The Press Box - The Year in ESPN, the Washington Post's Editor Search, and the NBA Ratings Puzzle

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel open up with J-School, during which Bryan recaps a few things he and David discussed on Monday (1:09). Then they discuss the following headlines: What kind of year did ESPN have (14:11) Does anyone want to edit the Washington Post (27:38) LA Times’ publisher talks about shaking up the organization (34:40) Trump is still suing publications (42:45) Fretting over NBA ratings (48:20) Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers here and we are back for another season of OffGar. Me and my guy, Pasha Giggy, are hitting your podcast feeds every Monday and Thursday talking everything hoops. Austin is bringing that 11-year NBA veteran perspective and of course keeping you guys entertained throughout the season. Make sure you tap into OffGard with Austin Rivers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow everything we've got going on social media. The OffGar podcast, Ringer NBA. And of course, check us out on Ringer NBA's YouTube channel. we're getting better

consumers welcome to press box Brian Curtis Joel Anderson and producer Brian Waters with you ladies and gentlemen we start the Thursday show

the same way every week we just change the name one of America's favorite podcasters matriculates you through a week of news and opinion folks it's time to go to J school.

Thank you, Ron. Thanks for opening the floor for me. So yeah, I think we've decided on J school. I'm confident in this. I think this has some staying power. Yes, at least through February 2025. Right, right, right. We think of something else.

Right, right. But we still haven't gotten all the submissions we're probably going to get to, so who knows. So, you know, the way this segment starts as I try to, you know, follow up on a few things that you guys talked about on Monday, you and David, and you guys talked a little bit about why the ostensibly Harris-friendly sports podcast hosts were afraid of talking politics, right?

Like, you know, you think maybe the Kelsey's, for instance. Like, that seems like that would be sort of a friendly environment for the Kamala Harris campaign to have engaged with, right? And I really thought that David made a really good point that people don't want to, they don't want to risk bothering people, right? Like, there are so many obvious reasons for, like, let's just stick to the Kelsey's. We don't want to talk about anybody else because it may reflect on people that are close to us and it would be like, why didn't they win this podcast, right?

But I think there are obvious reasons to not engage with the election and certainly not the Harris campaign. And one of the things that is kind of tough to talk about, but I'm just going to bring it up here. These are overwhelmingly white male sports fan audiences. and we know how that demo tends to vote. So you know that this is a hard sell. Like even if they're not pro-Trump or anti-Harris, it may just agitate them just enough that I don't want to do the politics thing. I don't want to talk about that.

So on the other hand, I think the podcast hosted by non-white or even black sports fans would have been receptive, but they don't have the audience. Like, she did Club Shea She. Like, if you look at the list of the most listened to podcast, like Club Shaysay is the largest audience with a black host. She did that one, right? Do you think that first take or Stephen A. Smith would have been, you know,

a welcoming audience, for instance? I don't. Stephen A's podcast outside of ESPN, I don't think he says no. Right. To Kamala Harris. they may not say no to Donald Trump either. He may have, he may be like, I'll talk to both of them. Right.

I wonder if they think that that's not, that that juice isn't worth the squeeze, though, right? Because he's a little bit more of a wild card. And it seems as he's actually more of a conservative than what you might consider to be a friendly audience. And then I kind of went down the list. I saw 7 p.m. in Brooklyn with Carmela. Like, she did, she did all the smoke already, right? So if you don't, I don't think you need to do the whole. lineup of, you know, she doesn't need to go on with Jeff Teague, for instance.

So I think there's this real mismatch in the market, right, where there are, there is a, there are a lot of podcast listeners and a lot of podcasts that maybe speak to her, but she's like, I don't know if they've got the audience that would make it sort of worth that while. And I think that that's kind of the thing. And so it's either like, do people need to build capacity and build audiences for these sports podcasts with non-white host at the? top? Maybe. I don't know. But I again, I also think this is just kind of like, there's more reasons she lost than the fact that she didn't go on Joe Rogan, right? Like, we can we can kind of

get lost in that as well? I mean, can we just agree that this is some massive projection by the Harris campaign? Yeah. I mean, that guy quoted in the semaphore article going, well, some of these sports podcasts may be afraid of their audiences. Oh, by the way, I'm not going to actually name the hosts I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So who's afraid? Oh, you want to preserve? your career in digital, you know, reach-out guy in politics by not naming the people who said no to Harris. Right. Thanks, man. What a profile encourage that was.

Yeah, go ahead and go ahead and say their names. Why, you know, why didn't they want them on, right? This is the opportunity to do it. We've got a long time until the next one. I think people will forget to even if you stir up a little bit of, if you stir up things a little bit. But I also wanted to, so he talked about, I mean, this is not funny. So actually let me straighten up for a second before I start. say it, and then I'll move to the part that I think is funny.

Randy Moss had a cancerous mass in his bowel duct. Very sad story. We hope he's okay, like legitimately. That seems really tragic, and I'm reminded that the only person that I ever heard of having cancer in the bowel duct was Walter Payton. So, you know, this is obviously very serious, and I hope Randy's okay. But what you guys talked about was Larry Fitzgerald Sr., who is a, you know, a journalist of some renowned in the Minneapolis area, tweeting out about Randy's condition and maybe, you know,

like you said, the scoop that nobody wanted. Like, we didn't, we didn't necessarily need to know that. But does the whole Fitzgerald family handle everything over the internet? Because, I mean, so Larry Jr. tweets at his dad. And I'm like, don't you have his phone number? Like, why did you, why do you think Larry Jr. called out his dad on Twitter? I have a theory about this. So you, but why do you think that happened? I can pass along the theories that people told me because I was texting people the same way about this exact same question. And what I got back was Larry Jr. wanted to get right with not only the Moss family, but publicly with everyone. Right. That this isn't me. This is dad. Okay. So instead of texting dad, I'm going to tweet at dad. And that way everybody knows that

not on board with breaking this news. So have you ever told your parents something and they went and told people and you were like, I didn't actually, I didn't mean for that to get out. You know what I mean? I kind of want, like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not alleging anything, but I could imagine the scenario, which is like, hey, I told you that confidence, dad. You know, like don't, don't put that out there, right? Sure.

I mean, and look, Larry's seniors, you know, as in Minneapolis area, sports. sky so you know he he perhaps knows things or whatever i have no idea how it got to him but just the just the whole scene of the son having to having to distance from dad in public as a message to dad was pretty hilarious uh and i also i think you have to do that in tandem with your dad you have to say hey dad i'm going to do this this is not about you this is about me and my relationships don't take this personal. I don't think you can surprise your dad on Twitter with that tweet. I don't think, but I'm sure there was a reply guy. No. I don't know where to your dad. Yeah, I think there was a lot, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes there that we'll probably ever know, which if you

think about it, really interesting story. Maybe to tell us something. The fact that Larry Sr. had to give a statement to the Daily Mail. Those are words I never would have put in the same sentence. Man, does a Daily Mail have like offices here in the States? Like, do you think they have a newsroom here? They do. There's some experience there. Yeah, they do. Yeah, I think so. I think they've been known to doorstep a person or two when there's a big story. All right, cool, about that. I mean, you know, the Daily Mail is just a thing. You see it on the internet, and you're like, where is that? I would just love to walk through that newsroom to see what's going on in there, to the extent that newsrooms exist in the way that they did when we were going

to newsrooms, right? The third thing, well, first of all, you know, Brian and David, I kind of want to be a part of the book exchange, you know? Like, I mean, I can't say the Islamic term. What is it again? Yola Bokoflod. And Yolabukkah flood? I mean, you know, I kind of, it's probably too late. Amazon won't probably be able to, you know, get it to us in between.

But I kind of would have wanted to. So here's the thing. One, I was not planning on a Yola Boko Flod among me and David at all. This was just purely a Curtis family announcement. He kind of surprised me there a little bit. Okay, okay. He was getting in on a Curtis family tradition. That's what was happening.

He was horning in. Okay. All right. But first of all, I have spent the last couple of days thinking about what I might get you. So why don't you and I do it for the week after Christmas? Because we're doing two pods together. Yes.

Okay. We've got time. I will send an Amazon package to Palo Alto. Oh, my God. Do not open until Yola Boko Flod, or at least Yola Boko Flod observed. And we'll do it. just as you were saying this, I thought of a great one for you. So, okay, good, let's do it.

Let's do it. There you go. But I want to tell a quick story about an unprecedented Christmas gift, and I want to know if this has happened to anybody else. Last Sunday, I'm driving back from the airport with my mother. I picked her up and I'm bringing her here. My son's in the back seat. He's trying to get a nap because he, you know, the pickup was scheduled during his nap. And so he's nodding off in the back seat.

I'm driving home and I say, well, let me just spend a couple of minutes driving around to let this settle. I end up in East Palo Alto, it's on the other side of the freeway from Palo Alto, and a police officer stops me. And I'm here, like, I don't know what's going on. Like, you know, I think I'm going with the flow of traffic. I'm not speeding. I don't know what's going on. So he pulls me over and he says, do you know why I stopped you? I really didn't know, and he scratches out some excuse about I drove in some sort of a fire lane or whatever. Let me just, I'm going to tell you guys something, and I know people don't believe me when I say this. I've been stopped by the police

more than 40 times in my life, okay, uh, as a motorist. 40 times. 40 times. I, I, I, I, I, I, first of all, I drove a lot. So you know what I mean? Like I would, when I was in college, I was up and down the freeway from Fort Worth to Houston. So I got stopped in every, anybody that knows this stretch of highway, Buffalo, Fairfield, Centerfield, Centerville, Madisonville, Corsicana, Ennis. I've been stopped in all those places, okay? All right. And, and,

And many more. Okay. So I'm used to this ordeal. I was very upset about it. I was not doing well and I was not treating the officer very well. And my mother was, you know, very scared. Like, oh, you know, yeah, I'm just here, you know, some visiting family. So anyway, they spend some time that God decides to give me a warning.

And at the end of it, do you know what happened? Do you know what gift I got? Gift. A $200 gift card. This is some sort of thing that East Palo Alto. did in consternation that's some sort of a gift from a local benefactor like some sort of a nonprofit that is paying for some sort of program to do this. And I'm just like, huh? Has that ever happened to anybody else before in the history of being stopped? Okay.

I'm completely confused right now. Yeah. Police officer pulls you over for unclear reasons, let's say. You are upset for obvious reasons. Right. And then he, presents you with a $200 gift card like you had just appeared on a game show and lost. Yeah. I mean, you know, like they have the sometimes the local news segments where they surprise somebody and give them ice cream or something. And my mother was like, well, maybe he stopped you because he wanted to give you that card.

I was like, well, we didn't have to go through the whole thing about me driving in some sort of, you know, fire zone lane or whatever. So anyway, he could have just come up to the window and said surprise. Yeah, we didn't have to go through a thing where I had to like, be very upset and stew and be like, hey, man, I got a kid sleeping back here. You know, so anyway, that, if anybody has ever had that happen to them before, please let me, though, because it is one of the more bizarre. I've been stopped by Cox, again, in lots of different states, lots of different cities,

all sorts of circumstances that has never happened to me before. That is the most insane thing I have ever heard. Yeah. And it's just a general gift card. It's not for any place in particular. Like a little visa gift card. I can do whatever. My wife has plans for it.

So, you know, I don't know what that is because she's in charge of our Christmas operation. But there we go. I just don't know. It's like, it's like, so where the idea is that we're going to have cops want to have better relationship with the public. So we're going to give you a gift card. But we stopped you. So we kind of soured the whole relationship with the public part.

I mean. And now we're going to give a gift card to try to make it right. If we were interacting for, let's say, 17 minutes, I was mad for 16 minutes and 45 seconds of it. And then he gives a car. And I feel sort of obligated to be like, oh, great, great. Thanks. Appreciate it. But I probably could have done without the stop.

Yeah, probably could have just done without the stop. We didn't need to go through all that. I think so. I got four headlines to talk to you about today. Let's go. First headline, what kind of year did ESPN have? Oh, man. Have they had a good one in a long time?

It's an interesting question. You and I both have some bylines on this subject. Yep. Yours in 2023. Mine was the first week in 2024 where we had the Pat McAfee, Aaron Rogers, Jimmy Kimmel Thruple. Oh. Yes.

Plus Norby Williamson. That was a crowded little room there. I forgot about Norby Williamson, man. Yeah. Oh, what a time. And I wrote a piece called ESPN's Year from Hell. And you can imagine how that was received over at ESPN. But it seems like it's worth stepping back and thinking what's happened since January.

We've had some departures at ESPN. Zach Lowe. RG3. Mm-hmm. The aforementioned Norby. Yeah. Sam Ponder. throw that one in there for you.

That's right. I forgot about Sanponder. That's right. Some big things have happened at ESPN. They announced that their over-the-top streaming service is coming in the fall of 2025. That's part of the keys to the future of ESPN existing in the same form. They need that to work. Yes.

Inside the NBA is coming there, allegedly. We can talk more about that later. First year of the 12 team playoff. First year of them owning the entire SEC schedule. They renewed. the NBA. Where do we start with ESPN in 2024? Well, I mean, I guess they've doubled down on live sports as the foundation of the business,

right? And I, which is fine because it always has kind of been ESPN at the end of the day. Like when we were kids, like, didn't you watch like the log rolling competitions? And there were a lot of, there were a lot of weird things on ESPN when we were. This is the high tone version of our. childhood ESPN, like, this is unimaginable that ESPN would have this kind of stuff. I mean, they had

like Keanu Tom. You remember Keanu Tom working out on the beach? Like, that was one of the shows. So, yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, if you compare it to that, they definitely that. But I think, is this overblown? Because there's still a

lot of great journalists there. And they're doing really good investigative work when they turn their resources toward it. But I felt like for me, this was sort of the year that I kind of gave up on ESPN as an outlet to turn for journalism, right? That I just don't, I don't go to ESPN.com anymore unless I'm like looking up standings or I need some headlines real quick, but I don't go there intentionally looking for new, for stories. I'll come across stories, but I don't go looking for it. What about you?

Not for that purpose. No. I don't think I did that one time this year. Just like what here's something to read over here. Right. And now that Zach has gone, definitely that whatever, whatever chance that had it happening, it ain't happening anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the athletic is that now, right?

Like whenever I'm looking for a big, you know, I'm just like, oh, I need to look at some sports news. Let me catch up on stuff. I go there first. And I don't go to ESPN anymore. So for me, that's what I thought. But that's probably not a big deal over there. I would imagine.

Like, I mean, they're making these decisions intentionally. Like when you get rid of Zach Lowe, that's kind of what you're saying, that we don't do this anymore. We don't do this anymore. And that, again, that's the one of, you know, not that I'm defending any of the, you know, let's, you know, take the reporters and actual journalists out of the media entity decisions. But the Zach one was so confusing to me because they just re-signed the NBA for $2.6 billion a year. So wouldn't you want the best NBA writer or one of the best. best NBA writers on your staff. And two, he has a hugely popular podcast. I mean, I think it one time, and certainly during the pandemic, he had either the first or the second highest rated podcast

in their network. And so you're having had a chance to see some of the, you know, the ratings, whatever. So, I mean, it was very puzzling in that way because are you giving up on podcasting then? Like, if you get rid of that one and you get rid of Bomani Jones and you sort of move on from them and these are people that are in your top five, then I guess you're kind of done unless you're doing fantasy content and gambling content. And that's that you can kind of see that sort of creeping up too. They want to push that to the forefront more than just sports chatter. Yeah, sports journalism.

Reporting and writing about sports. And you use that phrase that I feel we've all been using every with every layoff for the last 10 plus years. There's still a lot of great journalists at ESPN. Yeah, because I don't want to. Finn like Seth Wickershom or like Wright Thompson like they're great writers right they are so there they're still doing good work but but I feel that phrase that little catchphrase has become a little less meaningful every time wow because it contains a few less people every time

that doesn't contain Zach Lowe anymore oh that's a big one doesn't contain the whole staffs of Grantland anymore it doesn't contain the whole you know the magazine anymore like it just gets a little bit smaller every time. Right. Right. Well, you know what it's like to work at ESPN. Like, you know, and I think the thing you figure out pretty quickly there, if you're writing, especially if you came there in the last part of the previous decade, you could kind of see the writing on the wall that there's just not going to be space for you there, right? If you don't, if you don't aspire to be on TV, and I didn't, and I don't know if you did, Brian. I mean, you've got, hell no. I could, okay. Yeah. So, I mean, if you don't aspire that, then it's going to be

far down the line and anything, you know, anything like that. It also, journalism costs a lot of money, man, like the outside the lines kind of stuff. You got to spend a lot of money on that, and you're going to piss people off probably too. And I can imagine ESPN looking at that and saying, you know, we could just add another hour Pat McAfee. So this is where I will give Jimmy Bataro a kind of credit. And this is going to be a very hedged kind of credit, but bear with me here. What did we just hear nine thousand times during the presidential? election. The youngs are not listening to news anymore. They're not following news anchors anymore. The people they're listening to are podcasters. Podcasters who step in it and go,

whoops and don't pay the kind of consequences that journalists would do for stepping in or don't really care as much about stepping in as journalists do. That's where the future is. And I think what he did with McAfee, now that may not be the prince that was promised for you and me. But what he figured out with that was a way that I think really anticipated where cable news was going to go. He was ahead of those kind of places on that. So again, your mileage may vary and certainly does with you and me.

But I do think he figured that out about the way the media was changing perhaps before other people did. Well, also, you know, there was a drumbeat of like ESPN as to. woke, ESPN is leftist, ESPN is out of the step with the mainstream. I don't really hear that anymore. Do you, I don't, I don't really hear those kind of complaints about ESPN anymore. I don't spend as much time on Twitter, so it could be that. But I don't, I don't see people saying that anymore.

To the extent that they sort of buried those complaints, were able to sort of get from under that, I feel like maybe the, at least this is the start of them getting out from under that perception, I think. Is that because the people left who were the source of those complaints? Is that because Jimmy Patera was trying to depoliticize the network all the above? Depoliticized network and they got Stephen A. Smith on there who just piles around with Sean Handy, man. You know, he says whatever he wants. He was encouraging people to give money to Chris Christie for president.

I mean, it's like, but he's, again, those guys are in a different weather system, right? Right. They have different rules than people. Right. And that was another thing that Pitaro, it was very, very clear when that whole first week of January, I'm going to be a player's coach. Yeah. I'm not going to come down like the previous regime did when somebody. I'm going to do it behind the scenes.

I'm going to kind of try to figure it out, try to keep my goodwill with the talent to keep them happy. And then hopefully they'll do it less. Yes. Yes. That's the plan. Do you think Lebertad could have thrived in this environment there? I think a lot of the people that left look at this and be like, where was that for me when I was at ESPN? Right.

Because they were there under the previous regime. Right. Not that Petaro didn't necessarily extend it to them, but they were like, oh, well, that would have been nice. Yeah. Yeah. I would have liked the players coach. Right. Right.

I mean, it felt like, you know, I mean, I've talked enough about getting called on vacation because I've made a, you know, they didn't want me to tweet about Roseanne, you know, you're getting canceled. So, yeah, I mean, it clearly is a different place to work now, but they'd rather put that sort of burden or, I guess, that responsibility on people with the audience, the capacity to build an audience like Pat McAfee and Stephen A and, you know, those big names and not like some schmuck with 20,000 Twitter followers. You know what I mean? Like, I can understand them wanting to deal with that controversy as opposed to somebody else who, just isn't really worth that sort of a fuss. Yeah. And look, it was, you know, when I was writing about a year from hell, it has not been like that for the rest of the year, to their credit.

You know, like it hasn't been one of those every week. That would have been, I think, a lot to sustain. Who gave you the most hell about calling it their year from hell? Well, I don't know. I don't know if I'd name names exactly. But, you know. Okay. All right.

We can talk about it off of here. But yeah, I should talk about it off the air. So that's editorial. We'll say one thing about just the bigger problem of ESPN, which is moving from cable to the streaming world like everybody else is doing. Because next year feels like the big year for that. Right. I don't know if you,

I feel like there's like, you know, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when there was a rope bridge across the chasm. And you're on it wobbling. And I feel like this is the year that ESPN put one foot on the bridge. Yeah. Right. They're almost ready.

We're over the top coming next year. You know, we're getting ready, signed all these rights deals. We're there. And next year is the year that they start to try to carry the thing across. I mean, look, I had just realized that I did not have ESPN Plus the other day because I was looking for 30 for 30. And I was shocked at how quickly I was willing to pony up the money for it. I didn't even really think about it. I was like, oh, yeah, I got to do this.

Now, maybe that's just me, but I kind of feel like they're well positioned to like, for this not to be a disaster. Yeah. I mean, you don't. You don't. No, I don't know if I'm just, I don't know. It's like a huge question mark for me. It's a TK, if you will, because I'm just like, two things have to happen. They have to keep pulling money out of cable.

Because that's still a thing and you need to pull as much money as you can out of it. And then you have to. you have to not just work in the streaming world. You have to be a huge hit over there. Right. $2.6 billion a year just for the NBA. Yeah. That's real.

That's right. Yeah. It may be. So like it is a really tricky operation. Man. To get from one side of this bridge to the other side of the bridge. They have to be encouraged by the ratings of some of the like Amazon games and the Netflix game.

Like that that stuff is turning up. They have to be encouraged by. that, oh, people want this stuff, and they want to watch those games, and they'll come to us. You know, it may not look, it may take a while and it may be a little bit of a rocky transition, but I don't know. This is one of the two things I think can make money. And that's why you write those checks, right, to Monday Night Football, to the SEC. Yeah.

By the way, the SEC things, do you notice they did that, they brought back that old ESPN little sound, little song, do, do, do do do do do. Yeah, I love it. which is nostalgic for people like you and I who remember Ron Franklin. Oh, man. But I'm also like, do you realize that song was never attached to games of this importance? Like you're playing that, you know, going to commercial for like a Texas Georgia type game. You're like, no, that wasn't on old ESPN.

Oh, yeah, that's right. You weren't good games most of the time. No. You didn't have the best game. Now you have the best games. It almost feels so anachronistic because this is different now. Oh, I felt like it was always Mississippi State v. Tulane. Like, that was the, that was the game that got that tree.

No offense to Mississippi State or Tulane, both fine programs. Headline number two for you, Joel. Does anyone want to edit the Washington Post? Man, it does not seem like it. There's an AXIO story from Mike Allen and their media age, Sarah Fisher. They're looking for an executive editor over there at the post, which translated to non-newspaper, non-media meeple means an editor of the Washington Post.

Cliff Levy of the New York Times and Anne Cornblute, former Washington Post editor herself, both said no, according to Axios. Will Lewis is the publisher. He's the one doing the hiring along with Jeff Bezos. And Axios said they found, or at least someone connected to the whole process,

found Lewis's vision for the paper foggy and uninspiring, quote unquote. What do we make of malaise, at the Washington Post. For years, as a professional journalist, the Washington Post has seemed like one of the least fun places to work in media. Is that fair?

Like, I don't, you know, without giving the game away and giving up people that we know that are personally friends, I can't think of a, maybe, I can only think of one person who really seem to enjoy working at the Washington Post. but for the most part, it just seems like morale is, the, morale, the median is like low morale. And so we're back in another cycle of that just under a new boss, right? Is the exception that proves the rule like the Marty Barron, Democracy Dies in Darkness era, or at least the part of it?

I think they were proud of the work they were doing. I think that it was still a difficult place to do well and thrive and be happy about the way that you we're doing it. And it seems like it's kind of gotten worse. And if you, like, if you hold yourself out as big, I'm a defender of journalism guy, and this is sort of the crowning achievement of our career, could you really work for Jeff Bezos under these circumstances? Like, that puts you in a really awkward position. Like, you know how it might, you've got to hint it where Bezos is going with this. And do you want to be, you know, his right-house? in person?

I think it's a really good question. And I think, you know, I feel like a bad media podcaster because I've read so many articles about their quote unquote third newsroom. Yeah. They've got newsroom original recipe. Then there's going to be a subscription business, which is like, hey, we need to get some of that money Politico's getting, right? For all your industry subscriptions.

And there's going to be a third newsroom. And there were so many rumors that this was going to be like a social media. a newsroom or some kind of magical way to do things and change the economics. I'm reading Dylan Byers and Puck and he says this is going to be an

amalgam of affinity-based non-newsroom assets that Lewis and company plan to acquire similar to the New York Times company's accumulation of wirecutter, the athletic, cereal, and so forth. That definitely sounds like the most positive version of what the third newsroom could be.

Yeah. I can imagine. imagine a scenario on which that works. But I mean, it's trying to rebuild with the New York Times day. It seems sort of like a fool's errand. But I can't blame them for trying. And that does sound better than whatever else is going on over there, right? You got to have something. Yeah. And so much of the politics stuff has walked out the door. So like, what's going to be the thing that people be like, here is my, here's my credit card. Here's my Apple pay. I want to pay you for news. Like, what's the thing that's going to make you? We know what the New York Times thing is or things because there's a lot of it. What's the Washington Post thing? That's a great question.

I mean, it theoretically should own like government and politics coverage. And I mean, they do a great job. Like, I mean, that's still, we should say that. Yeah, I mean, they still do that, but I can understand how the clouds gathering overhead can make people sort of wary of where they're going. And, you know, that intrusion into the editorial board process is chilling, right? And it suggests that, you know, there might not be, you know, the division of church and state like they used to be over there. Because that was one of the places you kind of face, especially under Marty Barron. You got the real sense. He's like, get the hell out of my newsroom.

You know, they use one of them kind of people. And I don't even know if that's going to be possible. Only Marty Barron could have done that in those circumstances. I don't know that that's possible anymore. That's absolutely right. And if you just imagine you're one of those reporters over there who has options, maybe the New York Times is calling. Maybe that Atlantic money is calling you.

And you're sort of thinking about it. And you and I could probably guess what, you know, the posties are telling the post editors, are saying, look, you don't want to go to the New York Times. Oh, yeah. You don't want to sit behind Haberman and Swan and Peter Baker's writing every news analysis. You're going to get lost. Yeah.

You're going to get buried over there. You have opportunity to be a star here. Yeah. Yeah. You do what you're going to give you a lot of agency over here. But then you're weighing that against Will Lewis, the kind of nebulous vision for the newsroom. Whenever anybody says change agent, I think we can both agree that, like, newspapers need

change agent. especially non-New York Times, non-Wall Street Journal newspapers. They need something. Absolutely. But what does that mean? Yeah, I mean, change. I'll stop being again, I mean, this is sort of the obvious point. Change isn't always for the better.

You know, change can go either way. It doesn't necessarily mean a good thing is going to happen. And, I mean, the fact that, I mean, it doesn't seem likely that they're going to get somebody that the newsroom is going to like in that job. at this point. Like I saw that like Kevin Merida, for instance, is one of the people mentioned is what is, was being considered for that role and he's not interested. And it's like, oh, man, like if, I mean, Kevin Merida, who has his own experience at the LA Times to talk about, right? But if they're not going to even get somebody, it just, it seems like they're bound to have a

really rough year, like a rough year two, three, right? Yeah. And Matt Murray, who's been kind of the acting executive editor, the good cop. in the newsroom, he may wind up getting it at the end of the day. Because what are the options at this point? So glad you said the words LA Times. Oh. Because if you feel bad about the Washington Post and want to feel better, read an article about the Los Angeles Times.

Oh my God. You know, what owner Patrick Soon-Shong is doing over there. You read this big piece that James Rainey, their reporter wrote when they had an interview with Soon-Shan. First of all, what an assignment. I mean, man. It was, it went on. I was, it was very in depth.

I was kind of surprised, right? It was a good article. It was a good article. It really was. I was surprised that they went there with that dude in their own newspaper. I was, it was encouraging in a way. And so funny, because you're doing reporting for your colleagues. Right.

Right. I mean, that's partly for readers, but really that's for people that work at the L.A. Times. Right. They want to know what they're about to be facing and what is, this guy is thinking about, right? And it doesn't seem that he's been very reflective about all the chaos he's wrought with his decisions either, right? Like he's, Shunshong is mostly dug in, is what it seems like to me. It really does. I mean, so this is a couple of things he's done.

We can talk about the spiking of an endorsement similar to what happened at the Washington Post and some sort of moves he's made with the opinion section editorial page. One thing that got a lot of attention is he took Scott Jennings from CNN who's kind of viral conservative guy on CNN. Vile conservative guy. I mean, he's like, he's like, you know, whatever ESPN would have the one guy's like, this person will make people mad on the panel. Right.

Scott Jennings has that corner at CNN. And soon, Sean said, I want you to join the Los Angeles Times editorial board. Because we need some new voices over here. That one, I guess, I got to say. That didn't bother me that much. I mean, there's a lot of talk about editorial boards, and they comprised such a small part of a newspaper, right? Like, I don't, when I think of a newspaper, I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about the editorial board endorsement or not. So to your point, I can sort of understand being like, all right, whatever, Scott Jennings over there.

If that's what you want to do, go right ahead. Yeah, I mean, there's columnist like that at every paper. Everybody read Mark Tieson at the Washington Post? Like this is... Charles Crodheimer. Yeah, this wouldn't have been my first choice to shake things up at the L.A. Times, but whatever. I think the weirder thing that Soon, Sean was talking about,

and he said this on Jennings' podcast, was the bias meter. That's... The bias meter. He wanted to have a thing that used augmented intelligence, and I'm not smart enough to know the difference between standard AI and that AI, but use augmented intelligence to tell you whether or not a piece was biased to the left or biased to the right. I mean, this seems like a waste of time and resources, but we are going to get AI or augmented intelligence or whatever amalgam of that there is,

no matter what. It's been decided. We're going to have to contend with this. And so I, do you think he did that to sound sort of cutting edge too. It's not, it's not just about signaling to your readers that we're trying to tackle bias. It's like, we're really, you know, we're really engaging in this new technology and you're going to be, you know, I felt like it was also kind of that too. So that's the thing that's going to make me pay for the LA Times? Hey, they got, they got augmented intelligence. Hell yeah. I mean, clearly that guy doesn't know anything about, like that, so if you read the interview, how can, I've heard this as just a casual, person in media.

He didn't know that the LA Times had fewer subscribers in California than the New York Times. Like, I feel like I've known that fact for like close to a decade now. Isn't that the most cited fact about any local newspaper? He was surprised. Like, what are you doing? I wonder why this is. Yeah. Couldn't be that the New York Times is orders of magnitude better than the other times.

Right. And you get a better product. Yeah. I'm just shocked that he did not know that. But it really seems to, and you tell me if you feel the same way, that he really doesn't know what he's doing, and he doesn't know how to build an audience. And he's like, he's in like 2008 or 2009 post-T party thinking,

where he thinks, oh, I can appeal to conservative readers by doing this and they'll come. And it's like, oh, we found out by like 2011, 2012, that that's just not going to happen. like you're not going to be able to appeal to them. And he's just not updated his mainframe. He needs some augmented intelligence. It totally reminds me of what you're talking about ESPN in the 2010s, where people were pointing at it and going, you guys have a political problem or, you know,

a lefty bias, quote unquote problem. But it's like, no, they have a crumbling cable bundle problem. Right. And for these newspaper proprietors, especially the LA Times, you're like, no, no, the problem is the, newspaper business. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. You can put your bias meter on everything from an editorial to Bill Addison's review of Republique, and it's not going to bring conservative people into the paper. They're not going to be like, oh, now I will subscribe to a newspaper. Right. And also,

like, you're writing if a newspaper, a local newspaper, a regional newspaper at its best, is writing about like local government, you know, all that. Like, that's sports. Sports. Sports. You know, like lifestyle stuff. What is that actually helping? That's not telling you anything about the content that's actually going into the paper. Like everything in the news is not along some sort of predictable political bias meter. Like sometimes it falls outside of that. And when you think of news like that, it just shows me that you're actually not a news consumer.

It looks like the bias meter is only going to be on editorials and opinion columns, but still. Even that. Even that. I mean that. I mean, there's two ways to think of this, right? Like this is a dumb decision in terms of editorial. Like that's just, that's just a bad decision. Right.

But it's also a bad business decision. Because if you chase off liberal readers of the paper who are the people that are left, like, then what? Then what happens? Look how that worked out for the Washington Post. And you get those 200,000 people back now? Right.

I mean, who've been like, yeah, I don't pay anymore. And I read Politico and I go on with my day. you spend so much, again, you spend so much time talking about the editorial board and opinion columns, and they comprise such a small part of a newspaper. Like, I just feel like you do a real disservice by leading with that when you're talking about a newspaper,

because I think for the most part, people that are looking for political opinion, and this is no disrespect to the people working at the L.A. Times in those departments, I don't think they're going there for that. I think they're going on because they want to know what's going on in Southern California up to the Valley, Central Valley. I don't think they're going there for like political commentary. Political commentary is cheap. You can get it anywhere. Right. And if you lead with that and you keep hammering people over the head with that, you're overestimating the impact in reach of those sections at the expense of your really good.

And with a news organization with a lot of potential to continue to get better, like by focusing on that stuff, I think. I get the print edition at the house on weekends. and the other day there was one opinion piece. That was like the opinion page is kind of one page sometimes. It was one and it was about the midfield college football celebrations. What is the bias meter going to weigh in on that one? I mean, well, you know, I mean, they do call it Iowa on the Pacific.

So there's a lot of big tit fans in L.A., right? Very true. Headline number three, Joel, Donald Trump has not stopped suing us. Yeah. Now, Trump was assuming. ABC News, you remember this, for defamation, based on something George Stephanopoulos said on the air, ABC reached a $16 million settlement.

Well, that didn't end the lawsuits in a huge upset, I know, for everyone. And now Donald Trump is suing Anne Seltzer, the Iowa-based pollster, her firm, the Des Moines Register and Gannett. He's doing it under the Iowa. Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. And he's helping us remember that N. Seltzer poll right before the election that had Kamala Harris up three points in Iowa. That's not that's not what you want in your Wikipedia entry.

If you can help it, I would imagine. You really don't. And you'd think Donald Trump winning Iowa by 13 points would have been victory enough. But no, he is suing the aforementioned parties under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. Can we just agree? I mean, the whole idea that somehow Donald Trump would be appeased if you just settle the suits with him was the craziest idea I have ever heard. I get the inclination to be a coward under these circumstances, right? Because you're like, well, you know, we, that lawsuit was filed in Florida, correct? And so you might end up with a jury pool of people who hate the media. I mean, and, you know, and. Wait, yeah. It's happened in Florida before.

It's happened in Florida before, right? And you're just scared that you might lose the whole thing. But Trump is, I mean, you don't need me to say it. Trump is driven by grievance? Like, I mean, not only is he going to make you fold, but then he's also going to stick the flag at your midfield. Like, you know, it's not going to be over. Actually, I want local newspapers to say,

succeed. And I want them to thrive. I want them to survive. But like, I mean, on the other hand, who's done more damage to local newspapers? I mean, Trump or Gannett? You know what I mean? So, I mean, in that way, I have to choose. In that way, I'm kind of like, well, at least it happened to Gannett, you know? The expense of people in Iowa, I'm sorry, but I was like, well, you know, you kind of get what you deserve. But no, you cannot appease this guy. I mean, You've said that too. Like there's just, he knows you're a weakling now, and he's just going to keep coming back at you. And I bet when he calls on people in the press briefings, he's like, oh, ABC, that money you gave me.

I spent it on, you know, chick-fil-a for Clemson the other day. You know what I mean? Like, he's going to clown them at every opportunity going forward. He's suing the Pulitzer Prize Board for libel. He's suing CBS News for the editing of the Harris clip because she did 60, minutes and he didn't do 60 minutes, so there was no clip of him to edit. Yeah, man. I mean, and it's, I find this richly ironic that he gets reelected.

So to an extent he is out of legal jeopardy, but us reporters, now we're getting taken to court? I mean, man, it's, I mean, don't you, and it, I think this is also happening at a really interesting time in journalism when there's just so much fracturing. I mean, there's people like doing substacks, like good journalism on substacks and podcasts, they're so much more legally vulnerable. Like, you could imagine him a lot of people having to close up their shop because people just can't afford an attorney. You know, like if you did your substack, you're not, you don't have, you're not paying a retainer for an attorney. You know what I mean?

A media attorney. So it's, I get the, I, again, I understand why they're just like, let's just pay this and move forward. and maybe we can normalize relations, quote, normalized relations. But I actually don't know if there's a good answer, though. I don't know what the right response is, to be honest. Like, I mean, I guess they should not have settled. And maybe they should have, but like if they lose that case, then what are we, you know, then what are we saying?

Right. And then that's the argument. You don't want to put a bad decision on the books because that could hurt everybody else. You don't want to lose the case because there's money involved in the case. But what is it? Like, it's your lead news anchor. George Stephanopoulos. Right.

You know, and by the way, he should, he should be correct when he's saying there doing an interview and it was with Nancy Mace, of all people,

but he should, he should get the wording right. Like he should, that should be one of those things that is, you know, that you spend 30 seconds on being like, I want to make sure I get the wording right here,

even if it's a very small difference in wording. But at the same time, like this is your lead news anchor. And you're just going to be like, I'm sorry, that's worth a $16 million dollar settlement because he misspoke about a public, about a public figure, and we're afraid we're going to lose in court because of that?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, who is more, how many, I mean, there's a lot of unpopular groups of people in this country. I mean, how far do you have to get from the bottom though before journalists are right there? You know what I mean? You see a newspaper. We're the, we're the lowest of love. We're pretty down there. I mean, it's us and, you know, yeah. Yeah. Headline number four, And just because it's almost Christmas, the NBA ratings, fretting about the NBA ratings comes earlier every year. Where did this recent thing come? Was it because Adam Silver was talking before the finals of the NBA Cup?

Yeah. And acknowledging that ratings were down a little bit. Yeah. He had a little press conference. And I think it's been a sort of thing that's been, you know, circulating on the internet. The usual NBA fans suspects have been talking about. about it, you know, and the ratings have been down. And they brought it to his attention and he had to address it, right?

Do you want to talk about the ratings being down or do you want to talk about the talk about the talk about the ratings being down? Um, well, you tell me, I don't know enough to know why ratings are down like this. And I mean, there are a lot of theories that like, you know, this was a heavily politicized year. Maybe some people were just sort of tuning away from TV, period. I don't know, you know, what's happening in basketball that would make people want to, you know, turn away like that. It doesn't, nothing seems intuitive to me. The encroachment of the NFL continues the pace.

Like, they continue to, like, you know, kill everything in their path. But I, yeah, so the talk about the talk maybe is a tad more interesting. And I guess it's like talking about record sales and in music. I just, I don't find it to be particularly compelling theater. if we don't have like some compelling theories as to why this happening. And I actually, I think people want to talk about the style of play. They want to look, they want to find a reason to talk about how NBA players are failing their fans.

Like I think that's at the end of the day. They want to, they want to put this on the players and say, you guys are shooting too many threes, man. And, and it's your fault. And I just don't know that it's that simple. Are three-pointers not exciting to people? I mean, it should be when professionals shoot them, right?

Don't you find like NBA players who are shooting lights out from beyond the arc to be incredibly exciting? Right. So I was talking about this with somebody earlier. I'm like, is it, was it really better when like Steve Francis pulled people out and, you know, dribbled around for 18 seconds to beat somebody off the post or like throw it down in the post to Jamal McGuire? I mean, I don't know. Like with John McGlore, I mean, is that, was that better basketball? Not Jamal McGlore, it wasn't? Yeah.

I mean, how many games from the Knicks Rocket series in finals back in the day should you have to watch before you can complain about three-point shooting? Oh, my God. I mean, get out of here with this stuff. Like, what? That's just, I don't actually get that. And that's one of the theories.

And then there's the whole, all the American-born stars, because LeBron and Steph are getting old, and then they're going to shove off here in a few years. And whenever I hear this stuff, I'm like, what is anybody supposed to do? Right. like are the network's going to invent an American-born star who's going to change basketball like

those two guys did they're going to vent him in a lab and then say here NBA put him on the court like no like that's not going to happen so what is anybody going to do about this we have you seen the theory and this is like Colin Cowherd's co-host jason mcintyre said something along the lines of inside the NBA is the problem because they're so negative about the players in the games i'm like do you really really do you really? think that's why people are like not watching like do you think they're taking their cues from charles barkley and be like you know what i'm actually not going to watch nets versus bucks tonight that was that would felt like an an an opportunity to get in before the end of the year to have the

most nuclear take of 2024 there's a couple of shopping days left i got to get this one in there i mean yeah i'm just like i feel like inside the NBA is good and i think that it's clear that they love basketball, but they also like clowning on people. And like that, that's part of the fun of basketball. Yeah. And any sport and TV generally. I mean, our friend Bob Stern, Dallas Sports Radio host, was actually saying the opposite, which was that before the NBA Cup final, if you watched ESPN's pregame show, they were doing,

hey, is Janice going to be traded? And he's like, here you have the final of this thing you're telling us is important or at least fun and you're not even talking about the game, you're talking about trade possibilities before the game. Right. You're saying that the product is not interesting enough to just spend, you know, time just talking about the game we're about to watch. Right.

That's much more compelling to me. And see, actually, you know what, Brian, that speaks to the broader. I think maybe a broader problem that, again, I don't know what you do. You do here. But we have found out that nobody really cares about the regular season. and then none of it matters, right? The Bucks did not celebrate winning the Emirates Cup because, you know, Darvinham, who was the head coach of the Lakers when they won last year and as an assistant in Milwaukee was like, well, you know, we did that last year and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a good idea. And so Doc Rivers took his cues from Darwin Ham and they didn't celebrate at all.

And I'm like, well, if you guys want us to pretend that this thing is important and a big deal and you guys can't even do it, then like, what do you want us to do? And then we've spent a whole, well, can James Harden do it into play? So actually, as a Houston Rockets fan, this is sort of like James Harden. James Hardin's revenge because James Hardin plays hard as hell, like during the regular season. Like that dude, you can say whatever you want about that guy, that guy shows up and he puts up numbers and he put teams on his back. Like he played really, really hard for a very, very long time. What is his reputation nationally? A playoff choker.

He doesn't get it done in the playoffs. Absolutely. Right. Maybe the fifth, sixth, one of the seven greatest shooting guards in NBA history, like, statistically. And like we think of him as a loser because he has some bad games in the playoffs against other great players. So, I mean, what do you want us to do? You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I think it's, the media may have a role in this, but I don't think you can put that on inside the NBA.

It's a whole bunch of other people that are, that have done that and to diminish the regular season, I think. Yeah. And when things like this happen, it's always a bunch of things. Like there's a whole bunch of things that can be right. I mean, certainly, like, famous basketball players not playing in lots of regular season games is part of the story, right? Like that's, but is that the only thing? Is it probably 100 things that are all happening at once? The NFL coming to crush the NBA on Christmas Day, which is a Wednesday, just still one of the funniest things that's ever happened.

Like, that's part of the story, you know? Like, it's all part of the story. Changing viewership habits. You know, maybe the absence. of a great compelling team and a villain or whatever, right? Like there's not, we just came out of the, I mean, can you give us a second? Like, we just came out of the Steph Curry-Lebron era, right? And so like they're looking for somebody else.

Maybe that person's going to show up. Maybe it'll be Wimby. Maybe it'll be somebody up. Maybe it'll be Cooper Flagg. Who knows? Maybe it'll be the Celtics. I got a feeling in mind. I got a whole team's worth.

You're not a big fan of Jason Taylor? I just like to just, you know, Boston pushback is one of my favorite things to do here at the Ringer. We got to keep everybody honest. It's telling my feelings about Dallas that I kind of overlooked the whole Boston thing to root for them against the Mavs. You did? That was what you were that, you were that, you were that, you were that, you were that, you were willing to root for the Celtics over the Mavericks? I bet Houston. I wanted Boston to deny Dallas happiness, yes.

You need to have a special Dallas versus Houston theme show here at the. press box. Just have it all an airing of grievances. Maybe we'll do that in the new year. I got a couple of quick headlines to hit you with. Okay. Before we go, we'll call this segment B-school until we get a new name. Number one, did you see Charles Barkley on the Dan Patrick show? I did not. Teasing that he was listening to overtures from NBC and Amazon, despite the conventional wisdom being that inside to ESPN was a done deal. also he was retiring he's retiring he's a free agent he's retiring he's devoted to his turner friends he's everything i mean nobody has figured this out better than charles charles brocly's not on social

media but he has absolutely figured out our media world where if you just say something and if it seems important or it seems like a statement of principle from a famous person that that will be covered like crazy no matter what you actually think. Right. Charles Barkley, I mean, I was a big Charles Barkley fan as a kid. My dad shaved his head so we could go watch Barclay when he came to Houston with the sons.

Like they had a whole deal where they were cut the fans' heads outside the summit, the Houston Summit, and you could get in and get in for free. So my dad cut his hair off so we could watch the sons versus the Rockets. But, I mean, one of the earliest things I remember about Charles Barkley is when his autobiography came out and he said that he didn't remember that he wasn't responsible

for some of the stuff that was in there that the writer had taken some of it. He denounced it. Yeah, so I mean, Charles Brockley has just been talking forever, man. You can't really pin him down. He was Republican and now he's not a... You know what I mean? Like, it's just Charles was so great about it. Because the media reporters, you dive on everything

like it's a meaningful statement. And like, I swear half of these have been on the Dan Patrick show. I love Dan Patrick, but it's just like, oh, I remember when he was on your show talking about going to live golf. How did that turn out? And now he's just chumming the water some more. And you're like, he has figured it out.

He's absolutely figured it out. We will dive on whatever. And I love, I still love Charles Barkley as a commentator. He's one of the best ever do it. I want him to have a wonderful and fertile free agent period where he gets all the money he can because he absolutely deserves it. But like, this is hilarious. This is just beyond funny.

Does Chuck have a publicist? Chuck is his publicist. That's what I was going to say. Okay. Chuck's cell phone is his publicist. Okay. All right. The people aren't going through Turner Sports for those interviews.

They're going through Charles Berkeley. Number two for you, Hubey Brown is going to call his last game. 91 years old. Still does it at incredibly high level. It's going to be February 9th in Milwaukee where ESPN says he began his NBA coaching career. Wow. Yeah, that's a moment that, that made me sad if you'd say it like that.

That mean, Hubey's been a part of basketball, our entire life, man. He's been a really, absolutely our entire life. And then he is, he's been a guy, you know, like he's been a guy, sometimes the guy, but mostly a guy on television our entire lives. He's been Cotton Fitzsimmons old to me my entire life. The fact that he's only 91 now, that he's only 91 now. I was like, damn, he's only 91. Cotton Fitzsimmons old.

Oh, my God. I love that. Cotton Fitzsimmons old. So, yeah, man, that is a moment, man. I hope people appreciate that guy because he really, I mean, you know, when people talk about how people make you a fan of the game and an appreciation for it. And, like, Hubey is one of those people that, like, you can't help but share his enthusiasm and love for the game, right?

Like, he, I think he was a really good steward of the game, man, for as long as he did it. And, you know, it's sad to lose somebody like that. especially as the NBA seems to be going in whatever direction it's going to be going. My only complaint here, February 9th, 2 p.m. when this game airs, that's during the Super Bowl pregame show. Oh, my God. Can we have waited a week and just gotten Hubie his own news cycle? Man, damn, Hubey. Oh, man, yeah, the week after the Super Bowl would have been perfect because, you know, people are recovering.

All those NFL reporters. We need something to talk. We need content. We need podcast segments. We can have a whole week. Can they rethink this? Is there still time? Maybe they listen to the show.

It's nice that it's in Milwaukee, but didn't you be coach everywhere? Can we get another game? I mean, seriously. Yeah, seriously. Get him in Memphis.

Is there a game in Memphis or something that he can go to or something? All right. Last one for you. There was a story in the New Yorker by Vincent Cunningham. Whenever I see Vincent Cunningham's by line, I always perk up.

Vince is my guy. Yeah. It's about Jaliel White, aka Urkel. Oh, man. I got to read this story already. And I won't spoil. So I won't spoil.

So I won't spoiler for you or anybody listening to it, but go read it because it's good. It's really good. One thing that made me smile was the headline of the story. So the headline in the print New Yorker was excellent. It was up from Urkel, up from Urkel. Up from Urkel. I love that. Pretty good.

Now, something kind of funny sometimes happens with New Yorker headlines when they go from the print magazine to the web. because we got a SEO them we got to make sure we're covering our bases so when it went to the web it became up from Urkel world famous nerd so somehow the print magazine which

is you know delivered to let's say a certain kind of New Yorker reader at this point in history sure they trusted that the people of the Upper East side would know who Erkel was but then when we got to the internet we needed to make sure that people knew that Erkel was a world famous nerd.

Can you explain that to me? Erkel's 30. I mean, Family Matters is an old show, man. That's like Gidget for us. Like we were kids or something like that. You know, like Green Acres or something. Oh, yeah. Exactly, the monsters.

Yeah, so, I mean, I guess they do kind of, I mean, I don't know if a kid would know who Erkle is now. Up for Urkel. But I kind of feel like you wouldn't read it. unless you kind of knew who Erkel was. Yeah, if you're like, oh, that world famous nerd, now I know who you're talking about. Yeah, oh, man, right.

Yeah, I mean, there have been a lot of famous nerds, but he probably, probably the preeminent nerd, I suppose, right? I guess I don't know. Nerds have sort of taken a villainous turn in the last generation or so. So he was sort of a softhearted, a throwback to a kinder, gentler era of nerd, even though he was a harasser. I mean, he can't deny that he harassed Laura Winslow.

Yeah, pretty bad. All right, Joel, should we do a little scheduled talk here before we go? Yeah. So Shoemaker and I are back Monday. Okay. That will be the last pre-Christmas edition of the press box. But then you and I are coming back. Yeah.

With a vengeance that last week of the year. You and I are going to be Monday. Mm-hmm. And then Thursday, which is January 2nd. We got two shows. Those will be our Yola Bokoflod shows. I hope people can... Apologies to the people of Iceland for mispronouncing that.

I hope people can deal with me having to be on here twice in a week. It's going to be fantastic. What do you mean deal with? It's going to be amazing. We're going to come on the day after the New Year's Bowls. Oh, man, that's going to be so fun. So we are going to talk football then, huh? We're going to talk football.

I actually got a press pass to the Rose Bowl. Shut up. Shut up. Hey, wait a minute. You know, I don't want to talk about, we were talking about going to a bowl game together, right? I'm ready. You're ready. You have to understand this is like eight minutes from my house. So like this is the lowest effort thing I could possibly. That sounds really, really dramatic, but it's like I'm going down the street. I want to go get a, I want to go there and go to that Bristol farms down the street from you and get a get the cookie. So that would be fun.

I love the cookie. You love the cookie? I love the cookie. I got there's a peanut butter version now I want you to know when you come here for the Rose Bowl next year I go get a cookie I go get a cookie every time I'm in L.A. So I love it so much. All right Joel, Merry Christmas.

Likewise. Happy holidays. Happy Yola Boka flawed. I'll see you with presents in a couple of weeks. All right. Happy Kwanza, guys.