The Press Box - Live From Radio Row! Tom Brady vs. Greg Olsen, Farewell Gawker 2.0, and the Death of the Super Bowl Party

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Bryan is live from Radio Row and joined by The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay to discuss the news of Tom Brady’s retirement, take two. They talk through his future at Fox and his no. 1 comp, Greg Olsen, and then break down other comparisons in media, such as Frank Gifford and Tony Romo (1:08). Later, they bid farewell to Gawker 2.0, touch on news that the National Enquirer has been sold, and ponder whether or not the Super Bowl party is doomed (36:30). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and Jason Gay Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Jason Gay Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're lost in the darkness, look for the pod. Specifically, the Prestige TV podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, where we're breaking down every new episode of HBO's The Last of Us. On Sunday nights, grab your battery and join Van Lathen and Charles Holmes for an instant reaction to the latest episode. Then head back to the QZ on Tuesdays for a deep dive with Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin. From character arcs to video game adaptation choices, story themes to needle drops, we'll parse every inch of this cordyceps-coded universe.

Watch out for mouth tendrils and follow along on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, everybody. Brian Curtis here. We recorded today's podcast from Radio Row at the Super Bowl right before we learned that Tom Brady will be starting his Fox career in 2024, not 2023. So everything Jason and I said still applies, but just know that if Brady is taking someone's job, that's happening next fall, not this fall. Enjoy the show.

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to PressBox. Brian Curtis of the ringer here, along with producer Erica Servantes, and we are joined today by Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal columnist, and the author most recently. It's the new book, I wouldn't do that if I were me. Don't you love to be a most recently author, Jason? I mean, all it takes is too, Brian. All it takes is too. I am joining you, Jason, today from the gritty cul-de-sac of American culture that you know well.

It's Radio Row here at the Super Bowl in the great city of Phoenix. Let me tell you something. The plugs are flying. Everybody, we are bartering plugs for interviews already today. Has anyone tried to sell you an avocado supplement yet? Not yet. Okay. But I haven't talked to the backup tied in for the Bengals.

So it may be coming. Just to give me a little refresher here, in the cycle, a Monday kind of guy is what? A Monday kind of guy is somebody who is new to the scene, might be a first timer on Radio Row. You haven't gotten, you're not on the A list. You might not even be in the B list on Monday. Is that right? Yeah, the running back who had like 900 yards this year. It's kind of a fantasy breakout.

He comes to Radio Row on Monday because that's when he's, going to get the most interviews. Got it. And then it sort of works up from there. And then by Thursday, you're getting starting quarterbacks who aren't in the Super Bowl. Yeah. That's kind of the apex mountain of Radio Row. Yep.

And then the theory is that Friday is a little bit lower than Thursday because a lot of athletes flew into Phoenix to go to the parties on Thursday, but then bailed on Friday. What is the most, the fanciest set you have seen so far? Who's got the nicest setup? So this is the flex of sports radio across America. You don't just have a nice folding table like we do here at the ringer. You have this circus tent kind of contraption. I got to say they're pretty small, though I think Pat McAfee.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Kind of announced himself on Radio Row last year by having a set right next to the entrance and also having a concert on the set while other people were trying to do radio. radio. It's kind of a moment. Another thing I found funny today is I was walking around earlier and I walked by a table for the Newhouse School at Syracuse. Oh, right. Sure.

The new house school where every sportscaster you've ever met, excuse me, went to college. Yes. And they send the kids here to get some reps. Yes. Learn to interview. Get some experience. All those kids when I walked by were wearing suits. They're the only people on.

radio row with suits. Hey guys, when you get a media job, you can dress like a real slob. That's what we're doing here. That's what the big boys and big girls do. Do you think there's a possibility some of these new house kids will get two days of radio row and run screaming into the law or medicine or something like that? Maybe. Maybe they just become the next iron eagle or no eagle.

This is true. They're running the world in like two years. This is true. So there is a big story hanging over the Super Bowl, Jason, before the Super Bowl even begins. The story is Tom Brady versus Greggles. Oh, yes. You might have heard that Tom Brady retired again.

Heard it, yes. Did a little video from the beach. Yes. Look like some of those photos you post on Instagram when you and the family are having a nice lake vacation. What did you make of his? retirement 2.0? Well, it was self-aware enough, Brian, to realize you don't get to do the big fireworks bonanza like he did last year.

Brady, of course, remember this was a whole thing because it was leaked, reported, denied, then released. And then it was a big, you know, wazoo announcement of, you know, thanks to everybody and especially thanks to the Buccaneers. And then there was a whole like rewrite where there was more things. thanks to the Patriots to make sure the Patriots felt beloved. You don't get to do that the second time around. And Brady just kept it short and sweet.

And I think that was the right call. My favorite element of this is whenever somebody of Tom Brady's stature retires or really makes any kind of announcement, every other famous person in the world feels obligated to say something. Yeah. But as you point out, we did this last year. Yeah. They used up their best Tom Brady, the goat,

the legend material last year. So there was this hilarious element of the most low effort Tom Brady praise. You can imagine. This is a tweet from Derek Jeter. Congrats Tom Brady on an unbelievable career.

It was fun to watch. Yeah. They're really the least you could say about Tom Brady's career. It's sort of like, when you're at like a party and you say a good big goodbye to the host and then you run into the host like three minutes later and do we have to do this all over again or what are we doing here i'm going out of the door this is uh mike tannanbaum former nfl front office guy now a media guy simply the greatest player ever dash seven times super bowl champion yes that is the correct number of titles that tom brady won when he was playing football. Ben Hoffman in the New York Times also had a funny one.

The New England Patriots said goodbye to Tom Brady last February. And then they kind of had to say another awkward end of the party goodbye to Tom Brady. So they just re-up their tweet. Yeah. And just added quite the right indeed. Thank you again, Tom Brady. They re-gifted the retirement story. They really did.

It's like when you made a good point on, Twitter a couple weeks ago and you want to remind everybody. And as I was saying, right, for the evening crowd with a 2023 crowd. So Brady's retirement means that he is now, we think, going to become an announcer for Fox. Yes. It was a very unusual deal laid out by Fox last spring.

Joe Buck and Troy Eichman had left to go to ESPN. and so Fox elevated their number two announcing team, which is Kevin Burkhart and Greg Olson, up to the number one team. That's the most logical thing you could possibly do. And by the way, a very cost conscious thing, given how much announcers cost.

Then Fox sort of changed course and said, we're going to give a $375 million contract to Tom Brady with the stipulation that the job currently occupied by Olson is Brady's job as soon or if he retires which don't you think

sort of pitted them against each other in this weird way unless and I don't know what you're reporting says unless they had this in their back pocket all along. I mean one of the things that was interesting about that

analyst a go-go we saw last winter with Buck and Aikman leaving Fox was Fox's somewhat placid reaction to it. I mean, they just kind of let these generational guys walk out the door and go to ESPN Monday night football. It's just kind of unlike Fox, which is the big, splashy, we're going to pay you a little bit more operation. And it says to me, and I don't have any inside information on this, but it says to me, like, they had another card to play. And maybe they knew all along that Brady was

incoming. It's interesting, because I did hear a couple years ago when the whole Tony Romo's $17 million extension with. CBS, which capped off announcer a go-go, go, happen. I heard that inside Fox, they took one lesson from that, which is, let's develop a number two announcer so we

don't get held for ransom like CBS did. Interesting. Yeah. So they go and pluck Olson out of the NFL. They had him calling games even before he retired, just kind of coaching him up, coaching him up, and they execute this strategy perfectly.

But then the funny thing is, they go and do another very foxy thing, which is in addition to coaching up the youngs, they pay for the single most famous and expensive person on the market. And pay a wicked premium. I mean, we're talking about, you know, we're already in this spectacular gold rush for television analysts. This is taking that number and effectively tripling it? I mean, it's absurd. At least doubling it and almost tripling it, Absolutely. Now, it is funny because whenever I hear Brady versus Olson, people sound like they're talking about a college football team that recruited two five-star quarterbacks at a high school. And announcing is not quite like that. The bench means you get to go on the number two announcing team and also get to announce tons of good football games and a couple of playoff games. So it's not that bad.

I mean, you simply are not going to pay him to that kind of money to do number two. work. I mean, that is number one A, A, A, A, A type money, obviously. And I believe if the early reporting on this is true, this was like, sort of like a whole sort of like Tom Brady 360 deal with Fox. This wasn't merely he was going to call games. Tom Brady was going to be a full part of the Fox

package. He was going to, you know, woo advertisers. He was going to be somebody on the scene who could close deals for them. He was going to be somebody who was just going to become, you know, sort of the magician behind the scenes, keeping them relevant. I mean, let's talk about that aspect of this too, Brian, which is there's some sort of, you know, overall layer of preposterousness to this because we know historically that these announcers aren't really essential to ratings, to success in broadcasting football games. The truth of it is, Ryan, you and I were we given a primetime Cowboys versus New York Giants game would get 30 to 40 million people to watch.

You and I. It's true. Okay. And a couple of cantalopes. I mean, we could achieve that. The matchup is the thing. The cities are the thing. The markets are the thing.

The announcers quite clearly are not the thing. And it sort of is another sort of TV thing, which is a sort of TV thing, which is a show. which is sort of this halo thing. It's this idea of like, we're serious about the sport. We have the best stuff. And when you live in an environment like football lives in now, football broadcasters live in now where football is really the last remaining thing of American monoculture, the last thing we watch as a group, it's essential that you show your seriousness about it to the people who provided, i.e. the NFL. And nothing sort of says, we're serious. committing close to half a billion dollars to the greatest football player to ever live to

be a part of your package for the next X amount of years. Absolutely. I mean, you know, Roger Goodell and company, we're like, that sounds like a great idea. Yeah. That Tom Brady will be calling Super Bowls for Fox. Yeah. That sounds fantastic. We couldn't have picked a better guy unless it was Peyton Manning.

And even then we might still pick Tom Brady. I am interested in what you talked about with the whole face of the network. aspect of the Brady job because Fox did refer to this when they signed him to that giant contract. This is a very old network thing, right? Yeah.

Here's a famous football player. We want to be in business with you. Yes. You're going to be calling games for us. That's cool. That's important. We want you to be really good at that and provide a nice experience for everybody watching the game.

But we also just want you to be associated with our network with our brand. now in Brady's case, as we sit here in 23 and look at what remains of network television, I don't know exactly what that would entail. Is he going to be the costume contestant every week on the mass singer? Like, ah, it's Tom Brady again.

Singing the hits. I mean, presumably there's some version of a production deal involved here. There is going to be Brady content that's either on Fox Sports or on the Fox mothership. But I also feel it's kind of like more sort of hand-to-hand stuff where like you're closing a multi-million dollar advertising deal for the Super Bowl and oh look who walks out onto the ninth hole to watch your drives but Tom Brady who just happens to be here at the club um I think he can perform a role there too and and and we know from

you know the world of television it still is kind of old school in that way and so a guy like that has incredible value and he has incredible value just walking the corridor of an event, Tom Brady on the premises for a Super Bowl, will, you know, denote a very serious thing and make it special. And this is even before he utters Word 1. And it's important to say here, we really don't know what Word 1 will look like for Tom Brady. I actually kind of am surprised the early reporting knocked down very quickly the idea of Tom Brady having any role in the Super Bowl that Fox has on Sunday. And it made sense in the respect to that like, okay, he's this major investment.

Do you really want to throw him to the wolves, the most wolves possible on Sunday? I get it. At the same time, you got Tom Brady. Let's lose him on the public here. Let's do something. I just find it shocking that you won't try to figure out some way. Maybe he'll be back on the beach,

holding a phone to his face and just giving us a pre-game reading. Yeah, a prediction. You know, he'll be doing some burpees at a half-time. and we can all join in. I mean, the idea that he would be part of this, not be part of this product, I just find surprising.

I did too. I mean, when you and I were kids, Joe Thysman called a Super Bowl while he was an active player. Yeah. And Tom Brady is allegedly not an active player anymore.

And I thought, you know, hell, he may even be playing for the Raiders next year and would still find a bit way to be next to Terry Bradshaw on the pregame show. You know,

again, radioing in from the beach, whatever it is. It's Tom Brady. You're right. Of course he should be a part of this thing. And let's hold out that Fox may have something up at sleeve that we don't understand. Because I just would be shocked not to see his face one time in the 19 hours of pregame coverage on Yeah. I mean, Fox is not, you know, they are they are atypical. They are not traditionalists. They, you know, if anybody is going to mess around what format and try something new, it would be likely be them. Brian, remember old times when like Mike Schmidt, they did.

the Mike Schmidt box during the World Series where Mike Schmidt's face would show up at batts and Mike Schmidt would like make commentary about what the pitcher was going to throw in any given moment. I believe he was still active at that time. Folks, for you younger listeners out there, that was the zenith of technology of its time.

You think we're going to get that? Jalen Hertz throws a hell of an out route. That's right. He might throw it here on second down. Just his disembodied head like floating over the 40 yard line like comment. I would love it. He was talking to an old Fox executive a while back, and he gave me what I think is the best comp for Tom Brady, the broadcaster. And it's Frank Gifford. Okay.

Back in the day and a little before our time, especially the true golden boy youth of Frank Gifford. But Frank Gifford on Monday night football was an announcer. Yeah. Play-by-play guy and then later eased into the color job when Al Michaels came in. Yeah. But he had that same glow around it. He was famous. He was a guy people would love to play golf with.

He was, you know, he got by a lot on being Frank Gifford. However, at the same time, he was a little stiff in that respect. A little. But the thing that made it work, of course, was that if you, you know, take this cocktail analogy to the limit here, you know, you mixed them up with Dandy Don, you mixed him up with Howard. And together they made this fascinating substance that was very, very watchable and infuriating and engaging. And I don't know what that would be for somebody like Tom Brady.

We're presuming that he's going to be this kind of like stiff thing. And this has always been the knock on legendary announcers that they fly above this cloud line, which for them, you know, to like, you know, lower down and comment on the common people is somehow below them. I think he's probably somewhere in between. I think that Brady in the last couple of years, if you pay attention to his public appearances and interviews, has shown a lot more edge

than he showed as a patriot, for sure, and has shown a willingness to kind of throw elbows now and again. Now, is that going to turn him into like, you know, just ripping everybody right and left? I'd be shocked, but I do think it'd be a little bit more critical than maybe the early, expectation is. I think he's going to be competitive. Yeah, good way of putting it with other announcers. There's right. I just absolutely, I don't want to, you know, just trivialize this,

but there is no way in hell that Tom Brady has not watched what Peyton Manning has done on the Manning cast and has thought, I want to be that good. Yeah. In my own way. I want to be that good or what Tony Romo has done or what any of these guys have done. He's like, I'm a better quarterback than them. I want to go be competitive and try to be a better announcer than them. I absolutely believe that exists in his mind. Do you think Tom Brady watched Peyton Manning on the sideline of the Pro Bowl flag football game and said, give me some of that? I think he was like, I'll let Peyton have that one.

That seems fine. Yeah, I'll be doing the Masked Singer that week. I'm not going to be available for the Flag Football Pro Bowl. Can I just interject real quickly about the Flag Football Pro Bowl, which everybody was mocking online yesterday? I mean, I feel like with this game, you know, listen, the Pro Bowl is an unfixable event. It's not something we're going to certainly, you know, turn into some sort of an incredibly engaging competitive event. However, I watched it with a very active

flag football player in my nine-year-old son who plays NFL flag football. You've never seen a kid more on the edge of his seat. He's like, Dad, they're playing the same plays we played. I actually think it was an interesting ripple. I do think that like they gave it a little bit more life there. the players didn't have helmets. You got to sort of see a different couple of microphone engagement with it. I didn't think it was a disaster at all. That's wild. Because we're always trying to figure out a way.

And you know, I'll talk about this in a second about selling football to the kids. Yeah. But what if it's flag football? Because that's what they're actually playing at a young age. Yep. They just want multiple Statue of Liberty plays, Brian. Can I hit you with an instant think piece about the whole Brady Olson thing?

thing. Yes, my favorite type of think piece. Here's my think piece. Doesn't Olson's rise prove that number one announcers, the face of the network, the guy who will do a Super Bowl for you, are easier to find and coach up than maybe we thought, and that turning all these guys into $7 million per year or $37 million per year,

elite max contract guys, is maybe the wrong way to go? Perhaps. I would say it's more reflective of another point, which is that, you know, as the great Bob Balaban said, always be warm, never be hot. Greg Olson was not a $100 million a year contract. I mean, 100 million dollar contract. He was not one of these million dollar a game guys. He did not come up with a great deal of hype and press conferences and stuff like that.

There was nobody sitting around being, is Greg Olson going to live up to the hype? he just kind of had room to be and get better and wasn't under that kind of microscope. And I think that obviously he did an adequate, better than adequate job, but he wasn't sort of facing that sort of daily torrent of expectation. And I think that's a lesson for people who are getting into this trade. Do you really want to come in with people's guns blazing, hoping that you fail? It's a totally great point. He did benefit from expectations.

And I think he also benefited from the fact that his broadcasts, which got way better over the course of the season, was directed toward NFL Twitter. Yeah. Tony Romo's broadcast is not directed that way. Yeah. Greg Olson's is. And while I thought Olson was much better in his championship game than Romo was,

I think we should also remember that lots of people are watching these games that are not members of NFL Twitter. I say that sitting next to Ben Solac here at the ringer table, who is shaking his head at me. But he did have that. But I will say this about just like other options. We're paying these guys like there are four or five people in the world who can do this job. Yes.

And I just believe that there are more than that. In fact, I heard somebody from Fox say this to me before the season started. They said, is a number one announcer, an announcer with a certain stature, with a certain fame, certain, you know, halo of, you know, golden boyness around them? or is a number one announcer what we tell the public a number one announcer is. Yeah, it's somewhere in between. What do you make of the reporting on the Romo intervention? Speaking of number one announcers. The alleged Romo intervention, because I guess CBS has pushed back hard on this idea.

So there's so many interesting parts to this. One, he deserves an intervention. Well, let's just say what the reporting was. It was that at a certain point. at New York Post said that CBS got frustrated with Tony Romo's excitable but not researched or prepared broadcasting of big games. Yeah. And went to him and said, you need to be better than this. I just imagine him like Tony Romo walks into like an LA steakhouse back room and he opens the door and there are charts on the wall of like, you know, player efficiencies and play diaries. and all this kind of stuff and all the people who are paying the money sitting there.

Well, I see, Tony. Yeah, I think intervention is absolutely a fine word, but it's also we're doing a lot of work here. Because Romo did not walk into the back room of Steakhouse and Nance and Sean McManus who run CBS sports are all sitting there and maybe some old guys, maybe Matt Millen's there. Tony, we're your friends. We're here to tell you something. Yeah.

And that's one of the things about this. Like, as long as I have been covering this business, one of the funny dynamics about announcing is it's hard to interview. Yeah, yeah. These guys are not only paid a ton of money, they're famous former football players. And so even your nominal boss, you know this from journalism. Like, sometimes it's even hard for an editor to tell a star writer what to do. Now imagine you are a suit at CBS or anywhere, and you're telling former Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Tony Romo how to improve his announcing.

Like, yes. That's not an easy sell. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I feel like in certain ways the Tony Romo experience has been a lesson in people kind of jumping overboard

too quickly too early. You can remember that that first season, I'm pointing at you. Oh, sorry. Call for you on Radio Row. But folks, I mean, we were cool. to anoint him as, you know, the second coming of, you know, we, we, the world war.

The world. Richard Knight, she has been. Excuse me. I said we can't, we can't, we can't. We can't just say what. He said he was better than Matt. I love Richard. He said he was better than John Madden.

Okay. After like two years. Okay. Whatever it was. And I love Richard again. Well, he was certainly paid like that. Yeah. He was so, so wrong.

And it was like, and again, it was just, it just felt early. Yeah. I will say this. And Richard's defense. I thought Tony Romo was excellent when he started at CBS. I thought he brought this new, you know, freshness and this emotion. And it was really cool that he would turn to Nance and be like, this game is awesome. Yes.

Remember how Dower Troy Aikman was during that period? Yes. Yes. But you have pointed out on this show repeatedly that the failing of that was what happens when Tony Romo gets a dog of a game. And it's not that interesting. And he has to actually fill. and he actually has to make something compelling that isn't actually viscerally compelling.

And that's the challenge for every analyst, of course, but he proved to be particularly challenged with that. It's totally true. And that's where preparation comes in. I think that's where the ability to kind of entertain the audience. Of course. Because, as you know, these guys are paid to call football games, but sometimes John Madden did better than anybody, football game's a dog. And you're just like, you just got entertained, baby. I mean, John Madden called 25 Lions Thanksgiving games.

If there's ever an opportunity to have to fill, it's something like that. He knew how to do it. He knew how to make the game big, even if it wasn't playing out that way. And how about those 80 Super Bowls, which were complete dogs? Yes, of course. They were awful every single year. Now, but it's, I just think with a whole idea of intervening with Roamo, I mean, to me it reminds me, and I say this is a, you know, a slightly traumatized Dallas Cowboys fan, is that

this was Tony Romo the quarterback. I don't want to be 90s newspaper columnist going, he doesn't have the want to to win the big one. But being a quarterback was clearly not as big a part of his life as it was with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady and many of his contemporaries. He just wasn't.

He was the first one to say it. Remember he went to Cabo the week before an NFL playoff game with Jason Winton. And like he was like, I'm not going to stay home and study or even just pretend to stay home and study. I am going to Cabo. And then they went out and lost to the Giants the next week. Giants team that went on to win the Super Bowl. They were the number one seed that year.

I love this. The old cowboy's grievances are coming out. It's all coming out. But I just believe this about Tony. And again, I think that's a totally fine way to live your life. We don't all have to be an absolute contract killer when we do our jobs. But if that is true about Tony, Romo, there's no way he was going to get to CBS and be like, you know what? This job, which I think is

easier than my previous job, I'm going to take that seriously? Hell no. Yeah. No, you do have to take it seriously. And I think sometimes we can fool ourselves into believing that it is kind of an impulsive act. And if you listen to interviews with people like the late Vince Cully or Al Michaels and they say, you got to let the game come to you. Well, that's an easy thing to do when you're Al Michaels and you have called 50,000 sporting events over the, you know, your life. And you can draw from that entire experience. It's a lot more challenging for mere mortals. The good news is, Brian, I know that you and Shoemaker have been kicking around the AI.

I mean, we are not terribly far away from the environment in which you will be able to replicate the voice of not just, you know, living, but deceased great announcing teams. And if you want to have Pat and John call your upcoming Chiefs and Eagle Super Bowl in future world, that's going to be there for you. I'm not kidding. This is not a joke. That is something that, you know, you listen to Bologna's podcast talking about showbiz and actors and voices and all that kind of stuff. That's going to be completely doable, the idea of taking voices from the past and putting them together. You want to put CoSell with, I don't know, what would be a good combination. Frank Gifford. We just talked about him. Bring it back. Let's put the old Monday night team together and do

the Monday night football. That is entirely within technological reach. So we might just be burning money at a certain point because that might be actually what the audience wants. Didn't Fox try this with Harry Carey like last year? Having Singh take me out to the ball game at the Iowa baseball game? Weirdly watchable. We had zombie Harry. I enjoyed it. I mean, you know, disembodied Harry was strange. But I mean, I don't know. You don't think that there is going to be market for people who want to listen to Detroit Tigers games called by the, you know, chat GBT version of Ernie Harwell. Reminds me of one of the great jokes Bill ever made in his column.

While Pat Summerall was on the air, he contended that Pat Summerall had been replaced by the Madden video game, Pat Summerall. And then there was just a soundboard there going, first and 10, second and six, touchdown, Rice

49ers But if you play that stuff You play Madden You kind of It does sort of Show the lie of announcing In the respect that These are just sort of automated

You know Chat feeds that go over Everybody's game And it's still kind of works You're not saying Oh you know what The announcing is kind of wanting In this video game

It's enough Coming up on the press box Has the great American tradition Of the Super Bowl party gone bad like that bowl of guacamole you're going to eat on Sunday. First, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received.

Jason, our runner up this week, a bunch of people sent us jokes about how New Maverick, that is Dallas Maverick, Kyrie Irving, will be teaching Luca Donchich about various conspirators. theories, or perhaps wandering around the grassy knoll there in Dealey Plaza, coming up with new conspiracy theories himself. I mean, I want to just stop here for a second and ask you to be Dallas-Fort Worth, Brian, fully and commit to the bit here. As if I've ever, if I'm ever not. No, because there's a little bit of kind of like, you know, PJ Clark's New York, Brian, I go to it. We're sending Hollywood Brian out of the out of the radio row here. DFW. Brian is in. I want a pure, how is Kyrie going to fit into the fabric of Texas media and how this all works?

Because we just saw what happens in New York, although I would argue that the Brooklyn thing is its own experiment, separate from anything that it really happens in New York City. It's sort of like it was happening in outer space. But with Texas and Dallas and the Mavericks and that whole landscape, how are they going to take to this guy? It's a fascinating question. I think there's two parts to it. One is NBA players have just gotten so big that we should probably ask whether they belong to a city or not anymore.

Fair. But, you know, he's not going to be doing a weekly sports radio hit on the ticket in Dallas. I'm just, I'm thinking that's not going to happen. If it does fantastic, but I'm thinking it probably won't. But of course, there will be Mavericks reporters at his locker, at his podium every day. He is, you know, sort of seen as this guy who's been brought in to keep Luca in the city because the Mavericks are in full.

We must appease Luca. What can we do? Here is another superstar that will get you to stay in Dallas rather than seeking riches in Brooklyn or wherever else you might go. You know, in that case, I sort of am reminded of when, speaking to Tony Romo, T.O., that is, Terrell Owens, came to the Cowboys. Now, he had played for the Eagles, Cowboys' Mortal Enemy. so there was a little bit of a different edge there. But just think of Terrell Owens and how he won Dallas over.

That's my quarterback, man. That's my quarterback. Also played for the Niners. I forgot about that. Two mortal enemies of the cowboy. That's my quarterback. He was Tony Romo's best friend. Yeah.

So, you know, maybe there's a path for Kyrie winning North Texans over in mass. If he were to get a local endorsement, what do you think would be a great local endorsement in Texas for Kyrie. I'm just going through the sports radio ads right now. There's low T centers, gun shops, leather furniture and upholstery. What do you think fits with Kyrie the best thing?

I don't know. I did see someone suggest that Alex Jones will now be sitting court side for MAV's games, which I didn't know what to make of. That might already be happening as far as I know. But this week's winner, Jason, of the overword Twitter joke of the week. Yes. goes to valued listeners James Dogue, Ben and Travis Barnett

its jokes about the Chinese balloon that was hovering over the U.S. Big topic here on Radio Row. Let me tell you. Some of the best lines. Number one, no, that actually was a trial

balloon metaphorical kind, calling the balloon red Zeppelin. That was a nice line. Superimposing a picture of the guest star over the balloon and writing, that's no balloon.

And my favorite, after the balloon was shot down on Saturday, writing, I think it's safe to say that Joe Biden's war on inflation has been a success. Not too bad. A feast. If you spat on this generation Sputnik and Grass, you made the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

All right, the notebook dump. Let us quickly talk about a couple of big stories in the non-sports media. The National Inquirer has been sold, and we lost Gawker 2.0. Maybe we'll go with the latter here first. But lots of media layoffs, this has not been a good time, Jason,

for people in our trade. And we lost a whole publication last week, which was Gawker 2.0. You'll remember that Gawker 1.0 died in 2016 after it was killed by Hulk Hogan and a friendly, at least friendly to the Hulkster, down there in Florida.

This guy Brian Goldberg bought it for $1.35 million. Brian Goldberg got a guy who was in theory and perhaps literally a target of old gocker. And I think a lot of us thought, well, he's going to just make a zombie gawker. Kind of like zombie deadspin. It sort of feels like the whole place, but then you're really like, but then he somewhat surprisingly hired Leah Finnegan,

who worked at the original. She was a features editor. and as far as I can tell, and maybe we'll have to wait for her journalism memoir to find out the whole story, or at least her substack, she was allowed to fill up Gawker 2.0 with the stuff she wanted,

which is featurey, essayistic, almost all-like stuff that was present in Gawker 1.0, but she made it a bigger part of the second site. Lasted almost two years. It's gone. I saw on semaphore, she was doing one of those

one good text features with Ben Smith. Okay. And somebody asked, well, what do you think about, or it was Smith, I guess,

asked, what did you think about posing for a photograph with Brian Goldberg for the New York Times story when this came out. Again, writer and rich media guy.

Yeah. Her line, which I loved was that's show business. It is show business. I mean, it's just incredible to me, the idea of Gawker being a legacy publication at this point. That would be something you would revive like the New York Herald Tribune or something. I mean, it really goes to show, A, the impact

that it had. But secondly, that like the hardest thing to do in media is to build brands. And that somehow, like the idea of reviving it was thought to be sensible. Should we talk about the inquire for a second? Absolutely. publications that were, you know, chomping at the bit to get scandal. New York Times reported a few hours ago that the Inquirer,

which had a very weird romance with Donald Trump, has been sold. A-360 Media has agreed to sell the publication in the Times rights and a cash deal to VVIP Ventures. You need to have a little work on naming our media companies. A joint venture of the digital media company, VINCO Ventures, new company set up for the purchase icon publishing, et cetera, et cetera.

What is the Inquirer in 2023? I mean, to me, it's still something to mull while you are in line at the supermarket. And I am, you know, it's one of the last vestiges of print only for me. I'm not even aware of the National Enquirer's online presence. I'm not seeking it out necessarily. But I mean, is it robust digitally, Brian? I think of it as something that's next to the Rolos and the better homes and gardens and the Tic Tacs. Yeah.

I mean, to me, the transformation over the last couple of years is so funny because basically every publication in America, if it wanted to survive, became about Trump. Yes. Yes. Even this podcast from time to time. And the acquired says, okay, we're going to be pro-Trump. Right. we're going to be a kind of unofficial arm of the Trump

White House and the Trump campaign. That was one of the weirdest turns I have ever seen in my life. I mean, this is the publication that gave us Elvis in the Casket. That were a Trump publication. It became Dave Campbell's Trump Unlimited.

Very nice reference there. I think it's a very interesting question amongst the, let's just say that the people getting in the supermarket line like you talked about, the kind that are buying the bound volume dedicated to the history of mash or by the way, we're talking about an old behavior on top of an old behavior because who gets in line at the supermarket anymore, Brian? Okay, that is geyser behavior at this point in the era of Instacard and the era of wipe your own, you know, thing through the scanner and get out of there

without somebody doing it for you. I mean, yeah, it is compound geeseer behavior. So I just don't know what, you know, the old school stories about Lonnie Anderson and Bert Reynolds, the kind of stuff the inquiries specialized in. Like, TMZ took a lot of that business. Everybody, Twitter took a lot of that business.

Like, what will that brand be? And maybe they're going to reinvent it as something else. Kind of can't imagine what. Well, I mean, you know, you mentioned the Elvis stuff at top. We recently had a very tragic death in the Presley family. And they would be the destination publication in a different era. I mean, the other dynamic of this, which is obvious, is that, you know, this was another weekly publication. And nobody has suffered more in the digital media era than the weekly publication, you know. And it sounds goofy to say it, but your times, your news weeks, your U.S. News and World Reports, your sports. illustrated your National Enquirer. That is the hardest metabolism to do in this day and age when reaction and counter reaction and backlash is so instantaneous. I don't know how you do it. Do you see the documentary a few years ago about the inquiry called Scandalist? I did not. Fascinating doc, if people are interested in this stuff. They had some Trump business

at the end, which kind of felt familiar like you and I've read that piece a couple of times, but the beginning of the documentary was just the old school inquirer reporters sure who were sitting at their desks getting on airplanes trying to dig up news they told the story of how they got Elvis in the casket which was like an Elvis second cousin who went in with a secret camera if I'm remembering this correctly and snapped a picture but it didn't come out so he had to tell the family that he was overwhelmed by the death of Elvis and then go back into the funeral parlor and try it again and then inquire gets the picture. It's a fabulous documentary or fabulous two-thirds of a documentary. Because those old reporters are like amazing.

Oh my God. It is kind of like the media XFL. I mean, it was a lot more popular than the XFL ever was. But I mean, in terms of like all the things that sort of at the time were considered to cross the line have now been sort of co-opted by the mainstream. I mean, I'm not saying that mainstream publications are going in with hidden cameras into funerals, but that line has moved a great deal since its heyday. And a lot of the stuff that is considered, you know, regular routine stuff, it began with that kind of place. Mainstream media doesn't have regular kickoffs anymore. It has two guys running straight at each other competing for the right for the first possession. One more media story before we go. You wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal.

it's the death of the Super Bowl party, or should I rephrase your headline here? Is the Super Bowl party doomed? Yes. Jason, where are we with this mass media monoculture experience we used to know as a Super Bowl party? Okay, well, first of all, it's important to say that, you know,

that headline is a classic example of Betritch's law of headlines, which is states that anytime you see a headline, with a rather alarmist question, the answer is invariably no. However, I genuinely worry for the fate of the Super Bowl party, not the Super Bowl itself, because data and research is showing more and more that young people do not watch television in linear fashion anymore. Why that, I mean, they do not put their fanny down in the first quarter and refuse to get off the couch until the end of the game.

They are able to monitor it through social media. They are able to process highlights. They're able to keep completely up the speed without being the typical kind of customer that television was accustomed to. And we're talking about what the Super Bowl really, and we talked a little bit about this at the top, it is the last vestige of the group entertainment experience, even things that are big nowadays like White Lotus or what's the zombie show, the last of us that are big things are fractional compared to something like the Super Bowl. And yet the behavior is being

altered as we speak. And so the idea that in 20 years, you're going to have 30 people cram into a room, 25 of whom have not watched a lick of football until this very moment, that's going to feel like an acronistic behavior. I mean, I don't know. Does a Super Bowl party become sort of like a vinyl listening party or something like that, some sort of throwback thing to do amongst friends? or are you going to be walking around with a headset, Brian, that's going to deliver you the Super Bowl at all the times and what's the point of watching it with a bunch of strangers who are going to say silly things anyway?

I mean, we have already replaced the commentary. I mean, the great fun of the good Super Bowl parties that we have gone to in our lives are sitting around with a bunch of funny people saying funny things throughout the game and during the commercials and during the halftime show. We have that writ large through social media. We have everybody saying,

everything all the time. We don't need a bunch of people on the couch to say it. I do worry. And I don't think that the Super Bowl networks are necessarily panicking about this because the funny thing is like, if you say to them, well, we're going to get rid of the party and everybody's going to be watching the Super Bowl by themselves, they'll be like, great, we'll take that. No more group viewing. Fantastic. I mean, Nielsen just altered the formula for group viewing. I mean, this has always been a bane of networks. They like the idea. You know, a network executive's perfect version of a Super Bowl is everyone in a snowstorm locked in their own house that still has electricity, unable to go to a bar, restaurant, or friends party, and they all have a Nielsen box.

Totally true. I really miss monoculture sometimes. You know, you and I grew up in the monoculture era. It had its drawbacks. There was nothing romantic about everybody coming to work the next day or coming to the playground going, hey, do you watch Alf last night? because that was the only option there was. But the Super Bowl surviving is this monoculture tent pole is awesome. I love that my mother-in-law who did not watch a single football game this year knows when the Super Bowl is happening. She's like the old Huffington Post headline. When is the Super Bowl?

She knows the answer. What time does it start? She knows the answer. My mom, who used to go to movies when the Cowboys were playing in Super Bowls in North Texas because there would be plenty of good seats available, knows when the Super Bowl is happening. I love that we can all get together. It doesn't matter if you like football or not

that this is the thing we're all going to watch at the same time. So maybe we still will, but I hate that we lose the immediate group aspect of watching it together. I mean, what is Kakamami Media night? Is it Monday night? Is it what they call it opening night now? It's tonight.

Okay, it used to be Tuesday. I think at one point it might have been Wednesday. I mean, they have pushed it earlier in the week. But I mean, I think one of the fun parts about the Super Bowl, Brian, is that in sports coverage, you kind of have to do remedial football because there's a whole audience coming to this game now who knows nothing. So there actually is a market for the who is Jalen Hertz story. Okay. There's the Benjamin Solax who know everything about this guy down to his social security number, but then there's a whole portion of the audience

that knows nothing and needs a full course on who the chiefs are, who the Eagles are. There are two brothers, Travis, Jason, what's the deal? The coaches, one coach the other team? Yeah, you have to do all this stuff. And so, you know, like the, the casual invasion of the Super Bowl is part of what makes the Super Bowl the Super Bowl. And I also argue it's created this kind of distended thing where I honestly think the halftime show is now bigger than the game. You'll see what Rihanna, you know, global celebrity Rihanna, who hasn't played a concert. I know, Brian, you've been waiting on this. She hasn't played a concert in many years now, this thing is going to be bigger than anything that actually happens

on the field. I guarantee it because they'll have all that number and that number will peak with Rihanna. Unless you have some sort of fourth quarter drive, the halftime show will be the thing. I love what you said about Betridge's law of headlines. Yeah. Because we journalists love to be around when the birth of something occurs or even better when the death of something occurs. We love to be the corner of the world, this thing has died. And whenever I catch myself declaring that too many things have died,

I look at my list of story ideas and it's the death of this, the death of that, the death of this. Do you know how I throw a little curveball in there to change things up? How? The twilight of the Super Bowl party. Twilight is too subtle a word for SEO, Brian. on. I mean, I also think that like there is a meta factor here, which is that we are talking about

the death of something in a trade that has been declared dead for our entire careers. I mean, you and Shoemaker were talking about this recently. I have never walked into a newsroom my entire life and had somebody say, hey, you got here at the right time. This is it, man. Best time to be in newspapers. Everywhere I've ever gone, people have told me, hey, man, you missed it. You should have been here 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago. It's always been dying. It's always been dead. And anybody who is coming up through journalism school now, you are going to be fed this repeatedly.

But it just lives. It is the ultimate zombie drama. And there's still continuously amazing work that gets done. And still, you know what? It still matters, Brian. I'm a great believer. To that rousing locker room speech, it's time for Jason Gaye, guess is a strain pun headline. All right.

Last Monday, we had a strained pun restaurant name. It was a Portland food cart that sold egg sandwiches, and it was called Friday I'm in love. Friday. I'm in love. Truly a spectacular name. Today's headline comes from a valued listener, anti-bought dad. Thank you, anti-bought dad for your service. comes from the website Hellgate NYC Jason it's about an important

development in the city we both used to live in there are some renovated MTA bathrooms and Hellgate NYC says they are spectacular restrooms have been closed for nearly three years

the headline they are reborn and from the pictures which were provided here looks like you have a really nice public restroom there offered by the MTA. Okay, so we got new restrooms.

We got new public restrooms. You had to be there, Jason, to really appreciate it. To really understand how good they were. What was Hellgate's strain pun headline? You had to pee there? Okay. Keep going. That's very good.

Flushing Meadows. It didn't make sense to me until I witnessed. I didn't believe it until I witnessed it. With my own eyes. There's a phrase for this. Solek nodding over here. Okay. Give it to the kid.

All right. You got a guess, Oleg. Yes. Okay. We got to hear. Peeing is believing. Oh. Peeing is believing.

Okay. Well, there I go. Replaced on the spot. Solek, you start Monday. day. Solex writing all my media columns from here. Just your column two in the journal, man. He's got a lot of bandwidth. I mean, in all seriousness, when I listen to Ben Solac talk, I hear my own death. I just do. He is Jason Gay. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes.

Coming up Wednesday, a podcast I want to call the Super Bowl of Sports Radio. That's right. Talking. to some of the eminences, Jason, here on Radio Row. We're going to have Chris Mad Dog Russo who you may have seen both sparring with Stephen A last week and reuniting.

Mike transce on Stephen A. Fantastic. Mike might have had the greatest pocket square in the history of first take for that show. Also, Mike with the aggressive Tom Brady wasn't all that zag. I admired that. Also going to talk to Mike Felger,

has been the drive time king of Boston Sports Radio for a decade now. Forget the lukewarm takes. These guys are coming in hot. Back Wednesday. See you then.