Colin Cowherd Podcast - Berhalter Out From USMNT, TNT NEEDS To Keep The NBA, Presidential Debate Fallout

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decided to. I have a place out in Rhode Island, hung out near the beach with my wife daughter. Was out there for a while. Good friends from Los Angeles stop by. We have really good friends out in Rhode Island, and it's my favorite little hiding place in America. Is in a small little town in Rhode Island, and I go on these long walks on the beach every day by myself. Sometimes I put in a podcast the earbuds, and sometimes I just talk to myself in the fog

in the morning. Dogs everywhere. So it gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of things. First of all, I want to talk about Greg Burhalter just got relieved of his duties as the coach of the United States men's national team. You know, I've come to the realization two things about soccer fans in America. Number One, they have been ignored right compared to football, basketball, baseball for years, So they have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. They're not really interested in

you joining the club. And for guys like me who are traditionalists with the main sports, you know, it's very hard to get the VIP pass code to be let in. You're always having to prove your worth. Baseball fans become a little like this since baseball over the last twenty years has lost so much of its social currency, it's just not talked about like it used to be at

the water cooler. And so if you ever have an opinion about soccer, you're an outsider unless you're going to the matches, and you know you have to prove your worth constantly. Here's all I know about Greg Burholter sixty nine percent winning percentage, which is the highest winning percentage of any United States men's nation team coach that has coached at least twenty twenty games. And remember, this is a guy that got a draw in the last World Cup to the final field of sixteen with none of

his top players in their prime. None he had players getting close to their prime. Polistic now is just entering his prime. But people will say, well, he's got more talent than ever. If you look at every sport, including soccer, in the world, you win championships when you have an overwhelming majority of your best players in their prime. Chris Jones, Maholmes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelcey was middle to late prime when they started this run. That's the way it goes, right Like.

That's not to say you can't have players like a Brady who is older, a Gronk who is older. They have playoff experience, but generally sports all work the same way. I mean the Boston Celtics Tatum and his prime, Jalen Brown in his prime, Derek White in his prime. Zingis actually in his prime, although he misses a lot of time, Drew Holliday out of his prime, Horford out of his prime, but their top three players are arguably all in their prime.

You know when Denver won their championship. Jokich prime, Murray prime, Porter prime, Gordon prime, KCP a little out of his prime, a little older. So the United States men's national team is the most skillful we've ever had, but this World Cup will be the first World Cup where we have a majority of our best players at the beginning of their prime. It's still a really young team, So go ahead,

get rid of Greg Berholter. But one of the reasons I've been critical of of the United States men's national team fans is because they always blame the coach. It doesn't matter who it is, Jurgen Klansmen, Bruce Arena, It's always blamed the coach. It's always the coach's fault. And the reality is this country has played mostly defensive and safe soccer most of my life because we have to. If we're hyper aggressive against Argentina or A Germany, the Netherlands, England,

we'd get roasted. I think for the first time ever, in the next two years, this World Cup team will have the ability to play top teams England and be equally aggressive. I think our skill is that good. The COPA performance was disappointing. I think we're better than most of the teams in COPA, So I understand the disillusion fan base. I get it, but just no sixty nine percent of the matches with a mostly overwhelmingly young roster just entering their prime, just over the next year to

two entering their prime. I thought he was pretty good. I did think COPA was disappointing. Two things can be true. So Greg Burholter is gone. Something else I think about as the NBA has finalized their deal with ESBN NBC and Amazon to get seventy six million over eleven years and listen, it's like people that overreacted to Bronni James going to the Lakers. You don't like Lebron, I get it. I'm not looking for you, to be honest. TNT has

five days to match. I think the most interesting part of the NBA deal is an ESBN, NBC or Amazon. It's TNT, who has again about a week to match or their forty year relationship is over. So let me tell you. Let's say you run TNT. I'm a consumer, and I think I'm your typical sports consumer. If you let the NBA go, I can just tell you I'll never watch TNT again. It'll just be one of those things I scroll past. That's the only reason I watch

TNT and the Kenny Smith Barklay shack Ernie Show. I watch an hour before the game start and all off and stay thirty minutes after the games are over if I'm not doing a podcast. So no NBA. I'm not watching for the Western Conference finals of the NHL because the Stanley Cup. Ill watch ESPN's got that. I'm not watching for an occasional early round baseball playoff series. Fox

has the World Series. I'm not watching TNT. So if you ran TNT, would you rather sign the deal keep me as a consumer, though you lose money on the deal, but you keep me watching your shoulder programming, your pregame show, your postgame show, seeing all sorts of ads promotions for other shows during your NBA coverage, or lose me completely as a consumer. That's the decision TNT has. They're not going to make money on this deal, but you sign

the deal to be able to promote other shows. Try to expand how often I, as a consumer am watching because I don't. I'm not going to watch DNT, it's over. I'm not watching for Mountain West Football and Early Round Baseball playoff series. It's over. I'm done as a consumer. And so you know, it's very easy to say, well, they're going to lose money. All these networks are going to lose money on the NBA. ESPN because they're a current rights holder, doesn't have to market and promote the NBA.

As a new rights holder, NBC and Amazon have to go out and spend so much money on marketing, promotion, hiring remote crews to ramp up like overspend early to pull in new audience. ESPN's got me. I know where the NBA is, so they have the benefit of being a current rights holder, an incumbent, if you will. In the political business, they're an incumbent, So I know what to expect. Don't have to love their coverage all the time,

love Mike Brain, don't love most of the coverage. But I know what to expect, and I know where they're on my TV or my phone, right and so that's the decision. That's why it's difficult. So ESPN does it because it's tonnage. It fills space. They can promote other shows, other leagues, other whatever, and they can use NBA highlights and they can put it on Scott van Pelt after the games and it helps so many ancillary parts of

the coverage. That's an easy one for ESPN, But for TNT, you know, they don't have me for anything other than that, and if they don't sign it, they lose me completely as a consumer. So I think these decisions are much more difficult than people think. Are you willing to sign up for something that you know is not going to be profitable? I at least keep you as a consumer and maybe over the course of time, I can move you into another show. I can move you into other

platforms that I'm connected to. That's the trick in it. Listen, the NBA has challenges. It's getting very European, okay. And when you're international and you don't introduce consumers to players until they reach the professional level, it's a disadvantage and something I've been on for years. And you know this,

if you're honest. I have been banging on Adam Silver for years, who considers college basketball the enemy The NFL understands the value of college football is that if you're only introducing fans to players new players once they arrive to the NBA, it's a huge, huge disadvantage. College football introduces you to an Ohio state wide receiver for three years minimum, Okay, so you have some sort of connection with the player, some emotional connection. By the time he's

an NFL player, you're buying his jersey. I have never understood the dogma, the anti college basketball vibe I get from the NBA. Those of us with a social life don't watch the G League. We don't watch it. So the bottom line is like next year, Cooper Flag at Duke. I can't wait to watch him at Duke goes to the G League, I don't watch him, goes overseas, I don't watch him. Most of us have a life. We're not sitting going on YouTube to watch euro video or

G League video. So Cooper Flag is going to go to Duke is going to get connected with one of these shoe companies and is absolutely going to move the television needle when he comes into the NBA. If he goes to a reasonable team, you know, like if remember the worst team in the NBA generally doesn't win the lottery, if he goes to a team with some promising stars. The one thing I like, really like about the NIL in college is that I think it'll help college basketball.

It makes college football just more of a top heavy bidding war. It used to be a facilities issue. Now it's an NIL issue for the top teams. Not that many changes in the last twenty years in college football. You notice the Ohio States and the Georgia's and the Texas and the big school they have all the money to LSU is going to outbid people for top players.

But I do think the NIL and college basketball will keep the Kansas guy around, the Yukon guy around some of them for another year, so I have a stronger emotional connection then going into the NBA. I think it's a real I mean, that's why Villanova guys are really may not be stars, but are really powerful in the NBA because I watched them for three years in college. I know who Michale Bridges is and Jalen Brunson is

and Dante de Vincenzo. I watched them in college Josh Hart for years, so like I have a little bit of a relationship. They don't even have to be stars in the NBA. I'm familiar with them. So I do think. I do think that the NBA is going through a very challenging time with all the European escalation to just more great players globally. I mean, the draft now is virtually you know, it's a The w NBA draft has players that can immediately Caitlin Clark immediately come in and

be productive culture changers. NBA has none of those. It's just it's crazy. I watched the NBA Draft for thirty minutes. I'm like, I have no real opinion on any of these players outside of the Connecticut guys. So hopefully the NIL keeps a few a handful of five or six really high end players. I mean Zach Edie, I know who he is. I'm excited to watch him in the NBA. I don't know what he's gonna be, but I'll watch him. Football has always understood that, hopefully the NBA can figure it out.

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very very end. So what I mean, if you're really really don't think Jim Harbaugh, who had a successful NFL career, Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier in the SEC, did not If you don't think Jim Harbaugh can coach, what do you want me to say? I mean, sorry, he can. He's great everywhere San Diego, Niners, Stanford, Michigan. He's going to be great here. I think people forget it took Harball long time because he inherited such a mess. He

had to change the culture of Brady Hoak. I mean that I can remember watching games at Michigan there were thirty thousand empty seats. People forget how bad USC was when Lincoln Riley took it over. They were foreign eight and Lincoln Riley told people, I mean it was understood forty to fifty of the eighty players couldn't play. The roster was terrible. Now he has the benefit of the transfer portal which has been energized. But you can't create

chemistry in a year. So if they beat two lane and they led with about a minute to go, he would have gone from four and eight to twelve wins with a really bad defensive staff and a really bad defensive roster. Pretty impressive because his first two years in the PAC twelve have been the best the PAC twelve has been in twenty years, and Kayleb Williams and Lincoln Riley produced the number one offense in the country without outside of Kayleb Williams and Jordan Adison, any NFL guys

of NOE like college guys. That's it. That's pretty impressive. But I think this year's fascinating for USC. They get a bit of a break. UCLA and Michigan are in total rebuilds. They don't play the best two teams Oregon in Ohio State. That's a huge break. LSU's probably a loss, but they have a capable defensive staff, upgrades in the secondary. Won't be as good at quarterback, but it'll be a more Lincoln Riley driven team, less of a Caleb Williams

driven team, which is not all bad. Caleb sort of his last year morphed and it was a Caleb offense, not a Lincoln Riley offense. He'll kind of reclaim that. I think, much like Harbaugh, people didn't understand how big the rebuild was at Michigan. It took People don't know how big the rebuild was. For Brian Kelly. It wasn't until the last two games he played against Georgia. It wasn't that first time he got to the national championship. That was fools goal. It took in nine years, eight

nine years. It took Harbaugh seven eight years to really get the quality of upper class talent where Michigan could go toe to toe with Ohio State and in Georgia and in Alabama. This is the beginning for Lincoln Riley, This is the beginning. We forget Dabo Sweeney at football Center at Clemson. He needed like three years to get it going. People forget go to Nick Saban at LSU. It wasn't They didn't hit it out of the park. Go to his fourth year at LSU. There are a

lot of losses. Saban at Alabama, the number one football program in the country, made it look really easy. It's generally not. Even with the transfer portal, it takes a lot of time, and USC was a wreck. So I think Lincoln Riley's going to be fine. The other thing that doesn't get discussed a lot, and it's totally legal, is that Phil Knight has basically said, as he ages, what do you need and organ buys any Southern California player out of high school they really want they get,

They just buy them. And it's a little icky, but it's the reality of what Oregon does.

Even if you're a USC fan, you probably like the Rams and the Lakers and the Dodgers. There's a lot of options here. This is not a one horse town. So do you have the stomach? Do the boosters have the stomach to keep putting millions of dollars into a program that wins ten and not national championships? When Pete Carroll was winning Natty's at USC, no NFL. Now there's two teams. There was no Sofi Stadium. The Dodgers were good, they weren't this consistently good. The Clippers were a mess.

Now they're viable. MLS is in town, Silicon Valley economy. People have more money, more options, they bail more quickly. So it's a different Los Angeles. Now. You not only until this year pre twelve team playoff. You've got to win more games to get to the national championship. The PAC twelve is better now, so it's a much different game. I think Lincoln Riley is going to be okay, but this is not an elite NIL program right now. They have the best athletic director and the best guidance Jen

Cohen they've ever had. I think Lincoln Riley's really smart. But Oregon swooping in and buying the best players in the West Coast, not to mention Bam is still a big name Ohio State, Michigan now seeping in stealing top recruits. It's a big lift for USC, big lift. I think they'll be better than people think. But the idea that Lincoln was going to swoop in and they were going to win Natties, this program was a tire fire for an eight with really no great players. First year, the

two best players Caleb Williams Jordan Addison, both transfers. That just was not anything of note here, battle lines, no interior, great defensive lineman. It was not USC. I will say this. I was when I have time to not be on the treadmill of sports. It gives me more time to read, which I love, and it gave me And there's something about baseball where I like reading about baseball more than I generally like watching baseball, the exception being a great

postseason matchup. But you know, I'll go and get I'll deep dive on baseball stats and I think it's fascinating. And I used to be in My first job out of college was a baseball announcer, so you know, you just you kind of get into the statistical the math of baseball, and you know, I always kind of find it interesting is that baseball, because of its rich history, tends to be a little paralyzed by it, and they're slow to make moves. It is remarkable now to watch

how few baseball players can hit. Only twelve current baseball players at last count, hit over three hundred in the whole sport. It's insane. It's Otani, it's Aaron Judge, it's Mokey Betts, you know, big names you'd expect. But I think there is a solve to the problem, because the game's faster now, the attendance is up, the ratings are slightly up, and I think the solve is to lower the mound, which baseball did in the late sixties, and

that was sort of the Bob Gibson era. You just couldn't hit Gibson, so they lowered the mound like I think half a foot. And I think baseball's always been so reluctant, you know, it took them forever on replay or the pitch clock. It just takes them a long time because they're very much tied to their history. The mound six inches give batters a shot, because I will tell you, over the course of the seventeen days I was gone and I flipped on the TV, the game

moves very swiftly, I remember. And this happened when I lived in Connecticut. So my wife built a workout room downstairs, and that's where I would go every day, and that's where I would watch baseball, usually Nessen or the YES Network, Red Sox or Yankees. I got both on my cable service. And there was a moment in time. I remember. It was the Red Sox playing the Blue Jays in Toronto, and it was like fifth or sixth inning, and I went down and I usually do about a forty five

to fifty minute lift. That's it. Then I'm gone. And I remember this day particular. It was like the fifth or sixth inning and the Blue Jays I think, were at the plate and I did my workout forty five minutes and it was like the start of the fifth inning, and by the time I was done with my workout, it was just going to like the sixth. It'd been like an inning in one batter that had lasted like forty five minutes, and I wouldn't have watched the game

had I not worked out. But I remember thinking at the time, God, this is agony, this is painful that you can't and hockey knows this. It's really hard to have a business with only diehards watching. You need casuals. I mean, my wife knows a little about the NFL. She's very much a sports casual, but she understands the NFL. She can name many of the teams and the star players. Is that baseball pre pitchclock had no casuals, very few casuals. It's actually pretty fun to watch now if you get

the right teams in the right matchups. But there are I mean, the hitters are overwhelmed. There are a lot of quick at bats now. For me, I don't have the patience with my iPhone to sit and watch four hour games, but at the quality and the energy, if I'm getting action, I'll stick around. No matter how fast a sport is, there's to be action. You can go through three innings and see a hit a single. It's not enough action. And the way to solve it's pretty easy.

Lower of the mound six eight inches. Give the batters a fighting chance and it won't just be shoheo Tani and Aaron Judge that can hit something else that jumped out to me. And I don't talk a ton of politics, but I mean, Jesus, when I was gone for seventeen days, all anybody talked about was the debate. You know, one of the things that is really interesting to me. And I've been offered political shows before on radio, and it just it's sort of a joy sapping experience. I like sports.

I like the drama. I like waking up every day and there's a new game, a new drama, a new storyline, and you can build a new narrative. The idea of having to cover the same political story for six months on end, I just I think is just the thief of joy. I think it would just it'd be tedious. I don't want that life. But it was really interesting. I had this discussion with a friend and I said, you know, politics and sports and business are all very similar.

I mean, a political race race, it's a business. It's the minute you're elected, you're raising funds. And in my business, sports has always been a little political, and it's absolutely a business. That's why the NFL has pulled away from the other leagues. It's just understands that is that it

was fascinating to watch the coverage. We know Joe Biden has struggled, especially the last couple of years, with a lot of verbal gaffs, the staring, you know, the look we've seen from grandparents we love, but it's been fascinating to watch not only the coverage, which I think has been very fair and even handed, but the outrage by Democrats with the coverage of CNN, Jonathan Stewart and Brian

Stetler and Chuck Todd and The New York Times. So my entire life, I've been sort of an independent that leans right on busines, business and left on social issues. But I've always understood that over seventy percent of people in the media are Democrats, and it absolutely bleeds into the coverage. I think, on average, Democrats get more favorable coverage than conservatives. Now some of that's earned, like climate change denial on the right is doing you no favors.

Like every week there's a record in Palm Springs, Vegas. Everywhere, the storms are getting nasty, or the heat's getting more oppressive. So sometimes I do look at conservatives and roll my eyes when they come across often as anti science. Be that as it may. I do think Democrats get more favorable coverage, but you can't trust, you know, the White House doesn't have a lot of credibility right now anytime

they talk about Biden. But what's fascinating has been to watch the Democrats, the liberal elites react to the coverage. Once you start complaining about the coverage and not the content of your politician, which conservatives do a lot of, you're cooked. And I'm telling you, as an independent, I've appreciated CNN's coverage, and Brian and Chuck Todd and Jonathan Stewart, I've actually I've actually appreciated it. I think it's been right down the middle. It has been appropriately harsh on

Joe Biden. Listen, when you come out and you cover the White House and you say you're surprised by his mental lack of mental acuity, I can't take you seriously. Do you not have an iPhone? I can't take you seriously. And so watching kind of the liberal elites criticize the coverage is something that is painful and fatiguing. I've watched the right do for years, and it makes me think, as somebody who I view myself as an independent, I don't like Trump at all, but I view myself mostly

as a political independent. It makes me think, when you get the favorable coverage, the favorable lean for years, you're overreacting. You're picking on the wrong people. The media is imperfect. We know that hasn't been a great year. I don't think, necessarily for the New York Times, it's not about the coverage. It's about the candidate and the problems. And listen, Joe Biden. If he refuses to step down, this is what you get.

I don't think that's very promising. I don't think Donald Trump with more immunity from the Supreme Court is a great thing. But it's been fascinating to me to watch the attack of the coverage, which I view is incredibly fair given the current state of Joe Biden. It feels fair to me. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't feel as somebody in the media, and somebody who's mostly moderate left leaner, social right leaner, fiscal, I don't feel it's

been outrageous. Jake tappers asked hard questions. I do think the media, feeling they've been lied to, has a little chip on their shoulder, But that's okay. I can deal with a little of that. Right. There's been a lot of chips on the shoulder of media for years. Sometimes they felt, in my opinion, a little dogmatic, a little unfair to the right. Now they're bringing the sledgehammer on Biden.

It feels right to me, it feels appropriate. I think the simple explanation what has happened to the Democrats is that there is no more pressurized job in America than president. It ages you. And for an example, go look at President Barack Obama's inauguration and how youthful he looks, and look eight years later he has a head of gray hair,

and he was in his prime politically. Joe Biden was always, by any reasonable measure, a one term president with some cognitive decline, a parent going in to that one term, and the Democrats got caught flat footed. You didn't really start to notice it until about late year two of his presidency, but the last two years it's ugly and it's sad, and we've all seen this before. And the Democrats come off as ill prepared and not prepared and

getting caught flat footed. It's not about the coverage. It's not about CNN, it's not about Bill Maher, it's about Joe Bliden. It's a candidate issue, not a coverage issue. The volume. Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, take a moment, rate and review