The Press Box - NBA Inches Closer to a Rights Deal, ESPN’s No. 1 Team, and Stephen A.’s History of Debate TV With Howard Beck and Sheil Kapadia

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Hello media consumers! We close out a busy week with two appearances! First, Howard Beck joins Bryan to discuss the NBA finalizing the rights deal (1:20), what is intriguing about NBC and Amazon’s coverage (9:30), and the NBA going back to broadcast television (18:00). Then, Sheil Kapadia joins to discuss whether or not Charles Barkley would work with his ‘Inside the NBA’ teammates elsewhere (21:51), thoughts on ESPN’s number one announce team (25:23), ESPN’s ‘Up for Debate’ docuseries (36:55), and more. Host: Bryan Curtis Guests: Howard Beck and Sheil Kapadia Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, football fans, we know that the NFL offseason can seem long and dark, but the Ringer NFL show is here to shine a light on all the big training camp developments and front office news around the league. Join me, Shield Capadia, and a rotating cast of Ringer favorites that includes Noura Preciati, Stephen Ruiz, Austin, Gail, and Lindsay Joan throughout the summer months, and stay up to date on what your favorite team is cooking up for the 2024 season. subscribe to the ringer nfl show on spotify or wherever you get your podcast and follow ringer nfl on instagram and ticot and at ringer nfl on x and youtube hello media consumers welcome to press box

brian curtis of the ringer here along with producer brian waters we're going to talk to shiel kapadia in just one second but first off let me bring on howard beck who has been standing by to do an emergency podcast on the NBA media rights for a week now. Howard needs to leave us home to get some food and water. Howard, welcome to the press box. Brian, my pleasure, my honor, very glad to be here ever since I got to the ringer back in September. I've been looking forward to the moment when I could actually be part of this. I love the pod, so thank you. That goes both ways, pal. I'm going to attempt a basketball analogy to explain Wednesday's developments in the media rights saga.

It feels like the game is over, but the refs may need to look at a review. How do you like that? It's great, not least of which is that reviews suck. They're horrible. They're time consuming. They're grading. And if in fact, that's where this is headed due to, I assume you're alluding to potential legal ramifications between Warner Brothers Discovery and the NBA.

Yeah, no one's looking forward to that. That might be, that might rank even lower than like the 2011 lockout in terms of fan and media response. And I'm not going to go stake out. I did stake out the lockout. I'm not staking out courtrooms for this. And it's staking out Zazlov when he makes his way in and out of a high rise in Manhattan. So the news, if people didn't see it, Tom Friend reported this in Sports Business Journal. the NBA is, quote, formalizing a deal with NBC.

We learn new verbs here every day during a rights negotiation. Friend reports that would probably include a basketball night in America on Sunday nights, following the NFL season, a total of two primetime windows a week, conference semifinals, and a conference final. All of this means the NBA is inclined to choose NBC overturn. Now, the aggregators, Howard World, tad aggressive with this saying, That's it. That's over for inside the NBA. But as you refer to, there may be some litigation because Turner allegedly has

matching rights, or at least theoretically, maybe they have matching rights, which means they could pay the same amount of money, but then there's a question of, does it matter? Because those games would be on cable and clearly Adam Silver wants games on network television. What do you make of all this? Oh, boy. I'm not going to pretend, Brian, to be an expert on the business and economic ramifications. I'm certainly not going to pretend to be an expert on the legal ramifications. And again, do not wish to stake out any courtrooms if it goes there.

But I feel like this has been like the clear trajectory for a while now, right? You've talked about this and written about this. Many others have, it seems like this is where we were headed the whole time where Warner Brothers Discovery, Turner, was going to lose out for a variety of reasons. And I mean, I am part of that group, right, of NBA Twitter, who from the moment these rumbling started, we're all kind of going, wait a minute. Does this mean we're losing inside the NBA? Is this the end of Ernie, Chuck, Kenny, and Shaq? And a lot of other people that go with that. And when I see the news today, Brian, like that's still where my head goes first.

There are some really interesting economic aspects of this, right? Keith Smith, who does a great job for the site, Spotrack, salary cap stuff and all the other CBA type stuff. He put out a bunch of numbers projecting what the salary cap and max salaries might look like with this new TV rights deal. Like, that's a whole other part of this, too, like the way it's going to change the economics of the NBA and how much Max players are going to start making just a few years from now, which could approach, you know, 70, 75 million.

a year, which is just, you know, mind-blowing. But yeah, listen, I am the age I am. I'm Generation X, and I grew up on NBA and NBC. And yeah, I love Roundball Rock. Yeah, I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Yeah, I'm happy that we at least get Roundball Rock back. But if it's at the expense of inside the NBA, as an NBA journalist, as an NBA, you know, fan of sorts, a fan of the game and of some some of the great production of the game over the last, you know, quarter century or so, it's hard. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a very strange thing to come to terms with that this may be it, that we, and listen, we do get one more year.

If this is where it's going. And as you don't, the aggregators, as they do, got a little hyperactive. We may still have one more season of inside the NBA. And of course, I think you've addressed us and others have too. There's at least the possibility that inside the NBA could be reconstructive. constituted elsewhere or that key members of it could work elsewhere or that there could be these hybrid relationships with multiple networks. So we shouldn't start, you know, crying in our soup or whatever is the people cry in just yet, I guess. Yeah. And what we're crying for is the show as it's

currently constituted. Charles Barkley is going to be fine. Charles Berkeley is already saying, I'm going to be fine. I'm going to have lots of suitors out there. But, whether the show could actually portal over, as you say, to Amazon or to NBC. I mean, you know, frankly, I haven't heard Charles Barkley say in the numerous interviews he's given that he, that that's a really important part of this for him, right? He loves on the one hand inside the NBA, not denying that at all, worked with these people, works brilliantly with these people. But I haven't heard him say, you know, if I go to Amazon, it's going to be like,

it's me and Kenny and Jack and Ernie if he wants to come or nothing. Is that part of his calculation? I mean, I was speaking of Gen X, I remember. remember when John Madden was a free agent. John Madden during those many free agencies never said it's me and Pat Summerall or nothing. He said, oh, I'm going to go there. If you can get Pat, that's great. So it's business, right? We'll see. And it's really, really complicated sometimes when it gets down. I think the difference though, Brian, is that and granted, Madden and Summerall were incredible together. But Madden, like Charles Barkley, it doesn't matter who you put next to him in some respects.

Like he'll figure out the chemistry. The magic of inside the NBA is the ensemble, right? It's all of them. And it's the production too and the production crew. And like things like, you know, EJ's Nito Stad of the Night and the Gone Fission and all that other stuff. Like that's all the crew. Like Chuck and Shaq and Kenny didn't make that stuff up. So there's a whole bunch of other elements and creative people who have worked really hard to build something that

we all find so endearing, right? People can quibble about there's not enough granular basketball talk, or they're always just goofing off, or their takes are kind of shot, whatever people say. And I'm on NBA Twitter too much. I see it all. But there is a magic to that show. There is something very fun about that show, that whether you're an NBA fan or a casual NBA fan or just a passerby who happened to turn it on at that moment, people even talk about, even if it's the, I'm not even interested in the game on a given night. I'll just turn on inside the NBA just to see what those guys are talking about. That's really rare. And yeah, you could port Chuck over to NBC or Amazon and he'll still be Charles and he'll still be amazing no matter who you sit next to him. But it won't be the same. And, you know, look, that's the whole cliche of all things, good things must come to an end. And maybe this does. I certainly hope not though. And I know Ernie has made it very clear that he is kind of a, you know, a Turner. you know, guy for life. He's, he spent his whole career there and he wants to stay there. Whether there could be an arrangement made for him to still do inside the NBA with the rest of the

guys on another network while he is still primarily Turner on other sports, we'll see. I mean, that's the thing. I feel like there's so much unknown here still. You know, we don't know whether to mourn inside the NBA yet. I guess the only thing we know for sure is that if NBC is getting it, we are getting roundball rock back. We could at least celebrate the. The return of roundball rock. Thank you, John Tesh, I guess. And it's no small thing.

It's not. First of all, that song absolutely rocked. I was not particularly shocked at all the various news breaks in the round ball rock beat. Oh, NBC wants it back. Yeah, I imagine so. Oh, John Tesh is willing to do it. Wow, that's amazing.

Yeah, we got it. Now, I want to go back to NBA Twitter for a second because what's funny is if we pulled NBA Twitter, all of our very close friends in the industry, Howard. And we said, what would make a great halftime show, great postgame show? I think we'd get things like fluency with analytics and advanced stats and modern NBA thinking does not exist on inside the NBA. We would say we want guys who have an Orlovsky-like lust for grinding tape definitely does not exist on inside the NBA. it's almost the opposite.

And yet the chemistry, the personalities of everybody, it works, those little elements you're talking about, they're all very low-fi. Like, here's a tweet. Here's me running over to the big screen to do Kenny's pictures. Like, all of it is charming almost in an old-timey television way, even before old-timey, like our childhood. And I think that, you know, one of the things I'm intrigued about, Brian, with at least, well, with two new players coming into this space, right?

Who knows what Amazon Prime's vision for NBA coverage might look like, whether in studio or on game coverage or whatever else may come with it? NBC is not the same NBC that we signed off with the last time Roundball Rock played 25, six, seven years ago, right? They're not bringing back Peter Vessi and Ahmad Rashad. I wish they would bring back Bob Costas. I thought Costas was fantastic on the NBA, by the way. And part of our nostalgia, and I'm going to stand in defense of nostalgia, by the way, the nostalgia haters out there, by the way, could just bite me.

Like, yeah, you're right. It's a little silly that we love this theme song so much. And the theme song is not the coverage. And the coverage could blow and it will still be like, yeah, yay, round ball rock. I'm fine with it. I am fine with my nostalgia. I am fine with the emotional manipulation of playing that music and saying, yep, I'm down.

Give me the little lasers creating the peacock on the screen. I'm good. But it. Dude, that was so cool back in the day. I cannot tell you. I still cool. I just played it before we got on this podcast just to remind myself,

it's still fucking cool, all right? No wonder you're fired out. I'm ready for game seven of the finals or game six of the 98 finals, as the case may be, because that's what I was. little Costas T's in front of it. I mean, I mean, here we go.

And that was one of the great things too, right? When we get nostalgic for NBA and NBC, it's partially round ball rock and it's partially the lasers drawing the peak. I don't know if there's even lasers. I don't know what's drawing the peacock. It's just fucking cool. But it's Bob Costas's monologues and those introductory kind of hype videos. And for all we know,

none of that is coming back, right? Marve Albert's not coming back. You know, again, I would love for Costas to come back. it will be different. The only thing that will be the same probably is the song. And to answer your question in this very long-winded way, it does open the door to saying,

listen, we can create what we want here. Maybe we need some nerdy Tim Legler, telestrator type stuff on the iPad. You know, maybe they literally got Tim Legler. Maybe JJ Reddick doesn't coach the Lakers and leaves ESPN for NBC.

I don't know. But you could get somebody doing more of the nerdy breakdown stuff and then try to marry that with some of the fun and hijinks or whatever of what inside the NBA was. And I'm not saying it's part of a new inside the NBA. I'm saying maybe some other new show entirely. I think that's the thing that we're missing, right? There's what inside the NBA gives us. There are various places you can go for nerdier, more granular coverage. And I say nerdyer in a endearing way.

We don't have a lot of a merger of those two. Like, I don't think anybody has quite perfected that, whether in podcast form or TV form or anything else. If I'm wrong, listeners can correct me. But there has to be some kind of ideal combination out there where you can satisfy all members of the audience. I think so. I mean, the one thing that inside in its current form has that would,

be really hard to do anywhere, except maybe Amazon, is the fact that it just goes out into the night. It has no end. It is like Megalopolis. Like it just, it just, it is, it's so, it's almost like the original podcast in a way. You're like, this is incredibly long and I'm going to consume every moment. We're just going to go until we run out of steam. We are. Yeah. Run out of takes. But like ESPN has stuff it has to show, you know, NBC certainly does. I guess on Amazon you could just make that thing go into infinity. But that's going to be something that would be very hard to capture if it moves over in any form, someone else. No, for sure.

But again, there's this open tapestry, right, where Amazon and NBC can just do whatever they want and create something new. And maybe in the year 2024, even as we're getting nostalgic about a theme song from, you know, over 25 years ago, it could be, you know, overlaid on a, on a brand new style of NBA coverage. I don't know what that looks like, but I actually, I do think that that's kind of exciting. At the same time, if Turner is losing this, and again, not knowing what inside the NBA's future is, I start thinking about other people too. Like, Jamal Crawford has had, I think, a great kind of breakout spring here, having moved from the studio to color commentary on live game coverage.

I'm admittedly biased. I covered Jamal for a bunch of years with the Knicks. He's one of my favorite players that I've covered. Great dude and clearly has sunk himself all in to the broadcast career. I hope he finds a place somewhere if Turner is losing this. My buddy Adam Lefko, who I worked with at Bleacher Report for seven years, we did approximately 7,000 hours of life to tape shows and things. I think Lefco is incredibly talented.

and when he got the job doing the Tuesday night version of Inside the MBA, you know, my perception was, okay, cool, wow, this is amazing. Adam Lefco is now like the Ernie Johnson era parent. Like, that's a big freaking deal. And I was so happy for Adam. He's like works his butt off, greatest dude in the world. So again, I'm in the tank for some of these people at Turner and I worked with some of them during my Bleacher Report years. And so I'm curious, you know, where this leaves them.

I'm curious where it leaves, obviously. Eagle, Kevin Harlan, Brian Anderson, Stan Van Gundy. There's a lot of good talent there that I assume, I would like to assume, one of the new partners ends up bringing over. And they'll probably want some of them because for the sake of continuity in some regard, the audience knows these voices, right? They know these personalities. And that's probably valuable to them. And they're just really good. And they're just really good. But as you and I know, it's like a lot of those times when you get that gig at a network, it's the result of being there at a time and place. You know, Kevin Harlan comes over to Turner a long time ago, uh, doing T-Wolves games,

as we were reminded this week with the T-Wilves in the Western Conference Finals. And, you know, Turner has this strange semi-flortation with putting Brian Anderson in the number one slot, but it winds up being Kevin Harlan. Kevin Harlan is a number one guy calling the NBA. That's really cool, right? I'm not sure that lays out exactly the same way if he were somewhere else, just because of and circumstance and executive women, all that stuff. Ion Eagle getting to call tons of big games, again, coming over from the Nets and going to Turner and having all those big reps and then finally getting the final four this year in his 50s. Like those guys, again, I want to say they'll be fine.

I think they'll be fine. And Ions obviously got CBS and football in the final four and stuff like that. But, you know, again, a lot of these are creation of a time and place. And it's really, really cool. You mentioned Stan Van Gundy, too. I mean, there's a lot of people. NBC back in the 90s. We have now lived long enough, Howard, for basketball to be a network sport, to go from there to becoming a cable sport. In fact, I found a quote when I was doing research

the other day. This is David Stern in 2002. We wanted to reduce the number of games on broadcast. That was the NBA's idea. We've got to get these games off, these creaky old networks and put them on cable. Cable is the future. And now we see Adam Silver again in this tentative, agreement, this framework, this formalizing whatever you want to call it, saying, no, no, that was, that's not the deal anymore. We got to go back to what young Brian and young Howard were watching in 1993 and put it back on a network television. That's pretty funny. It is. Do I have to now go out and

go to like Ace Hardware and buy a roof antenna again? Is that what this means? I'm a little, I don't even. That's the only way to get NBC. I don't. We must all have roof antenna. I don't know. I don't know. know what this means. No, I mean, NBC is obviously on whatever, however you want to get it, over the air, satellite. I still have a dish myself. Cable still exists. Obviously, there's Peacock, the app, streaming. So people will get it a variety of ways, but obviously NBC just has a greater reach because they have all of these things. And, but it is, yeah, it's strange. It is strange that we have sort of come full circle, even though it doesn't truly mean we're going back to antennas on roofs and that kind of over the air broadcast.

No. Cheers will not be coming back on the air as far as we know. Listen, everything has been remade. Why not? By the way, as long as we're doing nostalgia and before we go, the NBN on NBC, good at so many things, not so great at color analysts. I'm Zara the Telestrator Maddie Gooker's calling the finals Bill Walton

And again it wasn't Bill Walton dressed his uncle Sam But it wasn't perfect either Steve Snapper Jones Snapper Jones was great I know but calling the finals You want Bill Walton to call the finals really Like that was there's a time in place for everything Doug Collins has some fans he was there at the end I thought Doug was good

His first couple runs at TV like I actually I liked I liked Doug Collins again I loved Costas on those calls I thought Snapper Jones was great but no it's going to be a completely new cast of characters and studio show and I don't know what it looks like but we do know what it sounds like we absolutely do by the way magic Johnson also called the finals least one for NBC it was it was like his tweets. Trust me, kids. Isaiah Thomas called a finals for NBC.

Nostalgia can be tad tad complicated when you take deeper. Howard Beck, listen to him, read him, safe travels as you navigate the playoffs. Thanks for coming on the press. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Brian. All right, let us bring on today's guest host. He is Shield Capadia. You know, I'm from the Ringers Philly special podcast from the Ringer NFL show.

He is a writer here and he was a writer before. that at A Athletic and ESPN and Philadelphia Magazine. He is the only ringer host with the appropriate gravitas. Provide dad advice to Ben Solek. Sheal, welcome to the press box. Good to be here. One of the only times I can actually use first time long time. So I'm going to go ahead and do that, Brian.

And listen, like you, I love journalists and I love to make fun of journalists. So that's why I listen. And that's why I'm excited to be on here. So forget the first part of that formulation. focus on the second, and you're going to be right at home here on the press box. I want to talk to you about Charles Barkley to start off. Add a little addendum to the conversation I had with Howard Beck. We've been talking about what's going to happen inside the NBA.

I've been wondering, well, Charles Berkeley, when it comes down to the negotiations that are going to ensue if, in fact, TNT loses the NBA rights to NBC. Is he going to want to work with his inside the NBA teammates? is that going to be a huge priority for him as people throw money at him. He went on Dan Patrick's show Thursday morning. He took some shots at the quote-unquote clowns that run Turner and Warner Brothers Discovery. And then Dan Patrick wondered, hey, what if you guys decide to produce inside the NBA yourselves? Well, I've talked to the guys about everybody signing with my production company,

because I have my own production company. And I would love to do that if, we lose it. But I have definitely had, actually somebody suggested that to me to be honest with you on the internet. So why don't Charles Barkley sign these three guys, four guys total, this, his production company and sell it. I'm like, that's a great idea. Yeah. But like I say, you know, we're just sitting back waiting on these people to figure out what they're going to do. All right, Sheila, what do you think about this idea from some guy on the internet? I loved that. I didn't know I could have a direct line to Charles Barkley. I am some guy on

the internet. I didn't know he had his own production company, Brian. I guess everybody has their own production company. But as I heard him say that, and I was watching inside the NBA last night, and I was trying to think, art, if you took this to another network, what would it look like? And is it just Barclay the star and you can surround him with whoever and it's going to work? And as I was watching last night, I'm like, I don't think so. Like, I like this idea. You know how people are. It's so hard to create something that is as universally beloved as, inside the NBA. If you just make a couple tweaks and it's maybe one different co-host or the set looks different or you don't have the same jokes, what's the first thing people are going to do?

They're going to start ripping you. Oh, my, I miss how it used to be on TNT. So I actually thought this was a great solution. I don't know how it works financially. But the more I think you can take of that whole group, the co-host, the production, whoever's doing the behind-the-scenes stuff about, hey, what tweet do we put up with someone with a GIF making fun of Shaq here? Like all that stuff, I think we probably underrate how much it adds to the entire inside the NBA experience. So I love the idea. It's interesting because he will probably be the most powerful free agent in sports TV history. Stephen A might disagree.

But I think Barclay probably is just because of so many people coming after him. So then the question becomes, how do you use that power? Do you use it to go get the most? most money to become the highest paid person at fill in the blank network, or do you use it to say, I want everybody to come along with me? That is a fascinating question of me going forward. And it could be a why not both situation. I mean, like it's, it's not like he's taking a discount. I guess it would be the Pat McAfee model where you say, we will produce this thing. Who wants it? Highest bidder. You know, you get Amazon, ESPN, and NBC involved. Highest bidder gets it.

I think it will be a sought-after thing where then one of those networks, they don't have to worry about the shoulder programming, the post game show. It's like, we just have this ready-made thing. Let's just put it on our airwaves. Charles Barkley gets paid. And I don't know, by all accounts, it seems like he treats his coworkers, the people he works with. He seems to be a generous guy that I almost feel like this would be a great sort of, I won't

say last chapter legacy, because I know you make fun of him of always saying. It's the last chapter and he's about to retire. but kind of this next step, that would be a pretty cool legacy. If he said, I'm taking care of everybody who's been a part of the show for whatever it is 24 years and let's go continue to make it. Yes, Charles Barclay's not quite last dance. I like this. Speaking of people that have opinions, there has been some opinionating out there, Sheal, about ESPN's number one NBA announcing team, which has game two of the Pacers Celtics series tonight. I speak of course of Mike Green, Doris Burke, and JJ Reddick.

John Aran was giving him a little side eye and puck, and then Andrew Marchand wrote a whole column about them in the athletic. What do you make of that trio? Yeah, I put broadcasters kind of into one of three tiers. There's number one, they take away from the broadcast. Not to, you don't be mean to Jason Witten, but it's like, oh my gosh, I can't, you know, this is too distracting how bad these people are. I can't even enjoy the game.

I don't think they're in that category. Number two, I think most broadcast teams fit into this category where it's like, it can be subjective. You could say, hey, I love this pairing. I could say, all right, they're not my favorite, but whatever. They're professional. They're competent. I'm enjoying the game. And then there's three, which is where you want to get to where it's like they enhance the

broadcast. Like on Sundays in the fall, if Greg, if I have the choice between turning the sound up on two games and Greg Olson's on one of them, I'm going to watch that game because I want to hear what Greg Olson has to say. So I think this pairing with JJ Doris Burke and Mike Brain probably are in two where like I think they're competent, professional. They know what they're talking about. Is it like, hey, I love, you know, hanging out with this group and they make me laugh. And, you know, this is really enhancing my enjoyment.

No, but at the same time, they've been together for four months. Chemistry does take time. They were kind of thrown together after the whole Doc Rivers fiasco. So part of me was like it's a little unfair to rip them too much at this point. I don't know. How do you feel about them? The only counterpoint on chemistry would be that Kevin Harlan is calling the Western Conference Finals with Stan Van Gundy and Reggie Miller, who haven't worked together during the playoffs. They called the conference finals last year, but they haven't worked together.

They seem fine last night, and they seem better to me than this other crew. And I agree with you, it's not one of those where it's taking away from the game where I'm watching it and be like, I can't do this. I have to seek some other sound. Is Kevin Hart doing an alternative telecast? that I can turn on right now. But it is a feeling that they're a little inert. They're a little almost quiet. It's kind of like Kyrie Irving taking a half to get going

in every Mavericks game until last night. I'm sitting there and I'm like, are you guys excited to be watching the conference finals? Because everything seems a little muted to me. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, that's got to be part of the challenge with a three-person booth, especially I feel like Doris Burke and JJ Redick, their expertise probably overlap, right?

They can both tell us what's going on in the game. They know the X is and O's. Like, you can take 10 analysts and sit them down, watch a basketball game, and they can all come to the same conclusion about what's happening. But there's going to be one person who is packaging that and delivering that in a way that we all love. And there's going to be someone else who you're like, all right, it's the same analysis. But this is like boring or terrible or confusing. And I think, you know, there are probably, times in the broadcast where it's like, are you going to talk? Am I going to talk? You know, there's two analysts that might want to make the same point. And whether it's cautious or whatever, you're right, though. It's like, you have to kind of have the gift of gab if you're going to be an

announcer. This is a two and a half hour broadcast. Someone's got to talk. It can't be Mike Breen, having the basketball, having this high usage rate, that definitely stands out. And I think that's a fair point. I love that term. And, you know, Marcian said in his column, he felt Green was like actually talking a lot and maybe trying to do too much. I don't know if I felt that so much the other night. But if it is happening, I think it's because he's like trying to generate excitement. He's trying to get everybody up to his level. Because we know Breen, like one of his great talents is, I'm going to be just as excited as I need to be during this game. Iron Eagles the same way. That shot that you just saw, I can go here, but I'm not going all the way here yet because it's not

bang, bang, right? It's right here or it's right here. And if he's trying to just talk a little bit more, think he's just trying to probably pull some of that excitement out of them. Here, let's go, guys. We got to go. This is the conference finals. This is a big deal. Your point about the three-person booth is exactly right. It's just too many people call a basketball game.

It just is. For some reason, we've settled that every big basketball game in America must have three people calling it from both conference finals to the NCAA final four. It's too many people to call a basketball game. There's not enough time. Yeah. And the skill sets have to complement each other, you know, like van, like Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, they have this, what, two decade, three decade history

where if Van Gundy says something, Jackson can needle him and then, you know, we can all have a little laugh and it's an enjoyable experience. But if like the two people, aside from the play by play person, don't have that history, don't have that chemistry, and they're trying to both fill the same role, I think you see what, you see what's happening right now. It's like, you know, they both are probably thinking the same things, making the same point, whose turn is it to talk? That's not going to be fun for any. one. And then there's the X's and O's of it. Like I think probably people differ on what they want out of a broadcast, like from a football broadcast and even as someone who writes and talks about

football. I love the X's and O's. Yes, explain to me what happened on this touchdown. Why was this wide open? When I watch basketball, I notice this about I'm kind of like when they get really into that stuff. I'm sort of like, I'm here to hang out and have a good time. Like, yes, tell me what happened, but you don't need to get too deep into it. I feel like I've become the person. who I used to be like, come on, don't you? You know, you got to love this stuff. This is the this is the true nitty gritty. And now I'm kind of like, no, no, that's too much for me.

Settle down. But that might be a me problem. No, I don't think it is because I think there's just not enough time in basketball to do that stuff. You know, football, Kevin Burkhart calls a play. Then Greg Olson has 30 seconds. Now, I don't think Greg Olson should get too deep into jargon and terminology in X's and O's either. I think he should be just explaining what happens in a smart way. I think that's how you should approach it.

But he has 30 seconds to himself. Basketball, you are coming in with these little tiny windows. And I heard JJ the other night, like talking about a peel screen during one of those, like, I think maybe it was a replay. I can't remember. And I'm like, what's that? Like I had to go look that up. And I'm like, no, no, no, just tell me what happened.

You know, we don't have time to get nitty gritty on this stuff at all. Yeah. I thought D. D.C.L. Euro was another one where it's like, all the basketball nerds are probably, like, this is great, you know, but it's like, well, all right. Well, I'm thinking of the majority of people, well, I'm thinking of like my dad watching this game being like, what is, you know, what is he talking about right here? So you're right. It does. Everything happens, uh, quicker and even goes back, like I was watching the inside the NBA, just the way they do highlights. Uh, and I was trying to

think about that in terms of like a broadcast. Like, they just talk over each other and it's just, uh, you know, like a random conversation. And it really works. And it's a lot of fun. And it's like the actual broadcast when they come back and it just seems so like, we got to get this in quickly and here's exactly what's happening in the game. So it is different for sure. It's an interesting art form because you do want some X's and O's. You do want some basketball intelligence in a broadcast. I wouldn't say to push that all out. I would say just explain to us what's happening more than giving us the Horn's Chest LeBron podcast treatment where you're using the terms, because terms don't mean anything to anybody.

So that's one thing. One thing, by the way, that Greg Olson got a lot better at as he got some more seasoning in the broadcast booth. That's number one. And then the other thing is, I think sometimes you've got to do what Reggie Miller was doing last night, where you just watch a replay and go, what a shot. You just got to acknowledge for you and I sitting at home

that something amazing happened without trying to over-explain it. Or you saw that shot where Luca iced the game for the Mavericks last night. And Reggie said, did you notice how he put his left shoulder into the chest of the defender before he shot that ball? Like, just that detail. And that's fine. We can appreciate it on those terms without having to get super technical like you might do on a basketball podcast. Yeah, you want to feel like you're watching people who are having fun and are excited about the game in the same way that you are watching at home. And so when it gets, you know, when that's not happening, I think it's very north.

But you're right. Like, I'm sure play-by-play guys are probably like, hey, you know, don't, don't yell over my call. At the same time as a viewer, I'm like, yeah, if you're just like yelling because you can't believe what you just saw, that's fine for me. I don't care about the play-by-play guys, you know, hurt feelings and, you know, their, whatever, their tape might not be as clean as they wanted to be. I like that as a viewer. All right, let's talk about ESPN's Up for Debate Series.

I, as part of my role here as the editor of the press box, assigned you to watch this. This is a new series on ESPN Plus. It is about the origins of debate TV. It's produced by Stephen A. Smith. And would you agree it in an odd way, it's kind of his origin story? I honestly don't know. I was very confused. There were a lot of things going on here. At times it was his origin story. Like they're like, you know, Stephen A wakes up and he's explaining what he does. And they show this little montage of like a crack egg and like coffee filtering and like the sun coming up. I'm like, all right, if this is like a day in the life of Stephen A, I might be it on that. Yeah, give me that. But then it went in a

bunch of different directions. We're going to the Orge cold pizza. We're going to PTI. We're going to newspaper columnists. Brian, my big takeaway, well, two big takeaways. One was, other than Brian and I, who is the audience for this? Because I just can't imagine that there are a bunch of people seeing this on their ESPN Plus app and tuning in. That was one. And two was, I couldn't believe how seriously it kind of took itself. Like I ended this second episode and I was like, wait, are these debate shows like the fabric that hold together, our society? Like, are these integral to democracy? Like the way they're talking. And maybe that's a reflection of me because like the way I take, I'm like, I got, I don't make any, you know, problems about,

I got into sports because it's fun, you know, the rest of my family. They work. and like healthcare. I always joked to interns back in the day. I'm like, listen, if you screw up like editing philly.com right here, no one's going to die. Relax. Someone might yell at you, but we're going to be okay. You know, it's not that serious. And this was just went in a completely different direction where it seemed to take itself very seriously. So those were some of my main takeaways. To answer your first question, I think the audience in large part is Stephen A. because ESPN's trying to sign them to a new contract. We know they're going to dangle producing opportunities like we're talking about for Barclay and company.

You can be on our air, but you can also produce things for ESPN. So what if we produced something about debate TV and you? Here it goes. Here is a nice welcome gift for the moment when you finally sign that new contract with us, which we really, really desire. So one thing they try to do here, or Stephen A tries to do, here is kind of, as you allude to, assemble a timeline of debate TV. We see Howard Cocell, who Stephen A makes some common cause with. We both told it like it is.

You know, he did and then I did. Okay. Then we go to the newspaper column. We go to sports radio. Jim Rome gets a shout out there. We go to the sports reporters on ESPN, which is kind of the cooler, you know, more sedate debate show. We go to PTI, a little more, a little bit of a higher, you know, sort of burn rate, but still pretty sedate. Then we go to cold pizza, which has a segment where Skip Bayless

debates Woody Page at the beginning. I'd sort of forgotten a lot of this history. That becomes first take. Skip then says, according to Stephen A, hey, I've taken this show as far as I can't. I need a new partner. And then we get Stephenette. So that is the timeline of Sports Debate TV. Yeah, some of that stuff, I'm with you, I'd seen and I had forgotten about other stuff. There was a thing with Skip Bayliss and Chris Bosch that I honestly had no idea of it happened. Do you remember this in real time? Because I didn't remember that that Chris Bosch went on and Skip Bayliss is like calling him soft to his face.

It's very incredibly awkward. I do not recommend viewing it if you haven't seen it. I'm so glad you said that because I thought I was going to have to turn in my sports media writer card because I did not remember Skip calling Chris Bosch, Bosch Spice. a forgotten chapter of sports television. And I'd, you know, kind of half forgotten Stephen A. and Jay Williams getting it into it about Kyrie Irving. Oh, right. There's just been so many of these that you see on Twitter.

You're like, oh, okay, yeah, that was a weird moment. They don't linger too much on any of them. I thought the whole unanswered question, as they're going through those timeline of debate TV, was why did this happen in this way on ESPN? Because I think it's an interesting question, Sheel. You and I both grew up listening to sports radio. You know, you were probably a little more WIP and I was a little more Dallas focused.

Sometimes they would do cool crossover shows when the Eagles and the Cowboys played each other. I think I've told the story before, but that was my first experience with Philadelphia ever is when the WIP guys would come on Dallas radio. And I'd be like, I was in middle school. I'd be like, wow, Philadelphia's a really interesting place. Other than Rocky, that's all I do about the city. You and I are listening to that But I guess in a way You could say is it inevitable

That ESPN was going to become like sports radio With people going at each other? Or do we think that because of Stephen A And Skip in the old days That that determined what we understand as debate TV Yeah, Bob Lee had an interesting comment in there Where he was basically like a lot of other sports TV Is very expensive to produce.

You know, he was saying SportsCenter we used to have an assignment desk and production and cameras and multiple anchors. And he's like sports debate, you know, you just kind of need the camera and the two people to go at it. You don't need as much there. So that I would imagine had something to do with it, not that it's cheap given what they're paying these hosts, but that probably had something to do with it. They probably saw the numbers.

And then I do think it's kind of a mesh. Like when they did describe the national columnist and then make that transition, I was like, there might be something to that, you know? Like I don't, there aren't a lot of national columnists now. I'm like, I have to read what person X said on this big story. That I feel like that used to be a thing, you know, back in, I don't know, what was it 10 years, 20 years ago where now, what are you getting texted after a big thing? Oh my gosh, look at what Stephen A said about this. And so they have assumed kind of that role for some of the big stories for sure. So I don't have a great reason for why it happened in this way. I mean, listen, I think it's like sports debate has gone on forever. We just talked about it.

You know, I would hit sleep on my alarm clock, Brian, with WIP, and I would literally go to sleep listening to hosts argue about Philadelphia sports topics, and it would turn off after 59 minutes. This is a thing I've done, and I know other people of my age have done this, because when I bring this up randomly, other people have said, yes, oh yeah, we kind of did that too. So it's one of those things where I feel like in sports content, you can have the old ideas. Can you do them differently. Can you do them well? Can you do them in a nuanced way? Arguing about sports is kind of a part of this whole thing. But to the clips they showed, yes, when you don't do it well, it's just like, oh my gosh, how could anyone want to tune into some of this stuff? And it's funny because I think

if we described to young Sheel and young Brian the way this thing would go, that hosts would talk for like four minutes at a time exchanging monologues about certain Breyer. burning issues in sports, we're like, that isn't going to work. That's not sports radio. That sounds terrible. But somehow it evolved into that way. I would have liked them to kind of explain that. I'd like them to explain why these shows are all mid-morning shows, right? This is not early morning. This is not, you know, Angelo on WIP. This is like 10 a.m. when old TV used to show Maripovich and shows like that, when you started getting the kind of like talk show time of day. That was fascinating.

They go out of their way, not to mention the name Jamie Horowitz, who was the producer of this, and then later constructed a second debate empire at FS1. I thought that was interesting, kind of an interesting omission. John Skipper's name is not mentioned here. He's the one that hires all these ex-newspaper people to ESPN and then watches as ESPN sort of evolves in a certain way. The other thing about this thing that's so funny are the talking heads. So because Stephen A produces, I'm sure everybody, except Skip, said yes. I don't know who you were more amused by.

We got Bumani, we got Mina, we got Jamel. We got Dan Levitart as kind of the voice of skepticism about the whole enterprise. It was pretty amazing. We got Jeremy Shapp as kind of the voice of polite skepticism and explaining stuff along with Bob Lee. that was a very funny just kind of thing to me that to watch them kind of come in at a Stephen A production and explain

the form that Stephen A has become the master of. Yeah, I wrote the same thing down. I don't know if this is my Mount Rushmore, Brian, but I did write down four names. Troy Aikman just, you know, I think he leads it off. I'm like, oh, Troy, yeah, yeah, you got a lot going on. Like, you had time, okay, you wanted to come in.

Cameron then makes an appearance who we, you know, saw recently on CNN. Dana White, I don't know. Oh, well, you know, I've long been wondering what Dana White thought about the sports debate format in television, glad we got him. And then like Matt Barnes out of nowhere in episode two. I'm like, oh, Matt Barnes. Oh, my God.

All right. Let's hear it. What do you got to hear? The array of interviews on this thing was incredible for sure. And then I think the other thing, you talked about how it's like, you know, four minutes back and forth. I also think sports fandom has changed so much since we were younger and listened to it. Like, we could listen to people on the radio, you know, they're the experts.

Now, there's just so much more out there that if you are charged with having to know about all the major sports, all the teams, like in my role, when I talk about the NFL on Ringer podcast, like, the thing I want to avoid the most is being the guy who gets passed around on like a Packers text thread. We're like, oh my, my, did you hear what she? He doesn't know anything. Like, he actually said this guy was our left guard. I'm like, do not be that guy over prep if you have to.

And that's obviously gotten Stephen A. Smith into, I don't know, if trouble is the right word, but obviously you're going to miss on stuff. How can you keep track of every team, every player in an age where we have just, you know, there's so much specialization, even with the NFL, salary cap, offensive line. Like, there are just all these little niches that it's like, it's impossible to keep up with all of it. So I think that's the other thing where I don't know like how this works. in the year 2024 where so many fans know so much about their local teams and now national people are trying to talk about all of the sports on that stage.

You think that's why they personalize it so much that it's not about the Lakers and their offseason plan so much as it's about LeBron or the inevitable cowboy segment is about Dak Prescott. Can Dak Prescott finally get the Cowboys over the hump? It's got to be, right? Yeah, stick to the hits. They've got data on all this. I'm sure they know like, all right, the audience, we don't really give Twitter.

Everybody's mad about us talking about the Lakers again. Well, guess what? We have numbers about how often people stay tuned in when we talk about the Lakers. And so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And then, yeah, to your point, that's much easier to be an expert on those big 10 topics than to be an expert on everything. That's the other thing that documentary really doesn't get into is it talks about how some of these shows maybe changed the tone of the way TV, if not radio, but TV talked about.

athletes in sports. But what they don't really get into is they also change the topics that TV covered. Because one of the big brainstorms, when first take is taken off, and this may date even to cold pizza, it was not like SportsCenter where you'll have a topic A, topic B, C, DE, and it's topic Z at the end of the show. You do topic A, you do topic B, and then you come back to topic A. So it shrinks the universe of things you talk about, right? Baseball pretty much out unless we got a giant gambling scandal. Hockey completely out. We're not talking about that at all. College football, maybe the day of the national championship game. And in terms of the teams, right, we're talking Tom Brady, we're talking LeBron, we're talking to Dak. It's a smaller world

that they are grappling with on those shows. And I would have liked to have seen the documentary poke at that a little bit. Yeah, I was wondering to that point, like, what is the way to do this where it still works in the format they want, but as consumers, we're, are happier with it. Like if it was just like baseball topic, these two people are going to talk, you know, football topic, where you have more confidence that, hey, like, I like when two very educated people, like in terms of the topic, they're talking about, knowledgeable people, I should say, know what they're talking about and they're going back and forth on a big topic that I'm interested in. I'm in for that. I like listening to that. All right, which side do I

fall in? I mean, that goes back to the origins of sports content. But yeah, the way they do it now it doesn't necessarily work for me. Do you like that we have one single grammar of all sports documentaries now? Because you mentioned like Stephen A. cracking the egg in the morning. That just feels like it's out of something else. There's an amazing scene in this where Jamel Hill is watching an old episode of first take on an iPad like MJ in The Last Dance.

You're watching first take on the iPad. There's like a slow motion shot of Mike Wilbon's sitting down. in the PTI office? Like, he's just sitting down. He's not actually doing something. The iPad thing killed me. Oh, my God. I know you tweet.

It's like, yeah, here's an iPad of a first take episode from 15 years ago. Look at their face as they watched this. I was like, all right. Listen, this isn't my area of expertise. Maybe that's what works. But, yeah, that was hilarious. That was unbelievable. Final thought on this is that there's this kind of subtle thing that the documentary

does in the second episode. And I encourage people to watch it on ESPN Plus if this is your thing. But it kind of positions Stephen A as the creator of this kind of sports television. Or to use a word, I used a second ago, the godfather of this kind of sports television. And it flashes through these various things. I think we see a little bit of inside the NBA. We see Mina talking on our podcast. And to me, what's always so striking about that idea is it's really not true in a lot of cases.

Like I think ESPN, if they had been able to clone Stephen A 10 times, they would have done it. It didn't work, right? Partly because they couldn't find people who were able to do what he did or at least work in that particular key. And then part of it is like other people are like, I don't want to do that. I may do personality driven TV and podcasts, but, you know, Pablo's podcast on Metal Arc is not called Pablo Tori finds out how to yell at people. Like that's not what it is. Like he is no interest in that. And so you could argue on the one hand that this has really, really, you know,

taken sports TV by the collar and and sort of become this big thing in our lives and been very successful in its own terms. It has. But you could also argue that the rest of sports television has not really followed in its footsteps at all. Yeah. I think that was kind of the point that Levitart made was that you spurred all these imitators who kind of can't do what. what you do. And I think that's true. I mean, Stephen A is entertaining Stephen. Like, if you just

look at, you know, who, again, like clips that get passed around or, you know, if I'm on an Eagles thread and the Cowboys lose, somebody on the thread is sending me the Stephen A clip every single time it happens. And it doesn't happen for other people in sports media. So that's one. And then two to your point, yeah, there's, there's one thing to be entertaining and compelling. And then there's a different way to do it with other people do where, like you said, still personality driven, but a very different style from what he does. A few quick questions about your career shield before we go. What led you to sports writing and football writing in particular?

I wanted to do something in sports. That's it. My whole family, like I said, they all work in science, health care, hospitals, all that stuff. And I'm like, I'm obsessed with sports. Can some, will someone pay me to watch sports, talk about sports, maybe write about sports? I remember going to college at Penn State. and I was like in a meeting at the school newspaper as a freshman, the Daily Collegian,

and someone said like, this isn't about love in sports. You got to love journalism. And I'm like, oh, shoot, am I like, I don't know, am I in the right place? I got to just love sports and fell into it. So honestly, that's what it was. Now, I grew to love other aspects of the job, but I just wanted to do something in sports is the quick answer. It's funny because I found a column from the Daily Collegian.

Oh, my gosh. That you wrote. And it was a fond reminiscence. of Philly's old veteran stadium. And you attended the last Eagles game at the vet with your dad in 2001. What do you remember about that game? Yeah, they lost to the Tampa Bay Bucks in that game. Don't mention Ronde Barber around Eagles fans.

Don't mention Joe Joravicious around Eagles fans. It was supposed to be this final farewell to this kind of stadium that everyone made fun of. But as you know, if it's the place you grew up going to games, I mean, I would have a whole section, me and my friends at these Phillies games that we would go to. And so it was like, this is going to be the send off. They're finally going to get over the hub and go to the Super Bowl with Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid. And then they lose to the Tampa Bay box. And you would think a Philly crowd, everyone, it would be like angry and fights.

It was actually like quiet, depressing as you walked out of that stadium. And so I just, I remember that walk back to the car with my dad being like, all right, they're never getting over the hump. Why do we do this to ourselves? Oh, my God. Unbelievable. It's funny to see a Philly crowd subdued like that, not angry, but just defeated. Yeah. I've seen angry before. This was less angry. It was just like disbelief that I can't believe they did this again. I went to one Eagles game as a cowboy fan, a Monday night game. I believe it was post-Vet. And we were sitting in the upper deck and Don McNaft threw an interception of Roy Williams right at the end of the game to lose the game for the Eagles. and we were not, we were just wearing the most neutral colors of all time.

I was like, I allowed my friends to wear gray. Like that was the closest they could get to a cowboy's jersey. And they're jumping up and down when Roy Williams is running the other way. And I'm just holding them down with both hands. I'm like, dude, let's just get the hell out of here. We won. Don't turn this into Adele on the way out of the stadium because you're cheering for the Cowboys and talking shit to Eagles fan.

Very funny. Smart move. Good friend right there. You saved them. All right, 2017, you're working for ESP. and Seattle, and I read you get a call from Alex Mather, who says, hey, you want to come work at the athletic? What appealed to you about working at the athletic. What a reporter.

I don't even know where this information exists. So, yeah, I was working in Seattle covering the Seahawks at ESPN, loved it there. It was really a family thing. My parents lived in the Philadelphia area. We had two young daughters, and it was like, well, could go back. It's a startup, but it sounds kind of exciting. and so we could have the grandparents around the kids. And so went there and it was fun to be, you know, at the start of something.

That's fun. Like, we don't know how this is going to go. You feel like a personal responsibility that I've got to help do my part in making this work. And so I loved ESPN, but then, you know, got to go cover that Eagle Super Bowl season in 2017. And, you know, just kind of saw the athletic go from this startup where I would tell people, you know, I told a couple of people at ESPN where I was going. And they're like, what's that? You know, why would you do that?

You're leaving ESPN for this and then to see it grow to now where I think it is, you know, like essential reading where I know for my work that I do on the NFL, like I'm on that site. I was thinking recently more than any other sports site. So that's really what it was about. And outside of child care, and I can talk here personally about how important that is when you're like you and me. Was the goal always to get back to Philly? Not if my parents had like moved to the Pacific Northwest or something, you know, then it might have been a different story. But, you know, they moved from India to America in the 70s. And then you kind of feel you're like, as a kid, man, we kind of just ditched our parents. And they had

such a great bond with my daughter. So it was like that that pull was always there. If they had moved out to the Pacific Northwest or been closer or whatever, who knows what would have happened. But I don't know. I'm saying that. And I don't. I'm saying that. And I do feel like probably at some point I would have wanted to kind of move back home and move to Philly. I'm fascinated by writing and podcasting for Philly fans because it's a very particular group. What do you find they want out of you when you talk about the Eagles and the Phillies and the other local teams? Yeah, I feel like the perception doesn't meet the reality there because when I moved to Seattle, everyone would ask me sort of that same phone. I'm like, oh my gosh,

that must have been tough. And I'm like, I don't know. I've had a great relationship with these people since I started producing content in Philadelphia. Like I took a while in my career to get a full-time writing role. I was, I think, 29 years old. I had worked seven, eight years as a producer, editor working on websites, and no one would hire me for a full-time gig. And then in 2012, my friend Tim McManus, who now works for ESPN, and we were in the same place.

And so we pitched this idea to everyone around Philadelphia that, hey, we will cover the Eagles like you've never seen before. It will be awesome. Give us a chance. and the only place that did was Philadelphia Magazine. Brian, it's like a, you know, culture, food like this. They're like, well, we know we're trying to increase our male demographic. Let's go ahead.

We'll give you a shot. $50,000 per year. No benefits one year. And then we'll decide from there how it goes. And so we did that. We built up an audience. I found that the fans wanted, you know, they wanted the smart analysis. If I could go ask Jason Kelsey, hey, what happened on this run play against the Giants?

And he would explain it to me. and I could show pictures of that. They were like, this is the greatest thing. They wanted, you know, analytics. Like, I like doing all that type of stuff in addition to the storytelling. The thing is in Philadelphia, there's no aspect of a team like the Eagles that's too small to cover. I mean, I wrote 3,000 word features on a running back who had no chance of making the team, and people ate it up.

And so I kind of found that's what they wanted. It's not when I went to Seattle, everyone thought like, oh, you know, this guy from Philly's coming. It's like the back page of the New York Post. And I'm like, that's not really, in my opinion, at least, what the Philly writing media market is. $50,000 for the both of you or $50,000 each? No, $50,000 each. And then at the site grew popular, they treated us well and gave us benefits and full-time jobs. And it was great.

Again, it was starting something from scratch. It was just a blog. You grow an audience. And from there, ESPN actually noticed that blog. Alex Mather noticed that blog was an Eagles fan. And that's kind of how I got my future job. So yeah, nothing but good things to say about Philadelphia magazine. All right.

Last question for you. One of my favorite things that has ever happened is that the New Yorkers, Adam Gopnik, wrote about you and Ben Soleil. I'm going to read a little bit of this in case people miss this article. This is unbelievable because it's taking two of my favorite ringer people and putting them in Gopnik prose, which is just something I never, ever thought I'd get to experience. experiencing quite this way. Quoting Gopnik here, the B-plot, means of your podcast, almost a sitcom in itself involves the exchanges between the rueful family man Capadia and the

boy savant Solac, and it's that drama which gives their work at Savor and Soul. Capadia admires Solac for his salarity and turn of phrase, but becomes parentally wary watching his savvy run away with his judgment. Football hipsters is his gorgeous derisory phrase for over-ambitious analytics. Like any dad, real or symbolic, Godman continues, Capadia occasionally explodes at Soak's know-it-all antics at the kid just home from college, who, having attended one of those comp lit seminars, somehow, by the way, doubt you or Ben were attending too many of those, but let us continue, thinks he knows more literature than his father, seeing how far Solac can push the imperturbable Capadia, is as unmissable as it is instructive. What did it feel like to have your podcast?

relationship rendered like that? Well, I still need the t-shirt that says, Rufel Family Man. I, you know, remind everyone in the house that that's what I am. Anytime I get stuck doing something. It was honestly a surprise, and it was obviously very flattering and very nice of him to say. And, like, I didn't need in content, like, he didn't ask us anything. And I think he kind of did nail it.

Like, when I read it or when friends saw it, they're like, yeah, that is the dynamic. And love working with Solac because if Solex says something I disagree with, I can just go at him and be like, what are you talking about? That's ridiculous. You're in your little online bubble with your other football hipsters on Twitter. That's not how like this thing actually worked. And then he can come at me in the same way. And so I think that dynamic, you know, for all the stuff we've talked about here, when you have that comfort level with someone you're working with, that's really nice. So yeah, appreciated that quite a bit. And I think he got it right. you two are my favorite dad and kid who attended a complet seminar combo let me tell you something

philly special ringer nflbill thank you so much for coming on the press box thanks for having me all right side with the second weekly edition of david shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline yeah monday's headline about an addiction to cheese was the gutta the bad and the ugly but david did much much better than that on his own Today's headline comes to us from newsman and valued listener Jackson Neal. It's actually from Amazon, David, because Amazon is doing a documentary about a Kansas City Chiefs Superfan who is known as Chiefsaholic. Have you followed the Chiefsaholic saga? No.

Chiefsaholic was involved in some bank robbery, which Chiefsaholic has. pleaded guilty to. Well, what you need to know here, David, is that Chiefsaholic wore a Chiefs Jersey, as you would expect for any superfan, but also dressed as a wolf. Oh, right. Okay. So a full-on wolf costume and then the Chiefs jersey pulled over. With that in mind, what was Amazon's strained pun movie title? It's a fan who robbed a bank and was a wolf costume? Yeah, focus more on the wolf than the bank part of it. The one is all kind of tie together. I'm sorry, cried wolf, a big bad wolf, wolf.

We didn't see, we didn't see this coming because the superfan wolf disguised himself in a certain way. He was a wolf in chief's clothing. Well, he was a wolf in chief's clothing. A wolf in chief's clothing. That's a good one. Yeah, and then the whole off-the-field history, it really works. All right, that is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis.

But it's your magic by Brian Waters. We had a busy week at the press box this week, Brian. He nods his head. Wednesday, if you missed it, we had Patrick Radden-Keefe of the New Yorker. If you're interested in his books like Say Nothing, if you're interested in The New Yorker, if you're just interested in investigative journalism and how we think about that particular form here in 2024,

I think you'll really get something out of that podcast. That is up now. Next Wednesday, a very special guest host here at the press box, it's Mallory Rubin. Her first appearance here. Cannot wait to talk to Mallory. Our next episode is going to be Tuesday. Once again, Tuesday, because of Memorial Day weekend. So that's Tuesday. May 28th, Shoemaker and I return with more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic week.