The Ryen Russillo Podcast - How NIL Is Working One Week In And Why Do You Have A Problem With It?

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the new name, image and likeness rules now that we’ve had a week to see them in action and then welcomes on three different guests with unique perspectives on how it will shape college sports. First he chats with Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger for some background on how we got here, where it’s going, and why this could end the NCAA. Next, he chats with Mackenzie Landry, the Chief Brand Officer of Matchpoint Connection, which helps college athletes connect with local businesses for paid marketing opportunities. Then, he welcomes Brandon Landry, the founder and CEO of Walk-Ons, for an inside look at how his company plans to use the new NIL rules to work with college athletes across the country. Finally, Ryen talks about the Finals he’s had the biggest rooting interests in and finishes with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Ross Dellenger, Mackenzie Landry and Brandon Landry Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, we're going to all look back probably at COVID, you know, and it being the kind of the real start of the crumbling of the conferences to make their own decisions. And that led to a fractured NCAA. And then you couple that with the Alston ruling and these state lawmakers around the NIL. And it's just even more fractured. And we're at a place right now where the, the NCAA's authority is just, it's kind of eviscerated its own authority. That was Ross Dellinger, covered college football for a while,

talking about the NCAA's uncertain future and perhaps even more uncertain as we navigate the first week of name, image, and likeness, which is going to be a big part of today's podcast. We'll get that, a couple other people connected to the name, image, and likeness story, and some life advice. Bunch of stuff to get to today.

And for those wondering where all the Game 1 React is, we have that with Bill Simmons. So check out the Bill Simmons podcast where he and I do about two hours going over Game 1 and some other stuff as well. So I could still do a little bit more on it, but considering, I think I just finished taping it eight hours ago. Um, I don't know. I don't know that there's a lot there. So I actually want to do something a little bit different today with the name image and likeness news a weekend. What is it? Um, who can we talk to about it? And we have three guests that I mentioned off the top. So we're going to just try to learn more about it, educate ourselves, ourselves, educate myself as well, and kind of talk about it a little bit.

Because there's something with this week's Open that I did want to get to, and I've thought about this for a while. And there's a combination of some of the things that I brought up in the past. But the name, image, and likeness stuff comes out. We see guys tweeting out deals left and right. Some of it, I think, is really lucrative.

Some of it, I think, is just gettingrative. Some of it, I think, is just getting the attention of, hey, I play at this small school and somebody's hooking me up with some sweatshirts, but I can now get that kind of stuff. So whether it's real money that's going to impact your life at college or maybe your family's life back at home or just something cool, this all feels very positive. It does. But the lead up to it wasn't necessarily always positive. Okay. Now, I think it's pretty clear in society, we have a hard time with different generations. We have a hard time when we're younger with older people. And certainly, as I veer towards being older, there are more and more times where I'm like, okay, am I anti this because of what it is? Or am I anti this because of an age gap? But I think I've been guilty of both at the same time. I think a lot of us, a lot of us have a hard time when we hear about the YouTube kid making $20 million a year. And you're just like, what? Like that kid, those stupid videos, he makes 20 million a year. And then we kind of revert and do like a Michael Jordan, fuck them kids moment, which is probably wrong to feel that way.

But at least I'm admitting that it happens sometimes. And I think some of you would admit it as well. But I don't know if that's what carries over some of the pushback to the name, image, and likeness stuff that we've had, whether it was people debating it, people saying it should never happen, college coaches who want control of everything,

hoping it never happens. And now that it's happened, people kind of making fun of some of the deals. Now, I think for the most part, the media on social media, it's been received as very positive. But as we've learned time and time again, social media is a small sampling of an audience that isn't exactly telling you what's really going on. It just happens to be that audience. going on. It just happens to be that audience. So I think it gets back to something that I've always noticed as somebody that was both a college sports fan and then somebody who's covered college sports for a long time is that we've always been kind of obsessed with the

education of strangers, right? We really care about the educational level that athletes reach, even though we're never going to meet these people. And think about that. Like that comes from selfishness, right? So I don't know that the name, image, and likeness pushback is because of selfishness. Maybe we'll get there. But whenever it was just somebody leaving school early or whenever I'd hear a broadcast and somebody say,

oh, this guy needs to go back to school or this guy should stay in school or you should be, you're just sitting there thinking to yourself, like, do I really care about this kid's credits? Do I care if he's a little bit closer to that major? Or do I just want him on campus so my team has a better chance to win? And it's almost always the second part of it, but it's wrapped in the paper of education, which again, seems pretty self-motivating.

Now, with these things, whenever we have something new in sports, something that changes what we've always been used to, it's resisted. It just is. I mean, we've done this historically for decades, whenever it comes to anything that's going to happen, that's new. Whether it's the first guys trying to come out of high school, right into the NBA for a hardship, the ABA that kind of got involved in all of this and changed things around. In the NBA, it wasn't so much now about protecting college basketball or the education. It was just, hey, we now have to compete with the ABA. So different things happened.

And then nobody got drafted out of high school forever. And then Kevin Garnett came along and people were like, oh, I don't know. Is he really ready? He's a Hall of Famer. And then a bunch of guys came out of high school and arguably had a lot of these top players in the league were straight out of high school. And this is actually kind of shocking considering the NBA and the decisions they've made over the years. But from an image, a perception standpoint, they made a change to go back to one and done so that kids were actually going to college, which actually made more of a mockery

of the situation than just having kids come straight out of high school, which is what we're going to be going back to fairly soon. But the high school stuff, go back and look it all up. A lot of stuff was written. This isn't right. It's just kids. We have a hard time giving young athletes the opportunity because we feel like they have to pay their dues because a lot of us have to pay our dues. But what we do isn't as special. And most of us are never as good as any of these people are at their industry. Whether it was the one and done stuff, the high school stuff, or kids just leaving early in general. As I mentioned, you know how rarely I'll ever hear anyone say now if a player is coming out in football or basketball, like you actually don't hear, oh, he needs another year of seasoning.

Like you're going to hear it. People used to say it all the time when I was younger. And we're talking about guys that had been in college for three years. Like, you know what? He needs to come back for a senior year. And we'd all just kind're like, you know what? He needs to come back for his senior year. And we'd all just kind of agree. Like, yeah, he needs to come back. I remember being mad that Walter Berry left St. John's after his sophomore year. He scored 23-11 and was the Wooden Award winner. And I was like, yeah, he should come back.

And maybe if he had come back, his NBA career would have gone better. I don't know. I don't think that that's fair or not. But we don't hear it. I mean, I remember interviewing Gajana Carter, who when he was a freshman at Penn State under Joe Paterno, he had 42 carries in 1992. Kajana Carter wanted a transfer. He told me this when I sat down with him. I was like, yeah, you didn't play much. He goes, yeah, Joe Paterno had this weird thing about freshmen. It was like, yeah, 42 carries in 1992, the number one pick in the NFL draft in 1995. Freshman quarterbacks forever. Couldn't get out on the field. Now they're winning Heismans. It used to be this weird thing in baseball where you needed

minor league seasoning. You're a single, you're a double-A, then maybe some at-bats, a triple-A, and then maybe, maybe you're ready. And for the most part, if you're really special coming out of the draft, especially with a year or two in college, we're talking about guys spending maybe a year in the minors, if you're really special coming out of the draft, especially with a year or two in college, we're talking about guys spending maybe a year in the minors that could be up at the end of the year.

And baseball used to resist that forever. Hell, baseball and some baseball fans, for those of you that depends on what your age is, you either remember it because you felt that way or your father did, but people thought free agency was going to ruin everything. People looked at Kurt Flood as an enemy to sports. So we like disruption in tech and other industries. We don't like disruption in sports.

We never have. But then the disruption happens. And for the most part, a lot of the hand-wringing prior to was a massive waste of time. Let's talk about what it won't do. Will kids now stay in college longer because they're making money off of name, image, and likeness? Even the highest end player, a guy that's going to crack seven figures, some of these gymnasts apparently are going to be just smashing it because of the Instagram following, which good for them. Why would any of us be mad about that? Free market,

if people want to pay for it, they can pay for it. But whatever those numbers are, even on the high end, it's not even close to what some of the top picks are beginning in the draft. And the NFL, we'll just see what happens with the new CBA, but they're going to have to reset the clock again with the guaranteed money for the first round picks because it keeps going up and up. And with the NBA draft picks, especially the guys in the lottery, like, give me a break. Like, hey, no, I'm getting free burgers at the food court. I have every hoodie I've ever wanted. Okay. Yeah. You're also going to make 6 million guaranteed the first year if you leave as a top 10 pick. So I don't think that's really going to change much. Will people

transfer less? Hey, you know what? Like I'm thinking of transferring. I'm not really that happy. Okay. Let's get a booster involved. And I think the transferring thing is going to happen no matter what. And for anybody that thinks that somehow legalizing some of these payments, which is basically what we've talked about here, is going to prevent kids from transferring, the same attraction would be out there you would think somewhere else. That also leads me to this other thing. Does this mean that we now have less violations with the NCAA? I've been on this NCAA theory now for a little while, and that post the Nevin Shapiro deal, again, the booster Ponzi scheme guy that was down in Miami with the hurricanes, just shouting as the smoke comes out of the tunnel, just living his best life.

Once that case didn't work out for the NCAA, that they were like, look, everybody hates us. Everybody thinks these players are getting a raw deal from the revenue generating sports. So maybe we're just going to enforce less stuff. We're not really going to look for it. We're going to focus on other violations because you don't really hear about a ton of NCAA investigations other than the academic stuff that happened with North Carolina,

which again, I couldn't even tell you what the conclusion of that was because it just kind of goes away. I know Arizona state football is dealing with stuff right now, but that's visits inside of a period that there weren't supposed to be visits that apparently that they were. We had the massive deal with the sneaker part of it, but that was the federal probe where they got really excited about taking down these huge college coaches. And prior to the news all coming out, the sell of that story was that it was going to be like the end of the tournament, the end of the blue bloods. All of these coaches are going to lose their gigs. And really all it did was screw up Louisville for a

while, Rick Pitino. So I don't know if it's going to be less violations because in a way it's like, if a kid needs money or a kid needs to be enticed through the recruiting process with money, now you can just figure out a way to do it. Hey, this guy's a booster, but now he owns an auto dealership and he has this signing thing where he's going to pay you way too much. And then we'll figure it out because that's the other thing I think is all going to happen here is that there'll be a correction. There'll be some kind of correction. Whatever this is now, it's probably not what it's going to be in a couple of years. And that's fine too. Because guess what? If something's new and the NCAA didn't really do a great job of putting any structure into this, they've left it kind of up to the states and then the schools to figure it out, which leads to all sorts of complaining,

which is fine. But when I look at the criticism or the resistance towards name, image, and likeness being like, well, it should have been this. Look, there's no bigger lock in sports coverage than, let's say, a year into this, maybe two years, all the people writing articles about what the NCAA should or should not have done. I mean, that's a layup. Coaches complaining because that's what coaches do. Now their job is a little bit harder.

We could talk about the dynamic in the locker room, but that's not entirely true. Think about that. Well, even though this is a really outdated system and it's not fair to the kids, especially kids that can make a lot of money off their name, image, and likeness, which all of us would want with any relative, whether it was on campus or she was coming from a family that needed support back home, all of us would want that selfishly if we could get it, if we could have it happen to us. But just because the structure may not be in place for it and it's going to lead to some jealousy in a locker room, they'd be like, okay, let's deny all these people this opportunity because we don't want people not liking each other in a locker room

when there's a really good chance most locker rooms have people and dynamics in there where people don't all get along. I think the last thing I would bring it back to is it's not so much selfishness as it can be just jealousy at times. And as you get a little bit older, the same way you may right now resent the YouTube kid, you might just have some resentment that you've put so much time in and you've rooted for these kids and you think they get a good deal. And so why the hell do they have to get a little bit more when that part, like if that's the root of why you're mad, you have to ask yourself why you're mad about that because it's a really big waste of time. Like at some point, a lot of us have to accept that we're not that special.

All right. And if somebody is special enough in a very short window to make a little extra cash in a system that is incredibly outdated and the system that keeps telling us that there isn't any money there, there isn't enough money to spread the wealth with the revenue generating athletes, even though every new TV deal sets a record and it goes way beyond anybody else's projection. They keep telling us there isn't enough money when there is plenty of money. They spend it on all the side things to distract you from the fact that these kids should have been, a lot of these guys should have been getting a better deal. But if this bothers you, you have to really get to the root of it because it shouldn't. And like anything after a couple of years, it's not going to. What we're going to do now is try to look at the name, image, and likeness story from three different perspectives. And this is a little different. And I'm just going to tell you ahead of time.

We've got Ross Dellinger, Sports Illustrated. And then also Mackenzie Landry, who works for an app called Matchpoint, who is also married to my very good friend, Brandon Landry, who is the founder of Walk-Ons. And is this a little LSU heavy? Yes. It's not because I like LSU. It's because I know these people and I thought we had a good variation of understanding this.

Now, what we really would have loved to have done is had a college athlete on who is currently a college athlete. But since we're only a week into this, I didn't want to do that to a school and get in touch with somebody and then have them on and have the kid maybe not know what he's doing

and say the wrong thing. I just didn't want a situation where we're setting up anybody to fail. So down the road, we'll likely have a player. But unfortunately, all the players that I'm friends with would just be talking about all the money that they would have made 15 years ago. So that's why, unfortunately, even though I think it'd be a great part of the guest, I wanted to at least get a little further into this before we had a current college athlete talk about all the money he was trying to make, who maybe didn't even understand all this, because I don't think a lot of us understand. So we're all going to try to understand

it better starting now. Hey, Ross Dellinger, Sports Illustrated, has been on the name, image, and likeness story probably as well as anybody that's been covering this. And I was connected with him through some people, because I know you've been close to Louisiana story as well, Ross. So let's kind of just start where we're at. This goes down last week, July 1st. I was at the Elite 11 camp. It was kind of a free-for-all of information and rumors and like, what the hell's going on here? What has this been like? Because I know you've done some follow-up stories and kind of features on the first week of athletes making money. Yeah, it's funny. The shock and surprise that kind of swept through the college sports world, especially the college football world when all this happened. Because, yeah, like you said, for me, it has been a long, long journey here. My wife is a White House correspondent for Newsweek.

And two years ago, we moved up to D.C. out of Louisiana. And so I was moving out of SEC football territory and the big football area. And she felt guilty about it. And it was the best move ever because I'm now in what seems to be the central location for all things news on college sports with Congress here in the Capitol. So I have been following this since December 2019. I've been doing stories on it and meeting with lawmakers and attending hearings.

So this was a kind of a long journey to last week. And, you know, for me, it's been fun. It's been entertaining along the way. It's kind of been fascinating, and I've gotten to see how each, I guess you could say each category of people have handled it and feel about it. From lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, to administrators, mostly ADs I'm referring to, to coaches, to players. It's been interesting along the way way and then obviously it was almost like a volcano building up and then last week you know after a year and a half of the of the rumblings uh it exploded so what was that like i know dr king was kind of the the headliner for you

so take us through his week the money the offers that were flying around and i was brothers doing his managing form yeah i uh i spent a few days down in Miami last week. It's kind of felt like it felt like ground zero, you know, just Florida in general being that, uh, we're on this timeline July one because of Florida's, um, effective date and all these other States matching it. And then the NCAA of course matching their own, uh, at July one. So it felt like I needed to be in Florida and gosh, lo and behold,

I'm just happened to be in a place where not only you had one of the busiest, most active, uh, college athletes in De'Aaron King signing three deals worth, you know, with a five figure signing bonus three deals worth, you know, with a five-figure signing bonus and, you know, netting him the deals more than $20 million. Not only did you have that, but I had down in Fort Lauderdale, there was one of the kind of the, I guess, representative of the Cavender twin sisters of Fresno State women's basketball

who are going to make just as much money maybe as De'Aaron King, if not a lot more probably. They have huge social media followings. And so that was fascinating to be down there. I was able to kind of be embedded with their representative, their agent. And so it was. It was really cool to be down there. And so it was. It was really cool to be down there. And, you know, everybody keeps asking what I was surprised by, if anything. And I think I was expecting the women athletes with large social media followings to get a good deal, get some good checks, you know? Um, but they even started arriving quicker than I imagined.

And some of the numbers being thrown around are, are pretty incredible. So what are some of the numbers then? Well, uh, you have the LSU gymnast who has, um, Olivia Dunn is her name and she has the biggest, I believe social media following of any college athlete. And, you know, I want a little bit of taking some time off. So I haven't paid attention. I don't know even if she's entered a deal yet officially or if anything's been announced.

But she certainly has things down the pipe that will put her into the seven figures. And it's just incredible. And I'm sure there's some star football and basketball players that'll be in the same boat uh but to to have a gymnast that you know a lot of people who certainly aren't on instagram or tiktok uh wouldn't know who she was um and the cavender sisters i mentioned earlier same thing now you know they sent a deal with boost mobile which i think day one was probably the biggest deal. The financial terms aren't released, but it was well into the five figures.

So, you know, you could you could. And there's a way to Ryan, there's a way to do the math on the average annual income for a social media influencer based on their following. And so you can do the math on Olivia Dunn, the gymnast and the Cavender sisters, and you're going to get low seven figures. All right. So there's a bunch of these things that I think like, you know, what happens, I'm really happy for the students because I think the longer this goes, the more people realize it's pretty ridiculous that this was ever in place. And I think that's part of evolving. But for so many people, it's like, no, no, no, we can't do this. Football coaches love control. And then they're like, well, the locker room is going to get weird now. The locker room already got weird for a bunch of other reasons that had nothing to do with this. Playing time, who was being promoted, who wasn't,

all sorts of stuff. I mean, it's human nature. You're going to put 100 guys in a room together. There are going to be reasons they don't get along. And to say that this now is going to make it worse, I don't know that that's necessarily true. There's going to be guys that are envious. There's going to be people that are jealous. I think it's great that if you're attractive enough in another sport that people aren't paying enough attention to, because let's not kid ourselves, that's what Instagram can be about. And you're going to make six, seven figures off of that, then good for you. And it kind of seemed ridiculous that you couldn't actually do that. But I think the part of it that I don't, like this is so new, there will be a big market correction. There'll probably be a lot of boosters

looking back on deals they make this week or over the summer months where they look back in two years going, that probably wasn't worth it. That was a waste of money. This part of it, we didn't expect the unintended consequences. But it seems like some schools are trying to distance themselves from school negotiated deals where I think that's already outdated. If you're a big time Power 5 program saying, we're actually not going to coordinate those things for you because the best recruiters are going to use this as a recruiting tool. They're going to hire brand managers. They're going to have a whole department.

And as soon as one school does it, as soon as Clemson does it, then Alabama has to do it. Then everybody else is going to have to fall in line. So I think if a school is starting from this premise of you can do what you want, but we're not helping negotiate any of it, we're not aligning, then those people are immediately going to be passed by by other programs that are just going to say, hey, we may not like it, but let's be forward thinking instead of being stuck in the past. Right. Well, you definitely got coaches and assistant coaches who are searching for loopholes and maybe not even Lupo's just searching for an edge like they do in recruiting. And one of the big edges is lining up local businesses and regional businesses to to endure to offer endorsement deals with some of your big star athletes and your recruits. And I think you, you know, I've talked to an agent last week who said he was telling all his recruiters

and his assistant coaches that he represents, you know, you better start doing this. You better start reaching out to local businesses and facilitating deals, which in a lot of obviously state laws and in a lot of the NCAA's own legislation isn't really allowed. But who's going to enforce this? And there's not a whole lot of enforcement going on. There's not really an enforcement mechanism. Some of the state laws don't even specify an enforcement entity. So it's a little chaotic and everybody honestly can, in a way, can kind of do what they want to do as long as it's not probably too public, I guess.

But it's just, this is going to be, quote, above board cheating, so to speak. And we also have a guy in Miami today. I saw that it came out about a Miami booster, right? Basically giving every scholarship football player 90 or $6,000 a year, $500 every month for a total of what would be like a half a million dollars. That is a good way of legally, for now anyway, legally gaining the system and getting an edge. And there's other ways too. Who's stopping a booster from buying a kid's, you know, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars of a kid's apparel they're selling or a recruit's apparel?

You know, say maybe a booster wants to buy a bunch of it. You can do that now. So there are a lot of different ways to get an edge in recruiting. And as you mentioned, the schools will do it and they are doing it and they'll do it in the future. Just so I have the timeline correct. And like I said, you know it better than others. So if I'm off on anything, you know, make sure you keep me honest here. But I know originally the NCAA was kind of hoping for more guidance for Congress.

Then Congress has been like, hey, NCAA, you are wrong almost at every single turn. And then it's like, OK, so we have the start date. And then leading up to what schools left and right, we're telling you guys in the media, we have no idea what the hell is going on. And then you have states with laws and the lawmakers in those states were like, hey, this is actually great because we have guidance. And then other states were like, no, this is great. We don't have any laws because we can't prove that we did anything wrong.

So it's still, even though it started, it still feels like a free-for-all in understanding. I don't know that those questions can even be answered right now because we have states that have some set of laws, others that don't have any, some that have plans of changing things. And one guy in one of your more recent pieces said, hey, the biggest thing is that we can amend any of this to try to make it fit. But this is a lot of flying blind right now trying to regulate any of this, it feels like. Yeah, it is. And the administrators will give you the same quote is, you know, flying while trying to build the plane, so to speak. And that is kind of what's happening because of the lack of a uniform national standard. So yeah, to get back to like the timeline issue,

I mean, it all starts in California back in spring, I think, or summer of 2019 with their law to give their athletes name, image, and likeness rights starting in 2023 at the time. And then Florida came along and they decided to push that data. They created their own. And then all these states just kind of followed because it would be a recruiting advantage, obviously. And so the NCAA had to do something to avoid complete chaos. They created their, they kind of just waived their

bylaw that prohibits athletes from earning name, image, and likeness. And while doing all this, while all this was going on, the NCAA was coming up here to DC, Mark Emmer, and pleading with Congress, as you mentioned, to create a national standard to preempt the state laws so everybody will be uniform. And that hasn't happened yet. And I don't know that we're weeks away from that. I think we're probably more so months away from that. There's just a lot of other things going on in the nation, obviously, post-COVID stuff and the economy. And there's a lot more important issues that senators and congressmen are dealing with. So I think we're several months away from some kind of uniform national standard.

But I do think we'll get there. It feels like we will get there. There seems to be consensus from both parties. We need to get there. It's just what will the bill look like? And the two sides, Republicans and Democrats agreeing in the House and Senate also agreeing on something. And so when they do, we'll we'll have a national standard. The thing is, is the national standard is going to be pretty vague. I mean, it just is. It's not going to probably get into too specifics. And so honestly,

what we have now is how it's probably going to be for maybe, maybe forever. I, you know, I mean, even with some kind of national standard, I don't know that a whole lot changes. Schools are going to have their own policies as long as they abide by the, the, um, the national standard, uh, which a lot of them already do. They'll keep out somewhat, they'll keep their policies, uh, you know, and state laws will probably be preempted. Um,

I would say a lot of them will be preempted but ryan there's not honestly there's there's we call it a patchwork and it is a patchwork of laws and rules and everybody's kind of different but the differences are fairly small right between between the state laws in the school's rules in in among the state laws themselves and they're all different but the foundation is the same there are little differences like some schools are going to allow athletes to um use their marks and use school marks and logos and endorsements you know some state laws prohibit that um so that's a big one i guess some schools are gonna have they, they're going to force athletes to get approval before entering an endorsement deal,

instead of doing it after they've done it, that they've done the endorsement deal. So that, that's a decent advantage or disadvantage depending on where you stand there. So it's little things, but once we get a national standard, it'll be a little more level playing field.

But the whole deal with this, as I mentioned earlier, is the lack of enforcement and how it's just so subjective. You know, I mean, you have these two guiding principles of, oh, no recruiting inducements, no pay-per-play. Well, if a kid goes to a restaurant owned by a booster and the booster says, hey, can you tweet, you know, this, can you endorse my restaurant with a tweet? And he does it and the booster says, okay, can you tweet this? Can you endorse my restaurant with a tweet? And he does it, and the booster says, okay, your payment is this meal and all the drinks on the house for the rest of your career.

Well, I mean, that seems shady. Yeah, it does. It seems like it's probably pay-per-play in some way. But who's going to enforce that? And it's a deal. I mean, the kid entered in an endorsement, a verbal agreement to endorse this restaurant. So you're going to have a lot of that fishiness there.

And it's just, you know, the bottom line is kids are getting money, but they're going to get money in weird ways and in ways that the NCAA forever didn't want them to. Last thought here, because I think you touched on this in one of the bigger pieces that you did. That's the future of the NCAA forever, right? I didn't want them to. Last thought here, because I think you touched on this in one of the bigger pieces that you did. That's the future of the NCAA. If you look at this past year with COVID, conferences are calling their own shots.

There couldn't be one plan at all. Mark Emmer, who I thought it was pretty funny, because I remember when he first took over, we used to have him on all the time, and then everybody was just dumping on him because that's the job, and nobody likes the NCAA anyway. So he's like, all right, well, well screw this i can still make the same amount of money not saying yes to all these interview requests and he turned you guys down for the bigger piece too and your sports illustrated um which i was like yeah that's what he does now he

just doesn't have any interest in doing it anymore because he can't really win so i'm not siding with him i just i just get his tact here the conference commissioner is the one doing the tv deals with espn and fox everybody else like i know how that stuff works. Not that people are bringing in, let's get Rosillo's thought on a Big 12 extension here. That wasn't what it was. But I knew enough about what was going on that the conference commissioners are the guys calling the shots. And then Sankey in your piece was like, I'm not really quite sure what being part of this NCAA even means now. So it's not just about name, image, and likeness. It's that there hasn't been any uniform decisions here for a while.

And the conference commissioners are the ones with the power that are basically pulling off these things independent of some bigger brand. So is this maybe, I wouldn't say it's the first part of the timeline because it's been going on now for a little while, but I think maybe one of the more outward parts of the timeline, we understand, like we look back five, 10 years from now, we're going, oh, that's when it was all going to start to fall apart for the NCAA, whatever version of we think this ruling body is that doesn't seem to do much ruling anymore. Yeah, we're going to all look back probably at COVID, you know, and it being the kind of the real start of the crumbling of the NCAA and the crumbling of its authority.

And, you know, it washed its hands of COVID, basically allowing the conferences to make their own decisions. And that led to a fractured NCAA. And football season is starting in August in a couple of conferences, and it's starting in November in others, and infight fighting and arguing. And, and, and so then you, then you couple that with the Austin ruling in these state lawmakers around the NIL and, uh, and it's just even more fractured. Um, and then we're at a place right now where the NCAA's authority is just, it's kind

of eviscerated its own authority. And, you know, I should make note that the NCAA as a body, you know, it's just the grouping of the schools. It's the high level administrators at the schools. They make the rules and all the NCAA really does is enforce the rules with an enforcement staff that has been, as my colleague Pat Forty has noted a lot, the enforcement has been inadequate and frustrating for administrators. So I think we're at a point where it's like, why do we need the NCAA kind of thing? But if there is going to be a breakaway or something, you're going to have to create some kind of entity to monitor and regulate college sports. So you'll just have like a new NCAA, which you'll have.

But it really has, it is eviscerated its own authority by washing its hands in being slow to action and as he's in as as great sink he said being not being nimble enough with the times and not changing um and that's not only on mark emory that is on the true decision makers in the ncaa and in college sports and and that is the presidents and chancellors of the schools that that on these high ranking boards, like the Division One Board of Directors and the Board of Governors. It's really on them. And that gets to another whole problem that we could spend a lot of time talking about and that is college presidents don't get college sports uh they just don't and they don't change with the times quick enough and um that's why we're here great work as always and i can't wait to see the rest of the story goes but i guess in the

short term i'm just happy some kids are gonna realize more value for what they bring and the ncaa is happy because the money they're getting is not stuff they necessarily have to share right term. I'm just happy some kids are going to realize more value for what they bring. And the NCAA is happy because the money they're getting is not stuff they necessarily have to share right now. So this kicks the can down the street, at least for a few more years. So thanks, Ross. Yeah, no problem. Mackenzie, I'm going to ask you somebody who I've known for a while. I'm obviously very close to their husband. And not that long ago, Mackenzie reached out and was like, hey, I'm working on this thing with this app, with this company. And she was way smarter about it than I was when she was explaining it to me.

So I was kind of like, yeah, I think so. Like, I think I got it. You know, keep me in the loop. Let's find out. And then the NIL stuff happens. And she's like, hey, here's our app for Matchpoint. And then I went through it and read the whole thing and watched all the stuff. And I went, okay, this makes a ton of sense. And it's brilliant. And she's terrific. So she's going

to help us kind of understand the NIL from their perspective as a company that's trying to figure out what's going on. So it's very simple terms. So everybody here can understand like what exactly is Matchpoint? What have you guys set out to do? Yeah, first of all, I'm flattered to be here. set out to do? Yeah. First of all, I'm flattered to be here. Thanks for having me. But yeah, jumping right into Matchpoint. So I want to say we started this... Everything's jumbling together because it has been a grind. But we started in maybe 2019, really watching NIL and we're following the laws and what was happening. We wanted to jump ahead of it and create an app,

honestly, that empowered talent and supported local business. So what we are is essentially a virtual agent to where you can sign in as a talent. And we'll get into that later, what a talent means. And you can sign in as a business or a brand, as we call it on the app. You create a profile, you fill out your interest. And when you log in, you'll see on the public feed suggested users that essentially matched with you. So think about dating apps. So essentially, the algorithm is smarter than any person can be. So you'll see on your feed, suggested brands. Let's assume that I'm logged in as a talent. So I will see suggested brands that match with me

based on my location or my interests, promotions that I want to run. There's... My following. There's various factors that go into that. And then you can also just use our search function. And you can search any brand anywhere nationwide. Our goal is to make this worldwide. But you can search... Say I'm a restaurant that's opening in Dallas, Texas. And I don't know anybody there. But I want to invite some influencers to the VIP night. I can use the app. I can search food bloggers in Dallas, Texas. And I can then send them an invite through the app to come to our opening. As far as NIL, what really brought us to the forefront... Because there's a lot of competitors out there.

But we had a couple of big-name athletes that joined our app. Derek Stingley, he did a deal with Walk-On through the app. Miles Brennan, he's done a couple of deals with local concepts through the app as well. And so that got... Honestly, it tripled our growth in a 24-hour period. And it's interesting because what they're loving so much about the app, we're the only platform out there that I've seen... Honestly, I've tried to stay in my lane and not worry about the competitors too much. But we're the only app that I've seen that is allowing our talent or our players to also pitch to brands. So they're able to send them to send brands offers through our app.

Yeah. That's the thing that I thought was really, um, you know, fascinating. I like, I don't want to like, I understand the concept of it, but when you dial yourself through it and you're going, okay, so I'm a player at Lsu and i want to see what out what's out there for me so i list hey i'm into the outdoors i'm into um golden tea you know i'm just kidding i'm trying to think of like every stereotypical like but uh i have all these interests like you know i travel do all these different things and then you start to set you can even set your own price and like this is what i'd be interested in doing or I could do a couple posts from these kinds of restaurants and then the brands actually find them which I thought was really impressive

with the app is that it was so um it was really like self-involved like all of all of the features it was pretty much on the person to be able to say like look here's what I'm going to say I'm interested in I'm kind of setting up sort of price and now let's see how many bites I get on this thing. So the way that you could figure out kind of how you controlled your own branding was very impressive. And that the interface part of it was very easy. Like this wasn't complicated. You didn't have to get on a bunch of calls. I'm sure there's some version of that where you can get a little bit more counseling, but I think the automation of it is so easy that that's the part of it that impressed me. Right. And it's actually helping this age group that's kind of used to being behind

their phone, right? So we want to create business savvy individuals and they're presenting themselves, but they're also able to do it through an app and behind the phone. How many athletes do you think are going to pick up the phone and call and ask for the marketing department or the CEO of a business and pitch themselves? They're just not going to do it. But here we have a platform that provides accessibility to the brands that actually want to work with influencers. So it's easy to pitch. And then once you send a pitch, you're then able on either side to reject, to accept, or to chat. So just like a dating app, you can't chat with a talent until you've sent an offer.

And same for talent to brands. Until an offer is sent, you can't chat. But the chat function is used to finalize the promotional details and the dates and any important details that they need in order to complete their marketing campaign. Now, what kind of feedback are you getting from... I mean, we're a week... The technology has been there for a while, but it's been real for a week. So what has this been like for... I'm not even talking necessarily about the growth of the company, but the feedback that you're getting from brands and potential athletes that are trying to take advantage of this maybe just it's also uncharted

i'm just curious like i have no idea what the feedback yeah no it's the wild wild west it's actually really interesting to see from our end what offers are out there and the price that's set which of course i won't disclose any athletes and deals that are being... Any transactions that are complete. But I can give you a range. What we're seeing on the business side, small businesses are key. It's like we're really helping local businesses where other platforms are not. They're more focused on large deals.

But we'll do $50 deals all day. If it makes sense, it's organic and it helps both the talent and the brand. So it's giving that accessibility again to these small businesses that they didn't have before. You will see larger companies on there like Raising Cane, Smoothie King, Walk-On. There's brands like that. Mercedes-Benz is on. Smoothie King, Walk-On. There's brands like that. Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge is on. But really, it's the feedback we're getting from the local businesses is what I'm most proud of. And then on the talent side, these players... I'm trying my best to educate as well.

We say we want to be more than an app. So I want... We're trying to put the people touch to it as well and help them understand market rate. So what I'm seeing is that they're sending pitches. More pitches than I honestly anticipated would be out there. So they're enjoying that feature. Deals are... It's funny. When you talk market price, right now, nobody has a market price. In the influencer world, there's market prices set. But in the athletics, college athletics, it's brand new. So we're seeing deals anywhere from $50 to $5,000 through the app. On the more elite levels, it goes from $5,000 to $20,000 through the app. That's incredible. So we're even getting some pretty large deals. Yeah.

Okay. Last thought before we let you go. And for those that want to check it out, you can go to thematchpoint.app and look at how it all works out and get the app on the phone and sign up for it because it isn't just athletes. There's actors that are on there, any kind of influencer with any kind of social media following. You can get out there and just start pitching your own deals and putting this stuff together. Then who knows? But it feels like because I know you and I know the family and I know the connection to LSU, but then also the student athlete background of it all, it feels like feels like yes you're starting a business you're seeing how you guys fit into the space

but how much is this also motivated by just showing maybe the athlete that's not even thinking about this that isn't the star quarterback that's going like hey is there anything out there for me because i think this makes their life completely easier once they understand how the app works. Right. And look, of course, with my family background and walk-ons, Sports Bistro, we clearly love a non-scholarship player and we can appreciate them and support them. So now we're able to do that. This platform gives them the ability to make a couple hundred bucks. You don't have to be an elite player to make money in NIL. Well said.

Hey, this is great. Thank you so much. And good luck with the app. Thank you. Brandon Landry now joins me, a guy I met back in 2008, the founder of Walk-Ons. It was at first a fun bar restaurant right across the street from Tiger Stadium. He played hoops at LSU and you're like, this guy's awesome. And now he's a whole lot more than that. He is a businessman. He is on the move. He's putting together franchises now. And it's

really probably one of the fastest growing restaurant brands in the country, man. And I'm really proud of you. So I want to ask you about your side of this. Cause as soon as the NIL stuff happened, you sent me a note, Hey, we got sting. And I'm like, okay, so how does this go from somebody who looked the LSU community means everything to you. You've been very involved donations, tickets, the whole deal. I mean, I don't know what your booster level is or any of that stuff. We never really talked about that kind of thing, but how now, how does that change for you as a business owner and looking at this as an opportunity? Because I guess the simplest question would be, is it just something you feel you need to do as an LSU guy? Or is this something with your branding where if you play this right, you feel like there's a real return for the investment for a company? investment for a company? Yeah. I mean, first of all, thanks for having me, brother. I appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words, but yeah, look, it's, it's, it's crazy because nobody knows, you know, I think that's, that's the crazy thing. Um, for us, uh, we wanted to have a bigger name

on day one, right. And, and having Stingley here in our backyard, um, we look on tiger stadium right here from our headquarters it just made sense just from a a national play for us the way we look at it is the way we do our regular advertising we have a national play you know when we're growing our restaurants i think we're 11 states now so i mean we have national media dollars that we spend and then we have local um and for stingley him being in our backyard and potentially a heisman candidate um you know and and somewhat of a household name as far as college athletes it was a good play for us um from a branding standpoint and of course being an lsu guy uh that helped but um I think more importantly, it was just for the connection here. And he being, I know you talked to Mackenzie at Matt's point,

it was just an easy play for both of us. Our play moving forward is to really capitalize on walk-offs, to be honest with you, and really get the stories of these kids. That's what we're excited about because, look, and I'm sure you talked about this already, I think there's probably the top, what, 1%, 2%, 3% of the kids that are going to be big dollars and are really going to be marketable. But I think, more importantly, it's these kids that have great stories, these underdog stories that we

kind of celebrate here in our company. I think it's going to be a good play for us. And then, you know, speaking internally here, as we grow throughout the country, Speaking internally here, as we grow throughout the country, we're excited about having these kids that have 20,000, 25,000 followers. So we just opened in Tuscaloosa last month. Let's backtrack. Say we'd opened two years ago in Najee Harris. Let's say this was available. A kid with 20, 25, maybe 30,000 followers, I'd say 80% of those followers are the kids that we want working with us.

And so it's gonna be really big for us as far as hiring. We spend a lot of dollars entering new markets as far as brand awareness and just getting that word out that, hey, we're coming to town and we need 200 plus new employees or new teammates to join our team. And so these kids that have those followings there in those college towns or in those communities that we'll be entering,

it's going to be a great play for us. So it's all over the board, brother. You know what I mean? That's what's the crazy thing. Like it's almost like, okay, it's here, you know? And everybody's kind of like, all right, we're going to do something. And, you know, Raising Cane's here in town. They're based in Baton Rouge too.

I think, you know, they got Miles Brennan real quick. And we got Stingley. And, you know, and I, of course you see what Barstool's doing as, as far as the, the, the Barstool, uh, athletes and that's our play. You know, we want to do probably an athlete a week. We'll sign an athlete a week up, um, throughout the year. So we want, maybe, maybe it's two, you know, it's between 50 or a hundred and we'd love them to be walk-ons. Um, and, and really kind of, um, it just goes with our brand. It goes with it, with our alignment, you know, and, and,

and having it to where we can tell their story and, uh, and it'll, it'll work for them as far as their quote unquote brand and definitely our brand. And that's, that's your story too. Um, you know, the saying goes, everybody needs a little playing time, which is when you think about it as a line for walk-ons, it's great. It's brilliant. It's a perfect line. It's funny and it's kind of your story too.

I mean, how much did you... I don't even know how much you played at LSU. That should tell you something, Russo. No, it was like that. I usually stop people when they introduce me and they say, yeah, he played at LSU. I say, played's a very strong word.

I think I got seven minutes my senior year. It was either up 30 or down 30, brother. It wasn't in the heat of the game. That's what we celebrate. It really is. It's the underdog story. everyone's got an underdog story. I don't care where you are in life, where you're from, you know, what your background is. It's at some point you were an underdog, right? Either you got passed up for a team or a job, or maybe not part of a social group.

And so that's kind of what we celebrate internally in our company. And we attract great teammates that way. And honestly, our guests love it too, because I think they can all relate to it. And so Rudy is a big friend of our brand and has done a lot with us. And of course, he's the ultimate underdog story, right? The ultimate walk-on. But it's fun man you know like our vision is to be more than a restaurant really you know inspire a lifestyle that embraces that underdog mindset all of us i mean why do we get excited

when the 15 seeds beating the two seed in marsh madness you know it's it's because of that underdog right right and because we all feel like we've been there at some point. So we play to that. It's very authentic for us. And I think this NIL has a great opportunity for us and for the athletes out there that just kind of want to tell their story. I don't know all the state laws, which I know shocks you on what this is. I don't know that anybody knows what they are even a week into these. I've read some of the stuff out of Florida and the structure that's there. I mean, does anyone really know what is going on or was it just, Hey, you

know, look, we're walk-ons. We have, you had to do something. You're across the street. So the Stingley thing made sense. But as you've told me, like your pivot is kind of more along the brand side of this. So I'm not trying to get you or anybody in trouble here, but is it safe to say, it's just kind of like, all right, what are we allowed to do? I guess we'll just do that and then we'll see what happens. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's what it seems so crazy, but that's how it is right now.

I mean, yeah, we're doing as much research as we can. We're not going to get ourselves in trouble. But the universities, I know they're trying to educate the kids as much as they can. You know, the kids are trying to figure out, OK, first of all, what can I get paid? How much can I get paid? I mean, the taxes and all, I mean, you can about imagine the IRS is probably licking their chops right now, but you know, it's just crazy. I mean, I know you saw the Miami deal yesterday, but I mean, what's the whole team? Yeah. The gym was the gym was gonna do like well go ahead I don't know what you read I don't want to screw it up so keep going yeah something like that like they gave all

the kids they signed all the kids up on scholarship so man recruiting I don't know man like I said I don't want to say too much but I mean mean, we know. I mean, recruiting is going to be interesting. If it wasn't already, I mean, it's – I don't know. I mean, it's just how do you control it? I really don't know how you control it from a university standpoint. So, I don't know how you control it from a university standpoint. So I don't know. We're going to stay on the straight and narrow, our side,

and just make sure that we're trying to get all the info that we can. But that's the problem. They just don't have a whole lot of info out there. Yeah, right. I mean, if this is the deal that you'd be like, hey, I think this player is worth it to us, I think some schools you're going to have people with smaller businesses that will say it may not even be worth it, but it just feels like this is something that we're supposed to do. And then in a couple of years, everybody will kind of figure this thing out. But I mean, you spending and sponsoring a

walk-on athlete where I imagine we're not even talking a thousand bucks here, it's not going to be like, hey, we're going to give you a thousand dollars a week just because you say you're a walk-ons athlete um i i don't know like you're right like every time i start to go down the road of asking a question i immediately think of all the reasons why the question might be wrong and it's it really gets back to the point of not knowing exactly like what what's going to happen because i think there's probably some people right now shaking everybody down like there'll be some manager of a big profile, like college kid, and then just start asking for all these crazy numbers because nobody really knows what the market is for any of this stuff. So I imagine that's happening out there quite a bit too.

Well, I think it goes back to the top two or 3% are going to get the big dot. I mean, how many of these kids are really market? I mean, yeah, you know you know here locally we had burrow a couple years ago i mean of course that would i mean he was over he was on every tv station on every national network i mean we knew he was going to be a heisman finalist at least i mean let me ask you that that's a good way of asking it like what would it have meant for a walk-on's location to have joe burrow be there for two hours to sign and take pictures? Like, is there real value in that? Like how much is that worth to him and to you? Not as much as the, a location. I think it would have been more for a brand, you know, because he was kind of like the poster child of college

football in 2019 or two, a couple of years ago or Trevor Lawrence, you know what I mean? So for us to have a kid like that, that represents our brand. And because I mean, ago, or Trevor Lawrence, you know what I mean? So for us to have a kid like that, that represents our brand. And because I mean, like, look, we, Drew Brees is my partner in walk-ons, you know? And so he goes and he'll go and do a signing or show up at a restaurant one day. And it's great for that day. It is because people love Drew, especially around the South. It works, but it's not a big play as far as a brand. But, I mean, a kid like that that we could sign and kind of be our spokesperson, so to say, or be a part of our brand for an entire season, it would justify some serious dollars. I mean, once again, it goes back to his stardom, quote-unquote, a couple of years ago in the college level.

And that was kind of the play with Stingley. Like I said, we look at it in two buckets. I mean, a national play, say, okay, this is part of this, and then we're going to really hit the local side because we're spending local dollars anyway. And so we think this is definitely an avenue that we can go down. Because of Drew Brees, your partner, and look, I've met Drew before. I met him with you, and I knew how big of a deal that was. What is having a Drew Brees attached,

both as an investor, but a face of your franchise. What does that mean to a company? Well, it's huge because he's the type of person he is. It's not necessarily what he's done on the football field. Of course, we all know he's done really well out there. But I mean, for me personally, I mean, just a great business partner. You know, he's one of those guys that shoots you straight. And, you. And he came to us not looking for a handout. This was in 2014 when we first joined the company. He's like, no, I'm a business guy looking to make an investment. And so he purchased 25% of our company. And it's been just... I go back to entering new markets. We're a growing brand. We have 54 restaurants right now in 11 states,

but it helps and it gives us that credibility. I think it's the biggest thing with a guy like him. Dak Prescott is a partner in our franchise market in Dallas-Fort Worth. And so that was another one. Devin White's part of our Tampa group. We're getting interest from bigger names like that. And it's not necessarily back to your point of going to the restaurant and doing an autograph signing. It's more like, okay, these are good dudes. These are good people. They're good business guys. And

we align on our values more than anything. I think it goes back to our purpose, vision, and mission. And those guys are aligned with us. And so it sparks the interest of potential franchisees saying, okay, those guys are part of it. It must be something about this company that's doing it the right way. And then, of course, notoriety and entering new markets, it helps. So Stingley said, okay, this is cool, but I want my own franchise in two years that would probably be on the excessive side of a demand for name image and likeness yeah i would say so all right so if all of a sudden you start having all these these white tight ends from 10 uh from purdue getting hooked up with stuff are you gonna have to call drew into a meeting be like what what's going on drew like a lot of purdue guys absolutely yeah we will but that's what's cool i mean look we're getting

dude i'm telling you my my my dms and and and my twitter i mean our our our company twitter and instagram we're getting hit up by athletes all around the country and i love it because it's these walk-ons just saying, Hey, look, or maybe they're a scholarship player. Now I started as a walk-on. I want to tell you our story. And look, I got, I got a kid last night. He said, he's got, I got 30,000 followers between Instagram and Twitter. You know, I'm a former walk-on. I made a scholarship. I want to talk. I want to, I want to work with you guys.

I love going in the walk-ons. It's cool. This is the cool side of it, right? Because I mean, these kids are learning how to be... Okay, look, I'm a young entrepreneur, right? They probably don't see themselves playing on Sundays. And so they're looking and I love that side of it. That's the Brandon when I was 19 years old, drawing my sketch on the napkin, as you alluded to, after I didn't play at Tennessee that night on the way home from the game. But that's what's really freaking cool, man, is having these kids coming in and saying, look, I like the business side of this. I want to learn about this. I want to represent your brand because I got the same values and I've got the same story as you.

That's what's going to be cool about it. And that's what we're excited about. You can learn more from Brandon. What's the best way to follow all the stuff that you're doing with Walk-Ons and social media? Because I don't want to give out the wrong stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's Walk-On. I mean, all of our Instagram, Twitter, it's just go to Walk-Ons.

You can go to our website. You can find all that stuff as well. I mean, it's pretty WalkOn Sports Bistro, Twitter, Instagram. We have our app as well. So Matchpoint is basically what's really cool about this. And their timing is great. Of course, it's the whole reason for them starting the company is they're basically the acting agent, right? And so they can help us put the deals together.

They can help vet the stories that are coming through. And then they can kind of give us a price, right? What is a kid like this worth? Because it really all comes back to their notoriety or their social media followers. And so for us, this is definitely a social play i'm gonna dial up and see what i'm worth i can't wait i'm gonna i'm gonna put a pitch together here soon on match point and then just start making demands and see if somebody gives in you might be worth guys rossillo out on the west coast you never know you never know my My markets are different. They're always

hard to keep track of. We almost got you down here, but you went West on us. I tried to get you down there in the South. I've looked at properties. I've looked at some stage in my life where I just walked around with one of your hats on Saturdays, eight weekends a year, and just be like, did you go here? I'd be like, well, no. I took a class. Everybody knows that I've looked at property, but I can't afford your neighborhood quite yet, but we're hoping to get there one day.

Oh, don't give me that. Don't give me that. I'm glad to chat with you, brother. I appreciate you having me on, man. Yeah, we'll see you soon, Brandon. Congrats on everything, and thanks for the the time I want to jump back on here with Saruti it was just something we were talking about this morning because everybody knows you know how much I want to see Chris Paul win a ring here and then it becomes okay well I'm a Celtic

fan but I think anybody that's listened to me over the years knows that I'm not like weird about it you know I'd rather them win than lose when they lose. It doesn't, you know, I'm just not what I used to be. And I like talking Celtics with my dad. So I still watch a ton of the games and, you know,

if I'm at a game, I, I, I'd want them to win. Do I stand up and cheer and stuff? No, I don't do that. Um,

but anyway, um, the reason it came up is because Chris Paul's in this finals and you go, okay, well, wait, rank this as far as your rooting interest in your non-main team. Like I'm not phrasing this perfectly, but what, what has been your greatest rooting interest for a team that isn't your team historically for the NBA finals that you've been upright and aware of. So for me, I mean, my first finals was 82-83. I mean, so Rudy, so I'll get a couple from you. You're a Magic fan. So you have to give me the finals where the Magic weren't involved in the outcome at all. I'll give you finals where the Celtics

weren't involved in the outcome at all. And like which finals, because this Chris Paul one is now very high for me historically but it's not number one i mean you can probably guess what number one is right uh probably that first warriors title 15 print the shirts print the shirts is high it is very high you had your neck out there man like that was like that was like the first you know rossillo and you were early on that and it kind of caught traction and you were very much pot tied even though i you love that team so it wasn't like you were tied to them because of a take but that that to me i just remember that being a big deal because it wasn't like a slam dunk they were going to win but i mean you were there no when they were down 2-1

in memphis people were like yep see this is it you can't win hitting threes everybody ignored the fact their defensive statistics were terrific um it was oh they're soft all you have to do is beat them up off the screens and i was just like whatever and then it was actually chauncey billups chauncey billups was in studio with us and i just said prince he's like wait you think warriors are going to win this because he was anti-warriors like all those old school guys were just like warriors suck warriors suck i mean barkley picked against him i think every series for like three years um and I just said print the shirts print the shirts they're winning this whole thing so yeah that's that's a good one for me but it's not it's not number one I'll just give it to you then I thought you were going to be able to guess it

Barkley Suns oh okay yeah yeah so I would I would rank them this way I would go the finals I've cared the most about look I'll tell you right now I probably cared about the Barkley finals in 93 more than I cared about 2008 Celtics all right and there's a reason for that because they're always like how come the Barkley thing I originally like the Sixers this is poor

timing but sort of classic but when everybody was in New England just loving those Celtics Lakers things I was I was into the Sixers so that that 82-83 team is the first team I paid attention to. So I had the Sixers run, which led into the Barkley run. And then finally, being around all my Boston friends and all that kind of stuff, when Patino got there, I was like, you know what, I'm going to start paying more attention to the Celtics here because I didn't want to pay attention to the Sixers at that point. paying more attention to the Celtics here because I didn't want to pay attention to the Sixers at that point. So, all right. So Barkley sons, I've cared about the most 93. I'd say the 82, 83 Sixers is number two, but again, I was a really young kid. So, I mean, you know, that was, that was one of those deals where I'd asked my dad for the sports page so I could see if they won the night before. Um, I would put, uh, this is going to be funny. I think I cared about the outcome of the 16 finals

more than the 15 finals, even though I had so much on the line in the 15 finals because I think retroactively, even though that was such a great performance by LeBron and Kyrie, that series and people that would have 3-1 jokes about Curry, like retroactively,

I would like that one stricken from the record more than any of the other outcomes on that one uh even because i could argue i'd rather the raptors not have won it in 2019 because they act as if the injuries were non-existent and my own fascination with uh segments portions of the raptors fan base but i get wait a minute so give me yours let me before i run through all five so i actually i wrote down four now that i have here and mine are more fueled by me disliking the other team more than me actually rooting for the team that i wanted to win which is very on brand for me yes uh and i think the number one one for me it was when i was in college and probably because

i was you know cocky sruti and was everything annoyed me and pissed me off at the time but that's that 0708 Lakers Celtics final so I was in college at the time and I went to college in New England what up Quinnipiac shout out and you know that was after they made the KD trade after they made the uh the Ray Allen trade obviously and there were just Celtic fans coming out of the woodwork like guys that I didn't even know were Celtic fans all of a sudden are walking around campus in a KG number five t-shirt jersey so I immediately hated the Celtics and I rooted for them throughout the entire season and that and especially in that finals to lose so I was rooting big time for the Lakers plus that was the time and you know Kobe what was that his first uh that was his first post Shaq right too

and I was very much a Kobe over Shaq guy at the time. So that 07-08 finals, I was rooting so hard for the Lakers there, for sure. So that's the outcome you've cared the most about. I think so. Just because of school. I put myself back in 2008. And I remember just being so annoyed by the bandwagon Celtic fans that I was. And a lot of this is personal to me, right?

So I was around it. And I was in New England, obviously going to school. So for some reason, I just remember being so angry at all these random Celtic fans wearing green that I knew for a fact did not watch a Celtic game the year before. So it just pissed me off. So I was very much rooting for the Lakers that year. Another one. I actually I put I put we didn't do this segment before you got hired. Yeah, that's apologies, um the 2012 thunder that see i think you could put any heat team you know with a lebron big three down there but i put this one specifically because

uh i actually really you know me i love westbrook at the time and i still kind of have a soft spot for westbrook and i felt like uh not only was i rooting against the heat at the time but i was rooting for westbrook to win a title to maybe get that monkey off his back and people who were saying and that was kind of early in the like can you you know can you win with Westbrook kind of time there um and now it's like obviously it doesn't seem like you can at all but it was still up in the air about whether or not he and KD were kind of you know could make it work together and they were still young so I was really really rooting for that Thunder team unfortunately they lost um next one I had Cavs over Warriors in 2017 I was rooting for that thunder team unfortunately they lost um next one

i had calves over warriors in 2017 i was rooting for the calves just because i i i hated the golden state thing i think that's that's something everybody could relate to you hated the kd golden state thing i hated it i hated it and then what's funny is i really you didn't hate him in 15 though no i love clay clay's my favorite player in the league so that was like an awkward thing for me but the funny thing too is i didn't care as much in 2018 when they won their second title, but I cared in 2017 because it was still kind of new. Right. And Katie, that was when people started saying, hey, like, is Katie going to come for LeBron's crown? Katie hits that shot in game three over LeBron. Everyone's saying that's the stamp that that puts Katie over the top. And I really firmly believe at the time that LeBron was the best player in the league and still was at the time.

that puts Katie over the top. And I really firmly believe at the time that LeBron was the best player in the league and still was at the time. And then what's the funny part about it is in 2018, I didn't care at all because nobody was giving Katie

or the Warriors any credit for winning titles. So it was really only that first year. But this might be the funniest one is last year. I was and you, I think you'll understand this.

Last year, I was rooting really hard for the Lakers to beat the Heat. Oh, yeah, I know why. Because, well, one, one, the Heat, I just thought they were kind of fraught. I thought it was a fluke thing.

It was a bubble. I don't think that they were, they shouldn't have been a finals team. Like, shout out to Jimmy Butler. They got there. Good for them. And they actually made it a series. Good for them.

I just thought that was completely fluky. But the real reason is, and you understand this, is the Miami Mafia media fan base down there. I just, I never root for them to be happy. So I was immediately rooting against the heat. Yeah. There was a bunch of us that were in Bristol that ended up having a ton of anti-heat takes, not because of Miami. It was because it was Levitard show and Sedano. So every time, like we had this run where it was like six to seven hours

of Miami based programming in the lineup and you'd be coming into work and you'd be like, what are those guys talking about? Because a lot of it was this, like, I just, anytime anybody's like, hey, we're playing the victim, it's just, I have no patience for it whatsoever. Because there's always a time where the cycle comes up, where your city has a team that people don't like and it doesn't really have anything to do with your city it's just you're

up and now people aren't going to like you and they always made it out to be well it's only because it's miami it's miami and it's like no it isn't like it isn't about just being from miami it's just like this is now you're you're That's it. That's all there is to it. So there were so many, even though I liked those guys, there were so many times we were like, wait, what are you guys talking about? That's definitely not like what's going on nationally. That's not what's happening in the hallways. Like, that's not how people feel. Do you remember like the weird Duke Miami college football play and how weird that game was? And then I remember one of the shows being like,

well, the only reason people are doing this is because everybody hates the Miami Hurricanes. And you were like, no, it isn't. It's because it's an absurd play. Yeah. I think there was one more part of that, but I forget what it was. But maybe the heat culture thing that just like,

oh, yeah, heat culture, heat culture. And just like... Because if the Heat were any other team in any other market as a five seed, you know, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Hero, they shouldn't have been there and they were. And I think most people would probably root for them. But because of the culture thing

and because of everything that comes with the Miami Heat Mafia BS, I just could never root for that team. And last year, because it was so out of nowhere, and if they had actually won that title, it would have been insufferable. As much as I didn't actually enjoy that Lakers team that much, I just didn't want the Heat to win it.

Yeah, but it is. Like, Milwaukee has it big time. And that's why I always tell people, like, the Milwaukee persecution complex is so underrated. You guys would get it. Like, Bill pre-taped a Sunday thing because he wanted to have July 4th weekend with his family. I was like, I'll do whatever.

I'll work. I don't care. But it ended up not working that way, even though we had taped some stuff. So my release schedule this week was different. So there were numerous Bucs fans being like, oh, figures, no Sunday pod because the Bucs are in the finals.

You're like, or you fucking moron. It's the 4th of July and somebody decided to take a podcast off from two guys that I don't think missed podcasts for like two years now. So and then we did a huge one on Tuesday after game one of the NBA finals. And then we did a huge one on Tuesday after game one of the NBA finals. I did. I feel a little harsh after what I just said, but you see it so much where these fan bases go out of their way to be like, Oh,

they're only doing this because it's us. And you're like, or you could look at a calendar. You could look at a calendar too. That would help you. That probably gets you to the end of the mystery a little bit. I will say this. I am a little bit sympathetic for the Milwaukee fan because didn't first take just shit all over them

or shit all over going to Milwaukee like they said they didn't want to go there? Did they? I don't know. I think that's what happened. So now I'm sure they think everyone is against them. But you're right. It's more of a calendar thing than anything else. If you see me watching first take regularly, send help.

That's true. I saw it on Twitter. Sorry, not an evidence. Sorry, Stephen A. No, because somebody said there was an argument on first take that they were i didn't even i didn't even know it was true somebody reach out to me this is what will happen like somebody with the league or somebody connected to a player would be like how come they're saying on first take that campaign should be starting instead of chris paul and i go okay well let's

start with the beginning of this sentence. We'll work our way backwards. And I don't even know if that's true. I don't even know. Was there somebody capable of saying that? I don't know. I'm not 100% sure. All right. So, yeah, Chris Paul, this finals,

I'd probably put him around number three historically for me, maybe number four for this one. But that's where I'm at. And by the way, hit us up. Hit us up on Twitter. Let us know what yours are, and we'll probably not read those. I'll throw another one in there really quickly, too. It actually reminds me a lot of this year with Chris Paul getting over the hump and winning that title.

I was really rooting for Dirk in that first year when they played the Heat. There's a lot of Dirk love there, but that's because everybody hates Miami. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. LifeAdviceRR at gmail.com i'll admit some of the follow-ups that we've had to the 6'9 basketball player who wanted to just live his life but didn't know how to go about it we've gotten so many emails about people that i may just do it as a self-contained thing because i also don't want there's a lot of emails where people

are telling stories about playing with guys that were really good names for the most part that the audience would recognize. And I just want to make sure like almost all of them are cool. You know, they're fine. Cause I wouldn't want to, you know, if it's just an email and it's just that one side of a story and something

didn't go great. I don't know that I want to do that to the guys. Then that opens up a whole nother can of worms and you want to try to be fair to people. Cause sometimes the source isn't always the most accurate on this kind of stuff. But we've had a lot of people chime in and they've almost all been really positive. So I could probably do one of those where we just follow up stories of guys talking about playing pick up hoops with guys. But let's get to a couple of advice ones instead now, just because we've had a little bit of a gap and I know how much people like it.

So let's get to it. All right. I guess this guy wants us to use his name. That's fine. I don't think it matters here. All right. Brandon, 61165. I live in New York City. For those who don't know, New York is a big bike town during the nicer months. I ride my bike almost everywhere. Big bike town. Big bike town. I've been doing that almost six years now and haven't really had any negative experiences until recently. I was biking home and heard a little bit of a bike bell behind me. All right, little bike bell. I pulled off a bit to let them pass,

but I guess I didn't give them enough room, and the pass situation was a bit clunky. Honestly, I'm giving this biker the benefit of the doubt because I didn't really notice anything that weird about it. But he did, and he clearly had a huge issue with it, small gestures and a weird look. Oh, okay, so as the pass happens, has a huge issue with it small gestures and a weird look okay so as the pass happens has a huge issue with it small gestures weird look then with him just a couple of paces ahead of me he turns

around gives me the finger oh i'm just gonna say it was aggressive i'm talking about four seconds of him completely turned looking at me eyes not in the road by the way with the finger out let's all do that exercise right now i'm gonna give saruti the finger for four seconds that's long that felt long did i feel uncomfortable saruti yeah i don't like it i don't like it at all right okay um he goes four seconds is an eternity on a bike it's just that's just long in general it felt way over the top i was stunned we've all been flipped off in a car before but on a bike was a completely different situation i thought bike guys stuck together um case in point i continued literally hey did they find that person with the sign at the tour de france i don't think so there are rumors it's a celtics fan i'm not i'm not sure

if those rumors are accurate all right right. Anyway, back to the case here. Felt way over the top. I was stunned. Well, I've been flipped off. Case in point, I continued literally a couple of paces behind him for a solid five more minutes as we were going the same direction. So this guy flips you off, but you're heading in the same direction. So for the next five minutes, you guys are going in the same direction, or you're not admitting that you're kind of just following close after him. Now, I wouldn't say I'm a hothead, but when someone does something that is objectively shitty over the top, I have a tendency to lean into it. For a few moments, my gut was to do a

Roman Grosjean impression. F1 listeners know the deal. And immediately slam into him. That's probably something Grosjean would do. Luckily, I didn't do that and had the luxury of thinking out what my next move would be since we were both riding and we would eventually hit a red light and stop next to each other after a little thinking my mastermind move was to go over the top back at him at the next light I pulled up next to him and I proceeded to throw every profanity I had in the book at him in my head I couldn't be 50 I had to be all in it worked he was on his heels and didn't say a word and back down i felt like i had won what's better or worse is i caught him at another red and since i had already leaned into this alpha character that isn't necessarily my normal persona and i

had won i proceeded to throw every profanity i had just used on him on him again but this time it was directed at him riding his specific bike side note he's riding a city bike with pedal assist. Everyone that bikes the city knows that city bikers universally blow. Whoa. I would say no offense to certain city bikers, but I hope you're all offended. Okay. I don't think I would say no offense and then say,

I hope you're all offended, but that doesn't add up. But yeah, yeah. You guys know what the city bikes are right the ones you can rent all right so i could see hardcore canondale guy annoyed with city biker to begin with um so bike guys don't always stick together i'll also say that because i i had a little biking phase during the pandemic where i was like oh and then i used to get really annoyed when the electric bike guys would pass you and kind of look at you like, I got you. And you're like, you're on an electric

bike. All right. Sorry if the story's a little long, but I'm at my question. For the duration of my ride home, I felt great. The adrenaline was flowing and there's very few things that slap as hard as putting a bully in his place. But ever since, it's kind of nodded me a bit. Clearly, my move isn't the move. I got lucky in this instance because the dude backed down, but I'm way too old and not big enough to be getting into altercations with city bikers and bike lanes. But it would have felt way worse to just take it would be gnawing at me way more. To make the question more general, what do you do when someone over the top disrespects you and they're still in your immediate vicinity? Look, there's nothing more awkward than doing the whole

thing and the car altercation. And then like you pull into the same CVS and now you're in the parking lot and now it's real. All right. And everybody sort of backs down a little bit. I ironically enough, recently had an incident at a Raising Cane's, the new one in Torrance, California. I had to stop. I had to eat the food in my car because that was the way it was going to work. You know, once a month craving, I'm going to do it. And as I was trying to pull out, I was parked forward in, in the car. And the only way I could get out because there's so much traffic at it, they have these like cones and stuff directing traffic. I had to back out, um, of the spot, but I had to back out and also turn because it wasn't a straight back out. I had to turn, but I also had to pull in

again and then turn back out again. It wasn't going to be one move. It was going to be two moves to get myself out of the exit because there was no room directly behind me. I had to get 45 degrees out, if you understand what I'm saying. As I'm coming out, reverse lights are on, pretty clear. You can see what's happening. Another car's coming out of the drive-through, and I go, I really hope that they don't get right on my ass here because then I'm stuck, stuck. And they do. And I put it in forward and there's no way I'm going to clear the curb. So I have to put it in reverse. And as I put it in forward, she inches up on me more and I'm just like, okay, this person sucks. And then as I go to back up, she starts leaning into the horn and I go, okay,

I'm not, I'm not going to freak out, but I'm going to let her feel me a little bit. She's going to feel my presence a little bit, and I get out of the car. I get out of the car, and I'm totally calm. I see a little kid with a Little League hat riding shotgun. I go, all right, I'm not going to, and I just go, hey, you see what I'm trying to do, right? She's like, you were going to hit my car. I was like, I definitely wasn't going to hit your car. I go, there was all the room in the world. You had to see what I was doing. I can't get out of the spot unless I back out a second time. There's no room. Like you don't need to do any of what you just did. She's like, you were going to hit me. And I was just like, okay, so here's the deal. Here's what we've always learned. It's my four-way stop sign theory.

No matter what happens at the four-way stop sign all right we're talking about four cars stop somebody's gonna fuck it up and that that person at some point has been you it's been me it's been saruti i don't think kyle's probably waiting on people at four-way stop sign but everyone in the audience has had that moment where you're like oh did did he go there first then you got the assholes that stopped six feet before the stop sign. I think they're like, they got the cheat code to the whole thing. It's like, well, I stopped. You're like, yeah, but you stopped there so that you think you figured something out.

Nobody else has figured out before, which is more insulting than actually just stopping and going for everybody else. But we've all had a moment at the four-way stop sign where we're the reason it got fucked up. And guess what our first instinct was when we got called out? It was probably to get mad at the other person. All right? That first moment where you were like, no, no, fuck, fuck me, fuck you.

Sorry for the kids in the car listening right now. I know. I didn't want to swear a ton today. But we've all been there. And your first thing is you're so mad and you're thinking, well, he waited or he, I didn't know what he was doing, but there was a car in front of him and we start rationalizing all these things. And we do this.

It isn't just the four-way stop sign. We do this a lot in life. All right. My book is not going to be titled the four-way stop sign, but I don't know, as I read this bike email, you got some holes in your story here because you admit for this guy to give you the finger and you're like, yeah, the passing thing was a bit clunky. What happened? Now, it still doesn't seem like that deserved a four second finger, but here's what I would say to you. Either way, it felt like it was going to not you. And I've had times too, where I got mad at myself

for not saying something when I clearly was right and should have said something. So let's just default with maybe you're right. And even if the passing were clunky, you didn't deserve this and should have told the guy off. What I don't understand is you already had the win at the first stoplight. What happened at the second one that you felt like you needed to do it all over again? So I'd say the lesson from this is you made your point. over again. So I'd say the lesson from this is you made your point. You're lucky he backed down, but if he's on a city bike, you probably liked your chances. Okay. I don't know why you needed to do it at the second red light. So that would be the only correction I would have in this. Because if everything you're saying is that even if the passing were clunky, which I don't know what that means, and he went over the top at you,

and then you went right back at him, I think at that point, it's altercation over, and you just let it, you know, you've already won. You didn't need to do it a second time. Kyle? I think we all have probably a million stories like this. And I think we're used to people in their little safety safes in their cars, you you know saying stuff they would never say in the real world and getting away i mean i was a little shocked that this happened on bikes and you know i mean you're taking a risk if you're if you're playing that game on a bike that's for fucking sure sorry for cursing i just i just realized right now you don't like cursing on this podcast so i'm i'm sorry no i wouldn't say that i just i just i don't like to overdo it, you know, because there's people that text me that'll tell me how

much they like life advice. And like some people even tell me there's kids in the car. So can you chill out on this? But I go, well, that's not, this isn't junior high advice. So the advice is geared towards a little older audience. But I just think that there's, now i'm doing a dissertation on swearing i think there's an effective use of a swear every now and then it shouldn't be the go-to all the time copy that but that's that's that's all i i think uh you can swear as much as you want kyle we have all the respect we'd actually prefer we'd be bummed out if you didn't so i don't know so rudy i've actually thought road rage is a lot like Twitter in that there are only absolutes either you're 100% wrong or 100% right and there's no middle ground and also if you put those two people

together in a room and would there be the same energy probably not uh like you've ever had the guy when you're doing the road rage thing and he's like pull over pull over like that nobody ever pulls over right if you do pull over then what happens next you guys gonna on the side of the road. And I've seen a few like Instagram videos to see that that does happen maybe randomly, but nobody ever actually wants to fight. So the guys are throwing the middle finger there. It's probably mad because you one-upped him. And you know, he was, maybe he was, maybe he was subconscious about being on a city bike. And he was like, Oh, this guy doesn't think I'm a real biker. I don't know. Either way, no one ever wants to actually do anything. So the awkwardness is getting after that red

light and being like, okay, what happens now? But I don't know, man. Maybe I'm kind of with you, Ron. I think there's probably more to this story that we don't know, but at the end of the day, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah, really. It's not that big of a deal. You were amped up, but I think if you're going to get into future altercations, keep it at one win.

You know what I mean? What if that guy got game two on you? Now you got to get his best of three know who knows what happens at the third stoplight okay this one happens a lot and it just depends on your comfort level and i think it follows up the always late boyfriend who was with the girl for four years because we've got some follow-ups to that where people were just i look i've never been married i lived with a girl i think when when I was 18, turning 19. It was the summer after my freshman year. This girl who had a summer house, she was from Fairfield County.

And she was like, oh, you live on the vineyard. I'm moving there this summer. Do you want to live with me for a little bit? And I got to move in and live there for free for like six weeks. And then I was the worst. It's one of those things that even though you're older, you're like, hey, get over it. You were young. It's one of those things that even though you're older, you're like, hey, get over it. You were young. It's not a big deal.

I was actually like, I still have like little moments of going, oh, God, I sucked as a roommate. But my parents were like splitting up again that summer. So I don't think I was thrilled that I had to move back in with them. So at the end, it was just kind of like, oh, hey, you have to leave next Monday or something. And I was like, what? I don't know why the hell I'm even talking about this. But I guess I did. But the point is, is that when you're a guy and you're worried about bathroom etiquette and some of my friends, I've been amazed that it's just, no, it's like, I, I,

I let them know immediately that I'm not going to be uncomfortable about that part of my life and that they're going to have to adapt to me. I've hung out with girls that are super forward about it. And I don't know. I mean, we're all a little different. So my man's in a tough spot here. All right. I'm 22, recently graduated college. I had a lot of casual and shorter-term relationships

in the past four years. I met this girl a few months ago, and it's quickly becoming my most serious relationship since high school. Maybe I'm making way too big of a deal out of this, but here's my dilemma. We have a week-long, just the two of us, trip planned next month. We've slept over at each other's place a handful of times, pretty early exits in the morning, but this is our first extended stay together. What am I supposed to do about the bathroom while we're away? about the bathroom while we were away. This dawned on me the other day, and I can't think of a solution or game plan. It's stressing me out to the point where I want to cancel the trip.

That seems excessive. I mean, eventually you're going to have to move in with somebody, right? You realize that? Or you can pull a Rosillo. But most people are going to have to move in with somebody. We were sharing that bathroom the whole week. We know each other.

This is definitely still pretty early in the relationship. I'll keep this short and simple. I know other dudes have gone before me and had to figure this out. You're right. You're not the first guy to ever go on a trip. You're not the first that's ever had to do. That'd be amazing. No, you are. And report back to all of us immediately so we can all adjust. I'm not crazy for thinking about this so much, right? Help a brother out with strategy. He wants Kyle's advice more than anything. Look, this is again, an anxiety based thing for people. But some people have zero anxiety about it whatsoever. They're like, Hey, it's science, like figure it out. And so I kind

of appreciate that approach to it. I have one friend that I'm pretty sure had so much anxiety about it. First of all, I know he's had so much anxiety about it that he was leaving the house all the time. He just couldn't operate that way. Couldn't handle it. Has kids with the wife. They get along. Everything's good. But he has a real problem. He talks about it with the rest of us. And he was leaving so much, his wife thought he was having an affair. And we were like, was she actually a little bit more bummed out to learn what it was, knowing that what you were doing

was a hundred times weirder than just having an affair? And he was like, an argument could be made. And look, she, obviously, she'd been living with a guy for years, so she knew something was wrong about that, let's just call it a transaction. So what you need to do

is if you're really worried about it, I don't think I would want a new girlfriend destroying the bathroom on a getaway either. So have that same respect for her. And you got to map out the lobby bathroom situation. And maybe you're going to be running a couple errands. You know, hey, let me go pick up. Oh, did we lose the bottle opener again? I'll go get it. You're like, you know what I could use? Would you like a cappuccino? I'm going to go grab a

couple of cappuccinos at this cafe I saw as we were coming out. Hey, you know, it'd be funny. Let me check out a local newspaper. Now, a little weirder if you're going overseas, you'd be like, why is this guy so into Italian news? But you understand my point. You're going to have to map the stuff out a little bit. There's going to be a couple more solo trips. If you'd like to work out while you're on vacation, that's always, I don't even like exercise. It's a great excuse. Be like, hey, I'm going to get a little workout in their gym. And then you're gone for like an hour and a half. So you're going to have to just do a little recon if it bothers you this much. But don't let it bother you so much that your girlfriend's going to think there's something wrong with you.

Kyle? Make no mistake. We're talking about pooping here, right? We're not talking about like everything. No, I think take it. Yes. Yeah. Well, there was another thing where I just,

I think actually that the angles of bathroom sinks are so bad that I just can't not splash water when I do, but that's not important. My make no mistake. I will, I will poop. I will poop anywhere, but like the worst bar you've ever seen. I've just, I've decided I've had to do it, but I will, I will always, I will always do it, like give myself the best situation. So if I was this guy, I would not be scoping out lobbies. I will always give myself the best situation. So if I was this guy, I would not be scoping out lobbies.

I would not be going to hotel, gym, locker room, bathrooms. I mean, come on, dude. Everybody poops. That's like the best selling book in America. And I think people really underestimate what lighting a single match does for a bathroom. I stay with matches only. You would first long weekend an overseas trip, you'd get off the plane

and you'd be like, hey, I'm going to wreck the bathroom before you even unpack any luggage. New girlfriend. That's oddly specific, but listen, if it was that way, I'd live my life in a certain way

that yes, I would. You know what? There's men that envy you. Is it going to last or is it going to last is what I want to know. There's men that envy you, Kyle. There's men that envy you. They hear you and they hear the way you operate and they have no idea how you can do it, but they love that you do. Somehow.

So, Rudy? Well, here's the thing. She's probably worried about it too I guess not as much as you are but you could make it aren't don't they make things you put in the toilet that you can literally put on the water yes that like catch it and then it wait what I don't know if it eliminates

the smell yeah it's like it's almost like a I don't want to say that's the paper but yeah it's almost like a piece of paper no I'm talking about it's almost like a piece of paper but buddy bought it no i'm talking about it's almost like a piece of paper but it dissolves in water but like when you poop it you know catches it kind of and sort of seals it in a way where it doesn't smell maybe as bad as it normally would so between that and matches and some spray courtesy unless we're talking about like a major problem you're

gonna be all right just just invest in i think they're called dude bombs just like invest in one of those yeah also also courtesy flush dude just pay attention out there as soon as you get it get rid of it yep good call be prepared this guy wants to cancel the trip i don't think you guys are helping him out i thought my advice for him is better he needs to he needs to ease he can't you want him to go from canceling the trip to light a match. I was trying to make the transition a little easier for the guy. So you should listen to Ryan. I think you would be a lot happier if you listen to me. I wonder if the bathroom has one of those fans, too,

because obviously if it doesn't have a fan, that's a problem, too. You should probably have a noise thing on your phone to sound that out. That's another concern. But I think we've just solved every potential problem that this guy can encounter. International fans, though? The RPMs on those? Yeah, I agree. That's another concern. I think we've just solved every potential problem that this guy can encounter. International fans, though? The RPMs on those? Yeah, not great. Or they could be louder because they're older.

Or they could not exist. Trust me, I had this fan in Positano. I think it made it worse. I keep saying this guy is going overseas. I just keep picturing this poor guy in Santorini walking the village early in the morning, hoping a cafe is going to open up. He's probably going to Tampa or something.

He never included. I don't think he said it. I think he made that up. I all of a sudden pictured this kid walking the streets of Greece just dying. When he goes to get cappuccino the next day,

the locals are like, no, no service. All right. All right. That's as gross as I want to get on the podcast. There's just, there's just levels to it.

And so I, I knew Kyle's advice was going to be, I mean, honestly, I didn't feel that great about what I said. I just couldn't wait to hear what Kyle had to say. And he did not disappoint. Check out our Game 1 Finals recap.

Bill and I just did it late on Tuesday night. Super late for the East Coast. And then subscribe to this deal. And hopefully you get a little bit more educated on the NIL stuff. I know that I did. And yeah, we'll be back on Friday. Friday. Do we have anybody booked for that yet? Do we know what we're doing on Friday? I'm not doing that as a complaint. I just didn't

know if we had a game plan. Alright, it'll be a big old surprise then. Thank you.