Will Cain Country - The Future of Sports Media With Bobby Burack

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

On this episode, Will sits down with Outkick columnist Bobby Burack to discuss how the media landscape will change in the coming years and how authenticity prevails against all else.   Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail]   Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Future of media, news, politics, sports, and the truth. It's the Will Kame podcast on Fox News Podcast. What's up? And welcome to Monday. As always, I hope you will download, rate, and review this podcast, wherever you get your audio entertainment. At Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News podcast. You can watch the Will Kame podcast. podcast on Rumble or on YouTube. My guest today is a columnist for Outkick. His name is Bobby

Burrack. He's one of the few independent voices that I have found over the years that covers the industry of media. Bobby first started out of college, before even graduating from college, covering sports media. It's when I began to get to know him. He made the move over to Outkick where it opened up the world of news and politics. He is in a world of group think and an industry of absolute desire to fit in, a voice of real critical thinking and independence. And I always enjoy talking to Outkicks Bobby Burrack. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus

tax. am at participating McDonald's restaurants. Fresh excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. This is Jimmy Fala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com.

Outkicks Bobby Burak. It's great to see you, man. I'm excited to talk to you today. I'm not going to pretend like we are strangers. I know you. I know you fairly well, Bobby. and I've always appreciated your work, and I will share this story with the audience at the outset of our conversation.

Sometime within, I would say, the first year of joining ESPN, I started getting these direct messages on Twitter. I believe they were direct messages. I started getting these messages. Hey, man, can I interview you? Hey, I'm a student at, I don't remember where you went to school, Bobby. And hell, you might have been in high school. But I'm a student at X school.

I'd love to interview you. And to be honest, I ignored it. I ghosted you. I didn't say anything because you get a lot of these types of things from time to time. But you kept coming and you kept coming and you sent me more messages and more messages. And then you'd say, hey, I've interviewed this person or that person. I've interviewed Jamel Hill or Kevin Nagandi. I'd love to interview you as well, Will.

And after a while, maybe six months of this, I was sitting at my little cubicle at ESPN. And I thought, man, this kid is persistent and resilient. and he doesn't quit. And if for no other reason, Will, you need to reward that characteristic. You need to give this dude an interview. And here you are. We're probably looking at, you know, seven to eight years later. And look, you're one of the premier most independent columnist in the country working for Outkick.

And you have, from this little town in Michigan where you live, made yourself a career. And now you're what? Like 23, 24? A little older than that, 26. But, no, I appreciate him. That's a pretty accurate breakdown. So, yeah, when I was in college, I always knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't really know how to get there. So I just said, I'm not going to follow anybody's lead.

I'm just going to do it. So I just started a podcast with a guy you might know pretty well, Patrick Hatton, who's working behind the scenes with you right now. And I just did this podcast. And I reached out to people. and there were certain people I wanted to interview, and I didn't care what their political affiliation was or what their views were. I just wanted to interview everybody.

You mentioned Jamel Hill, who I interviewed early on, and I wanted to interview you. And a lot of people did get back to me pretty quickly. Some said no, some said yes. And I was always fascinated by you for really a lot of reasons, but mostly is that there's not a lot of people in media will who come from a background similar to me. me, which is a really small-town background.

I graduated with 26 people. My friend, you know, I always hear people say, we're going out with this group of friends. I mean, a group of friends would be like my math class, right? Like it was so there was no big groups. So most people in me are born in L.A. or New York or grew up rich or at Ivy League schools. You know, I had none of that. That wasn't my background. So I knew you from your radio show and TV talked about growing up in Sherman, Texas.

And I always say geographical location really shapes a person. And a lot of your views, I always thought, tied back to where you were born. And that's where, I think, really for me, a lot of my opinions come from Peck, Michigan, growing up with just a few friends in my life, a really small town where everyone knew everybody. So that's why I was always interested in your career. Now, here we are, what, seven years later, we've got to know each other. And, yeah, I'm really grateful for that. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on what you just described.

So, first of all, you know, I think it's important for the audience. They know this, that I highly value the quality of persistence and resilience. I think it's probably the biggest differentiator between failure and success, more so than intellect and more so than talent. And so you exhibited that early on, just your willingness to continue to hear no or nothing until you got the yes. And I'd like to think that's part of my career as well, because like you, I'd never asked for a job, really. I just sort of made my own jobs. I promised myself I wouldn't ever address recent criticism of me and my like meritocratic rise in my career. But like, I

would say the only thing that made me who I am in my career is my just willingness to make it happen. It was nothing that would have ever shown up on a resume. It was only something that was shown up in in character and you showed that same quality here's something though i was thinking about when you were talking i was once on dan lavatar's podcast bobby and he's he asked me and you know dan and i didn't know each other well we met a handful of times at espn and there was there was like this arm's length distance relationship well i think i think not on my behalf but but but maybe on theirs like um will can kind of come on and in he'll joke because they knew i would not take myself too seriously, but we're never going to talk seriously with Will. We're not going to

entertain his points of view. Until I eventually did his podcast, and the idea of that conversation is, let's go deeper. And one of the questions he asked me, Bobby, is, like, tell me about your dad or tell me about where you came from. And what he was asking me was, why are you the way you are? And I rejected that premise. Like, I did go on to explain to him, like, I have my points of view because I earned my points of view. Like, I've thought through the issues. Most people say they can laugh and say, will, you overthink things?

You know, I mean, that's, I think a lot and about what I believe. And I didn't get these ideas handed to me as like a birthright, but it is still true, and I would have to say this to Dan, and I think it's accurate what you said, where you're from is part of who you are.

And you can never truly leave it behind. And so where I'm from and where you're from does help paint and color the way I see the world. Yeah, and the biggest case I can make is most people in media exist because they just want to fit in. They just want to be like everybody else. They want to get nice text message and retweets and shares and be a part of the Cool Kid Club. See, growing up where I did, I always got accustomed to only having or caring about the opinions

of very few people. Again, I graduated with 26 people. I mean, if I were to go hang out, it would be with one or two friends. So I never really concerned myself with my mass reputation. I cared about what the people close to me think. And when I write, I mean, I still do that, right? Like, I'm not worried about what somebody of some other website is going to say about me or the person I'm writing about.

I mean, I get DMs and emails from journalists and bloggers all the time saying, like, you know, you're vile. I mean, how dare you say that? I mean, you know what you're saying, what the causes. I mean, I just don't care about that because there's only a few people in my life whose opinion of me actually matters. So I've just always wanted to tell the truth that I thought to be the truth. I'm never really worried about making friends. I didn't join this industry to make friends. I mean, I have real friends.

I mean, they're truck drivers, and they lay tile and they're carpenters. So they don't even care about what I do. They think what I do is foolish. So to me, I've always separated my personal life from my professional life. And a lot of people in this business don't do that. They mush them together. And I think that's a big mistake because that compromises your ability to say exactly what you believe in case. Yeah.

And I think that's part of access journalism, sports or politics. I would be the first to admit, I've never been inside either of those. quote unquote industries. And I wear that as a badge of honor because it gives me the independence to say what I truly think or believe, not worrying about burning or protecting a particular relationship or continued transactional access. I actually find most of that today. That's a commodity. Oh, you've got some inside information. What's unique about you is how you see the world and whether not that adds value to others. One thing you said I disagree with, and I think I have some experience to say is not everybody in media is actually from L.A. or the coast, but what they do, Bobby,

is they might be from places like you or me, but what they end up doing is they don't like where they came from. I like where I came from a lot, and I'm sure you do as well. So they get as quickly as they can to L.A. or New York or the nearest big city and adopt urban social moors and points of views to your point to fit in. So they become undistinguishable from the person that was born and raised in Brooklyn. You know what I mean? They want to be that person. They wish they were a Brooklynite, even though they're from Springfield, Missouri. And so that creates this homogeneity like you're talking about, where everybody, and I love what you said about.

I also don't think it's true, like, I don't know if this is an Andrew Tate saying. I feel like it's almost like just a internet meme. Don't worry about the haters, bro, and I don't care what people think of me. But the truth is, we do care about what people think of us. The key is to care about the people that you respect and not everyone else. And I think that was really wise what you said, like, I don't know, come with the five people you most respect, 10 people you most respect, and value their opinion. But for the rest, don't let them shape who you are. Yeah.

And I mean, because people reach out to me, people that used to like me and don't like me now. And one of their criticisms always is is that, you know, hey, you know this person. Why would you criticize them? Or, hey, you know me. Why would you not paint me in a lighter brush? And I find that so fascinating. It actually just happened about four months ago. I don't know if your listeners know who he is, but Ariel Hilani, who's like the lead UFC reporter,

he took a great offense that I would criticize him because he and I were previously cool and we exchanged friendly texts from time to time. And his criticism was, this guy knows me and he's being mean to me. Well, isn't that what a journalist is supposed to do? just because somebody was friendly to you does not mean that you're now immune from criticism. But that's always the critique I get is that, hey, this guy is supposedly friendly with me and now he's criticizing me. I've never really understood connecting those two things. I think the problem of journalism is that people don't do that, right?

Like just because somebody sent you a nice DM, now you just refuse to criticize them. I mean, that really embodies the state of media coverage. I mean, you see it all the time, whether it be with ESPN or CNN or Fox News, people don't want to criticize the people who are nice to them, so you get this disorded coverage of people because it's so relationship-based. I never wanted to do that. I mean, I can separate the two things. There's a lot of people who I do like personally, who I think professionally have said a lot of bizarre things, and I think their careers have been, in my opinion, disappointing because they're not all that authentic. I have no problem separating the two, and a lot of people don't like that about me. So that's one of the things that stood out to you.

So to continue to tell the audience a little bit more about you, you worked at the big lead for a while, which was a sports blog, sort of inside media coverage website. You've now moved on to Clay Travis's Outkick, which has been bought by Fox. One of the things that stood out to me early on was exactly what we're talking about, not around. we're talking to it directly, but was your independence. And so what was interesting is you were really the only one. And it would be easy for a detractor to say, only one, what, will? Only conservative?

And my answer to that would be, no, just the only independent guy looking to cover the media. Here's what I mean by independent. As you said, everybody's looking to fit in. Everybody's looking to be friends with one another. Everyone's looking to say the right things to be popular. So the vast majority of sort of inside media coverage, and, okay, we can put, we can put specificities on this. Outside of maybe you and Ryan Glassbeagle, almost everybody else at the big lead, Richard Deist, who at one point in time was a big deal, no longer. I think a lot of people that write for other outlets as well that cover sports media, specifically right now we'll talk about sports media.

they they praised individuals in our business who seemed to have no objective metrics or reasons to be praised and then it became like a marker it became a thing to do and then everyone did it like oh this person is the next big thing this person is great this show is wonderful they're all saying the same thing about the same people in the same shows and bobby you and i both know it at least in the short term made a lot of people millions of dollars. So that lack of independence created a fake market that reinforced the executives' minds inside of ESPN. Oh, look at all these sports websites say that Katie Nolan's a huge deal. When there's no ratings or anything to back up that and then contracts flow for a little while until reality comes back, you were the only one

trying to actually independently see reality. Yeah. So it's actually a fascinating. conversation and you know i'll even get more in detail so when i first started covering let's just talk about early on sports media there was this unwritten rule that there was only about five to six people you could criticize without like an editor having to make sure it doesn't offend somebody and that was skip bailist stephen a smith Colin coward Dave portnoy jason whitlock clay Travis and you will like Those seven people, if you had an opinion on them, feel free to criticize them, to bash them. But my thing was, there were so many more people to cover because everybody was criticizing you and Clay, you know, Whitlock and Skip. What about the people who were elevating by failing up, including Katie Nolan, Beaumani Jones, Dan Lepitart.

These people got contract after contract, promotion after promotion, and they kept on face. So why were those people off limits? Well, I didn't play by those rules. If Bomani Jones got a new show and it was failing, I was going to say it. If Katie Nolan got a new show and nobody was watching and it was setting record lows, I was going to say it and I did say it. And that's why so many people didn't like me and would tweet about me, would call me, have their agent call me because they would say, why is this personal?

This is racist. This is sexist. and my argument was always why am i not covering these people the same way they cover athletes the same way the media reporters they're friendly with are covering clay and will and whitlock i never understood why i guess i did understand why but i hated this idea that you could only criticize a handful of people that is the exact reason why people don't have any trust in the media today Now, this was just early in my career when I just covered sports media. It's on a much larger scale.

Now, I mean, there's so many people here. You're just not allowed to criticize. But that has been the foundation of my career is that nobody is off limits and nobody should be off limits to praise. I mean, just as much hate that I got for criticizing those individuals, I would get for saying, you're right here, hey, Will Cain's radio show is up 30, 40 percent from the previous show before him. And people would say, well, why are you giving credit to a white guy? You mean, his ratings don't you know that he's only up because he's racist? Don't you know that he's only appealing to grieving white sports fans? And I said, no.

I had a real conversation you would have had with an editor? Oh, yeah, yeah. Or agents and talent and stuff. Absolutely. I remember when ESPN canceled high noon. This was Bomani Jones and Pablo Tori show. And I just laid out the facts of this so why it didn't work. And the editor said, is this really necessary?

And I said, yes, necessary. Look at all the writers who talked about how great this show was and how it was going to be the next PTI. When you get that praised, you're obviously should be subject to criticism when you fail. So those were some of the tug of wars that I had often. It was a good reason I came to outkick. I mean, the big league did want to keep me. And I was somewhat happy there. But I just wanted to go somewhere where I was less reliant on these people.

and we're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog. Not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. I've never heard about some of those behind-the-scenes conversations. It makes me want to be less charitable. The thing is, like, even you talking about some of your coverage, you know, I've had this thing, like, I don't, back to your point, Bobby, I know some of those people. And the truth is, I like some of those people. And there are some others, and I can't think off the top of my head, anybody you particularly named that I don't particularly care for. But it makes it hard when you know somebody and like somebody to actually, you know, speak ill of someone. But the truth can't always be seen as ill. And so I guess, you know, I would want, if you went after me, Bobby, I would, if it were grounded in truth and I didn't think it was an ad homonym attack, meaning just subjectively, you know, I'm going to try to hurt Will as a

person, I'd like to think, and I'm not going to try to pretend like I'm some stoic that can't be penetrated, I'd like to think I would understand and could take it. Like here's, I'll be real with everyone. Okay, this is a, this is a dance and this is a mix. So when you're in the media, what happens is there is and this part of the business is actually fewer and far between but there is people who look for talent what that means is vision they have some idea that says oh this person is really good at x y and z and i think they would stand out right and you have to respect executives subjective ability to identify talent outside of quantitative metrics right because an i i machine could look at ratings or or anything like that and pick the right

lineup. But that only tell you about the past. It won't tell you about the future. So you understand that executives need to look. And so a lot of the people you just named do have talent. I would readily admit that. They have talent and intellect. But there's a difference between that. And then by the way, there are other factors that also influence decision making. Like, do we need to make sure our network looks like X or looks like Y? Do we have too many white guys? That all goes into it. That's being real. But you also have to show up in executive. at some point you do have to show up in quantitative metrics, not just qualitative. You have to have ratings in this business.

Now, you can always say, well, I didn't have time. And some of that would be true. Like, you know, like, I, you and I've had this conversation, Jesse Waters rated. He rated. When Fox was looking to put a new 7 p.m. show together, and there was a bunch of people, including me, that were doing rotations in a week, Jesse stood out. He quantitatively showed that he is a success. And for example, the weeks that I did, it didn't.

I mean, there are some underlying metrics that I would love to believe show a real vision of the future in the demographic. But look, I would say my case wasn't made through that metric. My case rested on qualitative. Every other show I've ever been on, the Will Kane radio show, first take, Fox and Friends. There have been quantitative metrics to say, oh, it actually translates. So my point is, I forgive some of the show. executive decisions. And I think a lot of those people you referenced are talented. And I think I understand vision and why you do certain casting at times. But at some point, you do have to face truth

and it has to show up for the business. Yeah. And so I think I want to clear here. So a big part of my career and coverage is I've always responded to narratives in messaging because one of the reason I got into this business was I find the messaging so dishonest and so deceiving. So when people say, why are you criticizing this person? Well, usually it's because the messaging around them being promulgated by the rest of the media is not accurate. So one of the reasons, I mean, I don't criticize you. It's not because I know you. It's because the messaging around you is not that, oh, this guy is, like, no one's saying that what they said about Katie Nolan and Bomani that these guys are the next face of the sports media.

It's been the reverse. people have diminished you so i've been the one to say actually no if you look at will's ratings he's actually far bigger than what you're saying so a lot of my reactions are responding to the messaging out there which most of the time is not accurate um i mean when you left ESPN there was a lot of people saying oh this is because will's radio show didn't work and i pointed to a press at least a couple months before of ESPN actually admitting the show was up i don't know 60 percent So it's not that I'm targeting press release from ESPN. From ESPN, yeah.

So it's not that I'm coming after a Bomani because I don't like him or I'm sticking or I stuck out for Joe Rogan because I like his show. A lot of it is is debunking the messaging out there. Yeah, and I'm not interested for the record. I mean, like, you know, I don't even want to, like I have, I have always had a friendly relationship with Bomani behind the scene. So I'm not even talking about him specifically at times in this. I've just always appreciated your willingness to try to actually see and say what is happening in the media. What do you think about today, Bobby? Like, what do you think macro is going on?

Like ESPN just had a ton of layoffs, front-facing layoffs, big names in some cases. Max Kellerman, Jalen Rose. And the media in general, not just sports media, but particularly sports media right now, is having a lot of trouble. At the same time, one would like to believe, oh, it's all moving digital. I feel very important, I feel like my digital career, what we are doing right here, is very important to my career for a whole host of reasons. But digital hasn't really replaced as a success story traditional media. Everyone wants to pretend like it has, but I don't believe it has.

Not yet. So, like, what do you think is happening? Do you think in five years everybody like me is going to be on YouTube or fractured up digital streaming platforms? Or what's happening in the future of media? Yeah, so let's go back 15 years ago or 20 years ago. The idea of media was people are going to watch a certain channel or listen to a radio lineup. So you put people there and you make them a star. People would watch ESPN all day, CNN all day.

They'd listen to their local I-Heart affiliate, their local Westwood One affiliate. Media is now so fragmented, people come and go. So you can't just put somebody on at noon and expect them to. be a star put them on at five o'clock they have to actually resonate with the audience so what's happening is the middle class is being pushed out you the upper class of people in media joe rogans dave port noise um go on and on uh Alex Cooper or Stephen A Smith they're bigger and making more money than ever before and they're going to continue to but what you don't have is that successful middle class that you long had in media

digitally, yeah, the gap between traditional media and digital media is going to continue to shorten. Will it ever truly replace it? I don't know, but here's what I think is an important point to make. Mass reach does not mean influence. Joe Rogan is considered the most influential person in media. Maybe he is, maybe he's not. You know, Will, people might be surprised and know this. Jake Tapper reaches far more people than Joe Rogan.

Even if Joe Rogan reaches the millions of people on Spotify, they say he do, that is total reach. When Jake Tapper averages 600,000 viewers, that's concurrence. That's average viewer per minute, meaning over the course of the hour, he's reaching far more people. So Jake Tapper has a bigger audience than Joe Rogan. Can we just pause right there for just one moment, Bobby? Because that's another truth that you're telling that so few people actually not just fail to tell, actually fail to understand. stand. And I'm a huge, this goes back to like, the previous criticism or reality that you reported when it comes to some personized at ESPN, it has nothing to do with who you like or who

you enjoy. I'm a huge fan of Rogan. So this is not, and I'm not a huge fan of Tapper. So this is not to say, like, as a backdoor into who I like, it's just to paint an accurate picture of reality. People don't understand that television ratings are in, it's, I even forget, is it 15 minute increments, the concurrence, or is it even smaller? It's 15, I think. Yeah, it's quarter by quarter. Quarter by quarter. So when you hear 600,000 or whatever it may be, that's 600,000 in a 15 minute,

averaged over, right? Averaged over the hour and 15-minute increments. But that audience could turn over several times within the hour. Yeah. And it does. We have the stats on that. So by the time you end up at the end of an hour of Tapper, that audience probably turns over, my guess would be three times.

And so, because you'd probably guess the average viewer watches somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes. So what you're looking at at the end, if he's doing 600,000, is 1.8 million unique eyeballs in the course of an hour. So that's total. When we see the stats on any digital, a YouTube video, whatever it may be, that's one set of eyeballs, they count. And that eyeball could have watched for, I don't know what YouTube's metrics are. I don't know what Spotify's metrics are. It could be 10 seconds. It could be 30 seconds. But it's just we're not comparing apples to apples when we try to do this, Rogan Reach versus Television Reach. Yeah, and to show, I mean, I'm not picking favorites.

I, too, am a fan of Rogan. I am not a fan of Joy Reed, but I would reckon Joy Reed reaches more people on MSNBC because of that turnover rate. And it might even be higher than what we talked about, like Rush Limbaugh last I heard when he was doing his show, the average listener listened for like 12 minutes and 20 seconds over the course of a three-hour radio show. So you break that down. I mean, he was reaching so many people over the course of three hours.

Right. I mean, the bigger picture here is while people in legacy media reach more people, the person that they're reaching is usually not as engaged on average. Like everybody listened to Rogan had to seek out Rogan. They had to click on Spotify, find the episode, listen to it. Well, people who are listening to Joy Reid, while it's a lot of people, they might just have the MSNBC on in the background. They might have MSNBC on while they're making dinner, having dinner on the phone.

They're not necessarily engaged with it. So I think mass numbers can be a little bit overrated in this day and age because I think it will be better at this point to have 400,000 passionate podcast listeners who you can monetize than 2.000, let's just say 1.5 million, say CNN viewers or MSNBC viewers, or MSNBC viewers. viewers at this point. So I think that we get a little bit blinded to mass reach. It's really about your influence and engagement over your consumers. Yeah, I think that's absolutely, that's also the reality. So that's, that's a compliment back to the side of Rogan. TV is traditionally a passive viewership relationship, meaning people like sit there and let television wash over them, especially live television, as opposed to maybe a Netflix show where you choose to hit on demand and engage with it, but even that's less engaged than a podcast, which I think, as far as media's

concerned, is the highest level engagement. And advertising reflects that. You pay more for a podcast than you do for most other types of – and this also, by the way, this brings up what's going on on YouTube and Twitter, but let's set aside podcast. Because one of the things I think is interesting, Bobby, is people don't understand. Also, we're talking about Twitter videos a lot these days, right? and the millions of views they rack up. But literally, nobody knows what that means.

Does that mean you scrolled past it? Does that mean you stopped and watched? You know how on Twitter you have to hit the video for it to open up to the sound to start? Did you accidentally or did you intentionally hit that? How long? No one, like that million could be total like, and I'm not casting criticism at Twitter. Right. It's just we don't know what language they're speaking.

It's a different language. And look, all ratings can be argued are BS, like Nielsen. What is Nielsen? I mean, that's also, honestly, it's BS as well. I've never met anybody with an Arbitron rating in their car, never for radio. Now, I've never met anybody with a Nielsen box, never in my life for TV. And then they take small data and they extrapolate. So it's BS too.

But the point is, at least everybody's speaking the same language of BS. I don't even know what language we're talking about when we talk about Twitter. I don't know what a view means. You're absolutely right. And based on what I've read, it actually is every time you scroll past a Twitter video, you get counted so it's not accurate at all. But the way to make money in media is to, and this goes back to radio, is that it's those affiliate advertising deals where you do an ad read for, say, 1,800 flowers, and then you say use promo code, whatever. In this case, we'll say Will Kane. Well, if you can drive people using that promo to 1-800 flowers, you can make a ton of money.

Someone I trust told me this when I was in Los Angeles in March. The reason Call Her Daddy, the show does so well, is that the host has those deals where she talks about a product and then says, if you want 20% off, use promo code Alex Cooper. Well, they can directly see how many users she's driving to a product. So her mass reach, which is massive, doesn't even matter. It matters how many people she's driving to a product, which is why sports gambling is so important and so lucrative because, like, we'll use Pat McAfee, for example. And I don't know how much Pat McAfee's worth. I actually don't think he's worth what people say he's getting paid. But what we do know is when the sports books legalized in Indianapolis, he drove users to sign up for the product.

in a little inside baseball here when I first joined out kick and it was privately owned the sports book legalized in Tennessee well we had a deal with Fandu at the time because Clay who was based in Tennessee was driving people to sign up for Fandul using his promos like to bet on the titans or bet on the volunteers well at that point Clay's reach doesn't even matter it's about how many people he's getting to engage in the products with which he's advertising. So that's how I see the future of media heading, not mass reach, how many users can you engage with the products with which you're advertising?

I love this conversation, and I recognize for the audience like, this is inside baseball, why do I care? But I actually want to bring it, I'm going to, I'm not going to try to falsely do so. I'm going to authentically, I believe, say why it kind of does matter to anybody, whether not you're in or out of media. But before I do, one more question on this. I've been curious, you know, if there's a bubble in media specifically around gambling because we saw these huge deals come out, LeBatar McAfee, others, huge deals.

And like break the market type style deals. And you wonder, is that sustainable? And you brought up Collar Daddy, like Alice Cooper got a huge deal from Spotify. And I did wonder, and I still do wonder, to some present tense. way, is that sustainable or is that a bubble? But what you're telling me, at least in the case of Alex Cooper, is it doesn't look bubbleish because there's actual transactional returns that justify because she has a huge deal with Spotify. I don't remember what it is, but I'm going to 25 million? 60 million over three years, so about 20 million a year. So. So, but so you're telling me is,

at least in that case, there's real value to the ad. advertiser into Spotify, but in other cases maybe, maybe there is a bit of a bubble. Yeah, I think that's important to distinguish here. Like, her value and the other ones you mentioned, like Lepitard and McAfee to me are totally different. She's worth it, and I expect, I think her deal is up in a year from now. She's actually worth more than $20 million based on the market, and I think she'll get it.

The other ones, there might be a bubble because what's happening with, I actually won't say McAfee, because he actually proved to drive sign-ups. a lot of people's contracts are based on projection how much that the gambling company thinks they'll make where in her case it was what she actually was making so i think is there a bubble yes but i think some of the highest paid people be it her rogan um those to me are less about projection than what they've already proven so here okay so now here's why i think it matters to the average listener audience who's not interested in in you know inside baseball media if what you're saying is true. And the future of media is smaller, more influential personalities, having relationships

with listeners or viewers through some platform, whatever it may be, podcast, YouTube, whatever it may be. What I find heartening about that is this. In a business that is designed for mass, what happens is you end up with people who say things that will appeal to the masses. So I'll never forget this at ESPN. And by the way, back to that thing. And because I don't, and I don't think that, I hope we didn't speak too ill of, of personalities or people, just, just tell the truth. It's a truth that everyone knows. Like, I can, I've been there.

Like, whether or not you want to know it or not in the hallways, like, with the low-level producers, everybody knows, everybody knows, you know, who is real and who's not real when it comes to the success. When you're trying to be real as far as, like, being a success to the mass audience, your goal is to be liked by everyone and to never say anything, quote, unquote, controversial and you end up saying the same things that everybody else says and part of its human instinct like you said you want to be liked part of it's like i want the biggest audience possible and so you end up with milk toast crap opinions and analysis um and i definitely saw that i definitely

have seen that if the future is where i as an example get to have a relationship with an audience that is truly authentic and i think this is an authentic conversation we're having right now I can tell you, here, I'm going to be authentic with another thing. I rated really good on ESPN radio. I did not rate well in Los Angeles. It was a huge success for my show to get picked up in Los Angeles. That was a huge success for afternoon drive. It didn't rate well in L.A.

Because they want local sports talk in L.A. and not national sports talk in L.A. That's me being real and authentic about my successes and failures. the if the the the product of this smaller more influence-based audience is that that you end up with people who are more authentic this will be a great move for the media you need people to figure out how to be real and I mean I love that idea if I have a if I have a small audience and I believe it'll it doesn't matter if it's big right maximize it to the people that want to connect with my authentic point of view and relationship with them well you're right but here's the problem and it goes back to what i was saying about 15 20 years ago the people who can actually make a lot of money with that small audience is still pretty limited right yeah 20 years ago you just got a 2 p.m show on msnbc and all of a sudden you're a success because people are watching no matter what there are very few people who can monetize that small

engage audience because it does have to be at least large enough to sell advertisement for and you have to be able to drive enough people so it is better for the content of media i mean podcasts quality-wise are better than tv and radio shows for that reason but the number of podcasts that are actually successful it's far and i mean there's not many that are making the money we just talked about with the big personality oh that kind of money yeah yeah it's a positive for quality The question is going to be that middle class we talked about. Can they make podcasts work? As of right now, we haven't really seen it.

We haven't really seen a middle class of podcasting. They're out there, but they're not making a lot of money. There's a significant gap between the podcasters who make nothing, who make 150, than the ones who make $7.50, and the ones who make $10 million. There's a really large gap in each of those increments. So it's better for quality, but as far as start, making ability, it is going to be more difficult. Can I say what I think the key on that is?

It is, it's going to be the same revolution that has to happen in the advertising industry. Advertisers that want to hit mass markets won't be the right place and won't and shouldn't pay the same CPMs. So let's say, here's me, okay, there should be average, you know what, Tocovas should be advertising on my podcast, my digital show. Why? Because I wear cowboy boots and believe in cowboy boots and whatever it may be. The companies that believe in patriotic values or true values that I share should be advertising and paying appropriate CPMs or strike a business partnership deal with me, like the one you were talking about with Alice Cooper.

The point is it's going to take a revolution in products and advertising, which is a larger thing about America. And, you know, like, we did the show this on Fox and Friends this weekend, talking about Tesla owned by Elon Musk. Tesla signing a deal, signing a document saying they will support socialist values in order to sell cars in China, right? So that's not going to work as a high-influenced shared value medium, like, to your point of, like, smaller podcasts. Okay, Tesla's not the right place for that then, right?

They're trying to be everything to everybody. But if there is a product who isn't, who has these values, they need to seek out the content that reflects those values. Yeah, absolutely. And that's a really smart point because Subway doesn't have the same value to your show as someone who makes cowboy boots or flannel shirts or other products that you wear and your audience when engaged with, right? So, you're right, advertising has to be more personalized for the content creator, which, by the way, we go back to, like, Twitter, YouTube, that's actually not happening. Twitter, YouTube, have been reliant and Facebook to, what is it called, pre-programmed advertisement, or that's just installed there for everybody. I don't believe that's the model. I believe it is back to radio, reading ads, Will Kane reading ads for cowboy boots, your co-host, Pete has.

doing adderies for man buns like stuff like that right i don't think it's as much as just any brand i think it's about brands personal to you that would really really chap his hide he's really working on a mullet to have his alpha mullet be turned into a beta man bun he would be very upset i don't say you know i hate to judge people by hair but uh i don't know i think he has some explaining to do whenever you had those side shots of pete i kind of wonder what's going on there of these social media platforms, what do you think of threads? You think this threads represent a threat to Twitter? No, I don't think so. So I actually was on Sirius X-M this week and did a long segment on this. So I call it like the default rule. Americans say go Google that question or I

don't have the answer, Google it. Well, Google is not an actual verb. It's a fake term that we've normalized because of how custom and normalize Google. Google is the default search engine. So no matter how much better Bing and Duck, Duck Go are, Google is the instinctive go-to. Just like Netflix and chill. Nobody says, let's pair a mountain chill or peacock. Yeah. Max and chill. Well, Twitter is the default for what it is, and that is the real-time conversation as a news source.

Twitter's not that big overall, but for the media and for information and real-time engagement, Twitter is the default. People say, hey, retweet my column. Hey, retweet my podcast. Well, that's just instinctive comes off your lips. So I think that's going to keep Twitter afloat. And here's the important thing. Twitter is the home base of the culture war in many ways. It's the trendsetter, the de facto editor of the corporate press.

I wrote about this yesterday. It's going to be much harder to continue cancel culture if conservatives and liberals are segregated between Twitter and threads, right? Absolutely. Yeah, it's going to be a lot harder to go on threads and say, hey, fire Will Kane if Will Kane's only on Twitter, right? It's going to be a lot harder for people on Twitter to make fun of Rachel Madd out if she's only on threads. Can I interject right there? You know, you know, you and I've talked about this. Cancel culture. It's interesting how you just described that, how Twitter has actually been the town square of cancel culture. You know, for example,

you and I both know radio and our mutual friend Clay Travis has one of the most influential shows in radio, along with Buck Sexton. He probably has and definitely could say anything controversial he wants on radio and it's not going to get him canceled. Like the odds of it getting him canceled are very low because whatever happens on radio doesn't make its way onto Twitter.

And I will by extension say me on Fox and Friends Weekend can say a whole host of things that also probably don't result in cancellation as compared to if I was hosting Fox and Friends weekday because it's not covered by the haters that try to get you canceled because they're sleeping in hungover or whatever they may be or getting ready to go to brunch in Brooklyn. Like this cancel culture is driven by a handful of people whose businesses to watch a handful

of TV shows and then turn around and try to end your career. Yeah. So what it is is, like media matters and mediate writers. and Brian Stelter, Oliver Darcy, they can only watch so much, right? They're not listening to AM radio. They're watching a few select Fox shows. So those are the ones that go viral. It's the same thing with, you mentioned, radio.

Like, Mark Levin reaches more people than a lot of TV hosts, but he airs at 6 to 9 and AM radio. Bobby Lewis and his other guys from Media Matters, they're not listening to AM radio, so they're not tweeting about it. So Twitter really stirred all this stuff based on what shows the haters are watching. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. Like, people watch Fox Prime Time just for that reason. These sites actually put people on the clock to watch Fox News Primetime and write up everything they say and get really angry about it. Well, they're not doing that for other shows. You can say more controversial things on those shows.

It was like, yeah, if Brian Stelter's job was to listen to all three hours of Clay Travis' show, I'm sure people will be calling for Clay's job tonight. Which is not a negative. In fact, it's probably a positive reflection for Clay Travis. So in the end, you don't believe that threads represents a real threat, then therefore, to Twitter? No, I really don't. I think, I mean, conservatives tried to do this with Twitter 1.0 for a year of a parlor, gab, true social getter. didn't really work people want that fight to continue so breaking it down where liberals go to threads

and conservative stay on twitter i just i don't think that that's what anybody wants because they want the fight to happen in the town square so i think in a year from now threads will be kind of an afterthought now look it does have more foundation than like parlor ever did because of Zuckerberg's backing but i don't consider much of a threat to twitter um i think in a lot of ways twitter i don't know if Twitter's ever going to make the money it should, but as far as relevance, I think Twitter's more relevant today than it has been ever, just because I think it is the one place on the internet where you can broach certain topics, and the left wants to stay on there so they can get mad about it, and conservatives want to be on there because they can actually say it.

Speaking of independent controversial opinions, I have to say, I've never tried it, but you're a big Chicago deep dish pizza guy over New York pizza? I am so uh and by the way a lot of people are saying this is my most controversial opinion ever so uh that's pretty good right uh by the way i put out a tweet about that and you wouldn't believe how mad people got i mean i've talked about everything from the vaccine the race the mass the transgender issues when it comes to pizza people really take it seriously um look you lived in new york for a long time so you don't really count right because you're just you know indoctored into new york pizza but if you were a arbiter of pizza will you would agree with me that chicago pizza pizza is superior okay hold on let me let me let me let me let me see if i can keep it open i didn't move to new york as a pizza snob i grew up like again like you small town pizza like i remember when dominoes came to town first of all pizza for me we didn't even have pizza hut at first we had little tiny chains like it was called mazio's and then we got a pizza in and i remember going to pizza in

and then we got maybe a pizza hut and then when Dominoes came it was big time and I love Dominoes and I still do we had Domino's other night and I said I forget how good Domino's is but then I got to New York and I did learn what like a good

because another thing is you do when you do Domino's the way we probably grew up is you load it up with toppings like just ridiculous amount of toppings New York is a plain cheese pizza that's what you get a plain cheese and at the end of a night at the bar it is a really good, nice, cheap snack.

It's a little greasy for me, but I think it's, I have become a New York, I understand the value of a New York slice. When I see pictures, I've never had it. Chicago Deep Dish, it looks like, you probably do, right? You have to eat it with a fork and knife, and I'm not, it looks like lasagna. Well, that's not true.

It's definitely not lasagna, but you do have to eat it with a fork and a knife. I mean, look, maybe again, This is geographical because I live in Michigan and Detroit tries to copy Chicago pizza. So, like, I'm used to, like, a very poor man's version of it. So when I went to Chicago, it was an upgrade. But they are different, but I will say this. The best thing about a pizza is the sauce.

New York pizza neglects the sauce where Chicago emphasizes the sauce. So if you have a good sauce recipe, I think Chicago has the edge. I don't know that I've actually never thought it was about the sauce. I mean, the sauce is important. Yeah. But I would, like, my Domino's order would be thin crust. I would want a thin crust pizza from Domino's with a little crunch to it. And you look like you got a big chunk of spongy soft bread up there in Chicago.

Am I wrong? I don't know. It was, but it was pretty good. I mean, I have to say, the important way he does his pizza rating. The pizza I had in Chicago, and I don't even know what the place was called. I think we have to send him there. I think he would agree that it was, pretty superior. And I would want to make one point. You mentioned not being a New York snob and your

Texas background. You're right. But we met in person on your radio set about six years ago. Yeah. And you had van shoes on. I did. Yeah. What is what are you saying? Well, you have to preference yourself that even though your Texas at heart, your time in New York did change you a little bit. I'm in Jordan's right now. You grew up in Sherman, Texas. You would never walk down Sherman, Texas with Vance. That's, okay, so listen, that's a fair point. But I have, because I know, because my friends have made fun of me.

I think, here's what I like, Bobby, okay? This is my explanation. You can't always, you can't always wear cowboy boots, okay? So, when I believe in classics, I would, like, classics that stand the test of time. Vans are a good, classic tennis shoe. I think Jordans have arrived at the place of classic. I don't pick up the latest trend. I'm not into the newest.

Like, I don't like the on clouds or whatever that the people wear and that kind of thing. I don't want what's newest and best. I want classic. Now, I recognize that's a little Southern California cool with the vans. But I think they look pretty classic. Like Chuck Taylor's are classic, too. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Do you see what I have in my hand here?

Yeah, I see Will Kane Show. That's a classic. I forget the exact backstory when they sent me this, but I took issue with you wore like a dress shirt with a hat. And I thought that was kind of some like, you know, insult style. So when I got this hat, I actually did the same thing. I wore it out in public. And somebody said, hey, I like the combination of the. dress shirt and hat so i have to admit i was wrong on that i wanted to make sure i found this hat

for this there's not a lot of people who have a custom-made will cane show hat and i'm one of them so uh you know it's kind of like when you get an autograph jersey right like not a lot of people have michael jordan's autograph i have oh yeah here we go yeah stick to tell in the truth don't not the compliments all right i want to end i'm going to return to a serious subject but what i'd like and um for the end so i was listening to a former colleague of my mine the other day, talking about, and a friend, talking about that he's not that into politics, that he's into ideas. That's how I would describe myself as well. I never got into this because I cared about the horse race or Washington, D.C. I always got into everything I did because I like

ideas. And I like people. I truly like people. That was my favorite thing about being in sports. I loved hanging out with Nuno and Bubba and Sir Rudy and Pat and Mike A and all my guys on the Will Kane show. And I didn't care about their political beliefs. I liked being guys and busting each other's stones and having fun and talking sports. And I loved it when we disagreed on ideas. And I like serious ideas. And I like fun ideas. I don't, I think that the future, I don't know how this ties in, but I feel somehow, I somehow feel it is connected. I think that the future of what it is that we're doing here, what I do for a living, is going to be less about left and right and definitely less about Republican and Democrat. I truly believe that the difference

and the difference maker in this is going to be between truth and falsehood. And you have a column up about that as well. The hard part is both sides of almost every issue believe they are on the side of the truth. I think they do. There are probably very few who know they're engaging in falsehood in propaganda, but maybe some. Most believe they're on the side of the truth, but we have never been moral wash and lies. In my estimation, we've never been moral wash and lies. And I think in the future that influence or that real authentic connection one has with an audience or the media that I will seek out as a consumer because I consume media as well as produce media is going to be about that divide. I don't care as much if I agree or disagree with you. I care more about whether or not you are lying to me or trying to tell the truth.

Yeah, I mean, what was really interesting to me and I've thought a lot about this, we are a nation divided. Nobody can dispute that. Well, why are we? We're not divided by left versus right per se, Republican versus Democrat. We're divided between those who seek the truth and those who believe the truths they're told to believe. Every topic that is true of. COVID divided us because you had half the country believing Fauci and the government and the CDC and your other half believing what they're actually seeing with a race.

Same thing. You have people that know that this anti-racist movement is wrong. Then you have the other half believing Joe Biden saying that white supremacy is the greatest threat to the homeland. Same with the trans issue. You have people who know it's not right to treat gender like a costume that you can take on and off, on demand, and have men play against women in sports. But you have the other half of the country being told that this is the way of the future, that this is the way to be in the correct side of history. So all these topics we fight about, it's not conservative versus liberal. It's the people who believe what they see and the people who believe what they're supposed to see.

And that is what ultimately divides us. I'm actually writing a column this weekend, hopefully it's out a couple of days after early week, about how this whole affirmative action equity movement, it created what I call excused racism, where you can openly discriminate against somebody with the mindset that that is how you reach equality. In what world is that the case? And what world is that acceptable? But people are told over and over again that the only way to reach true equality is for people to atone for people who look like them in their past. I mean, that is completely backwards.

It's repugnant. It's racist. and it's demeaning to the entire nation. So the truth is what ultimately divides us. And there's so few people who are actually providing the truth right now. And that's what's so frightening about it is the average person during COVID consumed more media because they were scared. They were seeking information. Well, where were they getting the truth from?

Because it wasn't ABC, it wasn't NBC, it wasn't NBC, it wasn't most of cable news, it wasn't podcast. It was so hard to find the truth. And when somebody actually told the truth, they were kicked off a social media for it. So people need information, but it's so much harder to find factual information, which is really heightened this divide at this point. I totally agree. I would only add one adjustment. I think people are willing to forgive as long as they feel like you're trying to arrive at the truth. In other words, like you said, tell the truth. Sometimes it's hard to see what is the truth, especially during a pandemic or a complicated issue over science. But if there's a sense that you're trying to sort through everything to arrive at the truth, I think that's what people are hungry for, an outlet where you can find an authentic, honest attempt to arrive at the truth. Yeah, I mean, I'll just go back to this column I'm writing about affirmative action and excused racism.

I want some actual data, like actual data, to say how is this working? here's something nobody in the media has mentioned is really important so affirmative actions actually derail the college success of black students why because they've been certain students have been accepted into harvard and north carolina where they're not technically qualified to be in so their dropout rate is much higher than if they were to go to say Oakland university where their grades say they're qualified for so affirmative action is actually in the dropout rate among Hispanic and black students, as well as discourage them to get master's and doctorate degrees because those who were affirmed in a college struggled along the way. So there's really no proof that affirmative action was better for the country at large. Yet everybody in the press just says this is going to help white people, this is going to hold black and Latino students back. Will, there's no proof of that. There's no data that says that's the case.

Well, there's a bit of truth. Man, I always enjoy the conversation. You can check him out at Outkick, multiple columns up every week, Bobby Burrack. Thank you, Bobby. We'll appreciate it. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Bobby Burak. Check him out on social media or his columns at Outkick.com.

I will see you again next time. Listen to ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music Act. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gatti podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com.