The Press Box - When Will Sports TV Start Sounding More Like a Podcast?

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

Bryan and David discuss the question: When will sports TV start to sound more like a podcast? They weigh in on the difference between the television and podcast art forms and the difference between the spheres of fame on both platforms. Then they talk through the evolution of television.  Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringiverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here, along with producer Erica Servantes. David, we got a piece of listener mail on Friday that we didn't get to. I wanted to read it today because I think it's a portal to a really interesting discussion.

This comes from our good pal, Nick Field. He writes, with football season coming up, can we have a conversation on why former players and coaches dominate pregame and postgame shows? Amina Kimes, that is an ESPN NFL podcaster and TV person, would be 100 times more informative than a Rex Ryan, that is a former NFL coach, at 10% of the cost. Why do all of the networks stick with this outdated formula? Ooh. Yeah. So here's what I propose.

We answered Nick's specific question, but then we kind of zoom out a little bit because I think what he's asking is a really, really salient media question, only in journalism word salient in 2021, which is, why is this thing I'm watching on TV not as good as my favorite podcast? I watch cable news. It's not as good as my favorite political podcast. I watch sports TV.

It's not as smart as the Ringer NFL show. Okay. Well, first of all, I think that Mina Kimes is a little bit of a red herring in the conversation only because she's gotten so many reps and is so good at her job that there's not... She is a big TV person now. She is a big TV personality, right?

Because I think that the number one or one of the top reasons is how little time they have to work with on television and the amount of impact you can make in that time, right? Rex Ryan breathing into a microphone for 10 seconds makes more of an impact of the average viewer than you and I saying the most brilliant thing we could possibly construct over the course of a minute, right? I'm willing to concede that, yes. The other thing is that for people like, he's like us, but, you know, the writers and

podcast is the world. We're used to our long formats. It takes us a while to get to rev up. You know, you got to get, getting to the point is never, like, has never been on a dry erase board in the press box offices. He does not like, stick, get to the point fast. No, no one cares. We have time. We have airtime to fill. We don't have a shot clock. No, we don't have a shot clock. And I think that obviously that's a thing that comes with reps, right? I mean, if you look at like our buddy, Zach Lowe, I don't think anybody would have mistaken him for a television personality. five years ago, right? Or for like, it's not, no one, you know, it's nothing.

There's not, like, a specific knock, but, like, I would think he would tell you he was uncomfortable being on camera, you know? And that's a sort of thing where, like, there are people who come up from, like, the television journalism school, like literally or figuratively. And then there are people that come up as writers or whatever else. And I think that for the latter category, most people are deeply uncomfortable when they get on camera.

It's not what you're used to doing, you know? and that sort of discomfort is not a multi-million dollar company like ESPN or like whatever Fox Sports, whoever we're talking about here, doesn't necessarily have a vested interest in, on-the-job training because there's not like a farm league for a lot of these outlets, right? I mean, I guess you could like tuck somebody and like, you know, the Poughkeepsie evening news, but that's not really a normal thing to happen. So I think they just sort of take the talent as ready-made as it comes. And like I said, it all boils down to your presence, your existence, kind of taking like half of the point of interest for you, right? And it's, and I think that that doesn't come. It takes a lot of

work and a lot of esteem and a lot of a lot of just general curating and popularity to get to a point where a podcaster, even the biggest podcaster, can make that sort of impact just with the first three words out of their mouth. Bill was, our boss, Bill Simmons, had a turn on NBA countdown. He was probably one of the very few, probably the only one at that time to sort of take that path, right, from the podcasting world. And it's, it's just not, it's not conventional. Now, listen, I mean, there's been a bunch of writers over the years, right? But that, but that's, but that was, it was, that was more of an old school thing. It felt like an old school thing even 10 years ago, 15 years ago, right?

That like the old grandfatherly local sports writers would be elevated at that point, even all the way through to Rick Riley when he was doing TV. Yeah. And I tell you, on the pregame and postgame show specifically, the writer was just the information person. That's Will McDonough, Adam Schaefter, you know, Jay Glazer. They have a particular role that's not like pundit role, like what you're talking about. But I do think even that's changed.

When you talk about your Schifters or Wojer or whoever else, I mean, and even people who are not just like news brokers who are writers, the fact that they're, that they're dealing more on Twitter almost inherently makes their stories or makes their points bite size and television appropriate, if that makes any sense. You know what it was? Like, it's like there's a world in which like the, the most plugged in NFL reporter speaks in, writes in paragraphs or multiple paragraph pieces. did you get a point across and that's not and shepter is obviously in it pieces yeah and and and shester's obviously in it like exists well he writes all but but but you know we know him largely now as a Twitter personality too so you know he's already sort of comes pre-packaged and obviously his delivery I mean he's he's he's not exactly a you know Tom Brokaw but he's but he's he has a very distinct

and very functional TV style that I think really works I love opening up a Google Doc and cracking my knuckles and saying you know i think this one's going to have multiple paragraphs yeah i'm going long long form three paragraphs four paragraphs how how far could i push this baby oh man just lots of lots of line breaks man i want to pull okay i want to pull a few things from what you just said there one is you're talking about and i completely agree that tv and podcast world writing world are actually just different art forms the art of television such as it is is the ability to speak in a sound bite that goes from somewhere from like 15 seconds to 30 seconds maybe if you got a long time 45 seconds on those pregame shows yeah and to me and as you as you point out that is not a natural skill that most writers

and podcasters have nor I would add is that a natural skill that most a lot of them would want to have you know whenever I see those people who are you know, how the MSNBC and CNN signed up like every New York Times and Washington Post reporter. Yes. I always think like, okay, I know you want to be famous. I know you want to get more money by going on those shows. Nothing wrong with that. But like, do you want to be at the beck and call of shows that have you come on and talk in sound bites like that?

Is that like, is that beyond the sort of obvious benefits? Is that like a pleasurable experience? Because it wouldn't be a pleasurable experience for me. Yeah. I wouldn't want to do that. I might want the things that come with that, which would be cool. But I don't know that I would actually want to do that. So my question, you know, for writers and stuff, was like, man, I aspire to be on around the horn, whatever it is.

I'm like, really? Do you, do you want to do that? So they're different art forms. Yes. Another thing you said was fame. They are almost totally different spheres of being famous. TV, I think, at its base, a lot of people watch TV to see famous people. That's why they watch television.

Remember when we had this conversation about Charles Barkley with Gons the other day? And it's like Charles Barkley keeps messing up all these fundamental facts about basketball on inside the NBA. Yeah. Why are people watching Charles Berkeley? Because he's famous. Yeah. Well, he's also really funny.

And he's funny. He's really good at his job, right? In that respect. I always find this, I think this is like in Twitter world, this is always a little startling because people have massive followings, but I always use my uncles as an example. They're in their 60s. They're huge sports fans. One of them is a Dallas Cowboys season ticket holder.

If I gave them a list of my top 10 favorite NFL writers, they wouldn't recognize any of the names. Oh, yeah. They would have no idea who those people are. Well, that's, I mean, this is a total sidebar, but to what degree have they migrated to, like, the athletic or, you know, just various websites. Because certainly like Dallas Horton. Like, but where, I mean, did they read them online? Yeah.

But more on those. The local papers still, I guess, I guess the local papers still do some justice to the cowboys. But by and large, the sports page has been reduced a whole lot. But more on those free aggregating sites. Yeah. This is like, this is like its own media nightmare, right? People that are really, really interested in football aren't paying for football content

other than subscribing to ESPN. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, I guess that's not too shocking. But if I said like, do you know who Joe Buck is? They would say absolutely. Do you know who Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long are? They would say absolutely.

But if I again listed any of the top 10 NFL writers, I don't think they would know who those people were. I doubt in most cases they would have even heard the name. So to them, it's like there's like this kind of world of television, which is just filled with famous people, often people that got really famous playing football. And then there's this other realm that's just completely separate from that.

And again, I think a lot of people wouldn't mind, certainly, of some of those writery, podcastry people migrated into the, into the TV realm, but that's not why they go to television. They go to television to watch famous people they've probably already heard of. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do you think that there's a distinction between the era of, well, I guess, argues, But just sort of your uncles when they were, you know, probably in their 20s and 30s and 40s, whatever, reading, 20s and 30s reading the sports page where if they were in Dallas, I know they weren't always in Dallas. But if you're in the town where your team plays and you read the local newspaper and you have the three or four voices that write gamers or, you know, cover the Cowboys or more importantly probably write columns about the NFL and the Cowboys, is that a level of fame?

You know, and those people would go on to be on TV. And a lot of them went on to be on ESPN in the early days. But is that is that a level from Dallas? Yeah, exactly. But is that like a is that is that a level of awareness to the average fan that you think is like that makes the transition to TV make more sense? Yeah. I mean, it's just I just think it's a different. That world from newspapers, they absolutely knew who those people were, especially the columnists.

It's just that that has kind of largely phased out and been, you know, papers. have withered, the paper is not as central in understanding the team. So if we just think of like 2021, I think you can almost argue that those are just kind of different. That's just an old world that's not familiar to them or really a whole lot of people at this point. It's interesting. I mean, in some sense, you might, just speaking of Dallas reporters in general, I mean, specifically, but I guess reporters in general, I mean, listen, ESPN is, you know, the place to be if you want to, if you're a writer that wants to be on TV. But it is sort of

interesting to look at like the early days of around the horn. I mean, even now, the current days around the horn that like the Tim Kalashaw's of the world are there doing, you know, as part of a five-person panel instead of being a more forward-facing role, right? Those jobs were already going to ex-athletes and ex-coaches at that point in time. And the writer is even the great ones, Kalashaw, Pablo Tori. I mean, who had Bob Ryan, Woody Page, these guys, Jay Mariariari are like, now on a sort of, you know, just kind of being cordoned off into their own little writersy area. Yeah.

The other element I would add to this discussion is there's something very specific to sports television here in 2021, which is that it's the last thing anybody's watching on television. So, you know, when we think of like, you and I grew up watching sitcoms and dramas on network television. The ratings for those things have by and large fallen into the abyss. The ratings for live sports, on the other hand, have maintained a lot of the mojo from the three network era. Not all of it, but a lot of it. I saw Kendall Baker who writes this really good sports newsletter and Axios the other day. He said 22 of the 25 highest rated shows this year are sporting events. Yeah. And one of the other ones was an episode of the Equalizer that ran right

after the Super Bowl. So we could probably count that as a sporting event. And one was Biden's inauguration, right? So the whole idea of the last kind of mass network television, certainly, and really almost all of television television is sports. So when we talk about this whole idea of like, oh, wow, you have this thing that's more like niche and small and you have this thing that's big on television, sports television is still really big.

It almost be like saying, why can't my friends be on a sitcom in the 80s? Well, sitcoms in the 80s were huge. You couldn't just walk onto those kinds of things. So I would say that there is, at least in network executives' minds, still this high bar to get to the show. Oh, yeah. And it's just, and it's totally different than anything else on television right now. Well, that's definitely true. And so, I mean, but do you think that that the fact that it's the big, those are the biggest shows around, right?

But in some sense, those are, it's not so much that they've succeeded. seated is that they've maintained in a world where everybody else is losing, right? Yes. And so you have to wonder if the ideology behind picking the, you know, picking the hosts, picking the whatever, the studio guests for the show is just a holdover as well. Like is it, is it evolving or is it just like, hey, we're like, let's just not break any eggs, right? Let's just keep doing what we're doing.

That's the second question I want to address with you here because it's like, wait a second. Why is that the case? and if there was always, you know, throughout history, this distinction between mass product that was usually way, way, way broad and niche product that was often cast as a lot smarter and a lot more in depth, does it have to be that way in 2021? Let's answer that, David, after we do the overword Twitter joke of the week

where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious, how'd you like that tease, that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time, send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always great. received. On Friday, David, we had Claire McNair on the pod, talking about her Jeopardy reporting. Well, today we have a Jeopardy, Overwork Twitter joke about now former host Mike Richards. It was an overword Twitter joke to write, ultimately, the Jeopardy host search failed because the questions came after the answer.

That's how they do it on Jeopardy. Thanks to Ryan Banyan for that one. David, championship teams in sports pause their White House. visits during Donald Trump's chairman office, but now the visits have resumed. This week, it was the 2020 WNBA champion Seattle Storm visiting the White House. It was an overword Twitter joke or maybe just a good joke to

write, you all laughed at QAnon, but the storm is here. Well, that's nice. I can't believe that was overworked, but I really appreciate it to you for it. Sometimes you just go for the funny here because I can't find three examples. And finally, David, a scary tweet from the New York Post,

eating one hot dog takes 35 minutes off your life, studies suggests. One hot dog takes 35 minutes off your life. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, that means Joey Chestnut technically died 50 years ago. Oh, that's great. Thanks to the ringer's own Matt James, Victor Flores, and Mike Miller. If you realize that David and I also technically died 50 years,

50 years ago, congrats. You made the overword Twitter joke of the week. Okay, to return to our topic at hand here, 2021, the world is way different. As you point out, newspapers aren't what they once were. Your average sports fan is reading stuff that on balance is way more technical, that is way smarter, that is pitched at a higher level

than I think at any time in history, right? Just read the ringer. you're just going to find football discussed on a totally different level than you would have found it discussed in the Dallas Morning News in the 80s. So the question that you raise, and I think is the right question is, do TV and podcasting have to exist in these separate spheres? Why can't one be like the other? Why couldn't you put those people on television broadcast and just say, hey, fans are ready for this? Still a mass audience. There's still a lot of people there that are sort of kind of.

coming in that are watching football because of the thing to do on a Sunday rather than a thing they just love with all their heart. But could you push them a little bit and go there and make a different kind of broadcast? Well, maybe this is beside the point. But it does seem to be, I was thinking you think about the news networks, right? If, you know, Emichal Cinder pops up on MSNBC. Actually, she's been doing TV for a good, for a lot of time. So this is not like a reflection on her in particular.

But just if anybody signs on to one of these jobs the first time. there probably are a lot of people that say what you said before, which is like, I'm not, I don't want to do that. I'm uncomfortable doing that. But you said, but you also said, you might want what comes with it, right? And I think, sure, whoever pops up, then that, that trumps it. Or, I mean, there's going to be some people who are dying to be on TV. But I think that a lot of those people take those jobs with the specific and direct assurance that their producers will take care of them, you know, and just sort of guide them through, you know, baby steps at first and whatever. And if it's pre-recorded,

or just, you know, scripting things out, making sure that they make the point exactly in the most concise way as possible. You know, they're happy to help you along and that makes the conversations. And then generally, they'll make the point. And then the TV talent, quote unquote, will take it from there.

You know, they'll do the rest. I don't think it's crazy to say, to me, to guess that, you know, you could definitely do that in sports television. You could definitely do that on pregame shows. You could definitely have, you know, fill in the blank. like a podcaster or blogger or whatever else come in and say, you know, listen, I've run the numbers.

And the real problem here is that, you know, the Raiders are only averaging whatever. You know, or just, I mean, it could be a very specific, you know, arcane data point. I still think there's just the disconnect between what those people would offer and what the talent would want to talk about or would have to say about it. You know, if someone goes on MSNBC and they, and they present news, then presumably the people in the studio were like, that's like, yes, let's discuss. So I know, I have a point of view on this, right? Um, if that happens on sports, I think you'd get, you, you'd have, it would be a rather frequent occurrence where whatever the, you know, like, like, like, we're like a, you know,

a data, a data nerd, if you will, would say something that like the rest of the, the, rest of the cast just didn't care about, right? And then, and you'd kind of be, and that would make for very awkward television. Um, if it was, yeah, if it was, uh, if it was, statistical thing. Yeah, you're right. I guess I'm being really specific. But I do think that it's, it's not hard to imagine a world in which

a lot of, you know, in which people, podcasters, whoever else make the leap. But, you know, I just think it takes such a different, it just takes touch, such a different, like, arithmetic from the people who are who are producing the shows, right?

I mean, I just can't even imagine some of the execs that we know at the big sports networks like trying to like what are you trying to like procure headshots of all the people on the ringer podcast network and like you know just and like listen to their audio and just try to imagine what it would be like or even the ones where there's video you know i mean it's oh my god can we do that as a bit on the ringer have like a video like all of us trying out for fox NFL Sunday yeah oh my gosh that would be so great i mean maybe Terry and Jimmy would cooperate with us if we could set that up. I can speak from personal experience and I

assume that you would agree, although we've never talked about it. But I know that we both stood on the Fox and NFL Sunday set. Yeah. It felt it felt more or less like walking on razor blades when I was there. The cameras weren't on or anything. You just get out there. I don't, I'm not just like,

like give me my top hat and cane. I'm going to dance. I mean, it just makes me feel like I'm in a place I shouldn't be as soon as I step on this day. Ground? That's what you think of it? No, no, not Holy Ground. Just like I hope to God, none of these cameras are accidentally running. Like actually, you feel like you're, you feel like you're like your photo bombing a news segment or something like, like, is someone going to see me here? But it just is like, you know, there are people who are born for it. And, and, and more importantly, people that have pursued it already, obviously, they're at a different, I just think the premiums,

the premium structure is set up. So like if like, if like you're better off learning broadcast. and learning TV broadcasting and, you know, becoming great at the sort of intellectual parts of the job, than the people who start out as, you know, writers or podcasters or anything else and learn the broadcasting part of the job. I think the first one, I mean, it's a visual medium. I think that the first one is just, there's just a straighter path. There's a lot of television.

There's a lot of television that is hard to explain. That is not just I'm very sharp and I can write something down that's very good. There's a lot about the camera and about your voice and about just understanding the medium that you're right is sort of hard to, hard to figure out. And I think somebody coming from writing has a pretty steep climb in there. I keep coming back to the NBA countdown example. We talked about a few months ago. Remember when NBA countdown during the finals was doing that thing where they went around and every panelist had to speak during a half time that was like 30 seconds long. So everybody got like exactly 9.45 seconds or whatever it was to talk.

To me, there's the who are we putting on camera question? And there is also a separate question of why are we doing it like this? Why are we talking in sound bites that are that short? Why are we going around the horn, no pun intended, to get everybody to talk? Why are we talking in this really stilted way? And I think the answer is we're doing it because pregame shows have had that vocabulary for as long as there have been pregame shows. And I'd be really interested if there was any evidence that people would turn it off if it were cast slightly differently, no matter who was doing the talking. because, you know, Rex Ryan can talk in a 30-second soundbite or whatever it is,

but Rex Ryan presumably also knows a lot about football that he's not explaining on that show, right? Rex Ryan can be pushed in a different direction or whomever can be pushed in a different direction or even just talk or just have a football conversation in a totally different way. So why isn't that happening? Well, people are afraid of change or trying new things because for fear that it will fail, miserably on their watch, right? I mean, these people are getting paid lots of money to not, not fuck up. Yes, that's true.

I agree. I mean, it seems like we've, you know, we've had iteration of this conversation a million times, as have presumably every single person listening to this show. But it does seem, I mean, it does seem like rather obvious, right, that you would just try having intelligent, lengthy conversations, even if you're doing like picture and picture with a silent Domino's Pizza ad running, you know, or whatever at the same time, like finding ways to monetize things that are actually interesting. One would think that the advertisers would see the value in that as well. Yeah. Because it keeps people watching while their cheese is stretched across the screen,

right? But it's, if it were, I guess I always kind of assume having spent a little time around TV, and you spend a lot more than I have, but I always just kind of assume that whenever there's a question that just has existed for such a length of time, it just sort of beggars belief that there is a very straightforward sort of like industry canard that has been repeated over and over again as the answer that I just don't know, right? I don't think it's right.

I don't think, like, I still think that that's, it would be crazy, but I just, I presume that there's a very straightforward, oh, this never works, you know, oh, this kind of thing can't work. And then, you know, it has a, it's just the sort of thing that everyone's heard from their predecessors and just believes to be true. Yeah, I mean, I think part of when we talk about pregame shows like whirling around and everybody talking in these short bursts, you know, you don't want to go on a football Sunday when people are, you know, want to have fun and be excited and have someone talking like Spalding Gray.

That's not going to work. I'm going to look at the camera and talk to you for an hour. That is not going to be the approach. But you want people, I think, having fun, right? I think that's something that research has told us. You want people laughing at a good time? Let's come back to that. Yeah, but go on.

We'll come back to Forced Fun in a second. But I also think that at some point, if you deviate too far from what normal human conversation is like, like the way people actually talk to each other versus the way people talk to each other on TV a lot of the time, specifically sports TV, you're going to turn people off sooner or later. That's what the ESPN NBA shows did. it eventually gets to this point where it's like, I don't like this because this doesn't sound like the way people talk. These people aren't talking to each other.

They're just, they're doing this canned kind of thing. And it just got to be too much. So I'm always wondering like, we can, we can set the rules. Hey, nobody,

you know, nobody go on for podcast length, uh, you know, monologues here. But can't you have a conversation that's kind of unscripted that just kind of maybe goes to an interesting place for a few minutes and then we whirl around to the stadiums and all that stuff. I'm not, I'm not convinced that can't happen and you can't sort of break

the mold that has been pregame shows for as long as you and I have been alive. Yeah, the fun, having fun thing is I think where, where this whole conversation sort of turns, right? Because fake fun has become such a currency on these shows. And we've talked about this a million times, but just the, I mean, if the Fox halftime shows are two and a half minutes long, it's like 45 seconds plus of just guffawing, right? And that's-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Slaping you on the back, David, just, oh, my gosh, we're having fun here, aren't we? We're just cutting up.

Yeah, and it's sort of, I mean, there's a lot of value to that, I think, in probably, you know, very mystical ways, but that it does seem like that soaks up the potential, or kind of eclipses the potential. for having actual fun, which when you think about it is a lot of what really makes podcast successful too, right? It's just the relationships and the sort of like, you know, not just in jokes, but the sort of humor that can be produced from in jokes, you know, and just sort of the sort of relationships that are often inherent to those things, right? So, I mean, it's a, listen,

Listen, like I said, everybody who's listening to this podcast has at some point had a conversation about football or about basketball with a friend at a bar and said like, dude, they should have us on the show. We'd be better at this. But it like, like, I was, I don't know how much to pull back the curtain, but I was at, you know, SummerSlam this weekend and got a beer with Bill Simmons. And he came down and Bill was fresh off vacation and like work, basically like workshopping in real times. the ideas that like made it onto his pot, his most recent episode of his podcast, right? Uh-huh, I just let's do it. And then Kaz, my podcast co-host,

Kaz, came and sat with us. Kaz hosts the, the, MSG, Knicks after, you know, after show amongst, I mean, besides doing a trillion other thing. So he comes in, those, so the basketball conversation heats up, right? And then, like, Andreas Hale from Sports Illustrated, pops in for a minute,

and we start talking about the Pachial fight and boxing in general. And I say, we, I mean, I'm just sitting back and watching half of this stuff. And there really is a, where you're sitting there and you're just like, yeah, I mean, this is more fun than everything. Like this is like, just pull up the cameras. Like this would be great, right? I mean, and that's why Bill got a TV show, you know? I mean, that's why Bill's been on TV. These things,

these are very obvious ideas that don't always, you know, last. But I mean, it's just hard to imagine that there's not, that there's not an opportunity there. You know, I mean, it's, it's kind of, when you think about it, it's sort of amazing that, that no, that every time somebody gets a new, you know, TV deal for football, they just, they go out of their way to hire the exact, they hire away people from the other networks that can replicate the same jobs that they're already doing, right? In one sense, that's not, that's obvious. But, and again, this goes back to not fucking it up. If your network spends billions of dollars to get, you know, a Cardinals game, then you're going to do whatever you can just to like earn that money back. But safely, but it is

crazy with so many networks out there that there aren't a lot of examples of people doing different. stuff. Now listen, we're just talking about pregame and post game. I mean, you know, there's shows like, what's a good example? Like, Good Morning Football is like probably like the closest thing on TV to a good podcast, right? And that's a good example. They pull that stuff off. I mean, that is to me the most, one of the most consistently watchable sports shows on television. You know, I watch the jump with, you know, great frequency. And my only, my, my only complaint with that show, really is that, It's, you know, I wish it were longer, or I wish they, you know, they gave more space for specific conversations, which is what we're talking about, obviously.

But, you know, it's, it's hard. It's, it's just easy to imagine. I mean, it's just like, it just never happens. And it's, and it's kind of wild that it never happens. Now, all this said, we talk about, you know, I opened up the show talking about podcasters not working in sound bites, right? And the, and the two medium is not really being, you know, being. easy pairs, but it's not like the networks have never done this before, right? I mean, like,

like Dennis Miller, he was not exactly a huge success story, but he was, he was a famous comedian, but there was no reason to believe that he would be good at getting in, even if he knew everything about the sport. He nothing, you know, Saturday Night Live does not prep you for being in a booth, right? I mean, so, I mean, it's not like, it's feasible that you would have such a track record in one area that you would get an opportunity to try something totally new. the sports world. Obviously being the best, you know, one of the best players of your position of all time doesn't mean that you are necessarily a good broadcaster, but most networks are willing to give you a shot there. But that goes back to sort of recognizability in both of those

cases and kind of making an impact by your, making an impact slash statement by your very presence. You know, I think it's feasible that someone who's one of the biggest podcasters in the world would be a draw on, you know, on network television. I think some of that's just a new media thing where I think there'd be a lot of people at your NBC's and Foxes who were like, yeah, that's fake. Downloads don't mean anything to me until it's eyeballs, you know, whatever. But like, you know, the level of fame, I think,

is sort of what dictates this and the sort of degree to which the people, the networks are willing to recognize, you know, change their algorithm to reflect downloads and not just, you know, traditional cue rating. The level of fame and the way in which conventional categories of like TV, journalism, Twitter are kind of all collapsing into each other. So it's not just, oh, you're famous, but you're famous over there.

Over there is now over here. It's one big world. I also want to come around a word you said a minute ago. Relationships. Relationships. This is actually the key. More than any football information, statistical information, everything else. I am absolutely convinced that's why people watch these TV shows.

The ones that really, really succeed is the relationships between the hosts. One time I was talking to David Hill, who's the guy who created Fox Sports, the sports division at Fox and Fox NFL Sunday with that. And he said, you know, people used to ask me, like, why is this show successful? Is it the chemistry? He said, no, no, it's not chemistry. It's friendship,

which is a very different thing, right? People, Fox NFL Sunday is successful because people think those hosts really like each other and have genuine relationships. They watch it. Inside the NBA, you are interested, you know how Kenny and Charles and Shaq

interact with each other, and you want to see that happen. PTI on ESPN, right? Those are genuine. relationships that exist in a non-television sense, and that's what gets you to the second level, as they say, in the NFL. Yeah.

It's what works. So it's actually, it is a carryover from podcasting, right? It's like, I like this because these people genuinely have a thing, and I'm going to watch this thing play out on television. Can I ask you just a totally unnecessary point of clarification? Do you think the presumption by most viewers,

by average viewers, or maybe even say average viewers 10 or 20 years ago was that all co-hosts are friends unless they're palpably feuding and the Fox folks just do it just kind of up to ante a little bit? Or do you think it's something specific to that show and to inside the NBA or whatever that they convey a level of personal relationship? I think it's the latter by far. Okay. Look at, look at, yeah, look at CBS's pregame show right now. Totally fine. Do you think Dan Marino has a relationship with the other guys on the panel? Do you sense that when you watch a show? I don't. Game Day, by the way, I left off the list of ones that are both

really, really have been successful and guys that feel like they really like each other on television. Now, is some of that for TV? Absolutely. It's television. It's performance. But there is a relationship there that's not just, how many podcasts have you heard, dude, where it's like, here's somebody I really like, here's somebody I also really like. This podcast is just okay because they don't actually seem to like each other or even hate each other, right? And that's the relationship I'm going for. They just kind of are coexisting in the same space. That sucks. Right. That sucks as TV. It sucks as a pot. It sucks as everything. And I think when you, when you find those, I mean, look at some of the ESPN studio shows. Like, you look like, does that person like that person?

Do they hang out? Do they have, do they even have, do I believe they have cool conversations, the cool conversations with each other? Nope. So I don't, why? I'm am I watching this? If they don't have a relationship, why am I going to have a relationship with their show? That to me is the magic ingredient at the end of the day that kicks you to another level. Yeah. I mean, are you talking specifically, it maybe doesn't matter. Are you talking specifically about like podcast guests or like when there's the lack of chemistry there or just like co-hosts of certain podcasts? Mostly the hosts. Yeah, okay. Because that's a really specific. I mean, that's a more specific category in my mind. But yeah, I. Bill and Cousin Sal,

Chris and Andy on the ringer, right? Why do they, do they do they do they say awesome things? Absolutely. But I think first and foremost, when I come, I come for the relationship between those two people. Oh, for sure, for sure. It feels comfortable. It feels fun.

It's like I'm with your eavesdropping on a friendship. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think eavesdropping is a good point. I think one of the unifying things here. We talked a couple times in the past few months. And I think I made the point that Maria, Taylor's, you know, one of her great guests on NBA countdown was making you feel like you were

walking into a conversation, that it felt like you were, there's a sort of perpetual emotion to the, to whatever the conversation that was going on was that like, so it sort of made it feel longer and bigger than it was. But it also felt like, I mean, implicitly that you were listening in, right? That there was conversation that was going on before the cameras turned on after they turned off. You get that on inside the NBA too, right? I mean, there's It's just... Sure. Maybe not before the cameras turn on,

but it's impossible to, you know, to imagine that when the cameras turn off, some of like the, you know, that some of these conversations don't continue, or at least that the laughter doesn't continue, you know? It just seems like it must go on for hours. So, yeah, I think that that's a real key. And I think that that's an instance where, you know, podcasters, the right set of podcasters would certainly have an advantage over, you know, just replacement level TV talent.

But I'm not sure that, I mean, but I guess what we're saying is, the network, the producers or the network executives feel like they can create those relationships, so they can create those moments. And certainly they're not, they're not always successful. But it does seem like it's more of a premium at creating those relationships between people who they already want, you know, who they've already. decided to have the cue rating high enough that they deserve to, you know, they should be on television.

Totally. But there's no reason you couldn't do it with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a, with somebody we don't know. No, it just, it just take, you have the, you have to be motivated to, to take the relationship and to take this, like, you know, take the, take the, take the, take the, take all the good things that come with it. And then you create the other half, right? As opposed to taking the other half and creating the relationship.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that's. that is that is the key i mean i think of game day right chris the bear felica fallica i was mispronounce his last name is that a guy i was turning on game day to see no do i now look forward to that segment because he's like making picks and talking to the guys and you know picking against a spread yeah that's awesome right it's a good element to that show yeah so i think there is um there is something there and i and i would just i would just emphasize there's like such a thing as a friendship and then there's such a thing or a relationship and then there's

a relationship into a TV relationship. And those are actually different things because sometimes people have a very genuine off-camera relationship. And then you put them on a show together, you're like, this sucks. This is not something I want to watch. This just doesn't, this doesn't work.

And people, you know, in TV. And, and, you know, we can, we can try to narrow down the definitions of relationships or of chemistry or whatever else. It's not necessarily, it doesn't always have to be a, positive relationship. No one would say, no one say Kenny and Charles. I mean,

you presume that they're probably friends, but it's not like they're just like, you know, talking about, it's not like they engage like besties, you know, and I mean, obviously there's a million other examples of that. I mean, we just talked to Brian Raffrey on the show. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were

very rarely like, you know, intimate friends off camera, but they certainly had a sort of relationship on camera that's almost intangible. And it was kind of the competition, right? It was the anti, you know, relationship doesn't have to be friendly, right? A relationship can be we are arch competitors and we are going at it on television.

Yeah, and PTI sort of operates under that same way a lot of the times. I mean, there's a little bit of that too. Yep. They have a, I don't think you know for sure if they're golfing buddies or if they're, you know, competitors first and foremost, but it's the sort of relationship that, that, again, it's kind of intangible, but it's very, very evident when you watch it. It's the relationship of two people that have the same job at the same publication. Yeah.

Are you going to be that person's absolute best friend? Maybe. Or are you going to have a little competitive edge where you feel that the column you're writing or the thing you're writing is, you know, on Tuesday better than the one that he's writing? I don't think it's the answer's both, probably in their case. When you put it that way, the people that have the same job of the same publication, or even different publications. That sounds like a lot of podcasts, I know.

It does. It does, right? And there's, hey, I'm not breaking any news here that sometimes you can feel the, you can feel the edge and the anti-chemistry just pouring out of the podcast. Oh, let me tell you, I'm going to have a better take than you, and I'm going to show everybody right now that I do. And I'm going to cut you off and, and mess with you a little bit. Oh, that happens a lot.

Is it time for speaking of relationships? relationships that are both on and off the air. Is it time for David Shoemaker? Guess is this train pond headline? Oh, yes, please. Friday's headline about accused mob defendants, David, was Consider the Mobster. Today's headline comes from our pal, Joseph Bien-Con. It's from Medium.

It's a story about a man who went missing in a tiny town in the Australian Outback. As the subhead of the story says, in this town of 12, everyone is a possible suspect. What was Medium's strained pun headline? The Australian Outback? Yeah, Outback is going to be the word you're playing with here. Outback Steakhouse, Outback Jack. Twelve people, David, a small,

claustrophobic mystery. Knives Outback? Oh my gosh, you got it. Oh, really? That's fantastic. Well, you said glosserphobic mystery. I thought I was going to have to do a lot of leading to water on that one. That's a good one.

Damn, that was good. I don't know if that reads, but it's pretty brilliant. This is my genuine, not podcasting emotion coming through right here. I'm surprised David got it that quickly. Well done. It's a fantastic movie, nice out. He is David Chewaker. I'm Brian Curtis, production magic.

by Erica Servantes. We are back Friday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Ryan.