The Press Box - ESPN's College Football War, the Year of the Media Bro, and One Last Jolabokaflod Gift

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Do not adjust your podcast feeds, as Bryan is joined by Joel on the Monday edition with David away on assignment. They kick off the show with J School, where he discusses a few things, including covering big games on holidays and the Netflix NFL broadcast team (1:30). Then, they exchange Jolabokaflod Gifts (13:31).  Then they discuss college football and how ESPN has been critical of the College Football Playoff… while televising it (17:53). They close out the show by recapping 2024. First, they talk about it being the year of the “Media Bro,” where they discuss athletes/sports pods rejecting Democrats (37:37), then it being the year of the “media layoff” (48:22), and lastly, it being the year in “ducking media” (52:40). Finally, they reflect on the lives of Jimmy Carter and Greg Gumbel (56:31). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's happening? It's Todd McShay and I'm back with a new home and a new show at the Ringer and Spotify. The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday's slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights

with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for the McShay show on the ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. Happy almost new year's media consumers and welcome to press box. You got Brian Curtis, Joel Anderson, and producer Brian Waters. We start this pod every week with Joel's take on the week that was. Take the blunt end of your number two pencil and get ready because you're going to J-school. Oh man.

Once again, thanks for that. It feels weird for me to be here today. First of all, it's Monday. This is not my normal slide. It's the last episode of 2024. I've barely been at the Ringer long enough to really be on the year-end episode, I think, Brian. But, you know, I'm glad you decided to have me anywhere. I'm happy to have you here because you've had an interesting year in media that we're going to talk about.

We are, we are. There's a lot that is very, very true. But I wanted to start off with just a couple of things as per the J-School itinerary allows for. So in last week's episode, you talked about being part of the NFL's. I call it the symphony. I don't know if people know what the symphony is. It's like the greatest posse cut in rap history. There's like, you know, Big Daddy Came, you know, a bunch of cool G rap, a bunch of guys.

There's a whole bunch of guys that they threw together. So that was the Netflix NFL broadcast team. And you had mentioned about asking if you could work on Christmas Day. And this is something that I think is a real sign of age, experience, class, or that you work in entertainment. When was the last time that you worked on Thanksgiving or Christmas? It's been a long time. I mean, over those holidays, yes. I probably pounded out some ringer blog items.

Okay, okay. And maybe even on those days, maybe about a Cowboys game or a Texas game the day after Thanksgiving. Okay. Have you been to a there? Not covered a game. No. Okay. Do you miss that at all?

A little bit because those are often exciting big games. But then I think of the tradeoff. I'm like, I'm going to walk away from my kids to be at the football game on a major holiday. I think it goes both ways, right? So I think we were going to talk about this one time in an earlier show. So when T.O. did the, you know, the thing at Cowboys Stadium where he stood in the middle of the star. That was, well, you know, see, I felt like that was the Thanksgiving thing,

but there was actually another Thanksgiving game. But often young reporters get their opportunities to cover the Cowboys game because the old hands have kids and they have families, you know what I'm saying? So you get to do that kind of stuff. And so I kind of miss that part. And I'll also say, I'm thinking back, and this is going to sound sad, but 2001, 2002. I'm working the late shift at the Dallas AP.

So this is midnight to 8 a.m. You know, and I get home, I get Waterburger on the way home. Tequitos. Tequitos. Yeah. Yeah, was it tequitos? It might have been tequitos. Yeah, potato and egg, potato.

That's right, with a little cheese in it. And people felt so bad for me. And I was like, actually, this isn't all that bad, man. It's okay. You know, I got to watch a little football, you know? And I mean, look, I love my kids. I love my family. But there's something about working on the holidays and covering the big games that is just sort of thrilling, you know?

Like you're on display for not only the nation, but most of your colleagues, too. They're the ones that get to tune in and they get to see your work, right? Yeah. I always think about that John Madden quote where he said there's no place I'd rather be than calling a football game on Thanksgiving Day, which is that blanket excuse to all of us that no matter. how important this is, no matter how much time we should be spending with our family, this man on television is telling you there's no place he'd rather be than in a press box calling a football game today.

I mean, and we believed him. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was true. He was not lying. When it came to John Madden, he was, he absolutely wanted to be there. I mean, also, I mean, in all fairness, where else he's going to get a multi-leg turkey, you know, there's not very many places you can get that. Fox could do that for him.

Yeah, it's harder to buy at H-EB. True, it's very true, very true. I'm going to move on a little bit, and I'm going to show in the last, also in the last episode, you and David were talking more broadly about the strategy of writing for the, quote, global leadership class and more specifically about the evolution of a journalist career. And I'm going from like an outsider to an insider. And I was thinking about this. And I always think about this this time of year now recently because it reminds me of my good

friend at Ashoff. He was the ESPN reporter who died on his 34th birthday five years ago. It was on Christmas Eve from complications of pneumonia. And it was like, believe it or not, I mean, me and my friend were on the phone with him through all this. He did not know what was going on. He, I hate to say it, but it just, it was a mystery until after. And it turned out he'd had undiagnosed stage for non-shot skins lymphoma. But anyway, in this group chat that I had with friends, we were talking about the difficulty of becoming an insider as a black reporter. And I was like, because for years I had thought, oh, I'm doing this wrong. Like I was just like, huh, why can't I get people to talk to me?

And but then as I'm talking to people who are trying to do it professionally, you've got to meet people in social settings where they're comfortable. Often you can tap into some sort of personal connection through family. Like, I mean, that is Maggie Haberman. Her dad knew Donald Trump, right? And then, you know, all the others are going to the same schools, the same fraternities and things like that. And so I just sort of remember in those younger days, I'm just like, am I doing something wrong?

Like, what is wrong with me? Maybe I'm not as good a reporter as I think I am, right? Or I could be. But I always just think, if you look sort of at the class of like scoop merchants and and breaking news artist, you think about what that pool of journalists looks like and also how disproportionately they're rewarded to the rest

of everybody else in journalism. And I think it kind of gives you a little bit of a hint and how it is that that group of people keeps getting rewarded, I think. Absolutely. It isn't funny when you get to journalism. You're like, oh, wow, these people all know each other. Yeah. And they've known each other forever. Yes. Yes.

They've known each other. Yeah, this is a, this is very much a class thing too. You know, it's like, oh, we went to the, our parents were at the same prep school or something many years ago or they knew each other from whatever group at Harvard or whatever. So, and so anyway, look, and the

reason I'm saying, I worked for Ben Smith. Ben Smith, who's now at Semaphore? And Ben Smith was my boss at BuzzFeed. I owe him a lot. He took a chance on me when I was a year away from attempting to get a master's in public administration. Okay? But I also think that

doesn't think much of other forms of journalism, and he really loves the scoop merchant. So you used K-File at CNN. That's a guy that came under him. McKay Coppins over at the Atlantic, came up under Benison. Evan McMor-Sentoro, who's on CNN, and I think he's a not, not us now, or not us, notice. Is that? Notice. Notice.

Notice. And I used to sit next to Evan in the D.C. office. So anyway, we all are sort of concerned with where our backgrounds are and our talent, and that's often where our preferences go. But it was just something I was thinking of in terms of context for like, how, you know, that we're talking to the global leadership class. You've always been talking to the global global leadership class, bro. Okay, this is nothing new. This is nothing new.

Meanwhile, now Woz gets to call it ether. All that stuff doesn't matter. I got about $20 million, but actually it doesn't matter. And I did the third note here, Brian, is that. So I wanted to check myself. So I got a note from a friend. via the internet. I've never met him in real life. But Dan Diamond of the Washington Post, he reached out to me via my Twitter DMs and said, maybe I'm a dummy. Certainly possible.

He's not a dummy. He's not a dummy. But as I hear you guys talking about WAPO culture, there's a lot that's been great about working here. Collaborative, smart colleagues, big reach. They have to still having stuff in print. The past few months have been difficult, though, for obvious reasons. Dan, you make an important point. I've only been inside of the Washington Post offices once. Brian, have you? I'm sure you've been in there multiple times, right? I'm trying to remember if I've actually been inside the post office. So let me give that a definite maybe. Definitely maybe. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, at least one. Yes. I've been once, maybe twice. I wish I could remember more about the place, but it just reminds me of every other newsroom I've ever been to, you know?

And it's true that the drama surrounding the owner and the publisher and even the EIC can overshadow all the work that's still happening in the newsroom. in the field. And this year, it's important to know the Washington Post. They tied the New York Times with three wins and the Pulitzer's, right? And I was trying to think about this, Brian, like, where did this come from? Why do I think that the Washington Post

is a bad place to work? Besides knowing some people who have not had a great time there, I figured it out. So I worked at BuzzFeed a decade ago. And that's when I had an opportunity to get around for the first time in my career and kind of get a sense

about the other side. lived. And when I was at BuzzFeed, so much was made of the almost cliche millennial workplace culture, you know, like emotional labor task force, the frozen yogurt machine, bar carts on Friday, you know, free taco lunches. I didn't have to tell you my first day at BuzzFeed, Kanye West showed up at the offices to meet with, to meet with Jonah Peretti. Like, he's there. I got a picture of it. I posted it on the internet. And I wasn't supposed to do that. But I kind of think that like that time and I've never really worked in the newsroom since then I kind of lost touch with the modern newsroom and I don't know if you feel that as well because I feel like

even if we allow that it's tough at the Washington Post right now I bet it's better than a lot of other places too right oh absolutely I mean better than every newspaper with the notable exception of the New York Times and the possible exception of the Wall Street Journal in America And to Dan's point, I think I make this mistake all the time, and I have in fact heard from at least one different Washington Post reporter when I've made this mistake. Oh, really? But it is kind of conflating the problems of management with the quality of the newsroom. And those are really different things. You can look at Will Lewis and Matt Murray and that whole circus when they're trying to find somebody to run one of the great newspapers in America and be like, this is.

embarrassing and bad and really and Jeff Bezos. Let's throw him in with the Kamala Harris non-endorsement, all that stuff. But that doesn't mean that people at the Washington Post aren't doing good work. That doesn't mean the paper has lost its mojo in that way. And again, speaking of writing about the leadership rather than writing about the actual workers at the place, I make that mistake all the time. And it's a good reminder for me and you not to not to slip up when we're really just, you know, dogging the boss. Yeah, no, right, exactly. We really, and look, I read the great work at the Washington Post all the time. But that doesn't mean that every time anybody writes into me and says I'm wrong, then I'm going to admit it in J-School. But it's a practice that I'd like to, you know, like if I overstep, I would like to, you know, come back and address it. So that's what I did to close out J-School 24. I'll see you all next semester. Absolutely. There we go. Do we want to celebrate a little YOLA book of flood before we move on to the the news of the day. Oh, hell yes. I would love to. Okay. So Yola Boko Flod, if you've missed the last several episodes of the press box, is an Icelandic Christmas tradition. It means the Christmas book flood. Shoemaker and I exchange books. And now Joel and I have exchanged books. We've got

them here on our desk. Do you want to open yours first? You'll meet open mine first. I'm going to open by first. And I forced myself into this and to Brian's tradition, his family tradition. I was so excited when you wanted to do it. Well, I was like, I want to be part of the family, too, you know? Anybody who wants to give me a book is, I'm, please, you know, send them away. We'll post my address online. So I opened this up like a half hour before we went on air, and I wish you all could have been here to hear the Yelp that I made in excitement when I opened it up.

It is the first five years. It's a hard-bound book, I guess it's an anthology, the best of Texas Monthly. from 1973 to 1978, the year of my birth. And so I'm so thrilled. This, I'm like, I'm electric. I think people know me, know that I've always dreamed of working at the Texas Monthly, too. That's like one of the places I love. So thank you, man.

I can't wait to dig into this stuff, man. This is awesome. Can I tell you the extremely convoluted way I came to this particular book? Please tell me. So I'm thinking of Joel and Brian. Needless to say, I'm thinking of football in Texas. I'm specifically thinking of running backs. I'm thinking of great stories about running backs in Texas.

And then I'm thinking of Dwayne Thomas, Gary Cartwright, the great Texas monthly writer, writing about the Cowboys running back, Wayne Thomas. West Texas A&M's own. Yeah. And one of those athletes that people in the 70s other than Gary Cartwright could not make sense of, 2025, it would have been a very, very different story. Dwayne Thomas, and people don't know, he played for the Cowboys, and he had one of the all-time great quotes in sports writing history, which he was asked about the Super Bowl being the ultimate game.

And his response was, if it's the ultimate game, how come they're playing it again next year? And at that point, close your notebook, proceed to your word processor and file because you're done. I read Dway Thomas's autobiography as a kid. It was fascinating too. But, oh, man, I can't wait through. I just can't wait to dig into this stuff. That's fantastic. All right. Should I open your Yolo Bucca Flood? Please open Yolabuble Flood. I have not peaked. I did not do the kid on Christmas thing, but it was very, very tempting because I get this big eBay box here. My mind kind of went in the same place as yours, so I hope you know.

What a coincidence. You may have even read this book, but I bet you have not read it in very many years. What a coincidence that we're both thinking about the same subjects in all of our waking hours. This is very nicely packed, by the way. I didn't have anything to do with it, but thank you, eBay. Bookstores of America. Yeah. As you, all right, here we go. He's opening it up.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Look at this stuff. Are you seeing it? I am. Okay, there you go. Look at this. It is bleeding orange.

Trouble and triumph deep in the heart of Texas football. The book that covers the Shock the World Tour of Texas. And you give me this fantastic gift just as Texas is about to play in the second round of the playoffs. Hey, look, man. It was a great, I mean, it was a great story up until the final week of the season, okay? They're not playing at the Cotton Bowl this time, right? They're not. But they would play there in the third round if they make it.

Well, not the Cotton Bowl itself, but what we call the Cotton Bowl. And let me tell you something. Part of what I love about this gift is the second byline, Kirk Bowles, who is still covering Texas football. Man, that's what also would make me think of it because Kirk Bowles is down at the Houston Chronicle now covering the University of Texas, you know, a legend that moved down there to do that. So yeah, I just thought it would be really, I thought you would be, I heard you mentioned it on your interview with the other Texas pod about the shock the world tour. And I was like, oh, man, I don't know if, I don't know if you read this book originally, but it would be, I thought it'd be

fun to revisit it and read about old Stan Thomas and Stanley Richard and those guys. Oh my God, absolutely. And the last time I would have read this would have been like when I was like young Joel reading Dwayne Thomas's autobiography, you know, it was. It was. It needs to be revisited. Exactly. Back when Texas was bad and any kind of success was seen as something miraculous. This is awesome. Thank you so much for that.

Of course. Of course. Thank you. Thank you. Let us talk about some news of the week. And let's stay right with college football. Okay. Because the college football playoff resumes tomorrow night.

Boise State versus Penn State. It's going to be a really fun matchup. And ESPN has been going off on. the playoff, Joel. At the same time that they are televising the playoff. It's a great story by Matt Yoder an awful announcing about this. And I'm sure you saw this during the first round.

The criticism oddly began during a playoff game. You could feel it getting ready to happen, though. Like I was waiting on it, weren't you? I was waiting on it. Notre Dame's blowing out Indiana. Sean McDonough, who is never shy about anything, who was on the call. I want you to listen to him and Greg McElroy

going off on Indiana and the Big Ten. I don't understand why there's this presumption, it seems, for many, that the Big Ten in particular is so much better than the ACC or the Big 12th, not sure what that's based on. There's a lot of talk about straight-a-sched schedule. Well, you're playing each other.

So if you just assume, well, our league's better than everybody else, and therefore our strength-tled tough. What if your league is it better? than everybody else. Is your strength of schedule better than everybody else? I mean, it's a fair point to look at for sure. Strike the schedule is a little bit of a variable based on how teams around you perform and if they're playing each other. Yeah, and I'm good. We're our strength of schedule is the best because we play everybody else

in our league and we're just assuming our league's better than everybody else. Just so the folks at home can appreciate that clip, by the end of it, the Indiana quarterback is standing over the ball. Oh, poor Curtis, he had a rough day that day. He had a very, very rough day. After that, there was so much doubling down from ESPN. I flip on game day the next morning. I'm sitting there and joining it with my coffee.

We get 11 minutes into the show, 11 minutes, Joel, and Kirkherb Street is going after Indiana again. The atmosphere was historic. Yeah. The game was not. You know, and I'm not going to sit here and say, why was Indiana end? But Indiana, with what you guys

like to talk about, they have 11 wins. They got to be one of the best teams. Indiana was outclassed in that game. They should not physically, it was not a team that should have been on that field when you consider other teams that could have been there. It's no knock on Indiana. They had a great year. But we've got

to move forward with the playoff and hope that the committee does a better job of weighing who the best 12 are versus who's the most deserving because by golly they got 11 wins they didn't beat anybody but they got 11 wins that's a bunch of bs we need to find the best teams and that's last night it was incredibly evident just standing on that field and watching the game the way it played out don't you love the tv thing where somebody says i'm not going to do this and then they do this i mean they didn't beat anybody i mean wouldn't you

wouldn't you wouldn't you have liked your school to beat in michigan this year kirk but i was actually like wouldn't ohio state alums be the least likely to have any respect for any Indiana football whatsoever. Like if you were polling like the entire college football, you know, nation and it was like which fan base has the least respect for Indiana football, it might be Ohio State, right? Isn't that the wonders of college football media? Yeah.

There's always those little nuances. Yeah. I went here. I'm talking about this school that even in the lean years of Ohio State I never had any respect for. Yeah. I mean, I think Ohio State is 80, 12, and 5, including the last 30 over Indiana. But I would say the last time Indiana won, I mean, I got to look this up.

I didn't have time before. Kurt might have been a quarterback for one of them that game. I don't know. It would have fallen, so I don't know. But anyway, but yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of the fascinating thing about this stuff. And I remember you and David talking about this, like, oh, man, you know, they're probably a riding for the league that their broadcast partners are teamed up with, right? But don't you think that's hard?

Don't you think it's hard to like deny your real? Like so much of college football is like I am sort of fixed on the teams that I don't respect and the teams that I hate in the programs I have. Like it's really hard to do KFAB right there, right? It is. It is. And I've been thinking about this because I was reading Yoder's story. And he has all these great examples.

And by the way, it went on from there. There was a Paul Feinbaum tweet. Herbie doubled down on SportsCenter after the Ohio State Tennessee game. Tennessee gets blown out by his alma mater. And I was just thinking like, what is happening here? Yeah. What do you attribute or where should we start when thinking about why ESPN would do this during a playoff that it's televised? I think it's tough for this.

them to be anything other than who they are. And I'll say, so I'll couch that. Let me, a quick story. My first real day at Bristol, I'm walking through the cafe. You know who I've seen? Joey Galloway and Desmond Howard coming out of there. I'm like, oh my God, it's Desmond Howard and Joey Galloway. Guys, I grew up watching. My jaw drops. They introduce themselves. They're just cool as shit. And then they bring up, they bring us into a debate over whether the Ohio State QB at the time was as good as the preseason hype. Joey is defending Ohio State guy, Desmond's like, I don't think that guy's that good. And I'm just like, I think what ESPN does, instead of like forcing you into inauthentic debates,

is that they make you the loudest, most disagreeable version of yourself that it can. And so it's like really hard to restrain. And it's like, so you're on air. You've got to make your point. And they just turn it up a little bit, right? And it's just like saying, and the boundaries of kind of. washed away now and they know that it's good content. We're talking about it. Like, this is good for them, right? Does the announcer empowerment era come into play here where we know there's a certain class of

announcers at ESPN that aren't just doing the debate show thing, which is what you're describing, completely accurately, but also have free reign to talk in a way they might not have five, 10 years ago? Absolutely. Who do you think can't do that now at ESPN that's on air? Who can't? Talk freely like that? Yes. Well, I think it's like everybody, you know, but five to ten people mainly. I think, you know, Joe and Troy have the immunity idol. Herbie, SVP, Greenie. I'm not sure Greenie has been any aggressive opinions that don't, you know, that stray beyond the jets suck, but he's probably on the list. He can do what he wants. Who am I missing here? Stephen A, of course. Everybody on first take. Everybody on first take,

particularly Stephen A. McAfee. McAfee. That's seven. Right. So that's, that's pretty much the list. Am I missed somebody obvious? I don't think so. I guess it would require me remembering everybody on the shows, and that would be difficult. But I kind of felt like they're, they've just kind of lit, they've thrown it open. They've got fewer people. Everybody there is probably very well compensated and has their own following. And they're just kind of like, we don't have to manage a

bunch of Joel Anderson's anymore, you know? Yeah. And you have this, I mean, like, this is something I think what is what is kind of flooring about this is we very rarely and I can't, when I say rarely, I only just say that to protect myself because I can't think of an example, but a television network that pays money to televise something. And then on the air questions the whole thing that is televising, the integrity, the selection process. I mean, can you imagine watching one of the networks during the NFL playoffs? We really shouldn't have let seven teams from every conference into the playoffs. Because this has resulted in some truly crappy games.

You would never say anything like that. I know. Also, it's just like it's a historical because, I mean, the vast majority of these games are blowouts, even when there were four teams, right? It's just like, so we don't have to do this. But is it maybe also working the rest because they also can have real impact

on what happens. They can create the world they want to see almost. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I take all of these as mess. directly to the committee about the way they want to see the playoff structured or the teams picked in future years. Absolutely.

And to me, that's like an interesting part of this, a really fascinating part. I would love to ask Reese Davis, or one of these guys about this directly at some point. But you know when you go on those shows, be like, they should take away the buys from the conference champs and just give buys to the top four teams in college football. You know that the committee is listening to that because you are the committee's financial partner. Yeah. you have the whole playoff like you know those are you know how that's exactly how that's going to be received

right right and if you're herbie and say ben and you're like saying in 800 different ways both directly and indirectly hey maybe Alabama should have been in the playoffs instead of some of these other teams you know how that's going to be received absolutely but i mean it's just it's so because they talk about the people on the committee and they're just like oh they don't know i mean it's easy to look at ward manual now and be like who's this suit he played defensive tackle Michigan for four years. Like, he was a good football player. You know, like, you know, I mean, like, they're talking, you know, Taro, who's Taron Willingham? You know what I mean? The Taron Willingham is a co. They understand football. They watch football. They just have a different take on this.

And also the incentives are different. And once they are able to take, they'll, I'm sure they will, I'm sure we will get all the Alabama we want eventually. Like if you, like, you know, it's going to get there, but they're working within a system. And it's like, I guess they can't restrain themselves. Like I think sometimes when they're on air, maybe they just kind of feel like, I don't want to watch this and I want to see the team that I like on TV. And I'm just going to say it here. And there's really no penalty. Like, why would you not say that then, given the platform? Well, I guess that's my question. Is, don't we want them to say that? Yep. I think so. Is there a reason they have to celebrate college football, quote unquote?

Shouldn't they just tell us what they actually think? Does it impact how much you enjoyed seeing the scene from Notre Dame a couple weeks ago? Like, it didn't, them talking about. it negatively did not impact the way I felt about the week against. No, and I think it's a little disingenuous to set up a 12-team playoff as a multi-week argument. I mean, what were those ratings reveal shows, those rankings reveal shows every week, other than a first take Kiron waiting to happen? Right. Is Ohio State overrated?

And you set it up as this big argument. And then you're saying, well, as soon as the playoff field is set by the committee, we should just stop arguing about it forever. Right. That seems strange. I mean, we watched NCAA men's basketball tournament selection show. Like, we know, like, we do, this is what happens. Like, this is what that format of show is for, right?

Like, to generate this sort of, yeah, we always want to discuss Syracuse. Like, we know, it's fun to talk about Syracuse. And in this instance, Alabama or Indiana, which is actually just hilarious. I mean, Indiana, just one of the worst power. programs in the history of college football. And it's like they have this moment in the sun and it's like, get your ass out of here. You got to suck. No, I'm with you.

I think with the point that Matt Yoder makes, if we're going to say, we want to hear what Herbie really thinks. We want to hear what all these guys really think is. First of all, you have to be consistent. If you're going to crush Indiana for going out there and getting embarrassed against Notre Dame, why aren't you crushing Tennessee for going out and getting embarrassed against Ohio State? Right.

Oh, wait, because Tennessee's in the SEC. Did we get that? Did we get that, by the way, Brian? I don't think we got anywhere near that kind of what are they doing here. Should we reevaluate the whole way we picked teams because Tennessee made the playoff? No, we didn't. And I would just say that that's where you'll have to reckon with the money here. Right.

You have to say, my employer is currently in a 10-year $3 billion contract with the SEC. Right. That's fun. So that doesn't mean I can't have opinions. That doesn't mean I cannot be, especially Herbie and a college football expert, have like, this team should be in, this team should be out. It doesn't mean I'm hopelessly biased, quote unquote, but that's just got to be reckoned with somehow.

You know, and I would say the same thing about those guys from Fox that are tweeting about all this. I see them too on there. Fox, which has the Big Ten. Big Newton kickoff is the Big Ten kickoff. I mean, the same thing. And they're doing the opposite arguments. Like, are we going to reckon with the fact that you guys have the Big Ten rights, that the Big Ten being good

is the reason to watch college football on Fox and arguing that these are legit teams? Right. And I mean, again, like, we've talked about it before. Like, they want to, they also want to be at the center of good games. Like, they want to be at a game, and they want the game to matter, and they want it to be competitive. And when this sort of stuff happens, right?

And it's just like, well, you could have had one of the teams I watched all year that I think is better than this team. Right? Like, instead of maybe they really, you know, and it is very plausible. that Alabama would have put in a better showing at Notre Dame. But I just think that like, you know, I do think the money and I do think the incentives are there.

Now that you bring it up, I'm just like, I would like to know sort of like, I'm sure there's like little call sheets or whatever. Like, what are you, what is verbatting? Like, what are you, what are you actually not allowed? Because actually, who is the SEC hater in media? Is there a SEC hater in media? Is there a place for it? I think you get some skeptics.

Is Danny Connell in that group? I'd have to go back and look at his tweets. I listened to Danny on the cover three podcast. This is how deep into my college sports podcast bag I'm in. He raises some skepticism, but he's not nearly as strident as the anti, you know, the pro-SCC voices are, I think. Oh, absolutely. And like I said, again, I just think if you think Alabama is a better team than

SMU and Indiana, there's probably a lot of evidence that you're right right now, whether they deserve to be in the playoff or not. Yeah. I just think you have to just reckon with. with the thing that we can all see, which is that you're in a giant business relationship with one of these teams and not in a business relationship with the other one, in this case, Indiana. Right. That's fair.

You're just not. I mean, that's just what it is. And again, the more you reckon with that, I think the more we can have that honest conversation, we can pull the Band-Aid off and just talk about this, which is baked into the fun of college football. It really is. Right. And what are the odds that they're going to be, you know, Herbie and them are going to be walking around the Indiana facility talking to Kurt Signetti next year?

as opposed the likelihood of that as opposed to being with Josh Heipel and Nico, I'm a, I'm a lever. I think I'm going to say right. I am a layman. I think that's right. Somebody will correct me now. But the odds that, yes, they're going to be in that situation with those guys next year and they're going to have to be accountable for the things that they say. Yeah, it makes a lot of, when you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense. Two more observations for you about bowl season.

One, the lesser bulls have become like minor league baseball. Say more. I mean that in the sense that I hear about the promotion that is going on more than I hear about the actual game. Oh, yeah, the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Who played in the Pop-Tarts Bowl? Who did I do it again? It was Miami and Iowa State. Okay.

That was good, good. Let me tell you something, Joel. If Pop-Tarts and its parent company had just given cold, hard cash to college football writers, would they have gotten any better promotion than they got? for the Pop-Tarts bowl than just doing all that silly Pop-Tart stuff on TV. I mean, how many tweets did you see about the Pop-Tart and the Toaster? Absolutely. Oh, my God.

I mean, man, I mean, did you watch the Snoop Bowl, too? The Snoop Dog, Arizona Bowl? I sadly missed that. You didn't? Okay. Well, it was Miami of Ohio versus Colorado State. And they had Snoop in the booth. They had Snoop on the field.

It was very, it was, they had a gin and juice promotion. I was like, man, the bowls, the bowls, the bowls, sponsors have gotten really smart. They've gotten sentient. You know what I mean? They've figured out. They've like, oh, we can just have fun. It almost doesn't even matter who's playing. Who gives this shit about Miami having us, Colorado State? Like, this is a real showcase for us. And the bowls are worse, right, because the opt-outs, because the 12th team playoffs. Those bowls are less valuable than they were. But just imagine if in our youth, the Poulon Wheat-Eater had had the idea that we're going to have like a humanoid weed eater that's going to run around

cutting the grass on the field at halftime. That would have been a big thing. That would have been on SportsCenter, you know, just nonstop. Do you know who really had the right idea about it early on? I didn't admit, Jim Mackingville down in Houston, Mattress Mac, the galleryfurniture.com bowl, man. Like that was one of the first people were like, come on, this is galleryfurniture. com bowl, but it was like very smart.

This is a bowl, but it was very smart. It's very smart. observation number two for you. Cam Ward pulling himself at halftime of the aforementioned Pop-Tart bowl is the perfect sports debate TV topic. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, it pulled me in too, though, Brian. I was like, oh, man, I don't. Did you weigh in?

Well, I did because I only caught the second half. And I was like, I caught the second half of the game. And I saw Cam in a uniform. And I was like, man, he's really going the whole extra mile. That's pretty cool. I was like, it never occurred to me that he was going to play. And I was like, oh, he pulled himself out at halftime. Huh. Interesting.

I just, I didn't think it was a great idea, but you're right. Like, can you just, if you're going to talk about college football on, like, I bet I haven't seen around the horn today, but I bet that's on there. 100%. I saw, I saw Maniacho already. He was on it. He was, he was all in. He was very passionate? What was his, really?

Extremely passionate take. I think he let down his teammates. That was the take. Oh, they lost the Pop-Tarts bowl, man. They did. Mario Cristobo did not get buried in Pop-Tarts. It's too bad. He didn't get to pick somebody to lower end of the toaster.

Just a perfect one. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's just going to ride. And if he hadn't played, if he just opted out completely, there's a ripple maybe, you know, there's a little bit. But the fact that he played a half and played really well and then got out this, like, oh, you could just hear all the content makers go, excuse me. Excuse me. I've got a take on this. It's going to be great NFL draft coverage. content too. I mean, the thing is

nobody is going to care because Camwood's going to get picked where he's going to get picked. He's going to be number. But it's going to be great NFL NFL draft coverage stuff too, like fodder. Like he, good to you, Cam Ward of West Columbia, Texas. That was good when you spark it up. That'd be, yeah, I can see

positives and elists all of his attribution of negatives opted out of the second half of the Pop-Tart Bowl. I can already see the ESPN graphic. Who among us wouldn't opt out of the second half of the Pop-Tart Bowl? Joel, it's typical to do a little year-end media stuff. Yeah.

To declare this to be the year of something or the year of something else. I would like to declare this the year of the media bro. Okay. This idea comes to us from our pal Connor Nevins. And if we trace who the people who were having influence flexing in different ways, at least in media over 2024, before we, even get to all the bros that were involved in helping Donald Trump get reelected as president. Let's go back to January 2024 when Pat McAfee was flexing all over ESPN.

Yeah, man. Aaron Rogers on there talking about Jimmy Kimmel, Aaron Rogers then having one of the worst segments of all time talking about vaccines. Aaron Rogers is not on the show anymore. Oh, he's on the show the next day. That whole episode, which showed just who was making decisions about content of ESPN. I mean, without being irresponsible, I mean, don't you, I mean, Pat McAfee flexed so hard that he got, I mean, it's thought that he may have had something to do with the removal of like one of the most powerful, most enduring Bristol characters there is, right? Like, I mean, he, he showed up early. They're like, oh, I'm in charge here. And you guys have got to got to get Nick Sabin, you're just going to have to grin and bear it, buddy, you know, if you don't like it. Um, so yeah, no, I mean, the, I mean, the bros have been on the, come up for a while, though, man. Like, I think that's the thing.

They've, they've sort of, the Tucker Maxes of our youth have come back. And now they got, now they got podcast mics. Did you have a friend give you the Tucker Max book and be like, you should read this. It's really good. Thank God. Thank God, no. I mean, I saw his books at Urban Outfitters. You remember when people used to go to Urban Outfitters a lot?

I felt like they had a lot of Tucker Mac book, Tucker Max books tucked in around the store. Yeah, they didn't have bleeding orange or the Texas Monthly. collection next to it they went classy they went classic like us now so other bros having a big year joe rogan oh man we had a whole national conversation not just about joe rogan endorsing trump but why camill harris didn't fly to austin to do an interview with joe rogan logan paul theo vaughan yep the nelk boys the kill tony kill tony i mean was that guy not redeemed in his in in a manner of speaking right the kelse's do we want to file them as bros, even if they have perhaps different political leanings or at least cultural,

occupied different cultural space than these guys? They are kind of, I mean, they are bros, but man, the Taylor swiftness of it all kind of kind of makes it tough, right? But yeah, they are kind of, I mean, they're the archetype bro, but we don't, and we, we don't know anything about their political leanings actually either, to be honest. What's so interesting about this is it speaks to how podcasting has really changed a lot about the media. And you and I are both observers and participants, I think, in this. But I remember, you know, if you had to write a column about something, the first question your editor would ask you

is, what's your angle? Yep. What's your nut graph? And if you failed to be able to answer that question, they would say, go write what's called a riff. Remember a riff? I do remember a riff. A riff was like 800 words where you sounded intelligent and charming, but it really didn't say anything. Podcasts are riffs most of the time. That's right. That's right. They got built around one strong thesis, right? Like the thing.

Yeah. It's just kind of get the graze a little over here. Sprinkle a little something over here. But yeah, there's no unifying theme that binds it all together, right? Show off my intelligence. So off the research that I've done. same way with podcast interviews old media interviews what news did you get what's new in here whereas a podcast interview is more about a hang a good hang so there's a long way of saying here

comes Donald Trump in 2024 his problem is a he's Donald Trump B he says things C he thinks things D he was president January 6 etc etc and he goes on these podcasts and all he has to do is be a good hang on these podcasts. Absolutely. And I mean, he is, I mean, for whatever people want to say about him, he does kind have an animal charisma, man. You know, he's a funny guy even when he's not trying to be. And I remember the Theo Vaughn interview. They talked about the drinking and the drugging and everything. And it was just kind of like, huh, like it was a very sort of revealing. And he actually, it was one of the few times. And maybe this is, you know, one of the keys to it.

that Donald Trump showed curiosity and something other than himself. Totally. It's so funny. I was watching that this morning, just for whatever reason, just to kind of refresh and just think about it a little bit. And you watch him in that interview. And he's like, can you imagine in other politicians' eyes how big they would have gotten

if that topic had come up or the conversation had veered that way? And he's just like, okay, this is what we're talking about. Sounds great. Let's do it. I mean, the thing is, is like, and this is sort of, so we talk about the podcast bros and like how the Kamala campaign,

you know, they've sort of been navel gazing and thinking about whether they could have done it or should have done it. And I'm just like, this is just totally, like Trump is just a totally different animal. I'm not saying anything unique here, but it's just very hard to go on there

and be the kind of person that he is. Like he's been a bro. He is steeped in the bro cultures. Like, I mean, that guy has been living a bro life for years, right? Decades even. Like even if we didn't know

to call it that. And so like that is firmly his home field advantage right there, right? And those topics are what he's most comfortable talking about. Absolutely. Like Kamala Harris and by the way, Ron DeSantis,

J.D. Vance, Nikki Haley, they would have been more comfortable talking about policy. Here's what I'm going to do. Donald Trump is a hash every time he tries to talk about a policy. He can't talk about that.

But he can riff on that UFC fighter, he's great, huh? Yeah. In a way that they can't, in a way that sounds at least halfway authentic, that they just cannot do. So I don't even think it's, it's Kamala as part of it, but also like, no other Republican would have been able to replicate that strategy in the same way. What other Republican used to be Hersha Walker's actual football boss?

Oh my goodness. You know what I'm saying? It's like he, he, he was deep in the waters with Mike Tyson. I mean, Mike Tyson, that's kind of bro culture, too. I mean, I watched, you know, hot boxing with Mike Tyson and Mike Tyson on there and said, you know, I'm probably voting for Trump. So, you know, I mean, like, and they had a business and personal relationship in the 80s and 90s.

And, you're like, right. Like, nobody else could have done this. And it could be that it was the perfect match of character and moment. And the next time this comes around, it won't be like this. Like, we don't know, like, the durability of the podcasting business. I hope it lasts for a long time. That's, this is how we're making. our money right now, right? Absolutely. And we know how the podcast business works is because the guest

comes on the podcast wanting to plug something. In this case, it's Donald Trump wanting to plug his candidacy to be back in the White House. The podcast host or podcast bro, oh, they get a big lift because Donald Trump came on my podcast. I'm somebody big now, right? This is the place where the opinion leaders, where the important people come. And I was looking at Theo Vaughn's little lineup on YouTube there and it's like, oh, there's Timothy Shalamey talking about the Bob Dylan movie a couple of weeks ago on his podcast. Yeah, man. So it's not even just

getting big people. We're now crossing over into non-Trump, non-Maga, non-podcast bro world and getting other bros. Yeah. Every star bros. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they get, I mean, call her daddy and all these other places. Like, they get

these kind of interviews routinely. It just so happened that Trump is sort of the, was a celebrity that sort of fits within that paradigm, right? So the other thing I think that's happening here that's worth saying before we leave this topic is something Ben Smith, the aforementioned said in Semaphore's newsletter today. He was talking about the convergence of what used to be called podcasts and what used to be called television.

And that, I think, is a really interesting point because I believe it was Max Taney, Ben's Scootmeister over at Semaphore, who had some stats about this recently, where people are watching podcasts, not only just watching them on YouTube, but actually watching them on their television sets. And you think about it, what conferred authority upon a news anchor besides their delivery and their deep experience in the field? It was that they were on television. That's what made them an authority figure. So if you're watching a podcaster now, they take on a certain kind of authority. And they begin to gobble up some of that real estate that was once occupied by CNN, NBC News, those kind of newscasters.

So this is happening at a very, very fortuitous technological moment, too, for these bros. As podcasts pivot to video. And I remember, I think we talked about this right after the election. I just remember when Kamala went on Saturday Night Live. And it seemed like a big deal, you know, like this was a big deal in 2000, 2004, 2008. And I just remember it happened the same weekend as Jake Paul dropped his like endorsement video. And it had so many millions of views.

And I was like, man, does Saturday not this like regular linear television? Like does that really add up to the power of the podcast guys? It didn't, it didn't. It was one of those times I was like, I may have this wrong. I did. But it's just something to think about. Like they are the media stars now, right? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And does it add up to their power and does it show a side of Kamala? it's as helpful as the side of Trump that was showed off with the O'Von. Right. No. I think the answer is absolutely not. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah, I mean, I just talking about like the kind of hot sauce you like, like, I think

that's an old, that's just not going to work going forward, you know? Like, it's going to have to be a little bit more, it always comes back to hot ones for me. Like, you know, I guess maybe that's what it is. It's all about who didn't get on hot ones. Sure. But again, it's not going to be Trump, we don't think, in 2028. Well, I mean, we'll see. Yeah, we'll see.

2024 was the year of the media bro, Joel. I think it was also the year of the media layoff. Oh, no. You want to go first on this one? Well, there's somebody who is laid off. You know, I think you'd have to be a fool to not think it was going this way the whole year. I remember earlier the year, and I remember earlier the year, and there were like, you know, a number of layoffs earlier in the year that sort of suggested that we were in a bad place, right?

Like when the messenger fell apart, like, I mean, even though we all kind of knew that the message, like, their business model did, you know, no disrespect. It didn't make a lot of sense. But then CNN laid off a bunch of people in like July. And I remember thinking, that's a really bad sign. And a month later, you know, I got laid off. And I remember, yeah. So anyway, I just remember nobody close to me in my life ever worried that I would get laid off. Nobody.

And I was just like, I've seen too many people. The business, the way that the way that media works now, it's just that nobody, almost nobody is irreplaceable. Like everybody is expendable basically at this point in a lot of ways. And so you have to be kind of a fool to not think that like for a lot of people, it's going to catch up to you, man. I don't think I don't this is the year of the media layoff right but I also think next year is going to be the year of the media layoff as well I don't because I don't think that the Trump bump is going to do the same thing that it did you know from 2017 to you know they're on what do you think it's a scary part isn't it that 2025 2026 27 are all going to be the same thing the year of

the media layoff and that we just we as a media class just shrink and shrink and shrink I mean that's happened just to an alarming and terrifying degree in our lifetimes during our careers. Yeah. And it just seems like there are just fewer and fewer people on the life raft every time you look up. Yeah. Like where do you, I mean, I mean, again, we're going to talk about it in the new year, but like just all the outlets that have gone dark, like all the like great journalists that can't, they don't have a home anymore. They're, you know, going it alone at Substack or doing their own podcast and it's I mean it's it's pretty grim like I don't

it again I will actually let me ask you this do you think Trump had a Trump administration has some hope of capturing some of that energy again and maybe fueling some of the media business or is that over that's just I think it's I think there's a compelling argument that the resistance will reappear in some form

and that one of the acts of the resistance one more time will be to subscribe to media outlets I saw Keith Olberman of all people was writing about this because he was giving advice to MSNBC, his old home, about what they should do, because we've seen all these people like Joe and Mika, right, trying to get right with Donald Trump, trying to,

trying to open relations with the new administration. And his advice was, I would just do what you're doing before and wait for the resistance to reappear. I don't think it will be as big. I don't think you're going to, everybody's going to be like, now I will subscribe to Mother Jones

because I am mad at Donald Trump. I don't think that will happen to the same degree that it did. in 2017, but I think it will happen. I think it will be to some degree. We just again, this is like the quiet period when he's tweeting nice remembrances of Jimmy Carter.

Like it's going to get so crazy over the next couple of years. Just the daily news, we have forgotten what that daily news churn is like. Right. And there's going to be an interest in news. Right. I mean, we've already talked about it.

I mean, the thing is it's kind of, I mean, because America is on a break right now, right? Sort of where, you know, for the most. part. But like, there's been talk of expanding into Greenland, you know? And like, when, when people finally turned their attention to that sort of stuff, I guess you're going to want people to cover that. And like, it would be nice if people could send reporters to Greenland maybe or call people.

You know what I mean? Like, so maybe you're, maybe you're right. Like, maybe you're talking a little hope into me. This is me trying to, like, find some optimism for our business as we're going along here. I like that we're judging the health of the media by did they send Brian and Joel to Greenland to ask the population, would you like to be annexed by the United States? I'm willing to go if anybody's asking. I thought we should give our award for ducking the media in 2024. Okay. But this feels pretty easy to me.

Tell me if you've got any objections. The ducking the media award for 2024 goes to President Joe Biden. Wow. For sitting out the Super Bowl media interview. in February. And, you know, I don't know what that would have changed the course of history, but doesn't that just feel like the absolute sign that this thing was headed in a very, very bad direction in retrospect?

I remember thinking at the time, I was like, what's going on here? Why is he not going to do that? Because it's just an easy way into millions of homes, right? Like, you don't even have to, it doesn't need to be an explicit political pitch, you know? Tens of millions of homes. And I went back and found this article. This is NBC News, Monica Alba and Jonathan Allen that was written at the time. It says, for the second year in a row, President Joe Biden is passing on the opportunity to sit down for a Super Bowl interview that could reach millions of Americans on Sunday.

A move his advisors say is part of their larger communication strategy. Biden's aides believe many voters already exhausted from a bruising political season, simply want to tune into the game. and then seeing the president pop up while waiting for kickoff might turn them off. How does that read? I mean, in retrospect, in retrospect, it's like, oh, they didn't want to try them out there, man. They didn't want to. Of course not. They didn't want to have them out there.

I mean, which is, you know, I mean, it's, he couldn't do it. Wait, hold on. Do we really think that he couldn't have done it? Or they are like, they were just, the fewer their appearances, the better. Like, and they wanted to pick their spots. Isn't that the same thing? I guess you're right. And also like that's not a hard one, right?

Like you're not you're not really expecting a bunch of hard balls during that interview, right? Yeah. If he had a big lead, then I think you could have persuaded me with the fewer, the appearances, the better. We're running the four-corner strategy here. We're run it out. You're Dean Smith, huh? We're Dean Smith. But he wasn't then and this idea that you would just pass this up completely.

I mean, what's the other reason, you know? Because I mean, because that's what paid media is for. So you can reach that many people, and you can seem as charming on something as low stakes as talking about Pat Mahomes. Sure. You know? Right. Just chatting, right? Just chatting, yeah. Telling stories.

What are you eating at your Super Bowl party, Mr. President? Yeah. Show them your spread, you know? Like, there's a way that you could have done it and had like an internet, like walk them through the White House, show them where I'm going to be watching the game. Here's one going to have my nachos and everything. Don't you? They would have taken that interview even if it was just that, right? Oh, absolutely, I think.

I mean, I think, you know, if it's with the network, and I'm trying to remember with CBS, they probably would have asked for a few policy questions. Yeah. We probably would have touched on Gaza and a couple of other things, but there would have definitely been a kind of, the president talks about the Super Bowl element. Yeah.

To the, to the interview, almost a podcast. Anyway, and I'm sure they would, I'm sure they had the power to like, we're only going to do so many of those, and these are the ones we're not going to do, right? Anybody else for this list? Kamala Harris, I guess honorable mention for the weeks plus of silence after she got the nomination. Yeah.

If you were really an underdog, shouldn't you just been doing every interview known to mankind? I mean, the thing is, is that if they were so scared of their own shadow, it seems like they were scared of their whole shadow the whole time. So I mean, they were running the four corners. I mean, they were. Yeah, right. They were just like, well, we're just going to hold out and cross our fingers on election day. We're like, yeah. I don't know how effective.

strategy that is, right? A couple of final headlines for you. These will file these under B school. Oh, which is the answer to J school. That's the school you get money in, you know, the B school.

Yeah. When B stands for Brian. Oh. Number one, Jimmy Carter. Oh, man. Dyes at the age of 100. I don't know about you,

but I have been sifting through all the obits, which have been absolutely amazing. Yeah. And have ranged from everything of consideration, of his presidency to his many, many, many good works in his post-presidential life, to one I saw about aliens and the other day. I mean, Jimmy Carter talked a lot during his 100 years on this planet. I was also thinking this is this might be one of the most well-prepared collections of remembrances we've ever had. Oh, my God.

because Jimmy Carter entered hospice care in February 2023. Absolutely. And you know at that point, that's when people in newsrooms start saying, what do we have on Jimmy Carter? Do we have the proper piece and everything? And we have had a year to prepare things. And there was an absolute flood of wonderfully rendered stories. Everybody from Jonathan Alter to the usual outlets we read talking about the former president.

Man, so let me ask you a question. How many years do you think that they have? had Jimmy Carter obits in the can. I'm going at least 30 years, right? Yeah, I would say since he left, I mean, when he was in office, since he left office, I mean, right, since the 80s? Certainly. I mean, do you think people understand this?

Because I was having a conversation about this with a friend, and they were like, oh, you know, just kind of people had these prepared obits and everything. And they're like, you'd be shocked how many obits are currently in the systems of media outlets. It's like, I'm trying to think. So my, you make, if you go looking for the obit of Stanley Marcus, of Neiman and Marcus, my name is on it. I didn't, I'd never even stepped in the Neiman Marcus before, but when he died, it was in the system.

I was on, I was on the desk that day. And my name is, so it's like, that's the sort of stuff that goes to business. But I don't know if people understand that, like, you have to have that stuff ready to go years in advance. Oh, absolutely. because you can't say, okay, what's our first paragraph about Jimmy Carter when it's over the Christmas holidays? Right, right. And staffs on vacation stuff that has to be ready to just push a button. Absolutely.

And here we go. Ben Mullen, who's a media reporter at the New York Times, noted that Jimmy Carter, and this goes right to your point, Joel, outlived two people who wrote his obit. It'll happen. The New York Times is Roy Reed and Edward Walsh of the Washington Post both had bylines on Jimmy Carter Obitz, and they have booked. passed away, passing away before the former president passed away. Though I got to say, I was actually more impressed with this fact that the aforementioned Ben Mullen wrote the obit for Dick Parsons who just passed away for both the Wall Street Journal, his former employer, and the New York Times his current employer.

That's so great. That was great. But now that's, now that's something. That is something. That is something. I want to tell, I want to, there's a story about a former great football. player at a school that you care about. And it's jarring.

He's not even, he's not, he's, he's not in the 70s yet. 25 years ago, I was talking with somebody and they're like, oh yeah, I need to get that obit ready on that, that guy. You know, I mean, like, that's how, I mean, that's how this, it's a very grim

business, but in a lot of ways, it's a sign of respect. It's like, we want to get this story correct. We want to make sure we don't miss an anecdote. We don't miss a note in a person's very, I mean, just think of the, the things you have to footnote in Jimmy Carter's life, like over 100 years of life and when he was involved in. We're not even talking about when he was a governor in Georgia or anything like that. You know what I mean? Like there's just, there's so much else to his life that we will probably

never really be able to get to on a national level because he lived that longer life. And you have to be ready for the moment when it comes. That's what I always love when you, when you read a time's open and says so-and-so said in an interview for this obituary. Yeah. They called the subject a few years before and say, hey, we're just preparing this. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want to shove you off this mortal coil, but, but, you know, just so we get our facts straight. It's going to happen, man, so you might

as well get your final word in, right? One more sad over before you. Greg Gumbull of CBS Sports. Yeah. Died at 78 because was cancer. Where do we start with Greg Gumble in his career on television, which spanned almost five

decades? Man, I I mean, an initial thought is I was shocked that Greg Gumbull was 78 years old. It just kind of crept up on us. And like at this point, do you think he's as big a name as his brother now? Do you think because a generation ago, Bryant Gumble was probably one of the bigger names in media, right? Oh, yeah.

I mean, 80s, early 90s, he was the guy. He was the guy. And Greg Gumbull was his brother. Greg Gumbull, yeah, he was very much Bryant's. brother. And now I don't, I mean, Brian's, you know, not had that kind of a spotlight. He was on HBO for a number of years, obviously, but I don't know. Like, I feel like he kind of carved out his own niche. Like once Brian, once Brian left today, the Today Show, it felt like Greg come, Greg, Greg kind of came into his own. And that's when his career kind of got started, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

I remember talking to Jim Nance about this one time because a huge event in 1990, and I know you'll remember this. Brent Musburger got fired by CBS. That was like this giant, I mean, there was like an S&L sketch. It was a giant jarring thing in American life way beyond sports media. And there was this moment at CBS where all the young guys looked at each other. Like, ooh, which part of Brent's job could I get? Because Brent did everything.

Yeah, man. He did everything at CBS sports. So Jim Nance got to call the final four. He got that part of the job and was doing it until a couple years ago. And Greg Gumble got the NFL today. Yep. And there he goes, right? He winds up doing that.

He winds up doing play by play. He's back on that on CBS. He winds up having this gigantic career doing both pregame hosting for the NCAA tournament as well, calling football games, everything else. Fascinating guy. He was so understated that it had never occurred to me until I started reading the obituaries. that March Madness was his. Yeah. So this is, I'm so glad you said that because like this is like when I saw people yesterday

sort of groping for something to say about Greg Gumbull, because everybody wants to say something. He's by all reports one of the genuine nice guys in the business, but they have a hard time articulating what it is because his job, or at least how he interpreted the job, was not to be put a spotlight on himself at all. Right. was to set up times obit noted this too like was to set up other people they called him under he's he was called understated so much yesterday like understated deloki you know and it's always such a shock for

people on television and media that somebody would want to be understated right right like unlike you narcissists out there this guy was all about the news and all about his co-hosts like everyone else in television like everybody else hey do you know what you should do that would probably I don't know if it'll feel good because it's kind of bleak, but I think you would appreciate this. Go back and read Rick Riley's The Morning Anchor about Bryant. I have not read that piece in forever. I read it last night. Okay.

And it's right before Bryant Gumble was going to lead the Olympics, like he was going to lead Olympic coverage. And so Rick Riley did this feature on him. And it's basically about how he idolized his father and sort of. didn't seem to have a lot of regard for his mother. Like, his mother seemed to be living in sort of fairly, you know, meager circumstances. And they interview Greg in there. And one of the lines in there was that here, this is what they said about Greg. Greg lost that boyhood idolization of his father in high school, but Bryant never did.

Greg was handsome and popular in high school. Bryant wasn't. And I just thought, I was like, man, like, you just, I don't know. There was just something about that line. and thinking about Greg and Bryant and growing up in New Orleans and having that life in the way that they dealt with their father. Anyway,

it's a kind of a sobering read, especially now, but I think it takes you back to a specific time and you can kind of get a sense for why the gumbles are a big deal in American media. Absolutely, absolutely. I cannot wait to go back and read that. All right, he is Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Brian Waters. You want to tease some of the stuff we got

happening in 2025, Joel? Just like a just a little tease maybe. Okay. Well, I mean, man, we're going to, I mean, we've got like, I mean, we've got a whole list of stuff here. Can we say 25 for 25? Are we saying that? We can say that out loud. In fact, I think maybe we should just say that. 25 for 25.

A new press box series coming to you next year. And would you say it's about the last 25 years of media? There's 25 years of media. We're going to be putting out a lot of calls. In the next 75, next 25? How far are we going into the future here? I think I got another good 25 in me, and I don't care what happened. Well, maybe 50.

That'll at least help my kids to get them along the road. And our kids can pick it up from there. So, yeah. There we go. 25 for 25 coming next year. I'm going to see you, speaking of next year, January 2nd. We're going to tee this up again and have a whole new set of bowl games and possible ESPN on ESPN fighting. to talk about.

I can't wait, man. Happy New Year. Thank you for the gift. Of course, likewise. Sounds good, man.