The Press Box - Trump vs. Fauci, NFL “Fake” Crowds, Listener Mail | The Press Box

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss Trump vs. Fauci and the debate on science (1:20), whether or not the NFL will utilize fake crowds as fans (23:30), and lastly, Listener Mail, when we answer questions including: “If Bryan and David could be the host of another 'Ringer' podcast, which would it be, and why?” Plus: the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and of course, David Shoemaker guesses the Strained Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. We're excited to announce our latest podcast launching this week called Behind the Billions. Coming from the two co-creators of Billions, Brian Copleman and David Levine give a behind-the-scenes look into Billions Season 5. Following each episode's airing on Showtime, the podcast will impact the writing of the script, exclusive stories from production, interviews with casting crew, and much more. The first episode is out now, so make sure to subscribe to Behind the Billions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer here.

This is a press box. Today's agenda includes a discussion of whether NFL games this fall should have fake crowd noise and virtual fans. What would that be like alongside the soothing voices of Joe and Troy? We'll also answer your listener mail questions, including what other Ringer podcast would David and I secretly liked to host. Plus, David guesses a strain pun headline in the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, I want to start with Donald Trump

versus Anthony Fauci. That tone I'm doing there is the tone of sad inevitability because this felt like it was coming forever from the moment either it doesn't even go back to Anthony Fauci

contradicting Donald Trump, does it? It's just about Anthony Fauci being a star right and getting good press which then makes Trump mad is that do we think the actual genesis of this oh man this is so fraught um yeah i mean first disclaimer anthony fauchy is not presumably um in the business of trying to become a star he's not uh actively seeking attention in some sort of like self-glorifying way uh but yes that he is the primary source of good information during this coronavirus situation that we're all in,

and since he's obviously the target of a ton of media attention in the sense that he's become a star in that way, yes, that it was clear from the beginning that that would great on the president. But I do think that there is a, that tension was always there. But there's a deeper tension, or there's a parallel tension that we're going to get at. Can we just, let's go ahead and get into the actual audio of this, because I think there's two things happening at the same time here. All right, here's your play-by-play.

on Monday in his press briefing, Donald Trump says of the coronavirus, we have met the moment and we have prevailed. Later, he said that only meant that the U.S. had prevailed at increasing testing access, but never mind. A day later, at a Senate hearing, Anthony Fauci is talking about should we open the economy.

And in fact, he's warning against reopening the economy too fast, especially when it comes to schools, potentially going back this fall. He was met with criticism by Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky. Let's listen to that. So I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what's best for the economy.

And as much as I respect to you, Dr. Fauci, I don't think you're the end all. I don't think you're the one person that gets to make a decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there's not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy.

And the facts will bear this out. But if we keep kids out of school for another year, What's going to happen is the poor and underprivileged kids who don't have a parent that's able to teach them at home are not going to learn for a full year. And I think we ought to look at the Swedish model and we ought to look at letting our kids get back to school. I think it's a huge mistake if we don't open the schools in the fall. I don't want to get us off subject, but I do think it's important to mention that for all of the shit, Rant Paul has gotten over the years about potentially wearing a wig or a hairpiece. Somehow, you know, when we're in this crazy coronavirus beard era, it's sort of the truth wins out.

And he turns out his beard looks just as fake as his hair. does. He's just a fake-haired-looking individual. So now we can get back to the substance of the manner. Resolved. Rand Paul is merely a fake-haired-looking individual. All right. That was Rand. Anthony Fauci then responded by warning about recent data that has shown that

coronavirus may be more dangerous to children than previously thought. Here's Fauci. The second thing is that you use the word we should be humble about what we don't know. And I think that falls under the fact that we don't know everything about this virus. And we really better be very careful, particularly when it comes to children. Because the more and more we learn, we're seeing things about what this virus can do that we didn't see from the studies in China or in Europe. For example, right now, children presenting with COVID-19, who actually have a very strange inflammatory syndrome,

very similar to Kawasaki's syndrome, I think we better be careful if we are not. not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects. So again, you're right in the numbers that children, in general, do much, much better than adults and the elderly, and particularly those with underlying conditions. But I am very careful and hopefully humble in knowing that I don't know everything about this disease, and that's why I'm very reserved in making broad predictions. Thank you. So on Wednesday

Donald Trump gets involved He is not shockingly Frustrated by Anthony Fauci's Comments by his caution Here's Trump Wang in He's playing both sides Are you suggesting that the advice

I was surprised by his answer actually Because You know It's just To me it's not an acceptable answer especially when it comes to schools. The only thing that would be acceptable, as I said, is professors, teachers, et cetera, over a certain age.

I think they ought to take it easy for another few weeks, five weeks, four weeks, who knows, whatever it may be. But I think they have to be careful, because this is a disease that attacks age, and it attacks health. And if you have a heart problem, if you have diabetes, if you're a certain age, it's certainly much more dangerous. But with the young children, I mean, and students, it's really, just take a look at the statistics.

It's pretty amazing. It should be noted, of course, that before any of this happened, Trump and Fauci's relationship had both been on the rocks and been a subject of a number of news articles about it being on the rocks. Nearly a month ago, Trump quote tweeted a tweet that included the hashtag fire Fauci. Just just a little trial balloon. just putting out a trial balloon for the potentially firing the most important person in his administration right now. I mean, oh, God, this is sort of what I'm getting at. What Fauci said, the cautious alarm he was raising about the potential effects on children of the coronavirus, something that we talked about, I think, the last episode,

this is an alarm that has been going off silently or not silently in the heads of every parent of small children. in the country since the beginning of this thing. The only thing I think in the same way that like, you know, we've said kind of, you know, semi-seriously that if you had told us three months ago that we would have been locked up inside, you know, we would have been having to stay inside for two, three, four months straight. We would have all just gone insane and started murdering each other. Somehow we all sort of evolved into this little stasis that we're in now.

Have you told us at the beginning that this would be affecting children in any way? Like, the vast majority of parents in this country would be living in fallout shelters right now, right? I mean, we wouldn't have taken this even as easily as we did. So the fact that Fauci's saying that out loud is actually comforting in the way that there's some sort of affirmation to it. But one of the greatest frustrations that we've been, that everyone, not just parents, everyone's been saying to this whole thing, is feeling like you're not getting the whole story from the people that are in charge. And I don't mean to sound conspiratorial about it. But when he says one thing and you actually feel like, oh, someone's finally saying it.

And then the president comes out the next day and he's just like, nah. It's weird and it's and it's frustrating and by the way the other the tension that I was talking about before was not just the kids thing It's school. It's this school. It's it's school this it's it's school this fall which there is a really front be and this is not again no conspiracy theory here because of the way that because of the crisis that we're dealing with right now there is just a lack of concrete information across the board right if you are if you left your driver's license and your desk at work and you need to figure out when you can get it back, you know, then like, you don't have an answer for that right now. And you might not have an answer for that question for a while. That's a frustrating thing. But there's this broad assumption that school is going to that mean forever since this thing started. The school was going to be back on this fall because literally the explanation is, well, of course it is. Meanwhile, what a month ago, we had Gavin Newsom

in California and saying, we're definitely going to have school, but it might just be that school happens in shifts because we can't give it all the kids in the same classroom at the same time, right? Which is basically a code for saying there's not going to be school this fall, right? When you have people like in New York who are just like saying like putting on a happy face, but literally it is impossible for there to be school based on the details of what they're saying, right? We are hopeful that there's going to be school, but and then everything after the but is just saying we're not going to have school.

This is a really good indicator of where our culture or where we're something. society is going to be come September. And of course, no one's ready to say it out loud for the same reason that it took New York so long to close public schools because of the financial implications, because of the societal and economic implications. But no one's going to say it out loud, but this is a very concrete thing that I think someone who is really paying attention to the situation is going to say, I mean, could have said at any point over the past month, if we're not going to have sporting events, and we'll talk more about this later, with crowds until November at the earliest, we are not going to have school until November at the earliest.

Yes. Right? Unless there's some just incredible, I mean, just very dire situation, we have to send parents back to work. We're going to do, you know, school as we know it will not be occurring in the fall. And it is important that someone say that out loud. And that is the most important thing to our president is that people, don't say the true things that make people scared.

Yeah, and the school part, and we say this as parents, not knowing the answer to the school part, screws with you like nothing else. Yeah. If I'm telling you like, David, I don't know when you and I are going to be able to get back to Chili's and, you know, and have the Southwest egg rolls again. It may not be till 2022.

We're like, okay. Or we're not going to be able to get back to a sporting event. You and are like, oh, whatever. We say, I don't know if the kids are going to be able to be able to be able to, to be in school in September. That is so much, such a much different answer than yes or no, right? Because we're both looking at each other like, well, what we need to plant this. We want to figure it out.

One, from a safety point of view, how worried should we be if the answer is yes. Two, from a family logistical survival point of view, how are we going to get through the fall? What are we going to do? Do we need to have a discussion with our respective partners about, okay, we need to lock in and, and we're going to be. be teachers and caretakers all day of our kids for the foreseeable future. Like that, that's a big deal and a big decision.

But the answer right now in a lot of ways is, I don't know, right? Or we just, we don't have enough information, which is what you hear about you trying to say, right? He's saying there are a lot of bad warning signs on the horizon that this might be a really terrible idea. So we can't say, yes, we should put them in or this is a great. idea. But then there's this pushback from Trump. Oh, and Brandba, oh, you know, you just, I don't, quite negative. He's being very negative. Why won't he just say that we should be getting the kids back in school? Yeah, why don't we just wait? Let's just wait a minute to see if the reopenings

that have already happened proceed in a positive way. Yes. You know, before we just insist on, you know, put on a happy face mandates for all of our government officials. Why don't we see how the haircuts that all these politicians just got turnout before we make a sweeping pronouncement? I do think it's funny. This is interesting about Fauci. How many other crises, government situations generally, do you remember where there is like a wise man that knows all the answers and all the government guys that usually know all the answers just have to defer to him? and this is not a defense of Trump. Like the only time I can think of this is like during a war, right? Like, you know, during Operation Desert Storm back when we were kids, you know, there was a certain amount of like, look, Norman Schwarzkopf has got this.

You know, like we're making the big decisions here, but he is, he's the general. He's got this. We have to kind of just do what he tells us to do. We're going to make, you know, we're going to say invade Iraq or free Kuwait, but he's going to make the decisions. This is not how politicians work, right? So I think part of what. you see here is one that Trump and some of the Republicans have this very different policy agenda and Trump wants to get reelected and all that stuff. The other thing is like they're just in a

strange position of that dude has all the information and all the answers and we don't know anything. And that makes them as alpha males, as politicians, as powerful people, really, really uncomfortable. Yeah. I mean, the whole situation is, part of me is more anxious about the relationship between Trump and Fauci and part of it's a byproduct of having this conversation out loud right now. But part of I'm more as much anxiety about that as I do about almost about the actual

situation that we're in. I mean it is this is the place that I mean you're right there's so many different motivations and that is I think you know great man, great woman theory aside who I mean we're not I mean no matter who you're listening to

that is one of those assurances that we've employed had from our government forever, that it feels like, that just feels like another thing that's just like out of control right now, right? That you don't have assurance about something, that you don't have agreement coming from the highest levels, that you don't have, that you don't even have the assurance that the person who is in charge and is doing the right thing is going to be able to keep his job, you know, or is not going to be like overruled in every way that matters. I mean, that's frightening. It is. We got, we got Twitter questions

when there was like the first Maggie Haberman joint several weeks ago that Trump is mad at Fauci, we got at least one Twitter question that was just like, should the media report on this? Because like it's true. You know, it's obviously true. But if we all kind of stipulate that the health of Americans is dependent on some large degree to Fauci still having his job. Yeah.

should we be even reporting? The answer is, of course, we should, right? Because it's not like Trump needs an article in the New York Times to tell him to fire somebody. He's going to fire him anyway if he's mad enough at him. You know, I don't think that actually, I don't think that's an actual question. But that is the degree to which people are thinking, right? We have an irrational president. We have a president who's not doing anything.

How can we just make sure that that guy, even if Trump is listening to him 10% of the time, still has his job? I don't think it's a crazy thing to talk about, right? I mean, I don't know that this is the time or the place or if ever it is for journalists or writers, thinkers to, you know, violate their historical, ethical standards in that sort of way to try to influence reality. But we're living in a reality where, like, Trump's closest advisors are like, go on Fox News because it's a more direct way of talking to him, right? I mean, we have, there's so many examples of how irrationality is really, rationality is a very tenuous thing, right? I mean, and it's, and it's so significant here that, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it puts everybody in a really awkward, I mean, really uncomfortable position.

Yeah. And I don't even, I don't even think we could have the hypothetical, need to have the hypothetical conversation about what should the press do? Because I just don't think in this case it will make any, it has any effect. And what I'm talking about is like New York Times report. reporters reporting the truth that Anthony Fauci and Donald Trump are at odds. You know, I just don't think that's going to affect Trump's decision making at all. Now, if some, you know, Republican wants to go on Fox News and say, you know, look, I understand

that Donald Trump has been upset with some of the things that Fauci has said, but I really think he's important and he should keep him. I mean, like, whatever, right? But that, but that's not really the press in the same way. That's sort of more of a political thing. Well, I mean, we can go a little bit deeper in that part, though. I mean, I don't want to push that specific line of argument anymore, but it's clear that Trump is finding new,

new indifferent sources of information that probably come from Fox or other places like that, right? I mean, I was watching the Ingram angle for like five seconds the other day, and she was basically like rejoicing in the fact that a statistically large number of, uh, of coronavirus deaths were occurring in, in, um, retirement communities because that sort of like cordoned off a bit. number and made the existing number more reasonable and also put oh in in blue states particularly and put some of the blame on those blue state governors and whatever of and that was i think probably the same day that trump was i think it was his monday press conference where he was just like like

masks or a mixed bag or whatever i mean like like fearing like he's questioned tests he's questioned the the the importance of wearing masks he's questioned just about everything he clearly doesn't understand how it's possible that people working in the White House could test negative one day and positive the next. So, I mean, it's not just about influencing him in a public stage. I mean, what do you do when, how do you even, like, attempt to fight the good fight when, like, when he's being fed so much false information? Totally.

Yeah, David. And as we, even as we record this, I'm looking at a CNN headline, doctors in Italy make a link between COVID-19 and the rare Kawasaki-like inflammatory disease in children. So yet another reason to proceed very, very cautiously. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod.

David, on Tuesday, our president, Mr. Trump, tweeted the following. the American people are warriors, all caps, warriors, David. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. Yes, we're about to blow a three to one lead. Thanks to dude man, bro. Didn't we do this for the Atlanta Falcons a couple of weeks ago? Yeah.

So there's a bit where we're being compared to a team that like blew a big game or a big series. That's like a Twitter, Twitter template. Anyway, thanks dude, man, bro for your service. I think this audio will explain the second joke. There was a reopen America protest down in Clearwater, Florida, a city you may know primarily through baseball spring training. Listen to this report from WFLA News 8. Hey, J.B, there's about 30-some-odd people down here.

And what they're doing is they want phase two to get underway so the gyms can reopen. They don't think it's right that they can't go work out. You see, the sign, freedom for fear. They want the gyms to reopen in the area. Earlier they were all down doing push-ups, squats, and stuff just to show their support for gyms. So we want the gyms to reopen, and our protest is going to be doing push-ups on the sidewalk in public. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. It's almost as if they're proving there's a way to work out without having to open a gym.

Jim. We would have also accepted literally a weird flex, thanks to Teree Cote. And finally, David, did you see Tim Cain, Virginia Senator and former Veep candidate wearing that mad Max looking handkerchief over his mouth in the Senate the other day? Yes. Was Tim Cain trying to mount an invasion of Gastown? Was that what was going on there? So many good tweets. Don't sleep on Tim Cain's cameo in Westworld.

Tim Cain looks like he's about to accuse someone of cheating at poker. Tim Cain once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Tim Cain looks like he's a Metal Gear Solid Boss. If Tim Cain dresses like this in 2016, Hillary wins 538 to nothing. And this is my favorite. Tim Cain currently looks like a movie character that was once an upstanding citizen in the community, but got mistakenly caught up in a white-collar crime and now has to rob a bank to save his family.

Oh, my gosh. You made Tim Cain interesting. Congrats. You made the overword Twitter joke of the week. David, let's talk about whether the NFL is going to have fake crowd noise and virtual fans this season. But first, a message from the ringer.com. Hey, this is Brian Coppelman.

And this is David Levine. We are the showrunners and co-creators of billions. And this is behind the billions. Behind the billions. We're going to talk about how we make the show, the decisions we made in terms of what we decided to shoot, how we wrote it. We are going to share the Inside Skinny

on what it's like to make the show. Dave, I'm sorry I just said Inside Skinny. You did. I mean, you've set the bar high. We have a lot to provide now. And we will be providing it on Sunday nights right after the show. We'll have guests who are actors on the show.

We'll come in and talk to us. people who make cameos on the show. Should we interview crew members, too? Well, we're going to talk about some crew members, maybe standout crew members, superstars, crew superstars, if you will. Really psych to do this, psych to talk to everybody about the show. Listen in on Sunday nights right after the show airs on Showtime. All right, David, in the notebook dump, I don't know if you followed fake crowd noise gate.

Oh, yeah. Started last month, I think, when Fox's Joe Buck went on real sports and said that if there were no fans in the stands this fall for NFL games, as seems overwhelmingly likely, Fox might pump crowd noise into the telecast. Then Buck went on Andy Cohen's serious radio show, and he expanded on the crowd noise idea, and he added one more. Going into this season coming up, and that comes with a huge asterisk, and hopefully there is a season. There's probably going to be a season in doing games with no fans, which will be difficult. I think Fox and these networks have to put crowd noise under us to make it as normal

a living experience at home. You think they'll do that? I do. Yeah. Really? In fact, I know they'll do it. And they are to the point now with it. That's the conversation right now.

That's, it's pretty much a done deal. I think whoever is going to be at that control is. going to have to be really good at their job and be realistic with how a crowd would react, depending on what just happened on the field. So it's really important. And then on top of that, they're going to put, they're looking at ways to put virtual fans in the stands. So when you see a wide shot, it looks like the stadiums jam packed. And in fact, it'll be empty.

That's wild. You know, I was going to say, yeah, you can cut away to those watch parties that people have, but you can't because people aren't going to be jammed into Ballpark Village or wherever it is. First of all, I just want to say as a sports media writer, I can take getting beaten by my competitors. I'm not sure I can take getting beaten by Andy Cohen on a big story. Get off my lawn, Andy Cohen.

Joe Buck went on Twitter this morning to clarify a little bit of this, because this got weirdly put into the food processor of tweets. And SI had a headline with him saying, he says, look, some ideas will work. won't. That's the nature of working on something. It's uncharted waters. It could be a very exciting time in network TV coverage. Can't wait to see how it all plays out, praying for a safe return to a stadium near you if you're involved. He also goes on to say crowd reactions are enormous piece of the TV puzzle. All reactions by a crowd are valuable and to be used as far as I know.

I use it as much as I can and still keeping my job. Big moments like the Minnesota miracle are made on TV because of the crowd noise. Okay. So a couple of things here. One is this should probably be thought of in the sense of a network thinking out loud months before the NFL season of how are we going to do games with no fans? And should we change anything? There is nothing. I'm not going to say nothing. 99% of what you hear about media commentators, anybody who's media networks even

tangentially related who are saying things out loud or releasing things to other, to reporters or having tweets put out first. or second hand, it is every one of them is a trial balloon, no matter how definitive or vague that it sounds, they're just trying to figure things out and like you said, think out loud. Yeah, and this may not even rise to a level of trial balloon. I think Joe's

just privy to conversations that are just happening at Fox and it's kind of like, well, would that be a good idea? No, okay, let's try something else. The fake crowd noise is fascinating to me because it kind of sounds like adding a laugh track to a

football game. it feels strange on the face of it. I guess there's a couple different ways crowd noise could come in. I mean, one thing Joe was talking about was like ambient noise. You know, when you watch a baseball game on TV or on the radio, you hear that kind of murmur because baseball is really quiet.

And that you could kind of put that in and that probably wouldn't be really strange. I mean, the weird one is if there's a big catch and somebody is putting in the noise in AT&T Stadium, Jerry World, into the telecast where there was no noise in Jerry World because it were no fans. How do we think that would sound? Well, you're right. It depends on how they do it.

We just came out of WrestleMania season in the wrestling world and just had WrestleMania with no crowds. This was a conversation that all us wrestling fans were having a couple months ago. And we've been, by the way, having live or close to live wrestling every Monday and Friday night. Friday night, by the way, is on the Fox Network, executive produced by a lot of the people who are making the decisions about football right now. So I don't know if this is any indication or not. There's no crowd noise in there. And when we went into WrestleMania, one of the things that I said that was really controversial in the wrestling community was that they actually should pipe in crowd noise. And I didn't mean, listen, in the wrestling world, we fans are very attuned to. Piped in cheers and piped in booze, you know, when I think the most legendary was the piped in chance for Goldberg back in his heyday, especially in the waning period of his heyday, where they would just, the WCW would just pipe in, the loudspeakers would come on and suddenly just like millions of people were chanting Goldberg even though there was no one there alive chanting it or they would have to follow along. Anyway, we're a very, we're sensitive to this, but I'm not talking about that. I was talking about the ambient noise that you were that you enjoy. Buck were alluding to. I think that it has proven very, very awkward to watch sporting event,

if that's what you want to call pro wrestling, with just like the echoes of what you're seeing in front of you occurring in the background. Like it's so, so strange to watch that I think that if you want to have a viewing experience that is least jarring to the audience, then some sort of ambient

background crowd noise would be really helpful. Now, separate from that, If you want to talk about the touchdowns and how weird it would be, yes, someone's going to have to make a call if we're actually going to pipe in positive cheers, chance, reaction noises. The one thing we're pointing out is this is probably a lot easier than most people having this conversation to realize because there are video games that do this, like, that are being played trillions of times a day. Every time, like, like there is an algorithm for this stuff. And by the way, a huge number of the people who are watching, you're going to be watching these football games are very used to hearing these sorts of canned crowd reactions

when they watch video games, when they're playing video games, right? I mean, so like some of this are things that people are attuned to. Now, there's an ethical question about it, but I think we're sort of, that's rearview mirror stuff right now. I think this is all entertainment. And as long as they're sort of up front about what they're doing, I don't dislike it.

I think the real question is, is having the crowd noise is going to prove to be even weirder than utter silence, right? And that's the thing that's really going to be hard to know. It's sort of like some of the other technological changes

that Fox and other networks have made over the years. Sometimes it all seems, it makes a lot of sense until you put it on national television and you hear what people have to say about it. I think that's a great way to put it. What is more unnatural?

Total silence during a sporting event or possibly unnatural sounding crowd noise? I don't know the answer to that. The other thing from an announcement point of view, and this, this is the same, whether it's the NFL or wrestling, is these guys surf off the crowd, right? Crowd noise is the wave. And if you're an announcer, you are matching your voice to the excitement of the crowd and often getting a little bit even higher so that people at home can still hear you, right? If you're good at your job. So what Joe's talking about too when he talks about this stuff is if there's a big, you know, if Dak Prescott throws the ball, and this is just me wishcasting, by the way, the Cowboys season. but if

Dak Prescott throws deep to C.D. Lamb and C.D. Lamb touchdown. Cowboy. You know, he's going way up there. Are you going to be able to do that as an announcer with nothing underneath you? Or are you just going to sound even weirder than when you call touchdowns for the visiting team?

I don't know. You know, it's weird to think of a wrestling announcer. Like, by, by God, that's, you know, Goldberg's music. And there's just nothing, but there are no, cheering fans, you know, underneath it. Yeah, I mean, from firsthand experience, listen, there are a lot of varying opinions on what they've done

in WWE, both the moral side and also the, I mean, just the experiential part. I can say personally that like, I actually somehow am paying less attention to the announcers, even though there is the absence of crowd noise should make them a clearer or more

integral part of the experience, right? I think to me, the audio just sort of becomes a secondary part of the entire broadcast without without the and I'm not saying the crowd noises is a necessary piece more so than the announcing but the awkwardness the difference is jarring enough that I just sort of like just am paying I'm just experiencing it almost entirely visually but yeah it's it's a it's a tough call I mean it's it's really hard to imagine um the visual too I mean I don't even know what they've been talking about in terms of what arenas they're going to be playing in and how the, you know, if there's going to be physical empty seats in the background

of every shot or what. I mean, that's, I'm not sure that'll make a ton of difference with the, and it's different than wrestling. Football is. Basketball, you know, that's sort of the borderline, but, you know, in football, there are not that many shots where you can see the crowd, except for the deliberate crowd shots, right? I mean, even when they're sort of in the background, they're like, they're fuzzy, you know, the focus is not on the crowd if you're focusing on a player, but it's still a whole, they're going to, I mean, sure going to be a million instances where, you know, they're going to have to figure out a new way to do what they've always done. The virtual fans thing is really weird to me because I'm not really sure what is gained by that.

I guess we saw like a version of this. Was it Taiwanese baseball or the literal mannequins in the stands? But I don't know if I'm like watching an NFL game, like the fact that it would look like the stadiums full would somehow make me happier with that NFL game. game than if it looked like the stadium was completely empty. Yeah. I just don't even see the, I don't even see the upside like as a trick to that. I don't. I don't either.

Well, actually, and perhaps unsurprisingly, wrestling has a history there too. AWA, now defunct, Minnesota-based wrestling company that you may remember from late night airings on ESPN classics uh, piloted a show back in the day that I think is only available in the WW network called like the challenge series or something where they did like video screens of crowds cheering as the wrestlers

entered the ring on either side and then and then fake crowd at least to the extent of like fake cutaways to non-existent to crowd shots when there were no crowds around the ring and I got to tell you it's super weird but it is some semblance of you know it's like it's like artificial sweetener. It doesn't taste like sugar, but it tastes more familiar than what the absence of sugar tastes like. So anyway, I mean, I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, there is, I honestly believe just like the glowing puck or whatever the football equivalent of it is, you can help me out there that like, whatever we see week one will not be what we see week two. But whatever we land on is going to be, I think, weirder than we can possibly imagine right now. And you know what the important thing when the Dallas Cowboys and your favorite team come back to play, that they will be playing football on television. That will be the over what we can argue about how this sounds and looks and stuff. But you know what everybody will be grateful for? Football game.

So let's say that if they find a safe way to bring the NFL back in this very hypothetical universe, I think the thing that will be most important to people watching on TV is that the NFL is on TV. That will be the takeaway. All right, listener mail time, a Thursday tradition here at the press box. This David comes from Jody Canada, whose name I'm determined to say correctly. What's your weirdest deep dive during the pandemic? Oh, man. Do you have an answer for this?

Because I do. I do too, but please go for it. Mine is weird. Well, mine is weird. But, you know, situationally, maybe not too surprising. I have done a lot of rabbit hole reading on my one-year-old's favorite television shows. I know more about the wiggles than you could possibly want to know.

I know, but that's, I mean, that's, that one maybe is less interesting. The one that's actually really interesting is now I'm like real, real deep on Winnie the Pooh history. And there's actually a really interesting, like, license. and sync piece of that whole story too. But anyway, yeah, the deep dives on the wiggles, on Winnie the Pooh on, there's been a little bit of like Mickey Mouse Fantasia stuff. But those are the two big ones, I think, so far. I like the presumption in your voice in the first part of your answer about you knowing how much I want to know about the wiggles. How do you know that's more than I ever want to know?

mine has been this when we watch those Zoom calls with all the people in the boxes, especially the like celebrity Zoom call thing that's happening now. At some point I was like, oh my God, this is like when we were kids and we watched Hollywood Squares. Now, this is not an original idea.

Then I, this is like, we should have a whole segment called failed think piece. Because you go to Twitter and you realize everybody's had the same idea. You're the last person to realize this is Hollywood Squares. Yes. So I, my wife and I went to 80s Hollywood Squares hosted by John Davidson,

who had a real announcer voice. Hello, Stars. He was epic. And kind of revisited the world of Jim J. Bullock, Joan Rivers. Charles Nelson Riley continuing his run of being on every single game show ever. And this whole thing of watching that in the 80s and being like, wow, all these stars I didn't know. And then like a couple of years later was like, oh, wait, the reason they were on Hollywood Squares is that they were not stars. Like that was that was how they got those people.

That was a weird world. Also just some great 80s artifacts like Spencer Christian. Remember him on Good Morning America? Spencer Christian, is that a, is that a name ring a bell? It does, but I don't remember who it is. Go on. Like he was, he was in a square. You know, and it's like, oh my gosh, his, for me, Spencer Christian, so now 72 years old, still with us.

Yeah. Talking of, I mean, we, we hear a lot about, people that are sort of like bucking the system now. A lot of these startups that are that are trying to like, you know, take down the big institutions out there. I totally had forgotten. This is going back to my previous answer too about the original from our childhood. Don Bluth,

who tried to take on the Disney machine with such classics as all dogs go to heaven and an American tale. I did. Yeah, I read I think everything available online about Don Bluth last week. This reveals us both as parents because I have had that deep dive in the last three weeks. myself when shopping for content for my children. Love this question from listener Megan. If you could be the host of any other ringer podcast for a day,

which would you pick and why? David is not allowed to pick his other podcast. I wouldn't. Don't worry. Yeah, I don't know if this is the appropriate time for me to like pull up my sleeve and reveal my tea time tattoo. But it would be a lot of fun, man, what would be the best? I mean, listen, if like, I love so many ringer podcasts.

I mean, ringer podcasts. If, like, if I could host House of Carbs and it came with a company card for a week that I think I, you know, justify going out in the world and eating in the absence of a pandemic. That would be really fun. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, it would be fun to talk basketball. I get to do that anyway, at least when I'm in the office. I don't know. I mean, obviously the watch would be a lot of fun. I if I really had to do something it might be it might just be like jam session just I could just get the bullshit about celebrities that would be that would be a real like like spiritual vacation I think from my normal daily daily life yeah that seems fun you know what the scariest one I think would be would be binge mode oh god and this is the fact that Jason and Mallory are two of the nicest best people at the ringer and the ringer awesome people power rankings but just the level of knowledge you have to have to get through the door

Like you and I love Star Wars. Oh, yeah. We would not be able to hang in the Star Wars conversation on Benchmo at all. It would be bad. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, like, I know from just from the, from the West World Pod, like I like, you know, script out about five minutes an episode. And that takes so much work that I can't even imagine the, I mean, I've seen it in action.

it's hard to fathom the amount of work that they do. It's really intense. This is from Tyler Cash Padgett. Do you think the higher-ups at national media organizations are secretly concerned about a ratings decline when Trump is no longer president? Let me answer that part. Yes. If so, does that affect any of their decisions? I think that the post-Trump reckoning for like every news organization in America, you know, even ones like,

like the New York Times. I just wonder, the New York Times and the Atlantic combined have basically hired every political writer on the planet. Yeah. And, you know, the Atlantic's a little different in the way it's funded. But like, I'm just wondering, are we going to have this much sustained interest in politics after Trump? I mean, I know there'll be a lot just no matter what happens, right, as we, you know, ponder the Kamala Harris administration in 2024 or whatever it is. But are we really going to care at the same level click-wise that we do right now? Well, I mean, are we going to care? We is a society.

We are not as much. You're not contractually obligated. The higher ups of the media organizations and folks like you and me will care. I mean, I definitely foresee if Trump is, I mean, I think there's a question about whether we're this excited whether or not Trump gets elected. I mean, certainly the election, regardless of, you know, diet. Biabolical conspiratorial motivations behind programming and everything else. I mean, I think obviously the narrative right now of whether or not he gets elected is driving a lot of this attention too.

And that would be the case with any first term president. But, I mean, you know that like if no matter, I mean, no matter what happens. But I guess if Trump does not get reelected, if Joe Biden is or whoever else is their next president, then there will be like regardless. There will be that, you know, epistemological conversation or whatever that goes on in every news network about what do we look like now that the White House occupant has changed, right? I mean, does MSNBC become more of like an Oberman-esque, like attacking the attackers? Like, we're just taking on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News every episode sort of network or like, do they go in a more kind of altruistic newsy direction? And then Fox will certainly have a whole new set of targets depending on whatever happens. but, you know, we hear about that every time.

Certainly if Trump goes, it's going to change the calculus. I don't know that, I think that he is an extreme and an outlier in so many ways. But I think after every election, every media bigwig is, you know, cleaning off the dry erase board and starting over no matter what, though. This is from our pal Michael Mason. You know, you remember, David, when Bill used to get, like, emails or I guess he still does, he reads them on the air. And they would just be channeling the voice of Bill Simmons, like somebody would be doing a bill impression. This is what Michael Mason did for us, and I'm honored because he just listed off the best strained pun movie sequel titles. These are real titles for our enjoyment.

This is what we'd be doing anyway. Let me give you some of these. Alvin and the chipmunks, the squeakle. Oh, yeah. Speed two cruise control. This was on a boat, right? The Santa Claus 3, the Escape Clause. Garfield, a tale of two kitties.

Sister Act 2 Back in the Habit. what a classic. That was Beethoven's second, which does have a real, an elegance to it. And Air Bud's seventh inning fetch. Oh, wow. Yeah, because Airbud converted to baseball from basketball. Anyway, thanks to Michael for your service. From Jonah Baleckis, are athletes explicit about conversations going off the record, or do reporters usually know when a conversation isn't for publication?

It seems like there are lots of casual conversations and not sure how often it's explicitly brought up. I would say obviously it varies from case to case, but it's usually not explicit. And there is this understanding with a lot of sports writers and the people they cover about whether what they're going to use.

You know, and if it's at a locker, it's not, it's not like it's stated before every conversation. I mean, we had that when Jack McCallel was on the pot on Monday, he was talking about yeah, he was handed Michael Jordan's baby. And then there was a question of is the baby, is the existence of the baby? Is the existence of the baby off the record.

And Jack's response was, well, you know, look, you know, there's certain things we can talk about what, you know, whether this should be imprinted out, but I was handed the baby. Okay. This is not me reporting on Michael Dwight. I was literally holding the baby. So the baby is going to go in the piece. Can I ask you a follow-up question to that? Sure.

As someone on the inside of this sports media world, do you think that not being explicit about going off the record can be a tool in the toolbox from the athlete or the athlete's PR person's side to sort of control the editing process a little bit. Like if you're not explicitly on or off the record, then you have a little bit more leeway. If you play fast and loose on the front end,

then on the back end, the PR person could come in and just be like, no, that was off the record and kind of be a little bit grabbier because I guess my implication here is that there are some people in the sport, media world who are more interested in keeping access than in, you know, telling the details about Michael Jordan's baby.

Yeah. And I would say number one, yes. And number two, if you just make sure everything is kind of in this muddy gray zone, you can just claim that nothing was ever on the record. Right. Right. I mean, I remember one time I went up and talked to Al Davis at the NFL owners meetings when he was pretty elderly owner of the Raiders.

and afterwards, you know, getting this pushback that it was off the record. I literally, I know Al Davis did not know me from Adam. I had just walked up to him. But apparently that was the idea was that was somehow off the record. It was not off the record. This is from Paul Cross. How come using the term writ large has become a term every podcaster and media member has to fit into their broadcast slash podcast. It's so overused.

It's annoying. Rit large, David. Is this a problem writ large? David, is this a problem in extremis, David? I think that's the one I overuse. Rit large as opposed to a phrase like in extremis is a little bit harder to mispronounce or I guess we're a little bit easier to pronounce correctly.

So that's what Rit Large has going for it. I don't know. I mean, listen, there are a lot of things being writ large in the era that we're living in now. So we're all trying to, we're all experiencing this giant thing together. Maybe that has something to do with it. You do hear it a lot, though.

Finally, from the Chet Lemon, what do you think LeBron's media counter should be to the last dance? Are we sure the dock cameras aren't already rolling on the LeBron and Son NBA journey? I'm pretty sure those cameras are rolling without knowing the answer. It's weird, right? Because Michael Jordan kind of quietly is exerting control over this documentary. I think that's fair to say, like his right, he's not. not a, whereas LeBron James pretty noisily owns his own means of production.

Yeah. And I think we appreciate, well, I think that when we expect as much from LeBron, right? So there's no like, there's, I think less conversation, there would be less conversation about this when it came to him because that's, we've come to be used to it. But, but also I think there's some, there's some, there's some forgiveness that comes with him just being straightforward about the whole thing. Yeah. When we have LeBron's last dance about his last.

title with the Lakers. It'll be interesting if we're just so past the authorized biography portion of this conversation that we don't even have it anymore. Like, of course LeBron produced his own documentary. You know, why would we expect anything else? Of course, he only went so far on all these issues. Anyway, more food for thought for our last dance discussion on Monday. Time for David Shoemaker guess is a strain pun headline.

And here David makes noise. Thank you, sir. Monday's headline about a goat stuck under a bridge was it was a touch and goat situation. We got votes for a scapegoat waiting for go-to-go-to. It's pretty funny. Cancel the show. That's the best thing I've ever heard. That's so good.

And somebody suggested the last dance should have been titled a touch and goat career. Nice. Capital G, capital, low, etc. Today's headline, David comes from David Kim. It's from the Financial Times. I'm just going to give you the subheadline. Car rental industry battles existential threat. Okay, so this is hard on restaurants.

It's hard on the media. It's also hard on car rental agencies. The headline will involve the name of a leading car rental agency. What was the Financial Times' strained pun headline? existential threat and the name of a car yeah it's not avis is it

it's not one of those cheap ones that you see when you get on kayak and it's like half the price of the other yeah it's not advantage the uh I know it's not this but I really as a as a as a Peewey's big adventure fan I really want it to be there is a basement in the Alamo.

I'm getting this. I'm still in that it's like stuck on the same. Is it, it's not a Star Trek, Joe. It's not an enterprise gag, right? Not Enterprise. I can't, because I couldn't think of when. This is one of the biggest, probably,

maybe arguably the biggest. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, is it like, is it, sorry, is it a, like Hertz Donate or something like that? Okay. Hertz. Yep. Is that it? Oh, it's not Hertz.

So, Hertz. Yeah, you're close, though. Hertz. Let's say the. entire car rental industrial complex. A world of hurts. Ooh, good. Keep going.

All of us. Everybody hurts. Everybody hurts. That's good. On the front page of the financial types, everybody hurts. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis Research by Chris Albeda.

Production Magic by Erica Zervantes. We're back Monday. Last dance. Final thoughts, David? Can't wait. We should do this. digital divide thing that we teased for today and didn't do, maybe we'll do that next week.

We may have another guest on Monday. We're starting a Monday interview with prominent peeps. So check back to see who that is. And of course, more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, buddy. See you, Brian.