"Bill Simmons"

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Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 say five nice things about me:

Speaker 1 tall, handsome,

Speaker 1 tan, voice, funny, funny, charming, charming,

Speaker 1 Selfless. What else?

Speaker 1 That's it, I think. We went over five, but we couldn't get to ten.
Well, no, it felt like you were going to keep going. I feel like I cut you off.
I don't think I could possibly get to.

Speaker 1 Oh, and an incredible boxer. Welcome to Square List.
Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 You know, the one thing I will miss about New York is the prepared meals at the grocery store. Because I just, just right before this, I just finished having sushi with the,

Speaker 1 you know, the spicy tuna. Hamburger.
And then, but, but I always go there and I get like the spaghetti. Like, don't you guys love that? Like, you know, we have those out here on the West Coast.

Speaker 1 No, but not to walk to.

Speaker 1 You know, you just walk in, you get like a spaghetti and meatballs. It depends on where your house is.
Spaghetti and meatballs is not sushi. I mean, I'm going to check it out right now.

Speaker 1 Did you check that out, Will, while I explained to Sean that if you live near a place that sells prepackaged food, you can walk to get it. Could you, Sean?

Speaker 1 You could walk to Larchmont if you wanted to. I'm not doing it.
It's kind of far. Kind of far.
Well, I mean, for a guy who doesn't like walking up a flight of stairs. Yes.
Yes. No, that's not true.

Speaker 1 He does walk. I will say this about Sean.
Oftentimes when I call him, he's walking in his package. Yeah, I'd love to walk.
He does. He loves to walk.

Speaker 1 By the way, Amanda says she saw you and Alessandra knocking down the big hill over here. She did it the other day.
That's so adorable. Yeah, Will likes a good walk.

Speaker 1 In the afternoon, I can just see you sort of pushing your laptop aside and saying, reach for the intercom there in the mansion. And you say, hon, what room you in? Are you up for a walk?

Speaker 1 And then you guys. You put your ankle weights on.
You zip into your bag, right? Your sweatbag. I get my sweatbag on and I put my body weights on

Speaker 1 and I start climbing that hill. And you know what? The first time I really did that hill hill was with you, JB,

Speaker 1 during the pandemic. And JK, JK.
And

Speaker 1 I remember the first time we did it, and I was like, oh, my God. And you were like, you were so good.
I was like, fuck, this is so hard. And now I've done it, you know, every time.
I know.

Speaker 1 And, well, you live on a hill. Yeah, live on a hill.
And so I do. You tried biking.
I biked up that once. No, you did not.
Yeah, that was a whole different thing. That was

Speaker 1 brutal. I've seen a couple guys do it, and

Speaker 1 they're barely going forward as they go up. Exactly.
God bless a 10-speed.

Speaker 1 But I've seen JB, I've seen you over the years a few times on that hill and usually give me like a scornful look or whatever, like it's sort of a shitty, like, ugh. But Amanda.

Speaker 1 I just honk and swerve near you, try to scare you. Whereas in the family, because Amanda, yesterday, all of a sudden, this like Tesla comes in and

Speaker 1 the swerving. I'm like, what the fuck? And then it's Amanda waving.
you know,

Speaker 1 brightly. Oh, she's waving brightly.
With the Drake just pouring out her window. I just talked to her yesterday.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 End of story. How are those three hours?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 How's your ears?

Speaker 1 I love talking to Amanda. She said she's going to throw me a party when I come home.
We're goddamn right we are. Can I go? I'm like, you guys better throw me a party.
Are you kidding? Soon, isn't it?

Speaker 1 What is it? Isn't it like a week now? JB, you're looking real stripey today. Are we going to go? I'm back on the golf course today.
You are? Yeah, I like the shirt, Jay. It's been a while.

Speaker 1 I got this shirt while I was visiting with Will out there East.

Speaker 1 I'm going out there to one of Burbank's finest courses today, and I'm going to enjoy myself. What a life.
What a life.

Speaker 1 I feel like I have something more to say, but maybe I'll think of it while we're talking to our really high-level guest here, guys. Oh, nice, nice.
We've bored this person. Huh?

Speaker 1 We've bored this person now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sorry, sorry, guest. Their day-to-day.

Speaker 1 And, you know,

Speaker 1 it is not the first time he's been exposed to our pain.

Speaker 1 He's been here before, and I don't want to spoil anything,

Speaker 1 but it was during a time very, very early on. We didn't really know what we were doing.
Things were very, very topical in an interview, so it didn't age well.

Speaker 1 And there's a few week delay before we put these on. And COVID was, so we ended up not even airing the episode, but he's been,

Speaker 1 we've got a jack of all trades and a master of all.

Speaker 1 His books have been New York Times bestsellers. His columns and newspapers and websites are instant must-reads.
His television appearances are appointment TV.

Speaker 1 And his overall opinions on all things culture, whether it be entertainment, politics, sports, are unapologetically honest and singular.

Speaker 1 He has a degree in political science and a master's in print journalism.

Speaker 1 We three dummies admire him for his already massive success in something we're just trying to figure out, but we love him for his profound work on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Speaker 1 Please welcome Boston's own William John Simmons III. Bill,

Speaker 1 get out of town. Please.
Bill Simmons. Wait a minute.
What?

Speaker 2 Sean still doesn't know who I am. No,

Speaker 1 no, I love Bill Simmons.

Speaker 2 Wait, what happened to the show?

Speaker 1 We never aired it.

Speaker 1 What we talked about was like what was happening that week.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah, it was just, it didn't.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I did one of the first test shows.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It wasn't a test, but it wasn't.
You were one of our big shots right up front, along with Dak Shepard. Wow.

Speaker 2 Oh, so you just squashed it. Oh, I should feel much worse about this.

Speaker 1 No, it's not even air.

Speaker 1 Jason's right. It was too topical.
It was too, like, exactly. It was like, what was going on? It was like made.
You're not alone. There were a couple.

Speaker 1 I think Tapper, same thing happened with Jake Tapper, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I just just thought you guys didn't like me. And then

Speaker 1 maybe I said something about Ozark back when you're in the city.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we tried to edit it and make it entertaining. We just couldn't make it work.

Speaker 1 We love you and revere you in spite of your allegiance to certain teams. Put it that way.

Speaker 2 Certain teams. Like, you mean every Boston team?

Speaker 1 No, not every Boston team.

Speaker 1 Where's your beef? What don't you like about it?

Speaker 1 I'm not going to, I don't want to get into it back and forth with Bill Simmons. He'll crush me.
Are you kidding? I don't like the power of the people. He doesn't have the Bruins.

Speaker 1 I don't have the firearms. I do that.
The only team you have a passion for are the Maple Leaves. Well, you didn't for a while, right?

Speaker 2 Well, I was mad. We had a cheap owner, and he cost us a Stanley Cup, and I was in my 20s and spiteful, and I got mad.

Speaker 1 Right. But now you're back.

Speaker 2 Now I'm in a better spot. You're back with the Bears?

Speaker 1 The Bears. The Bruins.
Yeah, they do have the Bears.

Speaker 1 I thought you meant the Hershey Bears. I thought you meant he became a Hershey Bears fan of the age.

Speaker 2 Well, we're taping this right now, and Mookie Betts is going back to Fenway Park, which was the most traumatic Red Sox thing that's happened

Speaker 2 in the last 30 years. Yeah, he was our best guy.

Speaker 1 You guys are both huge baseball fans. Yeah.
And did you guys, when Mookie Bets came to the Dodgers, was there, did you guys fire some text back and forth?

Speaker 2 No, I told them. I told all my Dodger fans.
I was like, you guys won the lottery. This guy's amazing.
This is the biggest mistake the Red Sox have made in my lifetime.

Speaker 2 I couldn't get too mad because we won four World Series, and I had said before we won the first World Series that I would probably sell my soul to win one World Series.

Speaker 1 So we won four. Wait, wait, wait.
I thought it was only two. When was there? So you did sell your soul.
I just want to go.

Speaker 2 No, we won four. Yeah, I do think I might be going to hell.
I think I might have said that drunkenly one night that I would sell my soul. So it's hard to complain too much.

Speaker 2 But, you know, we had this awesome guy who was great in the community. And, you know, he's so much fun to watch.
And they just trade him.

Speaker 1 How far were the Red Sox from making that deal?

Speaker 1 Did they have an opportunity to match what the Dodgers offered them?

Speaker 2 They got super smart and analytical about baseball players as they hit their 30s, how their production declines, and you're basically paying for past performance, which is true with like the Sluggers.

Speaker 2 But like the Sean Hayes kind of wiry athletic types age pretty nicely into their 30s.

Speaker 1 Wiry, yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, I know Sean is still playing squash and doing whatever he's doing.

Speaker 1 I got my things on. Look at that.
His compression wrap off his elbow.

Speaker 1 It's not a good thing. I'm hammering the piano every now.

Speaker 1 Bill, I wanted to ask you, what, I mean, you are sort of a jack of all trades, as Jason said, and you, you, you opine on lots of different things, but sports is sort of

Speaker 1 the lead. That was the sort of the cutting edge that got you into this world.
What was it about you, like as a kid, were you like, this is going to be my milieu? Like, I'm just a sports guy.

Speaker 1 I love sports so much, and I just got to, it's got to be my life.

Speaker 1 What was the sort of the genesis of

Speaker 1 you as the ultimate sports guy?

Speaker 2 Well, it also might have been not having a life. You know, I was an only child, and I absolutely love sports.
I was all into it. And

Speaker 2 all the Boston teams, my dad had Celtic season tickets, just kind of threw myself into it. And at some point in college, I had a column in college that really from the first week I was in college.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I wonder if I can get paid for this. So it was one of those.
Like, I just love sports. I remember everything.
I have opinions.

Speaker 2 I have a sense of humor. Can this be something? But it still took me the entire 90s to get there.

Speaker 1 But you early on decided that you were going to make

Speaker 1 your journalism come from the perspective of the fan as opposed to

Speaker 1 sort of trying to stay neutral and just kind of report the facts.

Speaker 1 Was that shaped by your experience as a Boston fan and that the Celtics

Speaker 1 were just killing it there in the, what was it, B80s, the late 70s, early 80s, right? We had a nice run.

Speaker 1 And then that the Sox were giving you a lot of pain.

Speaker 1 So did that kind of shape, well, that's more of like a,

Speaker 1 I'm a very passionate fan by virtue of the local teams. And so let's, let's do that angle.

Speaker 2 It was two things. The first one was that the way people wrote about sports back then was very, you know, reportery,

Speaker 1 dry,

Speaker 2 like non-fan stuff, right?

Speaker 2 And it just wasn't the way my friends and I talked.

Speaker 2 So I never really liked reading that coverage that much because I was like, do these people even like sports? They just seem like angry old white guys.

Speaker 2 So it was that. And then the other thing was

Speaker 2 because I couldn't get in the clubhouses. I was writing like a sports column on the internet.
I couldn't get press passes for anything. So I really...

Speaker 2 tripled down on, all right, I'm going to write from the fans' perspective. A couple of the writers that I really liked had done that.

Speaker 2 Like there was this book the screenwriter William Goldman had written called Wait Till Next Year, where he wrote all of his parts were about New York sports from a fan's perspective.

Speaker 2 There was Roger Angel and the New Yorker was another one. So I was like, I feel like that's a better lane for this.
So I kind of just threw myself into that and it kind of worked.

Speaker 1 What was your first, well, what was your first sort of

Speaker 1 moment where you got not validated, but got entree, like where somebody said, okay, you can come in. You can get

Speaker 1 into the locker room. You can get into the press box.
You can have access. What was that moment? Yeah, how do you get into the locker room?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was, so ESPN got my column in 2001, and I had a little more juice at that point to go to stuff. But at that point, I was like, you you know what?

Speaker 2 Like having some distance from this and writing from the fan side is actually better for me because I was weaving pop culture and all my stuff.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I actually think like this is a better lane.

Speaker 2 So for really all the 2000s, I tried to stay away from being kind of too embedded with athletes and getting in there and just kind of being detached.

Speaker 2 And then in the 2010s, I realized because I had so much,

Speaker 2 I don't know, such a high profile at that point, I could could talk to just about whoever I wanted. And I was like, you know what?

Speaker 2 Now that I'm hitting my 40s, there's stuff to learn from some of these guys, from some of these coaches.

Speaker 2 And I really kind of threw myself into just kind of learning more from people who played and coached.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there was that big transition. You talk about becoming a high-profile.
So, listener, for those of you that aren't, you know, sports junkies like me and Sean Hayes,

Speaker 1 you know, Bill exploded onto ESPN. He started

Speaker 1 a podcast,

Speaker 1 Dynasty,

Speaker 1 with Grantland and then The Ringer.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my podcast was 07, Sean.

Speaker 1 Amazing.

Speaker 2 It was like me and Mark Maron and like two other dudes.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 I know who you are. I know you've been around.
I know what you do. So what, so tell us about that.

Speaker 1 That transition was not gradual.

Speaker 1 It was pretty not overnight. I don't mean to diminish it or belittle it at all.
I don't mean that at all. It was very deserved what happened.
Maybe it was just overdue.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 were you comfortable in that transition, not only what it did for you publicly and being sort of famous and recognizable?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that kind of maturing.

Speaker 1 From ESP, from ESP into the next chapter. Is that what you mean? Well, being on air, like all of a sudden you were, I remember seeing you on

Speaker 1 TV. And I was like,

Speaker 1 I was like, who is this guy? And I was like, oh, Bill said, oh, that's what Bill Simmons looks like. And listening to you talk.
And like, it was just this great new personality.

Speaker 1 I remember how disappointed you were at how handsome he was.

Speaker 1 Jesus, he's handsome too. But there really was definitely like an unapologetic, sorry to use a word again.
Um, you didn't really make much of an effort to be some like zippy on-air personality.

Speaker 1 Like, you were just like, I'm just a guy, and I got an opinion, and it's backed with knowledge and facts. And, uh, and here we go.

Speaker 1 It was yeah, you were fine with just being a plain regular guy, which we really admire. Yeah, we're just small.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was, it was actually fun to do those shows because I would just kind of call it like it is. Yeah.
And I think people were surprised initially because it was very like

Speaker 2 studio shows were very, yeah, Barkley could do it because he was a Hall of Famer. But like when the media guys usually came on, they were way more careful.
I went going backwards, like probably 06,

Speaker 2 I made a decision like every single year I want to try to add something.

Speaker 2 and take a swing at something. I don't want to be in the same spot at the end of the next year that I'm in right now.
So what can that be? So like in 07, that was when

Speaker 2 I started 30 for 30. I sent the memo.

Speaker 1 We created a Connor show.

Speaker 2 That was when I started writing my basketball book. And that was when I started doing my podcast.
And then the next year after that, it was like, all right, how can I keep going? How can I keep going?

Speaker 2 And that led to Grantland in 2011 and

Speaker 2 then just TV in 2012. It was just each year.
What can I do? I don't want to be in the same spot.

Speaker 1 Well, what I love about it, sorry, and correct me if I'm wrong, Bill, is that

Speaker 1 you say you do all these things and you're like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. And it feels like you're at ESPN, then you're at HBO, I think, for a minute.

Speaker 1 And it's almost like those places just couldn't contain you. Like you ended up, you're like, well, fuck it.
I don't need them. I don't need them.
I'll just create my own network.

Speaker 1 I'll create my own vessel because then I don't have to answer to all that. Is that kind of how it went?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I realized I got suspended in 2014

Speaker 2 from ESPN for

Speaker 1 dealing all that heroin, right? I mean,

Speaker 1 It turned out

Speaker 2 the H was just not.

Speaker 1 Wait, what did you get suspended for?

Speaker 2 I said some stuff about the NFL commissioner, who was their biggest partner, and they got upset.

Speaker 2 And when I got suspended, something weird happened.

Speaker 2 All these people reached out like, hey, when you branch off, I'd love to invest or I'd love to.

Speaker 1 And I was like, wait, what's going on?

Speaker 2 And that really made me start thinking about it pretty seriously.

Speaker 2 Like, okay, if I left, could I create something i had some people at grantland that i really liked working with and just over the course of 2015 it was like all right what if we could we recreate grantland as our own thing that we own we don't have to answer to anybody could we really triple down on podcasts because we were convinced you know espin didn't care about podcasts at all and we were convinced like we can probably pay for everything through the podcast revenue and i never ended up taking uh money from investors because i no way kind of felt like we could pay for everything through my podcast and which is what happened that's and that's a risky proposition a little bit nerve i mean not nerve-wracking but you it's a it's a leap right yeah i remember explaining it to my wife and she's like i trust you but i could see like this glimmer in her eye like should i go on raya now or like wait for six months raya well before you you give us all a layman's uh lesson on on podcasting and and and where it's kind of going and and all that talk a little bit about where this moxie came from to sort of double down, triple down on yourself and to be really proactive in an entrepreneurial way.

Speaker 1 Because,

Speaker 1 you know, dudes that are super big sports fans that like write about it and stuff

Speaker 1 aren't famous for being business titans,

Speaker 1 to put it kindly. So, where does all that come from? I mean, you're very well educated.

Speaker 1 You come from, I think your dad was a teacher and your mom was a. Superintendent, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, mean you you were raised by adults and and you are one so is that is that simply it or do you just have an innate business um

Speaker 2 acumen you guys are probably gonna like this answer i the more the more i got embedded at espn

Speaker 2 you start looking around and you're like wait i can do that that guy's kind of terrible yeah this guy's terrible how did well how did this guy get this job where he decides stuff this lady's awful and you just start going wait a second i feel like

Speaker 1 i feel like i'm smarter than a lot of these yeah yeah it turns out nobody knows what they're doing even if it's not that usually i find if if you just get in the door in any sort of industry

Speaker 1 sort of the the mystery of it that you build up in your mind just kind of melts away and and that's that's half you think everybody is awesome and all-knowing and they're just not

Speaker 1 or that or that they've got this like well of like secret knowledge that you'll never have access to that they you know what i mean yeah and most of the people just got yeah they got promoted a couple times and they kind of can't believe they got to where they got like when we did 30 for 30 and people loved it the first volume is that like is that like 80 for brady no it's uh well they were

Speaker 2 it's a sports documentary series so we created it and we finished it and the person who was in charge of uh espn films who it changed hands a couple times and by the time we finished 30 for 30 people loved it And they were like, all right, so 30 for 30 is done.

Speaker 2 We're going to call documentaries now ESPN Films and do it that way. And they didn't want to do a second volume.
And we were like, we just created a brand.

Speaker 2 That's like the hardest thing you could possibly do. So they released like four more documentaries, not called 30 for 30s.
They're called ESPN Films Presents.

Speaker 2 And everybody was like, do you see the new 30 for 30? Right. And we're just sending emails to people.
And we're like,

Speaker 2 we, we did it. Like we did the impossible.
We created a brand. Just let's do another volume at 30 for 30.
We had to convince them for like nine months. And now the thing's still on 14 years later.

Speaker 1 Amazing. That's so cool.

Speaker 2 It was so stupid. I can't tell.
I would go now. I don't get as mad as I did back in the day, but like in the late 10, I would just lose my mind.
I would send these 2,000-word emails.

Speaker 2 And I thought it was normal because I worked for Kimmel for 18 months.

Speaker 2 And you guys know Kimmel.

Speaker 1 Kimmel is a lunatic. He's double clicking.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Kimmel is like, he will whip off a 700-word email in three seconds as he's playing a video game and doing nine other things.

Speaker 2 So I thought, well, Jimmy's like that too. That's normal.
And then you realize like, oh, Jimmy's also a lunatic.

Speaker 1 So we're both lunatics. Yeah, I'm very similar.
Yeah, you guys have, Sean is, by the way. Sean will, Sean will answer an email before the person has hit send.

Speaker 1 He's telepathically answering it. And I, right, Sean, a couple of times, I've been like, hey, I'm really sorry.
Like

Speaker 1 we're on some sort of like email chain or business thing. And I'll be like, I'm sorry that I'm not answering yet, but I need a minute to think about it.
Yeah, I do. And Sean's already answered.

Speaker 1 But you know, it's funny you say that. It makes sense that, and I know you and Kimball are friends, and I know you

Speaker 1 worked with him for a little bit.

Speaker 1 It does totally make sense that you guys both have this kind of, you're very confident and you're both opinionated, but confident in your opinion and confident about being right.

Speaker 1 And generally, I bet you're both right most of the time.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 they don't pop off on shit they're wrong about. No, no.

Speaker 1 Hold on.

Speaker 2 Let's be clear. Kimmel is way worse than I am.
He is not confident. He is super stubborn.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 And we'll just fight to the death until he just breaks you down and you admit he's right, even though you don't think he's right.

Speaker 1 But he's smart enough not to dig in on things that he's not smart about.

Speaker 2 He'll just back off and it'll be like, it never happened.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's like one of the most frustrating people to argue with because he's just, it could be like, we could argue about Celtics. He's like, no, Larry Bird only won two MVPs.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, do I have to get like the basketball encyclopedia?

Speaker 1 Like, he definitely won three. No, it was two.

Speaker 2 And then it was like, now here it is. It's three.
It's like, I told you it was three.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 So how did podcasting hit your radar earlier than anybody else?

Speaker 1 Not just listeners, but podcast creators. And what was it? Who whispered in your ear?

Speaker 1 And you got ahead of it and carved away and made it possible for you know idiots like us and yeah dax and um i like that i made it possible for your podcast to succeed

Speaker 1 it became a medium you know it wasn't a medium before you and mark merrick jason our lawyers just emailed me and said take that back

Speaker 2 later no when when i started it it was just because i saw there was this interview link on espn.com with the interview with the celtics gm and i clicked on it it was like podcast it's interview with danny age i'm like what the hell is is this?

Speaker 2 So I emailed them and I'm like, can I have one of these?

Speaker 2 And they were like, okay. And they mailed me this equipment.
So I did my first one with an NBA writer named Mark Stein. And the second one was with Corolla.

Speaker 2 And Corolla came over because I only had one jack and the phone. So he came over and we realized we couldn't do it in the same room.

Speaker 2 And he was wandering on my driveway on the phone doing the podcast with me. So it was like the early days were like crazy rocky.
And I was like, these are really fun. I used to to have my friends on.

Speaker 2 And my whole goal was like to emulate Mike and the Mad Dog because I love Mike and the Mad Dog in New York.

Speaker 2 And it was like, these guys, I love Mike and the Mad Dog when they would be talking about like the Oscars, not like the Rangers. I'd be like, all right, who do you have for best acted dog?

Speaker 2 And they would like be going, I'd be like, this is amazing.

Speaker 1 What is this?

Speaker 2 So I would have my friends on and just like people that I thought I would have good chemistry with. And then around 09,

Speaker 2 I'd had it for about two years. And I remember Seth Meyers text, he emailed me about it.
And he was like,

Speaker 2 yeah, Jacko was, my buddy Jacko. He was like, yeah, Jacko was feeling it today.

Speaker 2 It was so funny. And I'm like, you listened? Like, I had no idea people were listening because they didn't tell me the numbers.
And I was like, you want to come on?

Speaker 2 So in 09, I started just having these celebrities on. And I was like the first podcast for.

Speaker 2 I would say like 50 celebrities. And all of them thought it was amazing.
It was like a first date with somebody. We were like, that was amazing.

Speaker 2 And now it's like all these, every celebrity has been on what, 50 podcasts? There's nothing special about it anymore. But it was really fun to grab people.

Speaker 2 So by like 2009, 2010, people were mentioning it to me on the street. They weren't mentioning, they were mentioning my column, but then some people were like, hey, man, love the podcast.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh.

Speaker 2 And it just felt like it was building.

Speaker 1 It's also a great way for celebrities to be, to have an extended conversation with

Speaker 1 an interviewer or journalist or whatever, and not run the risk of having

Speaker 1 a headline cherry-picked out of there for some sort of sensational abuse.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's all verbatim.

Speaker 2 Well, I remember talking to you about it, Jason, because you were like, we were talking about how frustrating the talk show circuit is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, especially when you come out and you do like, well, Kimmel's.

Speaker 2 Kimmel's.

Speaker 2 But you do like, you're on a talk show for 10 minutes, right? And they do the pre-interview and you come out and you hit your three things and you have a little back and forth.

Speaker 2 And I think for the celebrities, the podcast was just such a more fun format because it was

Speaker 1 who I really am.

Speaker 1 You're hanging out for sure.

Speaker 2 So that was a big win for everybody.

Speaker 1 Bill, tell me, sorry, just to go back again. So, your parents were teachers.
What did they think?

Speaker 1 What did you see to them when you graduated college? You're like, all right, I'm just going to go into this sports thing. Were they like great? Were they expecting you to become a teacher?

Speaker 1 Did they want you to become a lawyer?

Speaker 2 No, they, I think they, it was like 50-50 for them. I was going to be able to have a steady job.
I don't think I really wake up.

Speaker 1 You just gotten a master's degree in printing. Well, that was the thing.
I got a master.

Speaker 2 My senior year, my dad was like, hey, what are you going to do next year? I was like, I don't know. And he's like, you should, you maybe keep going on the sports run there.

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 2 And I just like at the last minute applied to three journalism schools and got into a club.

Speaker 1 So he encouraged you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was more like, what are you doing next year? And just kind of staring vacantly back with no answer.

Speaker 2 But then I went to journalism school and, you know, it wasn't, it didn't work out right away.

Speaker 2 Like I worked at the Boston Herald for three years and did grunt work and Chinese food orders and covered high school sports. And

Speaker 2 by 96, I was out. I was bartending.

Speaker 1 So did you play sports as a kid? And then did you not want to go into professional sports, like playing them?

Speaker 2 I was like high school level best.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And what sport? Yeah, what was your sport?

Speaker 2 Basketball. Basketball is my favorite.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I still play tennis. I had to retire from basketball 10 years ago because we're all old people.

Speaker 1 Oh, did you roll? Did you roll an ankle too many times? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I remember speaking to an orthopedic surgeon once in New York, and she was just basically like, yeah, like nine out of ten injuries of dudes over 30 are from basketball.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And now it's like pickleball on basketball. Yeah, pickleball.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I played basketball when I was a kid and I was like,

Speaker 1 you know, we'd run down to one end of the court and I'd be like, and then they'd get the ball, the rebound. And I'm like, wait, we got to go all the way back.

Speaker 1 We just, we got to go all the way back to the other side.

Speaker 1 I don't understand. And why do I, can't we just play half the court?

Speaker 1 I didn't understand it. That was too much for me.

Speaker 1 So, so basketball was your main sport. You played baseball, too, I imagine, a little bit when you were a kid?

Speaker 2 I played everything until high school. Just played basketball.
I love basketball the most, though, because we... We had the season tickets.
We were like front and center for the whole Larry Bird era.

Speaker 2 So I just understood it the most.

Speaker 1 Did you grow up in Boston, Boston, or did you grow up?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I grew up in Brookline. And

Speaker 2 my parents got divorced, which is why I have a sense of humor.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 2 My mom moved to Connecticut, and eventually I moved to live with my mom for high school.

Speaker 1 And they got divorced at a tough time for you, too. 13, I think it was?

Speaker 2 No, I was nine.

Speaker 1 Oh, Wikipedia. Yeah, I had

Speaker 1 Wikipedia.

Speaker 2 The Red Sox, yeah, don't read Wikipedia. The Red Sox lost to the Yankees in the 1978 playoff game, which was the most dramatic sports loss ever.

Speaker 2 Bruins lost to the Canadians, and my parents got separated all in the span of six months. And I had glasses.

Speaker 1 Wow. It was tough.
Wait, was that 78? Did you say 78? 78 in early season. Yeah, because the Leafs lost, they were swept by the Canadians before that.

Speaker 2 The Canadians, yeah. They just beat me.

Speaker 1 So you were both on the edge of a few buildings that year. I was.

Speaker 2 It was tough. Well, he's had, I mean, the Leafs thing is

Speaker 2 one of the most traumatic professional sports relationships that anyone has.

Speaker 1 Oh, I am.

Speaker 2 Nothing good happens.

Speaker 1 But Brendan Shanahan's going to bring it all back, right?

Speaker 1 Shani is our man. He's the best.
He's the best dude. I actually just played golf with Shani and Mike from Mike and the Mad Dog a couple weeks ago.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Will, did you ever get tempted by the Kings just like doing a full hockey divorce and just second wife with the Kings?

Speaker 1 I couldn't. I mean, I go to Kings games when I'm here, and I'll, you know, sometimes with the kids and stuff just for fun.
But I'm just such a huge hockey fan, but the Leafs are just my team.

Speaker 1 They're just it for me, and they always have been.

Speaker 2 Isn't that hilarious that people will divorce human beings, but not their teams?

Speaker 2 Like if Will was like, I'm now a Kings fan, he'd be like, that's horrible. You broke up with the Maple Leaves.

Speaker 1 That's the worst thing I ever heard.

Speaker 2 If it's a relationship, it's fine. You know what's funny?

Speaker 1 So when I was with Shanny a couple of weeks ago, he goes, he's like, I think he heard on the podcast or somewhere.

Speaker 1 He goes, so I heard you say, because I've become like in the last 10, 12 years, like a massive soccer fan and I'm a big Liverpool supporter through my friend. And I just watched.
Will loves Tottenham.

Speaker 1 Get him.

Speaker 1 Are you a Tottenham fan?

Speaker 2 It lasted three years until my kids started playing sports every Saturday and

Speaker 1 for me. Yeah, it was too hard.
But it's, yeah, so I'm up at 4.30 in the morning watching games and stuff. And I'll watch Bundesliga.
I'll watch La Liga.

Speaker 1 I'll watch anything, Champions League, forget it. Getting me so high.
So I start watching it.

Speaker 1 I guess I had sort of said offhand that

Speaker 1 watching Liverpool and watching soccer has become almost, has almost taken over hockey. And he looked at me with such disappointment.
He's like, is that true? Is that true that you love?

Speaker 1 And I go, first of all, relax. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Settle down. Settle down.
But I do, it has helped to kind of mitigate my frustration or disappointment by watching that because

Speaker 1 I'm so invested in the leafs. I live and die by, and the,

Speaker 1 you know, so I've gotten into, and football has been a really great, soccer has become a really great sort of antidote to that. And so I can have some, I can have some highs.

Speaker 2 Better attention span sport, too. It's two hours.

Speaker 1 There's a high spot. It's fantastic.

Speaker 2 It just flies through and you're done.

Speaker 1 It's perfect. And once I got into it and understanding who the people were and what the stories were behind it is super interesting and Champions League is interesting.

Speaker 1 And I'll watch virtually any sport, which makes me like I ended up watching The Ashes, the cricket.

Speaker 1 I'll watch 2020 cricket, T20. Like, I'll watch.

Speaker 1 Is there anything I won't watch? That it's not a sport. Will you watch, is there any sport you won't watch? Portal is not a sport? Well, okay.
It's a game.

Speaker 1 It's a it's not it's a game but will you is there any so is golf a sport then game game baseball's a game not a sport yeah i guess golf's a game but it's but but the but but the top guys are athletes true

Speaker 1 but here have go seen the bodies on the red sock no no no no i'm saying golf i'm saying golf

Speaker 1 is there a sport you won't watch sorry that was my my big long lead is there is there a sport i won't watch yeah that you don't enjoy i don't get auto racing and like there's this f1 resurgence and i gave it a a gave it a kick a kick drive and i i don't get driving around just cars just going in laps i don't know well i i the road courses i get but circles you'll come come to formula one with me you'll get it come with no i listen you're the 100th person who's like no no you'll get it you just but it jason got

Speaker 2 starting to feel like scientology a little bit we're like you don't understand you've got to meet miscavig

Speaker 1 you'll get it when you meet him just have brunch with him it's like i don't know it doesn't take i don't know if i love f1

Speaker 1 um So, wait, so this is a perfect opportunity.

Speaker 2 And this is going to be a long question.

Speaker 1 So just hang in there. Because I was like, should I ask it? Should I not ask it? I'm going to ask you.
I'm going to go make a sandwich. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I've heard your long question, Sean. I'm excited.

Speaker 1 They're not. Okay, so it's to the three of you guys.

Speaker 1 So, and this is a perfect opportunity to ask this. And I wasn't going to ask it, but here we go.
It's already too long. No, no, hang on.
All the qualifiers. No, so I.

Speaker 2 He's a big qualifier guy with this question.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 what is the psychology behind loving sports so much? Okay, so wait.

Speaker 1 So like, you know, in movies, theater, TV, whatever it is, you're watching a story, you're emotionally invested, you're watching the beginning, middle, and end of something. In sports, I get it.

Speaker 1 There is a beginning and end because who's going to win and then they win? Okay, sure. But what is the psychology about

Speaker 1 loving it? So like, what are you rooting for

Speaker 1 other than a team that you don't have a personal connection to? Yeah, you guys. I'll go first.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for me, it's just simply, and it's heightened by the Olympics because it's only every four years.

Speaker 1 It's the televised live moment of somebody putting everything they've got on the line, and it's a binary result of success or failure.

Speaker 1 And I get to see this person reach for excellence, and let's see what the best they can do is going to yield. And that's a really exciting thing to me, and it's unwritten.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I get that. I would say for me, it's not dissimilar.

Speaker 1 And as I explained, my sort of my appreciation of soccer

Speaker 1 came from understanding the stories and the people behind it. Yeah, you told me that, Will.

Speaker 1 So once I can get into like this guy came over here, and for me, it's not necessarily binary because there is victory sometimes in people in failure when they don't actually get it, but they try really hard.

Speaker 1 And I like that. Yeah, but the stories, like you told me that a long time ago, you're like, Sean, just try to watch the stories of the people.
So I'm watching.

Speaker 1 I'm like, well, this is a dateline episode. Like, I could just watch, you know, I could learn about these people without watching them kick a ball around for two hours.
Sure. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 So, but then, but then there is a moment.

Speaker 1 There is an actual venue for them to go and try to do that. You see the story behind it.

Speaker 1 So, like, for instance, if you watch like one of these great soccer documentaries and you see the importance of the team to the town and to the fans,

Speaker 1 and then you see these players, these guys and their town and what it means. And then the players who come in and they're trying to do it.

Speaker 1 And they're trying to do it not just to win, but they understand the cultural impact that they have. They feel it.
They know it. And watching them go through that is super compelling.
Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1 And I also, but on the other side, I went to a Dodders game with Jason a couple of years ago, and we're sitting there. And I was like, I kind of get it.
I get like the atmosphere.

Speaker 1 It's like watching this old house

Speaker 1 on a Sunday. You're like, oh, this is very relaxing.

Speaker 2 This has gone so well.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? I get it. I'm almost there.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Bill, get them back back on track. But Sean, in the same way that, like, for me, I can't go, I can't get into

Speaker 1 musicals. Right.
And I can't inspire people singing. And I'm like, what? But if you learned about them,

Speaker 1 if you kind of understood kind of what goes into it all, then you probably can't. I do.
Well, I do in the sense that it is sort of adjacent to what I do as a profession, and yet I still can't.

Speaker 1 It's just not for me. It doesn't speak to me.
And for whatever reason, sports does in that way. And Bill, you probably have a much more

Speaker 1 concise answer.

Speaker 2 I just think it's almost like a DNA thing. It hits you.
It's got to hit you before like age six. Yeah.
And I see it with a couple of my friends' kids.

Speaker 2 I have like my friend Nathan's kid, just like, I could tell when he was six. I was like, oh, he's going to be one of those guys.
He's going to be really into it.

Speaker 1 And now he is.

Speaker 2 He's like 14 and he's one of those guys. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, like, like I was, obviously, I'm from Chicago when the Cubs won finally, what, four, five, six years ago. I don't remember when that was.
Yeah. I was crying.

Speaker 1 Because I was like, oh my God, they haven't won

Speaker 1 200 years. I'm from Chicago.
Like, that was incredible. Sean, that's tall.
Yeah, but, but, but, and, and, and, I'm a huge football fan. I just need a reason to watch.
Like, I need a bet or something.

Speaker 2 When I, when I was growing up in Boston in the 70s, it's but the cold weather city is, you know, it's pretty miserable for like four or five months. And Canada has this too.
I know Will knows.

Speaker 2 But, um, you know, the sports teams take this outsized importance of.

Speaker 2 just like they the kind of what however the teams are doing kind of sets the mood of the city yeah and you know when bird showed up for for the Celtics in 1979, and we realized like pretty quickly, like, this is one of the most special athletes in any sport.

Speaker 2 And we get to go on this ride with him for the next 10, 12 years. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's when it goes to a whole other level. Like, Cleveland had that with LeBron, and the Lakers had that with Kobe.
And, you know, you just kind of hit the lottery when it happens.

Speaker 2 And that's going to make everyone care more.

Speaker 1 Bill, you know,

Speaker 1 I remember distinctly thinking this at the time. And Sean, again, this kind of goes to the way it makes you feel.
I remember when Tiger, starting in sort of 99 through 2008, really up to the 2008 U.S.

Speaker 1 Open, in that time, he did something that was so spectacular. And I remember thinking, and there were people who didn't like him.

Speaker 1 I remember thinking, we have, I hope we all appreciate how incredible it is what this guy is doing. It was so.
And that we're alive during it. And we're alive.
And we get to watch it in real time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that is cool. That is cool.

Speaker 2 I thought the way about Jason with Ozark, who was saying that there he was, I agree.

Speaker 2 I can't believe I'm a member of the species.

Speaker 1 And do we get to with the slow blink?

Speaker 1 With the slow blink that McConaughey pointed out. Do you know McConaughey pointed out that Jason's got the best slow blink?

Speaker 2 He's a slow bank Hall of Famer.

Speaker 1 To be honest, I'm not sure what that compliment was, but I took it. I loved it.
I have thought about it every moment since I said that. I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday.

Speaker 1 I was like, I tried to do a slow blink, and I realized, wait, I can't see what I'm doing. So I'm not sure what he's talking about.
That's good.

Speaker 1 Hey, Bill, I don't mean to back you into anything controversial, so feel free to pull the ripcord if it if it is. But

Speaker 1 online sports betting that is now sort of

Speaker 1 really all over the place on television and

Speaker 1 online and whatnot.

Speaker 1 How do you feel about, are you worried about your average sports viewer, especially?

Speaker 1 Because when you started talking about the six-year-old, you know, like pretty soon he's going to have a phone and he's going to have like a, you know, an allowance every week, and he's going to be able to make little bets prompted by the on-air announcers saying, hey, listen, if you're, if you're thinking this might be a field goal versus a touchdown, you can bet right now.

Speaker 1 Like people are going to get hurt. And I'm wondering how you feel about that being in the, in the, in the space right now.

Speaker 2 Well, the way the apps are set up, it's impossible for. any non-adult to just start a gambling account.
Like my son is a sophomore in high school. He can't like gamble because he's not allowed.

Speaker 2 So they have a lot of checks and balances with that. I just think this is where it's been going

Speaker 2 really for the last 20 years. Like I remember when my first couple years at ESP.com, gambling was like a big part of the way my friends and I talked about sports.

Speaker 2 And they wouldn't even let me write a gambling column the first year in 2001 with the spreads.

Speaker 1 But the on-air announcer is sort of encouraging that.

Speaker 1 Do you feel like that's on the same side of the world?

Speaker 2 I don't know if they're encouraging it as much as it's part of the dialogue of sports now to put

Speaker 2 it.

Speaker 1 And I think the network is a participant in that action.

Speaker 1 I could be wrong when they're talking about.

Speaker 2 Well, ESPN just did a deal, ESPN BET, they're calling it. I mean,

Speaker 2 I think they all kind of see where it's going.

Speaker 1 They're doing that with Penn? Yeah, they.

Speaker 1 But, Bill,

Speaker 1 again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 You know, the NFL has,

Speaker 1 all sports, but certainly the NFL always posted the odds in the newspaper for as long as it was always about that, right? From day one.

Speaker 2 It's just more overt than it used to be.

Speaker 2 I mean, like, teams will get fined if they didn't report injuries. Why are they getting fined? Because

Speaker 2 it affected the spreads.

Speaker 1 Then how does it can you reconcile it with

Speaker 1 the position that baseball took against Pete Rose gambling on baseball? And now they're actually a partner of gambling with baseball.

Speaker 2 No, but you can't because the Pete Rose thing, he was betting on his own team. Right.
And he was managing that team.

Speaker 1 So he could affect the outcome predictive.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and they've been cracking down on, they don't want the players to gamble on anything. Right.
And there's been, especially in football, there's been a few guys that got nailed.

Speaker 2 But if you go back to the history of the sports, like there's been gambling scandals in every area.

Speaker 1 But there was a ref basketball that just did it, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 There's been college basketball in the 50s. There was that huge scandal, right? A point shaving way back when.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it almost killed college basketball. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What's weird is there's so much attention on it now. It would be really hard to fix anything.
Anytime something's out of whack, everybody, all the casinos, everybody kind of knows.

Speaker 2 So they get caught like immediately. So

Speaker 2 yeah, it's part of the dialogue. I just think it's a generational thing.

Speaker 2 I think for like our kids' generation, they're just more used to hearing the announcers talk about it and the dialogue of these guys were favored by nine. Al Michaels used to be on Sunday Night NBC.

Speaker 2 Great Al Michaels. And he would always be, he would always be discreetly kind of mentioning the line without mentioning it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That was a big field goal for some people out there. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Someone miss an extra point inside the last two minutes. They go, yeah.

Speaker 2 So now it's just kind of out in the open. Yeah.
Yeah. So I'm good with it.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 And back to the show.

Speaker 1 How are you as a sports gambler?

Speaker 1 Do you do it? Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Are you any? You must be good.

Speaker 1 I acknowledge it. I go up and down.

Speaker 2 I know you're trying to jinx me right now, but yeah,

Speaker 2 I have a long history. I started gambling in 1990 because the Patriots went one in 15.

Speaker 2 And it were only two games on. And we were in college.

Speaker 2 you know the patriots were terrible and it was like this foot this is the worst football season ever and you've made a million and we had a buddy on a yeah a buddy on my hall was like I have a book here like what and we start like betting on football and all of a sudden I had all these favorite teams it wasn't just the Patriots yeah so yeah it's been a long journey I've written about it a lot and uh I've had a lot of fun with it but now there's like so much analytics and analysis that go with it.

Speaker 2 Like like Sal and I, Jimmy's cousin Sal, we do a Sunday night podcast on MyPod and we did this over under with the win totals last year and we did great.

Speaker 2 Like I went like on the win totals whether a team was going to go over or under. I went 24, seven and one.
It was the best I've ever done. And I was more excited about that than anything.

Speaker 1 Over or under a certain number of wins for the year?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so they'll say, like, the Giants are seven and a half. You're like, you're going to go over or under.
And we just like, and we were like so proud of ourselves that we did well.

Speaker 2 But there's been other years where we're like, oh my God,

Speaker 1 we're getting annihilated.

Speaker 2 Does God hate us?

Speaker 1 Does that translate to fantasy sports prowess? Are you really good at it?

Speaker 1 I was wanting to ask you if you're into

Speaker 1 fantasy sports.

Speaker 2 Oh, I was I was in the first wave.

Speaker 2 I was in basketball leagues in the 80s, baseball leagues in 1982, football since 1990.

Speaker 1 What's the name of the ⁇ wasn't there a baseball group early on in ESPN?

Speaker 1 What was it called?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wasn't in that, but yeah, it started in the early 80s. There's a bunch of people that have tried to claim they started the first fantasy league.

Speaker 1 No, but this was like these guys are like the best, supposedly. I forget what it was called, but I wonder if you're...

Speaker 2 Well, I'm in the Kimmel League where we vote everybody out. And and Sal has the hammer this year, and I think he's going to vote me out for comedy's sake.

Speaker 1 What? Because the trash talk's not good enough?

Speaker 2 Well, we show up, and there's 11 owners, and only 10 stay. And at the beginning of the draft, the guy who won the draft the year before votes out one of the 10, one of the other 10.
Really?

Speaker 2 And you just have to get up and get the F out. We had John Hammond in it, and he showed up late because he was filming Mad Men.
And we waited, waited, waited.

Speaker 2 He showed up like a half hour late, comes in, sorry, guys, sorry, gets a beer, sits down, and then he got voted out. And he just like drank the beer.

Speaker 1 That's it. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I'm the commissioner of my baseball league. It's the worst league of the world because I don't think that there's not one trash talk at all through the entire season.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the 90s were so much more fun. Yeah, the 90s people get mad.
The draft was like really vicious.

Speaker 1 And everybody's nicer.

Speaker 1 I have a question about

Speaker 1 this stuff.

Speaker 1 So, what about

Speaker 1 you? Want to focus on the fantasy part of it? Go. No.
Yeah, exactly. No, why, and I think, Jason, well, I think I may have asked this on another episode of our podcast, so we can cut it if so.

Speaker 1 But if all the smartless available wherever you get podcasts, yes, on smartless. But you can get it early on Wondry without asking.

Speaker 1 Did you realize that? I read about all of these crazy, unbelievably massive amounts of money thrown around to all these players for all these teams, right? These contracts that these guys are making.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 if these teams and owners and and all these people have literally billions of dollars it seems like why wouldn't they just go buy every single top player and create and have that one team if they have all this money bill

Speaker 1 you'll be more you'll be more concise no i mean but there's a there's an action the dodgers kind of tried that it's working

Speaker 1 well because there are a there are rules there are rules as to how much you you can actually spend most of the time there's rules but over over a certain number you'd then have to start paying a punitive uh tax tax on that.

Speaker 1 But how would you explain what's going on with the Yankees and the Red Sox this year with all their payroll? Aren't they the last two in the American League East?

Speaker 2 The Yankees thing is great.

Speaker 1 Aren't the Red Sox cozied up next to them?

Speaker 2 The Red Sox aren't winning the title, but what's happened to the Yankees is kind of like my World Series this year. Their fans are so upset.

Speaker 2 They have George Steinbrenner's loser son Hal runs the team, and it's like the classic,

Speaker 2 like the son who had the only reason he is in charge of anything is just because he was related to his dad, which is always the best and funniest scenario in the sport.

Speaker 1 By the way, it's funniest thing in any arena. I know this is good.
That's good. I love the idea.
Giuliani's son running his defense.

Speaker 2 But, like, think if Hollywood ran this, where like Bob Acker's retiring. His son is now the president of Disney.

Speaker 1 Like, it would never happen.

Speaker 2 But in sports, they just hand the teams off.

Speaker 1 I love kids who are born on third and score on a wild pitch. I love that storyline.
It's so great. They just have zero talent and yet just because their dad had a ton of dough.
Yeah. Bill,

Speaker 1 you know what? When we were talking about sport, I want to get back to Sean's question, Bill, and hear what you think about this,

Speaker 1 about

Speaker 1 why can't the owners just go, we were talking about the Red Sox and Yankees, and they do try to do that, and they've had, and you're jumping with glee at how much the Yankees have spent and to no success.

Speaker 1 Really what's happening, again, to bring, I don't want to bring everything back to soccer, but if you look what's happening in the last year in soccer, the Saudis,

Speaker 1 in fact, the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, which took control of the top four or five clubs, has now provided enough funds for them to go and poach from all the major European leagues, all these top stars, and pay them these salaries, Sean.

Speaker 1 Neymar just signed a 300 million dollar deal for two years.

Speaker 1 Plus, they paid a release clause of 80 million Euros to PSG.

Speaker 1 They apparently offered Mbappe 750 million Euros to play for one year.

Speaker 1 Ronaldo's getting 400 a year. I mean, this is, they're doing that exact thing that

Speaker 1 you're talking about. And, Bill, what do you think that something like that does to the balance of world sport?

Speaker 2 Well, soccer, it's just basically a free market and they're all maniacs. I think the NBA had a little bit of this issue where

Speaker 2 they had this luxury tax and it was punitive. But then you had a team like the Warriors that were saying, well, screw it.
You know, we're in San Francisco. We make a shitload of money.

Speaker 2 We want to win the title every year. And they had like a three, with the tax, they paid like $350 million for last year's team.

Speaker 2 So in the new collective bargaining agreement, they changed it so that, all right, if you go over this number, not only is there a tax, but now you're going to have

Speaker 2 issues with your draft picks, issues with how you fill out your roster. You're not going to be able to do trades as easily.
Oh, really? And they really made it harder.

Speaker 2 And now, but what's funny is there's always some new owner. It's always a rich guy.
They come in, like, obviously a rich guy. They own the team, but like some newer wave rich guy.

Speaker 2 So the guy bought Phoenix, this guy, Matt Ishbay, who actually kind of like, he's a fun character.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I kind of like him too.

Speaker 2 But he came in and he's just like, they all want to zag, right? They're like, everybody's going this way. I'm going to zag.

Speaker 2 And he's like, we don't care about draft picks. We're going to pay for Kevin Durant.
We traded for Bradley Beal. We're going to have this crazy payroll.

Speaker 2 And like, everybody else is afraid of the luxury tax. I'm not afraid.
And those are always my favorite owners. Like Brooklyn got bought by this Russian guy, Prokhorov, in the early 2010s.

Speaker 2 And he's like, I'm going to spend. And just made all these crazy moves.
And then two years later, he's like, ah.

Speaker 2 I don't want to do this anymore. And then just stopped spending money.
And the Celtics had all their draft picks.

Speaker 2 So the whims of these guys that they, you know, they see these teams as like these toys and these things to play with.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But meanwhile, all these, you know, hundreds of thousands of fans are attached to the team. Yeah.
And these guys can just run roughshod, which is what's happened with the Yankees now.

Speaker 2 It's owned by the owner, the dead owner's son, and he just won't fire anybody and they're in chaos.

Speaker 1 Well, it occurs to me that you can almost draw a parallel between that and maybe any business, but certainly our business that you have these big sort of rich guys who either enrich themselves or control these big corporations.

Speaker 1 They're driven by, you know, whatever, the stock price, et cetera. And there's no actual reverence for the thing itself, right? So culturally, they don't really care about what impacts.

Speaker 1 So they come and they go, I'm going to buy this team. Well, hey, look, it's really bad for basketball or it's really bad for soccer.
And they're like, I don't give a shit.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be dead in 15 years. I just want to win a couple of championships.
I don't give a shit. And that's happening in entertainment.

Speaker 1 These guys came in, these people come in, they run it, and they're like potentially destroying it. And they're like, I don't give a shit.

Speaker 1 I just want to strip it down, sell the pieces off, and I don't give a fuck if it fucks culturally with this, you know, this, this thing.

Speaker 2 Is this why Dr.

Speaker 1 Pimple Popper is on the lead cover of max right now instead of succession or curb enthusiast that's exactly why hey hey uh hey bill do you do you think that the fan base to your point about how the all these hundreds of thousands of people are associated and attached to each team and the fan base yeah does the fan base really have any leverage like if an owner is just no in a tailspin no can they can they strike effectively instead of we just saw it with the washington football fans they had this owner who was daniel snyder who was like the worst owner he was like the championship belt holder every year and he sucked the life out of the franchise and the city to the point that, you know, they would have a home game and they'd have more fans of the other team.

Speaker 2 And everybody was like, I'm out until this guy's gone.

Speaker 1 And it really had no impact on him. It's the TV rights that really have the leverage.
And financially, they still sold for how many billion?

Speaker 2 Right. Well, what happened was the sponsors started fleeing.
And it became, and then he had a couple other things.

Speaker 1 But that's because of his behavior personally. And his behavior wasn't great.

Speaker 2 But that's the thing. These guys, like the Phoenix Suns owner, had this whole toxic environment and they made him sell.

Speaker 2 And then he sells and he sells for like a record price, you know?

Speaker 1 So Sterling made a bunch of

Speaker 1 same thing.

Speaker 2 Right. Sterling's the worst guy probably who's ever owned a team.
And, you know, he cashed out and made more money than anybody else.

Speaker 1 My feeling on that,

Speaker 1 I've thought about it since that sale and that everything that went down. And then his family was trying to block him from selling it to Steve Ballmer back in the day, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 And then they were claiming that he was sort of unfit to make the deal, Sterling himself, and all this stuff. And I think it was all by design to drive the price up.

Speaker 1 Now, I'm a cynic, but I do think that that was all by design because the more that the family was fighting and they were saying the price just kept going up just to grab it.

Speaker 2 Oh, no question. I have had Clipper season tickets for 20 years because I got them to go see the other teams.

Speaker 2 But I got to know a lot of the people in my section. And Sterling would show up and he'd be dressed in all black and he'd sit courtside.
And it was, he was like the fucking Grim Reaper.

Speaker 2 And he would go, and

Speaker 2 this team had such a malaise. And then you have the Lakers on the other side that are like one of the jewels of the league.
And

Speaker 2 it was like a fascinating sociology experiment to watch this fan base.

Speaker 2 Basically, their hope was either he's going to sell or they're going to stumble into some draft pick that will get them LeBron. But if neither of those things happen, I'm here to see the other teams.

Speaker 2 And that was kind of the vibe.

Speaker 1 So, Bill, not to embarrass you, but you've done very, very well financially with all of your

Speaker 1 all of your

Speaker 1 efforts.

Speaker 1 Well, not like you. Junior.
Junior. And we're trying.
But you're crushing it.

Speaker 1 My question is, because you mentioned courtside seats.

Speaker 1 What's the thing that you could never afford that once you started really doing well,

Speaker 1 you treated yourself to? It doesn't have to be sports-based.

Speaker 1 I can guess one thing, because you're living in Wayne Manor, it looks like. Yeah, it looks like a high Wayne Manor.

Speaker 1 But because you seem like you've really kept very close contact with your sort of

Speaker 1 simpler self, you know, and I don't mean that as a pejorative, but you're a very normal guy, which is great. So

Speaker 1 is it, how are you, does it, is it comfortable to say, well, you know, you're not, you're a very, you're a, you're a mogul, but you don't seem like one.

Speaker 1 You're wearing a t-shirt and you're just talking with the us idiots. And so

Speaker 1 how are you able to match all of your

Speaker 1 dreams? All of the, yeah, all your dreams with trying to stay grounded.

Speaker 2 I've never, well, just on the courtside seats thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 They're actually like, it's like a pretty bad seat.

Speaker 1 Have you ever, but they're expensive.

Speaker 2 Like if you're at a basketball game,

Speaker 2 I'm always like amazed people spend that amount of money. I think it's really just to be kind of seen on the court.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 But you're, you're, you're too close. Like the seats I have for the Cooper games were like four or five rows up.
Same for my dad's Celtic tickets that he's had for like 52 years.

Speaker 2 And there's perspective and you can actually watch it. The courtside thing,

Speaker 1 like sitting in front row in a movie theater. I always say that about hockey games.
People who are like, I'm right down in the glass. I'm like, great, you got the worst seats in the house.

Speaker 1 You can't see shit. You want to be hockey? You want to be 10, 15 rows up.
You can see the space between between the red lines.

Speaker 2 Or right between, right behind the goalie is cool because we had those king seats for a couple years.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's cool too.

Speaker 2 That's where you're like, how are, how is every goalie not just completely traumatized and in a mental hospital?

Speaker 2 When you see like what happens to them their whole lives it's just like they're getting just things fired at them there's all this commotion in front of them they're falling they're jumping up they're falling and you're like how is any of these guys they are healthy yeah straitjacket bill what do you do when you're not watching sports what's your thing this is sort of a uh a jason bateman question what what's the thing what's your what's your guilty guilty yeah your guilty pleasure do you that you watch or you do or you read or something that's outside of the realm of what you do professionally well oh outside because it's a lot of sports movies movies and tv and i host this rewatchables podcast where we do a podcast about a movie every week that people really like and yes it's fun to like try to figure out is that rewatchables worthy or not and then if it is i'll watch it twice but but is there something else that you do that's outside of that or no you mean just like my personal stuff yeah your personal stuff i i've yeah i have two kids um a lot of kid sports both of my kids are athletes um what do they play My son is football and lacrosse.

Speaker 2 My daughter is playing soccer actually in college right now. So

Speaker 2 I had a lot of, there's a lot of sports parent stuff that kind of took over. And then, you know, still playing tennis and still a lot of like stuff with the friends.

Speaker 2 You know, you find your little friend group as you get older and you do the dinners and then somebody gets mad at somebody and you talk about it the next day. It's great.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, we can't believe we had you

Speaker 1 forever.

Speaker 1 You're the man. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Thank you for doing this again.

Speaker 2 I can't wait for you guys not to run this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we promise to air this one. promise

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 and uh go socks until the uh until the world series uh and then we'll let the dodgers i agree go socks we won't be in the world series don't worry i'll give you the red socks celtics and celtics

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 2 and by the way guys it's uh it was cool to be on the test show and then watch how the podcast blossomed i remember telling Bateman, I was like, do you want to guys want to do this at Spotify?

Speaker 2 I was like, no, I think we're going to hold on to this. We kind of like just kind of being in control of it.
And it turned out to be very smart.

Speaker 1 Well, we'll see. But we're certainly having we're in the bed on ourselves.
Oh, no, it's true. Thank you for making the bed that we're enjoying resting in.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Good to see everybody.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 You too, Publisher. Thanks, Bill.
See you, man. Bye, buddy.

Speaker 1 Well, that is a

Speaker 1 good man for coming back.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was so long ago, I didn't remember anything we talked about. So I'm glad.

Speaker 1 It was well over three years ago that we first had him on.

Speaker 1 It was one of our first shows, and we asked him about the podcast business because we now, if you can imagine, knew he was still right, didn't he? Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's his first.

Speaker 1 And then we got very topical at the time. And so, yeah, it just didn't work.
And Jason's... Kudos to you for bringing him back because he's such a definitely interesting guy.

Speaker 1 I could talk to him forever about everything. I really admire that he's been able to just crush it in multiple areas.

Speaker 1 I know, how about we just stay so grounded? I've got a topic up and he fucking knows about it. It's crazy.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You don't want to get into an argument with him.

Speaker 1 He'll kill you.

Speaker 1 So who's going to be? How's the buy work coming, Sean? Yeah, Sean, how is the by work coming? Well, I can't really. You're glitched.

Speaker 1 Do it, but I know you've been working on it for probably 40 minutes. You're wearing, oh, you're not wearing your regular glasses.
You're wearing your

Speaker 1 phone.

Speaker 1 Split the assist from our net. Bye.

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