Ep 17: The Politics of Healthy Arrogance - Featuring Will Packer

Hey, what's up everybody.

I'm Jamelle Hill and welcome to his politics and I heard podcasts and unbothered production.

Time to get spolitical.

As I mentioned last week, I'm going to use Black History mouff to highlight black stories and sports that don't get the attention they deserve. And this week's story starts and ends in Pittsburgh, specifically with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, the Steelers are one of the most revered and successful franchises in NFL history. They are currently tied with the New England Patriots for most Super Bowl wins, with both

As for how None wound up with the.

Steelers, well, it was a relationship that began rooted in criticism. None ragged on the Steelers for their lack of talent and success. Before the Steelers became a dominant team in the nineteen seventies, Pittsburgh had only seven winning seasons since the franchise began in nineteen thirty three. Aubrey Bruce, the sports columnists for the New Pittsburgh Career, explains how None and the Steelers became connected for life.

Initially, Bill and Nunn's relationship with the Steelers was a critic. It was criticizing the team for not having black players, and we cannot forget Dan Rooney ms ruinship. Was you so much an expert? Come on over, let scout we can get some plays now.

Bill Nunn's response was less or whatever. The nineteen sixties version of that was. The Steelers hired None as a part time scout in nineteen sixty seven, two years before they hired Chuck no who coached the Steelers to their first four Super Bowl victories. But it was None who had the secret sauce.

From the stories that Bill told me, some of the scouts weren't very comfortable of going into those schools of the historically black colleges scouting players. They didn't always think that they would have access to them.

That was me and Joe Green, one of the key defensive forces that was part of the Steelers infamous Steel Curtain defense. Much to the dismay of the Pittsburgh fans at the time, the Steelers drafted Green fourth overall in nineteen sixty nine. That same draft, None told the Steelers to take el C. Greenwood, another major figure in the Steel Curtain, in the tenth round out of Arkansas. But that was just the beginning of a new era in Steelers football.

From nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy five, the Steelers drafted twenty four players from HBC years, the most in the NFL. Five players from those schools, Mel Blunt, Elsie Greenwood, Ernie Holmes, John Stalwart, and the undrafted Donnie Schell became Pillars of four Super Bowl teams in the seventies.

In nineteen seventy four, the Steelers added five Hall of famers to their roster, four of which were drafted. It's considered to be one of the greatest NFL draft classes in history. The Steelers drafted lyn Swan, Jack Lambert, John Stalworth, and Mike Webster, and then they signed the undrafted rookie Donnie Shale. None is credited for the entire reason the Steelers took Stalworth and Shell with None in their ear Three fourths of that famed steel Curtain defensive line came

But Bill scouted.

The first time I was with him on the road, we spent a day at Boston College.

Even though his expertise was the hbcused, he was so much more than that.

None retired from the Steelers in nineteen eighty seven as assistant personnel director, he never got to be a general manager, a position he was clearly qualified for. Even after he officially retired, None still continued to work part time for the Steelers. In twenty fourteen, he had a stroke in the team's scouting room and died a few days later.

At eighty nine.

Years old and twenty twenty one, None was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He is the first black person in the Hall's history to be enshrined as a contributor. The same year of his induction, the Pro Football Writers of America renamed their award that honors distinguished reporting in Pro Football after None. Unfortunately, these honors came for None after his son, a famous actor I'm sure you'll recognize, had already passed away. You might remember his son from this role.

Turn out him off right, turn it up radio out here. I can't him myself. Three you want you want to.

Now?

I don't know why that wouldn't ring a bell, But just in case it didn't, here's another famous character played by Bill Nunn's son.

Who wasn't making no money then?

Was we?

Now that we are?

You out here living your fucking Michael Jordan, fantasy shooting, jumpers and whatnot.

Business must be pretty good. We will be brother beat. This a man freebase. So what yo, man? You know the rules us brothers don't be getting out. Shut the fuck up.

Man, it just try to call you a non talking basket.

The actor Bill Nunn died in twenty sixteen, five years before his father officially became a Hall of Famer, but his father's legacy lives on as it is one that was clearly built to last.

I'm Jamel Hill and I approved this message.

I am so excited about today's episode because my guest is a billion dollar producer.

That's right, I said billion with a B.

He had ten films that have opened at number one at the box office, and in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, his two comedies that he produced for the highest grossing.

Comedies in those years.

His success is not limited to movies, as he has produced quality, award winning content in the television space, including and unscripted. He's a proud HBC you graduate, and most recently, he became a minority owner with the Atlanta Falcons. He's got one of the best success stories in Hollywood history. Which you can read about in his new book Who Better Than You The Art of Healthy Arrogance and Dreaming. Coming up next on Politics, mega producer Will Packer.

So Will, I'm going.

To start the podcast by question I asked every guest on politics and that is named a athlete or a moment that made you love sports.

Ooh and okay, all right, I have to ask you answer your question?

What a question? Sorry, but I'm an analytical type.

So does it have to be something that I experienced myself or can it just be oh, Hank Aaron, Hank Aaron and the home run record seven fifty five.

Yeah, that would be because because because.

Of what's possible, because of you know, I just remember I played baseball as a young man growing up, and to have somebody that looked like that in a sport that you know, was not is not has not ever been dominated by people of color, of black people, specifically. You know, Hank Aaron's a home run king that always said to me, like you could do it, you know what I mean, Like the ceiling of what someone that

Moments Because I love sports as you do.

But yeah, do you're a big sports fan and you know you not. You got to me.

You're experiencing something that every sports fan s dreams about, and that is ownership. I mean you you have an ownership stake in the Atlanta Falcons, and you know, just from my viewpoint, that's the next frontier NFL ownership that black folks, you know, really need to We need to get one. We need to get one majority owner in the NFL, and that has not yet happened. But you having this ownership stake in the Falcons, Like, take me through the process because this is a very exclusive club.

So what was the process like for you?

Yeah, it's it's huge. I mean it really is. It is as cool as it sounds.

I'm not gonna lie to you, Jay, Like just being a sports fan, being somebody with very deep ties to Atlanta and to that market. Number One, it doesn't happen without me having an advocate and somebody that has power. That's something that I want to You can't kind of overstate we talk about and understand the power dynamics and a culture in a community. You talked about how exclusive

She was my chief staff and she knew somebody.

This is how these things happen, right, She knew somebody that worked in the Obama White House, and she knew that person introduced me this person, like you know, years ago when Obama's in office, and it was just kind of a social relationship.

And so she.

Called me and was like you remember blah blah blah. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, what's see up to?

How's he do it?

He's like, well, he knows somebody that's got an investment opportunity. Now, when you are in the position that I'm in, everybody's got an investment opportunity.

Right.

If I had a dollar for every investment opportunity that was brought to me, I would be running the doge of the United States, you know what I'm.

Saying, Right, So.

I got this call, and it sounded crazy.

My eyes rolled first.

Because she said investment opportunity and then she said, listen, I wouldn't bring it to you if it wasn't real. But it's the NFL. And I was like, you're talking about the National Foodsball League, like prick Fried Legion, Like I know, you're not talking about the NFL, right, And she was like, yeah, there is somebody who is putting together a group to be considered by one of the owners.

It was all very very top secret.

I didn't know the team, I didn't know the owner, but the question was would you want to be considered? And the person putting it together and that name, I will say, it's a brother named Derek Hagenes. And Derek had worked with the NFL for years behind the scenes. He's an attorney and he had consulted with the league and he had been trying to advocate for NFL owners to diversify their ownership ranks. This is not something they have to do, This is not something that they get

And it was a process with all these various steps.

And here's one thing that I will tell you is that the NFL, as we know, is very protective of their brand. They don't play about that shield. And so the process to be considered because ultimately you have to be voted on. The individual owner has to decide to accept you and then put you forth for consideration, and then all the owners have to vote when you add even a limited partner minority on.

So they go.

You have to go to a very rigorous vetting process, like rigorous, like I was asked during this process about you know, social media that I had engaged with ten years ago, you know what I mean, and just you know, not necessarily like I couldn't have freedom of speech, but just asking about some of the things that had, you know, been out there. I was asked about like a parking ticket, like from fifteen years ago.

Was like, what who?

Like the NFL has got some x FBI agents on the paywell, you know what I mean, and law enforcement types and so they don't mess around. So anyway, each stepping away, it got smaller and smaller and smaller in terms of the group that was being considered. And ultimately there were four of us, and you know I made the cut. And it's not charity. I will tell you that, right, like you gotta you know, you gotta step up the dollars.

But when you.

Make a serious investment into a team, guess what ownership hits different?

You know what I mean?

You start talking about like real resources, like significant portions of your net worth.

I'm a falcons fan. So anyway, it was it was cool.

It's a blessing and I give I got a lot of props Arthur Blank, because it especially in an environment where you have people going, you know, why is diversity important.

It's not, you know, let's ignore it.

Let's not lift people up based on you know, you know, the color their skin or their ethnicity or the fact that they bring you know, something different, different perspectives to the table.

I'm somebody in my career.

Has always benefited from the fact that I have people that do have diverse skill sets, abilities, and backgrounds and ethnicities and orientations. That is what has made me successful throughout my career is that I'm not just hiring people from the same club and the same pipeline. But if you don't understand that value, then you may be somebody that ignores that. But you do it at your own peril. And so I give a lot of propers author Blank for giving me that opportunity. And so, man, it's been

Sport.

Right Like, as a fan, you sit on the outside. You get mad when your team, you know, doesn't do what you want, when the coach doesn't answer a question, right when the you know, key player drops the ball.

It's human, it's lives, careers as families, all that stuff.

In fact, so so far, what has been the coolest part about being an NFL owner?

Man, I mean, it's just being an owner, Like that's you know, I'm I'm I'm the coolest cat at the dinner party, Jamiel. I ain't gonna lie to you, you know what I'm saying, Like I can walking everybody who doesn't own a team sit over there, you know what I mean.

Like, it's just it's not a bad flex, right, you know I think that it is. Yeah, football fan, you know what I mean?

Being being able to go in the locker room and especially after victory and see the energy and and you know how everybody you know celebrates and and uh and see this this this.

Bandon brothers all coming together.

That's cool, you know, being there and being able to interact with the fans in a different way, you know what I mean. You know, I've always been somebody that has aspired to be.

A shining example of what's possible.

And so when I spoke to some kids at a conference and they were introducing me, and they were talking about and he produced this, he producing that, and you know, and these were younger kids, and a lot of them hadn't necessarily seen all the movies that I've made. But then when they mentioned my ownership of the Atlanta Falcons, like everybody knew that.

You know what I mean. And these were a group of.

Black and brown kids, and they looked up and like, you know, you could tell it was the first time that they saw somebody that looked like them that was able to be in that position. That's the coolest thing to show that, you know, we can excel on the grid. Is we know that we can excel on the court, on the hardwood, we know that we can do anything out the athletic but also there are levels to success, and so to be somebody that represents a different level of success for that next generation.

Honestly, that's really was the driving.

Motivation for me to do it, because I wanted to be a part of showing folks that look like me that we can also excel in the boardroom, in ownership groups and at ownership levels like that was important.

Before I move on and we talk about this wonderful new book of yours that that's out, So do you think you could have been a partner in a team that you don't particularly like, Like if the picture is like come.

On, will like we don't you?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

It's funny because when it came up and we didn't know which team it was, my wife and I would talk and we were like like, yo, like what if it's like some random you know, and listen, it ain't but thirty two teams and to get in any of them is you know, you're part of points here zero one percent. Most people will never had that opportunity. But like I wasn't necessarily trying to be like part of the Seattle Seahawks, you know what I'm saying, Like I live in the Southeast. I don't know a lot of

Remember thinking like, man, if we had a chance.

To be a part of Denver Broncos, we'll be flying to the mile High every other week, you know.

So the answer to the question is, I don't know. It is one of those things that.

It's kind of too awesome an opportunity to pass up to be real witch, especially somebody like me who's very bitious and thinks about legacy. So I'm just glad it was a Falcons put it that way. I'm just glad that it was. It was the home team, baby, you know what I'm saying. I'm glad that it was who it was.

All Right, let's talk about your new book, Who Better Than You The Art of Healthy Arrogance and Dreaming Big?

Yes, what is healthy arrogance?

People told me not to put that on the tile of my book.

They say, you gonna put that on the cover because it is something that you know, scares people. You think about arrogance, You just think about people that have like unsubstantiated hubris. Right, And I'm a Hollywood producer. I have worked you know, for the last three decades. I've worked around some of the most famous, some of the most important, powerful passionate also some of the most ego driven and

Industry you want to get into.

And so when I talk about healthy arrogance, it is this confidence.

And it does not have to be externally loud.

It's not about walking in the rooms and kicking over tables and telling everybody I'm here, look at me right. Typically people that are doing that ain't backing it up. It is about a belief that I have seen the most successful people that I have been around, that they have not that they could be successful or that they want to be successful.

It is that they are destined for success.

That is a mindset that if you're able to adopt, it will manifest itself in ways that you don't even realize. It changes the way that you walk into those rooms. It makes you not think am I supposed to be here? Not even think that I might be able to hang in this room, But it makes you realize that the room is better because you're in it now. To do that, you got to have a foundation of a work ethic, you gotta have a skill set, you got to be

You gotta be a little I.

Was talking to I saw them Will Smith actually, and he was talking about something that Quincy Jones said to him. And Quincy Jones said, to really succeed in the game, you gotta be a little mad, is what he said, right, And.

So is that wrong?

You do gotta be a little Craig Craig, but in a good way. You got to be crazy about your ability and your desire to reach the highest levels of success. And even if you don't have it, if you're not somebody that innately has that drive, you can get there. There are things that you can do to train yourself in your mindset to think a certain way, and success then begets success.

What I love about your book is just as we're talking right now, that's how I feel when I read your book. It's like it's so powerfully written in your voice. It's funny, it's smart, it's thoughtful all of those things, and you tell great stories. You are a storyteller.

It's very true.

I mean, if people don't know from seeing your movies, but that you know, all of that translates to your book for you.

Why now? Why did you feel like it was important for you to put this out now?

Yeah?

I think the why now is because we live in a time where it is the divide in the gap between the haves have not, the doers and the do nothings, the folks that are achieving their dreams and goals and the people that aren't. That gap and that divide is bigger than ever. And part of the reason is the environment that we live in. I have a lot of conversations with our younger you know, brothers and sisters, gen z and and you know, they grew up in a

You can move on. But that's not real.

And so I realized because I had more people than ever coming to me and asking me about mentorship, asking me about doing a masterclass, And I said.

You know what, I have a story to tell.

I am a storyteller, and the book is a collection of stories the things that I've learned from the front lines of Hollywood. But it also is something that is for people that are just starting out, people who've been in the game but ready to pivot, people who have been doing something a certain way and are not satisfied

I mean, the wildest dreams that you want to achieve.

You know, one of the things that you write a lot about in this book, or one of the people I should say, is your relationship with Kevin Hart. I love that you speak of great affection but also call him this Fawn of Satan, which is pretty sad.

Yes, he is. Both can be true, both.

Can be true, two things can be true.

It was and if that is the case, when you and Kevin Hart and I just laughed all the way through that story of when you all were shooting right along. But yet he had this, you know, he had his comedy specialist. That's his corn garden. I don't know how you kept your cool in.

The middle of the shoot, Jamel in the middle. It was the biggest.

Movie of both careers. He came up to me, He's like, hey, next Friday, I need to get off a little early. You know, I'm busy almost Settim.

In his trailer.

Okay, all right, well let me check and see what we shoot next Friday. I look, oh, Kevin, we shoot Friday and Saturday. Remember Saturday? Is that really important day? So no, we can't, Like, why what do you need with you know what? I didn't realize we shot next Saturday. Something told me that he did, but I fell for.

It at the time.

I said, well, yeah, we shoot next Saturday. Let me see if I get you off early. What what do you gotta do?

You gotta do?

Host a party or something, He's like, I got a comedy show I gotta do. I'm like, listen, brother, you gonna have to cancel the comedy show because we got a big shoot.

The next day.

It's like, yeah, but to send Madison Square Guard Madison Square Garden. So you planned a huge comedy show, literally your next comedy special, in the middle of our shoot. And at that time, Kevin was coming off a Thing Like a Man, which I produced right. This was right along him ice Cube, the biggest budget and the biggest opportunity in his movie career and the biggest budget and biggest opportunity in my movie career. So I'm like, brother,

What black people say.

Listen.

It's like when black people say, come rus some errors with me real quick. Nine hours later we know yes.

First first, he hit me with the old black expression. You know, I don't ask you for much. You know when somebody say they don't ask you for much, they asked you for shit all the time, you know that they do. He hit me with you know, I don't ask you for much. Then he hit me with the yeah, come run this errand with me, come with me. That's

It's cool. I think that's too many bottles.

Put that down, Kevin, stop drinking, like I'm trying to get out of there, to get back to the private jets so we can get back to the shoot on time.

When I realized in that moment when.

Carmelo Anthony came in with all these bottles and the music turned up, and I looked at Kevin and he goes, well we tried.

When he said well, we tried, you know the scene in.

Usual Suspects where the detective realizes who kayz Sosee is.

It was in that moment that I realized this was all his plan.

Because if he leaves set and flies to New York do a comedy show and then doesn't get back in time, the studio is gonna be pissed off at him, and he's gonna have to pay for that. He's gonna be in major trouble because he's put the whole shoot in Jeffards. But if the producer is with him, and the producer and the director, he flew.

Both of us up.

If we are there with it, we are completely complicit.

It's on us.

I realized in that moment, I said, you evil, evil man.

You set this whole damn thing up.

It was all I could do to stop from choking my star actor and my short little friend.

In that moment, it taught me Carmelo Anthony let us off the hook.

I'll still owe Carmelo to this day, because it was set up where we wasn't getting out of that club.

If Mellow didn't say something, you were about to fail. We were gonna fail.

Listen, Mellow was pouring shots, he was like, he was like, we turn it up. We gonna die tonight. He literally said those words. I was like, Oh God, we can't die, not tonight. Let's not die, like, let's die after the movie. Shoot, let's die during the playoffs when the kicks ain't gonna be there.

You know.

He I realized that that moment two things. One, you gotta expect the unexpected, right, you really do. You have to whatever it is that you're doing. You can't always think things are going to go according to plan. And as a young producer, I have learned over and over again that things will always go wrong. You can't control what's going to go wrong, but you can control being able to mitigate how much it affects you. The second thing, and this is something that we talk about when it

Well, where I'm also going with this is that when you look at a lot of the great directors and producers, it's just an actor. They are able to develop a certain chemistry with you know, Spike Leans and Sale.

You have Michael B.

Jordan and right Ryan Coopler. You and Kevin Hart seem to have found that. I mean, Fight Night was exceptional such a series.

Appreciate that great.

Story, like I really loved it.

So what is it about your dynamic with Kevin that allows you all to produce this high quality work that you do.

Yeah, our work ethics, we have a lot of symmetry. We have a symbiotic relationship because I know you know, even in that story, the fault of Kevin was that he was working too hard and trying to do too much right, and so you want that. You don't want the person who is lazy and is going to try to get away with doing the least, doing the minimum, no matter what the environment is. You want to put people around you that are aligned with your goals. Kevin

I know he's gonna deliver, and I know whatever I need.

If I need to go to extra mile, I need to work, you know, shoot for eighteen hours straight for whatever reason. Like I know he's down, He's gonna give me that he is going to work, and so you know, I just I always think that you have to make sure that the people around you, your team if you're giving more energy to your team than they're giving to you, you need a new team.

Right. If you're the most successful, most ambitious, hardest working person in your circle, you need a new circle because they're not pushing you, you're not getting any better. And so we make each other better, Iron Shoppers.

Iron And with Fight Night, we became each other's most frequent collaborators.

We've done more movies and TV with each other than we have with anybody else.

Yeah, as I said, it's a dynamic that definitely shows up that we see on screar now.

As anybody knows from your work wheel, like.

You are terrific at doing universal stories that are black lid. They're not necessarily black stories, or they're universal stories that are black lid. And this time where there seems to be an assault on all things black, all things black lid. On top of that, how has that impacted at all with how you navigate the types of stories that you want to tell? And for more, I guess more importantly, the type of stories that you could get done now in this kind of tumultuous time.

Yeah, listen, here's what I think those types of stories DEI efforts to be more inclusionary. Have always been under attack. They've always been things that the power structure has fought against because power seeds nothing without demand. And so it doesn't change what I'm doing. The bar has always been the bar for me. If my movies, I don't care who's in front of the camera, I don't care how important the stories are. If they don't make money, I'm

What I'm doing.

Of course, Hollywood is a reactive industry, and as the pendulum of politics and public perception swings back and forth, Hollywood reacts to that. Of course, but at the end of the day, if I'm somebody that can deliver or a bottom line is the economic imperative more than any other social or political one that most industries operate under. And so what we have to do is make sure that we realize.

This is not new. There's nothing new.

It's got a different name, right, It's got different figures that are touting why diversity is not a good thing. But at the end of the day, these are the same people that have never genuinely heralded diversity. So if you're somebody that believes in diversity, you got to make sure that there's a value to it that is undenial. You got to make sure that the diversity that you are bringing to the table, if it needs to make money, is making money because it needs to win awards, is

Yeah, I mean, aside from the political part of it, and I know this just being in la is sort of having some you know, connections within the industry with even projects that I'm trying to do is the politics aside?

Though?

I mean, I think a common play that I hear among creators is that now that's sort of the hedge fund mentality has moved into movies. It's always been one to some degree, but it feels like even now that Hollywood is so much more risk averse than they used to be. That's why you're getting the nostalgia plays and like, you know, this is not to pick on this movie.

It's got to be I p like all of that.

So does that what movie where you going to say?

You say, you don't want to pick on like for example, right, this is to sell some merch you could, like you know what I'm saying. And I think I saw that Margot Robbie is doing another board game type of show, a type of movie as well. So the whole point is that I'm wondering, as a creative, though, are you feeling more constrain or is your formula enough.

To kind of weather this kind of time now in Hollywood? Because people assumed it was going to be back.

After the strike, and I've told people it is not back, not in the way that people were thinking it would be.

No.

I mean, you work very closely in the media industry and so you understand your content creator.

It's we are definitely.

In an EBB in Hollywood right now. It's not a flow, right, there is a constriction of content. The major media companies are making less, right, I don't care what you look like, who you are, there's less content being made. So coming off of multiple strikes, which were coming off of the global pandemic, our industry has been hammered, and that means it's been very, very tough for everybody, myself included. I don't care how successful you are, everybody's having to deal

So it's tough. It's tough, but you can navigate well.

I say, maybe as a Hollywood that you can explain this to me is that there's more streaming that it just doesn't seem like they have enough content, So why the restriction is what I want to know is like y'all don't have enough, you know, So I guess I just don't get like the thought processes that we have streamers on streaming, on streaming, like platforms being created, fast channels. It's like we're inundated, and yet at the same time, it just seems like they don't want to get anything made.

Like I don't I don't get it.

You just said it, though, Jay, you just hit on it. Okay.

You have all these various platforms that the studios invested in, right, and they thought.

That streaming was going to be a profit center.

So they went out and spent billions with a B on Netflix, Disney Plus.

Max, Peacock, Paramount plus you name it. Right.

Everybody need to have their own streaming service, and thus you needed to feed those streaming services. So you go back five years ago, there were a lot of deals getting done, a lot of content getting made, and actually it oversaturated the market. So when we had those strikes, people outside the industry.

Didn't feel it. They didn't even really care.

You had two major strikes, the actors and the writers not working, pins down, cameras off right, But people didn't necessarily feel like, oh man, there's not a new episode of Abbot Elementary. What am I gonna do on you know, on this primetime weeknight. You know what they did, They went to their streaming service and said, you know what, I'm about to catch up on the old episodes.

Of House of Cards, whatever it was.

Regular people had so much opportunity to consume content, so it's not really that they need more now. There actually is a little bit of a thinning out process that is happening because so much was made and consumers, who ultimately consumers are the one that control what Hollywood and every the other industry does. If consumers want it and

You can find I don't care how.

Niche or outside the normal or traditional stream it is, you can find it somebody's making. Right, until we get to a point where people are genuinely looking for new content, and I don't mean just new episodes of your favorite show, but I mean new original content. Until that appetite picks back up, you're going to see the media companies pulling back. Because here's the dirty secret that not a lot of

Right.

And so that's the dynamic that you have to really kind of drill into, is the economics of the business right now are such that the media companies don't have to go out and spend more. They're not making what they thought they were going to make on streaming, and so folks like you and I it's much tougher for us to get our content. Mate, that's a little more inside baseball maybe than we wanted to go.

But that makes a lot.

Of sense because when you have because during the pandemic, me and Van Lathan we did rewatch podcasts of The Wire, right.

The Wire was one of the most watched series during.

The pandemic Because to your point, people are catching up a whole stuff.

They're like, oh, I've never watched this.

It's why Suits just suddenly exploded all over again, like it just came out.

And when that happens.

While I'm certainly happy that it does for those involved with the projects, but that's not new material. So like, that's right, what's the incentive the right new material if I'm just gonna go back and watch something that they did ten or fifteen years ago.

So you guys, the rights holder of suits is making money and they don't have to go out and make the new suits right because audiences are satiated, and so that's that's that's the dynamic that folks like us have to balance, all right.

So I know your time is short, and before I get you out of here, I like that in the podcast by asking every guest, what I call a messy question.

Let's get into some trouble that create.

We were doing good. I know, we were doing so good. Here this is where it's gonna go bad.

We had an amazing conversation and this is the one right here where I'm an mess up.

Let me tell you that this is where it goes bad. All right.

So the messy question is this, What if you had to pick one, You could only pick one of these, all right? Would you rather have an Oscars win or a Falcon's Super Bowl victory.

You gotta pick the super Bowl, Falcon super Bowl. I'm like Lincoln, I'm taking super Bowl. Baby, I'm taking these super Bowl, I'm taking super Bowl.

I'm taking it.

Listen, honey, how change the situation?

Listen, I'm an investor.

You know you know what that super Bowl win gonna do to the value of the balcony. You know what it is to see a city like Atlanta city that I love, a super Bowl being brought to that city. You see what it does, how it lifts the whole community up in a way. A oscar is so much more of an individual thing, and I would love it, and I would, you know, love.

It for my own legacy.

But I've done okay at Hollywood, right, I still got a little PTSD from them.

Damn Oscars if you want to know the truth.

Right, we didn't go there, But I would say that super Bowl because that's something that everybody could enjoy. It's a totally new area for me, and I just can't a made the city of it like you think. Y'all don't like them, damn cheeks. You think you kind of Kansas City at old swag surface tailor swift. Let me tell you, so you let these Falcons win a Super Bowl, y'all are going hate I mean hate the eight Yeah, because you know we show it all the way out.

I wouldn't expect anything less. Well, will thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. And everybody out there, make sure that you buy Wheel's You book. It's really fun, thoughtful read. As I said, quick read to which you know that you definitely wrote to today's attention span generation right or lack of say. Book is called who Better Than You? The art a healthy arrogance and dreaming big. So make sure that you cop that

I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

I just said it's a tough content environment.

Did you hear me say that it's hard. It's hard out here?

Over one hundred million dollars.

This is yes? Ever, Okay, you're right, You're right. I'm on it. That it is not on the studios. That one is on my team. We work, If we work, we try to make it happen. It's hard.

You get them together.

Man, Yes, I've wrought it. I wrote it. I got you.

I appreciate you, Laddy, thanks for giving me some time. I appreciate Okay, all right, Sis, one.

More segment to go, and you guys know what that means.

I got questions to answer up next, your viewer slash listener questions, and I have plenty of answers coming up next on the final segment of Spola Dips. All right, everybody, before I wrap up another episode of Politics, time for me to answer a question from you.

And this question comes from Instagram.

Baraka Ali sixty sixty one asked given analysis of title nain. Okay, I'm going to assume this question is related to the Trump administration's recent announcement that it was reversing guidance from former President Joe Biden, who in the final days of his presidency, instructed schools to quote proportionally distribute name, image, and likeness payments between male and female athletes to comply with Title nine, the federal legislation adopted in nineteen seventy

So what does this mean? For female athletes.

Well a means schools can just funnel the majority of the money from the settlement to men's basketball and college football. Now, some of your proper thinking, well it should be that way anyways, it's those two make a lot of money.

Well, here's some food for thought.

Maybe the reason these two sports have become worth a billion dollars or more is because the NCAA has frankly spent decades pouring money and.

Resources into these sports.

Now, the Government Accountability Office did a Title nine study last year and found that the NCAA made a conscious, concerted effort to place their full support behind men's basketball and the men's basketball tournament.

And this was long before.

Men's basketball became a billion dollar business. Now, these new directives from the Trump administration could have a damning effect on women's sports. Now that schools have been told they don't have to worry about providing equal support women's basketball, softball, volleyball, those are exploding in popularity. But let's not also forget the Olympics, where if the American women who competed in the Olympics last summer in pairs were their own country,

The college level, that will show up in the Olympics.

Take note.

Thank you Baraka Ali six to six to one for your question. Now, if you have a question for me, you can hit me up on social media or email. I'm at Jamail Hill across all social media platforms Twitter, Instagram, blues Guide and Threads, also fan Base, which I recently joined. Please use the hashtags politics. You also have the option of emailing me as Politics twenty twenty four at gmail dot com. You can also send me a video of your question, but please make sure it's thirty seconds or less.