The Press Box - Venti, Vidi, Vici | The Press Box (Ep. 569)

Episode Date: February 5, 2019

Discussing Tony Romo as the real MVP of the Super Bowl (03:00), billionaire Howard Schultz’s awkward presidential campaign launch (29:30), and why NBA trades are so popular (45:15). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. With the Super Bowl and the books, I wanted to let you know about all of our coverage across the site. We have Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Roger Sherman, and more breaking down every aspect of the game, including winners and winners and losers and key plays from the game and the half-time show performance. Also, make sure to check out our YouTube channel where Kevin Clark talked to Amari Cooper on Slow Newsday, and Roger Sherman chatted with players from each team for their thoughts leading up to the game. Be sure to watch and subscribe to our channel on YouTube.com slash The Ringer. Super Bowl 53 was denounced by the media as boring and dreary. Reaching for your trusty reporter's thesaurus, what other adjectives could we call the Super Bowl? Oh, man. Plotting. Good. I'm not Googling this, interminable,

a soul-sucking time vortex. Choppy? I woke up in the middle of the night. A little personal story. I woke up in the middle of the night to feed my infant son. And I checked work slack just through bleary eyes. And there was only one update since the time that I'd gone to bed. And that was our copy chief, leaving a note for the East Coast Morning editorial crew saying,

we have two stories with the word boring in the headline. And I'm too tired to think of a synonym right now. but feel free to change one yeah it was it was something man I mean it was like that was at least there was a sort of unified take on the Super Bowl there was no there was no mystery what people were going to be saying about it and I think I guess that helps from an editorial point of view but man it was

it was slow going man it used to be a rule that you never put boring in a headline because readers would look at it and say well that article is boring if you're talking about something boring but I'm not sure that this Super Bowl 53 deserved even that rule. I think you just like it's, I think that's what the people want, right? That's the content we want. Describe to me in a funny way how the Super Bowl was boring. Exactly. Yeah. And, uh, and I might ride with you. When everybody has the same Twitter joke, you're just looking to your, uh, to your trusty, uh, web journalism outlets for confirmation.

We are America's favorite soul killing media podcast. This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. The press box is a part of the ringer podcast network. The press box is. the media podcast where you're not allowed to use the metaphor, the fire festival of fill in the blank. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the ringer and three big topics today. David, first we have more thoughts on the Super Bowl than there were points scored in the Super Bowl. Some deep media think on a deeply unsatisfying big game.

Second, we discussed the launch in Hindenburg crash of the presidential campaign of Howard Schultz, coffee billionaire. Is this even a story? And finally, the other. huge sports news of the week. The Knicks trade of Chris Taps, Porzingas to the Mavericks. Why are NBA trades so effing popular? Plus our weekly notebook dump and of course the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start here with the Super Bowl. Topic number one, David, here was the MVP of Super Bowl 53. No, not Julian Edelman,

won Tony Romo. They went all out pressure, Belichick win, and Gilmore wasn't going to get be deep, nick time interception. Did you, David, have a chance before the Super Bowl even started. To watch a documentary called Tony Goes to the Super Bowl, I'm not making this up that was airing on CBS. No, this is news to me that that exists. It was, you know, those little documentaries they show at political conventions that are just sort of like, you know, here's Kamala Harris, here's Donald Trump.

This essentially was that, but part of the Super Bowl pre-game show was just like, you like Tony Romo, you all love him. here's your chance to spend some time in his company. And it was really incredible. It had like Romo sings in the booth before the game starts, just as I think a kind of way to loosen him up, that kind of thing, which is not out of the ordinary actually for sports.

And there's a lot of them pump music into the booth or into their headphones to kind of get themselves in the mood. He was singing. Wait, this goes directly to you and I. It's like he's speaking to us, the theme song from Who's the Boss? I'm not kidding. Oh my gosh

I have a newfound respect for the guy Yeah I felt First of all let me ask you How did you think Tony Romo did Announcing the Super Bowl After so much Hype and build up

I thought he did well I thought he did well I thought you know there was There wasn't as much You know Prognostication or prediction As I think some people were hoping for I think that you know

Would have been There would have been a little bit more opportunity If either team had been running offensive play. Is there any point in the game? But I thought overall he made, you know, I was paying more attention to him and enjoying him, you know, more than I have announcers in years past. And certainly for how sort of plotting the game was, you know, he did a good job. I think I'm most amazed at the effect he said on Jim Nance and also on the public media perception of Jim Nance, which is that, and I asked Nance about this at the, at the, at the, in Atlanta this week.

And he said, you know, I said a lot of people say that you have this new energy and that you're just, you know, kind of grooving now with Tony Roman. I didn't actually know how Nance would react to that because in one sense, it's a compliment. On the other sense, it's like, you know, wait, was I, was I so boring before? And he just said, yeah, he said, I think it's true. And the point he made, I thought that was interesting. is he was like, I always just try to match up to what my analyst does. So if it's, you know, Bill Raftery in the NCAA tournament, I'm trying to kind of go there.

If it's, you know, the majesty of the masters and Nick Faldo and all that stuff, I'm trying to go there. And if it's, you know, Phil Sims, who was, let us say, pretty downbeat by the end of his run at the CBS booth versus Tony Romo, then he's going to match that too. and you just feel him just smiling along with Tony during these broadcasts and just sort of coming to life in a really strange and kind of wonderful kind of way. I don't know. It's just that to me, I mean, of all the Romo stuff, and we've discussed a lot of it. But that is that is one of the weird sort of secondary miracles of Romo is that he's sort of just found this new gear for Jim Nance. I couldn't agree more. I don't know if this is a, if this is a, you know, a negative or a positive, but I'm, I'm, I'm enthralled by the sort of vague tension that's on the screen, not between them, but the tension when they appear on the screen together, because, you know, when it's just them taught, when you're just hearing their voices, you do, it's, it's like, it's like two buddies talking about football in a really, in a fairly intelligent way. And the, and it's, and it's really intriguing.

I mean, it's really gripping. But every time they cut to the booth, it's like Tony is like, Tony is, he's just natural. He's a natural, right? I mean,

he's almost like a, whatever the word is for, for like a physical actor, an actor who starts with the body and then it just comes out. It's all just like, he's just talking to his buddy. And Nance has this like very visceral,

like he almost looks agitated as he's making the words come out of his mouth to match Tony's excitement. And he just like standing perfectly still. it's really great. But yeah, I mean, the calls, I mean, Nancy's call was,

was really spot on and incredibly enjoyable. And you're right. I mean, he's, he's found another gear, or at least recaptured an old one. Yeah. I,

I sort of think that tension you're seeing is between Tony being totally undisciplined and Nance being, you know, just the face of a disciplined, letter perfect play-by-play guy. because the thing about Romo is he breaks all these rules that you're supposed to, you know, quote unquote observe, right? One of which is like, hey, when the ball is snapped, that's when the play by play guy talks.

You're not talking during that period. And you see Romo all the time jumping over the snap going, hey, Jim, Jim, they got the defense attack. Jim, he's got, look, he's going to be able put over the middle. And, you know, they've made that work so well because, again, it's like, I remember a couple years ago, Grand Hill talked when the winning shot was in the air in the NCAA tournament. And you're just like, oh my gosh. Like, you know, that's like, oh, gosh, I can just imagine what Nancy's thinking in a moment like that. But he has found a way to let Romo just sort of improvise and come in around him and give him so much space to do that stuff.

It's pretty amazing. I do think listening to Romo that his big challenge for year three is he's got to find out a tone to, adopt when games aren't very good or aren't very close because there was a lot of bad in that game yesterday, especially Jared Goff. And you didn't get a ton of Tony Romo kind of just, you know, not bagging on anybody, but I think just kind of recognizing the quality of play that's in front of us. You know, it's like when the game was tied three, three earlier in the second half, he's like, we got a tie game.

Jimmy is that. We got a game here, you know? And it's like, yeah, but the rest of us have been watching this for two hours and it's really boring. You know, and it's almost, that's almost where you'd want a little of that Chris Collinsworth edge, I think. And a little bit of that Chris Collinsworth, like, I'm just going to, I'm sorry, I just got to say it. I can't watch this anymore. And Romo, you know, because he's so positive and I think probably you'd probably take that, but he just doesn't have that yet. And I sort of want to see him do that at some point.

Sure. I mean, and he had presumably has insight that I mean that could have, I don't know if it could have spiced things up, but at least it would have added a layer of interest to the story. And I mean, it's, the, the inactivity in the game was in some ways really compelling. It doesn't make for a very interesting game to watch. But like, I desperately wanted to hear someone talk about just the feeling of, of paralysis or of hopelessness that comes when you realize that you you're, you know, that your coach is trying everything, you're trying everything,

and there's just no way forward, right? And there, I mean, and Tony Romo, one would think, would have some insight into that, but instead it was, you're right, it was a little bit rah-rah, it was a little bit waiting for, you know, some cues that weren't going to present themselves. And, and, uh, I think, yeah, I mean, I think, I think you're right. I mean, he has no trouble filling time. He's such a, you know, like you said, sort of devil may care natural at it. that maybe, you know, that sort of, that sort of preparation is what is the next step for him. A couple of notes for you.

The Gladys Knight National Anthem. Now, we know that the networks have avoided the National Anthem when players are kneeling during it. But boy, once nobody's kneeling, do they love to drink up that patriotic Evian water? I mean, you know, the close-ups of the players and the flyover. and I saw Laura Ingram tweeting her excitement about the anthem. You know, it's sort of like that was a low-key, you know, again, like in the in the pageantry of Super Bowls, which are all about waving the flag, it's no big deal and totally normal. With the backdrop of Colin Kaepernick and other things that the NFL has tried to willfully erase from its memory. That was still pretty stunning to me.

I don't know. I'm watching this going, whoa. You know, this is the jingoism like straight into the heart, you know, like, here we go. We're proud to be Americans here. And this is, you know, this is a little bit of a sidebar, but it turned out that like, the online discussion of whether or not Gladys Knight is the B on the masked singer turned out to be one of the more compelling storylines of the evening. Nothing really happened in the game that, or not much happened in the game that,

that led to as much like you're searching through Twitter for for me anyway. Nothing has surprised me more in American life than the popularity of the mass singer. I mean like mass singer number one, Trump's election is president number two. I don't get it.

Can number three B. Why Todd Gurley wasn't playing in the Super Bowl? Yes. Because that's where I'm going next. How did the media not solve that mystery by game time or even during the game? I was kind of figuring it was going to be a sideline reporter news dump. You know, sometimes they get it and you're not allowed to share it until game time. But, you know, and then you put it out there when it's kind of safe.

But all we got even after the game from Sean McVeigh was, oh, Todd girl, he's fine. No problems at all. 10 carries 35 yards, a total non-factor for the second game in a row. That was weird. and I just think when you have a billion reporters all after the story, it just always amazes me when there's something they kind of can't figure out. Well, I mean, to me the most, I mean, the most compelling argument, or the most compelling theory that I heard was that he was hurt

and McVeigh was deliberately obscuring that so that, you know, to mess with the scouting reports or whatever else, and then had to kind of stick to it to the bitter end because of whatever league rule liability. he would have, you know, been subject to. But Gurley sure didn't seem like he was part of some sort of scheme when he was interviewed before, during, and after the game, you know? It was really weird.

And I think that, I think if it had been a better game, I mean, certainly if the, if the Rams had won, that kind of all would have gone by the wayside. But in a night, you know, that was like sorely in need of just some sort of mystery. some sort of suspense, you know, the question about Todd Gurley sort of filled that hole, even if it was sort of an awkward storyline. You had that one carry called back in the fourth quarter when it looked like he was going to maybe run them down to a touchdown or something, you know, and that was, but anyway,

it didn't happen. Did you happen to notice David baseball writers using a boring Super Bowl and the MVP for PED I was going to say suspect, but being convicted PED guy Julian Edelman to troll football and football fans. Yes, I did see some of it. A weird subplot. Yeah, Tyler Kepner in the New York Times. What was the last

world series as uninteresting as this Super Bowl? Maybe 1999. Kepner again, a reminder that in baseball Julian Edelman would have not been eligible to play in this postseason because he served a PD suspension this season. John Heyman. long time baseball insider NFL summary Kaepernick blackballed Edelman glorified so that was weird

I mean so I just love seeing the baseball true believer reassert themselves that I kind of have a soft spot for baseball true believer because it's just so determinedly out of fashion in this year and age NBA true believer man you're getting all the money but baseball true believer you were you were fighting the tide buddy but they came out and in force.

I was blissfully unaware. I thought that we had moved on, I thought we had moved beyond the like, like the PEDs are universally bad point of view even in the baseball world, but I guess not, or at least for the sake of making an argument, you know, anything goes.

I mean, I had, I don't know. It, some of, I mean, it was, some of them, on their own, each of them made for, you know, made for like kind of good little bits of snark, but taken as a whole, it was, you know, it's always funny to watch people from other, you know, beats that are just, like, come in with their, like, just really deliberate

point of view catering to their own audience during the, during other events. You know, I've, Lord knows I've had my share of just, like, making wrestling jokes during presidential debates and whatnot, but, like, you know, it's a, it, it, there's a limit, I think, to the usefulness or the, and even, even the humor of all that, but, uh, yeah, I don't know, this is, uh, beside the point. I don't know if you watch the halftime show, but, uh, but I'm pretty sure Adam Levine was glad they're not. spot testing the musical acts either because he probably wouldn't have been eligible to to play in the postseason either.

There's a really good column. I'm going to ignore that insinuation. There's a really good column from Joe Shee and baseball writer who just talks about how this is completely, who does not use this opportunity to stand on a high horse, but says violating drug policy in the NFL is a misdemeanor because it serves the NFL for it to be a misdemeanor. And violating the drug policy and MLB is a felony because it serves MLB for it to be a felony. And it's a really good column that sort of traces all this through labor. Anyway, I encourage everybody to check that out. Postgame, David, Tracy Wolfson goes, CBS sideline reporter goes to interview Tom Brady and is lost for a few minutes.

And we kind of hear this disembodied voice going. And now Tom Brady is embracing Julian Edelman. and now Brady is embracing Belichick and now Brady is embracing craft and it just went on and on it was like one of those YouTube videos of like the local reporter who's like and now the hurricane is coming in

and then they just get like wailing they just get like smacked on the side of the head by a flying mailbox or something like that Tracy Wilson like went to went for her like standard post game interview and just got caught in like a black flag mosh pit and it was it was pretty amazing I mean, everybody was commenting on it.

You occasionally would just see your head pop up, and it was just these, like, the scrum of, like, of media who was just trying to get all the Brady footage they can was just, like, pushing in. Brady had the security team that seemed to be more impressive than any offensive line he's ever played behind that was pushing everybody back, but their voices were the loudest ones in the audio of the whole thing

as they were trying to, you know, maintain crowd control. And they kept saying stuff like, I'm trying to help you, right? They were trying to help her. That's what they kept saying? I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you. Eventually, they, eventually they, one of them did wrangle the, you know, the post-game interview. He's like, which one is your camera?

Okay, we're getting you in here now. But there was, you know, apparently everything, every, you know, I mean, maybe there's something sort of refreshing about the fact that like, despite, you know, I mean, God love Tracy Wolfson, but like everything sort of takes a back seat to the human element of Brady embracing opposing players and coaches and his own teammates and everything else. I think that that's, you know, there's something sort of nice about that. But it did lend a little bit of drama to a kind of quiet fourth quarter. And I think it's, you know, everybody jokes about Sidelin reporters all the time.

But I think there are moments when reporting is reduced to a physical act rather than an intellectual act. And you just have to physically get the person. Anybody who's done sports writing knows this by shoving around a locker room or kind of running down a hallway to get somebody or in Congress or whatever it is. is. And it's like she just has to get Tom Brady. She does not have to wrangle Tom Brady through a publicist. She doesn't have to set up. She just has to physically corral Tom Brady. And that is the most, you know, kind of like I said, like basic reporterly function. And she, God bless her, she got him. My other favorite, by the way, CBS is Evan Washburn, who was the other sideline reporter. When CBS does the Super Bowl, he gets to talk to the losing coach. And I'm pretty sure this was only on CBS.SN. I did not see it on the actual big CBS post game show. But Evan Washburn often looks more shaken than the losing coach. Like he started, I think it was Rod Rivera a couple of Super Bowls ago. He goes, he comes like, coach, I mean, I don't know what, you know, I don't know what to say. Oh, my God. You know, you must say, and Ron Rivera actually looked fine. And I was like, Ron Rivera is okay.

Somebody go find, somebody go get some help for Evan Washburn. But I just want to note that he, he sort of corrected this time and Sean McVeigh legitimately looked sadder than Washburn. So that was that was kind of a big moment in in Super Bowls for me. Quote of the game or of the post game goes to Rams tackle Andrew Whitworth, who told our very own Robert Mays at the end of the day we're all going to die, which feels like the existential sequel to the all-time quote from Dwayne Thomas running back the Cowboys who said, if the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, how come they're playing it again next year?

Which is really fantastic. They are bookends. If you want to get past X's Nodes, go talk to Dwayne Thomas or Andrew Whitworth. That was awesome. Whitworth has had a great role ever since he signed with the Rams.

Whitworth has taken on this weird spiritual animal role for the entire press corps. I don't know if it was because of the sad shape of the team that he played for before signing there, but you know, there is something very interesting about, you know, some players will sign with a team like the Rams and be seen as like front runners or ring chasers. And he's just sort of like this, you know, work-a-day, you know, guy who's just like trying to find success in a world where he's never been

able to sniff it, you know? And, and it's sort of fitting. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. And maybe it's just that this guy has just been the most incredible quote the entire time or this just sort of like dark philosopher throughout their out his entire career. That was a real, a real incredible moment. And one of those great moments where multiple people, like everybody in the scrum tweeted that quote at the exact same time, you know, like everybody's, everybody wants to get that out there into the world. Yeah, and Mays tweeted the context, which makes a lot more sense, but it just sounded like the ultimate dire losers locker room quote. By the way, I think it's part of the part of the power of it is how Andrew Whitworth looks

because he looks kind of like, John Federman, who's the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, you know, the guy was like mayor. So like when existential trues are coming out of the mouth of a guy that just looks like that, it's a little bit more of a,

there's a little bit, gives it a little more oof. I want to close, David, by talking about the Washington Post commercial that ran in the fourth quarter during the two-minute warning. Let me give you a little bit of Tom Hanks

doing the narration. When our nation is threatened. There's someone to gather the facts. To bring you the story, it'll matter the cost. Because knowing empowers us. Knowing helps us decide. Knowing keeps us free. They used to have a halftime act of the Super Bowl called Up with People.

Remember that? That was like in our childhood. So this is up with journalism. This is the sequel. This is the book. I love this. tweet from our old pal Dan Angber. Of course, the newspaper industry would invest its remaining millions in an ad that runs when the game is essentially over and no one cares anymore.

That was good. Also a note from page six, which might be true. Jeff Bezos pulled the plug on a $20 million Super Bowl ad for his spaceflight company, Blue Origin, after it was revealed his mistress that helped shoot footage for the commercial. And this might have been the fill in for the plot he bought. What did you make of... of advertising the virtues of journalism during the ultimate game. Wow. I mean, I know Washington Post is doing really well,

but, you know, in a week of, like, mass media layoffs, I'm not sure if that was the, if spending $20 million in a Super Bowl, I'd really, like, balance the scales at all. But, yeah, you know, you know, I'm sure that, like, now all those post employees have something that they can show their kids to explain what they do on career day or whatever. That's nice.

Shockingly, it was popular on Twitter with journalists. I don't know if you know this, but when you extol the virtues of journalism and the most grandiose manner, journalists get really excited. We are the cheapest dates in the world, baby. It's amazing. All right, David, now it's 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. Can we get the non-super Bowl entrance out of the way?

and then I'll cut back to the Super Bowl theme. Yeah, let's do that. According to Reuters, Foxconn, remember the company Foxconn is reconsidering its plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus. The $20 million square foot campus, excuse me, was praised by President Donald Trump as proof of his ability to revive American manufacturing. So it was an overworked and very easy, overworked Twitter joke to say, Foxconned. thanks to Drew Lewis for that one. Yeah, I know. Since we probably should say the name Ralph Northam in this podcast, Gulp, he being the Democratic governor of Virginia who had a blackface picture in his yearbook.

It was an overworked Twitter joke to say, when the question many are asking after your apology is, are you the guy in blackface or the KKK outfit? You're in deep, deep trouble. Thank you to Matthew Benson for that one. And now for the Super Bowl, David, the Super Bowl of Overwork Twitter jokes. Did you notice how many people were calling Jared Gough, Jared Gaff during the game?

Jared Gaff. Speaking of reaching for your thesaurus. It was an overwork Twitter joke to suggest when the Rams were in the midst of eight straight punts that punter Johnny Hecker should be the MVP. Another one, quote, both teams are playing like they don't want to visit the White House. That was actually pretty good. when they had that cool ad for the NFL's 100th anniversary that had all the players in it. It was an overword Twitter joke to say, Gurley has more yards in that NFL 100 ad than in the game.

Oh, wow. The halftime show. Now, it's probably a good idea to do the halftime show, but do you think Maroon 5 knew that the halftime show was going to be an occasion for people who don't think about Maroon 5 at all in their daily lives just to make jokes about Maroon 5? I think they had to be dimly aware of it I mean on the one hand they're the sort of perfect act to fill in that space

but there was a little I mean when they announced that Maroon 5 was performing it was in the midst of a great you know quandary into who actually like what is the halftime show and who would be willing to even play the halftime show in current year so

I don't know if they were doing it as a favor or if they were just I don't know what their decision making was but they had to be canny enough to know there'd be a lot of that couple of maroon five overworks. Number one, and this man, I saw this 100 times. Half time colon, Maroon 5, Patriots 3, Ram Zero. So many people did that one.

Another one, I still haven't heard a good explanation of why I'm not watching Imagine Dragons right now. Okay. I saw that at least twice, weirdly. And a legitimately funny one from Jamel Hill and our own Tyler Tynes while watching Adam Levine perform. this is gentrification, which I thought was really excellent. And how about, is this the first ever time that LeBron James, has that an overworked Twitter joke? Middle of the game, he tweets, man, where Shams, Woj, Haynes, McMinneman at with a shrug emoji.

One of many people tweeting during the Super Bowl that the Super Bowl was so boring. So if you were lusting for a Woj bomb in the middle of the Super Bowl, Well, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. A lot of people to thank here. Greg Connors, Patrick Horan at J-Rock 414, Daniel Payne, Elia Powers, Brendan Schneider, Jason McGenzie, Besso, and at Argal umbrella. And by the way, David, special thanks to Greg, just Greg, who tweeted an overworked Twitter joke at Brian Copleman. Please leave Brian Coplebin alone to write screenplays. Just send him here. we'll take care of this. Don't worry. All right, David. Topic number two, Starbucks founder and billionaire Howard Schultz announced he is maybe sort of interested in running for president. Kind of amazing that Howard Schultz isn't actually running for president at this point, but we're still talking about this. Anyway, here is how Schultz was greeted by his cheering supporters. I am seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent. And I wanted to clarify the word independent, which I view

merely as a designation on the ballot. Don't help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire. Do you think that guy said in a donation after that? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. What timing and what enunciation? I mean, that was just, that was a tour to force. It was amazing how clear it was, wasn't it?

Yes. When I first saw, like, just the like transcript version, I was like, surely we're not going to be able to hear this, but man, we heard it just fine. So a couple of interesting things I think about the Schultz candidacy from our demented media perspective here. Number one, nobody knows anything about Howard Schultz, either personally or his or certainly his political views. So we're watching him being vetted on the fly, like literally live on television. I don't you watch any of the morning Joe interview he did. the other day.

And I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was, I thought as vets of rando presidential candidates go, it was really pretty good. You sort of had Willie Geist and Mike Barnacle pressing him on why he wasn't running as a Democrat. And then on the other hand, you had Mika Berzinski, like being able to accidentally generate all these gaffes like him saying that Reagan never took his coat off in the Oval Office. not true. Him saying that the best Democratic president in the last 50 years was FDR. And here's Mika testing whether Howard Schultz can truly be a man of the people.

How much does an 18 ounce box of Cheerios cost? An 18 ounce box of Cheerios? I don't need. Here's the deal. You ask us, you know, like budgets for the VA. We're going to ask you questions. I don't need churios. I'm sorry. Okay.

It's four bucks. Is it four bucks? Yeah. It's a lot of. Yeah. I think the real news here might be that Joe Scarborough also doesn't know how much Cheerios costs. Like, Howard Schultz has an excuse. He's the megalomaniacal billionaire.

Joe Scarborough is just a megal maniacal millionaire. Like, shouldn't you have bought a box of Cheerios at some point? It just shows up on the front door from Postmates or whatever. I mean, you don't have to actually, like, see how much it costs on the show. The Schultz got a ton of press coverage, 60 minutes, The View, Anderson Cooper. What did you make of something I saw over and over again this week, which was, why are we treating Schultz, who has like a 4% approval rating as a serious candidate and not treating other marginal Democrats as serious candidates?

Oh, that's a good question. You know, I think that there is, I mean, there's got to be some sense that if he's running as an independent, the Democratic primary will sort of construct the narrative for media and Schultz is a story that is kind of being constructed in real time and the media can really have a, you know, an active hand in telling that story. I think that he's he's an interesting character and I think that people see him as you know as a you know an interesting counterpoint to Donald Trump backstories and you know business successes and and everything else but I think you know

I mean there had to be some level of hope that he would come forward with some sort of policy that he you know some some sort of ideas that he did not it is interesting I don't know what do you think well just on the basic basic question before we get to his

very nebulous ideology I would say I don't of course it's a new story right and of course like you're telling me me megal maniacal billionaire wants to run for president and will potentially

eventually cost the Democrats what could be a layup election and reelect Donald Trump. That sounds like a story. That sounds like a story to me. Now, you don't have to treat Howard Schultz seriously. You don't have to, you know, pretend that this vision of centrism actually makes any sense or has any kind of hard

ideals behind it. But like, of course that's news. Like, of course that seems like a big deal. And I just, I feel a lot of this is like, again,

And I feel we could have like a weekly section of the podcast on this, but it's it's Trump PTSD, which is we gave the rich guy a lot of attention last time. And he somehow got elected president. So let's never give the rich guy attention again. And I, and I just don't, I don't know that that's the reason Trump got elected president. If you watch these, Howard, by the way, I got to say, having watched a couple of the Schultzings this morning, he was much better. I had just kind of read like accounts of it and seen tweets about it mostly hadn't watched it yet. He was much better on camera than I thought, but he is not Donald Trump. He does not have that kind of magnetic appeal.

So yeah, I mean, I just think, I just think it is a story. And I think when you watch, again, even stuff like Morning Joe, the clubbiest cable news show, you could possibly imagine like he goes on there and you sort of come out, come away thinking like, oh, boy, this guy doesn't have a lot of ideas. This guy doesn't really know what he's talking about. No. And that will do the job just fine. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the places that gave him coverage, I mean, Morning Joe's a great example, would have given him that same slot if he had, you know, started a new charity. You know, he didn't have to be running for office to get air time. He is a, you know, successful person that at least the people in those

chairs are interested in. But yeah, I mean, you're right. The sort of the emptiness of it is, I think, what, you know, struck a lot of people as most galling. You know, we're used to independents or third-party candidates being sort of technocrats or, you know, issue candidates and not like gauzy idealists, you know, that are coming on here talking about how both parties have let us down, which is true. It's not, you know, it's not particularly helpful on its own.

And, you know, what we've seen with them, I mean, I think that the, the kind of the most poignant critique, as was evidenced by that great soundbite we played a minute ago, is that, is that third party candidates have come to be seen, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not, the, the, biggest obstacle for third party candidacies is, is maybe not structural anymore. or it's that they're viewed as a Trojan horse to just defeat one candidate or another, right? I mean, it's not, it, the, the, the actual message of the campaign

is, is totally secondary to that, you know, preconceived, uh, notion. Yeah. And he doesn't have much of an answer for that. You know, those are his weakest answer, uh, by far among a lot of weak answers is, why don't you just run as a Democrat? And he starts talking about how he can't, you know, it's like, why don't you run as a centrist Democrat? You're a day.

You were a Democrat. You know, why don't he, you know, why don't you try to do what Donald Trump did to the Democrats? If you don't agree with their ideas, is running their primary and try to, you know,

prove that your ideas are more popular than rank and file Democrats. But, uh, he doesn't really have a great answer to that. I mean, it's, it feels like a very 90s campaign, does it not?

I'm a rich guy. I know how to solve problems. I'm going to keep saying like, I'm going to, like, I'm going to, going to do about health care, you know, because of all the resistance you're going to face in Congress. And you keep saying, oh, I'm just going to have smart people tell me what to do.

Right. Which sounds like a very Ross Bro kind of thing. And then also like I just have some kind of CEO knowhow of how to get things done. The, um, I read this piece by Simon Maloy in Media Matters, who was going through some of the greatest hits of, uh, centrist movements wooing the media and then going nowhere. You'll remember the unity party and American select. Also, total classic we've now forgotten, which was Axios co-founder Jim Vanda High writing about the innovation party that was going to have Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg running in the nation. Yes. How did that turn out?

Yeah. And what he talks about is how these kind of candidates are catnip to certain made men and women, though mostly men in opinion media. He mentions Yahoo's mapped by the Atlantic's David Frum and ABC's the name. note. And that's all true, but don't we live in a media world where those people are less powerful than they've ever been? You know, like, I didn't know the note was still going, honestly. I really did not know that. As a consumer of media, I was on, I just feel the media, the political media set up now that centrist actually garner maximum skepticism instead of the

loving, open embrace of David Brooks, which carries as much weight. What do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, and I think it's justifiable, right? I mean, regardless of your politics, I think it's, it means centrism is, centrism is not a governing philosophy. Or maybe it is. Maybe it's too much of a governing philosophy. But like, tell us what you, tell us what you believe, you know? Don't tell us what you're, what, what makes you like feel icky about the, about the existing political parties, you know, about their, you know, structural problems. I think that, and, I mean, centrism just has, you know, I mean, from a liberal point of view, I mean, centrism is, is, feels like, you know, a hazy night out from, you know,

last weekend that we're still trying to, like, come to grips with and, and, and, and, and, and, and, it's, it's all, it's, it's, it just, I, I don't know, it, it just, it just, it just, It just seems like a really, it just seems like a very strange way right now to try to, you know, to try to make some noise. And especially, you know, when, when Mike Bloomberg is running as a Democrat, who's a, you know, strikes a sort of similar figure. But, but he's, you know, he's decided to go the more, he's decided to go the party route. And listen for, you know, regardless of what you think about, about Donald Trump's seriousness, it was, you know, particularly when he was when he was running for. president. He was a he was something approaching a public figure for many years leading up to his campaign, you know, a political figure. And this just feels like just the, I mean, the, the,

the, the sort of novelty of Howard Schultz just sort of underscores this sort of feeling of a lack of seriousness. Um, the fact that he's not coming out with any big, you know, platform ideas, although he's, you know, eager to criticize Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris on, you know, health care and taxes, you know, I mean, it's just, it's like he was, he was caught so flat-footed not having his own ideas that he, you know, he was just like jumping. He had to jump in with these, like, half-formed, like, negs on whatever they had to say. It's, I mean, it's, it's just been a pretty spectacular brief run. Um, oh, I, there was a, there was a, There was a tweet I just saw today from, I guess it was from a couple of days ago,

from a guy Dan LaVoy, he said Howard Schultz went from, oh, is he that Starbucks guy to, this man represents literally everything wrong with late capitalism, and I will do everything in my power to stop his rise in like two and a half days. And then closed out with solid work Bill Burton, who is the political consultant who is sort of steering the ship. It's, it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, reasons why this, this thing might be kind of tanking the way that it is, but it's been pretty impressive to watch so far.

Yeah. And I think, um, the biggest thing you're going to see next is journalists just dining out, uh, for day after day or as long as this campaign lasts on vetting Howard Schultz. Because there was a, there was a post on the lawyer gun. and Money blogged by Paul Compos, who just did some very minor fact-checking on Schultz's stories about how he got from the projects in New York City to college. And the stories were just totally different. And, you know, and again, it was like a relatively minor sort of thing.

And it wasn't a big gotcha. But it was just one of those things where you just realize this person's public record, non-financial public record has just not been scrutinized at all. Yeah. And, you know, this is the kind of stuff. And it was like Donald Trump. You know, there were almost too many moving targets. But that's going to be the next thing.

And that's going to be, you know, days, if not weeks of, you know, big, big, big investigative pieces and little investigative pieces. And journalists are going to be very happy, I believe, with all they get from that. Well, I mean, Jonathan Chey wrote a piece. He wrote the thing he's written a couple of pieces on Schultz. And, you know, Chate, for whatever thing that you think about him, I mean, does sort of strike the figure of someone who might be enamored with a Schultz candidacy, but has been pretty clear-eyed and antagonistic towards his chances. And in the midst of, you know, talking about some other issues, he brings up the fact that Schultz was shocked at the degree of Democrat anger and says that that his, that very surprise. it should be just disqualifying for his candidacy, that he was just, you know,

unprepared for this sort of response. And I think that there's something to that. I mean, I don't think anything's disqualifying. And I think that, you know, you're right that there's going to be a lot of real-time vetting and everything else. I mean, the interesting thing about Schultz is that regardless of what happens to him now,

you know, if he continues to run as an independent, he can continue to run for as long as he wants to. You know, I mean, there's not, there's no D&C that's going to be, you know, elbowing him off the stage. But I do think that, that, you know, there will be a, if there will be a, you know, more of a metaphorical elbowing off. And when people stop paying attention to it, an independent candidate like that, regardless of the amount of money that you have to spend, I think that'll, you know, I'm sure there's already been a rude awakening and it'll only continue.

All right, David, topic number three, the Chris Tapp's Porzengis trade. Well, I was wandering around Radio Row in Atlanta Thursday. the news came down that the New York Knicks had traded Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks for a package of players and draft picks. And my first reaction from the Super Bowl was to email the ringer's very own Kevin Clark and say RIP to the ringer's brief run as a football site. Because I knew the ship, the Super Bowl was over, baby. The ship was turning toward the Borzingis trade.

I guess I'm interested mostly. we'll leave the basketball analysis to the other people. But I'm amazed and interested in why stories like this aren't just kind of medium popular but just grab

everybody's attention in sports. I mean, this is sort of, am I nuts to call this kind of a medium sized NBA trade? Is that nuts? Is this a giant NBA trade? I don't think so. It's sort of a medium

trade. It has some great soap opera stuff as when Porzengis wrote my suggestion to Nick's fans is to stay woke on his, I believe it was on Instagram Sunday morning, which was awesome. Also, was it MSG or which Nick's TV network put up the graphic of Porcengis, which had like all the basic stats and then at the and then just sat in the middle of it said skipped exit meeting with front office after 2016-17 season. That was really funny just the way of getting back at him. But what do you think? Why does this story like this have so much salience with us at the ringer and with everybody else?

Well, first of all, go Mavericks. And I look forward to... Sorry. I should have led with that. Go Mavericks. I look forward to our upcoming segment in a year or two about the way the media is covering the Mavericks Championship. The, yeah, I mean, this was a really weird one. a lot of different factors in play. I mean, I think for one thing, it just happened so quickly.

And we can get into the, you know, the kind of the TikTok of it in a little bit. But, you know, from the moment that, like, there was any rumor at all about Porzingis changing location until the trade was finalized was, I mean, it just seemed like the blink of an eye, right? And so it was actually news that was breaking sort of on a Twitter timeline. mean that I guess in two different ways. But it was, it all, it just seemed so urgent and so real. And there's also this, when the details of the trade started to trickle out, it seemed, it did seem like, it is, I take what you mean by it being a medium-sized trade.

This is not, you know, superstar for superstar or whatever, but, but it did seem like a really lopsided trade. And so there's all, there was a lot of fans, there, I mean, fans were justifiably kind of perplexed as to one, what the rest of the. story was. Now the trade as it as it as it as it sort of you know came out the trade was a little bit was less lopsided than it seemed but um there were questions about like well I mean is is porzangis more hurt than we than we've let on is he just you know I mean there's the sort of existential question is he just less of a superstar than we've been led to believe by the media

for the past several years you know is it is there you know is there something else at play and then there's then there's the the real deeper story which is if you know all pre-substubes are true and the Knicks are really just only interested in clearing out their caps so that they can sign Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving next summer. Well then, you know, it's pretty amazing that there is a story that is that significant that just no one can really report because it would break any, any and every NBA bylaw to acknowledge that it's true. Yeah, there's just, there are a lot. It's not, and it's not, it's not, just Porzingis then, right? I mean, we're talking about Porzingis and every top tier free agent next summer. We're talking about

Luca Donchich and his rise as a rookie to NBA prominence and what this means for his timeline. There's a lot of and of course there's Mark Cuban and much more significantly, James Dolan and his just hapless

helming of the New York Knicks. There's just a lot of, there's a lot of major players in the NBA soap opera here more than just Chris Taps Porzingis who is in amazing care and who will be very healthy very soon

and leading the Mavericks to a championship. So I got like four reasons there. The suddenness of the trade, which is the suddenness of any news story, right, contributes to it. Whether the Knicks got robbed, which is a pretty standard sport story, free agency hypotheticals

that this unlocks for next summer and beyond. And then this sort of thing that Bill talks about a lot, which is this sense that people are conspiring in the NBA behind the scenes with tampering and free agency

and all that stuff. I hesitate to use the words NBA dark web that are old pal J. Kang used. But there's a sense that there are these unseen forces working in the NBA that everybody is dying to know about and that are controlling everything

and that story never gets public. I guess I guess what's partly amazing to me is just like the way NBA news goes from hypothetical to hypothetical to hypothetical, right? The Knicks have been a hypothetical for nine years longer than that. When did they start dumping salaries to get LeBron the first time? It was 2010, right? They've been on and off this for a while, yeah. So it's just like, I guess what's amazing about that.

at the NBA is if if there were an NFL team or any other team that had just done this year after year after year and had never actually been a coherent basketball team we would have just given up but maybe whether it's the sort of weirdo glamour of the Knicks a team that's never won anything considering how long they've been famous um or just the way that the thing you know the NBA works now I guess is interesting also like so we did an emergency podcast about it and there were so many good points made that one was i think it was simmons just reeling off all the major NBA superstars that have changed teams in the last 18 months kawai jimmy butler chris paul kairi irving paul george blake griffin bookie cousins borzengis and anthony davis

in the next sometime in the next five minutes right which is just incredible um to think of how much news that has all you know thrown off all those different moves and also Chris Ryan made this point where he's talking about like why players want to constantly change teams now. And he said, I think if I wrote this down right, the constant churn of action is creates more interest in who they are. Right. So it's there's a there's a there's a I want to win a title thing, which is very real. But there's also an I am a brand entity beyond team and sport and everything else. And if I change teams, people will be more interested in me.

You know, if I just say like I'm tired of this, I want to go do something else. that will make my brand more potent. Sure. And that's really interesting to me. I guess the funny thing is, is if it's like that, then is the right move to go to battle stations every time something like that happens. If,

if major NBA moves are that frequent and if they're being done with an eye toward, like, I just need to shake things up so I can get some more attention, at least, at least partially, right? some of, I mean, Port Zenghis obviously knew he wasn't going to win anything with the Knicks so we wanted to leave. But some of it is about like resetting new commercial opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. Do we in the media need to pay as much attention to these things?

Or should we rightly be like, well, that in a vacuum, that seems like a giant trade. But we've just had nine giant trades or free agency moves in the last 18 months. So maybe we should scale down our expectations of this thing. Yes. I mean, to the extent that some of the. trades actually affect the balance of power in this season of the NBA and I guess there I mean it's not I mean there's a few right I mean Kauai Leonard I mean is has made Toronto into a real contender Jimmy Butler you know hasn't been the the magic bullet in Philly but but certainly you know makes them a lot more

interesting and then Boogie Cousins you know signing with the Warriors and now that he's playing I mean that's that's you know that's that's a real thing Paul George in Oklahoma City has been sort of a revelation. But there's, you know, and whatever. A revelation that lost in the first round of the playoffs last year. Well, last year, right? No, that's true. This year he's on another level, but we'll see if that pans out.

But I think that, I think that, you know, there are those that are significant. But, and I think the rest of them are just sort of this, you know, we're by and large when we're talking about transactions, we're talking about. upcoming draft picks. We're talking, I mean, in most of these trades, we're talking about the sort of like the post-warriors future of the NBA,

right? Like what the landscape will look like when there is a, maybe as soon as next season, when there's a little bit more parody or a little bit more opportunity for other teams. But I think that's all part of this, you know, basketball Twitter fanfic that the league has become, right? I mean,

it's all, it's a role-playing game, you know, it's a tabletop card game. or something. It's a it's it's it's we're just we're just kind of like trading cards and and and and getting excited about you know these little these little chess board moves but yeah the answer to like you know do we need to be giving this much attention. I mean if we do if we do if people care right and we all care so or maybe I put it a little differently which is I don't have any moral objection

to this and I don't certainly don't have any moral objection to players deciding they want to play somewhere else because if it's generated by the player to me all the better. I just wonder do we need to think about NBA transactions differently. If they're this frequent. And if quote unquote major trades are unprecedented major trades are actually happening all the time

should we think about it differently than maybe we did five, ten years ago? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe, right? I mean, yeah, there's definitely a case to be made. And it's, I mean, there's also this question

about what kind of constitutes a major trade. I think that more than anything, it's just the excitement and the hype. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know,

there's a lot of kind of strum and drawing about whether or not there's enough, you know, with all these superstar teams, everybody wants to play together, you know, what happens to the teams that are left over. But like the list that you read,

I mean, makes it sound like there's actually kind of plenty of superstars to go around, right? I mean, there's, and then you have teams like the Nuggets or over, who seem to be doing really well with just like kind of zero household names and only one and a half like super duper stars, you know?

And it's, you know, it is sort of interesting. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, this is, I mean, there's no more interesting time of year than the time where you're just like constantly hitting refresh on the Hoopside rumor page to see what's happening. And it's, it's fun for me. And it's nice to, you know, I mean, it's, we just got done watching a really boring Super Bowl

with a team that just like basically put together a fantasy team. and could only score three points. So it's, you know, it's nice to pay attention to a sport where, you know, some of these transactions might be a little bit more meaningful. Did you just use the term Sturmundrong multiple times in this podcast? Did I use it twice? I think so.

Oh, my gosh. I hope I set it right one of those times. That'd be great. Next week, make sure you switch to doppelganger or Bill Dunges-Roman if you want to mix in some more uh makes it some more german the more german the better yeah um all right david let's do the notebook dump i got some 20 20 updates for you i think we have our first campaign and disarray story which is tulsi gabard which is probably the odds on favorite for campaign and disarray right um this comes to us from politico the gabard campaign saying they are dumping the consultants that they

just hired. New York Times reported Jonathan Martin notes that this is, you know, the old campaign excuse when you fire a bunch of people in your campaign is, oh, the plan was always for them just to stay through the primary. They weren't going to stay through the general election. This time, he says the plan was always for them just to stay through the campaign launch, right? So it's just literally days under our employment. Also, via Martin, Gabbert dropped the first use, the first documented use of the word neoliberal as a as a as a bad word during the campaign she tweeted as commander chief i will work to end the new cold war nuclear arms race and slide into nuclear war that is why the neocon neolib war mongers will do anything to stop me so that was wow

yeah the tweet from journalism professor matthew pressman he says consensus among journalists and media critics is that election coverage suffers too much from too much horse race coverage and treating politics like a sport. So the Washington Post decides to assign 13 of its top analysts to do a power ranking of 2020 candidates. Just to note that the power ranking is not just for NBA news anymore. I don't think we can cast as versions on power rankings here at the rigor, but just just throwing that out there.

I'm just mad they got to that first. we should have done that on the press box. The, you know, I always like to keep track of all the people who are calling the end of Donald Trump's presidency. So I was attracted to this tweet from constitutional law professor Lawrence Tribe who writes, the great Robert J. Lifton, I don't know who the great Robert J. Lifton is, but let's just go with this. The great Robert J. Lifton makes a persuasive case that a failure to get his wall, will deflate Trump's balloon and mark the beginning of the of his presidency's end. So mark down February 3rd as the day that the great Robert J. Lifton declared that Trump's presidency was over or the beginning of Trump's, the end of Trump's presidency.

Somebody's going to be right one of these days. It's true. It may be November 2020, but somebody is going to correctly predict the end of Trump's presidency. And finally, David, bad news of the week. I thought we should have a section called Bad News of the Week because something horrible happens to journalists every week now. Vice Media announced it's laying off 250 people or 10% of its workforce. And I don't know how to talk about this anymore, other than just pick somebody who's been affected and actually read their tweet. So this is Nigel Duara, veteran of vice.

All right, folks, the layoffs finally came from me. After dodging them at Gannette and AP, I think I was kind of due. love the folks I worked with advice and do watch the show 730 weeknights anyway email in the bio soon so I feel that could be a horrible coda for this era of web journalism email in the bio maybe maybe that's the name of the segment from now on Jesus and I'm guessing more bad news next week but anyway can't joke about the media for the for the whole time without without trying to wrap your mind around that stuff. All right, folks, that's the press box.

He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research from Chris Almeida. Production from Jim Cunningham. We're back next week with more hot takes on the media. See you then, David. See you later, man. David?

Yeah. Did you happen to notice, David? I'm a rich guy. I know how to solve problems. Yeah. That is why the neocon, NeoLib war mongers will do anything to stop me. Right. Well, first of all, tell us what you believe.

Don't tell us what you're... At the end of the day, we're all going to die. Yes. You egotistical, billionaire. That's good.