The Press Box - NBC’s Rebecca Lowe on the Premier League, Breaking Into TV, and Talking Soccer With Americans

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

Bryan is joined by NBC presenter Rebecca Lowe to discuss her career covering the Premier League. They discuss how Lowe got her start in television at the BBC, talk through the obstacles she experienced as a woman, dive into transitioning to NBC and moving to the States, and weigh in on how to balance fans from America vs. England. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Rebecca Lowe Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Call me sentimental, but to me, the most joyful moment in sports is the soccer goal. And when that goal happens at the World Cup, well, it's pretty good. I'm Brian Phillips. With the 22 men's World Cup approaching, I'm making a podcast called 22 goals on the Ringer Podcast Network. It's about 22 of the most fire emoji goals in the history of the tournament. We're going to have so much fun. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to the press box.

Ryan Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Erica Servantes. Last Friday was the opening of the Premier League season. So I went to Stanford, Connecticut to interview Rebecca Lowe, who hosts NBC's studio coverage. Now, on my East Coast road trip, I'd talk to Reese Davis and Laura Rutledge about how you host a studio show. But when Lowe came to NBC in 2013, after a decade working in the UK, she found she was actually doing two jobs at once. Lowe was setting up her analysts and introducing those you are looking live shots of distant stadiums. Lowe, whose first ambition was to be a comedic actress,

does that stuff very well. But at NBC, Lowe was also talking soccer to an American audience, one that in some cases was still learning the fine points of the game. This wasn't like Chris Berman hosting NFL primetime. So Lowe had to find a way to speak to very serious soccer fans and to the rest of us, at the same time. Lowe and I talked in NBC's Green Room a few hours before she went on air.

She explained the trick the network came up with to welcome new soccer fans. She also talked about the misogyny she faced in the UK and how she became a U.S. citizen this spring. Here's Rebecca Lowe. All right, Rebecca, way back in 2002, you won a BBC football reporter talent search. What was that talent search like? a massive surprise that I won it, first and foremost, Brian, I won't lie. It was a, I guess before the days of reality television, I sort of see it now and I look back as kind of like American Idol, but for football reporters, soccer reporters, but not done on television. It was advertised on the

back of a cereal packet, and it was also advertised at a local record shop. Remember records? And a friend of mine gave it to me this flyer and said, you've got to do it. You love soccer. Nobody else does. no other girls did in 2002. I'd always loved it. So you've got to do it. And I was applying for a lot of things. I was coming out of college. And I thought, why not? You know, why not? I'll give it a go. I mean, I'm a woman. So I'm not going to get anywhere near it, obviously, but I'll give it a go. And when I do something, Brian, if I'm going to do it, I'll do it properly, as my grandpa used to say. And so I did the application form to the best of my ability, but didn't hear anything for months. So completely forgot all about it. Was a new graduate. I was working at Talk Sport Radio,

which now is a huge, huge radio station in England. It was quite small back then, answering phones, making tea. And then I got a letter on my doorstep four months later at my mum's house saying, you're through to the next round. And I was like, oh my gosh, that thing that I applied for. Anyway, long story short, kept getting through to the next round, the next round, got to the final. And there were seven finalists, five girls, five women, two men,

which made me immediately think, I think we're heading into the political correctness world in 2002 now. The BBC would like a woman, had to do it. a number of things during the final of journalistic things that I'd never done. I was not trained as a journalist. Despite coming from a journalist family, I wasn't a journalist. I was an actress. And two days later, I got a call saying you've won. And the prize is a six-month contract at the BBC as a reporter on football focus and final score on match of the day, which are the big kind of flagship shows. You start in a couple of weeks and I just turned 22. And my entire life, I mean, I almost fell off the sofa. I mean, I'm supposed to be going to be an actor.

Well, I better do this because, A, they're paying really quite well. So I'm just come out at university. I kind of need the money. And B, this is the BBC and this is football. So let me give it a go. And then after six months, when I'm clearly not good enough, I'll go back and be an actress. That's incredible. And what kinds of things did they have you do toward the end of the contest?

So in the final wars, we went to Television Center, which is a bit like, you know, 30 Rock, I guess, over here, watched the show go out live, the soccer show, the lunchtime show. And then we had to interview the host, a man called Ray Stubbs, who funnily enough, 10 years later, I then co-hosted a show with years later. And we had to interview him to time. I think we had two and a half minutes and we were told it, you know, how many seconds had gone by. So we were tested on our discipline of interviewing to time. Then we had to do a piece to camera, which had to be 45 seconds long again, had to be 45 seconds. I'd never done that before. about Michael Owen's World Cup soccer boots, which were there in the studio. No idea what I said.

Did that to camera. And then they made us look at some back pages of the newspapers and do some journalistic exercises. I can't even remember what they were. And that was it. And I think we had one-on-one chats with the executives. And that was it, then let us go. And I remember distinctly walking out.

Because up until that point, A, I didn't think I was going to win and B, I wasn't even sure I particularly wanted it. But when I left television centre that night, And it was dark. Saturday night, it was about 5 o'clock. And I looked up and I saw the lights saying BBC Television Center, which is very famous in England. And my dad had worked there for 25 years at that point longer. I thought, oh no, I want this now. I actually really want this. And so when I went home, it was Saturday night, as I say, I knew they were going to call on the Tuesday. So I had a couple of days of like, I'm never going to win it. And then when the phone rang on the Monday, so I wasn't even expecting it because I said Tuesday, the phone rang on the Monday, just as I was about to go to bed. And it was the deputy editor of Football Focus saying, Rebecca, this is Lance Hardy. I'm calling to tell you that you've won. And it was, it was life-changing, obviously. Your dad was a BBC presenter and your mom was an actress.

Correct. My dad read the news, yeah. So you're picking between door number one and door number two of their two careers. Exactly. Isn't that funny? I've never thought about it like that. You're right. Yeah, I have.

It was one or the other, yeah. What kind of actress did you want to be? Comedy, character. The big plan was to be a character actress with a friend of mine who was the year behind me at college. And that's why I was kind of biding my time once I graduated because I was waiting for her to graduate. And we were going to launch ourselves as the next French and Saunders, which some people listening will never have heard of them. But they were a very funny female double act in the UK. Just pure brilliance. And we thought we'd absolutely be the next French and Saunders. Unfortunately, I took the job at the BBC and I haven't looked back. And so I've never launched myself into that world. That would have been the plan, and that's all I ever knew. That's all I ever wanted to do. It's amazing how life doesn't turn out the way you think it's going to. How does your training and acting and comedy inform what you do now?

A lot. I would say my training and acting helps with my memory. So if I'm doing things to camera at fan fest, if I have a lot of information, I have to get across, I'm lucky, really, really lucky I have a photographic memory. So that, I think, has come through just learning lines my whole life. In terms of comedy, I don't know, actually. I feel like I'm too in this to know whether or not any of that training has come out. I think a lot of it's confidence, though.

I think you have to be confident if you're an actress. You have to be confident if you're on television. And let's be honest, it's still a performance. I'm trying to be myself, but sometimes that's harder to be yourself than it is to be playing a part. But you are still performing. So I think the confidence of always wanting to be. on stage. I always, as a kid, I was one of those kids when the teacher said, right, who wants to read? I'll read. I always wanted to read. I always, I was annoying like that. I wanted to do

everything. Wanted to be the center of everything. And so that's kind of like now that's what I'm doing on the show. And so I feel very much like I'm in the position that I always wanted to be in. Sometimes people in news or sports rear up when you say the word performance. But of course it's a performance because it's on television. Of course. Of course. I'm still me. And I'm, I like, I think one of the most important things is that you are you and you are the same. same when you're met off air as you are on air. But of course, you sit up straighter and you are hopefully not tripping over your words and you're hopefully giving a performance to a watching audience. It is. Football is like theatre. And I'm sort of like the operator around that to kind

of, you know, signpost you in what direction you need to go. But it's absolutely a performance. So you're at the BBC. You're reporting on matches. And also I read doing lifestyle features on footballers. What's the best lifestyle feature you ever did? I had to make, I made a healthy food smoothie with a couple of Norwich City players once, with a big blender right in the middle. And this was, bear in mind, this was nearly 20 years ago. And footballers then were protected species in that you couldn't get near them. And if you got near them, you could hardly ask any questions without running it by the press guy first.

It was a nightmare. So to be able to actually talk to footballers about something that wasn't football was fun. And I really enjoyed that. We did a lot of that kind of thing. talked about books with some footballers cooking, just trying to kind of do more community. It was community features really involving children a lot because the Premier League were very insistent and very dedicated

as they still are to ensure that the Premier League players, despite the fact they are hard to get to, do mix with the local community. So I was the reporter that kind of enabled that to happen. Then we filmed it on TV and it was all really good PR for the Premier League. So that was fun. That was a nice change from talking football all the time. And how did you get them to answer questions about actual football?

Wasn't allowed to ask about actual football. Just off the table. Oh, if we were talking about the healthy food or if we were talking about reading or anything that children, we were supposed to be helping children with, I wasn't allowed to ask about football. And this is the frustration. I don't know whether it's similar over here, but in the UK, it's very, very difficult to get anything out of a footballer because they are so highly PR.

They're so over-media trained. And the greatest myth of all is that the, the media are trying to catch them out. And that makes me so sad because no one's trying to catch anyone out. We just want to get to know them. But from their perspective, they're so worried about giving anything away that might end up misconstrued on the back pages, which has happened and on the front pages, that they're so over media trained that they don't really give you any answers. So just being able to not have to hear the stock answer all the time and actually being able to ask them something a bit different was always I found refreshing.

Certainly the case over here with athletes, but the TV networks have an end. Is that not the case in the UK? They have an inn and they have the access to a sit down interview, but you can, and you can ask almost anything you want, although I've been in many, many occasions where I get to an interview and the press officer says, so you can't ask about this, this and this. So you have limitations, even though you've paid the money

to show that footballer and that team on television, there are still limits to it. So you get the access. You can sit down like we are now and talk, but you can only ask certain things. and even the things that you think are not controversial, but even the things that you think are juicy and interesting and really will excite the listener or the viewer,

they're hardly ever going to give you an answer that you're wanting because they're just nervous. They're nervous of being misquoted and taken out of context. And then this is the problem that, unfortunately, this has happened so many times that footballers don't trust the media. 2012 you're now at ESPN you became the first woman to host an FA Cup final how do you look back on that experience now a life changing again actually and two reasons one they're linked one because race dubs the person that I'd actually interviewed to win that competition all those years ago was

supposed to host the FA Cup final but he had to have a heart operation very last minute which was awfully worrying but he's absolutely fine he came through and everything's great So I was like a backup. I wasn't the first choice. So that was terrifying, number one. It was an eight-hour broadcast on the side of the pitch with four X-Pros around me. Also terrifying, Wembley Stadium. Being the first female at the time wasn't a big deal to me because I'd done so many shows that I just didn't,

I kind of get fed up with the whole being the first. You just want to get to a time when no one's the first anymore and it's normal. So that wasn't, didn't play in my mind too much then. But the reason it was life-changing was when I completed that day and that show, it was probably the best show I'd ever done. And I remember going home with a confidence I'd never felt before. And I then realized that I wanted more. I wanted to do these kind of shows, be the number one at a network more than ever. And I also think that that show, doing that show, gave me the confidence that then when I went to the Euros that summer here at ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut,

it changed the whole way I presented because I just had more confidence. I just think, I've just done an FAA Cup final. I can do this in America, on American television. And then who was watching American television? Pierre Musa, my boss, an NBC who had just signed the rights to the Premier League. And then I came to NBC. So I actually think the FAA Cup final got me the NBC job in an inadvertent way. I have done this eight hours.

I've done it as well as I've ever done a show. So now I'm up here. I can go forward and do it at this level. Because you're always thinking, am I good enough at this? And that was 2012. Like you say, it was 10 years into my career. It took me 10 years to have a moment of, I think I am good enough. But that took 10 years. And it took many moments of, I don't think I'm good enough at all. What on earth am I doing? So yeah, it was a big moment in my life that. And the person who gave me the opportunity, I actually called during lockdown to thank him just a couple of years ago because I had a time of my hands as we all did in lockdown. And I thought, I thought, you know, I feel like I owe him a phone call because I looked back and reflected on my career and realized what a turning point that was. So I just called him up one day and just said, I just wanted to ring and say thanks. Is the British term for hosting fronted? As in you fronted the coverage.

Fronted. Yeah. It's an amazing word, isn't it? Because if you fronted something in the U.S. What's it mean? It'd be a Ponzi scheme or something like that. Oh, so it's like kind of like a scam, like almost like a bit dodgy. Oh, no.

No, that's so funny, isn't it? But also, we say presenter and you guys say host. We wouldn't say host. Host, you might host like an evening conference. You wouldn't host a TV show. It's so funny. Don't get me started on the language differences. Presenter is definitely better.

I think so. Oh, in this country, oh, really? No, no, presenters definitely is superior to what we would use for the same word, for a host or something. Yeah, I think so. I think it sounds more official. Gravitus. You mentioned the pitch side desk. How did that work out?

Because we've seen lots of strange adventures when American networks try to put their announcers on the field before a game. You mean how did it work out at the FA Cup final? It's really difficult. When you're in a stadium with 90,000 people, you're trying to hear your producer and you're giving you a count down to and you've got to hit zero. It's not easy.

You've got sprinklers that come on when they haven't told you they're going to come on. And you've got the elements and it was raining on FAA Cup final day. So we had umbrellas to deal with. You have the distractions of the crowd, which are not always nice. I've done many, many, many pitchside presentations of shows and I've had coins hit me. I've had hot dogs hit me. I've had chants. I mean, it's just been horrible.

I think that happens less now for females because they're just more of them. But when I was doing it, I was sort of a very unusual species to be standing in front of 6,000 men. They didn't really like it. So you were dealing with that. I remember one game there was a chant going around 6,000. fans in front of us. And it was about me. And I was live on ESPN. It was an FA Cup game. And my mom texted me from home saying, are you okay? I can hear what they're singing. So everybody back home could hear this delightful chant about me. So there's those things to deal with. So there's a lot

to deal with pitchside. Having said all that, Brian, I'd take it tomorrow. I love pitchside. I just feel that you can transmit the atmosphere. You can give the color. You can give the excitement. You can sense it. I do love it. But I do love a warm studio too. Now when these misogynistic chance are going on, do network executives care about this? Do they step in and trying to fix the problem? In 2012, no chance. And that's what made me so angry. And actually more angry as the years go by, I can't blame them because it wasn't a, it wasn't a thing then to be in uproar about misogynistic sexual abusive chance.

Now, with the Me Too movement and times up and everything that we've gone through in the last five years, it would, it would, it would be a thing. So if that happened to me now, let's say at NBC when we do a pitchside desk, the executives and the Premier League and the people at the ground would all be up in arms. There would be a whole campaign. It would be in the newspapers. It would be a big deal. Then not only did nobody mention it to me except for Robbie Savage, who was the guy, former footballer who was with me at the time, who kept saying, are you okay? I was so used to it that I just blocked it out. But not only did none of the executives mention it to me, it didn't get picked up by the press, no one was interested. Didn't even cross my mind to make a big deal about it.

Why? Because I might lose my job. I might be seen as troublemaking and difficult and, oh, well, we better not put her on another pitchside desk if this is going to happen to her and she's going to talk about it, make an issue about it. I had no, I had absolutely no thoughts in my mind to go to the executives at ESPN and say, this isn't okay. This was racism or homophobia. Something would be done about it. Why is nothing being done about it. It would never cross my mind. How sad is that? And now, years later, I think about it. I think actually, that is, that is terrible. Things have changed. Like I say, I don't think it's as bad in the UK as it was. And that was one of many, many, many, many moments, unfortunately. This is not the 1970s. This is 2012 we're talking about here, where they could have

just put you somewhere else, relocated it, done whatever disciplinary measures need to be done to the fans. It never crossed anyone's mind. In 2012, it was okay for 6,000 fans to sing what they sang. at me because people were busy with other things. Women's equality rights, however you look at it, it wasn't what it is now. Thank God, at least we're making some progress now, but then it wasn't a thing. I feel a lot of us who write about announcers spend a lot of time pondering the technique of people who call the games or the matches, and people who host studio shows the technique remains a little more mysterious. How do you approach hosting a studio show? Interesting. It's a very organic process that hasn't changed actually that much over the years. It was organic

when it began. I just sort of did what I felt was necessary, which is over prep. That's the first thing I do. I over prep every studio show I've ever done because my biggest fear has always been to be live on air with a delay or with a situation where you're having to fill. And I've had plenty of those when the floodlights go out or there's a thunderstorm and you're filling for half an hour and not having enough information at my fingertips. I feel less about that now, 20 years in nearly, than I have done. But I'm in the rhythm of over-prepping. I just want to know everything about everything.

So the prepping starts days and days before. And it's really all about being across everything. It's really simple, really. It's less about, for me, stats and facts and more about storylines. So Peter Drury, who is our wonderful play-by-play, he is the stats guy, here's the facts guy. here's the facts guy. I am the person who sort of weaves the storyline and he fills in all the little colorful bits, if you know what to me? It's like I have the page and he colors it in.

So I would say keeping across everything, I listen to the radio constantly, I'm on listening to reading blogs, podcasts every week, all week. It never actually ends. I never switch off. I never have a day when I don't have some sort of access to an audio, football podcast or radio or reading the newspaper. It's just never ending. It has to be never ending. because it changes so quickly. So I would just say my approach is to over prep and through osmosis, absorb as much information 24-7. So there's the mastery of storyline.

Then you've got these analysts with you most of the time. And whenever I talk to somebody, they say, oh, my job is to make my teammates look good. Is that how you see it? 100%. It's not, for me, a studio show is all about the analysts. I've never played the game. I'm literally there to lead them down a road they want to go down and bring with us down that road all of their experience and their insight.

That's what the audience pay for. That's what the audience want to hear. And that's my job is to get that out of them. And they've got to look. I've got to make them look good to make the show look good. 100%. It annoys me sometimes. I think that in my role, not just in sport, I would say across television and radio, the host's role is, she

be the, it's important, of course, but it shouldn't be the character. It should be the traffic cop. And it should be the people next to you who should be the stars. So how do you ask them a question to make them look good or to lead them down the right path, as you say? First of all, you have to know them really well and get to know them as much as you possibly can. And I'm lucky because we have the same people every week. So I know Robbie, Robbie and Tim so, so well. I know I know their beliefs on everything, and I know things they've told me in the green room, and so about certain football stories. So I think about that, and then I think that's got to come out on television, but I,

but I have to do it in a way so they don't think I'm trying to catch them out. I will just use all my knowledge of them and their beliefs to ask them questions so that they can give as good answers as possible. And they're so good at what they do because they have such strong beliefs. I know that. It's not difficult with these guys. because they're so good. But if I ask general questions,

I'm going to get general answers. But because I know everything that they believe and we talk all the time, I'm very specific with what I ask them, which allows them in turn to be specific. And if you're specific and succinct on television, you're an excellent analyst. Drawing it out exactly the right way.

Yeah, like little tiny sound bites is what I want. And also, Brian, not always long answers. Sometimes the best analysis is a single word. So if we've had a discussion about a topic and there's something in my head that's saying, yeah, but is it a yes or is it a no for this player? I will then follow up. And even if my boss has told me in my ear, you're out of time, I just need five seconds and I'll just say, but is it a yes or a no?

And if he says a yes or a no, whichever yes is as good as a no, they both leave you with a really interesting end to a conversation. So it doesn't always have to be on them to give us tons and tons and tons. It can sometimes just be an answer, quick yes or no, which leaves the audience with like, Huh, interesting, and then we go to a break. Told the LA Times a few years ago, I feel fully accepted here, meaning the U.S., and there have been times in the past when I didn't feel that in the UK. When did you not feel accepted?

When I was being abused by the fans in the stadium, when I was treated not particularly nicely by some top-level managers, Premier League managers, who I would be told, I remember I have so many examples. But one, I was standing in the tunnel at Old Trafford at Manchester United's ground. And it wasn't the Manchester United manager. It was the opposition manager who came up to me about half an hour before the game and said, what are you going to ask me? And I said, I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to ask you in the pre-match interview.

That's not right. And he said, well, unless you tell me what you're going to ask me, I'm not going to do the interview. I said, well, I'm not going to tell you what I'm going. And I stuck to my guns. And he did the interview, and he was very angry with me. but there is no way on earth that he would have done that to a man. I've never seen that happen to a man in my life. So the use of the patronising and the talking down to happened so, so much.

I've had, I've had, you know, managers say to me, if you ask me about this, I'll walk off in the middle of the interview. I've had them swear. I mean, it's just so many times I have felt so small and so talked down to and disregarded and unwelcome in that world. I mean, at Tottenham's old stadium, I couldn't even go to the bathroom because I wasn't allowed to go up the tunnel past the dressing rooms in case I was sort of, what was I going to do, run in and just start like talking to the players? No, I just want to go to the bathroom.

So a male security guard had to accompany me to the bathroom, wait outside for me and take me back to my television interview room. They would never do that to a man. So there are so many moments throughout my career where I felt that way. And also, it wasn't moving fast enough, Brian, the inclusion of women. Now, 10 years later, I am amazed. I actually can't get over how many women there are on the television in football in England. It's incredible. The representation is amazing. It didn't feel like that was ever going to happen. So I just felt like I was constantly pushing against an immovable wall, which, funny enough, as soon as I left England, it kind of started crumbling down and it was the floodgates were open, and that's great.

But yeah, for a long time, it was, it was, and often it's the generation above, you know, often it's the managers who are older, who come from a generation where they're just not used to seeing. People just don't like new, you know, they don't like the game of football in England is the most traditional, misogynistic, manly thing that there is in England. It's just been around for 150 years and it's for men. So in comes a woman, people don't like it. They don't like it. And younger people, as always, with everything in life, are much more open.

The older generation, less so. And that was really, really difficult. It's tiring as well. So speaking of leaving, 2013, NBC gets the rights of the Premier League. You come over. What was interesting about this job, do you? So much. I'm not going to lie.

I wanted to be the number one at a network. And I'd been the number two to race dubs at ESPN for four years. I'd been the number two or three at Satanta before that, and I was nowhere near it at the BBC. So to be the number one was a dream that I'd always held. That was big. An American audience that I knew from spending a lot of time in America beforehand was ready for this and was wanting this. And therefore I knew there was growth. Massive, massive growth. I'm lucky I was proved right with that because it's never ending the growth right now and it won't for a long time. And America, I went to high school in the UK but I graduated a little early and instead of going to university, I took a gap year and I love school. I'm a complete nerd. So I wanted to go and do something, not traveling around Bali with a backpack. I am not a backpacker, Brian. I wanted something a bit different and I love education. So my brother had done on a scheme, which was a scholarship to a boarding school. And I applied for the same thing and I got it. And I went to a boarding school in Pennsylvania called Merseysburg Academy and enjoyed 12th grade, essentially, with no pressure because I'd already got my place at university. But I went to prom and I went on the senior trip and I was in this amazing American boarding school. And I'd always loved America, but that six months changed my life in that it made me fall in love with America beyond measure. And always, always had the back of my mind that one day I'd love to live

in America or work in America. But it was never on the cards, never on the cards until I worked for ESPN that one summer and then the rest is history. So that was a big attraction. I just love the country. I read about this time at the boarding school. You tried to watch the Champions League final. Is this right? And I ended up watching it with your... Oh, German. So yeah. So So there was two friends of mine, Matt and Andy, who loved soccer and Coach Kemper, who was the German teacher who also loved soccer. And that was about it. In the whole school, who even knew what the Champions League final was. And it was the 1999 Champions League final, the big one with Oligona Solshar scoring for Manchester United.

And we all watched it in Coach Kemper's living room and went crazy and it was this huge deal. But it's amazing to think about that now compared to where we are because then, you know, we were making this ruckus and. Nobody knew. It was like we were watching alien television. It was like, what do you guys watch? What is this? It's hilarious. So, yeah, it was difficult to find football back then, but my God, habits changed. 2013, what strikes you about the level of soccer fandom in the US at that point? Bigger than people thought, more intelligent than people realized at the time, except for NBC, who saw it. And John Miller, who, you know, we all have to thank for the one who really pushed NBC to get these rights. He saw it. He tells a great story about his son, who I think was late teens,

who would get up at Cracker Dawn to watch what games there were available before NBC had the rights. And he's John Miller's a genius. And he realized his son is the youth of today or of then. My teenage son is getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning. Hang on a second. What is this that he's watching? This is a game changer. He pushed for us to get it and we got it. And he was right because the soccer audience very quickly came on board to our coverage because we showed everything, still do. And I think it surprised everybody quite how many bands there were out there and even more so now.

But then it was like a niche sport. It was this kind of you're in the cool club or from the outside looking in, you're in the weird club. It's nothing weird about it now. It's cool. It's mainstream. It's everywhere. It's arrived.

There is no doubt about that. And I think that in 2013, it was happening, but it was happening so quietly and behind closed doors that it needed somebody to have that vision and foresight, which John had. Did you do the show any differently here than you would have done a similar show in the UK? Definitely. Definitely. A big part of it was terminology. And I remember having a conversation with my boss, Sam, in the corridor here one day after rehearsing, which was, we hadn't even gone on air yet. And I said to him, am I supposed to say table or am I supposed to say standings? What do you want me to say? Because I don't want to do it wrong. for you, but I'm not sure if I can say standings. I've got to be honest. And he's like, just say whatever you want to say, because they wanted authenticity. They don't want me to come over from England and suddenly become American, although now I am an American citizen, but they don't want me to suddenly change all of my language. So they said, be authentic, but if there's something

that you think might, they might not know what it is, say both. Say table, standings, in the same sentence, just do it casually. So I definitely had to just occasionally double up on things to make or people who were new to the sport. Because there were also a lot of people who were new as well, knew what was going on. Don't have to do that now at all. And occasionally, I have to do a little bit more about history and geography because, you know, a lot of fans would do anything to go to a game, but have never been and may never go and need to know that, you know, Brentford is literally a stone throw away from

Fulham and a stone throw away from Chelsea. And I've been down that one road that connects it. And because I have that information and that experience, I can tell them that. I don't need to do that if I'm doing it to an English audience because everybody knows where Brentford and you. So there are those kind of tweaks. And now I often wonder if I ever went back to England, would I be able to do a show in England to an English audience without sounding like an idiot? Because they'd all be like, yeah, we know everything you're saying. Stop telling us things we already know. So it is quite different,

I would say, yeah. It's an interesting challenge, right? Because as you say in 2013, there's plenty of Premier League fans in America and they don't want to feel like you're treating them like morons, but then there are people coming in and they don't want to watch something that's totally inscrutable that they don't understand. That has been the biggest challenge I think for us, that exact balance you talk about there, because how do you do that? And I think you do it through honesty and authenticity. We as a group of on-air talent haven't changed too much who we are

or how we do football. We've just tweaked it here and there. And there's a phrase that my boss always tells us to say, to avoid sounding like you're talking down to people, but then also not annoying the people above the people who are the soccer anorax, as you may know. That is the phrase that we sometimes use

in our broadcast. So if you say, as you may know, Christiana Ronaldo came from Real Madrid via Juventus, well, you're not offending anybody because you're informing the people that didn't know that,

but the people who did aren't saying, yeah, I already know that because I've already said, as you may know. And it's a really clever little phrase. Pierre Musa, our boss, is full of these little snippets of wisdom. And that is one that we've often used, a little secret there down the years,

try and just bridge that gap, because there is a gap, because there are, I have messages all the time, time from fans who started last year. Not let alone back in 2013, you get the people who were way back in the turn of the century, you get the people from 2013 who suddenly had it on their TVs, and then you get people every year who are brand new. So it's a constant evolving audience. As you may know, that's genius. Isn't it? Because if you know, you pat yourself on the back.

Right? It's genius. But if you don't, you're just welcomed right in. Oh, yes. Then, you know, Brian, feel free to use that. You can have it. On a day like today, what does it feel like to host a studio show from Stanford, Connecticut? As opposed to being in England? Uh-huh. Well, I mean, it's been nine years where I can't believe we're heading into our 10th season. So for me, it feels like home.

It feels like having been at so many Premier League games in the tunnel, interviewing the players and managers that I did for years, ESPN, the first few months in 2013 of that season, I felt quite far away from that. I felt like, gosh, are we, should we be in England? You know, this is, we're far away. because I was just so used to being in the middle of the dressing rooms in the tunnels right there being escorted to the toilet at Tottenham. I was so used to that. But very quickly, because the production is so excellent, I have to say, the producers and the way that they incorporate everything we possibly can, everything that's live, all the colour, we try not to sit in the studio actually too long. We're trying to show you what's happening over there so much. And because everybody in the studio has been to all of these grounds, knows all these players, knows all these managers. I think that really keeps the viewer. And actually, I actually often meet people who say, oh, you don't do it from England. Oh, I thought you're in England's actually a real compliment, actually. So to me, it feels normal. It feels like being

at home. I've been here so blooming long. And it's an absolute joy. You're a Crystal Palace fan? Unfortunately, yeah. How do viewers respond to that? Interesting question, because in England, television presenters, sports presenters are very open. I can tell you the team of every single sports presenter in England who they support because it's just open. When I move, here. My boss said to me, so just don't go big on the Crystal Palace thing. And I said, well, that's a problem because it's on my Wikipedia. So everyone knows my palace fan. I'm not going to, you know, cheer for them on air, but I can't also, in interviews like this one, I'm not going to lie and say I don't support. I'm neutral because I can't find any host here that has opened up

on which NFL team they like. I mean, I try to get it out of Mike Jericho all the time. He won't tell me who his team is. It's hilarious, other than his college one, which we all know, which is so funny to me, because I can't quite decide which one's right. I like the fact that if you don't open up about who your team is, then you can't be accused of being biased. But then I sort of feel like we need to trust our hosts more. You know, it's so, you know, I really do. I actually think I go the other way. Being a Crystal Palace fan, if we've just beaten Arsenal 3-0, which very rarely happened. I actually try to temper any joy. I mean, I probably go completely the opposite way in a bid to make sure I'm not accused of being biased. Because really, in that moment, in that very moment of

being on air, there is no bias. I'm doing my job. Then I can celebrate later. But in that very moment, I'm a professional. So I kind of think maybe we should, maybe I should make it my mission to try and go around all of the gym nances and all the big hosts and try to get out of them who they support. because actually I think I think it's okay to say it shows your love doesn't it shows your love of the game I think it comes from fear of social media I really do well that's why I'm not on Twitter because you know why would you want to open yourself up to that and it's it's stupid but I think you know what happens is they look at they look at it and they go oh you're right they're just they're just saying oh you hate the Philadelphia Eagles or you hate them but I get that anyway so I get I so I today I'm wearing a red top so tonight when I go on air this afternoon it's crystal palace against Arsenal for people who don't know that I'm a Crystal Palace fan, actually now I'm looking at myself,

I am actually wearing a blue skirt and a red top, which is Crystal Palace's colours. But that was accidental. You can blame the wardrobe. But if I wear a red shirt on a day that United are playing, I get messages saying, oh, red, red today, so you're a United fan. No, I'm not. I've just chosen a red dress to wear. Is that okay? It drives you nuts. So I get that, even though it's out there who I support, what color I'm wearing, if I mention one thing about a play, because people are so obsessed with, you hate my team.

So it happens anyway. It happens anyway, whether they know who you support or they don't. I think we should just all come clean. Last two summers, college football has changed here in the sense that we're now drifting toward two giant super conferences. Right. I didn't know that. Rather than a whole bunch of conferences that are relatively of equal size in the metaphor, but he's rolling out. College football is becoming like the Premier League. And something is going to change essentially about college football fandom in the United States. Right. Do you have a sense of what that? might be if we drift toward a world where most of the tier, a lot of the great teams are concentrated in a couple of conferences?

Are the conferences side by side, Brian? Or is it, there's no relegation in these conferences, right? Well, not really, but the idea being that all the money goes there, they're making tons more money off television, you know, potentially they could play their own championship, though that's still pretty far off. I mean, I would, I've got to be honest. The Premier League is the most successful league of any sports. on this planet. So anything that looks like it's heading in that direction, I'm struggling to see a

downside. Now, I am not a college football expert. And you telling me about those two, if that's the way it's going, I didn't even know that. So I don't want to anger people saying, well, it's going to ruin college football because I don't know enough about it. But if the Premier League is a model or is an example or is the way something's heading, have you seen it? It's a juggernaut that is going nowhere. other than up. So I don't know if it's a bad thing. I'm going to anger so many people, aren't I? No, but it's different, right, than the old world. I think that's what everybody's just trying to wrap their minds around. But you see, people don't like change. And I love, personally, I'm a lover of change. But on the whole, it's going back to what we said about women in football,

people don't like change. You change anything, anything in the world. People hate it at first. And then they very slowly get to love it. Perfect example is the, um, I remember when the scorebug, we call it the scorebug, came in on NFL and live soccer. And it was, I mean, the guy who created that, David Hill, former Foxx executive, I mean, he's talked about getting hate mail and death threats for it. Well, now it's the greatest. I mean, you couldn't be without it. It's a classic example.

People hate change. If it's a genuinely good idea with good enough positive things attached to it, people will jump on in the end. You mentioned becoming an American citizen, which happened this spring. It did. How large was the amount of paperwork? It was large. It was years, Brian. It was years.

It was relentless and good. So it should be. Like, I want to work hard to become an American citizen. It's an honor. And it's important that I learn about the history and the geography and the, and the, the, the, the constitution and all the things I had to learn. And all the things you have to tell them about your life and where you've been for the last six years and every single trip you've taken. I mean, it is a lot. But when you do it

and you get that moment, my goodness, it's a lovely feeling and it's a huge achievement. But yeah, that was a mission. Was there a quiz? There was more than, now quiz, Brian, makes it sound like just a fun little chat over a cup of tea. This was a very scary one-on-one exam, I'm going to call it, maybe it wasn't really an exam, but like a test with a federal agent who acted like he did not want to give you the citizenship, very scary. And it was all verbal. So it wasn't multiple choice. And he would ask you the question. You had to verbally answer. You couldn't write it down. It was fairly terrifying. And you have to get six out of ten. And if you don't get six out of ten, you don't even carry on with your interview. You're out of the door and you have to come back

another time, which was terrifying. So my husband and I swatted up. We were so good every night for weeks before this test. Luckily we did it. How many did you get out of ten? I got six straightway. Straight away, got the first six correct. Oh, first six. Yeah, once you get to six, they stop. So I'm teasing my husband relentlessly because he got one of them wrong. So that was hilarious. But yeah, it was a lot of information to get across. And becoming a citizen, was that a moment of pure joy?

Or did it feel like you were leaving something else behind? Not leaving because this lovely country allows you to be dual citizenship. So I still hold British passport. And it was joy. And probably the biggest reason is because my child was born here. So in 2016, he was born in Connecticut. He is American. Yes, he has a British passport as well, and he has English blood, but he is American. And I want to be on the same plane as my child. I want to be on the same level as him and feel that we are all together. So that was a really, really big deal. But also it's an achievement. I mean, people dream about becoming an American citizen. It is for all of its faults. And my goodness, every country has it. This is a fantastic country. And to be given the opportunity to become one of you is. an honor and it was a really big day in our lives. It was, you know, top five days of my life.

Rebecca Lowe, thanks for coming on the press box. Thanks for having me, Brian. All right, it's time for the second weekly edition of David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah, let's do this. Monday's headline about pilot shortages. Oh man, don't remind me. Was receding airlines. And I got to say the funniest part with you and me and Brian Phillips doing that one was gazing into the Zoom and seeing more than one receding airline. The worst part about that terrible, terrible outing was that it's actually an incredibly good pun headline. It's good.

Sometimes I don't get them and it's just like, well, that sucked. The reason why I didn't get it, my defense is how would I get that? It's a terrible pun. But receding airline is just fantastic and I feel terrible. Chefskis. Today's headline, David comes from me. It's from the athletic. The athletic not known for snappy headlines,

but they have beefed up their podcast network recently, including pods devoted to several NFL teams. One of those teams is the Philadelphia Eagles. And as a good residence of Princeton, New Jersey, you will know that the Eagles, sometimes known as the birds. Of course, yeah. What was the athletics strained pun podcast title?

It's just a, all I have is that it's about the Eagles. It's the Athletic Eagles podcast and birds is involved. The bird is the word. That might have been a little more of a 70s Eagles podcast. Yeah. Bird, bird, bird talk, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird is bird the pun, like, is bird used in a conventional sense? Or is it, is bird the, okay.

Well, birds is, bird is the pun word. Yes. Bird is in the title, but that's what we're punting off of. I will let you know this. There is more than one host of the Eagles podcast. two birds so it's birds birds birds in a hand birds birds of a feather

these are these are my podcast host these are my pals it's birds birds birds and Ernie my close companions my close companion

my pals my team my best buds birds with oh birds with friends birds with friends That's a good one. Can't claim it was weird.

Yeah. Birds and Ernie. Birds and Ernie would be great if there was a host named Ernie. You just need the Eagles writer named Ernie. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantis. We're back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.