The Press Box - Jason Concepcion on the Right-Wing Media Slump, David Ellison’s Pitch for Owning CNN, and Portland vs. the Blazers’ New Owner

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan is out but Joel is in and he is joined by co-host of the Wait a Second podcast, Jason Concepcion. In the spirit of that podcast, they take a look at a few big stories through a conspiratorial view. They talk about the decline in right-wing media ratings (01:49), David Ellison’s New York Times piece (17:13), the Portland Trail Blazers' new owner (28:06), and the Sophie Cunningham debate (38:39). Host: Joel AndersonGuest: Jason Concepcion Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. Got me, Joel Anderson, produces Isaiah Blakely, and John, not Bones Jones on the ones and twos. You know what I'm saying? Nobody, that has not caught on yet. Maybe someday it will.

Our fearless leader, Brian Curtis, is out today. Fear not. We've got this great in-house guest joining us for this episode. And because of who he is, we're going to talk about today's stories through the lens of conspiracy. Today we're going to talk about the declining returns

of the right-wing media conspiracy mongering, David Ellison's New York Times op-ed on the Paramount Warner merger, Portland's battle over the future of the Blazers, and what the hell Sophie Cunningham is doing right now and what the WMBA should be doing about that, if anything. Without further ado, let's welcome Jason Concepcion to the press box. He's a screenwriter and pop culture and sports commentator, but most importantly for our purposes, one of the co-host of the conspiracy-minded,

wait-a-second podcast. Jason, thank you for your very valuable time. Thank you for having me. It's delightful to be here. And just to note, I have a person doing some work on my house, so my dog might bark a little bit, but I'm going to try to keep her calm throughout this. I think we can count her as a listener, by the way.

So I will take all the listeners we can give. So yeah, I'm good with it. It's fine. I've been on your podcast twice. Yes. You know, look, so now we can do this thing. You know, I'm saying a little trade every night again. Yes. Yes. Tyler's next.

So, look, I just want to start with, which seems to be the death rattle of the right-wing media machine. And it's been this trend that's been noted many times. I've seen a bunch of media outlets write about this in recent months. But the Times published the most comprehensive piece about it last week. And it starts with an anecdote about my former BuzzFeed colleague. BuzzFeed colleague, Benny Johnson, and how his YouTube channel, yeah, me and Benny Johnson worked at BuzzFeed together. It took all kinds to make that.

Do you get any of that Russian money that Benny got? I didn't. I did not. You know, Benny got run up out of there not long after I was there. Yeah, yeah. Probably for the best. Yeah. But yeah.

Now, hopefully that Russian money is still going for him because apparently that YouTube channel, his YouTube channel is down millions of views. X account ain't doing the numbers that you. to he's not the only one though the times analyzed years of audience data for a dozen mega content creators like megan kelly tucker carlson and nick fentes among many others and to sum it up here's a little line from the piece it says only a few saw their audiences grow since mr trump's inauguration while many more have seen their viewerships decline and so while the views are also down even for mainstream sites so i don't want to you know everybody is kind of struggling right now

the declines have been biggest for the right wing outlets. And so Jason, I'm just curious, like, what's your theory for what's going on here? Like, what is happening that those numbers are going down and precipitously so, since Trump has got back in office the second time? Yeah, I think that it's, I think you could just kind of generally kind of say that the reason is malaise, you know, that kind of exhaustion with. Yeah. With the president in general, he has said, and I think this is right, that MAGA is me.

You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of intellectual tying oneself into knots to attempt to create a coherent ideology from the various moves of MAGA of this White House. but really it's just the whims of the president, the things he decides to do. Right. And I think because things are going so poorly, and I think primarily with regards to the war in Iran, driving up gas prices, looking like there's no end in sight, it's a clear defeat. You know, for anyone who wants to look, you know, Iran, the latest news that I saw yesterday after noon was that the shape of a deal is that Iran will charge tolls on a certain kind of route through the street of Hormuz, and that will be, that's a red line for them.

That's a clear loss for the United States of America and the president. And so I think there's just a kind of general exhaustion with the bad news. People are tuning out. Would rather watch Summer House on Bravo or anything else. And I think that's primarily what it is. Now, I mean, if you look at his favorability with Republicans, it's kind of unchanged. It hasn't really gone anywhere. It's the independence, the people who had kind of jumped on, the low information voter, the younger voter, the people who also voted for Obama or Biden or had kind of jumped back and forth.

It's those people who have mainly pulled away from him. And I think that is what's being reflected in this. Right. Because there's a sort of person you talk about. about that low information. A person that's like, well, the tides are going towards Trump, right? And, you know, there are a lot of people that will listen to us, right? If we side with Trump, this go around. But the thing is, is when, once he's in offense, and this is the thing I kind of can't understand because they should have known this from the first time, because he's incoherent.

Like, there's nothing. Like, if you were defending him on one thing, then it's just like, well, if you believe that government should be small, and now we know that that's some bullshit, right? Like, the United States own, like, is bought into like, they own shares in like about 30 companies now. Several, yeah, many, many important companies, including, shares is probably not the right way to frame it all the time, but Nvidia, I forget two of our important rare earth companies and on and on. Yes. Yeah, right. Well, the number that used to be was zero. Right. Yes. Right. And so, like, that's, I mean, that is something that, like, we would criticize in other countries. we say, well, that's not the free market working.

But so if you were apt to want to defend him on any number of fronts, you just can't do it because there's just no coherent. There's no coherent ideology at play here. And so I think the thing is that some people are like, well, I can just stick with the president and hope that I can write it out and people will still support me on that. Or you can turn tech like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes or whatever, and go another way. But then you're going to lose a lot of people that don't want to hear that shit either, right? And it's just like there's like this fracturing that's going on. And it's like, well, there's nobody that really sort of can capture that group that was all behind him in 2024 anymore. Yeah, a good example of what you're talking about is Dan Bongino.

Yep. Who was deputy director of the FBI who in the lead up to the election was one of the loudest voices banging the drum on Epstein releases, on Clems. on clarity about what happened there. Is this some sort of deep state cover up to protect the elite and mostly the democratic elite? And then that all blew up when it turned out actually the president has no interest in releasing any further information on that or investigating in any kind of serious way and is indeed implicated in significant ways. And, you know, Bongino had to flee the confines of Washington at that point. There's been a lot of reporting on this most recently in Haverman and Jonathan Swan's regime changed, talking about his unhappiness with the way that was handled.

And he's returned now to his podcast perch. And it's absolutely no surprise that a lot of his audience who had bought into this idea that Trump and he were going to go to Washington and release all this stuff. and find out the truth have turned him out, have turned off on him. You know, like, that's not a surprise. And I think that is one example. The war in Iran is another one.

You know, this was supposed to be an America First movement. This was supposed to be a movement about avoiding foreign entanglements and foreign wars. And it turns out that that's very much not the case, which has, as you mentioned, led to the exit of Carlson, Fuentes, and others to varying degrees of success.

I mean, I think Tucker's going to run. That's the other thing. You really think so? Okay. Yeah. Okay. I could see that. And, you know, the thing about Tucker and even Nick Fuentes is that, you know, I know people

are particularly on the left, don't like to give people credit for being intelligent if they believe in some of the things that Tucker and Nick Fuentes believe it. But they are actually smart dudes. They just believe in what I believe. to be some odious things, right? But they can look at the history of Trump, and I think that they were really smart in the way that they were like,

I can sort of ride this thing, but as soon as the bandwagon gets a little bumpy, we can get off, because the thing that anybody who has followed Trump for their entire life, like the entire life, like if you go back over the whole course, anybody that has affiliated themselves with Trump usually ends up worse off for it

at the end of it. Like, can you think of anybody who is ever, like maybe Stephen Miller. Like maybe... Stephen Miller right now? Yeah. He's living as you, Corey Lewandowski, I guess. Like, but that's, you know, maybe Steven. Blanche?

Yeah. A few people... You know? Yeah. To your point, I think that there are... Listen, it all depends on what your ambition is. Right. I think that anybody who seeks an office as high as the president or has ambitions that would

garner a spotlight as bright of the spotlight that shines on the president, maybe in other arenas, is something that will draw Trump's ire. Yeah. And we've, you know, we've, we've, we've seen that in various ways with him being like, you know, turning on various figures because it seems like, their ambitions are not subordinate to his. And I think the people who have been successful in his orbit, Marco Rubio, who is going to get, I mean, there's another one, he's going to get everything that he's been dreaming of, including control over Cuba. It seems, that seems what we're angling toward. People who are able to subordinate their personal spotlight, the kind of luminance of their own ambition to his, end up succeeding. And I think a lot of what the

appeal is for these very smart, demented people who kind of surround Trump is their ability through Trump to get the thing that they have been working towards for all of their professional life done. For Stephen Miller, it's the whitening of the country. For Marco Rubio, it's Cuba and control over Latin America. You know, for, I don't know, Jerry Krishna. Cash Patel, it's like getting to go to hockey games. He gets a plane with his girlfriend and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So if you can do that, if you can work towards a thing that you desire, but also not outshine the president, then you'll succeed in this very, very strange personalist power structure. So I want to for a moment tell you what it's, I'm not, this is not necessarily a conspiracy,

but I do find it weird that in a year of midterms, there's all this fretting about the erosion of the right-wing media space. And it kind of is reminiscent to me of when Democrats are like, hey, man, the fundraiser is not going very well right now. You know, they want to make it seem things are as bad as they can to drum up, you know, more interest.

Like that, because I just felt like this has been a throughline, a story that's been populated for like the last couple months. And I'm just like, why do people, Why do people care about this? Like, who's trying to put this information out? And why should we care? And I'm just wondering, I was like, uh-huh. And, oh, and the fact that within that story, the New York Times story,

they interviewed about a dozen people, Candice Owen, some other folks, a part of it. And they all responded, right? And normally they wouldn't, they don't have any, there's no benefit to them usually talking to the mainstream media, but for this point, they were happy to talk about how their numbers were down. It just seems suspicious to me. I think there's something to it. Listen, I also think that there has been, I mean, this is a conspiracy theory, I think.

But it was notable to me how a lot of the dip in right-wing media seem to coincide with the defeat of Victor Orban in Hungary. And then the reveal that Victor Orban was funneling tons of Hungarian taxpayer money into right-wing. right-wing causes across the globe, particularly in the U.S. and in the media space. So, you know, Ben Shapiro was one, like had layoffs two weeks after Victorop in Hungary. So I do think that there is something to what you say in this kind of, hey, is there any other sugar daddy out there or a suite of sugar daddy

so you can help us out? I think that that is, I think you're on to something. Yeah, right. And also, and you tell me if I'm on something about this, because I worry that this doesn't truly capture something that's going on with right-wing media, because I wonder if we spend a little bit too much time thinking about how they're doing on media we know about.

Right? Like, you didn't say anything about Gab, true source, true social, all sorts of other shit that they kick. All other sort of shit they use to organize now. Like those feel, even YouTube and TikTok feel like sort of antiquated, like metrics. And I just wonder, and because of the way they've been organized, I mean, again, the right wing has been ahead of us on so much shit, like, as it turns out, right? Like, they, they knew to go after school boards. They knew to take over course.

So they're organizing in ways that we, that are never really perceptible to the mainstream. And so I just wonder if, you know, like maybe this isn't the right metric to be thinking about, or think about how right wing media is doing. I think that there is something to that. you know, there is a there is a way in the digital era that kind of grassroots political movements kind of

are born and matriculate from these weird cracks like 4chan message boards and, you know, strange subreddits. I think you're on to something. But I would zoom out and I would I would zoom out and even and look at it from an even higher kind of 30,000 foot view and just kind of think of it as immediate thing. So the ratings have gone down in digital media. Okay.

What, you know, so what? That happens to everybody. Right. I don't, I'm, you know, we've both been in digital media now for a while. Yeah. When is it not dying? when are you not as a person who makes a living through these digital channels, when are you not keeping one eye on the fire exit trying to figure out,

like, okay, if this doesn't work, what's my off ramp? And, you know, we're probably two, three off ramps into our career right now. So, you know, in a larger sense, I kind of feel like this is the natural ebb and flow of digital media. Yes, their numbers are down. Does that mean that quote unquote right wing media, MAGA media is cracking up? I think not necessarily. This just to me seems like the natural ebb and flow of the marketplace. I mean, you say that to somebody who used to work at BuzzFeed and ESPN and local newspapers. You know what? So it's like, yeah, they're always losing audience if they're, you know, at a certain point.

So also in the New York Times on Tuesday, David Ellison, who many people know the chief executive of Paramount Skydance and son of Larry, one of the ten richest people in the world, wrote about why we shouldn't be concerned about him potentially taking over CNN. And in this curious attempted persuasion, he pointed to his stewardship of CBS News as a reason why we should trust him. And here's an excerpt. He says, great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle. requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it, and it requires independence. Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve, not to any party or cause. Anyone who listens to the press box knows that Ellison's hand-picked henchwoman, Barry Weiss, has basically taken a hacksaw to CBS News in 60 minutes, and there's

real doubt about the future of the network and that show heading into the fall. So Jason, What do you think Ellison was doing here? Do you think he's trying to pull the wool over our eyes just so he can decimate another mainstream media outlet under orders from Trump? Or do you think there's something else going on here? And he's maybe, or maybe he's just sincere. Maybe he's really sincere. Well, no, I think it is what it appears to be, which is,

I mean, maybe gaslight is too strong. I think it's his only move. Uh-huh. CBS is his weakest card, I think you could argue. It is the single best piece of evidence to your point that the exact fear that people have is legitimate that he intervenes in newsrooms. And so I think an essay built to reassure people that CNN is this aspect. that he is, that he's going to cherish and approach in and kind of unbiased hands-off way is kind of like the only thing he can do if he, if he ignored the CBS part of it, it would be an admission

that actually I intend to do the thing that we all agree that he intends to do. So I think that, you know, your mileage may vary on whether you found this effective, I not find it effective, but I think it was his only move. I think he had to do this. Right, right. That's fair. Well, the thing is, he kind of gives the game away right there. Because you can say, oh, I'm going to be hands off, right? I'm not going to be a guy that intervenes. But then you also say in the next breath, we need news organizations that reflect the whole world, not one side of it. So you're saying, I'm not going to do anything. On the other hand, it's like, I do have some views about the news. And I think there's other side needs.

like a better airing, right? So it's like, which is it? You know what I mean? Like if you really feel that way, like I can't, it would be hard to imagine that you're gonna be like, well, you know what? I think one side is being untreated unfairly in this news environment, but I'm not gonna do anything about it.

You know? That doesn't make any sense to me. No, I completely agree. There is a contradiction at the heart of it. But again, I do think it was kind of like the only, a light gas lighting is the only thing he could, he could really do it and frame it as, you know, this kind of return to the Murrow and Turner legacy of straight down the middle kind of news. It had slanted too much to the other side, right?

So therefore we have to, I do have to put my thumb on the scale a little bit to get it even. That said, I think that his central move, the kind of like this argument that the fight, It's not about market share. Everybody's worry about the news is a kind of dodge. It's like not a rebuttal. It reframes what I think is a very concrete monopolist antitrust, counter argument. You know, there's 12 attorneys generals that are naming all the reasons why this

accumulation of media power is very troubling. And I don't think they're just doing it because they've got like some political hobby horse, that's like, you know, that's a significant challenge. And so I think the way he's framing it is this kind of like proxy for like cultural anxiety is a tactical move to kind of concede the scary point and avoid the scary point. The fact that he doesn't want to talk about market share tells me that he understands that the market share part of it is actually the scary thing. One guy, one entity is going to control all these levers of media. Forget that it's, you know, it's CNN, it's CBS, but it's also, you know, huge legacy movie studios and other media

channels. And so that Dodge, to me, is the thing that he doesn't want to talk about and it's the weakest part of his entire narrative. And that is, again, the accumulation of tremendous media power under one banner. Right. And he skips past that. And actually, it's interesting, I'm glad you're here for a number of reasons, but you've worked in Hollywood, right? You've just, and he talks about himself and his company is a force for good, like trying to create more great art. But it's somebody who is there who's on the lay of the land. Like, what's the lay of the land for people who actually want to make cool shit right now? Because I feel like he was, like he's thinking and said, well, if we, if we merge together, people will have more opportunities to do more stuff.

We'll green light more movies. What are the odds that this actually makes that better? Well, listen, it has been a great summer for movies. I don't think that has anything to do with David Ellison. He's talking about his suite of upcoming movies that he greenlit in the op-ed. Again, that doesn't really change facts on the ground currently. I think that there's a lot of evidence that media conglomeration, monopolization, creates less channels for the people who are below the line, the writers,

the set decorators, the producers, the people who just kind of work steadily in the industry. And there's a lot of other headwinds that have nothing to do with Ellison and having to do with the high cost of production, the introduction of AI into the space, the balance of tax credits

here in Hollywood and the general kind of flight of production to other places. Those are kind of materialist things that have nothing to do with Ellison. So I think there's a significant reason to believe quite fairly that Allison's just wrong. This is not good for the overall health of the industry, despite the fact that I think, despite the fact that I think that this is this kind of accumulation of power and media has been forecast by many people for a lot.

So I'm going to drop off this other working theory of things that I've been workshopping and I kind of debuted it on Ring or Tailgate the other day, but I'm going to run this by you and see if it makes sense, okay? And David Ellison is part of a group of extremely wealthy people who have looked at the country, looked at the state of things, and they don't think we're going to make it. And they're ready to give up on it, right? and I feel like that with Elon Musk is like, we're going to go to space or, you know, Peter Thiel moving out of the South America or whatever.

But the thing is that people are taking these like legacy brands. So whether it's CBS, Washington Post, America, North Carolina football. And they're just, they're taking these legacy brands and they're just ransacking it on the way out the door. They're just like, we're just going to get a lot of money. And I'm going to make sure all my people will take. care of on the way out the door. And that kind of, that feels like what David Ellison is doing to me at CBS. It's like he can say all that shit.

But like, we're not done. We can look at the ratings, bro. Like, we know, like, nothing you've done over there has worked. And so I feel like they're trading on the reputation of these places that have done great things to get in the door and then just go ahead and, you know, take the copper all out and get away with it. Does that, does that ring true to you? Do you think that the rich folks have had a meeting, the Illuminati have had a meeting

and they're deciding to do that or I'm totally off base. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think that there is, listen, the world is going under tremendous changes in every kind of way that you can imagine. Right. And I think that, you know, we're seeing the massive effects of climate change. There's been huge population, movements of populations across borders. The economic system is looking incredibly shaky and looks like it's going under tremendous changes on and on and on.

And so I think that overall, there is a response to, there's like a natural human response to insecurity, which is to like stock up, food and water, right? Build, build higher, thicker walls and arm yourself. And I think that's just going on in different spheres all across the economy, all across societies, like all across the globe. people with means, the very powerful people, are kind of looting to the extent that they can and building protections around themselves. So at the other end of whatever these changes produce, they will be okay.

Right. You know, I think about it as, it's kind of like the effect of like a waterhole and the savannahs of Africa, you know, like if you drain. the water, what happens? You know, when there's plenty of water, everybody's like there, they're all drinking. There's plenty of space for them to drink. As the water starts drinking, now there's people fighting over the water. Now the lions are coming in and they're, and they're controlling it. And the hyenas on the other side. And that's kind of like what's happening, you know, writ large across the globe. And so I think you're right. I think there's a lot

of, I think there's a lot of truth to what you say. And I think it's happening, honestly, everywhere. You know, there's like seven companies right now that prop up the entire American economy. This is happening everywhere. Right, right, right. Yeah, we didn't even talk about AI or whatever, like how, like, grim their view of humanity is. But that's neither here nor there because, Jason, I want to, I got a, I'm going to run out of time with you.

I already know. But I want to get to this because you're a basketball guy, okay? You've, you've won a sports Emmy for your NBA coverage, which means I can't leave you out of here without asking about what you think is happening in Portland. In fact, your way to second co-host, Tyler wrote a piece about this for the ringer. earlier this week, titled How to Cut Cost, Ruin Things, and Antagonize People. And so to catch everyone up about a year ago, Tom Dundon, the CEO and governor of the Carolina Hurricanes in NHL, agreed to buy the Blazers at about $4.25 billion.

And the NBA's board of governors approved that sale. Ever since then, he seems to have done everything to piss off everybody who cares about the franchise. He's cut staff. A lot of the team's broadcasting crew gone cheap in a number of ways. like they didn't even pay for free playoff t-shirts for fans like every other NBA franchise does when it happens. But the big thing now is he's in a standoff with the city over public funding for the home arena. He wants about $573 million in exchange for a 20-year lease that keeps the Blazers in Portland. Jason, plenty of people suspect that's bullshit that he actually doesn't want it to happen.

What do you think? I let's first acknowledge that when a bluff is successful, it is from the outside impossible to discern as different from sincere intent. So whether or not he actually wants to move, it certainly looks like it. Researching this, though, I think it would be, first of all, it would be impossible for him to move before 2030, not get into why. And I think it would be very difficult, but not impossible for him to move after that. And there would be very concrete signs

that he is serious about moving. So under the NBA Constitution, relocation requires, one, a simple majority of board governors. So you've got to have 16 yes votes out of 30 owners, which is, you know, that's pretty low bar. But the 2024 bridge lease that the Blazers signed bars the team from even seeking to relocate before October 2030 without the city of Portland's written consent to do so. So I think that it would be really hard, right, for them to even explore

doing that. Now, how, what would be, what are sign of like some historical warning signs that, like, a team is looking to move? Some of these are here already. So, like, Sald Arena negotiations, Those are here. We saw that in Seattle. We've seen that for Oakland in MLB. We've seen it for other teams. An executive publicly questioning the market, okay, that's there. Aggressive cost cutting.

Okay, that's there. Short-term lease. This only goes to 2030. Yes, that's there. So all these things are there. But I think the single most decisive sign that preceded these past moves is like an owner scouting and cutting deals with a specific, Destination City.

That hasn't happened. And again, could not happen without the city of Portland being aware of it. Now, you mentioned his work with the Carolina Hurricanes. This is kind of his playbook. He extracted like $300 million in public money from the Carolina, from the Carolina to build the arena. And then signed a 20-year lease. So it might be that he is just like maximizing his leverage currently.

Were that true, right? maximizing his left. Like, how do you engender goodwill by doing, like, Tiago Splitter? Like, good coach, you know, first year they made the playoffs and then you low ball him and get him the hell out of there. And then you have, I mean, their current coach is working for grits and tattered clothes, man. I would like to work for those grits and tattered clothes, but relatively speaking.

You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? But it's just like, so if you're not moving, like if you, and you know that it's hard to move, then what the fuck is going on? Well, I think I think that he wants as much money as he can get

from the city of Portland to fix this arena so he doesn't have to kick any money in. And then secondarily, I personally do think that he would like to move. Now, this would be more of a long-term thing. And I think the number one warning sign to look for would

be if some person or group, affiliated with a different city independently of Dundon and his organization just happens to mention, oh, it'd be great to have an NBA team. You know, I don't know if it would ever happen. And, you know, I know that they've been talking about expansion and who knows. But yeah, it would be, you know, maybe they'd move one. Who knows?

But I think it would be really nice to have it. I think, you know, St. Louis or Kansas City or whatever would really love to have a team. team. You know, there's a lot of issues to work out, you know, for infrastructure and et cetera, but like that would be really cool to have one. If that happens, if some group makes a statement like that, then I would actually be, I would be more worried. But right now, right now, my sense is he wants money and that even if he wanted to leave, it would be really hard. but all of this is bad. The way he's treating the team is bad,

the way he's treating the fans are bad, the way he's denigrating the city is super shitty and he sucks. Yeah, well, that's the thing. So that's the thing, because we're both, I mean, I'm probably not the basketball fan you are, but I've watched basketball my whole life. I've always had, like,

there's some franchises you hate, but there's also some franchises you have, like, a lot of respect for. And the trailblazers about, the trailblazers have mostly been good, my entire life. They've always pretty much, had good fan support.

And it's like, this city, this franchise really doesn't deserve that, man. They've done nothing. And it's just so frustrating because, like, this is, this reminds you of all the things that people are starting to hate about professional sports, right? Like the intrusion of these billionaires who are treating these, like, you know, like their companies rather than, like, public trust, right? And so I just, I feel like, and you, I'm sure you probably feel the same way. I don't know if you've even been to a game at Portland, but it feels like they don't

don't deserve this. You have, yeah. No, they don't. Yeah. They don't. They don't. But, you know, we're also in a, we're also in a kind of era in which sports franchises, not just NBA franchises, but sports franchises in general are massively, massively expensive

to the point that the pool of buyers is vanishingly small. That's right. And selecting among that. pool, like the good guys, air quotes, I think is a really hard job. Now, I would argue that Adam Silver, I think, and whatever processes they use to vet this particular guy and his group were not good enough, not strong enough, not just not up to snuff. This was bad. That said, you can't discount the fact that it's just really hard to find like a person or organization willing to spend billions of dollars on a team who is also like has the city's

best interest at heart, the team's best interest at heart. And this is before the NBA even gets into the, you know, sovereign international money kind of area that international soccer has gotten into where you have, you know, whole countries owning teams. Right. That's where. That's where. we're going with this. If these valuations keep going into the six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve billion dollars, you know, that what did the Lakers sell? So, so, sold for ten billion? Yeah, ten billion. Yeah. You know, if, if imagine the Knicks sell one day. Man, that's right. You know, so who's got that kind of money just laying around or who can borrow that level of money? It's like, you know, not a lot of people. So are you looking, are you looking at them off the hook here? Because that was, that was actually going to be the question I had. You cut you touch on that because like this is Adam's fault. This is Adam's fault. Okay.

All right. This is Adam. This is you got to do better than this. Come on. Yeah. This is not the way that you want to be talking about the league and one of the I mean, it's not a marquee franchise in the league, but they are indelibly tied with that city. They had like five years of straight sellouts in recent memory have been historically very, very solid throughout the last 30 years of NBA history and have won a championship. So I just think that I think that this is this is the NBA's fault for not properly vetting El Chippo as our boss Bill Simmons. I was going to say, well, I mean, also there's no way, but the thing is, is it an issue of vetting

or is it just that Adam had to ride with it because there's no way Dundon goes in there and doesn't reveal what his plans are for this franchise, right? Like he just knows he makes this presentation I want to buy in to this league. And it's like, oh yeah, by the way, I didn't mention all this other shit about how I want to force him to get a new stadium.

Like I imagine the NBA is on board with that. Yeah, I think he must have downplayed it because it, and this is just me reading the T leaves, it does seem like Silver has been taken aback somewhat. You know, he's talked about this, at Summer League and at other press conferences, you know, at Summer League, he seemed dissatisfied despite his very deadpan demeanor,

talking about how the league is trying to work with both sides, but acknowledging that the negotiations with the city have gone off track. So I think he was, I think he's been taken aback by this a little bit, to be honest with you. Okay, okay. We'll shoot him some bail this time. That's okay.

One person not prepared to shoot Bell to as we move on here is Sophie Cunningham. I'm loathingham. I'm loathinger the attention she wants. But I'm curious to know what you think about what's going on with her and how the WMBA and its fans are responding to it. Again, Cunningham, who averages nine points a game for the Indiana fever, has made headlines for a recent run of political commentary. And it started with this ESPN profile headline,

Love her or hate her, Sophie Cunningham won't be ignored. And addressed this conjecture online that Cunningham is a MAGER Republican, excerpt from the piece is you say she's a maga Barbie as some corners of the internet have taken to calling her projection she says because of what she looks like

and where she's from she'll weigh in on how to protect women sports she says because she's in that world and feels qualified to speak to that world I get a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans and I'm like I never once said that

she says I think I'm here to extend love but I also think that with love is truth being honest And I want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men. She's doubled down on those comments in recent interviews and this inspired rallies in her defense outside of fever games. Even took a picture with the anti-transactivist and former college swim champ, Raleigh Gaines. Swim champ is strong, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I guess she got, she tied for fifth.

Is that right? Yeah. Did she win her conference champ? Maybe she won her conference championship. Okay. I'll give her that, you know. But we need to look at Chuck Lerner. posterman. What did he know?

Because he went on our boss's podcast a couple weeks ago and said she was going to be a vice presidential candidate in 20 years or so. What did he know? Because doesn't this feel like choreographed in some sort of way? Yeah, I mean, it's very clear that Sophie's positioning for a post-career media career. I mean, that's already happening. She co-hosts a podcast with Wes Wilson of Summerhouse, the recently ejected cast member of Summerhouse,

where you don't have time to get into that right now. But, yeah, she is kind of the made-in-a-lab type of right-wing anti-trans, like personality. and I think she will probably have a very successful career. Vice President seems strong to me. You never know. You never know. But you truly never know these days in which kind of social media,

the ability to garner attention, the ability to go viral, and this kind of like reality star framing is a political plus. So who knows? But this is a very tough spot for the W to be in. Well, to dig down into the cynicism here. I mean, the WMBA, which is about as politically active and progressive, is any professional sports league as everybody.

I mean, they're responsible for Raphael Warnock being a senator in Georgia. I don't think it's overstating it to say that. They didn't really have like a foil within their ranks. Like nobody that was public, that publicly. spoke out. So I'm just wondering if like somebody, you know, R&C, anywhere else said, hey, there's a chance here. I mean, again, we're right in the midterms. And I just, you know what I'm saying? Like somebody looked at her and said, you know what? Maybe we should do, maybe we should try this. And the WMBA, it just kind of seems like, well, they've never had to deal with this before.

I think that there is something to what you say, simply because the demonization of the trans community is such a, like, evil but also brilliant wedge strategy. Yes. In that the community is very, very small. So visibility kind of in the best of times. It's always going to be something of an issue that you're picking on a community that there is no, like there are so many kind of structural reasons that people would not want to come forward and kind of be the face of the pushback against this because of, you know,

credible rates of violence against trans people, outsized rates of trans community self-harm. Like there's a million reasons. All the hate that you could, you can imagine, that community engendering. And also, you know, I'm not the best person to talk about this, but there are like legitimate fractures within the LGBTQ community with regards to the way in which the trans issue has, like, been,

I guess mainstreamed is how you want to put it. Like, I think this is mainly a generational thing, but, you know, like, I've talked to older gay folks, gay people from an other generation who feel like, well, the trans issue just kind of popped up, and now it's imperiling all this other work that we've done. Meanwhile, you know, I've talked to many trans people who feel like they're not accepted by the gay community. So there is like this, it is a very specifically targeted fracture point that intersects with a lot of schisms within society. and kind of weak points within society. And, you know, the worst part about it is it's just making life even more horrendous for the trans community who just, I think, just want to live their lives and not be turned into this mainstream scapegoat. And, you know, the other thing that I think when I read about this story and just like listen to podcasts and, you know, watch coverage of this,

is that, man, I am glad that Magic Bird happened. Oh, man. That's... Before social media. That is really, yeah, that is an inside. Yeah, man. Oh, my God. I'm glad it happened then.

Yeah. I'm sure it was just as vitriolic and toxic as the kind of culture war stuff that we see now. Oh, yeah, sure. But it had, but it was siloed. And it didn't have the ability to turn into this kind of like grassfire. and because what we're seeing now in terms of the culture war that is center around Sophie with regards to the W is just like it sucks.

You can't even talk about the sport and the game and how, you know, how the various merits of the players, it's about this and it's just overshadowing the entire league. Right. And you know, I do find an interesting that's very well said. And I also think about how you said there's not very many people that are advocating for that community, right? And I just, so when I first started at the Ringer, and I lived in the Bay, and San Jose State had a trans player, Blair Fleming, right? And I went to one of their matches.

I think it was the final home match of the season. And what happened with San Jose State that year is that several teams, you know, forfeited. They can't. They didn't want to play them. So like Boise State and like Wyoming didn't play them. And then like one of her teammates and roommates like I accused her of, I mean, they just filed a lawsuit against her, you know, violating her rights and all this other sort of stuff. And so I remember I was going to this, I went to this game.

I just wanted to see like what it was like on the ground there. And Jason, there's this rickety gym on the campus of San Jose State. There's maybe a thousand people in there. And there's a thousand because it's the final game of the season. And I'm like, what are people objecting to here, bro? Like, we're not, nobody is talking. This is not a Juana man situation. Like, we're talking about somebody who just wants to play whack volleyball.

Like, Western Athletic Conference volleyball. And to make, I think the thing that I find really offensive about Sophie Cunning. It's like, that Blair Fleming woman, like, really suffered. Like, it was just, you could just tell that the year had taken a real toll on her. And all she wanted to do was play. And I was like, what would it? Somebody, I would love for somebody explaining me what was in it for her. When it's all over, she had to go into her regular life.

Like, she's not going to go pro in volleyball. She has to be a citizen now with this attached to her name where all the people that rallied against her get to get scooped up into that Republican or the right wing pipeline of anti-trans activism. And I just, I think that, like, the one thing I think about the WMBA is that you're right, they don't want to talk about this, but I feel like they're sort of missing an opportunity. And that's not everybody, because some people have spoken out about this, right, and have supported them. But I feel like by not more forcefully coming out against Sophie Cunningham, they're sort of, like,

giving field to it. Because, like, people say, oh, it's a complicated topic, you know, a lot of people don't support trans stuff. And so I don't want to, you know, I feel like people are a, a, a few. afraid to side with them publicly because they feel like there's no public, there's not going to be any backup. And the WMBA is just sort of giving into that. I agree with that. I think that's right.

And I think it's part of a larger issue, which is that, you know, with gay rights, there was decades of work and visibility and stories and movies and various things that communicated the humanity and the justness of that struggle. And this is for the regular person, kind of a new topic. And even for the people who are allies, there hasn't yet been a kind of coalescing around a, like a muscular mess.

about why this is fucked up. Like I could go through all the reasons why it's fucked up, but like no, I don't know that anybody's come up with the sound bite. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so that's one issue is even the people

who are, who want to push back against this stuff struggle to do it in a way that's concise and cuts across the kind of noise. And then the second part about it is like we really do have to inform the public. Like,

whatever the W wants to do, it will stand or fall on the kind of general public's understanding and relationship to this topic. And right now, it is that, I think, for the anti-trans forces,

for the right-wing media sphere, Sophie Cunningham and her acolytes, it is really about that nightmare specter of a man walking into a, like a high school girl's locker room, you know, a teenage boy pretending to be a girl walking into a high school girl's locker room. That thing that has not happened. Right. And it has never happened. That, the spectra of that is what they are selling.

And the fact that so many people are still so. kind of unacquainted with the topic don't know like a lot of everybody knows gay people more than one has them in their family knows you know that we've reached a point in society where there's enough out gay people that you know them you work with them right they're in your family they're in your friend group um not so with with the trans issue and so I think that it's it is about like raising the visibility and that's not something that's the W can necessarily do. And for as weak as their position is currently, their public position, I weirdly empathize

with it because I don't know. I think there's a lot of structural reasons why they're just in a bad spot. Like I don't think Kathy Englebird is a good commissioner, period. But also she's a lame duck commissioner. So, and Cunningham is like the worst maybe possible target for discipline because like she has spoken negatively about Commissioner Engleberg by name. So now she could frame any actions against her as, well, now you're just singling me out for telling the truth. And so I think it's a really, really horrendous position that is being exploited, you know, on the backs of the trans community, which is really horrible.

I, I, you'd want the players to speak out and say something stronger, but I, I, I, I, you'd want the players to speak out and say something stronger. but I don't know that there's a good way out of this right now, and I don't know that there is a good way out of this that the W can necessarily pioneer. That's great. And I will say, and I'll just shoot the WMBA some bill right now. They're already sort of reeling and figuring out how to deal with the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. I mean, that's a whole other part of it.

Right. And they have a whole bunch of supporters who believe she's being bullied by a bunch of angry black lesbians. who are jealous of her success and fame, right? And I will even say, I don't even think it's fair to Caitlin Clark, right? Like, I don't, like, is somebody, I could see something who's just wanted to hoop. Like, she just probably just wants the hoop.

And she's at the center of this thing. And nothing she says is really sufficient for either side, right? But yeah. So I, yeah. I agree with you. You know, it's the league is, the league is in this weird place where they have an opportunity to grow. they have been growing tremendously over the last several years,

but with growth comes new eyeballs, people who haven't been steeped in the culture of the W, which is one of activism, and who are coming from like a more general sports mindset that is very much in this kind of like first take, us versus them, like, what's the take, what's the, you know, who hates who, that kind of mode. I do wish Caitlin would come out and say something stronger, but she has made statements.

And, you know, I think the one thing that I would want to say is this. None of these people who are rallying, 30 or so that rallied, like outside the Seattle game, or the folks that are, you know, supporting the Sophie in this kind of anti-trans crusade, they are not they're not like W fans in waiting they're not like women's sports fans in waiting they're political actors that's right who are exploiting an opportunity they're not going to be at the new york liberty game like cheering the cheering the players on when this is all over right they are purely here to exploit division yep and that should be rejected i love that um and you've nailed the landing because we have to end it here. I took about an hour of your time, Jason.

I appreciate it. I love doing it. I'd love to be back. Well, there you go. Look, man, I don't run this show. That's Brian. But if you have anything to do with it, you know what I'm saying, you're going to be back. So thank you to Jason. Please check him out at wait a second. Great podcast. Hopefully when I'm back in L.A. Or even if I'm not in L.A. I want to be back on again. You're going to come back on. You'll be back on. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for joining us on the press box. And look, I'm Joel Anderson, production magic by Isaiah Blakely and John, not Bones Jones.

Next week, Brian. NB. That's, yeah, look, man. Not bones. Not bones. N.B. What about that NB? Let's see if that catches on.

NB. Yeah, yeah. You know what? There was a guy I went to college with. His name was Jamie's willing. He probably would not believe that I'm saying his name right here. His name was Jamie's willing. And I called him Jigger.

Okay. And people didn't understand because Jay Z. you know what I'm saying? And I called him jigger. Nobody knew why I was calling him jigger. But anyway, so anyway, so maybe this NB thing might catch on. But, well, Brian, we'll see. Brian will be the ultimate judge.

But anyway, but he'll be back in this seat on, I guess, Tuesday. And until then, y'all be easy. Thanks for checking in with us.