Share & Football & Tell with Kevin Clark and Katie Nolan

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Right after this ad.

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Ramy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champion, 14 Alcoholic by Volume 40 by Remy Control, USA Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738, Centaur Design.

Please drink responsibly.

Hey!

Hi.

Hello, Katie.

Katie, do you want water or anything?

Yeah, I would love one.

Thank you.

The throwing your phone onto a table

is a power move.

Is this what people with kids are like all the time?

I was Ty Pablo, I have construction in my house, so I'm awake all the time.

I'm sleeping on an air mattress.

We're all sleeping on an air mattress.

I don't know what to do.

Just put a mattress on the floor.

Well, we can't really get to our mattress.

All right.

That sucks.

There's a lot of moving parts.

Don't I not need headphones?

Didn't we establish this last time?

We do for

what we're here to do today.

We have some clips.

All right.

We got some clips.

You're too good for headphones.

Yeah.

Headphones.

Got your.

Is it a hair thing?

It's not a hair thing.

It's a vanity thing.

It's a vanity.

It is a vanity thing.

What's the vanity if not the hair?

I don't love.

It's a general vibe.

I don't love.

You look too committed when you're wearing headphones.

You want to look at it.

We're not trying too hard.

God forbid.

We're really trying too hard.

All right, Pablo, what's up?

You called us here today.

We did.

We did.

So I suppose suppose football is part of the premise here.

And so, Kevin, as a person who hosts a show called This Is Football, I wanted Katie and I to examine something that you present us as we wonder, what is football now?

So,

what's the story that you brought us?

By the way, check out Troy Aikman on This is Football this week.

He really brought it.

Wow.

He really brought it.

Does he still look like Jay-Z?

Yeah.

That's more of your domain.

Are you aware that the internet thinks you look like Jay-Z?

Yes, I am aware of that.

A white Jay-Z,

there was a meme that still pops up on my feed from time to time.

It was some game.

Yeah.

He did go to, he spent a lot of time in the south of France this summer.

That's a very dangerous thing.

So he's great.

He's got an expensive tan.

He's got an expensive tan.

He looks great.

He looks phenomenal.

Oh, good for him.

He did a thing.

He said he was with his adult daughters and he said, you know, cherish the childhood experience because it goes fast, and then all of a sudden you're in the south of France getting tanned with your adult daughter.

Sounds awful.

So, this weekend, the NFL starts.

Crazy, it snuck up on me.

I know you guys like you, but it snuck up on me.

I was like, It's this week.

She didn't go to the owner's meetings this year.

There's a Friday game this week.

It's in Brazil.

Okay, see, that makes more sense.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's a time zone thing, maybe.

Yeah, Twitter.

So it just feels like you can't just take a day and go, we do Fridays now.

Part of it is it's not a time zone thing because Brazil, it's yeah, no, it's a time.

Kevin, I'm

Kevin, I'm pretty sure it's a time zone.

It's a travel, it's like a 13-hour flight, right?

Yeah, probably.

I don't know.

I thought it was a different time.

Point being, though, that football is every day of the time.

There's also a trend.

There's no Saturday, right?

There's a ton of fake news about this game.

I don't know if you guys have followed this.

One of the players said that, like, he would play for the Packers, and he said that the NFL told them they couldn't wear green because Brazil is so dangerous.

And the NFL was like, that is not true.

We did not tell them that.

Is that like that rumor about how if you wore a certain like wristband, it meant that like as a kid you were inviting sexual predators to prey upon you?

Yes.

Slightly different, but same genre.

And then the other day I saw a thing that was like, they said not, we can't leave our hotel rooms, which also seems fake.

I have not gotten confirmation that's fake, but it seems fake.

But there's a lot of fake news about this game.

Anyway,

the thing I brought, there's six quarterbacks from the first round who are either going to make their debut or will make their debut soon.

And what I think is the defining characteristic of this era is the transfer portal.

And if you look at the six quarterbacks who went in the first round, four of them are transfer portal products, but three of them were direct results of the transfer portal.

Jaden Daniels at Arizona State does not go second overall.

He might not even get drafted.

Bo Nicks is real old.

He is like the fifth oldest rookie week one starter ever.

And the guys ahead of him were in the Army

or in Minor League Baseball.

I keep on reading these Bo Nicks stories and everyone's like, he played like 50 or 60 college games.

Yeah.

Like his defining characteristics.

Well, no, it was like Roger Stauback was older because he was

Roger Stauback.

He was serving our colleagues.

Why are we shouting at Roger?

I love him.

He's serving him.

And then, like, Brandon Whedon and Chris Winkie were just playing minor league baseball for years.

Bo Nix was just being old.

And I call them Dr.

Quarterbacks because they just spent so long playing.

Jaden Daniels threw a touchdown pass to Brandon Ayuk to beat Justin Herbert in college.

So it's a COVID year, it's NIL.

Bo Nix,

if he had not found the transfer portal,

would be doing an occupation that I would have to do.

You said selling insurance.

I bet 100.

You said selling insurance.

I did sell.

I've got a lot of guys flatbreads.

Selling insurance.

There's an enterprise rental car counter that's empty right now with his name on it.

You know, you used to have to have a college degree to do an enterprise rental counter.

Did you know that?

Well, Bo Nix has one.

I wonder if that's still the case.

I don't know.

Bo Nix definitely has one.

He's been there a while in college.

So hopefully he's got a couple of people.

You can go for a long time and not go.

Imagine how depressed for credit enterprise rental car would be by by bone next's education and so

point being is that i think this is and it's starting again this year we're seeing guys already like cam ward at miami your guy who are doing one or two year stops you know you're talking to somebody who does not watch college football i just want i felt really guilty sitting here listening and going and nodding like that well i'm gonna bring it i'm gonna bring it back miami's own cam ward miami's own cam ward as of as of a few months ago used to be a pullman washington

and before that incarnate words and i'm starting to think more quarterbacking now is becoming more of a reflection of the actual college experience which is if you don't like your surroundings you can transfer until it starts working i actually transferred from depaul to the university of miami for professional reasons and it sounds like quarterbacks are doing that now too um and so i i'm starting to wonder like

is there even such thing as a quarterback prospect because if these guys were all born 15 years earlier or even five years earlier, they would have not have gotten these opportunities in these offenses.

They would not have found these coaches and they would have been doing something completely different than being a first-round pick.

Now, again, some of them might have had NFL careers, but not like this.

Bonix was the most accurate quarterback in history last year because he stayed that long in college.

Again, COVID year, but he also stayed because of NIL and he found the Oregon offense, which wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago.

And so it is becoming professionalized, certainly.

But then beyond that, it is becoming this thing where you can find your destiny in college.

in a way you could never before.

You can find these shotgun marriages and they work.

So Katie was asking before, like, is there actually the NFL on Saturdays?

And I'm like, kind of.

Yeah.

And the transfer portal, right?

So just to recap, because I think, Katie, the reason why I want you here beyond wanting you here whenever you're available is because, is because, I'm just catching myself.

It was because I do think people need to sort of be caught up to speed on what the f is happening in college football.

Sure.

Because the transfer portal as a concept was this thing that drove Nick Sabin out of the sport in part on top of NIL, on top of all these other changes coming to quote-unquote uh amateurism and it was wildly criticized the transfer portal was as ruining this thing we all loved and now when you're looking at how it's helped these quarterbacks on the teams that we are watching most intently it's clear that this has been the thing that has actually shaped not just those quarterbacks careers but these teams for the better

and what's funny to me is that of course it was was going to be like this.

Of course.

But the premise was all of these guys are just delusional divas who are just going to want to change.

It's a Goldilocks system where no one will ever be satisfied.

And instead, you mentioned Bo Nicks and you mentioned Cam Ward.

These are guys who followed their coaches to other places.

And so the coaches who always had freedom of movement.

I was going to say coaches who could always go wherever and whenever they wanted to.

Perpetually had the access to a transfer portal of this is too cold.

This is not hot enough.

They got to bring their players along with them.

And to Kevin's point,

we're just getting to see guys that would otherwise be in the dustbin of college football history.

And now they are showing up in the NFL, seemingly in ways that are changing that sport too.

Are you saying, to understand your point, that like the performance of this class now will dictate sort of anything in the future of what I need them to do well to prove that?

What I'm saying is that there was a dearth of quarterbacks, great quarterbacks for the past 100 years.

And I think there's going to be way more in the future than we think because you're going to be able to find your level.

It's almost a little bit like how, like, this is a crazy analogy I'm coming up with, and I'm way over my skis here.

But, like, now.

Another analogy to explain the analogy that is.

Apple podcast summary of this is football.

So it's a bit like how entertainment has become democratized, like on YouTube and TikTok.

Anybody can become famous overnight.

Now we're in my wheelhouse.

Yeah.

And so for me, if you're a quarterback and you'd say, damn, if I could only get in that offense, if I could only get in that with that coach, if I could only play with that wide receiver, you can do it now.

You can do it.

And you may have to, you may not be a starter or whatever, but you can find your destiny.

It used to be Katie.

If you went to University of Florida and the coaching staff sucked.

Right.

Or the coach left or the coach there and

the year won the job.

You would just sit there and be like, well, that's it for me.

I'm time to become a high school coach.

Gave it a good run.

Now you can leave.

Now Now you can,

the coaches are under more pressure to fix things because players can leave.

It was funny.

I asked the GM last summer, I said, how's the portal changing things?

He said, two things.

First of all, he said the same thing I said, which is it's a net positive because people are finding a home where like Matt Castle is a good example, right?

Matt Castle sat on USC's bench for four years, got drafted, was fine in the NFL.

But if Matt Castle were born in 2009,

he would have gone and played it at UCLA or Stanford or or Cal, and we would have had a better evaluation.

But with the GM said, he says it's two things.

Said, number one, coaches do not break players down to build them back up.

So you used to derecruit at the college level.

Nick Saban and Kirby Smart would get these guys on campus after six months of saying you are the best prospect in the world and say you are nothing.

You are the ninth strain quarterback.

You do not matter at all, right?

And that's how you

build them back up.

They cannot do that.

I can name places that do that.

I know of other places that do things.

If they had the portal at those jobs in media,

you could just leave it pointing at me so aggressively.

And so now, if you derecruit a kid at Georgia, he can go, cool, I'm going to go play at South Carolina where they're going to be.

I don't need to take this.

Which is what it should, as opposed to, again, isn't watching any college football.

It's what it should be because

then that other team can have a quarterback and you can have a more parody in the league.

But also, you can't lie to kids.

And those kids, and this is not just like touchy-feely, I'm pro player stuff, although, you know, whatever.

They reveal themselves to actually be good and not just a function of a system, like actually good.

Coaches in the past used to just tell blatant lies.

Like the famously in Bruce Feldman's book, Meat Market, Jevin Sneed is a quarterback who ended up elsewhere, but he was Texas in Ole Miss.

And he was recruited, I believe, committed at one point to Florida.

So it's the same year as Tim Tebow.

And all the Tebow hype is starting.

And Jevin Sneed, very good quarterback in his own right, says to Urban Meyer, hey, I'm hearing a lot about Tim Tebow.

And Urban Meyer says, I wouldn't worry about it, man.

He's going to play linebacker for us.

Just lying.

Just literally just lying.

And so there would be

Urban Meyer.

I know.

There would be no recourse back then except to sit for a year.

A team could block your transfer.

There were all sorts of things.

Now you can just go, cool, I'll be here for four months and then I'm out of here.

The other thing that the GM said, which is very a huge change, is how often now college players for the first time are saying to teams, what can you do for me?

Ooh,

because they hate it a lot.

But for the first time, 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds are actually, we talk about the player empowerment era.

We never know what we're talking about.

It means it's like, oh, these guys can go now force trades from the Rockets.

No, that's like that's Instagram.

That's player empowerment.

But what's actual player empowerment is saying, you can't lie to me.

And also, like, and not to get into the Jada Rashada thing, which, which, you know, we've all talked about, is like, you can now probably, because there's finances involved, say, oh, by the way, if you lie to me i'll see you in court i'm going to sue the head coach of the university of college football for a hundred years my favorite thing in the world but it is run on lies and bullshit that's actually why i don't like it that's why i like it yeah that's why he only likes the scammy part of it that's really when he's saying he wants her to be guardrails it means he needs more scams okay yeah

when people say we want more guardrails what what does that mean because you that nobody's collectively bargained with these kids nobody has said hey we'll give you excellent people like oh there has to be a cap okay negotiate that because the NFL has a salary cap.

And in return, the NFL players get a lot.

They get a lot.

But don't you need a union to negotiate?

Correct.

So there can't be guardrails until there's a union.

Yeah.

Surprise.

And when's that going to, so how long until that happens?

Well, right now, I mean, let's, NCAA is now trying to...

force through a CBA with no union, basically.

Yeah, the settlement to the antitrust lawsuit, which we've covered on the show previously, the point is we're getting piecemeal towards professionalism without the guardrails quite yet.

But all this to say is that the transfer portal is actually going to create better football, not worse, a better product.

Better for fancy.

And Roger Goodell should be thanking everybody.

And by the way, ratings are up everywhere.

But the college game is going to get better, not worse, because of the portal.

And because of NIL, they'll stay an extra year.

They get $700,000, $800,000, stay an extra year, and they'll say, hey, I like my environment.

Which is beneficial because I feel like every time you get a rookie quarterback coming in, they're like, hey, it's better to be behind a guy who knows what he's doing.

It's like, yeah, or stay in college for another year would have been beneficial.

Would you have stayed in college another year if you could have, if somebody paid you to stay in college?

Yeah.

Yeah, me too.

Yes.

I would still be in college.

No, I don't know.

I didn't like it that much.

Was anybody offering to pay you to just not enter the workforce, Pablo?

My parents,

who are like, we would like you to become a literal doctor.

Yeah.

And I was like, no, I'm going to talk about how doctors are metaphors now for quarterbacks.

Does that get me to,

but it's doing well.

It's working out.

It is doing well.

You're doing what you should be doing.

It is doing well.

The whole thing, though, of like, what is the story when it comes to these individual quarterbacks?

It is praiseworthy, the story.

Like, it's saleable to America and parents across America.

The idea of you started with, so again, the Cam Word thing.

He was

what used to be called a 1 AA quarterback at a school I did not know existed.

Incarnate Word.

Incarnate Word.

And he basically traded the paperclip of Incarnate Word up and up and up to Washington State, now to Miami.

And that is, it's just an American success story.

You started Incarnate Word and then four and a half years later, you're at Florida Field in front of 90,000 people.

In front of a drunk Kevin Clark.

And Mike Ryan.

Incarnate means human form, right?

So what?

A word?

Incarnate words.

Katie.

I believe it has something to do with Jesus.

Katie stopped reading the Bible famously

in the Old Testament.

Everybody takes a break.

Is that true?

Everybody takes a break.

Somebody actually told me that they weren't.

They took a break, actually.

On the seventh day he rested.

That was God.

They're the same.

They're the Holy Trinity.

I'm not in the new test yet.

You might even say

he is incarnate.

That's, I guess.

And that's back to what we were saying.

Anyway, go ahead.

San Antonio is where that school is.

Oh, yeah.

Good to know because that'll come up, I'm sure.

Cam Ward is from Texas.

I can't even really blame college coaches for not seeing Cam Ward as obviously a Heisman.

candidate as he was coming out of high school in Texas because he wasn't throwing the ball.

They were running like the whatever it was, single wing,

which is crazy in 2020, whatever it was when he was there.

But it's just, as you say, it's more, it's more snaps, it's more ability to evaluate somebody.

And the NFL, like the NBA is dealing with this nightmare, right?

Of like, we're getting these professionals and no one knows who the they are.

Correct.

So the whole thing about like, what's bad about people not caring about college basketball if you love the NBA?

I don't care about college basketball.

I only love the NBA.

The problem is that you don't know who these people are when they show up.

And college football provides not just an unparalleled platform for college students to show their wares to their employers,

but it also gets them better at the same time.

And now I care about Cam Ward.

I completely agree with you.

I think that the way the NFL evaluates quarterbacks to begin with, if any other industry were as bad at identifying the number one talent needed,

there would be a crisis.

The NFL has no soul searching whatsoever.

By the way, they just have to be able to do that.

think of a couple other.

And so

I can't, they come right to mind.

So anyway, we're going to gloss right over that and we're going to get to the fact that like Joe Burrow had this amazing clip.

I actually just saw it a couple weeks ago where he said that you look at Mahomes and Josh Allen.

Played on crappy college teams, teams where they had to put the team on their back all the time.

And he said he thought that those guys were supernaturally gifted because of that experience at knowing how to win.

And that's why they win at the NFL level.

And then a lot of guys, if they go to Georgia, if they go to USC, if they go to

Florida State, whatever, they're up like 21 points all the time.

Life is easy.

Unless you're Florida State.

Unless you're Florida State right now.

And so even I know they're bad.

And I think that the quarterback developmental system has been so broken.

They're bringing Cam Ward up to the highest level of football and letting

see how he wins, see how he operates.

I think it's democratizing the position.

And I think we're going to see way, way, way.

I mean, the whole thing is broke.

Like all these kids, there's a lot of these quarterbacks who go to the right camps because they have the right parents and they spend $4,000 to go to XYZ camp.

And then UCF coach sees them and then he gets offered by Georgia Tech.

And all of a sudden, he's a powerful four quarterback.

Right.

And that is the broken part of it.

And now that kid.

never gets to play because an actual good kid whose parents didn't go to all the right camps gets to take his job.

Right, right, right.

God bless America.

It just sounds like coaches are going to hate this.

Yeah,

that's what the money's for.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's what you'd think, but they've always been getting that money, right?

So they, yeah, well, now it's not like, oh, this makes they're going to want more.

That's the problem with everything.

You're going to need to maybe have a bar restaurant where maybe you stay, you know, a day later while the rest of your team travels on, where you can sit on a bar stool as somebody, you know, leaves no room for the Holy Ghost.

No room at all.

No.

No.

There was contact.

a lot of illegal

well no well well easy pablo i don't know but it wasn't but it all i'll say is con there was contact there was no space yeah yeah yeah incarnate word

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Ramy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feeding Champagne, afforded to alcohol by volume, imported by Remy Control, USA, Incorporated in York, New York, 1738, Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

I wanted to also talk about football.

Yeah.

But the kind that the world cares about.

Soccer.

Oh, you were genuinely meaning soccer.

I was like, I thought I was doing a great, great prep.

Oh, you're right.

No, no, no.

Cristiano Ronaldo.

Who's that?

Yeah.

Great question.

The most followed person in the world.

Why?

What does this mean?

Great question.

All I know is that the dude has like literally 600 million Instagram followers and just broke the record for 1 million YouTube subs in the shortest amount of time.

Is that the most?

Oh, it was like the day he made the channel.

90 minutes.

Within six hours or something.

90 minutes.

90 minutes.

I've never seen a tweet on the Instagram post.

I've never gone.

Let me see what Cristiano Ronaldo's got to say.

This was my issue with this as I was wondering, like, why is Cristiano Ronaldo the greatest host of a sports show by the numbers in the history of the medium, apparently?

Sorry, does he have an actual show?

Well, or is it just a channel?

I'm so glad you asked.

Oh, great.

This is a project that we've been thinking about for many years,

but now we have the opportunity.

It's become real.

And I'm

very, very happy and very excited.

So many years of football,

I think it's an ideal platform

for me to be able to share a little of

my life,

my things,

and really original organic content.

It's guaranteed success.

I have no doubt.

It's crazy though.

Well, that's all just elephant in the room.

It's crazy.

She looks just like me.

We look so alike.

We're both.

That's so crazy.

You found like my daughter.

I don't know which one to shoot.

I thought when you were playing, that was a lot like my episode with Aikman this morning.

A lot like that.

Yeah, you were in a room decorated with

organic content.

Organic content.

Looked gorgeous, right?

Beautiful.

Nice cameras.

Good lord.

Beautiful show.

15 million people watched that, I believe.

What did they say?

What were they talking about?

Well, so you may notice that the version you get as maybe this is just the American, the ugly American here who gets this treatment, but you get it dubbed.

You get it dubbed.

You get it dubbed by these voices.

And it doesn't help me understand

really anything about who this guy is or really what this content, quote unquote, as he's, it's just disconcerting to watch the guy who is the voice actor for Cristiano Ronaldo say the words organic content.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's, I feel like that is the nature of the fact that you don't speak the language that he's speaking.

No, which, which is totally.

The guy is a international star.

But the point being.

More than any of us.

How dare you?

I know.

The point is,

when it comes to like who he is, there is, Kevin is a soccer fan.

I have covered, i've been i've been to brazil as it turns out to like cover the world cup however the time zones shut up kevin they were violent

but i was at these games crazy i was at these games watching ronaldo play i've i've been at various events where he's been i i just if you were to tell me um what is his youtube channel going to be like yeah i would struggle But I think my brain might have spat out a version of what we just saw, which is some version of a press release, but sort of like puppeteered into some simulation of a human interaction.

This makes me think of when

who was it that was on Las Culturistas and said authenticity is expensive.

I want to say it was Tina Faye.

Okay.

Cristiano Ronaldo already has so many people listening and he is saying nothing.

It does not behoove him

to say anything.

Like the question is.

The benefit, you have the eyeballs, you'll get the ads sold against the numbers for the content.

Just say nothing and they're not going to turn on you.

No.

They don't care what you say.

They're kind of just performing a fandom for you.

So just, of course, this is a money grab.

But what bugs me is that they use those same numbers to evaluate who's listening or who's learning or who's gaining something from the content.

And it's like, we are competing.

He's not making anything.

We are competing with.

he's not making anything I'm sorry but the the thing that made him really good at what he's really good at is the same thing that makes him very bad at what you're really good at well

I think we should listen to Cristiano Ronaldo in his voice let's hear it from him explain sorry go ahead we know as the press how it works if you speak good don't sell you have to speak bad is normal and if you speak about Cristiano you're coming in the first page is normal because I'm the most follow guy in the world it's not because only because of my pretty face but

in everything you know why christian is the number one follow in the world why what do you think

many things goals food trophies trophies so is rio ferdinand who's that gentleman there is he is he the first guest or is he a regular on this show i believe he is the first guest slash guest host that enables me to hear english i like the way he asked he couldn't tell if he was being asked why when he was like why why is he the most followed in the the world and then the pause was long enough that he was like chowface uh he's chow face he's not

it did feel rhetorical it did feel rhetorical the entire all of this kind of feels rhetorical i've been talked in a circle i don't understand what anyone's trying to communicate i watched every video on this channel how long did that take you um it felt like a million years i think it was like 30 minutes there's a couple things here i was going to talk about how high the bar is to have a good player podcast.

There is one like Roy Keen has one in soccer that is very, very funny because Roy Keene, Keene, kind of, as they call him, a hard man.

You know, he has all these stories about getting in fights and punching people and waiting people in parking lots.

And he goes through all of his red cards and says this guy deserved it.

Very, very funny.

And on that?

But there's also something with credibility where, and I'll give you a great example.

If Ronaldo says something about anybody currently playing, so like I'm a big Tottenham Hotspur fan, if he says like, man,

Son is the best player in the world.

I'm going to smash that RT and be like, hell yeah, look at what Ronaldo says, right?

And you're seeing that actually.

So in Gainesville on Saturday, Nick Saban picked, well, I was in Gainesville on Saturday.

Nick Saban picked Miami to beat Florida.

I was in line at Akava, no big deal.

And there were a couple of...

Akava?

Is that what you said?

A Kava?

Yeah, like a Mediterranean bowl place.

I was just trying to eat

healthy before you.

Did you get the pita crisps in it?

Yeah, I did.

I did.

I did.

And so there were like a couple of Miami fans in Gainesville and Sabin picked Miami.

And like, it was like the buzz of the line at Kava.

And it's because Nick Sabin, who has so much credibility, said something nice about something you like.

And so I think that there's that's also part of it.

It's like you're always going to be in the news cycle if you're Ronaldo.

And so you get to pass the line of player podcasts and go right to the top.

You can print very similar

to like LeBron, right?

Where it's like LeBron sends a tweet about someone random and it's like, oh my God, LeBron reacts, right?

You get to be in rarefied air and you get to make news whenever, whereas Roy Keene has to go through all his career red cards in order to make that kind of news.

You may not get there.

No, but with Ronaldo, it does feel like the most interesting thing about him beyond him actually as a player, and again, whatever.

Is he better than Messi?

No, but is he an entertaining person who, when he weighs in on

there was another clip where he weighed in on how the English Premier League, this is a separate thing, like the English Premier League is the hardest league in the world.

And he said, yes, it is.

And you're like, okay, oh, meaningful.

Yes, that is.

Meaningful.

That's meaningful.

It's a way for me to be closer to my fans, to my people.

What's that logo?

It is you are.

Right.

And it means...

You are Cristiano Ronaldo.

No, I'm not.

Well, that's what you are stands for on that logo.

Is that

you are CR?

No, no, I'm not.

We're not going to do that.

No, I'm not.

We're not doing that.

That kind of speaks to the whole thing about what he thinks is interesting about himself, which is...

That me?

He thinks I'm what's interesting about him?

He thinks that everybody wants to

bask in the bigness of him,

in him as a concept, like the most followed thing being this defining characteristic.

I don't blame him for finding that itself the prime directive of this entire mission to start this show.

It is fascinating and yet the most boring thing in the world.

Like everybody wants to be him, true, online, hosting shows, and yet you,

like, what do I actually want to hear him say?

The thing he needs a rebrand.

He needs a rebrand.

And if I was him, I would rebrand it in more like a Mamba mentality thing because the stories I've always heard and seen in some of the documentaries, Ronaldo does a step over that everybody thinks is superfluous, but he's like, no, he does one thing like 17,000 times over the course of a season.

He's meticulous in it.

And then all of a sudden it shows up and it's not superfluous.

It's like it matters, right?

And same with like in the Juventus documentary a couple of years ago when he was on that, on that team, like they showed him just shooting at the net like over and over and over again.

And the coaches were like, oh, he really shoots a lot because he's trying to score.

And he's the best goal scorer of all time.

And like, that doesn't come easy, right?

And very hard, I'm sure.

Right.

And so, but what Kobe did was he made that into his brand.

Like, instead of saying, like, and Kobe had much better stories than Cristiano Ronaldo apparently does, it's not close.

But he made the entire persona about the work.

And so then you become winner guy.

You speak in business conferences.

Exactly.

Bitcoin conferences.

Ronaldo happened to also be involved with Binance as a side matter.

Binance?

Binance was...

Like Bitcoin Finance.

Is that a thing?

It was.

It was one of the biggest crypto disaster stories.

I saw a commercial for crypto and I'm like, never seen a commercial for money before.

Yeah.

How is this not immediately like, I don't think this is going to be the thing?

Which does feel appropriate, though, for this guy.

And by the way, so the Kobe thing is also relevant insofar as here is somebody who figured out the branding of him while never being consensus, the greatest of all time, and also has a part of his Wikipedia page where you're like, oh, let's scroll down to that part and talk about that briefly just to acknowledge that, you know, legal issues involving women are a part of this.

And it's not good.

It's not good.

But, Katie, as you continue to, you know, not see into this content,

Cristiano Ronaldo wants you to know that he has a great relationship with his wife.

Will you throw into to a clip?

Maybe.

You are, baby.

Georgina Rodriguez, are you ready for the third question?

Why are you so pretty?

It wasn't there, I swear.

Today, I'm gonna have a chat with Gio.

But to make it more fun, let's play a game.

Scary.

What makes you the most angry when you read things about yourself?

The lies.

They make me really angry, whether I read them or hear them.

And in justice,

very good.

Great answer.

It goes on like that for a while.

Isn't that the woman that he, that they made them change Saudi law so that he could live with her without having to marry her?

That sounds plausible.

Wasn't that a thing?

He is now playing for those not caught up to speed on his athletic career.

He is 39.

He's in the zone that all these athletes, these superstars we grew up watching are now, where they're like,

I want to score a thousand goals.

It's literally a YouTube video, also separately, in which he wants to score a thousand goals.

And he's also playing in Saudi Arabia.

Yeah.

Making a zillion dollars.

Which he needs, Pablo.

And that's and

he needs the YouTube money.

He needs the money.

That's the vision.

Let's let him get the bag, Pablo.

Why?

He needs.

Why does he want to do any of this?

This is so beneath.

It needs to be more than last year.

Otherwise, you're losing.

You're dying.

If you stop swimming, I do think expenses are probably quite high.

Yeah, but lower them then.

Don't take Saudi money.

I like Katie as the Susie Orman of Cristiano Ronaldo's life.

Stop buying avocado toasts, okay?

Invest.

No, I just, I feel like we live at a time when you could have money and then make passive money off it pretty easily.

So when they make money that isn't passive, and I know they're also definitely making passive income, it's unfathomable.

There's no limit to the wealth that's being accrued, which I don't know.

I don't want to get into politics, but it just feels like, why do you need all that?

What do you need it for?

Where are you putting it?

Can I have some?

What's up?

Aren't you embarrassed?

Aren't you ever like, wow, I could empty one account and solve a country's entire crisis.

One crisis, maybe a small one.

Yeah.

But I could solve it.

No, I think you have some big ones.

I think some big ones.

Right.

But I'm saying, and they don't, you don't go like, oh, that's yikes.

Only, only Mr.

Beast is doing that.

I feel confident that that sort of line of questioning is not what he's going to answer

on UR Cristiano.

No, I don't think that.

Also, the rhetorical questions that you just stacked up there were great, very similar to URCR.

And Rio Ferdinand would also have no idea when to kind of chime in because I didn't know either.

It is safe to say that that was a spicy one.

Does he ever ask about her hobbies?

Did you learn anything about her other than her relationship to Christiano and all that?

No, no, no.

She loves her family.

Right.

And Cristiano.

They do.

Yeah.

Okay.

I know this because there is a video in which he presented his kids with the gift of the gold million subscriber YouTube

plaques.

Jesus Christ.

And they were psyched.

Which they earned.

So they should have that.

What are we doing?

This all makes me very nauseous.

I'm sorry.

It's just so crazy.

Katie, why do we always wait till the end?

And then mine is clearly something I read on the way over here.

Yeah.

Well, well, because it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So maybe that's why.

It's about friends.

I read an article.

Shut up.

Are you doing this?

Because I told you that you had to pretend to be interested in

it.

Just to show you guys how this shows you.

I have a heart out in 12 minutes.

All right.

Well, that's all it's going to take.

Oh, The French Paradox was an article in the Atlantic.

It was written by Olga Kazan.

We've talked about this or around this multiple times on this podcast, how everybody's very lonely.

Americans are very lonely, but that they, it's not due to lack of friends.

6,000 American adults in a survey of their relationships and friendships, researchers found Americans reported having an average of about four or five friends,

which is similar to, I mean, it is.

I don't know if you're joking, but no, no, no, I mean, I mean that, which is similar to past estimates.

Very few respondents, less than 4%, reported having no friends.

And so the problem, they say, is that it's difficult to see your friend or to like make the connect to actually do things with your friends.

It's something about the lack of third spaces, which is a conversation we have a lot about like, where do people go to like do things, especially with like work changing and the telecommuting or whatever.

But it's basically just saying that like it's the nature of connections are changing.

And I would maybe argue that like this started with

the word friend request becoming like a social media.

It became like a thing you sent to somebody that I don't know if a day before you would have called a friend when you first got.

I mean, I'm talking about Facebook, but I want to be clear, I don't think I've been on Facebook in like seven years at least.

I don't even think Dan and I are friends on Facebook.

And you're not one of the hundreds of millions of people who are friends with Cristiano Ronaldo on Facebook.

And that's the thing.

It's like, I think there's the, I don't know that it's like a direct cause, but these two things are related where it's like, I do feel I have many friends.

I don't see that many friends.

This is me seeing my friends.

What I was going to say.

I'm seeing my friends right now.

Let's let's see my buddy.

Let's continue to.

Thank you for pointing at me.

And we're friends.

We just want to spend seven hours together in Arizona.

But this is seven hours.

To break the fourth wall, this show in the way that we have been doing it has been my way of addressing this problem.

Yeah.

And is that okay or no?

It's the best I can do these days.

Yeah.

And I think, and so when Katie sent this story, I was like, of course Katie sent this story because Katie, I I believe, has lots of friends.

But in terms of how often Katie leaves the house.

Very small amount of time.

I'm trying, I'm like forcing myself to do it.

I'm in my year of yes.

I'm in my year of yes.

But like we buried the lead here.

But no, but no.

Like I'm still saying no.

Okay.

Hold on.

The banner we're constructing for you, the year of yes.

dot dot dot but no listen as a lady who's saying no a bunch

i'm i'm now i'm like say yes more often than you used to.

We'll put that on the banner too.

That's a bit.

That's basically I'm trying to get myself to go.

Like I think I'm going to go to for a high tea with a friend of mine this month.

Oh, I love it.

We're going to like get dressed and go to tea.

Like, because it's like, I feel like

I'm not afraid of watching.

I don't think it's that fancy.

It's, it's here in

the around here somewhere.

Sorry.

Tea and sympathy.

No.

That's the place where I've gone to high tea.

Yeah.

West Village.

No.

You've been to high tea tea?

I don't dress.

No one's invited me to high tea.

I feel like I'm watching our tiny village.

Yeah, or maybe I have been to high tea.

I went to high tea in South Africa.

See what I mean?

I feel like I'm watching everybody else live life.

And then I'm here.

And I feel like if I don't force myself out to do things, I'm going to disappear.

And so that's...

I feel like that's a thing a lot of people feel.

And I feel like if I didn't have a job like this,

I would be really screwed because I wouldn't have the ability to come and talk and then have like six people I'll never meet go, hey, that's, I also thank you for saying that i feel that way too so it's like i i i really feel for people that have that have this at the same time i don't know if it's also because of my lack of children that i and that's a plan we will not be so go don't even tell me that i'm going to i'm at the point now where i'm getting sick of hearing people be like y'all change your mind um it's a just a decision that i've made and i and i i anytime i'm making plans with a friend who has kids especially

i'm just gonna say it especially if they're a woman if they're the mother of the children.

I feel like I am not,

I don't want to ask for their time because I know their time is being asked of a lot.

And so I feel like I, I, um, and I, and I, but I still consider those people my best friends.

And they're probably like, well, I never see her.

And I'm like, but that doesn't matter to me.

If somebody were to be like, name, you're five, you're on the list.

I just think you are swamped.

You have two children you work a crazy job you i what where am i i don't i'm here if you need a friend call me i'm here but i don't want to demand of your time right

right no age i know you're men but no no no no as as as the father of a daughter whose mother girl dad is is

My ex-girlfriend, who's now my wife.

Oh my God, that was terrifying for a second.

Unbelievable.

Why did he do it?

Awful, awful tension-building management.

why'd you do it because narrative yeah yeah that was bad everybody hated it everybody hated it everybody hated it sad for her um i have a couple of thoughts on this number one is that i have probably to go

i have to go i have six minutes to explain this

outside she's beeping

So I probably have too many friends.

And I don't want anybody to get mad at me, but that's just a situation.

And there's two things I do.

There's two things I do.

Number one is I send a lot of texts that just say, how's my guy?

Okay, good.

Yeah.

And that's a huge, and it's like a low effort.

Kevin Clark's guide to friendship, number one, send texts that say.

Just like a random Tuesday afternoon, just how's my guy?

How's my guy?

And

you just

send out those feelers and you'll get them back.

Sure.

The other thing I do is I've never,

I think this comes down to my childhood.

I've had very specific interests that are not really connected to each other.

So like growing up, I was a huge fan of punk rock and college football and like reading about World War II and all these things.

And there was not going to be a unicorn friend who was just going to stay with me from 9 a.m.

on a Saturday when game day comes on until 1130 when we're going to go see hot water music, right?

Like that's just not going to happen.

And so I ended up with like hyper-specific groups of friends.

And then I've always, I've still had that.

And I think that that helps because then you automatically have something in common with them.

If you're looking for someone who's going to go do everything with you.

Well, this is also mentioned in this article.

She says that like a lot of people have friends that are individual friends in different places.

The author of Modern Friendship, Anna Goldfarb, said, quote, we have lots of friends that tend to only share a common history with us, not with each other.

But you develop those friendships more.

They break contain, as they say in football.

And like they start out as your friend who you're going to golf with.

And then it becomes, well, now we're just going to start drinking and then we're going to go see Oppenheimer.

I'm so bad at breaking contain in that way.

Silos.

I'm a, I have a life full of silos

because I'm not as, and I think I, I am inert in this way.

I recognize that this is a problem.

It's weird that I have like friends that I've known for such a long time who've never met my other friends.

Right.

And so it speaks to, it speaks to another thing that this article talks about, which is back in the day, because you'd be meeting most of your friends at the same spot, church, as we've talked about, the bowling out.

All my friends were from church back in the day.

Is that true?

Yeah.

No.

What?

I don't know.

You read the old friends.

You're half listening.

That's why you didn't know.

No, I'm trying to get on Metalark Wi-Fi for my meeting at one.

Kevin's texting Troy Aikman, how's my guy?

I am.

I am.

And

he's in the south of France.

And he's great.

But the point being that,

you know,

we are not.

uh meeting groups of people we're meeting individuals now and i think katie's you're honest i hadn't thought about this but yes the very premise of what is a friend when you're doing a survey like this, I think has been fundamentally cheapened as a definition because we, we're calling lots of people.

We need to reclaim the word friend.

We need to probably come up with a different term or we also just need to come up with a term for like, oh, I know him.

An acquaintance.

I know her.

An acquaintance.

We have it.

Acquaintance.

But we don't.

And

it almost feels like a slight friend.

We need something between acquaintance and friend.

We're too sensitive to that.

Malcolm Gladwell

says if you know someone, the definition of that is you sit down next to across them on a train and you can identify each other without saying it.

That's if you know someone.

What?

What?

What?

What?

If you sit down

next across from someone on the train.

Okay, first of all, why are we sitting in those seats?

Why are we facing each other?

Because you're on it, because there's not that many seats because it's full of your friends.

People you barely know.

It's a train of people you barely know.

So it's hacked.

Inception-ass trains.

But

we're sitting across from each other and we know each other.

And the only way to, I just

don't identify the person.

No, if you can identify.

If on a crowded train, a person came and sat across from you and you went, oh my God, that's a person you know.

Yeah.

Not if I can go.

That's what he said.

Yeah, I know who that is.

No, but then you can identify him as a person.

But you're incepting him.

What I'm saying is I know who this is.

No, but you're not.

But you're cheating.

You're cheating if you go, oh, my.

Katie, it's me, Katie.

Nobody.

No, I didn't say it's you.

No, I said it's you.

But then it's you.

You're talking.

You're identifying yourself.

You're stupid.

Sorry, Gladwell.

You had a lot of bops.

This is not.

Done.

You are done, Gladwell.

That's not how you know somebody.

If you know what that's

so fake deep.

Am I missing something?

I'm not.

That feels like a good example of what friendship is.

Yeah, this is friendship.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people are my friends,

And I won't name them because I would be terrified to know how they classify me.

You know, but I think a lot of I think of a lot of people as friends of mine.

Is that what you found out today, Katie Nolan, at the end of a show where we say what we found out?

Yeah, I found out that

I am Cristiano Ronaldo.

I found out,

I found out that my guy.

What's up, my guy?

How's it going?

Doing great.

I'm doing great.

You're doing great.

I'm doing great.

He's got a phone full of acquaintance/slash friends.

We knew that.

He can't put the thing down.

He stays in touch.

Relentless.

Not me.

Look, my texts are stacked up.

Thanks, Kevin.

It's fully blank.

Kevin, Kevin, what did you learn today?

What did you find out?

I learned why people love to talk about Cristiano Ronaldo, which is the trophies and the winnings.

Oh, God.

Which I didn't think about before we referred to Anne told me.

Right.

Right, right.

And also, I was worried.

Also, don't forget the lifestyle.

No, but I would also say that I learned what Ronaldo's wife hates the most, which is the lies and the injustices.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I thought she liked it.

I thought she liked the lies and the injustices.

And there were no specific injustices, just, you know, the lies.

No, just those general lies.

I hate when people lie about me.

I have to go.

Yeah.

The ultimate.

I love when people lie about me.

Thank you for coming in on time today.

Yeah, you're welcome.

What's that about?

That was a lie.

No.

That was a lie.

Very funny.

I tried.

Kevin's literally widing out of Zoom.

Literally, literally.

People who pay me need me to be on a Zoom.

I'm here for free.

You're here for free.

I'm here for free.

As we say.

We should be redirecting our actions.

I didn't say that I hated family.

I didn't say that I hated injustices.

I'm fine with them.

Pablo Torrey Finds Out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Walter Averoma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren.

Studio Engineering by RG Systems, sound design by NGW Post, our theme song by John Bravo.

All of us will see you on Tuesday.