Hour 1: Umbrellas Are For Losers (feat. Pablo Torre)

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Speaker 10 This is the Dan Labator Show with the Stoogats Podcast.

Speaker 10 Pablo!

Speaker 12 He dropped another Pablo at five o'clock this morning. We'll get some of the details in a moment.

Speaker 12 One of my favorite moments at ESPN, I'm going to have to make a top five list at some point of my favorite moments at ESPN, but one of my favorites was Pablo Torre dressed as an orca, listening to Jesse Ventura as he talked conspiracy theories.

Speaker 12 And now Pablo has joined us, which I believe is one of the laziest costumes I've ever seen.

Speaker 12 He's supposed to be a mummy to pay for his punishment of losing last week, and all he's done is wrap himself in toilet paper. Like this is.

Speaker 13 I see the mummy out. That's the punishment.

Speaker 14 I like it. I mean, okay, but he did.

Speaker 8 I don't know the way to wrap yourself up.

Speaker 16 Yeah, how else is this supposed to be?

Speaker 17 The whole body.

Speaker 17 The whole body.

Speaker 12 It's supposed to, if you're going to be a mummy, it's supposed to be the whole body.

Speaker 12 And it's supposed to be, you know, a wrap that's not toilet paper. It's supposed to be like ace bandages.

Speaker 18 You got two bucket punishments today, Dan.

Speaker 8 Be grateful.

Speaker 11 When you were a kid and you wrapped yourself like a mummy, we always use toilet paper.

Speaker 19 Historically so.

Speaker 16 Thank you, Zaz.

Speaker 12 So Pablo. Print media.

Speaker 16 Print media, Dan. I thought you were a fan of print media.
Pablo!

Speaker 12 He dropped another Pablo at 5 a.m. He is now at this point harassing the Clippers' PR department at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 12 They cannot sleep because of what what they have to wait for him to drop so what what i feel bad can i can i just say i feel bad for the leave it there

Speaker 16 leave it there yes go ahead yes go ahead i feel bad for the clippers if i can apologize to the clippers communications department we send them detailed questions

Speaker 17 you can clear your face

Speaker 16 We send them detailed questions the night before. They're the first ones to know what we're reporting.
And

Speaker 16 yeah, it's just not an easy job. I mean that very sincerely, actually.
It's just like not an easy job they have. I don't think they have all the information.

Speaker 16 And they are out here trying to do their best. And it's just, I feel genuinely bad as someone who interacts with PR people.

Speaker 11 Yo, can you come up with a new strategy for that toilet paper? You keep doing the same thing and it keeps falling down.

Speaker 16 Now it's too much toilet paper. Now enough toilet paper.
Now it's too much toilet paper.

Speaker 23 It's something different.

Speaker 8 He's right.

Speaker 3 You keep just like moving it up, it falls down.

Speaker 12 I got a bunch of questions, okay?

Speaker 8 Is one of them, is it two ply? Yeah.

Speaker 16 this is this is the I don't know if there's half ply, but this feels like what that is.

Speaker 24 This is

Speaker 12 cheap toilet paper on top of that. It's not that is toilet paper that does not look like it would be comfortable to use.

Speaker 16 There you go. No, we're good now.
We're good now.

Speaker 12 Uh, let's talk about what it is that you reported this morning, but before we do that, let's check in with Billy Gill, who is presently doing something that Kawhi Leonard allegedly, reportedly never did.

Speaker 12 He is planting a tree in order to save the earth. He is using both hands.
Can we get a microphone out to him so that Billy can give us an update? Look, this seems like it's almost complete, Billy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, roots in the ground, Dan, as they say in the planning community.

Speaker 25 We're pretty good here.

Speaker 3 I just got to kind of fill this in, and then I got to attach the Velcro straps to make sure this thing grows straight.

Speaker 4 But this little guy here is going to live a long, healthy life, I think. Hey, Pablo, it's Billy.

Speaker 16 That's a cool hat, Billy. It's a cool hat.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 8 It's a Wrangler.

Speaker 3 Rose's grandfather gave her $100 and she spent it on a cowboy hat and she brought it for me to wear today.

Speaker 16 It's the American dream, as far as I can tell.

Speaker 8 Crushing it damn.

Speaker 3 I believe he's from Guatemala, so maybe his American Guatemalan dream.

Speaker 16 The Guatemalan dream is also worthy of our consideration. In the power ranking of dreams, the Guatemalan dream doesn't get enough credit.

Speaker 23 Pablo and I'd like to clear this up.

Speaker 2 Excuse me, just a moment.

Speaker 3 I'd like to, for the record, say I am not saying Guatemalan dreams are lesser than American dreams are are not.

Speaker 23 I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

Speaker 25 That's what I heard.

Speaker 3 How about you zip it up since you just said an idea came from your heart, which is impossible.

Speaker 11 You don't know what's possible or not possible inside this body.

Speaker 12 This soda drinker's body.

Speaker 12 Pablo, what did you report this morning?

Speaker 16 I got Roy to

Speaker 16 be the lawyer in a courtroom reenactment of an exclusively obtained deposition transcript in which Joe Sandberg, the man who has pled guilty to wire fraud in the aspiration case, the man who has allegedly defrauded Steve Bommer, was asked questions about Steve Bommer.

Speaker 16 We had you, Dan, play Joe Sandberg. We had Roy play the lawyer for Joe Sandberg.
And I don't think that's the biggest story in our story. It's just my favorite part.
That Roy is in the episode. Well,

Speaker 12 how about the biggest part of the story for people who are not quite

Speaker 12 interested in Roy's role, acting role in this particular episode.

Speaker 16 Don't look at me. Roy crutched it.
Yeah, there it is.

Speaker 16 Steve Ballmer invested $118 million in 18 months into Aspiration. Him alongside the Clippers, alongside Team Balmer, let's just call it.

Speaker 16 Dennis Wong, previously established owner, co-owner of the Clippers. Steve Ballmer's college roommate, the CFO of the Clippers.

Speaker 16 We have documentation from him in which it is clear that he signed off on the purchase, pre-purchase, of $21 million in carbon credits, as Mark Cuban had hypothesized.

Speaker 16 Actually, a lot of this episode is admittedly about what Mark Cuban said would have happened if Steve Ballmer was absolutely guilty of capture convention.

Speaker 16 And then I just spent my life proving that actually he did the things that Mark Cuban hypothesized.

Speaker 16 So, yeah, a lot of carbon credit purchases two weeks before, in fact, they were due yet another Kawhi Leonard payment.

Speaker 16 So, you know, just a lot of that.

Speaker 12 Saz, why are you and Chris Cody laughing?

Speaker 27 I don't know.

Speaker 11 I'm a little embarrassed right now.

Speaker 11 Am I the only idiot that doesn't know what a carbon credit is?

Speaker 16 You're watching it in the bottom right corner of your screen. Billy is creating a carbon credit.
A carbon credit. It's a great question.
So it's meaningless.

Speaker 16 People, well, allegedly,

Speaker 16 a carbon credit, like everything in the world, I mean, trees,

Speaker 16 you, me, like, we have carbon in us. Our activities emit carbon.

Speaker 16 And so what you do is you create something, you plant a tree whose very existence, of course, as a recycler of air air can actually take carbon out, right? That's what trees do.

Speaker 16 They put out oxygen, they take in carbon.

Speaker 16 And so a carbon credit is literally the planting of a tree would be the very five-second, messy summary of a, frankly, now increasingly scrutinized business that was at the core of Aspiration in this episode and Steve Ballmer's alleged circumvention of the NBA salary cap.

Speaker 12 Am I going to have to fire the Reaper for coming in here without a mask? Like, am I going to have to disappear?

Speaker 1 That's Peter the Mind, man.

Speaker 8 That was not on nothing was on

Speaker 15 and also was wearing a mask I don't think that the reaper was wearing a mask just because you saw the reaper's hair I saw who the reaper was stop ruining everything not everyone has maybe maybe

Speaker 12 take some ownership of what you just did it wasn't on camera we were trying to move the show along Pablo, what would you tell people like Zaslow and Billy who are alleging that the

Speaker 12 league's not going to do anything, that Silver's not going to actually punish the Clippers?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I'm going to say this in the current form that I currently exist in, which is probably a miscalculation by me, because I think this question hinges on whether the NBA takes this reporting seriously.

Speaker 16 And I mean that.

Speaker 16 This is a story that has, frankly, astounded me in terms of just the interest from people.

Speaker 16 If you were to think about just the state, the stories that I've looked into, I didn't expect this one to be as big. And I don't think the NBA did either, frankly.

Speaker 16 And so I say all of that to say that the NBA is a wildly reactive organization. Keep in mind the salary caps, CBA circumvention, the rules are not real laws.

Speaker 16 They are things adjudicated by the commissioner. And so the question the commissioner is going to ask himself is, how small can I make this problem before it becomes a problem for us?

Speaker 16 And every episode, this is the fourth episode we've done in an ongoing investigative series, just indicates that the scope of this is genuinely unprecedented in terms of how elaborate it is, in terms of the implications for what people should have known but did not act upon, allegedly.

Speaker 16 And so the question of how could the NBA escape this, frankly, it depends upon how much people care about the story because the journalism, I just can't stress this enough despite what I am currently doing with you at this moment.

Speaker 16 The journalism could not be more serious in terms of how real the paperwork is. Documentation is the story of investigative journalism, and we have the documentation.

Speaker 16 When you don't have the documentation in the absence of, for instance, the note that says, I circumvented the cap, signed Steve with a heart emoji, you got to go to human sources, primary sources.

Speaker 16 I've given now an seemingly ongoing parade also of that.

Speaker 16 People who went on tape, people who are now signed, the CFO of the company, former CFO, the chief legal officer, the CTO, they're now on the record disputing the idea that Andre Cherny, the co-founder of Joe Sandberg of Aspiration,

Speaker 16 what he said, which is that this was not a no-show deal, that this was something that he doesn't remember the salary cap being involved in. Those three guys have co-signed the reporting.

Speaker 16 So, you know, I think it's just a matter of: are you a serious person? Are you a serious league? Even though you're being questioned by a person who is wrapped in half-ply toilet paper.

Speaker 11 I think Adam Silver has given off the impression, which is not, I mean, it's not just an impression, it's a fact, that he works for the owners, right? He works at the pleasure of the owners.

Speaker 11 And if Mark Cuban is defending Steve Bomber the way he is, even with all the evidence, the reporting in front of him, and he's not even an owner anymore, like what makes you believe that the other active owners don't feel the same way?

Speaker 16 Well, he's a 27%. He corrected me on this when I first interviewed him.
He's a 27% owner of the Mavs, SAS. He's a minority.
owner of the Mavs still. But you're right.

Speaker 16 The question was last week when Adam Silver goes in front of the Board of Governors in New York City at the St.

Speaker 16 Regis Hotel on Wednesday with Tuesday committees happening before that, in which Steve Ballmer, by the way, is the chair of the audit committee.

Speaker 16 The chair of the audit committee of NBA owners is the man under this investigation. And so the question of like, how do the other owners feel, I can tell you, I've spoken to,

Speaker 16 I can say I've spoken to four

Speaker 16 who think that it's absurd that this is something that the NBA plans potentially. on not punishing proportionate to the evidence.
And it's about the evidence. It's not about me.

Speaker 16 It's about the evidence I have surfaced.

Speaker 16 And Dan, by the way, Dan added to the reporting on this in the episode in terms of an owner who said before that meeting and during that meeting, Steve Ballmer gave us the sob story.

Speaker 16 And I should be clear, the sob story can coexist with the scam story. I keep on saying this.
Two things can be true. You can be defrauded by the person you partnered with to deceive the NBA.

Speaker 16 That's why this is so cinematic. There is pain.
There is suffering for Steve Ballmer.

Speaker 16 There's also the most unprecedented scheme, according to my reporting, in the history of salary capture convention.

Speaker 11 Pablo, does there have to be punishment laid down on the Clippers and Steve Ballmer for all of this to make you feel like your reporting is validated?

Speaker 16 I don't think it's about, frankly, not to sound like a politician. I think it's about...
the audience. It's about the fan base.

Speaker 16 It's about the presumption that when you watch sports, fair play as codified in the rules they call cardinal rules, that those things are being enforced.

Speaker 16 Like Adam Silver, in every statement he's given, and I've listened to all of them, talks about how he is a steward of integrity, not just brand integrity, but competitive integrity.

Speaker 16 I think the question I would have as somebody who cares about the sport, as a caretaker of the sport, is, does this undermine the legitimacy of our game from a purely what does this look like to everyone who wants to care about it, invest money in it, compete in it, buy teams in it?

Speaker 16 And then, Zaz, you get all the other stuff, right? And the other stuff involves, by the way, yes, the economics of the league.

Speaker 16 So people may not realize this, but Capstra Convention is really meaningful to these owners I've been speaking to, not simply because it is a rule that they are trying not to break in this way, that now, according to my reporting, Steve Ballmer has broken in this fantastical, over-the-top way.

Speaker 16 The thing they care about is also the valuations of teams. So the economics of an NBA team, it's really premised on how much do you spend and therefore how much should this asset be valued?

Speaker 16 What Steve Ballmer, the richest owner and all of sports, one of the 10 richest people in the world, is proving that he is, he's proving that he's spending so much more, again, $118 million in 18 months on aspiration with the timeline corroborating the payments of this crazy Kawhi Leonard $48 million deal, that's where it becomes, wait a minute.

Speaker 16 So maybe these things aren't exactly the streamlined financial instruments that the MVA would otherwise like them to be.

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Speaker 38 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 40 Pablo leads all of podcasting in reading while smiling. If you listen to ESPN Daily, he sounds like he's having the time of his life.

Speaker 41 Stugats.

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Speaker 10 This is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugats.

Speaker 12 Billy, you have your hand raised.

Speaker 12 What would you like to ask Pablo?

Speaker 3 I have two questions. One, in terms of like the story,

Speaker 3 what was the other 70 million for?

Speaker 43 So if the, like it was funneled for Kawhi's 48, what was the other 70 for?

Speaker 16 Yeah, it's a really good question. So the thing that people need to understand as we go through this is that Steve Ballmer invests money into aspiration.

Speaker 16 Aspiration spends all of it virtually immediately. And this is an enormous part of following the money and the sources that I spoke to, provided documentation.

Speaker 16 And as well, by the way, as the documented financial filings, disclosure forms that all prove that everybody else saw what was happening, seemingly except for Steve Ballmer.

Speaker 16 As in, Aspiration got tons of money, $300 million in the fall of 2021, $50 million from Steve Ballmer, to Billy's question, in the fall of 2021. What happens after they get that money?

Speaker 16 They spend all of it before Kawhi Leonard's first payment in June of 2022 is due. And so the cycle here is Steve Ballmer puts in money.

Speaker 16 Aspiration asks for more money right when Kawhi Leonard must be paid.

Speaker 16 And so when I speak to the alleged defrauding of Steve Ballmer, this is how it can coexist, is that he was kind of trapped according to the sequence of events and according to what the timeline might suggest in this relationship in which he knew he had to support a company that was guarding the most embarrassing secret that he had.

Speaker 16 And so they had leverage, according to the reporting, over him in that regard. Although, of course, the degree to which he knew and when he knew remains, frankly,

Speaker 16 a crucially important topic for my investigation and the governments.

Speaker 12 Billy, hand raised, second question.

Speaker 3 Yeah, can you explain carbon credits to me? And are they similar to NFTs or crypto?

Speaker 8 Like, how does this work? You already asked that question.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah. You just made a carbon credit, Billy.
You just made it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but what is it worth?

Speaker 16 Well, it's worth, so typically, right? What you just did, people in the open market of carbon credits, they pay five to 10 cents for that, which you just did.

Speaker 16 Aspiration.

Speaker 35 Three hours.

Speaker 16 I know. Aspiration was charging a dollar.
Like that's the margin of like the carbon credits business.

Speaker 16 But your point, by the way, like what the CFTC is looking into, the federal agency that they regulate commodities, is whether a carbon credit is actually just a commodity, not unlike a stock.

Speaker 16 To your question, is like, what is this? An NFT? Is it a financial instrument? This is an active debate in government. Like,

Speaker 16 should we regulate these things like they are stocks? Because what they really are, according to all of the reporting I've done, they're a lot like widgets, right? They don't actually exist.

Speaker 16 It's the action of you planting this trial.

Speaker 3 No, this tree exists. I can confirm that.

Speaker 16 That's a lot more than that.

Speaker 4 How do I make money off of this is what I'm asking you.

Speaker 3 Cryptos are like $100,000. How much is this carbon credit going to get me?

Speaker 12 Seems like we're not paying very well, Metal Arc Media, if he's been working for three hours and we're going to give him 10 cents.

Speaker 8 That seems

Speaker 12 below minimum wage here.

Speaker 12 I've got a bunch of questions.

Speaker 12 And we don't have a lot of time left. So I would be flabbergasted and stunned given the evidence that Pablo is providing if the penalty wasn't hugely stiff.
Because

Speaker 12 you saw what happened with the Flake Gate. It's not as egregious as this.
Whatever the hell it was isn't as egregious as this.

Speaker 12 Like the idea that you would have these rules and circumvent them this flagrantly, Zaslo? Like this flagrantly. I just don't see a circumstance under which the penalty isn't enormous.

Speaker 11 I'm totally with everything that Pablo is saying that you just said as well. I just don't have any faith in Adam Silver laying down the hammer.

Speaker 11 I mean, Pablo, he got up in front of everybody the other day and said he's never heard of aspiration. That wasn't taken out of context.
Came right out of his mouth.

Speaker 11 And then a couple of days ago, he tells everybody, oh, no, I meant I never heard of the scandal. That is bullshit.

Speaker 16 Look, the thing that we have in the episode as well is that, to Zaz's point. So Adam Silver, without any ambiguity, says, frankly, I've never heard of aspiration in any way.

Speaker 16 There's really no wiggle room around the clarity of what he says. He says he's never seen anything related to an engagement with the Clippers.
He says that as well, or Kawhi Leonard.

Speaker 16 And then I get the contract, the actual contract for the $300 million founding sponsorship deal that the Clippers signed with Aspiration.

Speaker 16 And it says right there in the writing of it that these deals must be expressly approved and submitted to the NBA.

Speaker 16 And so, in front of a stage earlier this week, Dan Roberts of Front Office Sports asks Adam Silver about this thing I had just tweeted out.

Speaker 16 And then you get this statement, which if you go and watch the video,

Speaker 16 it does not, I think, fit into a plausible interpretation of what he had said before. And so the question then is, why

Speaker 16 did Adam Silver say the first thing when he said it? Why wasn't he actually aligned with what he says the second time?

Speaker 16 These are important questions speaking to the credibility of how a league is governed, let alone the fact, by the way, that this whole company was seemingly vetted.

Speaker 16 By apparently no one, including, and I want to make this point again, and it's a serious one to some extent.

Speaker 16 The reason why fraudsters keep on using sports is because they expect that if you're up in the signage of an arena, if you're a founding sponsor, if you have the naming rights deal of a building, it means that sports, which is so flush with cash and lawyers and respectability, it must be true that sports has vetted you and therefore you can trust them.

Speaker 16 We see this over and over and over again. You saw it with FTX in Miami.
We see it now again with Aspiration. You saw it with Enron in Houston.
It happens for a reason.

Speaker 16 And the question that the leagues now have to be asking themselves is, when do we actually fulfill the terms, the implicit terms of this trust that America has given us?

Speaker 16 Because right now it's a one-way transaction and a lot of people are getting scammed.

Speaker 12 A lot of people are searching for what Pablo has on this story.

Speaker 12 I would also say to everybody listening to this, if you want to check out what Pablo has done with Semaphore or Ethan Strauss, you can get more explanations for what Pablo is trying to do in general with Pablo.

Speaker 12 Torrey finds out selling old media basically to the internet and young people on the internet.

Speaker 12 One of the funny things about this story is the idea of people who can buy everything but can't get what it is that they want.

Speaker 12 The idea that Steve Ballmer couldn't get Kawhi Leonard to do the things that he needed Kawhi Leonard to do. Can you explain to me how much money Ballmer has more than the other owners, Pablo?

Speaker 16 He could buy out everyone else. He's the richest owner in all of sports, and it's not close.
He has $150 billion. He is the boogeyman when it comes to any contest in which money is the weapon.

Speaker 16 And what Steve Ballmer has done is, I think, live out this, frankly, this parable about sports, in which sports has more than ever the richest people in the world interested.

Speaker 16 For reasons, by the way, that I just alluded to, but also because of sincere fandom.

Speaker 16 Steve Ballmer is a hardcore basketball fan i interviewed him once when i was doing a story about harvard basketball and he told me about and this was of course many moons ago now he told me about how he was a scorekeeper charting assists and rebounds like that's the kind of hardcore basketball sicko he is he's cared about youth teams he's coached youth basketball and so the question is when you have everything you have all of the money in the world but the thing you want the most is something that because sports is governed by fair play and rules you cannot simply buy right it's one of the few few places left in civilization where you can't just buy the thing you want.

Speaker 16 You have to earn it. You got to win it in a fair competition.
The only thing resembling meritocracy we have left, frankly.

Speaker 16 Steve Ballmer cannot do that because in the NBA, there's a bleeping salary cap.

Speaker 16 And even when you circumvent the salary cap, you might end up with the one superstar who looks like Michael Jordan when he's healthy.

Speaker 16 But every other time you play with him or try to get him to play, he's a guy who seems to be rebelling against your mission specifically. It is maddening.
It is infuriating.

Speaker 16 And it's also why this story is, to me, like one of the great parables of wealth in America through the lens of sports.

Speaker 12 Thank you, Pablo, for your reporting and your work. It is tireless.
It is exhaustive. Pablo Torrey finds out is where you go.

Speaker 12 You mentioned, Pablo, that, you know, the words infuriated and everything else. And I'm looking at the Reaper again.
And the Reaper looks pissed off with everyone here for keeping him waiting.

Speaker 12 So thank you, Pablo. We will talk to you later.

Speaker 12 Appreciate the reporting. Billy is also seems to be done there.

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Speaker 17 Stugats.

Speaker 10 This is the Dan Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Speaker 12 Is the Reaper indeed ready? Is the Reaper ready to go? The Reaper seems very annoyed. Yeah, the Reaper is.
The Reaper is annoyed, and I think he's annoyed because of how shitty Pablo's costume is.

Speaker 16 Come on. Can I get it?

Speaker 16 Blame the Tennessee Titans.

Speaker 8 Pablo, you did great.

Speaker 14 Thank you, Pablo.

Speaker 12 Appreciate it.

Speaker 16 Thanks for the money, Dan.

Speaker 12 You should be thanking everyone here, including Billy, who's working for 10 cents for three hours because it's everybody's money that you're spending. The Dentech bucket.

Speaker 28 Oh, Dano.

Speaker 22 We're ready to go.

Speaker 24 Put your mouthpieces in.

Speaker 28 The bucket is presented by Dentech's Ultimate Fantasy Football Punishment. Learn more and sign up your league at dentech.com.

Speaker 24 Fire and like punishment's being paid around here.

Speaker 38 I got the Baltimore Ravens.

Speaker 22 Monday night football against the Detroit Lions.

Speaker 23 Oh, I'm so four and a half point favorite.

Speaker 27 No, I'm putting it back.

Speaker 8 I am.

Speaker 18 I'm scared of it. I think the Lions are too good.

Speaker 27 Four and a half points. What? Favorite? You may not do better than that.

Speaker 8 What are you doing?

Speaker 38 I got the Rams.

Speaker 27 Congratulations.

Speaker 8 You swung them for plus three and a half. Going to Philadelphia.
That's fine.

Speaker 18 Going to the East. Jalen Hurts stinks.

Speaker 12 You lost eight points in that transaction.

Speaker 8 My mistake. Mike Ryan.

Speaker 23 I lost last week.

Speaker 27 I got to pay something off next week.

Speaker 8 LA Chargers.

Speaker 14 We've got the Broncos.

Speaker 23 Three and a half points. Favorite.

Speaker 24 I'm going to keep it.

Speaker 28 He's keeping it.

Speaker 8 You're not going to do a lot better than a three or four point favorite.

Speaker 20 Maybe you can get Buffalo tonight, but the biggest spread other than Buffalo is seven and a half Green Bay at Cleveland.

Speaker 28 And also Seattle at home against New Orleans.

Speaker 27 Carolina.

Speaker 8 Ooh, I'm sorry, Roy. You got to put that back.

Speaker 12 Carolina's at home, five and a half point dog against Atlanta.

Speaker 31 Oh, shit.

Speaker 23 I got death and fine bucket.

Speaker 27 All right, there's great, but nobody's repairing for me. Oh, that's this.

Speaker 8 You got this. Automatic death.

Speaker 27 So just death for you. All right, good job.

Speaker 25 I hate this game. We'll get you some money.

Speaker 24 Who's at the bucket, but you get the best.

Speaker 39 You can have Billy's 10 cents.

Speaker 28 I got the Bengals.

Speaker 32 Now you got Jake Browning against who's the backup at Minnesota?

Speaker 19 At Minnesota.

Speaker 24 Tyler, Taylor. Carson Wentz.

Speaker 23 Carson Wentz. Tarson Wentz.

Speaker 22 Taylor for Jets.

Speaker 12 What are you doing with Tyrod Taylor? You can get that back.

Speaker 12 A good guess, though,

Speaker 12 I always guess that Tyrod Taylor is the backup.

Speaker 28 At Washington, plus three and a half.

Speaker 4 I have the Raiders.

Speaker 15 You put back a three and a half to get a three and a half.

Speaker 28 All right, Zazlo or Dan, who's going here?

Speaker 29 There's a chance that Jaden Daniels is held out of that game.

Speaker 17 Mark Lufferio.

Speaker 12 The Jags, don't touch them at all.

Speaker 8 They're at home.

Speaker 12 Two and a half points favorite against Houston.

Speaker 8 No, I got what I've got.

Speaker 27 One to Houston.

Speaker 24 Dush for a team, but that offense has been not fun to watch over the last two seasons.

Speaker 12 You're tired of hearing me say pressure out the

Speaker 8 tired. He's been bad longer than he's been good.

Speaker 24 I got the bang lock.

Speaker 8 The bang dog.

Speaker 18 Three and a half point dog, but you go, you go up against Christian once.

Speaker 27 No, no.

Speaker 23 Minnesota.

Speaker 8 The Jets. I'm going to go ahead and get a half back right there.
Plus six and a half

Speaker 8 throwbacks this week.

Speaker 27 Beautiful creamsicle throwbacks.

Speaker 38 And Dan is stuck with, oh, God, the biggest underdog all right Dan you like dressing up though you're good

Speaker 27 the saints

Speaker 12 just straight garbage the saints Billy going to the bucket

Speaker 23 Billy are you going to the bucket wait why am I asking him let me pick for Billy let me pick for Billy on the show today that means to go to the bucket

Speaker 27 this is for Billy the commanders the commies

Speaker 13 minus three and a half at home against the Raiders.

Speaker 13 He said no. The bylaws.

Speaker 30 No.

Speaker 12 I'm going to pick for you if you don't make a pick. I don't care.

Speaker 18 You can keep the students. The bylaws.

Speaker 23 I'm throwing it there.

Speaker 3 You need to be in the studio.

Speaker 8 He doesn't know what to do. That's not true.

Speaker 23 You just need to be on the show. He's got the Cowboys.
That's official.

Speaker 12 The Cowboys

Speaker 23 are awarded. We're not going to start following the favourite against the Bears.

Speaker 23 He's got the Cowboys.

Speaker 8 Bylaws State. Pablo's got...
He's going to be in the studio. Turn him down.

Speaker 18 He's got the Cowboys.

Speaker 12 Pablo's got, thank you for your service. Army, Navy, Air Force.

Speaker 8 Maybe he's on a bar.

Speaker 32 There you go.

Speaker 12 Congratulations to Pablo. He got an extra week to prepare for Venezuela.

Speaker 12 He gets rewarded. Billy, so close us out there from the undisclosed location.
Give us all of the reports we need. Give us,

Speaker 12 that is a tree that you are now proud of. It is a tree.
It looks like it is properly planted. It is straight.
Was it hard to get it straight?

Speaker 3 Well, I used this

Speaker 3 steak thing that I velcroed the tree to with plant velcro. So hopefully this thing grows and we have some guava soon.

Speaker 12 Back to you, Dan. How are you feeling in general about everything that you did out there? 10 cents of saving the earth?

Speaker 31 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 3 I created some carbon credits. So good for us.
This is our third tree that we planted, and we're doing it one tree at a time.

Speaker 12 All right, Petering out. He's tired from all of the manual labor.
It's wet.

Speaker 29 It's annoying.

Speaker 12 It's unpleasant.

Speaker 8 Honestly,

Speaker 3 this work was worth three cents and screw the environment.

Speaker 27 That's why Kawaii didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 Who cares? Exactly right.

Speaker 2 What a waste of everybody's time planting trees. Who cares?

Speaker 12 All right. Good work.
Way to save the earth.

Speaker 13 Are we going to shout at Danny one more time? No? All right.

Speaker 12 No, that's enough of that. He is all wet.
It's unpleasant to be wet. And in general,

Speaker 12 the socks is the worst.

Speaker 27 Oh, I just got warm socks.

Speaker 12 It's delightful. Socks or underwear? Put it on the poll at Lebatard show.
Wet socks are the worst. What's the worst? Socks or wet socks or wet underwear at Lebatard show?

Speaker 12 Because those are your two choices.

Speaker 20 Brother, if you're underwear or wet,

Speaker 12 really?

Speaker 12 Really? Okay.

Speaker 8 Okay, that's for someone.

Speaker 12 That's sensual Chris Berman. Is that who that was?

Speaker 12 Okay, thank you.

Speaker 12 Thank you, Danny. Why were your socks wet, Chris Cody?

Speaker 28 Because it was pouring when I walked in this morning and my whole, I did the thing.

Speaker 8 I didn't have a, I don't have an, I need to have an umbrella in my car. What am I doing with my life if I don't have an umbrella in my car?

Speaker 29 Damn near 40. No umbrella.

Speaker 33 After 40 years without an umbrella, I'm going to keep marching on it.

Speaker 8 Embarrassing thing to do in public.

Speaker 28 I had a sweater in my backpack that was not like water resistant.

Speaker 8 It was just like a cold, like a cloth.

Speaker 11 I couldn't tell you the last time I was outside, it was raining, and I said, where's my umbrella?

Speaker 31 I can't do that.

Speaker 23 Can you imagine? But when it's picture me.

Speaker 8 You're wearing an umbrella and walking with it.

Speaker 28 Picture me running across the street. I'm running across the street with a

Speaker 39 wool

Speaker 3 sweater over me. So what? Ugh.

Speaker 28 My shoes were wet.

Speaker 8 My socks were wet. I finally got it.

Speaker 12 I've never owned an umbrella.

Speaker 8 Oh, here we go. South Florida.
I just have it.

Speaker 33 Good on you.

Speaker 8 Good on you. What is

Speaker 8 it with you people?

Speaker 15 Proud of you.

Speaker 11 You're walking around outside with an umbrella like a Mary Poppins? You have an boring rain. You have an umbrella.

Speaker 28 I'm going to text your wife.

Speaker 29 That may be for other people.

Speaker 20 She might have one.

Speaker 39 I got news for you.

Speaker 21 I've never owned an umbrella. I've never gone in my store and gotten an umbrella.

Speaker 12 I've never purchased an umbrella.

Speaker 39 Wow, the penguin?

Speaker 12 It's like asking me

Speaker 32 if I've ever purchased a parasol. You know what I'll do?

Speaker 33 I'll literally put my head down and just keep marching on. Yeah.

Speaker 18 Like any red-blooded American man should.

Speaker 33 Yellow West, so what?

Speaker 17 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 I have a computer with me.

Speaker 8 I don't want it to get wet.

Speaker 34 Look at these people with their umbrellas.

Speaker 23 They're looking really happy. Look at that.
Poor loser.

Speaker 8 Dork.

Speaker 12 I'm not going to judge others for having one.

Speaker 8 I will. I didn't know what Mike was talking about, but now I see that guy.

Speaker 31 He looks like a loser.

Speaker 8 Ridiculous.

Speaker 12 I wouldn't go that far.

Speaker 23 No, I would.

Speaker 36 That's not far enough.

Speaker 12 Really? You want want to call it? Not far enough.

Speaker 8 You want to call somebody who's walking around who wants to stay dry and opens up an umbrella?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 8 Look at these people protecting their equipment.

Speaker 29 Can you imagine?

Speaker 12 I need to stop what we're doing here and celebrate that Billy did indeed pay a punishment.

Speaker 12 It has been a long time since Billy paid a punishment, and I wish for the audience to see the last time that Billy paid a punishment because I think that this is one of the funniest things to ever happen on the show.

Speaker 12 We are talking to the actor Rob Delaney. Rob Delaney is at the time promoting a book in which he is talking about the most serious of subject matter,

Speaker 12 the passing of his son. And it's just, you're saying to yourself, how can that possibly be funny? Well, watch and listen.
And I don't know what your pain is exactly, right?

Speaker 12 I can't possibly know, even though

Speaker 12 you've written a book. But

Speaker 12 I feel like I lost a son because I raised him.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah. It's it's brutal.
And I'm glad that you are talking about it. I'm so incredibly sorry.
I'm glad that you're crying and that people can hear that. Because

Speaker 16 the pain.

Speaker 12 There's an old-timing baseball player here, Rob.

Speaker 22 Like, what? Yes, thank you.

Speaker 12 Like, I can't cry in front of these people. Do you know how weak it is? Do you know?

Speaker 12 I'm a blubbering idiot, Rob. I need this to be funny.

Speaker 17 Like, look, there's an old, there's an old-timing baseball player. Rob.

Speaker 45 I know you feel weak, but at least you weren't holding an umbrella.

Speaker 26 But it came off way worse.

Speaker 26 Man.

Speaker 28 One of our best cuts ever to Billy there.

Speaker 12 If you are just listening and not watching, you don't know how

Speaker 12 funny it is that in the middle of that, the camera panned to Billy, who was dressed like a 1919 baseball player wearing a ridiculously white fake mustache and staring down the camera.

Speaker 12 But that's funny for a number of reasons.

Speaker 23 The size of the hat is

Speaker 12 what's helping here so much because we simply haven't worn hats that way in 100 years.

Speaker 12 In a hundred years.

Speaker 12 And so finally, some punishments got paid off around here. It's a time of great celebration.

Speaker 12 We finally, now Pablo, you got to admit, though, Pablo, Pablo's mummy costume, he just went and got a roll of toilet paper. Like we can't make that that easy.

Speaker 22 That's what that is.

Speaker 7 In fact, that's what it was the last time we did one of those.

Speaker 11 How else should you mummify it?

Speaker 19 You want ace bandages?

Speaker 35 Yes.

Speaker 36 You want them to go to Stan Winston?

Speaker 12 I want full body. Look, we have to respect the costumes.
Like, we have to respect that these are punishments.

Speaker 7 Don't you, like, for like 20 straight Halloweens, didn't you just put on a clown wig?

Speaker 12 You will not question my costume integrity in public or show us how it's done.

Speaker 24 Come in as a colleague.

Speaker 12 I have shown you how it's done.

Speaker 18 We'll see you as a mummy tomorrow then?

Speaker 7 It was a Rasa wig, which honestly doesn't scream ally on it.

Speaker 8 How about this?

Speaker 28 How about this? I got one.

Speaker 3 If the Dolphins win tonight, we all show up.

Speaker 28 as mummies.

Speaker 8 Whatever.

Speaker 1 Man, you got to scrub those pictures from the internet, man.

Speaker 39 That's not a good look.

Speaker 28 Although, I guess it's fine now.

Speaker 45 It is. Comedy is legal again.

Speaker 12 That's a bet.

Speaker 12 If the dolphins win tonight, we all have to do the show tomorrow.

Speaker 8 How did I get a lot of mummies?

Speaker 22 That's a bet.

Speaker 23 Oh, come on.

Speaker 23 It's not a real thing.

Speaker 8 Who gave me toilet paper?

Speaker 17 I don't want to do that.

Speaker 45 I had the opportunity to pick that. I'm like, no, this is hard.

Speaker 45 This is a punishment. I don't want to do that.
Instead, I'm going thrifting.

Speaker 12 Speaking of punishment, are you guys with Zaslow and Billy on the NBA's not going to do anything here? here because

Speaker 12 I just have not seen reporting like this done around a scandal because of how hard it is to get close to the rich people when they're trying to protect themselves from you seeing anything.

Speaker 12 Like they're very good at it. They have systems in place to make sure that they're very good at it.
And the stories of the powerful people are falling apart in a way that Pablo's disentangling

Speaker 12 that is very embarrassing.

Speaker 7 I am speaking only for myself here as someone that is watching this reporting come in in real time and I have not seen the NBA's investigation, which is still ongoing.

Speaker 7 I know what the Clippers have said earlier, but if I'm just Joe's sports fan,

Speaker 41 I have enough now to assume that anything that would explain the behavior would feel like a cover-up to me because this is as dead to rights a salary cap circumnavigation that it ever has appeared in our sports landscape.

Speaker 12 Certainly the media providing it for you as opposed to a league investigation.

Speaker 12 The Patriots Deflate Gate investigation. Ted Wells was paid $5 million for that.
The state of the media right now, people can't afford to do that anymore,

Speaker 12 to spend that kind of money to do something like this. And Pablo's crew has done it cheap, but it is really exhaustive to spend seven months doing anything.

Speaker 12 And the media is crippled in a way that makes it damn near impossible to even try something like this. Never mind, succeed and execute it.

Speaker 34 This is the transparency that sports fans have always wanted with these investigations, where you just have to take a league's word for it, where the league with the Ted Wells investigation certainly had stuff to maintain.

Speaker 29 Their financial interests were certainly tied with the New England Patriots dynasty.

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Speaker 26 Hey, everyone. It's Mike Ryan.

Speaker 33 One thing about me that everybody knows, I absolutely love Miller Light.

Speaker 22 You know what else I love?

Speaker 25 You.

Speaker 8 That's right.

Speaker 27 You.

Speaker 26 Listening on your way to work right now, wondering whether or not today is the day to tell your boss what you really think of the new reports he needs filled out.

Speaker 34 Every week, I absolutely love you.

Speaker 26 That's why I'm thrilled to tell you that we are again partnering with Miller Light to give you a chance to play along with weekend observations.

Speaker 26 Starting September 22nd, you'll be able to go to draftkings.com and guess what will happen during weekend observations on the show Monday, September 29th. How many beeps will there be?

Speaker 18 Who's the first person to interrupt?

Speaker 7 How many people will talk about the used chances to win a national title?

Speaker 32 Spoiler alert, definitely me.

Speaker 32 The winner will get a trip for you and a guest to come to Miami and hang with us at Flanagans for Thursday night football on October 30th and a visit to the studio to see a taping of the show.

Speaker 19 Make sure you go to DraftKings and play free to win, and then tune into the show and check out how you did. Must be 21 plus to enter.

Speaker 18 Eligibility restrictions apply.

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Speaker 33 See DraftKings.com for details.