of doing that. That was why they got into the business, you know. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people who would do it. But again, they're, you know, they have no, I mean, they have studio jobs, you know, the people that were going to, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

we would mention for these. They have gigs. Maybe they would rather be doing that than traveling around and getting, you know, shit on for three and a half hours once a week because, I mean, and maybe, and not for nothing, it might be part of the calculus. Whoever's in that chair, no matter what they're doing, is getting, you know, is going to be turning on Twitter for people who hate them. At least the former athletes, you kind of know what you're getting. You know what you're getting into, right? I mean, like, you know, it's, there's only, I don't think like Greg Olson is losing sleep over the tweets about him, although that might be more damaging to the career of a, of a non-ex player. Yeah, I remember Treyman telling me that one time that he would get into the limo after the game

and start reading tweets aloud to Joe Buck and Troy found them amusing. Like, I was a quarterback at the Dallas Cowboys. There's nothing anybody could say that's going to hurt my feelings at this point. Yeah. But Joe Buck did not quite have that hardened. shell. It was funny for Joe. And Joe would be sitting in the front seat and be like, please stop

reading the tweets. Like I don't enjoy this experience. It's interesting you say that about like, do they want to? That's a question I guess for everybody individually, but Shragues has taken reps. I mean, Akimes has been calling Rams preseason games for a while.

And I think it's something that would be interesting, at least as an idea to people, because you and I know this, you're in the studio show. That's a good job, but then the kind of question, because what do I do next? Yeah. What's my next job and calling games for somebody who understands football? And if there's anything that's happened over the last 10 years in media, 15 years maybe

that we've observed, it's that idea that only an ex player will know about football. They will know in a way that us mere mortals will never know. Well, that idea has totally collapsed. Yeah. It really has collapsed. I know the preseason may be a little bit easier to do because you're doing storytelling and who is this guy, who is this guy? Are they going to make the roster kind of stuff?

But we've proven that that idea is not right. You can be a journalist and understand football at this molecular level. Yeah. So is it that crazy that you would start to kind of cycle people through and at least try them out? You said people getting reps down in those lower tier network things. I would actually say the opposite. I'd say it's the same freaking. people year after year.

And it's people that have just kind of had that job forever in a lot of cases. And you're like, shouldn't this, don't we need to churn this? If we admit that there's like a superstar tier, don't we need to churn the bottom? Yep. To bring in some new voices and just think about what the future of TV is going to look like.

It's true. And you would think, I mean, that would be a great opportunity to be building those stars. Although, you know, ESPN in recent years is sort of been in big game hunting mode. So, I mean, you know,

look at the Pat McAfee's of the world. They, they seem to be content, even though they've built, to some extent, a lot of their biggest stars, Mike Greenberg, whatever,

but they've seemed to be content to go out and let them materialize elsewhere and then pay big money for them. But that's just ESPN. I agree. I mean, why not? Why not create the stars of tomorrow in real time?

And you got to take a couple of big swings if you're, if you're really committed to that sort of, you know, growth mindset. I think I told you this, one time I was sitting in a truck and Todd McShay was doing the sidelines. And he was saying things about football.

He'd be like safety on that play. So-and-so took this incredible angle. Watch for it on the replay. He's standing on the sidelines seeing this in real time. And then it would make its way into the broadcast. He was just saying it internally over the mics. Yeah. And then the announcer would mention it on the air.

And I'm like, well, he can see this. And he was a former, you know, college football player, but he can see this from the sidelines. You know, can we figure out ways? Because I think there's just a lot of people in that same zone that could be interesting TV personalities. All right. Coming up on the podcast, David, I'm back from Chicago and I've got a good old-fashioned

DNC notebook dump about everything from Maureen Dowd to the CNN Politico Grill. Plus more TV football. Reese Davis is fired up to be in Ireland. And what? We're doing the sports reporters again? All that and much more on the press box. of the ringer podcast network hello media consumers brian curtis david shoemaker and producer brian waters here david i have spent four nights in the upper deck of the united center

talking to somebody today and they said what is it how is it different from covering the super bowl and i was like well it's like what if there was a super bowl every night for four consecutive nights or the equivalent of two russomanias yeah because that's a two night affair. And you know how you're feeling at the end of night too. When it's just, you're just running on diet, soft drinks and momentum at that point. Yeah. To get through it. At the convention, we were often in our seats at five o'clock. The main event speaker of the night was going on at like 9.30 central. Yeah. So you're sitting there for about five, five and a half hours on some nights. but I got to say

and tell me if it felt this way from home other than Monday when Joe Biden was going on and on and on, that was a very entertaining convention to watch minute to minute. Very little of that felt

dutiful. It felt like there were a lot of really, really good speeches and also just enough celebrities and basketball coaches woven in there. Yeah.

That it felt like an award show where you were getting like, oh, hey, look who just walked out on stage. Yeah. And it made for a very, very good television product. That was mostly my experience. And actually,

kind of a shockingly, I mean, to me anyway, maybe it was just my interface, but there didn't seem to be a ton of instant play-by-play on Twitter the next morning when you woke up.

You know, I had to kind of search out the highlights of the speeches when I wanted to remember a lie or wanted to go see how somebody did when I missed them. But I think that's because you're right. It felt sort of like it was the highlights a little bit unnecessary. It was a compelling watch from beginning to end so much as you wanted to tune into it.

And yeah, I mean, it's like we said leading into it. It seemed like they had sort of an embarrassment of riches just in terms of speakers to have on there. And obviously the surprises, I think Steve Kerr was relatively a surprise relatively speaking. speaking and I don't know if we hear about Leon Panetta ahead of time but you know that was a that was like you know a big old pro wrestling shocking entrance for me but yeah I mean I was I was I was it was it was it was it was it was it felt concise it felt when I mean I know listen that the that like daughters of candidates children of candidates don't generally go out there and give, you know, barn burners for a long time.

But I was actually, I missed the part where Kamala Harris' adopted daughter and goddaughter were up on stage speaking. And I heard it on NPR right after it happened as I was like driving home to turn everything on. I was just like, oh, that was a cute little, like nice little excerpt of what they said. And then I realized it was just the entirety of what they said. You know, everything was like very concise and like very by the numbers. You know, it felt very well stage managed. And when you have that kind of like celebrity or.

whatever you want to call in the world of politics. That's really important. Not everybody needs an hour. Yeah. Not everybody needs 20 minutes. I was shocked when I got home to my hotel on Wednesday night that Tim Wall spoke for 15 minutes. Yeah. 15 minutes, arguably the second most important speaker of the convention. And sitting in the room, I was like, if you told me to guess, I'd be like, I don't know, mid-20s. We felt very tight, but like mid-20s, It was 15 minutes. And he got everything he needed to do done in that speech. Yeah.

So there was a good variance. And like, this is a big old keynote that needs to really have some room to breathe. And this just needs to be a thing on sale. Like, D.L. Hughley just needs to come out and be funny for a while. Yeah. And endorse Kamala Harris. And that's great.

And we will move on from there. And that was a nice little moment. I mean, all the people are going to, I mean, I said the thing what I said about the clips online, but all that people are going to remember are. bite-sized clips, right? I think at some point you just have to avoid like, you know, making any history. Like that was the shortest speech.

Any nominee has ever given as long as nobody is saying anything like that, then, you know, the shorter and punchier, the better. So I thought about that too sitting there. I'm like how many people at home, whatever the ratings say are just watching this in full, even watching the network primetime hours. Because this thing started at like 530. there was a lot of preambling.

A lot of just like, here is somebody you've never heard of talking at the podium right now. Sometimes the early hours are like, hey, Patty LaBelle is performing, so that's awesome. But I'm like, how many people are just watching this

and how many people will just hear about this? On social media, we'll hear that one amazing clip from Michelle Obama. Digging into Trump. Or from Tim Walls, or whomever it is, they will just hear that one little piece. So you're producing it now in 2024 for that audience as well,

probably more for that audience. Yeah, absolutely. Than I sit in front of the TV audience. I was also struck by how fast everything has happened. Mm-hmm. So Kamala Harris gives her acceptance speech one month and one day after Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Yeah.

All that happened in one month. And there was a bit that I'm sure you saw were, Harris's grand nieces were on stage instructing the audience how to pronounce her first name. Yeah. And it was kind of a bit, but it was also kind of not a bit. Yeah. Because this person really is being reintroduced to America or just introduced the first time. Yep.

And from the upper deck, we could see one of the teleprompters that had, you know, the speech is scrolling across for every speaker. And let me tell you something, more than one speaker had Kamala Harris's first name spelled out phonetically on the prompter. Just so they would not forget how to pronounce the name of the Democratic nominee for president. Yeah. That's a real thing that happened during the DNC.

I can report to you, David, that the DNC is the Disneyland of politics. Go on. Walking through the bowels of the United Center with our pal Chris Solentrop, he's on his phone, no doubt doing important Washington Post business. And I'm like, hey, that's a lot. Lori Lightfoot walking right by us. Oh, yeah. Mayor of Chicago, former embattled mayor of Chicago.

And he's like, what? Looks up from his phone. That was Lori Lightfoot. I didn't see her. I was like, ah! This is wild. I'm flying back from Chicago. I'm going into the American lounge.

Woman in front of me, very nicely dressed, has a special passport that is a different level of passport than my own looking at her. They have special passports? Well, they have special passports. If you're an elected representative of the United States. Oh, okay. So I'm holding signs that I picked up off the convention floor for souvenirs. She looks at the signs.

Oh, you were at the convention. We start talking. What did you like? Where are you going? I'm going to Los Angeles. I'm going to Los Angeles too. She actually went up to the flagship lounge and American there. And I went up to the regular lounge.

And then I realized, sat there for like 20 seconds. It's like, oh, my God, that was Maxine Waters. I just shared a little moment with. I can also report to you that the DNC is political media Disneyland. I saw both Wolf Blitzer and Brett Bear in the security line to get into the United Center. Oh. At different times. Otherwise, I would have taken a group photo.

And on Wednesday night, aka Tim Walls night, I'm sitting in the upper deck. Two people come in looking for seats. Now, the speeches have already begun. I believe primetime had even already begun. We're kind of into it. There's not that many seats. They find seats. And then I realized, oh, my, that is Marine Dowd.

And a person that I assume, if I had to bet, is her assistant. And they are here to cover the Democratic convention. Wow. They were there for a little while, and then they got up and left, probably to do something else. But I, you know, I fancy myself something of a journalist recognizer. Yeah. And let me tell you, for a journalist recognized you sitting there, I was like, oh, that's Mike Memley of NBC.

That's Medi Hassan who just walked by me looking for a seat. All these people, David Marinus was walking the floor of the convention, David. David Marinus. Don't get excited about that many journalists, but that was kind of cool. Did you have favorite moments of the convention that stuck out to you? For anyone doubting Brian's journalist, spotting credentials, by the way, when we were like 22, 23, both living in Washington, D.C. I remember driving up, what was the main drag?

Connecticut Avenue. We were like driving up Connecticut Avenue in a taxi or in one of our cars. I think it must have been your car. And you just going 30 miles an hour down the road, all of a sudden just tap the brakes and point it over and just said, that's Scott Pelly. He was like getting into his car in like a borderline suburban Washington, DC. That should have been assigned

to lock me up in a room for the next 40 years. Of all people. Of all people. Yeah, I remember joking. It was a being John Malcovic era. They rolled down the window and just be like, hey, Pelly, think fast. You know, throw a can or whatever. Because you got to imagine

being recognized by even a young Brian Curtis who had been a shock to even someone of that magnitude. Oh, my God. That's wonderful. I hope Scott Pelley is listening to this right now. Steve Kerr, Oprah. Did you have favorite moments from the convention? Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed both of them.

I thought that you said it right. I mean, that was kind of the right amount of sort of star power. I wonder with the Steve Kerr thing, I would have loved to be a part of the conversations that got him up on stage. You know, whenever you have somebody that crosses into a different genre, you often wonder if like to what degree maybe the people on the politics side underestimate or even overestimate the appeal of putting a Steve Kerr up there.

Just as someone who's been a part of, you know, way too many meetings, or planning meetings in my life, I would have loved to just be a fly on the wall during that one. Also, his humor was very subtle. Oh, God.

Always. I mean, it was like, he was cracking jokes that made Ethan Strauss laugh when he was behind the podium once upon a time. Like about, like how Tim Walls was running the wrong defense when he was the dec Coordinator

at Mancato West High School. Yeah. He said, shut up and whistle. People want me to shut up and whistle. It's like, oh, my God. Like, this is funny, but kind of lost on a hall of 20,000 people. Yeah.

Don't totally know Steve Kerr humor. But again, that was for the Steve Kerr audience that, that again, they have the, that was for the ringer. Yeah, they have the luxury of, knowing that the material will find the audience, right?

It will find the audience online later that night. Whether or not it hits, whether or not it plays in the United Center. I was a little disappointed we didn't get like the Chicago Bulls warm up music

you know, when Kamala Harris came out. But yeah, that probably would have been for a very specific audience too that nobody else would have really appreciated. They did show the Steve Kerr

jumper from game six of the 97 finals right before he spoke in the arena. Yeah. And the fact that he hit it in that arena. Yes. It was pretty damn cool. Yeah. And I think that's the sort of like justification for his presence. That's sort of all that you need.

Yeah, I thought he was good. I thought Oprah was good. I mean, I think that, you know, one of the real advantages that the Democrats have right now is that everything feels kind of fresh. and so it didn't feel like they needed the celebrity names to sort of drag them over the finish line it's a temporary victory obviously there's a lot more to come and nobody's fresh forever

but yeah I mean I thought that I thought that everybody kind of played the role just right how many of those celebrities do you think show up for a Joe Biden led convention I mean it's hard to imagine there were rumors of Taylor Swift there were rumors of Beyonce none of that really came to fruition but I was thinking

on the day leading up to those apocryphal performances, how much different, like a Beyonce performance, would have felt for Joe Biden, even if she had done it, right? It would have felt like, like, you know, like Beyonce is getting, like, ownership points in the, in the, you know, the U.S. White House if she's willing to show up and do this,

because she would have been such a bigger star than the moment. the moment necessitated or the moment deserved. Deserved. You know? But would have felt sort of like of a piece there on the last night of the Democratic convention this year. Absolutely. So, you know, it would have been weird.

It would have been weird. You know, especially with like the camera, like, searching for Joe Biden clapping in the background of whatever performance was going on or whatever celebrity was there. it would have had a very different vibe for sure. Is America memory hold the fact that Beyonce campaigned with Hillary Clinton in 2016? Live? No, I mean, I don't know. That's a thing that happened. No, it is.

I don't think that we memory hold it. I think that that sort of, you know, that's part of the calculus, right? I mean, do we, does she really want to go through that again? To Beyonce want to risk it all again for a presidential candidate? some of my favorite moments, Tim Walls' son, Gus pointing at him on stage and saying, that's my dad. Yeah. It's such an incredibly powerful moment, no matter what side of the political aisle you're on,

because you and I know this, you go through a big part of your life, you're like, man, I hope my parents are proud of me. Yeah. And then you have kids, if you decide to have kids, and you say, oh, my God, I hope my children are proud of me. Yeah. It's a complete reversal. And what that must have felt like, I don't doubt Tim Walz knows that his son feels like that anyway, but what that must have felt like in the moment to see that.

I mean, I was watching that in the arena. I was like, God, I hope I don't start crying right now. That was just such an amazing moment. Somehow became a stupid political moment as well. Walls's line never underestimate a public school teacher. Again, whatever side of the aisle you're on, it was like, my parents were public school teachers. My grandparents were public school teachers. David's mom was a public school teacher.

teacher. That just is one of those lines I feel that hits in a way that our smart political opinion writers maybe don't realize. Not to mention all, you know, so many of us had teachers in our lives that were big. That was just, and that was part of the whole coach walls iconography of that night. Yep. Which is just fascinating. I mean, you and I are at least nominally sports writers. And that was that was laid on pretty thick even for us with his former football players out there wearing their jerseys in middle age. Yeah. Standing on the stage, all the coach chance,

the coach wall signs in the crowd. Oprah's line, we are Americans. I thought it was really interesting and also part and parcel of the whole, you know, USA patriotic fervor of the Democratic convention. Yeah.

I mean, listen, that was the big takeaway, right? I mean, the Democrat sort of reclaiming patriotism. And a large part of that was the mantra of freedom, which, you know, was kind of served up to them on a silver platter by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But just embracing it full, like wholeheartedly, full-throatedly, whatever turn of phrase you want to use, I thought it was really canny and really smart. And listen to that feeling that you said, you know, when Gus Walls was on screen, that was real, right? that was authentic. And you're totally right, by the way, about wanting to, you know, have your kids proud of you as someone who just got back from Fanatics Fest and managed to use my clout to have my 15-year-old pulled from the back of the line and put in the front of the line at the NBA

free throw contest. I know it a son's pride actually feels like for the first time of my life. But there was a lot of, I don't want to say manufactured, but staged a moment. throughout the entire convention. Yes. And, you know, like any great Michael Bay movie will teach us, you know, stage patriotism is incredibly effective, uh, especially if there's some like truth and in power behind it. And, um, and I thought that, yeah, they, they, it was, it was, it was really compelling. It's really compelling. It's, that's not, that's not

the, that's not always the norm for, you know, D&C get togethers. I thought of you as the ringers art director and art overlord when I saw that amazing picture that was taken during Kamala Harris's speech of her grandniece Amara. Taken by Todd Heisler of the New York Times, Amara had been on stage with the other grandniece Lela doing the how to pronounce Kamala bit earlier. She was watching Kamala from this little buffer zone that existed between the stage and the delegates. And interestingly, the buffer zone seemed to be populated by. either camera people or VIPs who were escorted down there for various parts of the convention. And Heisler was able to get behind her, go down on his knees, he told the Times, and take this picture that has her and her pigtails and you're looking up at Harris on the stage.

It's unbelievable shot that just conveys in a picture, you know, what it means that Kamala Harris is a nominee and who she is. And of course, this generational element. all in that one photograph. That was so, so cool. There was a lot of media grumbling at the DNC, David. I don't know if you caught wind of any of this. Tell me. Max Taney wrote a piece and sent before about it.

I think I have a little insight on what people were torqued off about. I was credentialed by the House, that is House of Representatives radio TV gallery. Because see, I'm a podcaster. more than I am a print journalist apparently. This is the moment where it became official. They were like, no, no, we think you should be, you should be credentialed over here. And so I have this conversation is what I want to do.

I've covered conventions before. I'm excited. I want to look forward to seeing all this. Okay, here we go. So I go in there and I was issued, as we talked about last Monday, a pass in that 30-minute window. And it said, arena pass. And I'm like, this is awesome.

All right. Here we go. I'm ready to cover the convention. So Monday afternoon, I get there early. I go into the United Center. I make it through that Wolf Blitzer and Brett Bear security perimeter. I go inside and I have my pass around my neck and everything, everything's in order. And there's someone in one of the ushers is like, oh, well, actually this entitles you to be inside the United Center,

but not inside the part of the United Center where the seats are. So I'm like, oh, I have the hallway pass. Just said a read a pass. Yeah, it just said a read, but I have, I have, and I believe many, many people had this because there were 15,000 credential media members at the DNC. A pass that just gets me into the building. So I'm like, you know, that event we had on Sunday, the little meet and greet, that was fantastic. But I'm not sure I'm going to be able to file this expense report to our rigor bosses if I've, gotten into the hallway to cover the Democratic Convention.

Yeah. So I send an email. I go down to the little temporary office of the House radio and TV gallery. And I, you know, hey, I can't, you know, da, da, da, da, da. And I, previous conventions is how it worked. And they said, well, you know, there's only a limited number of passes we have every day to get you inside the arena. But here's one for Monday. So I said, thank you so much.

And by the way, the people there treated me spectacular. They were unbelievably helpful. And I thanked them all individually. but they gave me a pass. So I went in, I watched Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and everybody on Monday night. But then I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to get one of these every day. Yeah. And I'm waking up every morning, not knowing whether I'm going to be one of the people who's actually watching the convention with my eyes.

Yeah. Rather than watching convention on TV. So every day, I was parked in this office when these people showed up. Some days for quite a long time, one time I was like, I'll be right back and came back like 40 minutes later. and I just didn't move. Yeah. I was like, I am standing right here.

And every day I managed to get a pass to go inside the United Center, the actual United Center. They didn't broadcast it like on the wall outside the arena like they do for some big sporting events. Thank God they didn't because then everybody would have known that this is where the pass was. I'm not sure this information was was totally public, but I went in all four days. And then on the fourth day, and this is the last part of my story here, you just know it's like a Super Bowl. You know you need to get there very, very early. Because even with this special pass, you were just entitled to go sit in a section in the upper deck.

This is not like a press box of any kind. You just sit in a seat like you're watching a Bulls game. About the baselines, kind of right next to the stage. And I'm like, I got this pass around 4 o'clock. I'm going to go sit down and I might use the bathroom, but I'm not totally sure of that. I'm just going to be in this seat because this is going to fill up. And sure enough, reporters, including big name New York Times reporters start trickling in, and the section is completely full.

Yeah. In fact, the whole upper deck is basically completely full because all the people want to get in to see Kamala Harris's big acceptance speech. Sure. So I saw people get turned away. Somebody tweeted that Tanahazi Coats got turned away. They turned away Tanahazi Coats. Jeez.

So, again, I think it's, you know, our NBA friend, often talk about over credentialing. And I hate to even say that because is credentialing the ringer over credentialing for the DNC? But it's one of those things where you're like you have so many people who want to get in. The media, quote unquote,

is a much bigger organism than it's ever been. The DNC also made a big effort to get influencers in because they want that part of the media in there. Of course, you have lots of foreign press as well. The definition of the media keeps growing and growing. And of course, if you had 15,000 media members in the United Center, there would be no Democrats in the United Center. Yeah. So what do you do?

And then I think was a big part of the problem. You know, there's a whole, and people said that the Republican convention was a much smoother process. Again, my experience was other than having to go get the past every day was very, very good. but I just don't quite understand how you solve the problem unless you just say we're going to have a much, much smaller number of people that we let cover the convention, which then creates a second problem of why didn't you, you know,

give me a pass. Yeah. Why is my media organization left out? My sports and pop culture website, which is based in Los Angeles. Yeah. All right. Last thing for you.

At the convention, we had the branded, political media place to hang out. Oh, this is amazing stuff. There was a thing called Axios house. Like a Soho house type thing? I kept thinking of Under Armour commercials. We must protect this house for whatever reason, but sure, Soho House is another way.

We must protect the smart brevity. You could go in and watch Axios writers like our friend Alexeos writers like our friend Alex Thompson interview politicians during the day. politicians are doing stuff before they get to the hall at night. There was even a DNC watch party at Axios House featuring Commerce Secretary Gina Romando and New York Governor Kathy Hockel. Wow.

That happened. There was a second branded place which was called the CNN Politico Grill. Yes. As a big fan of celebrity branded eateries, this one really spoke to me. Whenever David wanted to go out to eat, he would always want to go to Toby Kese.

I love this bar and grill. Oh, I would totally go to Toby Kays. I love this bar and grill tonight if they were one in central New Jersey. Just to pay our respects. Well, if you'd been with me in Chicago, I would have loved to have taken you to the CNN Politico Grill,

except for the fact that I myself was not allowed into the CNN Politico Grill. You didn't have I didn't come with a arena pass I sent a very nice note to to one of the PR people and said Hey I would love to do this you know this is what I do a media reporter they were at capacity

Oh And even after Harris's speech on Thursday Benji Sarlane and I did the press box and then he had a pass Benji had a pass And I said what can you bring me in as your plus one at the door No can do what you sir are not going in to the cnn political grill see that's why you got to quit running people down in the press box they know what you're up to well i mean i think there's there's probably a logic

that would not let me into the arena but would let me into the cnn politico grill yes if you think about it but somehow we got the opposite logic i wasn't allowed into the branded media space but i could watch Kamala Harris give a speech. Yeah. That's kind of funny how that worked out. Do they have food? Do you know, do you know anything about the CNN grill? Food and drink and apparently after hours, it turned into a bar. Oh, yeah.

It was just a swinging bar where everybody was hanging out. That's what I wanted to know. I wanted to see who is the barfly of the CNN Politico Grill? Yeah. Who's closing it down at 2 a.m. That's when it closed every night. Yeah, that's see that. But that's why the tickets were so hard to come by.

Because if it starts the restaurant and ends at a bar, then the party just never ends, right? There's going to be some people that are just holding it down there at the end of the, at the end of the bar the whole time. Robert, the party never ends. That's Robert Earl Keene, not Toby Keith, by the way, just a little country music note there for you. We got some drama about the debate before we go here. Kamala Harris is debating Donald Trump, we think, because it seems like this could really, really not happen. but it's we think on September 10th on ABC Trump the other day wrote on true social

stay tuned as he was blasting ABC for some bit of journalistic mendacity or another now there's some drama and we learn this via Politico's playbook Politico one half of the aforementioned bar and grill I mean that'd be great they just kept branding it that way just like you know playbook is now the CNN like how he's stuff on ESPN is brought to you by ESPN bet if it was just like this this news brought to you

by the CNN Politico Bar and Grill. You're like, it's not even open anymore. I can't even go to it if I wanted to. All right, Playbook reports that Harris's campaign wants the microphones for the debate to be on at all times. So remember, the Biden campaign wanted the mics cut. Yeah. Because they're like, oh, no, Trump is going to interrupt.

And it turns out it just made Biden and all of his inability to answer the questions even more pronounced because the might, because it was quiet when he was talking. Well, the Harris campaign wants the opposite. They want the mics on. And the Trump campaign is like, no, no, no, we agreed to this previous format. And then the Harris campaign is saying something like, well, you agreed to that with Joe Biden. We weren't, you know, Harris was not the nominee.

Kind of a fascinating turn of events there. I saw, I saw Trump being, he was asked that question today. And he said he didn't really matter to him, but he, I guess, would like to have had them on. But so what is this just like a, is this? just posturing at this point? Is this an excuse for people for the various sides to take exception? What are we supposed to read into this? I think lots of posturing.

You go for as many perceived advantages as you can. And we saw what all those perceived advantages did for Joe Biden. Empty arena, muted mics. It only made it worse for him. But, you know, I still think there's a non-zero chance that Donald Trump doesn't debate. Yeah. that there isn't another presidential debate. He probably will show up because he's Donald Trump and he will just like,

hey, there is a microphone. Yeah. Let's do this. But he's made enough noise of it. And he likes to create drama and then ultimately do the thing. Yeah. But we'll see.

We'll see. All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds, more football from Ireland. Will that country make the 12 team playoff? But first, let's do the overwork Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. We mentioned the big Monday speech by Warriors coach Steve Kerr at the DNC. That was also the night that Jason Isbell was on the program. Oh, yeah. Sports writer night at the DNC. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write something like this. Steve Kerr references Dream Team players coming together to win gold. Quote, now imagine what we could do with all 330 million of us playing on the same team.

Kerr did not specify whether Jason Tatum could participate with the other 329,99,99 Americans. Thanks to Danny Sullivan and the account of Monte Grypto for sending that. If trolling Jason Tatum is all we non-Seltics fans have left, congrats. You made the overword Twitter joke of the week. All right, a few quick ones, Dave, before we get out of here. This was college football's

kickoff weekend. In a triumph of branding, it has been known, it has been called Week Zero. We have college football, but it's not week one. It's week zero. There was a game in Ireland, an awesome game where Georgia Tech

upset Florida State, ESPN's college game day was there, and the Irish journalist Michael Moynihan wanted us to hear Reese Davis, welcoming back college football by way of the lonely planet guide. The majestic cliffs of Ireland stand on these spectacular vistas and envision greatness. It's as if there's an invitation to the adventure of a new college football season and it lies on this leafy island. Travel down River Liffey and into the. nerve center of Dublin. A city dotted with distinctive

colorful doors rooted in defiance of outside forces. One might say, unconquered, unconquered, like the Seminoles of Florida State. We really appreciate the artistry of Reese Davis there.

It's amazing. Bringing it back to football. You know who else went undefeated? Florida State. So good. Just like Ireland. Awful announcing tweeted, we've never been more back, which I agree with.

By the way, when I was coming back to the West Coast of summer, I happened to run into Reese Davis at the airport. Oh my gosh. Similar to Maxine Waters. I was going to say, was that more or less memorable than Maxine Waters. What was memorable was that Reese Davis

was wearing normal clothes and not a suit. You're going to find it very disorienting when I see a sportscaster not wearing a suit. Oh, yeah. Just somehow throws me. These are people that we observe in one form of dress. I bet you're going to go to the old, like, what happened to the days when we used to put on suits to fly to ride an airplanes?

That's always a good parent moment. Everybody looks so trashy now. We'll have our big TV football preview next week, by the way, Tom Brady, college football playoffs and all the rest. Last item for you, David, the sports reporters. is back. Pucks John Iran says that ESPN is bringing back the show that ran from 1988 to 2017. Iran writes that it will be produced for ESPN's YouTube channel with various segments made available on linear digital and social.

ESPN had hoped to have an episode ready within the next few weeks hosted by Jeremy Shapp and featuring NFL play-by-play announcers like Joe Buck and Al Michaels. Yeah. So Jeremy Shapp assuming the chair that his father Dick held for many years is cool. Is there any more unintentional parable for the death of sports writing than having a show called the sports reporters that features sports announcers? I was going to say when I first saw the headline, my first reaction was like, which

reporters are going to be available for this? But yeah, I mean, it's an existing brand name. I get it. I don't know. It's a terrible look. Listen to the enthusiasm in David's voice. Can they get outside reporters? Can they bring in reporters? You think so? Can we just get a few from around the horn? They seem to have a lot of outside reporters.

You definitely have their phone numbers. Kevin Clark's available. Has he been contacted for the new sports reporters yet? There was a while when everyone would write the decline of ESPN piece, which is a think piece I always am happy to read. But they would put, they killed the sports reporters on the, list of three examples. Yeah.

Like, folks, there was an awesome time and place before we had Twitter, before we had the internet to read writers from out of town where the sports reporters was a thing. Well, we got to a stage of point in history where perhaps it wouldn't have the cachet that it once had. True. Of course, I would say the same thing about around the horn. Only in journalism for you, David. These are words you constantly see in news articles, but never quite hear in human

speech. This is from Scott Phipps. He gives us GERD. Businesses are already girding for next phase in U.S. China Trade War. No, I think I agree with that. Yeah. I mean, I think GERD is a little bit closer to an actual word, but sure. You've never said GERD in a conversation. I girded myself. Girded your loins. Isn't that a thing? Yeah, you're probably right. Vince Morris found Kamala Harris barnstorming in the Washington Posts. Very old-fashioned.

Oh, yeah. Political word or old-timey baseball player word. And this one's from me. I was reading the aforementioned Maring Dowd's column. And she had a word that I have never seen before. What? A lot of words I spot in print where I'm like, I don't totally know what that means and I've been reading it my whole life

and I never know what it means. This is a word I just had never seen. Maureen Dowd writes, just as Obama's magical smile once sparked a movement, now Harris's insourcing smile has become the beacon for her followers. Do you know the word insourcing? No. Were we absent at the SAT course that day? I was going to say, Mr. John Hamilton is looking down in disapproval that we don't know this word. Insorcelling?

I read it yesterday and I turned to Christine. I was like, have you ever heard of this word? and she said, I think so, like enchanting? And I was like, yes, bewitching or enchanting in sorcering. It does have sorcerer the first. Yeah. It makes sense, but I have never seen that word in print, nor heard it in human speech, until now. All right, it's time for David Shoemaker.

Guess is the strained pun headline. Yeah. Thursday's headline about a 19th century historical reenactors big day was Marquis event. today's headline comes to us from alert listeners Jam Dad and Eli Ackerman is from Politico David the West Wing Playbook which is written by or co-written by Lauren Egan

who I got to meet on the floor of the United Center Thank you for listening Lauren This is about Anita Dunn You know Anita Dunn Biden, White House aide Biden loyalist She gave a memorable speech recently Playbook writes at her White House farewell event Anita Dunn offered some advice

straight from the Godfather about the but use of power and how revenge is a dish best served cold. Staffers left shook by what one called the most epic jaw-dropping speech I've ever heard. Anita Dunn is invoking the godfather. You're going to want to remember a famous quote

from that movie as you ponder. What was the West Wing Playbooks Strained Pun headline? Okay. okay he's I'm terrible in the godfather what if it involves a famous Italian dessert

canoli's a canoli bit in there yeah there sure is what is the canoli line you've been to give this to you since this is really hard I would not have been able to think of this spot I can only try

I can only I can only try. What is that? I feel like I should know this Godfather line. What is it? Leave the done, take the canoli. Oh, yeah. Okay. That doesn't totally track, but the strain punness of it makes me very, very happy. Yeah. Leave the done, take the canoli. He is David Chewaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Bracks a magic by Brian Waters. Coming up Thursday on the press box, Oliver Darcy. He wrote the reliable sources newsletter for CNN for years, which was not a primary source, but the primary source for this podcast. He is doing his own thing now. It's a newsletter. It's called

status. I've already subscribed. We're going to cover a number of topics. Cannot wait to talk to him Thursday. Shoemaker and I are off Monday for Labor Day. We're back Tuesday. It's NFL week one. That means Tom Brady. That means tons to talk about. We will have more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.