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Is that a good work?
I can't spell it, but I agree with you because I love I've only seen snowfall like five times in my life, and it's literally falling right now, so I think it's a beautiful thing.
Man.
We're here in New York City, and I'm excited about this one. This guy right here is someone who I, you know, watched for a long time on television and just admired what he stood for. And it's a rarity, you know, when you kind of work for a machine to really be able to stand on what you believe in, and this guy did that, and then he also took another chance on on on wanting to team up with me and you, which is which is dope. So welcome to the show, Dan Levatart, Yes, sir, Thank you guys.
I have trouble generally. He's already working on his pocket. He's already working on his slightly racist but notarized and endorsed by me. He said, he's gonna get good at this impersonation of my father Stephen Jackson.
Stephen Jackson and and and Dan's got his ankles out too, which I love.
I'm normally an ankle abuser myself, but he's got his ankles out today, It's gonna be a good day.
I have trouble with style.
I'm sorry, Irsa, you asked him. I have ankles out, all of them, my suits, everything. It just was cold here so I kept mine in. But man, let's get to it. Your transition from ESPN, you know, obviously that's where everyone kind of got a chance to get to know you. Your transition from ESPN to Metal Lark. Can we talk about that the ending there in the beginning of something which is amazing with yourself and Bimo and John Skipper.
H Yeah, before we do that, though, I just like your audience to know how deeply appreciative I am of you guys and admire how it is you did what you did beyond you know, a decade and a half each in the league, working through a bunch of commedan competitive ecosystems in a sport where the inner cities are fighting for money. The idea that you guys would have so many teammates who would love you and know that
you had their back get every turn. The idea that you are consummate friends, not just with each other, but that your teammates always know that you are somebody who can be counted on, and that you did it your way every step of the way and are still doing it your way. I don't do thrilled a lot, but I am thrilled to be in business with you guys.
I am thrilled that you guys, who have had all sorts of business opportunities coming your way for twenty five years, that you would trust us with your future because I believe we've got a giant one ahead, because we've all seen the market inefficiencies of you can build your own brand now you can work outside the machine. You can be legitimately free to be an independent thinker to say what you want because you're your own boss, like you can, and you can form your own teams, like you can
be your own boss and form your own teams. So like we are kindred spirits in this space, and I believe like together we're going to do big things that inspire us and other people. So, yeah, I leave ESPN, and they forced upon me self employment, and I don't know that I would have chosen it. From the safety of the machine. It would be easy to stay there and just keep cashing checks. But some of the things that happened were uncomfortable enough that I felt pushed into something.
And it's been a successful business venture because in order to get out of there without making a mess that was loud with headlines, they gave us all our stuff, They gave us all our intellectual property to just don't cause Disney headlines talking about all the stuff you've been talking about. Just leave and take your stuff. And so we packed up our stuff and went and it's been something that is wildly fulfilling, as all things that are
difficult must be. Like if you're going to accomplish something that feels fulfilling, it almost has to be difficult. You have to choose the hard path.
When you're exiting ESPN, is Metal Lark already brewing? Is it not even a thought?
Like?
What is your thought process? I almost seem like it seems like that, you know, the transition from NBA to what was next for us? It almost seems like that's what that was for you.
I don't do a lot in the way of regret, but one of the things that I would say that I do regret is not planning a little less emotionally my exit on their dime the way stephen A. Smith is doing it now. On first take, we're across the scroll on the bottom you see and go check out the Stephen A. Smith show over here that has nothing to do with ESPN, where he's saying the things he won't say on ESPN to build his brand outside of ESPN.
I did it more emotionally. I'm like, Okay, you're gonna make me do this myself, all right, fuck it, we'll do it. We'll do it ourselves. And because they fired they let go of one of my guys, my mentor's son was fired off our show without telling me, and that was sort of the last straw after you know, inhibiting freedoms and stuff. That was the last straw. And so I wish I'd been slightly less emotional because I had about a year and a half that I could
have done it on their dime. But like I said, the forcing me to do it has made me like speed up the curve on what I have to learn about business so that you guys can now see the business gorillas I've got, and you guys can learn from them and we can make all the things we want to make.
Yeah, I mean in our situation too, was we kind of saw it coming, you know, obviously with the paramount situation and showtime and kind of working and seeing, okay, what was next. You know, it's been a tremendous opportunity with showtime to partner learn, get to build our brand, and when it was time to make a move similar stuff. I mean, they didn't push us out by any means, but you know, the sign was on the wall, the writing was on the wall, was coming to an end.
But in that meantime, we had already started building our production company. And luckily for us, you know, paramount and showtime and shout out Stephen Espinoza found a way for us to get all of our intellectual property, all of our archives, and it was almost like a good luck situation. So when we left, we got lucky and landed right on our feet because we had already started building this company.
And then, you know, two months after we're up and running, we get news that we're gonna have the opportunity to team up with you guys and take your brain and learn and utilize your ecosystem and feel like we can bring some you know, some credible and and and good stuff. You guys's way too. So I mean again, we talked about this all night at dinner last night. We won't bore you guys with that conversation.
This is a good conversation. It would have been boring close the restaurant.
Yeah, for real, for real. So to those who don't know what is what is Metal Lark and who are your your teams? And you know obviously John Skipper, former ESPN president bim with someone who was over at ESPN, So who are they and what is metal Ark about?
Yeah, we've got Dedra who leads our documentary division and h what We are is uh, storytellers in the media business who are looking to evolve in the new media world. You know, we are a company that has a giant audio product that is now growing in the video space. I've had to we've had to do all of that. You guys have learned what it takes. Content business is expensive, like you and especially if you're gonna do video like this, you have to have people in order to do that.
And so we've got almost twenty documentaries that are going to be sold in the next two years. Because John Skipper was the most powerful man in sports when he was at ESPN, Like he knows how to do this. He did the thirty for thirty series. So you guys see that Hollywood has been crumbling or stagnant or atrophying or unstable for two years. And we're gonna have twenty
documentaries in the next few years. And I know, you guys got a thousand ideas, you got a thousand connections, and so we're going to be a company that builds out this arm over here. I'm the side of the company where we do this stuff, you know, interviews, intimacies, vulnerabilities, laughter, get to know these people for real, I can't wait. Like, I know they've seen some of Stephen Jackson here, but his dark comedy thespian I don't think the world is ready.
I do not think the world is ready for how funny this person actually is. Even though he can kick your ass and everyone knows he could kick your ass, I don't know that they know how funny is. And so hopefully we'll have some unscripted work for him to do, because I believe there are a lot of Hollywood roles for this man if he chooses them.
Indeed, indeed, I asked you, I asked you in Rachel a question last night, and it was interesting because.
I literally got we should mention her too, by the way, because just a true gangster who's going to help us a lot here.
I mean, Rachel Nichols is obviously very instrumental. And Jack and I start in media, and I was telling a story last night that when we had Rachel long was it a year and a half ago? Last season, I got a call from one of the bosses at ESPN, like right after it air, like, hey, how come you
didn't tell us you were going to have Rachel. I'm just like, I didn't think I had to tell you that I was going to have Rachel, you know what I mean, And it was and at that moment, you know, and I told her last night for the first time, I think and the crew knew. I was like, you know, obviously, I still I hadn't had no issues with ESPN up to that point, and I really didn't even have no issues with my exit up to that point. I was just like, you know, we got to be careful because
that's just the machine. But like the more and more I thought about it, and the more and more we were talking when we were hearing her story, I was willing to lose my job at ESPN to allow Rachel to have a platform to tell her truth on because I don't feel like she had an opportunity to tell her truth. There was the machine's word and then Rachel, You're silenced, you can't say anything. So I just thought
that was extremely unfair. I hated the narrative that was painted with her because we know who she is and what she stands for, and the narrative that was painted by the bigger machine couldn't be further from the truth. So us I feel like us allowing her to kind of speak her truth on our platform and then kind of get her back, you know, kind of be a stepping stone to get her back in this space. I mean, she's probably the most trusted NBA reporter in the game.
Everybody loves her and respects her and she does great work. So again to definitely shout out Rachel, and that was one of the first things when Jelani and I came out with you. You know, you spoke highly on her and how much respect and love you guys have for each other. So definitely throwing her in the mix only is gonna go.
When you talk about the machine, right, and you guys can both sort of speak to this uniquely because you've navigated the labyrinth so well. The machine makes you or can make you with its pressures, dilute your authenticity by degrees by requesting compromises from you at every turn, and choices like that, where what an it's possible spot for
the two of you. You know Rachel Nichols, you know everything she's about, and now you're put in the spot where a white woman has lost her job in the climate of after George Floyd and Disney doesn't know how to react, and there's corporate pressure and American pressure, and now you two are put in the spot where you're defending Rachel Nichols, and it sounds like you might be against black women or can be perceived against black women.
A difficult spot for you, guys to choose. No, we're going to be authentic, and this is one of the many reasons I admire you guys. Your authenticity and your audience knows this, and it's why they ride with you everywhere. Your authenticity matters to you and cannot be compromised by any machines, not like not the NBA machine. That I mean he went into the stands for his brother and and would do it again, and would do it again no matter the cost, because that's I mean, that's where
you guys live. Who doesn't want to ride with that?
No, completely agree, But I was gonna say My question to you was as someone who studied journalism for thirty plus years and Rachel again, I post close question to both you guys, how do you feel about athletes who are, for lack of a better word, cutting the lines so to speak, in this space and able to come in and tell our stories and have the trust from our brothers and sisters that have played the same sport, and
that's kind of coming in. I wouldn't even say taken over, but I think there's definitely a there's been a shift in the tide, and athletes are kind of coming in and taking We don't necessarily have to have the journal journalist credentials to be able to be successful in the space. And someone who again prided themselves on you know, your journalistic qualities and in your body of work for so long. How do you feel about the athletes kind of coming in with this new wave of media.
It's been fascinating to watch you guys shake the constructs. It's been fascinating to watch athletes understand they don't need the media because they can be their own media and without a filter. You don't have to go and make ESPN or someone else's profit when you can keep all your profit by telling the story. I understand why my brethren would be threatened by the changing of that guard.
In fact, when I've talked to former athletes who go into ESPN and work at ESPN, they're all stunned because they don't come from the environment of the locker room that's so competitive, cutthroat. They're stunned by the insecurity in the room and the vanity business because it's not coachable people. It's ego. It's a lot of people who haven't had to earn what you guys have had to earn, the difficulties of what you had to climb over in order to get to what you did. And so I understand
why it's threatening to us. You're shaking the machine, and when you say you're not taking over yet, you're threatening to like we are tired of the way we're covered. I came up as a sports columnist. What I learned from the writing about sports is you stand in judgment. I'm embarrassed by some of the things that I wrote in my twenties about Alonzo moarning should be loyal to the Miami Heat because x y Z I've apologized Zoe
I was in my twenties. I'm learning from other columnists who have written sports columns, and what you do is you judge the athlete you write the provocative thing. You guys are trying to provide a safe space for a different perspective, so you're allowing a broader view. I welcome it because it feels like democracy. It feels like meritocracy.
But you're going to be met at a lot of turns with resistance from people who don't want that change because cutting the line or why do they get to to do this when they haven't had, you know, the twenty years of journalistic training.
A lot of these words, Dan using the hope y'all writing them down because I many definitions of them, so I know you got me yeah about six of them already. Okay, we can't really follow up what you said about us, but we honored too definitely. You know, like you said to piggyback on what he said, we had our own relationship too, So the biggest thing for us and me and Mad been through a lot. We bounced around the
NB a lot. But to have somebody believe in us is the best feeling, right, and to know you believe in us, it's priceless. So we thank you as well. Betting on yourself. You had to bet on yourself leading. What's the hardest part, the most gratified and part of metal law so far.
The most gratifying part, what I say all the time, is getting to do it is I don't take for granted. I don't know how much guys you guys suffered sort of the grieving of your former identity of I was a professional athlete. That transition can be very difficult. You're burying who you've been and who you've been working to be for twenty years getting out into freedom when I am the son of Cuban exiles and doing it principled,
like the people who are with us are. We've got an unbelievably loyal audience, loyal because they think they know us and me and what I'm about. And if my mentor's son gets fired, it's going to be like, no, we all leave now. All of us are going now.
And when you connect with your audience from there right, because these are intimate mediums and mine it's audio, So we're like the friends in your head when you're at work, maybe an unhappy job that you have for eight hours, and we're getting you through four of them, or a dark time or whatever, because we're in this intimate space. The idea that I get to do this with and four people I believe in, the idea that I don't have to answer to anybody. How can that not be gratifying?
When I could just make things. They pay us to make things, and they pay us to support the people who we want to make things with Like that is real and genuine freedom from Cuban parents who left an island fleeing communism. And I never in my life had negotiated a contract for money. Ever, I always negotiate freedom. I didn't want to work at ESPN and Disney for ten years. I resisted skippers advances. He needed a Latin person, didn't Latin. They underrepresent with Latin. I don't even look Latin.
My last name is French. So I had to get I had to get Steven Jackson. I had to get the I had to get the accent so that I would look Latin on television. But what ends up happening?
Right?
So you rent, you rent my father's voice, but at the end I get to leave because you don't own mine.
Real quick, before you go on, jack, I was just in the bay. I was covering the game for the Kings, and I went to dinner with a friend of mine and we went to stk in San Francisco, and the bartender, older white guy knew me from the Warriors, you know, came and brought his shots and he said, congratulations on teaming up with metal Ark I look forward to learning more about you and Steven, And I'm just like, so
he knew we were for basketball players. But again, I think that speaks to your audience, because because we're with you guys now, they're looking forward to getting to know who we are.
I cannot wait, Like I mean, I'm sure the people who follow here feel like they've got the breath of
your personality. But just in the stories that you were telling last night about what your journey has been, and when I talk about my admiration for you guys, I don't think people understand how hard it was for you to get to the first of the fifteen years or the seventeen years in the league, and how hard it is to stay to stay there when all of the young people want your money and it's the world's most
competitive place. There don't get to be many of you like it's all inspiring to behold, even though we get very used to seeing it on television every night, Like your stories are amazing and I cannot wait to sit down and reverse this on you guys, because the one time I interviewed him on television, he gave it all up, Like he gave it all up and and the stories were amazing, and I know he's got a thousand more. It's one of the most memorable interviews highly Questionable has ever done because.
It was highly questionable what he was talking about.
Yeah, I got questions a both high and take us don't sit. How was the approach in your daily show? Now?
Compare up and when you started in the media space?
Oh Man.
So I start as a newspaper columnist and I get to the sports reporters in Times Square. The construct is guys on Sunday morning judging athletes at the ESPN Zone in Times Square. I'm thirty years old. I'm at the news. It's downtown New York. ESPN Zone smells like urine from the night before and vomit and like chairs on tables. And I get there, I'm like, is that all there is?
Uh?
And it felt lonely. Uh. Success didn't look like what I thought it would, And so I went on a path of how do I make this more communal? Writing is lonely? Arriving at sports reporters didn't seem like the accomplishment I thought it would be, And so I wanted group stuff, stuff that had laughter in it. I went behind the scenes at PTI when that was starting, Cornheiser and Wilbond behind the scenes, the show is much better than the show they do on air because they're yelling
at each other and they're cursing. And the group of people they had around them, the sport team, like the people that you have here. They had relationships with families, so it's jocular, feels a little bit like a locker room. So I hear that laughter and the loneliness of writing, I'm like, no, no, I want I want that. I want something I do with my friends. I want something that feels like laughter. I want something that shared, because yeah, writing is super lonely. Nobody can do it for you.
I always identified as a writer for you know, fifteen twenty years growing up. That's the one thing people told me I was good at when I was young, and so that's what I chose because they didn't tell me I was good at anything else. And and then I went and did fun things that that were meant to be counterculture, that were meant to Hey, sports aren't that serious. I know, we can take it all serious, but we can laugh with my dad, or we can laugh with my co host to God too, you know, We've got
an odd couple relationships. So I've just been trying to create environments that are both fun and thoughtful, that they that they have some range, that they can go between smart and dumb. And so that's what that's some of the stuff that we've been building.
Love it transitioning a little bit. I got a chance to meet your wife Valerie last night.
I loved it.
She had us all sign a cork to kind of remember, oh.
I'm supposed to bring it. I forgot to bring it.
I will leave it after I know she's got it. But speak to the effect that she's had on you as a man, a businessman.
This is the part where you're gonna try and get me to cry. They told me, you guys are gonna try and get me to cry. So you want me to talk about love. All right, I'll talk about love, but you guys are gonna have to share this with me. I simply would not be capable of doing this if I don't believe in myself the way that she believes in who I am. She thinks I've never looked at myself this way. I'm not an entrepreneur. I've just wanted to be left alone to do these silly things we do.
She thinks I'm a boss, and I would say she has made me one. Her strength is uncommon. She has turned upside down my worldview, and I just feel safe with my every vulnerability with her. And now I'm accomplishing things I never dreamed of because of the strength and her backing me. Because I wish to be the man that she thinks and believes I am. I aspire to it, and it.
I don't.
I never knew what love was, or that it could feel that way, or how healing it could be in the places where I'm not gentle on myself, like she has been a medicine, a bomb that makes all of this post Like I could not do it if I didn't have with me a foreign feeling that I'd never known before.
That booies me, shut up, valve. I love hearing that. I mean behind every good man is a great woman. Yeah you know what I mean. You always hear that, but you know to have I.
Wouldn't say she's behind me. I would say she's out in front.
Like I.
Lost my brother recently, and you know, at his deathbed for a year, he and I were praying that I might get to joy a more joyous existence, because I've had trouble all my life with Joy and I will only get there if I'm following her.
Obviously, I know it's a tough topic. You lost your younger brother about four months ago, Jack lost his younger brother or has it been a year, a year, a little bit over a year ago? Do you mind kind of just speaking to that, and you know, like you said, you don't you told us off are like he was kind of almost like one of my kids because I don't have children, and that's how close your guys bond was.
So this is, uh, it's a long story, and it's the hardest thing I've ever experienced. It's a pain that has not gone away. It is with me when I wake up in the morning. When we briefly touched on it, I don't know what he was feeling right before we started, but Stephen had to compose himself because of whatever it is. I don't know how long how long ago did and the grief. I don't know if men talk about this,
either privately or publicly enough. It is a horror that a physical pain in my stomach, that is sadness that reminds me that it's there. Even when I'm laughing, I can be laughing about something transported and the reminders there that my brother is not here. I have isolated from people because I don't want to keep rummaging through this bin.
It hurts too much, and avoidance sometimes feels easier. But the specifics of the horror a year daily next to a deathbed, A vibrant, colorful personality who did a career harder than mine. Art. He was a successful professional artist. He was braver than I was. He was more charismatic
than I was. He was my little brother. I never imagined a scenario in which he would die, To watch his body wither away, to watch people need to pick him up, to go to the bathroom every day, to have the memories of that seared in my sleep in a way that doesn't give me any rest. It's been the most painful thing I've endured, by leaps and bounds. But I am so grateful that I got that year next to him, to solve all the little brother big brother shit, to ask forgiveness for everything, to not have
in like the horror that is my grief. There is no guilt. There is no guilt because I said all the things, and he went loved and I'm deeply appreciative that I didn't lose him suddenly, Like even though I would wish on no one to watch, to watch a body, a vibrant body, an athletic body, decomposed in front of you. He didn't have the use of the bottom half of his body for the last six months, but he wanted to stay here. I'd ask you to explore grief with me,
because I haven't. I have not spent a lot of time doing this with others because it hurts to Everyone's got their own experience with this. It is different for everybody. But I don't have the words to articulate to you the level of pain that this caused and the belief that I will have a greater appreciation for the growth on the other side of that pain because of what I learned next to that bed every day for a year.
Thank you for sharing. I mean, Jack, it's been a little over a year for you, and obviously we all know how hard you like, where are you kind of at with your situation still? I mean it's I mean, it's tough, you know again. I told this briefly before we got on the air. How Jack and I got so close was the loss of my mom, and I'm
on the opposite spectrum from you and your brother. My mom was diagnosed with four cancers November first and died November twenty seventh, so I had literally with twenty six days.
But it was when I was playing for the Warriors and I was just gone and Jack was the one every day where whether he was calling to crack jokes to make me laugh, bringing me food, coming to sit and watch TV or movies, coming to bring me some weed to smoke, like, Jack was the that was kind of just checking on me every day, didn't want didn't want nothing to return, just was the one.
And overall the whole.
Warriors or organization was great, but you know, Jack really went out of his way to just let me know he was there, and when I was ready to talk or needed to talk, he would be the ear and the shoulder I can talk on. And I think what I've learned since then is, you know, the pain never goes away. You just learn how to manage it over time, you know what I mean. And I felt like it.
Doesn't seem real to me still, like even you're going to a deathbed you're going to a hospital every day, like for it to still not feel like a real thing months after the fact, I can't imagine what you're talking about. Seems unreachable to me, you said sixteen seventeen years Yeah, it seems it's almost a mountain too overwhelming to climb, the idea that I'm going to believe this
is real. It's the realist thing in the world. Right, You're by a deathbed with a cancer patient, and to me, it doesn't I don't know if it's the same for you. It doesn't seem like a real thing, even though I've lived the whole thing.
Yeah, it's just a crazy experience for me.
Then I lost my little sister two months for my little brother, So I lost both my siblings two much of parts.
And you're ready to talk about it.
I'm sorry, bro. Let's speak to your upbringing started here in New York before you move to Florida. You know, parents sacrificed a lot coming from Cuba. Explain your kind of upbringing and and and the values and principles you were raised with from two people who didn't start in the States.
Work, work means freedom. Work is how you get ahead in this country, there have been any number of things over the last You're right, I wonder sometimes whether avoidance is the best thing on that. Forgive me. I'll answer your question in a second, but I can go ahead.
I marveled. I did an interview with Marcellus Wiley, and he's such a tough human being, and his hands are gnarled as he's sort of telling the story of being asked to close his mom's casket, and he's just chosen the path of avoidance because he's like, if I don't avoid He's obviously a very tough man, but he's like, that's too much for me to handle. Whatever your feeling there where I would counsel you from what little I know in these four months. You shouldn't stuff all of
that down. You should share it with somebody. Maybe not, maybe it's too much, maybe it's not here. But anyways, my parents, they came from Cuba. They left in their teenage years. They get on planes, freedom is lost, get on planes. They think they're going to see their family soon. It goes many, many years without seeing their family. Imagine what the desperation has to be on an island where people literally throw their lives to the winds on like
inner tubes. That the between Cuba and Miami is the biggest cemetery, and that ocean is the big cemetery that you will find because so many people are literally the desperation pushes them out. So my parents as teenagers come to this country and make their way, believing this country to be a certain thing, which it was for them, a land of opportunity, a land where they would I would never have to make any sacrifices because they made all of them. They got me to freedom. And the
way you get to freedom is through work. That's how immigrants do it, exiles do it. This country has a lot of economies that thrive off you work, and so in that I got almost the entirety of my identity in ways that probably aren't healthy but have been successful. I'm lopsided, lopsided in the ways you know you guys can be. I would imagine that to be as great as you were at basketball, you couldn't have time for
much of anything else. It had to be an obsession that you were doing all the time, every day, thinking about all the time, always pressurized.
And so I made time for I have made time for weed and strip clubs too, so.
Strip clubs, Yeah, I got all that in So those are those are even split.
I was dedicated to all of them, saying.
The one thing I will say is Jack has his jersey retired into Atlanta strip clubs.
Three stop three?
Excuse me?
Yeah.
Oh, but then people get the impression though that you don't work, that some holy man reached into your crib and just made you a better basketball Like okay, yeah, you had fun because you had to blow off steam, but you guys had to be obsessive competitive to be great in a way that's not even reasonable.
Your relationship with your father, obviously, the world got the chance to know him and love him on your show. How's he doing? And and and what's that that process of father son been like for you?
I mean, it's so great and interesting so many ways. Uh, my father worked for I'm gonna say, this is so funny all of this. My father didn't know how to tell me he didn't want to do the television show anymore because he's worked all his life. He was approaching eighty and the celebrity and the stuff, you know, getting you know, free tuna sandwiches and slapped on the back on heath games.
He's eighty.
He just wants to shuffle around the house and be left alone. So he tells ESPN that he's underpaid and he wants to be paid more because he can't figure out a way to tell me he doesn't want to do the show anymore. And he figures, well, ESPN won't give him the raise, and they called his bluff and they gave him more money. And so my father ends up winning at the end. But at the very end of what we were doing, he really didn't want to
do it anymore. But the eight years that we had before that are the biggest professional blessing of my life because I got closer with my father than I'd ever been in retirement. I allowed him to do something with his later years that felt like he was genuinely helping me, and he was because he was the star of the show. I gave him a TV show and fucker stole it from me. And one of the greatest delights and surprises in all of that, And you guys could speak to
the barbershop quality of this. When Memorial Day weekend in miamient no, No. But when he goes in his car, he is a king black people love my father more than Latin people do. I'm not kidding you.
Because of his rap lyrics.
Just lit he get it.
I'm not kidding you that that was one of the how would I have imagined that? From from where it is that we started. So my father's doing the show in his second language. He doesn't really know anything about sports. But my earliest memory was like walking with my little hand in his into a magical stadium and it was a father son connection and I learned to love sports, and the energy of that was like, how do I
connect with my father through sports? So to be able to be on television and with my father And then this part was important because my CEO, John Skipper was working very hard to try and diversify the opinions and the voices and the perspectives at ESPN. Every single person who sat next to my father was always a minority with another voice. It was important to me to put that on the platform. All of them made more likable as I was because my father was in the middle
of it, providing the laughs, providing the show. That made it just this much different than the other shows on ESPN.
I have it.
Can you give us Poppy's introduction of you.
Today we have introducing Stephen Juckson.
He says he's going, he says he's going to profess better.
It's pretty good.
Who was some of the journalists you looked up to as you was coming up?
So I guess these were to all be too old.
You guys would age out.
Like they're all too old, I would think for you. Gary Smith was a great writer at Sports Illustrated. He wrote profiles. He wrote three or four a year where he would really and this is one of my attractions to the sociology of sports, because I'm more interested in the human condition in it than I am in even the drama of the games. He'd write these profiles of people where he would interview fifty people before he started writing.
And when I was in college reading one of them, I threw the Sports Illustrated across the dorm room because I didn't think I would ever be that good at being able to capture the essence of who somebody was.
But he wasn't an opinion giver. These weren't essays. These were just rich, deep profiles of Let me explain who Stephen Jackson is to you in ways that Stephen Jackson will read and learn about himself because he's taking the care that a journalist should to get it right, to be fair, to tell the story correctly, to tell it thoroughly. And so you know, my early influencers weren't the opinion givers.
They were the people who could tell a human story about a human being that made me feel something that would attached to them. So now I'm not just rooting for sports. I'm not rooting for the regional identity of my team. I'm rooting for this guy, this guy because I liked what they're about.
Interesting wrote fort to Miami Hero in the nineties.
One story that you're proud of that you wrote, and one story you covered that you regret.
Oh wow, Okay, So I went to Cuba. I wrote an assortment of articles from Cuba, you know, visiting my parents' homeland, seeing the way the stories of their childhood that they described as palatial, I saw a place stuck in the nineteen fifties. I sat on the steps of their home, old home and wept because, you know, this island, this childhood,
this freedom, this was all taken from them. And so the stuff that I wrote about Cuba, where I was explaining to my where I was giving a Cuban voice nationally to how Hispanic people feel, and also telling personally intimate stories that were meaningful to me. And I have a lot of regrets about things that I wrote in my twenties, just because I was trying to learn how to be a columnist. Like I was a columnist at
twenty six. It was too early for me to have to be given the right to have opinions that would put in print something that judged you, guys as less than because of an athletic performance, because you took too much money. You know you took you were holding out over money or whatever.
I didn't have.
I didn't have world views that were formed and shaped. I just knew how to write things that were in scendiary or you know. And I would learn over time that's not who I want to be. That's not who I want to be. It's just if that was what success looked like. When I'm telling you, the story tellers who are telling the long stories about things, those are like poets. That's a hard way to make a living. The ones who were getting rewarded were the ones who
were getting engagement because they were crushing you guys. Or having, you know, very strong opinions. And you've seen what's happened in the last twenty years with sports debate, television and stuff. How all this stuff gets crueler when the path to success and attention is well, you gotta, you gotta come
down on the athlete. You gotta tell you, gotta, you gotta show them that we're the customer, We're the fan, and we're the ones who deserve X, Y and Z. Like you guys grew how many how many rip jobs did you guys? How many things did you guys read about yourselves that you had to hide from your children?
No, I mean it was a lot of good. It was all on TV. I think you made a great point from a standpoint of what the standard is now to to to grow in sports media when it when it comes to debate shows. And you know, I was over at ESPN and there were times where the producer would want me to say stuff that I just wasn't. I'm not going to say that, you know, I'm not
comfortable saying that. But like you said, I feel like, and this is no knock on anyone who's been able to kind of climb those corporate ladders in those spaces, I feel like the more outlandish, the louder, the wilder the take you have rather wide or wrong, you're rewarded for and you start climbing the ladder because again, like I said, whatever the angle is, whether it's bashing athletes or keeping it real or whatever the fuck they want to call it, it's getting clicks, it's getting views, and
you're becoming a personality, you know, on this platform. So I was always just very comfortable with staying in my lane over there.
And you know, oh, but you were already famous, you are. You already knew what came with the currency of attention. You had, you had money. They're like, yeah, if you're a career is perhaps you'd have to compromise your principles because would you yeah, to get ahead.
And you're not even mad about it. Like I said, I get it, and I understand it. But we talked about it last night at dinner. You know, when it comes to certain things, This is no knock on anyone. I just I value relationships more than I value views or clicks. I guess, like I love the fact that I could still call former teammates and ask for a favor or ask them to do interviews or ask them
to come on the show. And I feel like some athletes once they crossed that line, like there is no going back with some of their former teammates or colleagues or people they played in the league with. Because it's not that I wouldn't even call it the dark side, but it's just like they've kind of fully embodied this media persona now that athletes are looking at them like, you used to play here. How couldn't you even say
something like that? You know what I mean? And I never wanted to be on that, but I saw that if you died't kind of do that. You get an opportunity to climb up in the space.
What happened with you? You had some experiences like that. I can't imagine people were trying to tell you what to be saying about anything, ESPN anywhere.
ESPN was the only place that I got rubbed the wrong way.
One they didn't want to pay me.
But I think the whole reason why the didn't want to pay me because I'm embarrassed woes on TV.
I embarrassed on TV. We was on had a situation where he.
Was saying something about Jimmy Butler, I mean, Jimmy had a great relationship, and I didn't believe it when he said it so off air, I called him and he was on a commercial break and I hit him and he said it wasn't true. And you know, Rachel's my girl. And I told Rachel, Rachel, don't say it now, wait till we get back on air. And I told him that wasn't true on air, and I, you know, showed him the message from Jimmy. And after that, my relationship
I stopped working as much. Gena start giving me calls like we gotta start figuring something else. Well, have you talk to guys at Fox? Like I knew it was about to be over because nobody never did him like that.
But I knew he was full of shit now.
But then, on another note, you know the transition that has been made with someone like a Pat McAfee transitioning into ESPN and really kind of doing it his way or as close to his way as can be. Obviously, just called out a studio had in Norby Williamson lately, what are your thoughts you know kind of mean in that and now looking at it from an outside perspective.
It's fascinating here, and I think you guys will find much of this very interesting. It's going to take some telling, and I want to be careful because I support people who bet on themselves. I don't want to appear like I'm bitter at ESPN or that I'm not rooting for Pat McAfee, because I want everybody to get their money. He's creative, he's charismatic. But what do you guys know about the details of my story? Because the last straw was them letting go of my mentor's son without telling me.
But what do you guys know about the previous parts of the story and where it is I was getting in hot water and what I was bumping against when I was bumping against it.
I don't know the details, and I don't know if Jack Onno was well.
I just from what just I'll just say this, I knew from being at ESPN band from Jena, I knew your show was the show that it was one quote away from being kicked off ESPN. That's what I always felt, and that was the mode around every time I seen your show, people talking about your show ESPN like that's the show that that that treads the line.
All right, So let me tell you where the backstory is, because I think you guys to be you guys will find fascinating sort of the corridors of power and how some of this stuff works. So John Skipper, the CEO of Metal Lark, was running ESPN and I was there. I got suspended for silly things. I put up billboards at Lebron's return to Cleveland saying you're welcome Miami, you know, and I put and I got suspended for that. I got suspended for that. It was a joke, it was funny,
it was great. I got it, but I got suspended for silly things. I got suspended for selling my Hall of Fame vote to dead Spin in baseball because I was like, come on, athletes, they're gonna use healing things if they're competitive on steroids. Can we stop keeping them out of the Hall of Fame? And I sort of sold my vote away because I didn't like the moralizing there.
But when Skipper leaves, a new president comes in charge and there's a new policy, and the first time I got in trouble with him is when Trump is going after for women of color of political power, one of them a refugee from Somalia, who is advocating for how inhumane the cages are at the borders where there are brown babies, And what is being shouted at the protest rally is send her back the crowd of Trump people.
And so the first time I get in trouble is calling bullshit on that policy, saying you cannot tell a son of exiles that I'm not allowed to talk about this unless an athlete says about it first, something about it first, so that I can then use him as a meat shield, which is what their policy was. If
it's news, you can talk about politics. But I'm like, these microphones matter, man, And if I'm not just talk about whether the Pacers are better with Haliburton, like I come like, if you're gonna give me the power to represent a minority for you on television, if I'm gonna be a Hispanic man with my Hispanic father as a cartoon that we're gonna have fun with, because all right, we'll do your game. When the microphone's gotta matter. Because
they're chanting send her back. I can't say anything about how racist that is. I can't say anything about how that's not the America I signed up, Like, send her back because she's trying to get cages like kids in cages at the border, and I gotta So that's where it's That's where it starts, right on the compromising of
the principles, the dilutions by degrees. So to have had access at that time to the most powerful man in sports, who was an ally of mine, who wanted me to start little fires, but he's not out to the Disney power machine after George Floyd, to have like to be in there and be like, wait a minute, can I get to Eiger and Disney on like re change stuff to now watch cowboy hats make a mets with Aaron Rodgers that gets to Eiger and Disney and gets to the top of the power chain because he's got the
power to not need ESPN anymore because these brands have like ESPN needs this now they have to so they make all sorts of precedents for him. He can curse on television and everything else. And again I need to make this clear, like more power to him. Because Pat McAfee, you have done an amazing job of realizing before anybody else did that this was a space that the people who were actually dominating the space weren't as good at competition as you are. Because a punter got into the
space and figured it all out. I can knock these journalists out of the way, So may he have all of the fun and chaos and anarchy that is shaking that machine from the inside. Because to me it's comedy to watch it, but the portions of it that hurt are like, Man, I was so close with whatever our show was, which was sort of like that to getting into the real, you know, corridors of power where I could have maybe influenced how it made a change and
how bullshit corporate. The statements were after George Floyd, how like, because you've seen the machine whatever was happening that moment, after the pandemic that year, after George Floyd, to see the machine that was saying to us, while you know, at every turn now we're the black lives matter now, to see it now shift and everything go back to the way that it was, it has been a little jarring given that at that moment, I remember it, we
were in it. It lasted for a while. It felt empowering, it felt strong, It felt like, oh okay, maybe maybe people will be heart to see the machine go right back to where it was. How do I say any of that and walk you guys down that path without sounding like I'm bitter at ESPN or bitter at McAfee,
Like I want to walk that path, honestly. But that's how it happened from my viewpoint, So to see him call out by name an executive when I like, I had to go and when I said what I said, I had to go meet with Pataro in New York, and there were headlines and then stuff gets leaked about what my salary is and all the stuff that he's complaining about started happening to us. At the end, I enjoyed seeing him call it out. I was surprised to see that there were no consequences for the person that
he called out or for him. But it's a new age over there. They have to make the compromises because I think they need him more than he needs them.
Mmmm. I said that the other day. So I mean, currently, where do you think, maybe not even just ESPN, but like the machines that make this sports media go where they're kind of at a crossroads because I wholehearty believe that these bigger the personalities have outgrown the machines. I feel the machines will always be there, and they're great for what they're great at, but they're not necessarily needed anymore.
So where does ESPN Fox? Where do you kind of think they sit in the whole grand scheme of things as journalism or reporting, or athletes moving into the space kind of takeover.
It'll be super interesting because there's been a monopoly in this space of what's on your television when you're walking through the airport bar. Like, I don't think that people understand what the business model of ESPN is. All of those shows exist as infomercials just to get you to the next game, Like, here is sports content, whatever it is, how do we get you to the games, to the games,
to the games. They decided to become a journalism company because they didn't have to be from the very beginning, there's not a jay in ESPN. It's entertainment in sports. They decided to be a journalism company that was initially run by newspaper people. Uh, they're sort of getting out of that business now and they're going to need those personality driven people to whether it's McAfee or Steven A. Smith, to to help their brand because the whole the whole
game has has changed, the programming matters. It's it McAfee needs to do a number after first take because of the way that they're paying these people like they're they're trying to keep up now with a changing game as the streaming service its service services just change everything.
Kind of a little bit off topic, but not. Is there any truth to this urban legend that Disney was trying to stop the Miami Zoo from naming a hippo after you.
Now it's not an urban legend. There is now a Miami zoo that has a hippo named Dan Lebato. No, but that's all true. Yes, that was They were fearing the liability of the hippo escaping named Dan Lebotard, and then you got Disney's Dan LeBatard tramples three kids.
Yeah.
The first thing I did, No, the first thing I did, the first act of freedom after leaving ESPN was going to that zoo and that there isn't There is not no longer a baby hippo. There is a hippo at Zoo Miami named Dan Levittard who hopefully doesn't trample any kids escaped. Yeah, hoping that doesn't happen.
You haven't met him.
I have met him, Yeah, went to meet him the first day. But isn't that it isn't that instructive As you guys build your own thing. When you're corporate, you have to fear things like this joke we're making with this hippo. I have to fear the liability of what happens if the hippo tramples everybody. I look forward to you guys making everything you do without any of those constraints, right.
I definitely don't want to hippo.
I know you kind of.
I feel the same way about your Dolphins how I feel about my Cowboys.
You know, the only thing that saves two and the Dolphin fans is what happened to your.
Cowboys about them boys? Yeah, to your fans, that's a good excuse.
But you're on the same on the same table with us.
In cancn Now what you mean losses were all at home?
You guys have had three straight twelve win seasons, shipped the bed every time in the playoffs. Miami is a new up and coming team with the.
Young How many super Bowls Miami got, no team too?
How many we got? Damn five. You were you were five?
Last time they want to say I wasn't born when they won their So.
It was the boy the Dolphins. I think I read the other day. Yeah, this was Ethan Skolnick said this that Dwayne Wade went to Hyde, I went to college. Uh had a Hall of Fame pro career and got us statue in. All of the time since the Dolphins last won a playoff game, it's.
A long run.
So I know you feel how I feel. What about the heat? How do you feel about the heat right now?
I mean, you guys have to marvel at everything they are. They embody so many of the things that you guys were about, where if you go there and are willing
to work, they will make all players better. It to me what it's been amazing to watch what pat Riley has been there built there since the beginning, because what he's got on the bay there in Miami is a military silo where those basketball players are united in nothing more than how do they get better at this thing so that Gave Vincent can get his contract, so that Max Strus can get his contract, so that you guys have played so many guys and this is no knock
on Gay Vincent or Max Struce. But what they build where they get guys to believe in the idea of hard work will pay off and all of us make money. Like that's how you get a team of players rowing in the right direction, no matter who their players are. Like you, it's not easy to be as good as they've been for as long as they've been with as many different players as they've had. I did not think Jimmy Butler was that Jimmy. Did you guys think Jimmy Butler was good enough to carry a team to the two?
I knew he had the heart, I didn't know.
If I didn't know he was good enough to do it, he did a couple of times.
I didn't know it until I saw it. I've always been a big fan of Jimmy. I didn't know it until I saw it. But I also think it too. Obviously it's the environment. Ryle's is creative, but then also spoke. I think spos one of the best minds in the NBA.
But think about that though you use the video room like all he's done. You know, the root of culture is cult. That is a cult like that play like that. He grew up in the dark recesses of the thankless video room, and he climbs to he's going to be running that franchise next an eight year contract when you can sell that to your employees as a way of life, like it feels like a mafia family.
I could have been Mafia Pat. I could have been a Heat player. Man two drills, three man, we even seventeens. That's that's the reason why I ended up being a Miami Heat player. We did that shit for the first three minutes of practice. Nah, I don't want to be here.
Which you said, I don't love it as much as I thought I did.
I definitely don't. I definitely don't.
And if I got to throw up every practice to make a million dollars, maybe I need to go on another team where that's not in the contract.
The Marlins, oh my god, they've they've hurt Miami so many different ways. I mean, they but they betrayed. They sold after championships, they sold all their players like They've crushed generations of fan bases by taking the field good immediately and making it all about just finances. So somehow, in a Latin city where an economy was supposed to flourish, around our love for baseball, and how flamboyantly because baseball's changed.
I don't know if you guys watch it all, but baseball is more colorful and more ethnic and more joyous. We are a broken baseball city. There's a niche group of people who believe in the Marlins, but they don't spend. They can't keep up. And I think I think as we tape this, that the Dodgers have spent one point seven billion dollars on free agents and the Marlins have not yet spent a dollar. They definitely do it bit hard to keep up that way.
Is the undefeated Dolphins winning a soup bought a year? Is the best moment is Miami sports history?
Oh man, So it's so long ago. It's I don't know how long ago your memories go on. Childhood so I was born in sixty eight seventy two was the proudest thing football was. Football made Miami famous because they were successful at it. At the time, it wasn't a thriving town. The Dolphins were something that made it huge.
But I would say in my lifetime, the most fun I've ever had covering things in sports thirty years in that market was covering the championship University of Miami teams that were urinating on all of sportsmanship and making America
insane because they won and were crazy. So covering those teams was great fun because you know, Jimmy Johnson would say, this week against Notre Dame, we're not going to have any trash talking, and then would make the captain the safety of the team who called himself the Grim Reaper and took a picture in the paper leaning against a tombstone that read shut up, bitch, and he made him
a captain. Like those teams were renegades first, and then the lebron Era Heat, where you don't you rarely get these situations that are that actually feel like the country is against you on something, and so the lebron Era Heat were like crack cocaine for four years about regular season game seventeen because the Heat are nine and eight and Lebron has bumped Spolster on his way off.
The court, give me a pin on that team, though, Ed Reid uh ed and James No. That was before I mean I'm talking about.
I mean before they've.
Had that was like Michael, yeah, the Dead well like two went back to the same time.
You're allowed to get confused because I think Frank Gore, Clinton Port.
Is McGahee all the same time.
Yeah, it all runs together because yeah, those but it's not just that.
Like the Two Live two. I was talking about the Two Live Crew, Uncle Luke, Miami.
Hurricane, Mike Irvenue.
No, but that's that's yes, that's well before Snoop Dogg was on USC sideline when they were winning championships, and before you know, even like Ice Cube was wearing a Raider jacket or there were people on the West Coast wearing Miami jackets because of what Miami represented. Uncle Luke, you'll love this story. Uncle Luke was as the you know, one of the originators of hip hop Miami sound, who would say things like shub Knight can't come into Miami
unless he asks my permission. He was putting bounties on Notre Dame players that was collected with NFL money on anybody who injured Tim Brown or whatever. There's this pool of money and it was being held by the team priest. How can you not love those How can you not love those footballs?
I love it.
I love it. Oh yeah, I love it.
Obviously shout out Dwayne Wade. You mentioned it earlier, but he will we have he will have a statue out there, you know, being there his entire career. To me, I think he's a top three shooting guard of all time behind him and Co. Just thoughts on his journey in his career.
What a joy to watch from start to finish, because I remember when he came in initially one of the things people were all. He was clearly on the path to start him like it was about to happen. He was still accessible still, and the janitors and the people who worked in the building would ask him not to change, Please don't change, because you're so approachable, You're so accessible
and stuff. To watch that guy have the twenty year career he has had to watch the greatness that would rank him among the all time greats at doing that and at that size. To see him grow into an even better man because he changed in all the best ways. He didn't change being personal and professional. But now that dude's a civic leader. That dude like helped Lebron with whatever the strength was in wearing the hoodies for Trayvon
Martin because they found their voice as leaders. Were like to see him be better as a man than he was as a basketball player. To see him be better as a leader, on behalf of his daughter, to fight against just hate. He loves that he has learned how to love big, so he uses his power to combat hate. We've never had an athlete better than that in South Florida. I don't have an athlete I can say that about like he grew into a He grew into a man that any of us would be honored to know and
inspired by his behavior. To say that his basketball career, I'm not gonna say pales compared to anything, but what I've seen him grow into to me is moving in ways that are truly inspirational about like what you want human beings to grow into through the platform and strength of sports, like a beast.
Yeah, no, shout out d Way definitely a you know, great player, but even better human. Recently, twenty one Savage had an impersonation of your show with the music video. We talked about it a little bit, but thoughts on this.
That characterization of me is deeply racist, stereotypical, bloated, thick. My father doesn't have a mustache. It looks nothing like that. But I do like the juxtafication of saying that my, uh my character is deeply racist. But Bomani's exactly right. They got it, They got it, They got it. Who playing Bamani? He fresh out the right.
They just bet him.
That's exactly right, That's exactly right.
But thoughts I mean overall, I mean twenty one being one of the hottest artists in this game right now.
I don't understand Matt Love like this. So Matt, I'm I don't know you guys well enough yet to know how spiritual you are or what it is that the
universe brings you in terms of comedy or blessings. Okay, I have no reason at fifty five years old to connect with the young sports fan who is nineteen or twenty years old who does so now, But things like that are always happening to us, uh in ways that I can't help but feel moved by inspiration and real inspiration in the idea of of course, it's ridiculous, it's funny. But yes, at one point my father and twenty one Savage talked on television and he remembered enough to do that.
And I will tell you, guys, both of you, the hardest I have ever seen you Donnis Haslam laugh. The hardest is when I came into the highly questionable studio and my father was holding him up because he was leaning laughing on his shoulder, and all they were looking at were those rap collaborations my father was doing with with rappers, And so.
Dan was like, what is it called? He was what is it called?
Embarrassed? What is it called? Would I get worse than that? I said?
Duet?
I did worse than that, I definitely publicly, but that that was a private conversation. I was embarrassed enough where it was happening that I did.
I loved across the table and yeah, my father those duets he does with the rabbit.
Who Who's Dan? Outside of media, outside of running Metal Lark?
He burned out?
Who's the day to day guy?
Well, this project self employment has been so fond, exhilarating, overwhelming that I haven't gotten. What I would love to have is work life balance. What I would like to be doing is get to a point in my life before you know, freedom expires, that that I can have more fun outside of what I'm doing. What we're presently doing is consuming. Okay, so I don't have kids, the people that I work with are people that I've largely
raised professionally, like they haven't worked in other places. They've gone from being, you know, people who learned under us. Twenty years later, they now have their own kids, and it's my responsibility to make sure that all those people like it's now my responsibility to make sure that everything works so that those people that those I don't have kids.
So I this is what passes. This is what, This is what passes for, this is what and and so what I what I hope people think of me is that I am someone who tries to spread love and decency to people he cares about. And I, you know, I spend a lot of time in that space trying to provide for others creatively and other ways. But I it embarrassed me. It embarrasses me that I don't have a better answer to your question because I'm so lopsided at the moment trying to take on this big undertaking
of I don't consider myself a businessman. I have business people, but you can't. You can't build a corporation that cares unless you're the one personally caring for all of the details so that you make sure and and it's hard. It's it is hard to build a corporation with a soul. It's why most of them don't have one.
I just love hearing that, because again, I'm two three years behind the process you started, and you know, giving a chance to pick your brain last night and looking forward to you know, talking to John and picking his brain, just the ups and downs and the ebbs and flows
of this. You know, I was literally talking about like I'd do a ton of shit, but I'm gonna have to cut that out because this is you know, all the smoke productions and teaming up with you guys is my baby is our baby, and we look forward to getting partnering with you guys and changing you know, the landscape. But at the same time, it's not something you talk about. It's something you have to do and the hours you have to put in you can't cheat that well.
I'd ask you, guys, I'd love some guidance on this front. I because you guys are athletes, and because you're coachable, and because there's so much failure no matter how great you are. I've had a real tough time mentally dealing with failure as learning like treating it like, oh, we're a startup. Ooh, we fell in this hole because you know, you're trying to figure things out. That's that's learning. Be gentle on yourself, like you've got to figure these things out.
I'd ask you, guys, how it is that you handle that, because I've always marveled at athlete ability to deal with failure when your entire job is based on being paid for success.
I mean, I'll start with that personal I feel like, as long as you learn something for the failure of the loss, it's not necessarily a blemish, you know what I mean, Like no one is. You know, Michael Jordan missed a ton of shots, Kobe missed a ton of shots, people lost, Lebron's lost a ton of finals. But I think when you're able to learn from those mishaps, those mistakes or those shortcomings, as long as you got something out of it to be able to apply you from
hopefully not hitting it again. You know, it's a long game. And I think today is such instant gratification everything and understanding anything worth building or anything we're doing is going to take some time. It's a slow burn, like you know, rest in peace, Nipsey House so it's a marathon, not a sprint, you know, a slow for you.
Guys though like it, I mean it hadn't you guys know.
We jumped, No, we made a jump, but at the same time, you know, being able to slow down and still learn, you know, because we don't want to although like I said earlier, maybe it was a good we kind of cut the line. So we've been able to get a multi year deal and team up with someone like you guys. But I think what I'm most excited
about is learning from you guys. You know what I mean again, because you guys have had a thirty year run in this space, and you've seen a lot of people come and go when a lot of different things happen.
So being able to almost be like a bigger brother to us and hopefully allowing us to not maybe hit some of the same pitfalls you guys hit, you know, outside of making great content, that's what I look forward to most of really, kind of having like a mentor and a whole company that believed in us, that wants to bring us along to where they're going is what I appreciate.
Honestly, you honor me when you say that, because I would imagine from the two of you. And I don't take this part lightly. I don't pretend to know you, but I've marveled at your work for fifteen years. Is someone who cares about sports and hope to know you very well. What I have seen over the years of where athletes mistrust on business because the problems that come with money. For you, guys, to trust us with your business and your future, you two specific guys, not just anybody.
It honors me that you would do business like that with us, and I believe in it wholeheartedly. Like I'm going to learn from you as well, because it is inevitable that we're going to conquer things here because we've got the right people in place during a changing media time. And you guys are going to bring the same competition to this that you did when you were winning at basketball, because.
Winning is winning.
Like you guys are conquerors. You guys are conquered.
By less clothes lines and punches and open hands slaps.
I want to touch on what he said too, like for us experience. For me, experience is the best teacher. And I think for me and Man, we've been those We've been through so much stuff in our life that we basically may learn how to make love the pressure and enjoy the good and the bad times the same.
So a loss, yes, it's a part of life, and you go through things and you try to figure out what's the good side of it, but it's out the only good side of it is going through it, because it's only it can't get worse, you know what I mean. So everything we didn't been through in life, I think we dealt with it what I had up chest out knowing that we're gonna get through it.
But do you realize how much stronger that makes you than me? No stronger than me, No, the specifics of what it is that you did. Now there are different kinds of strengths right like I would I would say to you that I'm getting stronger around my brother's grief, although i am not. I am not yet strong. But that attitude that you're talking about makes you guys much stronger than the average human being. Because the days have so much failure in them, they.
Have these guys depend on us, and we know that, you know what I'm saying, We got people that depend on us.
I'm just talking about your basketball careers though now you're inventing yourself in the second space right now, you're going to apply whatever competitiveness exists anywhere, and you quit a good job. You're leaving a good job that if you wanted to take the traditional path, you could be a color commentators and King's icon. Matt Barnes, you don't want
to take the traditional path. The strength that you guys have makes you go chase the difficult things because the rewards are on the side of the most difficult things on the other side.
I'll share a quick story about you know, when we sat down with Cobe our last interview and before we were in his office talking and he was so adamant about you know, this last twenty years of me being the Laker and Covid like, I don't want people to remember me by that, And I'm like, what are you talking about. You know, you're a five time champ, one of the greatest players ever. He's like, no, they're like these next twenty this business side is what I want
people to remember him for. And he's just like, you know, as athletes, we're disciplined where you know, we're coachable, we listen, we apply ourselves and we have to be elite you know, He's like, I'm taking all that to the business, and I know there was a lot of people. Just with that alone, I'm going to surpass.
Oh he was going to get there before Lebron. And there's Tom Brady. They're all competing that space now for the ownership. They're all this is how you get into the halls of power, though, right, because now Tom Brady's choosing between a three hundred and seventy five million dollar job and owning the Raiders Lebron. I think Lebron showed all these guys what could be possible here. But of course, now Dwayne owns part of the Utah Jazz because here
comes real power, here comes real change. Michael Jordan, the only black owner in basketball, gets out with all of the money, had very little in the way of impact, But here come his descendants as competitive as him and learning the things that a new generation learns with more power in this space, Like you're going may one day you be making the deals with Lebron at the top, just because you have the relationships, because because there's plenty
of money here for everybody. Once you guys have the power and get into this game and start like disrupting, disrupting it.
I love this. I'm obviously going to say the number. I love when he said last night, He's like, the money you're getting this year is just the beginning. I'm just like, oh, I love to hear that. But anyway, this is man, this has been great. We got quick hitters.
Now.
First thing to come to mind, let us know what is your top five Miami athletes of all time?
Okay, that is putting me on the spot in no particular order. We're not going in any particular order. Okay, I'm gonna clear. No, I'm gonna do it in order. I'm gonna go number five. Jose Fernandez. I'm going to say that because he he told a particularly Cuban tale. No, there are three. There are three Cuban guys. He Jose Fernandez is the Latin player who passed away. But he's probably the biggest arm in history. But you've got the
two brothers you're mentioning, Levan and El Duque. I'd put all three of them together just because of the emotion of they told my family story that came over from Cuba. Four, I would go Alonzo morning because of he helped over town in a way. Uh. He had real impact charitably in our community, caring about people that not a lot of people cared about, and was obviously a Hall of Famer and great.
Uh.
Three would be u Dan Marino because he built a children That should probably be number two. Uh because he built a children's hospital and was a Hall of famer uh.
And played in ace Ventura.
Played they played in ace Ventura. I am Uh. I got to think about this for a second. I'm gonna go number three Ricky Williams because his story is uh. He's friends were friends, and I love him. I love him like a brother, and he was great and he was wronged, like I mean, got chased out of the league for smoking weed.
Yeah.
Uh.
And then number one would be Dwane Wade. He's the best best athlete in the history of our town.
One thing you wish you were better.
At forgiving myself?
Oh that's date being less.
Hard on myself.
That's why I go to therapy.
I'm trying.
I've had a lot of trouble with that one. If I could be more gentle with myself, I would be more loving and kinder to myself.
You'll get there. One dream interview that you haven't had yet that you would like to get.
Oh Man one dream interview. I'm gonna go Jim Carrey, Jim.
Carrey, I like that.
Top five sports personalities of all times?
Oh dear God, Oh sports personalities of all time. Give me some nominations here, right, because we're gonna go Howard cosell Is obvious sports personalities. You're not talking about broadcaster types.
You're talking about Okay, you're talking about characters. You're talking about charisma and yeah, of course, okay, Ali Jim Brown, although complicated legacy, yeah so, But I mean you're talking about civil rights activist, bad relationship with women that causes a moral conundrum that but as a person, I mean, retires from the league at the age of thirty as MVP from the set of The Dirty doesn't because he doesn't like his pay and wouldn't go to jail because
he wasn't I'm sorry, wouldn't pick up trash and preferred to go to jail because he wasn't going to be undignified as a black man in his position picking up trash. So all of these guys who who had activist causes are moving to me personalities personalities. Rodman going a basketball here.
Football rubbed some of that out, Dean. Yeah, I know, well, thank you, thank you for the help Dion, because he taught Dion knew all of this stuff much earlier, how to manage his brand, how to be a master market how to be somebody who who paved the way on both commerce and funny and and knew how to sell himself. That's enough. You guys are wearing me out. This is I don't like. I don't that's it. You're making me think too much. I grieved, I wept. Come on, emotional
roll call the hip hop duet. Come on, man, you're wearing me out.
Welcome to death row stuck on an island? Three shows or movies in rotation on?
Man, how many more of these are there? I can't. You guys have more stamina than I do.
Three favorite shows and movies.
Okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go, uh, Breaking Bad, the Sopranos and the Jefferson's.
That's nice. I like that.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Cheesecake?
Geez?
That was easy. You have.
Speaking about something right now?
Well, if you want to ask me about food, I'm happy to go on for another three hours.
With five dinner guests, dead or alive. You plus five around the dinner table talking about whatever.
You know what, I can't do it. That's a pleasure looking forward to I love it.
Hey only only only here. Hey man, that's a wrap, Dan Levantar. We're thankful. Thank you Dan, Thank you John Skipper, Thank you Metal Lark for believing in us DraftKings. This new this new era of all the smoke production is going to be great. Thank you guys for sticking bias and being loyal fans. Me and Jack got a lot of new ship coming your way. Come on, man, this Dan, I just I just hope when he hugged he didn't mess my hair up. God damn it. You can catch
all the smoke productions you too. Find this interview on Bennymore. We'll see you guys next week.