The Press Box - Your Biden-Trump Debate Cheat Sheet, ESPN’s Opening Bid for Stephen A., and the Return of the New York Tabloids With Jason Gay

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan welcomes Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay. He kicks off the show with five thoughts on the upcoming presidential debate (2:23). Then they discuss ESPN’s first bid to Stephen A. Smith and how it compares to Pat McAfee’s deal (20:21). Later, they talk about JJ Redick becoming the new Lakers head coach and leaving the podcast game (33:42). They close the show with the 48 New York tabloid headlines about Justin Timberlake’s arrest (54:07). Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Jason Gay Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings, it's Mal. Call your banners because it's time to head back to Westrose for House of the Dragon, season two. The ringers, Dragon riders will soar alongside you each week with a heron-hall-sized slate of conversations. The dragon has three heads, and on Sunday nights immediately after Hot D concludes, Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson and I will be with you for Talk the Thrones. Then on Mondays, two more shows away. Dan Lath and Charles Holmes, Steve Allman and Jomea Denneron, aka the Midnight Boys, Pugh!

Pee! We'll head to the tourney grounds to share their reactions. And of course, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald will sip the Arbor's finest vintage on the watch. Then on Tuesdays, Joanna and I will head to the bowels of a pleasure den for our House of our deep dives. Then on Thursdays, Joe, Neil Miller, and Dave Gonzalez will gather the Ravens for trial by content. In this season, full episodes of Talk to Thrones, House of Ar, and the Midnight Boys will also be available on video on Spotify and the new Ringervverse YouTube channel. Podcast episodes available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, media consumers.

Welcome to Pressbox. Brian Curtis of the ringer here, along with producer Brian Waters. Coming up on the podcast, Gulp, the first Biden-Trump debate is Thursday night. We've got your cheat sheet right here. ESPN has offered Stephen A. Smith $18 million a year to re-sign with the network. He wants more. Plus, a popular podcaster takes it to motion and becomes coach of the Lakers, the NBA draft and NBA ratings, the New York tabloids rediscover their mojo with Justin Timberlake and a very

special edition of Pressbox Parent Corner. All of this with today's guest host. He is Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal columnist, fellow appreciator of and nimble criticizer of our friends in journalism. He comes to us from a smoke-filled room. Jason, as always, welcome to the press box. Brian, if I can channel a little broadcast news for you, that was just elegant, beautiful stuff. Really, a pleasure to read. Listening to your intro there. How long did you sweat that? That was very, very well done.

Let's see. We're recording a nine, so eight 50s. It's like you've been doing this for weeks now, Brian. Truly. That's what I wake up and say every Monday morning. Jason, we got a debate on Thursday. Yeah. It's in Atlanta, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. It's 90 minutes long. It's going to be on CNN. We'll talk about the CNNness of it in just one second. But I've got an old-fashioned five thoughts for you on the Biden-Trump debate. Number one is the question, what are we watching this debate for? We've had debates in the past that revolved around the question of, is this person up to the job?

of being president. Yeah. I think of George W. Bush in 2000, Bill Clinton in 1992. Yeah. Most of the media is treating the Biden-Trump debate like a welfare check, especially with the prelude of those phony Biden clips that have been making the rounds in right-wing media. Yes. More than ideas or even soundbites, it's like the media wants to ask the question, are these people

physically up to the job. It's a sentience combine, you know, basically, right? Yes. Very good. That's very good. Yeah. We're sort of like putting our hand to the screen and seeing if we can see a warm breath. And when you, you know, let out that little sound of terror, I think that's what the sound lots of people are making because this is not a particularly rewarding way to score a presidential debate. It's many of people in the media who have rooting interests. Let us say, especially on one side of the one side of the ledger there,

they're a little scared about what's going to happen or about the way what's going to happen is going to be judged? I mean, just pick your medical inspection. It's like finding out that what you thought you did very recently, actually was quite a while ago and you have to do it again. You're just like, I can't believe we're back here again. Did anyone go through that experience the first time around and think, you know, more of that, please.

It's not like getting, I don't know, Red Sox Yankees, Celtics Lakers or something like that. Everybody just sort of grown their way through the first cycle of this and to return to it four years later, diminished. I mean, I don't know, Brian. There's a historical comp. It's probably Ronald Reagan in 1984. It's watching an NBC news special about this on YouTube. Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale debated once. That debate did not go particularly well for.

Reagan. He had a tough time finding words. He was losing his train of thought, very similar to some of the moments that Biden's opponents and even Biden's allies have pointed out. So then Reagan and Mondale meet for debate number two in 84, and Ronald Reagan has a line ready to go. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuba missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances? Not at all, Mr. Truitt and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponents, youth and inexperience. So what's amazing about that line and NBC points this out is that Mondale starts laughing.

The guy who ostensibly should be making the, hey, I'm the fresh, you know, fresh, young thing here. Funny to think about Walter Mondale in those terms, but I am the, I am the voice of the youth. I am the young person here. He is so taken by this line that he just starts laughing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't have cousin Sal here, but could we get odds that Joe Biden is going to come with some form of my opponent's youth and inexperience on Thursday night? I don't know. I mean, is this compulsory? I was shocked, Brian, to read that the first time these two debated, The audience was 73 million. I thought those days had long past us.

I didn't actually think that we were getting near Super Bowl-sized audiences for debates anymore. I find it hard to believe that there's going to be a huge appetite for return engagement other than what you described at the top as to see, like, okay, who's alive? Does seem like a lot of people. We should also remember that was 2020. We were at home during the COVID pandemic. Oh, yeah. So that was kind of the last dance of debates.

Exactly. That's a lot to do, Jason. It was sourdough bread or presidential debate, yes. Yes. And then Trump would get COVID. The second debate was canceled. So there was a lot going on in the world. Here's thought number two for you.

I'm always amused by the quote unquote expectations game that goes on in the media before this. It's a little bit like Jason Kidd trying to play. mind games with the Celtics. When everybody on TV is talking about the expectations game, can you actually have an expectations game? I need to elaborate a little bit more on what you mean there. Well, so we're saying that like either team Trump is depressing expectations for how he's

going to do. Or team Biden is depressing expectations, only to go out and be a star on Thursday night. But if everyone's aware of this and everyone's talking about this on cable news, Does that gambit actually work? I mean, look, I might be sort of leaping ahead to your third or fourth point here, but one of the things that jumps out at me is what purpose do these debates serve in the actual real time that they're happening? Because what seems to me to be the case in the environment we live in now is that almost instantaneously, and literally instantaneously, because we've seen this actually happened in prior campaigns,

these things get atomized and set across social media and re-contextextualized, through the prism of the various political parties. And they kind of cease to be as actual real-time events. They go right through the prism right away. And they're not even allowed to breathe. I mean, one thing that was striking about the Reagan line, which happened a thousand years ago, but is kind of how it breathes in the moment.

You know, you mentioned Mondale sort of reacting to it, which is a no-no, of course, but also that you kind of had a metabolism in 1984 where you could clearly, you know, memorize a canned, you know, rehearsed line, deliver it with a beat. And it sort of exists and then, you know, in the afterlife lives on. But it's not this sort of like hot take, smash hit, smash cut, out the door, social media, tweet, Instagram, TikTok, real. Which I think is what we're basically doing now. we're sort of having, you know, a social media harvest of these events and whether or whether

or not they will actually stand on their own as actual debates. I mean, I think that was like, I sat through that whole thing last time. And as a top or start to finish thing, it was completely incoherent. Now, whether or not that matters anymore, I don't know. I think the Biden people are hoping that there is a group of Americans out there that hasn't been paying attention. Yeah. That has sort of, as we've seen in article after article, doesn't really believe that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are going to be their party's nominees in 2024, that will pay attention for the first time on Thursday night. And to your point about not getting run through the social media shredder, I guess it's not on Facebook. Yeah. So they won't see a doctored

clip of how one Canada or the other did. I guess that's the idea. Yeah. That there's still a persuadable non-social media adult human out there that will watch this debate and come down one way or the other. Again, I think that you're right on the money that in terms of where people are leaning with their voting preference, I think that has already been cast. I think people are really strictly watching for the physical performance and the cognitive performance and seeing anything there that alerts them. I think that's much more of a factor here than the new undecided voter. Donald Trump was doing his own expectation setting on the All In podcast.

Here's how he sizes up his chances against Joe Biden. Well, all I can say is this. I watched him with Paul Ryan and he destroyed Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan with the water. He was chugging water at a left and right. I didn't think a human being would be able to drink so much water at one time. And he beat Paul Ryan. So I'm not underestimating him.

I'm not underestimating him. It is what it is. It's kind of funny to think about Donald Trump as a political junkie watching old debates on YouTube. And he's right that Joe Biden did beat Paul Ryan in the 2012 vice presidential debate. Of course, Donald Trump is leaving out the fact that he himself debated Joe Biden twice in 2020 and lost both debates. And so just an amazingly Trumpian move there to be like, yeah, watch this guy with Paul Ryan. He's pretty good. You know, you were, you were standing on the stage with him.

Not that long ago. CNN also points out that was the last time that Donald Trump and Joe Biden were in the same room. Oh, yeah. Last debate in 2020. Speaking of CNN, Jason, thought number three is the CNN quality of this debate. So this is a pretty unique setup. Used to be there was a commission on presidential debates. That's right.

Set these things up. Trump didn't want any part of that because he likes destroying American institutions. Joe Biden didn't want that because they wanted to make their own rules, whether it's about cutting off. microphones are not having a debate in Utah. Yes, the commission actually wanted to do that this year. So there was a little bit of a mini NBA media rights negotiation. Okay.

Yeah. So it's like the play in tournament. I mean, not the play in tournament. It's the, what is it? The midseason tournament, right? Exactly. And CNN got one debate. ABC News is going to have the second one in September.

It really should air on Netflix, right? Because Netflix is sort of taking these a la carte sporting events with their own rules. this is where it should be going. Absolutely. I think that might be the next round, right? Everybody's in streaming and we'll migrate that direction. And there's no crowd, right? There's no audience.

There's no audience. And they can cut the mics, I believe. They can cut the mics. And you know that the Biden people were eager to have that be part of the rules because that was one of their complaints about the commission. Now, is that a standard? Is that a new thing or if there have been debates in the past where, I mean, basically what they're saying is once you finish with your lot of time, they're shutting

your mic off and allowing your opponent to speak. And there's no sort of interjection from podium to podium. Is that correct? Yes, which was clearly not the case in the first Biden Trump debate. Right. Right. Donald Trump was really projecting the cross talk, as they say. Yes. Yes. No cross talk. That's the idea. And you can tell that's what Biden wanted, right? They want as clean a debate as possible, not something influenced by a crowd, not something where my opponent is talking over me. Oh, you're time's up, the mic's off. What's in this for CNN is fascinating to me because this is largely a branding exercise. It's going to be on CNN, but all the networks can carry the CNN debate.

They just have to leave the CNN watermark on the screen. Oh, I gotcha. Okay. So if I'm Animal Planet and I want to run this, I just have to have my little CNN bug in the corner of Animal Planet. You have to do that and on the cable guide, to the extent anyone still uses that, it has to say the CNN debate on the animal planet line. Oh, okay. So this is the idea, right? CNN's had its own share of problems.

And I guess they're thinking and help me sort of be CNN, you know, Mark Thompson and CNN's sort of, you know, projector of what CNN can be in future years. You're hoping people watch this. they like the moderators Jake Tapper Data Bash. They see that CNN watermark and they think, aha, CNN. Now there's a familiar name and news. Yeah. I will return to them after this debate is over, maybe. I don't know.

It's a Hail Mary for a basic cable, Brian. That's what it sounds like to me. I read something, and correct me if I have this wrong, but there's some rule also that they cannot have like campaign staff sort of coaching them up in commercial breaks. That's right. That they, I don't know if they have like one designated person. If it's sort of like, you know, the French Open where some guy comes over with a towel and a couple

of tennis balls or like how it works. But they're definitely not allowed to be directly coached by campaign staff, I believe. Yes. Yeah. And you're right. If it would, it would be one person, right? Just Ron Clayne or just Gen O'Malley Dillon. You know, you don't want to send like four people out there like a pit crew.

They're leaving drama on the table there because as anybody who has watched a great boxing match, for example. Some of the most entertaining stuff is the corner advice. So when these guys get rocked in the ring and they go back and they sit in their corner and their trainer is in their ear telling what they're doing wrong and what they need to do in order to pull out a victory, wouldn't you want to hear that? I mean, that'd be kind of incredible. Absolutely.

And, you know, when we watch golf on NBC now, they're always showing you what's happening during the commercials. And this debate will have commercials. That's another big difference this year on CNN. Right, right. we'll have ads so we could show the pit crew coming out. Or they, maybe they're both with those like little paddles with the rubber pinky ball on it and just

sort of like slapping that, you know, like. All right, two quick ones for you. Thought number four, did you know that debates have a coin flip? I feel I do know this, but I need a refresher. This is from CNN. The coin landed on the Biden campaign's pick, Tails, which meant his campaign got to choose whether it wanted to select the president's podium position or the order of closing statements.

Okay. So basically kickoff or receive? Pretty much. You want to have the ball first? You want to have the ball last. Do you want to speak into the sun or do you want the sun, the wind at your back? Biden's campaign, CNN continues, chose to select the right podium position, which means the Democratic president will be on the right side of television viewer screens.

Trump's campaign then chose for the former president to deliver the, the last closing statement. Yeah. So I don't know if we have Ben Solac on the line who can tell us whether this is like whether you want the ball in overtime in the NFL. Like there's a fourth down bot for the debate. I have a feeling that most of Americans and I include you and I in this category will probably gray out by the end of the debate.

So at the end. Podium position is way more important to me than who talks at the 86 minute mark. I mean, look, I don't want to raise. on the segment, but to me, the ship has sailed on presidential debating many, many, many moons ago. And like, once we got into the territory, we were in the last cycle where we had like 17 candidates on stage, you know, talking over each other. And then we had the ridiculousness that we saw in the general debates. I don't know how you recover from that. I would love it to return to some sort of, you know, consequential conversation. But to me, it's just, again,

And it's sort of just content creation for social media and the fray that comes afterwards. And we haven't even gotten into like the spins or the spin room. And I don't know how that's working in this debate. If you have this like, you know, backstage spin zone where everybody kind of wanders from. You've been in those. Have you not? I've wandered into one. Yes.

In a Republican debate. Like on a scale of like 10 to NFL media night. Where is this? Well, it was the Republican debate that was here in California. Okay. So there was kind of a nice air of desperation about the proceedings. This is the one that Donald Trump wasn't at. So Doug Bergum himself was in the spin room.

And I got to ask him a question. He had just debated. And also Gavin Newsom showed up in the spin room to just kind of be like, hey, I'm here for the other team. So, yeah, I mean, like the spin room, I agree. It's like the expectations game. Oh, we're here lying to you, but we expect you to repeat. beat the lies. That seems

do they have like like like like like like specific podiums with like gatorade bottles and their names over them and stuff like that or is it more informal. Yeah, exactly. Donuts like the Pats have. There are a few reporters and costumes with like snakes and stuff like that. Yeah. All right. Last note on the debates.

We will mercifully move on. John Lewis who tweets at sports media watch notes that the NBA move the second round of the draft on Thursday to four. p.m. Eastern time so it's not to conflict with the debate. Wait, so it's Thursday, but it's 4 p.m. Eastern. Uh-huh. So I got to pull my kids out of camp in order to watch the second round of the draft. I honestly fear for our country if anyone is watching the second round of the draft. I include your NBA writers and that. Listen, but here's the thing. We can mock it all we want, but this is arguably the most interesting second round of the NBA draft ever. I mean,

Fair point. Because of Brunny, who's the most interesting character in the NBA draft this year and is, you know, if anything, on the bubble of the second round. Do I have that right? You do. It's been hours since I've read a mock prize. All right, topic two for you. ESPN Jason has made an opening bid for Stephen A. Smith who needs a new contract.

The opening bid was $18 million for Stephen A. Smith. And according to our friend John A. Rand, over at Puck, Stephen A and his team were like, that's not going to do it. They're looking more for a McAfee-like figure of, let's say, $25 million, though they would certainly take more. How do we process this idea of the Stephen A negotiation and Stephen A shaking his head at ESPN's opening bid? Well, let me start here. In the never-ending debate between the financial success of the employer versus the employee. I am pro-employee 100 out of 100 times. I support Stephen A's right to pursue and get as much as money from the Disney Corporation as

humanly possible. I am completely on board. However, it is sort of a fascinating discussion about value because Stephen A is kind of an a traditional sports media personality. In some respects, he's a throwback. You and I both know that there are sort of co-sell aspects to Stephen A. Smith's fame. He is the person who, even if you don't... Certainly in his mind. Yeah. Well, but, but even if he is not your

cup of tea as a talk show host and personality, you kind of stick around and watch him because he's compelling. Totally. But he is not and he has a show, but it's a daytime show, and it's a significantly

popular daytime show, which makes money and it's profitable and it's all this stuff about how the ratings keep going up, but I get it, but it's not like a prime time television program. It is not the core franchise of what ESPN is, which is the live programming. And Stephen A. Smith, you know, despite attempts to sort of put him into, obviously, the NBA finals programming and other programming, is not Joe Buck. It's not Troy Aikman. It's not Al Michaels.

It's not Tom Brady. he's not NFL, you know, though the NFL obviously surely loves to have Stephen A's attention. He's sort of this, you know, this presence that is all over the product of ESPN. But as ESPN migrates from a cable environment, increasingly to a streaming environment, look, I assume Stephen A. Smith is by far the largest driver of social media traffic for ESPN. I mean, he seems dead set on doing a few things per day, which, you know, spin around TikTok and Twitter and so on, so forth.

But how does that factor into the over-the-top streaming era of ESPN? We don't know what that is going to look like. We don't know if, you know, sort of the ambient state of cable television, which is what something like CNN was, which is something like what daytime ESPN was, how that translates into a streaming environment. Do you have streaming television on in your house? Brian, just running all day? Probably not. Yeah, most people don't do that.

That's sort of like airport lounge wallpaper type of thing where cable television stardom is born. Again, he's got a figure in mind. I saw 25 million or something like that, 18 million. They're going to get, there's no chance ESPN is going to let him get away. They're going to come at some figure in between. in the middle. You know, there's no environment that there's no competitor that is going to offer a more

attractive option to him. I know there's been proposed the idea that he could go independent. That's a lot of work. And you're talking about, you know, an incredible fire hose and you've been part of that. You know what? That's like the firehouse of ESPN in terms of the

attention you get. It's just a very attractive situation and it just feels to be sort of like a little bit of a public back and forth between everyone kind of hits a number and agrees upon. The most interesting sort of personal part of this is that a lot of this is dictated by the McAfee thing, which is ESPN going out and spending top top dollar to get the YouTube star Pat McAfee and paying what, a licensing fee. They give him a big chunk of money, Brian, and they just say you cut it up, however you cut it up in terms of paying your stuff, putting together your show and taking your share. And that's how

this is going to work. You know, there's a version of that they could do for Stephen A. You know, they could make Stephen A go independent on his production, you know, and put it together that way. I, you know, I just don't see any sort of scenario in which he goes. The guys in that tier, they're mostly guys, are pretty predictable. I have found. If someone else gets something, if Pat McAfee can produce his thing and can make money another way, then the next guy says, I want that plus more. Yeah. That's just what it is. And that's the way it's been since the days of Rune Arledge. I mean, that's what, I mean, there are other throwback aspects to this. I kind of like, you know, this is like in the old days, this would have been hashed out over

the 21 club, right? You know, Stephen A writes down a number on a napkin. The waiter brings over the telephone. They call it into Cap Cities, Brian. And, you know, we got a deal. We have a toast. And the interesting thing about Stephen A in that regard is that ESP and owns first take. Stephen A will not be able to own first take in the way that Pat McAfee owns his show. That's not going to happen. So he's got to figure out other things to own. Now we know he wants to produce other shows.

I would expect, and I completely co-signed on you that this deal will get done at a probably an astronomically high number, that he will produce other shows through his media company and that ESPN will buy those shows as well. I don't have any idea of what that could be. They bought some weird documentary about embracing debate pretty recently that we're I saw that. Yeah. It was okay.

Yep. There is, I think they could, Stephen A's talked about wanting to do a late night show. Could that be something that kind of run somewhere in the ESPN universe

or on YouTube or somewhere else and they buy it from him? Absolutely believe that. Because what Jimmy Patero thinks is that this is one of those guys that will take ESPN across the bridge you refer to from television into streaming. Now,

he doesn't have Monday Night Football like Ocel. He has first take, which is a smaller thing. He's part of the NBA programming, but not the key part of the NBA program. me, but they just think that younger people especially will be like, okay, I know who that is. I know that person from YouTube and TikTok. I will follow that person in whatever form.

Am I going to pay for ESPN? Probably not if you're young. But maybe I will watch something on YouTube. Maybe I will watch him. Maybe I will consume this ESPN guy. But is that really it? I mean, does he have appeal to a younger demo? I mean, like, I'm probably younger than, you or I.

but, like, I don't think that, like, Stephen A. is how old? He's in his 50s. Yeah, that's all right. It's not Mr. Beast, you know? No. He's legacy. He's a guy was a newspaper columnist, for goodness sake. He's that old.

You know, and also, like, I don't know if you agree or disagree with this, but, like, his, like, translation over to major event programming has been kind of a mixed bag. I don't think anyone thought that this year's NBA finals, uh, cover was spectacular or that, you know, left out for them or that he gave them some kind of ratings edge. Especially when you're talking about, look, we're going to give Stephen A $25 million. And we're also interested in adding Charles Barkley for $15 or $20 million to our ESPN pregame show. Right. And we're also going to be paying double what we paid for the NBA in the last contract. Exactly. So this guys were $25 million, but it'll only work if we add another $15 or $20 million

personality to the show. That's just kind of nuts on its face. There's only one answer to this, Brian, is that when ESPN finally goes over the top, the full product, it's going to be $780 a month. And that's how we're going to get this done. It's going to be a very small boutique audience of insiders paying $12,000 a month. I'll tell you one last thing about Stephen A's value that I think is interesting. It's that ESPN has not been able to clone him effectively. This is part of where the value comes in. I think there was a time where he said, okay, he will be one of many opinionators on television.

And there'll be another opinionator who will climb to the top of the ESPN Mountain, and he will also be the kind of guy that Stephen A. Smith can be. That hasn't happened. ESPN's tried. God knows FS1 has tried. It has not happened on that scale. Now, it's funny because I was having lunch with an executive not that long ago. We're talking about this, the unclonability of Stephen A.

Smith. He's like, you know what? I would have shared that sentiment completely. But then what do we think about Shannon Sharp? Is Shannon Sharp with what he's done in his own podcast world with all those interviews with stuff he's done on opinion shows? Could he be in an emergency situation where Stephen A picked up his suitcase and said, I'm going independent? Could he run something like first take? I don't think that's crazy. Could he be that sort of content machine that, is all over the place and that young people want to watch. I don't think that's nuts. That's the one person I've heard put forward is like,

this could be a Stephen A like personality in the ESPN universe. I mean, I think I texted you when they started running that ESPN bet commercial where Stephen A. Smith is playing pool. And he says at the end of he goes, I'm Stephen A, baby. I make my own rules. And I thought that was a sort of a funny, like, message for like,

the journalistic enterprise to say. But like, it's true that he, within the profession is setting his own rules. One of them that jumps out of me. He's getting these carve-outs to do independent programming, to do political programming, do his own thing in a way that in the sort of lockdown days of Bristol

never would have flown in a billion years. You imagine Keith Oberman coming to ESPN and saying, guess what? I'd like to talk politics on radio. Just never would have happened. And again, I support this. I think it's great to have the leverage, in the cloud to want to do other things and diversify your income and your talent.

I think that's great. And credit to him, do it. Yes. And by the way, in the next contract, it'll be more money and more opportunities to do stuff like that outside of ESPN, to do whatever he wants out of ESPN. There's no way that contract looks any different than that. Let me ask you this. This is a little segment that you and I can do with what would Roon do?

If Roon were alive today. Should we define who Rune Arledge is, former head of ABC Sports and ABC News? What you see on sports television, Rune invented that. In fact, most of what you see on cable television, Roon invented that as well. I mean, sort of a genius television programmer, but also sort of a master of a ringleader of talent and celebrity. You know, the person who sort of minted the multi-million dollar television personality and made, you know, Hampton's mansion owners out of lots of people who read the news headlines. But would Roon put Stephen A in the booth for Monday Night Football? He might. I remember a couple years ago, Stephen A was doing half-time arguments during Monday

night football with somebody. This may have been a Skip era thing or even a Woody Page era thing. I can't remember. And there was some gasping like, oh, my God, what would Brun say about this? Like, I don't know if you know this, but run put Don Meredith and Howard CoSell in the booth to argue with each other on Monday night football. Yeah. The idea was that Howard would get Don's goat and vice versa. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think also about Stephen A, one of the things that, you know, reading interviews and appearances that he does about this and sort of talking publicly about this, which is also rare, he's like a well-adjusted Howard Coasell. Like, Howard was a deeply flawed, miserable person for a good deal of his career. very insecure. Stephen A seems to be very comfortable in his own image and what he's done. And he does not seem to be somebody who is like starved and insecure.

Okay. Okay. You watch the Andrea Carter and Monica McNutt shows the other day, watching the responses to that? Fair point. Fair point. But I'm talking about like the sort of like owning the corner of what he's done. Yes, I will give you that. Yeah.

And Howard was also in like a, you know, a network. you know, Monday night football thing where it was, I think, a little more, a lot of it was imagined by Howard, certainly. But there were choppier waters than what Steve A has on first take. Stephen A will not be evicted from first take. Right. And also, Howard

would, like, in the clear later day, like, wanted to host World Nights tonight, you know? True. He did. Mad Roon never gave it to him. Let's say a quick word about J.J. Reddick to the Lakers. We learned this on Thursday that J.J. Reddick will be leaving

his popular podcasts, I guess, and certainly his finals coverage for ESPN and ABC. What did you make of Reddick getting the Lakers job? Well, I wanted to backpedal for one thing, which is that every time that I see anybody who has a successful podcast described in the media today, their successful podcast, and especially if they have more than one successful podcast, is described as a podcast empire. you know, it's always an empire. And as I saw one account of like JJ Redick's decision saying, like, oh, he's leaving behind a podcast empire.

And I was like, are we really calling these things empire? No doubt that they are successful and no doubt he pulled this incredible rabbit out of his hat with a young LeBron podcast. But like, is he Ted Turner? You know? I'm silently nodding here. I don't know if I'm allowed to say anything. But yeah.

No, I mean, you work, you literally work for a literal. Empire because there are what now, you know, 25 different ringer podcasts. I don't know how many of them are. But I think JJ has what? Three? Four? It's probably probably more than two to get to empire status. So more than two is an empire.

Well, I mean, two to a podcast two. It's got to be way, probably way more than two. Yeah, fiefdom. Yeah, sure. Bullie pulpit. I don't know. to me, the thing that I think should not be given up on is doing the podcast. I think the idea that he's going to flip a switch and become the Lakers coach is the worst result of all this.

I want him to be doing the podcast as he is the Lakers coach. Don't you want a real-time accounting of JJ Reddick's psychological torment of coaching this misbegotten team? Are we talking about the one with LeBron? All of them. I mean, yes. Where he goes and interviews other NBA players. Well, first of all, That might be technically tampering, right?

Well, you know, like Drew Holliday coming up on old man in the three. Drew, your contract expires in a couple of seasons. Kyrie, LeBron, much I wanted to play with you recently. Yeah, but keep them all, you know, keep all the pants in the fire. Yeah, I mean, I would not close the door on that. Why not? I mean, we are living out loud now, Brian. I completely agree with you in theory.

I have been told that this would just be absolute locker room poison if he was doing it with one guy. Who cares? Do you think I'd care about poison in the Laker locker room? I just want to be entertained. My favorite part of this story is I understand the irresistible fun of a podcaster has become the Lakers head coach. I don't think we should, at the risk of going back to, you know, television sports. The fact that JJ was the number one announcer for ABC and ESPN, a job he got after Doc Rivers left in January. Yeah.

And added a lot of luster to J.J. Reddick. And we know the Lakers, right, they're interested, A, in doing what LeBron's camp is okay with them doing, but B, being a kind of Hollywood empire, if you will, in and of themselves. So I think J.J. being on television definitely had something to do with him getting that job. Incredibly, absolutely. Do you think that when JJ starts doing press conferences, he's going to, like, you know how, like, at the beginning of the LeBron podcast, he always did that sort of like J.R.R. Token, like, glossary of terms where we would, like, explain basketball terminology.

Orange chest. Okay, folks, this is floppy. If you don't know floppy, is he going to do that for before all, Laker press conferences? It's going to be. The coaches press conferences is actually the most fascinating part of this, right? Because we know he likes to talk basketball. We also know he's pretty disdainful of any institution.

where basketball is not being talked about on the level that he thinks it should be talked about on? Yes. Right. Every appearance on first take that he ever had. Yes. I wouldn't listen to him go on Felger and Mazz in Boston. It was just hysterical. It was unbelievable.

It was just like, I'm going to no-sell every single one of these questions. I'm like, oh, this is what every press conference is going to be like. I don't take your premise, Mr. Reporter. I'm not biting on this. What do you think also about the idea? that with the hiring, I mean, it happened a long ago with LeBron coming to the Lakers, but even more so now with the hiring of JJ to the Lakers, the nexus between ESPN and the Lakers, I mean, we have achieved the singularity. They are one and the same.

Yes. It is amazing, isn't it? I mean, like, that there is just this kind of like shuttle because of one or the other. You already had a Laker dedicated beat. reporter and Dave McMediman. You already kind of had a Laker dedicated reporter at various points in his career at Brian Winhorst. And now you have your commentator becoming the Lakers head coach. But also a clear directive to discuss the Lakers at every possible turn. You know, they were the most discussed mediocre basketball team in the last few years

by far. And now with JJ, success or failure, it doesn't matter. It's going to be right there at the top forever. I mean, it's what the Yankees were for. you know, most of the cyber error, which which was, you know, regardless of whether or whether not they were winning and actually sometimes better if they weren't, just a content machine. Yeah. And there was this interesting like, Stephen A had this thing where it was like, I thought, you know, doing that podcast when Darwin Ham was still the coach was a kind of subtle way of

undermining him as a coach. Maybe he didn't use the word subtle because it wasn't terribly subtle with JJ drawing on a whiteboard here some plays. And then Pat McAfee was kind of defending JJ. Like there's also just a not only do you have your guy going over there, but there's these feelings about that. Yeah. They'll be interesting to watch out play in those A blocks you're talking about. I mean, and again, to go back to what we're talking about during the Stephen A segment, I mean, the ESPN is about to unleash a whole new tide of billions on the NBA. And there is immense pressure to make this work. And they'll pull every possible stop out to make it work. And, you know, having a extremely fluid, marketable, exciting, controversial coaching set up in

Lakerland is fabulous for that. Should we spend a few minutes on the NBA draft? The NBA ratings, the NBA rights deal, all things NBA. So we got the draft, first round of the drafts on Wednesday, second round early on Thursday so that we can all go from Brony James' possible destination to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. You're right. in saying that this is the most interesting second round, late first round in history. I mean, not, not, I mean, going into it, of course, the most interesting thing that you ever happened was the Taco Bell Nicola Yokic signing or drafting. That is the most consequential thing that's ever happened in the second round of an NBA draft. But going in,

this brawny drama is the most, you know, high watt thing that's ever happened there. It's a perfect NBA story because everything that happens in the NBA. NBA isn't about what's happening in front of us. It's about how this will affect the upcoming free agent period. So it's not about the NBA drafting, getting new players. It's how will this affect LeBron James if he opts out, which everybody thinks he's going to do? How will this affect his free agency and possibly resigning with the Lakers? That's like a chef's kiss of an NBA story.

It can never be about the thing that is on our television. Right, right, right. It's going to be on Twitter. Right. In a week. Well, what do you think about the argument? And this came up because the Celtics Mavericks ratings were not great. Although I always sort of want to point out when people are saying the NBA readings are terrible.

It's like it really is, here's the NBA and then the NFL is off the charts. But the NBA is the closest to the NFL. Everything else is below the NBA. I mean, for all the complaining about NBA ratings, it is the second, you know, highest rated professional sports product we have. I guess you could argue there's some college football and March Madison and things like that, but in terms of a consistent professional sports rating. But what do you think about the argument that, and this has been going on for a while, that the NBA and sort of the NBA media apparatus has become too preoccupied with the sort

of comings and goings and the free agencies and the offseason and the draft and all this sort of like chess move stuff that happens and, let. less consumed with giving you compelling reasons to watch the live product. I don't know if that is a media responsibility. Actually, it's not a media responsibility to get people to watch the NBA, for sure. However, if you're a media partner, you could argue that there are some compelling reasons to get people to watch that because it means ultimately your long-term security. What do you think about that?

I think it's most apparent when you watch, say, ESPN's pregame show during the finals. And the B block is about Dan Hurley going to the Lakers. Instead of the finals thing we're about to watch. And even the, you know, I was talking to Shoemaker about this the other day, all the segments seem to be designed around things you see on Twitter or things that, like, will float on Twitter rather than getting you psyched to watch the finals. This finals was an absolute dog. So I don't know if we,

I'm not trying to draw a straight line between how ESPN presented it and how many people watched. It was an all pretty awful series. But I do think there is this idea of, you know, it's not throwing away the free agent stuff because God knows that powers a lot of podcasts, right? That's helpful to podcasts. That's helpful to people in the NBA media ecosystem. It's very helpful to first take, certainly. But I do think they can do a better job.

of just getting you interested in the product, especially the day-to-day product of the NBA. Do you think, and I wonder about this a lot, that the NBA in this new, the NBA in this sort of new contractual error, whatever ends up being with ESPN and NBC and whomever else, Amazon, is going to become more copyright protective.

And by that I mean, like, they have had forever a very hands-off policy with people grabbing NBA highlights and putting them onto social media. And the argument at the time was like, this is just going to lift visibility and marketability, and people are going to be talking about our games and our athletes and stuff like that. And it's going to be good for us overall. We're not going to go around and police this like the old days of like, you know,

closed circuit television. And I think that was right at the time. However, I think the thing for sure that they're concerned about and they are not alone in this is the behavioral habit, the habit change. that has happened with consumers and especially young consumers who feel that they don't have to put butt to couch to watch quarter one through quarter four of an NBA game or really anything besides the NFL again, which is somehow resistant to all this. But you've created a climate in which people can just get this information instantaneously and they're not at a loss.

You can follow an NBA game on Instagram, on Twitter, on any number of channels that aren't your actual delivery device. And is an answer to that cracking down on it. The NBA has, again, sort of put its arms around the idea of people taking their product and distributing it widely without penalty. Is they, you know, in the same way, in the same way, Brian, that newspapers once believed that the product should be free and the internet was free and had to go everywhere. and there was no way to police this financially,

really got religion about the idea of paywalls and pay for service and that becoming the salvation, frankly, of a lot of newspapers. First of all, I don't think we need to, like, you know, cordon off the youngs or those people who might consume it

because I do that all the time. I fake consume things through Twitter all the time, whether it's an NBA game, whether it's like a New Yorker story that I would genuinely like to read. I'm like, oh, I saw like three tweets and I did it. I guess so.

I like to. I, you know, not everything. I like watch. I love watching sports. I will sit down and watch anything, but I catch myself doing that all the time.

Yeah. It just, it's easy, right? Like I just, and I don't know how you put the, I don't know how you put the, you know,

barbed wire fence, uh, around the cow pasture at this point in history. It just seems really, really hard. And the risk would be if even if you were able to do that, which I don't know that you really would, you know,

that you would be able to like, you're just not going to see NBA clips except sanctioned ones by teams. And by the way, teams and the league are already pumping out so many that does it really matter if randos are just, you know, doing it themselves too.

Yes. Yes. But I mean, that would be the easy part to police is tell, to tell people to knock that on. I just think, I just think like if you make it like the Trump trial, it's happening,

but you can't see, no, it's happening, but you can't see it. Like, is that going to make any, any person. You know what I need to do is buy a subscription to Amazon.

I need to buy. Some highlights. Now just courtroom sketches of games. I would like to. That would actually have been a good bit. Quartroom sketch artist. Doesn't it be a game? Does JJ with arms folded on the sidelines?

I mean, listen, that's what daily newspapering was, you know, for many, many, many years. I mean, you know,

you would get the West Coast games. And if you live, on the East Coast, you would get a game, you know, Red Sox lead A's in the third. There'd be a picture and you had to go elsewhere to find out what happened. I do want to come. I do think your original point is like exactly the right point. I think whatever happens when this new right deal shakes out and these people are paying tons of money to get you to actually want to watch NBA games, not notionally,

regular season games, which we know that the majority of the population just pieces out on as a rule of thumb, they're going to have to figure out a way to make those games seem important and make those games seem really watchable. And like, again, the idea of Joelle Embed wandering onto ESPN set before a finals game, like, I'm going to make eyes at Paul George. We're going to, you know, so that it's like this big Twitter free agent crumb. And that's going to be more important than setting up the NBA finals game you're about to watch. It just cannot, that is not the solution. Yeah. has to be a balance.

Again, I think that should be part of it. Peter Vessie was on the NBA on NBC back of the day. But I think there has to be a balance between making these games seem fun and exciting, which they are, and just teasing ahead to the next free agent destination, content, destiny. What do you think about the idea of rationing the product? Because I think for all the NFL sort of like, you know, self mythology, I think the thing that they, the greatest advantage they have is sort of this baked in.

advantage of just having not a lot of product. It was just Sunday. You know, yeah, people are, are, I mean, it's funny now because now we have television, you know, football games, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, but like, we don't have, you know, 82 NFL games in a season. And do you start to have to make hard choices along the line? I know there'd be, I feel like I listen to some podcast, a basketball podcast, probably on the ringer, about this idea out there of like, you know,

you cut the NBA season almost in half and you make Tuesdays and Thursdays, kind of the marquee NBA nights. And then you have a national game on Sundays. And I was like, ooh, I really, I mean, there's, there's, there's, that's real craziness that I like. I don't, I mean, obviously I don't think it will happen in the world that we live in now where stadium residue and all that stuff is increasingly integral. Yeah. When you're about to get seven billion dollars from your partner's like, can we give some of this back? Yeah. But I mean, I think the thing that we're going to have to get more and more comfortable too is that, you know, I think we'll have to look to college football here because what's happening in college football, they're going to just sell

off every last bit of the IP. Brian, we haven't talked about your formerly beloved Big 12, which according to ESPN is debating whether or not to take a title sponsor for the Big 12. So you could have the Orina potato Big 12, or the Chick-fil-A Big 12 or the, you know, I don't know what. What would be the most appropriate corporate sponsor for the Big 12? You're a Big 12 guy. Oh, my God. I'm trying to think of a company that's been that's been dogged by, you know,

claims of mismanagement lately. Yeah, but Boeing? It's that the, what's the right, you know, metaphor for the Big 12? But if that is, if that falls, because, you know, if they get a big check for it, everyone's going to want to do it. You don't have the old style beer pack a big 10 soon after that. Why not commodify the first down or? They will. By the way, this is this. This is one of those things like when I was watching the finals, it still sticks out to me that NBA players are wearing corporate logos on their uniforms.

Me too. It still pops out. I'm like, wow, we're doing this in the NBA finals. You got a little ad right up there. Yeah. Yeah. It's just funny. And it's like it's like the games thing. It will never, we will never retract games, right? We will never, it will never get smaller. It will only get bigger and we'll only learn to live with it. And that's another thing when people like complain about the quality of NBA telecasts and especially like finals and things like that. And they moan about like the fact that the broadcast don't breathe. Well, a big reason they don't breathe is that they have to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. They have to like,

with that bad boys ad he had to throw it to on the first commercial of the NBA finals. I want to seem like an old man, but that's so embarrassing, like to be like, you've just seen your first look at this game. Here's a bad boy's ad. Get out of here with that stuff, man. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a huge thing. Like when you watch a local telecast of like a midseason NBA game, you're like, wow, this game breathes a lot easier. Well, a big reason why is that they haven't sold the whole thing. And, you know, this is a rather obvious point, but I didn't even think about it until I talked to Hubey Brown a couple years ago for a story. And I know you have talked to Hube in the past, too, that like the free throw used to be a great

catch-up space for broadcast teams. You could talk about the player, the action, what has happened in the game so far. You could go off and tell your crazy Phil Rizzuto restaurant story. You had enough space to actually get something accomplished from an advance in the game. in the booth point. Now that's all advertising. Like most of the free throw session, there's going to be a bit for an upcoming show,

whatever upcoming programmer there is. They've got to do catch up, all that kind of stuff. All those reads that are happening in games, you know, and it's going to become even more so when you're talking about paying a factor of 100% more for it now.

It was a few years ago when they started doing a commercial for the NBA playoffs during playoff free throws. It just broke my mind. I'm already here. I'm watching this and you want me to watch more of this. Yeah.

I got you. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about Jason, a subject near and dear to our hearts, which is the New York tabloids. The New York tabloids. Now,

you might have heard that Justin Timberlake was arrested. Heard it. Driving on June 18th. We got all these, we visited all the stations of the cross. the mugshots, the perp walk. I don't think we'd get a Justin Timberlake perp walk, but we did. And then we got, and this is my actual count, 48 New York Post headlines. This was just me counting off the webs. I'm sure there are many, many more in the physical newspaper.

48 headlines about the Justin Timberlake arrest. What do you make of the new spring for the New York tabloids? Well, look, as a longtime consumer of the New York tabloid ecosystem, which is now really down to the post, this is the moon landing. This is what they do and are born to do and do better than anybody else. I mean, not just the fact that this is happening to a celebrity and you have, you know,

a scandal, but you have the ability to sort of get police scoops and inside Sag Harbor City Hall scoops. I mean, how did they get the perp walk, Brian? How did they get that? Great shot. Perfect shot. They had the book shot before anybody. Yeah.

I mean, I, you know, both you and I are of the vintage that we can recall kind of the, I don't know, the exile on Main Street of Hampton's New York Post Scandals, which is the Lizzie Grubman Conscience Point accident and all that entailed, which I went back. It was pre-9-11. It was that summer, I believe. And sort of when you think about how trivial the world seemed at the time before it got awfully serious very quickly, it's, and I didn't think we'd be back there again. I don't think that this is quite that level

because it's just a different world that we live in now and everything just gets so instantaneously processed. But it is great to see in this world that we live in that, you know, New York is still a tab. Ablood Town and a publication can just really dominate the beat on something like this. I was just amazed at the variety of headlines. I'll give you some of the New York Post ones I cut and pasted here. Justin Timberlake's ego crushed by arrest, album flop, trolling fans, colon, sources.

Justin Timberlake's stiff drink at Hampton's Hotel Bar before DWI bus revealed. We moved on eventually to Jessica Beal and then to the Sag Harbor cop. who did the arrest, Justin Timberlake's Gen Z cop, who didn't recognize singer at DWI arrest, identified as, quote, overaggressive rookie. What a mouthful that is. We had the ritual breaking of silence. Timberlake breaks silence at Chicago concert following Hampton's DWI arrest. The breaking of silence was him saying, it's been a tough week.

We learned a lot there. We also had a ritual speaking out. His lawyer speaks out, just kind of what lawyers. do, especially with celebrity clients. And then Jason, I know you'll appreciate this, the tertiary players that find their way into New York tabloid headlines on a story like this. T.J. Holmes blasts, quote, awful jokes about the DWI arrest.

Gail King defends Justin Timberlake. So we're interested in anybody who currently or formally hosted a morning new show. What about, what about Billy Joel, like, wandering into Sag Harbor on his vest? And, you know, being surprised by the crowds of cameras down there and asking what was going on. And then we got our own history lesson about what he'd done in the past. It was great. That was another one.

Also went back. You want to hear the final pre-arrest Justin Timberlake headlines in the post. Because, of course, Justin Timberlake was the kind of thing they covered like crazy before this. Yes. So here are a couple of the last ones. Justin Timberlake shares rare photos of his and Jessica Beale's sons for Father's Day. And number two, you won't believe how cheap Justin Timberlake concert tickets are. That's where our mind was before the arrest.

Justin Timberlake. What a moment. It is just a man like all hands on deck too. You know, you can just feel in that newsroom. Like there's nothing. There's the big stuff, right? The pictures. the drink.

But then there's the, we'll take anything. But think about it, Brian. Also, this is what we are June 24th today. Okay, we're June 24th. We are just passed into summer. You're working out in a newspaper and someone says, hey, Curtis, you want to do City Hall or you want to cover the Justin Timberlink free trial hearings and say Harper through Labor Day?

Let me think, Chief. We're going to put you up in Amagance it. Let's do this. Oh my God. I mean, that's such a no braider. It's just amazing. And by the way, I'm picking that over the NBA draft as well. So makes me wish we still had Steve Dunleavy among us, you know.

He would have known just what to do and where to grab a cold one. For honest day's work was done. Before we go, Jason, we want to do, we want to borrow parent corner here because I noticed you had a special parent moment as the Celtics were winning the NBA finals in game five. You want to tell us about that? well just for the record i my son was uh i i took my son to game two i was not a game i i posting this after game five i don't have the scratch to uh afford a clinch game ticket uh for my son brian i'm strictly game two less consequential still expensive but uh yeah my son uh is a rabid

southics fan really really got into the game and watched almost every regular season game this year and uh you know like a lot of parents are doing for taylor swift tickets i sucked it up and took him to the game and, you know, outstanding. But I feel like, you know, we've talked about this before. Like sports parenting, taking your child, especially a child who's, you know, not yet a teenager, to a sporting event, it really can be past fail. It really depends on what you're surrounded with, who's sitting next to you. And, you know, if you're in a section of people who are been drinking since noon,

that can be a rough day at the office for a parent. If you are in a, and, you know, I'm a kid, it's probably delighted, to be honest with you. But if you, if you're surrounded by a good, we were way up in the news, bleeds in the balcony. And we had just delightful people all around us. And yeah, it was a great time, you know, making memories, Brian. I do find to your point, there's a lot of just uncontrolled things happening at a game. you know, maybe this is just the little biodomes our kids

are raised in. But I know when I take my kid to Cowboys games, it's just like, okay, maybe we'll have a little talk before we go in about behavior, you know, not worried about you, but you're going to see some things here. Yeah. That are a little different. I, you know, I'll say it. I

don't like the Kyrie sucks chant stuff in Boston. I just I feel like it's just coarse and why are we doing this? You know, it's been ancient history at this point. And I didn't want him doing it. Of course, he wanted to chant it like everybody else chanting it. I was not on board for that. You know, wait so he indulged? Briefly until he was scolded by his joyless father who told him to knock it up. Well, you know, come on. You know, there were there 14,000 people chanting it. It would be

perfectly noticeable with 13-999.9-9. We've crossed a threshold. We've crossed a threshold. though, Brian, which is that my son is actually paying attention to the gameplay because for many years when you take a child to a sporting event, they're much more interested in the interstitial stuff like T-shirt cannons, halftime shows. The screen.

The screen. All the kinds of stuff that's happening on the causeway, whether it's funnel cakes or, you know, ice cream and all that kind of stuff. But this is, we're now in territory. My son is 11 where he's actually invested in the actual game. And

That was pretty cool. All right. Jason Gay, read him in the Wall Street Journal. He and the ghost of Steve Dunleavy will be seeking out a new bar to replace Langans as the chief watering hole for New York tabloid reporters. Jason, as always, thanks for coming on the press box. We're bringing it back, Langans 2.

That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. But I'm Brian Curtis. But I'm Brian Waters. We got a press box political tofer coming up Friday. We're going to have Benji Sarlin from Semaphore doing our debate post-game show, which we will record first thing Friday morning. And then from campaign present to campaigns passed, on Friday I drove up to beautiful Santa

Barbara and recorded an interview with longtime CNN and ABC News political reporter, an employee of Rune Arledge, Jason, Jeff Greenfield. Oh, University of Wisconsin graduate, Jeff Greenfield. There you go. He talked about his members of four presidential campaigns, 88, 92, 2000 and 2008, so many great stories about the campaigns and about the media apparatus that covered him. Shoemaker returns Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then.