Colin Cowherd Podcast - Mahomes "Reminds Me Of MJ", Clippers Could Win It All, NFL Is “Shrinking” The NBA, Fans Want Sports Not Politics

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App is there, all right. I don't ask for Scillo or do this much. He comes on TV and I'll go on his podcast, but I don't want to get in his way. He's busy, he's a man of the people, and I don't want to get in his shit. But I do like talking to him because on my podcast we can talk about stuff. Look at first thing he does is show the gun show. I mean, fuck, I got no shot here. I know it sounds you'll remember this, so I always or you know, overreaction, Monday recency bias.

I'm emotional. I watched these games. I get so cy and I could. You and I could sit and talk for an hour about a game, and you and I have had beers and we were just like, it's like we're doing a show, right, because we love our what we do. But I remember years ago, you'll remember this. Randy Moss goes to the Patriots. He's there a couple of years. It's very successful. Monday night game against Miami. They don't freaking target him. And I went on the

air the next day and he espon. I said, he's out. Time out. You don't have Randy Moss and not target it.

coverage over. You could put rivis on him, it didn't matter. He got open. And I'm watching about two weeks ago, I'm watching three weeks ago, I'm watching Mahomes and I saw it again Sunday and it reminds me of mj and I said this three weeks ago. I said, I think that's the best football player I've ever seen. And one of the things I remember this with Michael Jordan years ago. I was on the couch at the time with a young lady. It was Vegas years ago. And

it was the Phoenix Chicago series. Barkley MJ and she was a basketball player, so she really loved the sport. And I said, there's fifty guys in this league, Michael as tall as Michael as slender. He's not the best shooter or the best ball handler. I said, you should be able to duplicate that. Nobody can. I'm like, he makes it look like so easy, I said, even the great players. Barkley, you could tell when he shifted gears,

Clyde Drexler, you could tell Kobe's shifting gears. Michael be like, he get better, these beads of sweat in his head, and You're like, yeah, I think he shifted gears. That Michael was so effortless when he would flip the ball over his head when he was fouled to do. And when I watch Mahome, I'm like, is he playing eighty percent speed? This is not I can tell when Josh Allen and Lamar are trying. And I don't think it's overreacting.

I've never I've never seen anything like Mahomes. I've never seen it.

you had about Brady. Were Brady in those big playoff spots when he dropped back, you just went, oh, like, he knows he's elevated his risk, he knows what he has to do. He doesn't have a toybody getting open on the outside right like I would see Brady in these games decide, Hey, these are the things that aren't going my way. Now I'll adjust to those in a way that I think it's a pretty short list of people that I think are even on that with him.

He knew what was coming. You couldn't throw anything at him. With Mahomes. He had a run in the Super Bowl where he ran in late it may have been overtime and fourth quarter he cut through the D line and sprinted. And there's something cognitively beyond me math that his like he can do the math too. There is something about his ability to see something and the ball is out of his hand quicker than anybody I've ever seen. That.

It's brain function into ability and to release. It's like Marino plus Tom.

I gotta get rid of the ball. Then I'm going to come back to it and within the shot clock, Like I got to figure out a way to make this shot, because nobody great gets double team to the points, Like, hey, that guy he has zero points to the fourth coor of a playoff game, Like, you find a way once all the plays are understood and everything's breaking down and the other guy who can't shoot throws it back to you, and you have it with seven second stuff on the

shot clock, huge possession game seven. You have to find a way. You're not relying on whether or not an infielder was positioned correctly or if the pitcher had it or didn't have it. If you're the cleanup hitter, you know, Like that's so codependent. And even though football's the ultimate team sport because of all the moving pieces, like, there's just so many other things that have to go into

you making it work. And Mahomes has felt like the best basketball player, like he's playing football like a basketball player, where I thought that game against San Francisco was incredibly hard for him. Watching the beginning of that game, that first half, I'm like, Okay, the San Francisco d line has shown up now in a way they did not show up against Green Bay or Detroit. They're up for this, they're amped. He doesn't have guys that can win on

the outside. Here. You know, where's Kelsey. Okay, there's a little bit here there. They're running right up the middle with Pacheco, and this Niners defense that was supposedly susceptible of that was shutting it down for a good chunk and it didn't look like he was comfortable. And then we saw that stat where they've gone seventeen straight possessions in the playoffs going back to the Baltimore game into the San Francisco game without a touchdown. And yet you're like,

he'll figure it out, and he did. I mean, it's gotta be incredible. You want to talk about sports fandom jealousy right now? I mean, how could anyone be higher than the Chiefs Fans like who There's no one that you'd be more jealous of knowing that that guy's there going to be there a long time. And I agree with you that it feels like this one guy that can control a game where it's not supposed to be one guy that controls it. Basketball. It's supposed to happen football, it's.

Tony the en Spilatro at dinner. I'm not interested in your Vegas. So your interpretation of what you saw in Vegas. I like Miami. Miami is my Super Bowl site because I didn't do it much as a kid. I don't know it. It's lively, it's beautiful. I love Miami. Think Phoenix has overrated too many spots. What did you think of Vegas.

played New England and Jacksonville about twenty years ago. That was just a bunch of frustrated young white guys pounding the shit out of each other at dive bars because they couldn't get it anywhere as bad. So that was that was maybe one of the roughest scenes I've ever seen. But Vegas is you know, really it's funny when people say, like it changes, and I know that's what you just said, but my buddies do that be like, Oh, Vegas isn't

the same anymore. I'm like, You're not the same, You're different, right, So if you wanted to do the stuff that you did when you were twenty five, you could, It's just not appealing to you anymore. So I've been there three times in the last four months, which is a lot, you know, to be there that often. I hadn't been going there that often in a while. I kind of

have my routine down. I love it. And look, as we get older, the fact that we can have friends in the business that we may not see except for that once a year stretch during the Super Bowl. I'm I'm in favor of it, despite your downgrading of what it was. But your experience is completely different than the rest of ours because none of us have actually lived there like you did.

seventy five dollars. Now that was a lot thirty five years ago. So I'm one of those people. I'm good at quitting stuff. I stopped. I was like, I'm taking it. I only brought like eight hundred dollars. So I call my mom later that night and I'm like, Mom, do not send money. I own this town. Do not worry about it. Ryan was there six and a half years. I never won again a slot machine first pull seventy five five grand after that, never won a nickel. So

there's my Vegas story. Do you have anything that's memorable in Vegas?

I don't know what it was. It was I remember I told my dad when I was like a little kid, I'm talking like a really little kid, And that might have just been because I was in a Motley crue at the time, in like sixth grade, where I was like, I just want to see what this is like, although that would have been horrifying to actually see it at that age. And then later on, like right after college, I remember just going like, at some point, I'm gonna move out there. But then I didn't really know what

I was gonna do. I wanted to write before I wanted to be on the air or do any sports stuff. So the first job I got was on the air, even though I wasn't really even trying to get on the air. And we've been over this, you know, like the minor league baseball, and so now I'm like stuck back on the vineyard and for everybody the romanticizes like where I'm from and all that kind of stuff, like to be there year round is rough. Okay, that's not

that's not the brochures. Those aren't the Creighton barrel people with the ad Irondack chairs, right, these are year round. I'm not telling you. It's like dangerous or tough, but it wasn't. It wasn't like even close to what the

perception is. So when I'm there at twenty seven and I'm living in a cottage that isn't winterized because I'm fixing it up so that i could live there for free, you know, Boston at the time was a huge improvement, even though I was living in this like slum in Summerville with guys that I would say weren't exactly like mapping out their careers the way I was planning on it. That at that point, like I could only go where

I could afford to stay. So ultimately, from that point on, it took me fifteen years to even get out to la even though I knew the entire time I had to try it because I'd only lived in New England. I lived in Connecticut, I lived in Massachusetts, I lived in Vermont, I lived in Massachusetts, and then I lived in Connecticut. And that was all the way up until like forty two years old. So I'm a bit more adventurous,

I think, from other guys. But I also respect the fact that, you know, if you get along with your family and you're close and you're having kids and starting

your own family. It can be an unbelief like these suburbs of Boston that my friends are from from college, and they're all close to each other, and they're on the softball teams and they you know, sometimes I think aspiration can drive you fucking crazy, because then I'll look at that and go they maybe those guys had it figured it out because they weren't constantly thinking about exploring or the next thing. So I wouldn't do it any differently. You know, these I know who I am at this

point in my life. But there's something that I envy in simple sounds like the wrong term because it sounds like a negative term, but just understanding like I want to be near my family. I want to grow up grow up where I grew up. I want my kids to grow up in the same place. I want my relatives coming over and all the cousins playing together. I didn't care about any of those things, right, and that's why I moved.

in Detroit. I'm not leaving like this is We went there on a Friday night and I told her it was like beautiful shopping condos. I'm like, this is it?

this is hard, but hey, where are you? Oh I'm on Martha's Vineyard for the Winner, Like, well, all right, well then we can't do a lunch, not going to take Like even when I was in West Hartford, in which I think you would agree, like that's the job. And at that point with ESPN, it was I don't care, this could the Connecticut didn't bother me at all or we lived. It was a nice era where we lived. I was d of thought, like I'd hear from people from other parts of the country and I'm like, where

where the fuck are you from? Yeah, Carmel, Okay, you got it, But like you know, there's other places where I go. You think that place is better than this, Like this is fine, Yeah it is a New England guy, like, I was totally fine with it. But it got to a point too where and I think a lot you

would agree with this. There's just something about the energy of a big city, especially with creators, where you're constantly running into people that you're not running into in so many parts, and for some people they want nothing to do with it. And I again, I wouldn't judge anybody for it.

The second thing is I ran into Lawrence Frank. I sat down to have a cobb salad and a beer because I just worked out, and I thought, eat clean, get home. Lawrence Frank is next to me who runs the Clippers. Really nice guy, and it was fascinating that let's pivot to this. So as we kind of move into the NBA season, I told him, I said the Lawrence, I said, I know you don't listen to your a busy guy, but holy shit that I miss on this. I was like, this hardened thing, give me a break.

Where's Westbrook going to play? The chemistry? And he was really interesting. He said, you know, at this point in James' career, shit, he wants to be coached and win. He got money, he got fame, he just wants to win games. I have watched probably six of their last seven games. And I don't know if I told you this. It is the most enjoyable NBA offense in my opinion, to watch mid range transition threes, multiple wing scores and defenders. I honestly think Boston and Denver and the Clippers to me

feel different the rest of the league. Now the Clippers have some scoring on the bench, Celtics Denver don't really But I've never said this in my life. A I was totally wrong in b I do feel like the Clippers could win a championship.

Although by the time we're taping this, it was pretty alarming seeing Minnesota handle them so well, and it's the second time they played them, which you know, there's some matchup stuff with that. That had me thinking about, wow, you know, they really bogged them down. But yeah, look, Kawhi has played at a level that's almost like Pa Kawhi again, and he's been playing most of the season. Paul George, who we knew put up massive numbers, was one of the ten most talented players. I thought he

had a lot of playoff awards that were legitimate. I mean, he had an elimination game with Oklahoma City. It was terrible when they blew the three to one lead to Denver at the end of that. I mean, it was just bad. So it was kind of like, hey, is he one of these guys? And I thought once everybody else was gone and they took out Utah a few years ago, and it was all on him and he had no choice. He had no one else to even

defer to that. I think he's I hope for his sake that he's turned the page on that a little bit. But I was with Ian Harden. I just didn't think he's somebody you'd want to get into business with. It had been the third team. He had quit on the fourth trade demand, which I don't really blame him for the first one, because he wanted to make his money, and Oklahoma City wanted to pay Durant, Westbrook and Obaca so that one didn't bother me. The end of Houston

bothered me, the end of Brooklyn bothered me. And the Philly one, I mean, I thought he was he was very peak and valley again in the playoffs when they needed the most and they blow the three two lead to Boston, and I I've shocked people with this because they know I don't really like him, and I don't like the way he's officiated and all that stuff. At none of it's really personal. I don't know the guy.

Maybe he's sounds like people love hanging out with them, so he he thought he was getting the big money, but he took thirteen million less, and Philly's adamant that nothing was ever understood. And I'm always like, I don't know a lot of guys that just leave thirteen million on the table without thinking the extension is coming to make up for it. He doesn't play well enough against the Celtics that extension now is whatever was talked about,

depending on who you want to believe. But when he had been traded finally, Colin, even though Lawrence Frank is telling you, hey, he wants to win, he wants to be coach. His first answer was, I want to go somewhere I can get paid. It just so happens to be a contender from an area that's close to where he's from and with an owner that has the deepest

pockets of anybody. And I think the lesson in all of this is that Harden would have been super unappealing for a lot of other scenarios where it's still a

no for those teams. But credit to the Clippers, the culture, having the other guys established, he doesn't have to be the guy he's probably going to get paid, and now that he's the third guy, he can have those playoff duds which are all over littered throughout his game log in his playoff history, where he could maybe even still have one of those, and it won't matter because the way the rest of the team is built.

the Kobe stories when he broke into the league. He was shit talking guys, he was nineteen. I said this about Jason Tatum. He's shown us who he is, absolutely gifted, top eight to nine player in the league. You can put him at wherever you want, But there is an argument that he's not like aggressively relentlessly alpha. I mean, he's a dude. He wants the ball. But I've seen so many times where Jalen Brown, who's athletic as hell but not as gifted, not as pure, well just take

the ball. I saw Marcus Smart do it. And I keep saying to myself, I like Jason Tatum, but because he trained with Kobe or because generally the best domestic player in our country has that that like almost selfishness, and I'm like, he doesn't.

the draft. We start talking about some of these guys, I'm like, look, we're lucky to get one of these guys every five years, you know, but when it comes draft time, you're talking about he maybe this is the face of the franchise and maybe this guy actually that list is like this. You know, we saw top five

all the time. I think it's Jokic, I think it's Jannis, I think it's Luca, I think it's Embiid And then I think everybody's kind of fighting for five again, whether it was Kawhi for a stretch, whether it's Durant, and I think Tatum gets put into that group. And Tatum reminds me a lot of like your home quarterback, where people that don't watch the quarterback you watch every week might like him more because you see some more of

the warts. So your criticisms are fair, but what you're asking him to be is like in that top four group, and that might not happen. And when it comes to the toughness part of it, I think the Celtics get talk about like incredibly unfairly. They get talked about like they're the Sixers with their playoff failures. The Sixers can't get out of the second round, all right, And and the number of teams that would love the failures of the Boston Celtics with this group in the playoff, I

think that's a pretty long list. And even though there are moments where I watch Tatum and you're right, we're visual, so his personality seems more subdued. Okay, yes, you know everybody wants every guy to be Kobe and fucking pulling their jersey and sticking their lower jaw out and honestly taking a lot of really bad shots. But it didn't matter. Like Kobe was the killer because he's soldest on the image of him being a killer, and Tatum doesn't do that.

But Tatum dropped fifty one in an elimination game against the Sixers instead of game seven record last year, after step had said it previously at fifty against Sacramento. He had forty six in an elimination game against the Bucks. You know, they won a Game seven at Miami. You know, look, I'm sorry they lost the finals. I still can't believe they lost the Miami Heat last year at three. Yeah, but there's a lot of stuff there on the resume that tells you the thing you might be asking for.

You might be right, it might be unobtainable for him, but man, he's really close to that. So I guess I just this isn't I think, you know me like I'm whenever I hear about their failures or their lack of toughness, I go, Man, if they weren't any like if there was zero toughness, right, be losing some of these other series. You know, we lose the bucks a few years ago, like.

shrinks all of them. There's a lot of good sports. I've never watched more sports. The NFL shrinks everybody. And I was saying, the NBA feels niche and the only thing I was talking to Nick right about that, and he loves the sport and I do too. I now started about three weeks ago, I started really pivoting to watching a lot of NBA stuff, and I said, the only thing I worry about with the NBA is what's happening is hockey. Baseball in the NBA are incredibly global now.

And whereas the NFL's farm system is really easy to follow, it's going to get even easier with a big ten in the SEC dominating. I watch a block eye for three years. I can't wait to watch Marvin Harrison and the pros. I can't wait to watch Caleb JJ mccarr. I can't I know the story. I'm cooked. Yeah, I'm viscerally hooked at this stuff that I said, what happens the baseball hockey In the end, I'm not going to follow an international farm system. So these great international guys

the best players will go to crappy teams. I won't watch a ton of them for four years because no young player dominates the playoffs. And I said that I worry about the NBA is always going to be interesting and star driven, but it's becoming so global and so international it's harder as the NFL is this domestic monster, this Amazon, this Netflix. I don't have a problem with Silver.

I like the players Esthetically, it's a little three point driven, but the playoffs get more situational and mid range, so I'm cool with it. What do you make of that assertion that it just in America right now? It's like England everything is small compared to the EPL. In Canada, everything small to hockey. It's just there is no two. It's the NFL and then just find your lane.

know the backstory of every one of these guys. It's actually easy to keep track of and it's very event driven. The inventory is limited. You're never gonna get any owners in baseball to give up that six month inventory, and I don't blame them. All right, You're not gonna give up eighty two games from NBA owners because even if it's a dud on a Tuesday and it doesn't pull a great number, it's still doing better because it's live and it still matters, and there's still people like you.

You're not gonna go, oh man, let's just have less games, less people coming through the turnstiles, because that way we can make it more eventrive. And although I do think that Silver has done a really good job with you know, I don't love the playing tournament because I think there's certain years there'll be a seed in there that has no business having to prove itself all over again with one extra game. You know, we're a ten seed's going

to have an awful record. Now, granted they've got to do more work by winning two, but that's an event and he's He's been talking about this as it relates to the n Season Tournament, where the model of soccer of like, yeah, we'll have the eighty two, but let's try to find a way to have something a bit more event driven as another product that's drawing more eyeballs in.

And I thought the n Season Tournament was an absolute home run now that he already understands it, understands the way the pool system works and the you know, the point differential, which I hope stays because that was actually really funny. I think he's trying to find a way to have more events in the basketball calendar because nothing can match the event status of the NFL. I mean that being your goal is an impossibility because you know, a lot of it just comes down. Look, people love

the sport, but the inventory is so limited. That's why you're driving these huge number. If the Super Bowl's best to seven, one hundred and twenty five million, people aren't watching it, yes, s or of Sunday.

to watch this. I don't have a choice, even if I'm a casual. It's like, my friends in New York are all watching it. We just upset the Bucks. We're watching game two.

It's not really. And we're definitely more picky, We're more selective, we have more options. I mean, everybody understands this, but the single elimination thing for the NBA makes me laugh because if I were Daryl Morey running the Rockets trying to beat the Warriors, I'd probably be like, can we just play play them once? And hope the threes don't

go down? Right? But you know what I mean, Like whenever I hear we love fixing shit though, like, yeah, Twitter has made everybody an expert on how to like, hey, here's this thing that's pretty good and everybody likes it. Here's my seven ways to fix it a thread and you're just like, we don't, we don't need to. We're tweaking everything.

this level, then you compete against men under women. I'm like, first of all, I never think about it. I don't know the answer. Is it biology? Is it politics? And I'm like, I don't really have an opinion on it. I'm not woke. I'm not avoiding it.

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Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort KS licensee partner Golden Nugget Lake Charles twenty one plus. Age varies by jurisdiction Voyden, Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. C Sportsbook dot DraftKings dot com slash basketball Terms for eligibility and deposit restrictions. Terms and responsible gaming resources. You know, it's interesting about the pod business is that you're a broadcaster who's excelled

at podcasting. A lot of podcasters are just podcasters and they've never done radio TV, but they're very good at it. They're loose. You you really spend time on your pod like you you prepare like you would a radio show, and most podcasters kind of wing it. Some are funny, some are but I can tell they're winging it. You attack it a little differently where it's like it's almost like you take your writing skills and your radio skills and they converge and they meet it podcasting where there's

clear preparation interview skills. Not everybody does it that way. I tend to again because I'm a broadcaster, not a podcaster. I'm a broadcaster who can do a pod, but I'm not you know, I have certain rules. I'm not going to go into certain places where some podcasters go. I'm like, I'm a broadcaster, I'm paid by Fox, and iHeart like, you know, I don't I think you know. I mean, at the end of the day, good for you, by the way. Yeah, So I just there's places I'm not

going to go. But it is interesting because the podcast space in the gambling space. I always think about this. I think, you know, Europe's way ahead of us on gambling. I think we're probably in the fourth inning. Podcasting is fascinating because now older people at the gym will come up to me and say, it's all I listen to. I can't do the commercials or radio. And I'll be like, oh, you're sixty Like you're sixty four years old.

in football, Like they're not giving this shit up. There's too much. I mean, it's like the banks were too big to fail. Networks are all built around the NFL. They're not giving this shit up without a fight. I'm sorry. Fox has an eleven year deal starts this year. They're not going away. You know two b's making money Fox News. They're gonna spend billions a year to get a period. Do you think podcastings in the seventh inning, the third,

the fourth you know it better than I do. Where do you think it's going?

to both. Yep, same, all right, yeah, And I don't know that might just be a habit thing like both in you know, you and I've been around long, like all when we're working like local markets and stuff, and they are trying to find a way to change the habit of the listener in that market and realizing it is.

So it's the why baseball is on all these local stations, because the people turn the baseball game off and then they wake up and then they're listening to the morning show on the station that they just turned off, and they've listened to them for a little while and they're like, I'll just keep it here. So for podcasting to disrupt the pattern of behavior here for audio listeners crazy, and this short amount of time is incredible, and like people

can make fun of everybody having one. And you know a line I use a lot with younger people is that, you know, back when you and I were getting started, the idea that somebody would pick you and go here's your money, now go beyond the air. I'm the first person to say it's okay, I'm going to give you this opportunity. It still feels impossible looking back, and how I started was impossible, And I'm sure you have your moment you're like, I can't believe this is happening to

me because it's so incredibly hard. So I'll always tell people like, back then, the line was longer, but it was thinner. Now the line is shorter, but it's really wide right, because I mean think of if I had told you at twenty five, Hey, with the right program and with this new thing called podcasting, you can be on the air tomorrow. Now. Now you get to sift through a finding a way to people pay attention, which

is his own challenge. So it's not a guaranteed thing of success, but at least you can actually do the act. You can do it, so when people look at how flooded it is, I think it's like a lot of things. Yeah, it's easy to do, but if you want to be really great at it, you get to figure out what

your thing is. It separates you from everybody else and you and I had massive, massive advantages because the first thing I always made a priority when I did radio was organizing my thoughts, like if I have a point, Okay, what's the point? How am I building the point? And will I be convincing at the end of the That's all we're really doing. But in radio, I'm trying to do how many of those a day? Your solo all the time? Like the standard for podcasting, Like, I know

I can sell my monologues pretty good. I got three of them a week. You're doing. What are we talking about, like sixty segments a week? Yeah, And I remember one time we were talking about a ESPN You're like, yeah, I'm gonna I know, I'm gonna have like three segments of show out of the twelve. Like that wasn't good. You could turn the page a little bit better on it than I could. Like I knew when I was having a bad segment, I'd be like, this is so

incredibly frustrating. So the fact that this habit changing thing has already happened, I don't think the market being flooded with a bunch of different people, everything just kind of weeds itself out. People get sick of it and go hey, you know, because you probably met people too that are like, oh wait, this is kind of hard, Like this is kind of hard to do this all the time. So I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if the live thing is underserved, But I can't imagine that there'd ever be

such demand that it would somehow pivot to that. You know, I don't know that it would ever pivot back to where the radio people are making the money that they were making years ago. If anything, it kind of proves that everybody was on the air, especially the opinion people, the content people, how incredibly underpaid everybody was really you know,

I mean, nobody wants to hear it from us. But when I think about the numbers we were arguing over all the time, and then think about the numbers that exist now if you're at the high end of this thing, you're like, so we were all just getting destroyed for twenty years.

too fucking hard. You have to love it for the for the mental exercise, the storytelling, like I always look. I mean, that's why I never compare salaries. I mean, stephen A and this and that. Stephen A is great. Whatever he gets, he gets like I got mortgages to pay. I just don't care if I feel I'm being treated fairly.

have a take and it would inflame the internet. One rando on a Reddit board could say something, and corporations are scaling back and firing people, and that a lot of the media. You know, I think it's pretty clear at newspapers for years kind of leaned left, probably seventy seventy five percent, which is probably healthy. Like a stand up comedian's funner when he's fighting for the little guy,

he's not on the corporate side. I kind of like my media and my comedians to be a little off center and fighting uphill, not not rolling down here hill and the little guy. But one of the things I think about all the time is whenever I hear Roger Goodell get criticized, I'm like a media guy. Everyone run a business, because I do. And there's not a week when there isn't a landmine, like you have no idea.

And I watched the NBA and I watched Goodell deal with social causes and social strife, and he's handled it really well. And it was really interesting. Looking at the TV ratings after the Super Bowl, I thought, yeah, they're all up, and we like celebrities with our sports. We don't like politics. The Kaepernick thing hurt ratings, And I thought to myself, you've never met anybody in real life

that said, I love politics with my sports. But there's enough of an of It's small, but there are people often in the media that say you have to have some of it it's a responsibility. And I guess my takeaway is, isn't my responsibility as a broadcaster to my audience? And if my audience, clearly the data proves they don't like it. They they like to see Bradley Cooper in an Eagles game. They I mean numbers, they like Taylor Swift there right, despite the Internet. They don't like politics.

With our sports, the local columnist will try to guilt you into it. But I sit there and I think watching the numbers for twenty years and they've had one down year, and I'm like, the audience is telling me this is escapism. Absolutely, I'm not in the same politics.

health insurance for the entire family. Bill Clinton sitting there in nineteen ninety one, going within one hundred days, we have figured it, and I'm like, oh my god, Like I'm an idiot kid being like, Wow, We're gonna have health insurance with one hundred days. The president just the guy that's going to win a little thing. And then he was like, oh wait, that never happened like that never in my family. You know. My parents both voted for him and were really excited about it, because again

you're just kind of voting for stuff. You were like, Hey, that's going to impact That's gonna impact me, you know. And so I I have a lot of thoughts because I can't escape seeing all of this. But you know, we were both at ESPN and again I was there one more contract after you. That's when it really changed where the out was, Hey, even though you're coming to me for sports, this is more important. And I could never tell you that you're wrong. I can't say, no,

you're wrong, this isn't more important. But you know what, like there's a lot of stuff that falls into this category that is far more important than whether or not Ben Roethlisberger has it this year. Yeah win the North Okay, Like, yeah, you win. I submit, but that's not what I was

fucking hired to do. Okay. And I I'd always look at like every now and then you might do like a societal observation take and then pivot into something else and it'd be like a really killer monologue, and those would usually do better for you than just a breakdown of something sports because it stood out because it was rare, get a little run, and it would end up on the message boards, you know, and if it was Twitter,

then Twitter would be paying attention to it. And so I think what happened was that, depending on how you were aligned, you started seeing wins in content by pushing that more and more. And look, we had some major major events over the last few years. I've also noticed that anybody that talks for a living kind of feels

like they're supposed to talk about everything. But I always felt like, yeah, I have some thoughts, and one of the few times I've ever shared them, you know, in some sectors, I was getting destroyed and I'd read something about me like that's not even really what I'm about, Like this is shocking to me, but whatever. I mean, it's the way it works. And I think if I came out and did an opening segment on a sports podcast, why I think both parties suck, then I'm not even

offending one half. I'm offending both of them. Like I'm telling both like there's not even a group that wants to be like, yeah, go get him, you're on our side rooting for me. So I just honestly, I felt like it was easier than watching a million fucking games. I thought it became very self serving. I thought the intention was good, but I would see it with people that we worked with where I felt, all of a sudden, I'm like, are you doing this because it's the right thing.

Are you doing this because it's just fucking way easier doing this than grinding and watching twenty hours of football on a weekend.

all these games Saturday. Now, the Big Tens explosion in the SEC all we have to watch two conferences, but the Big Tens schedule next year is going to be like you know, Oregon, Penn State, early, Ohio State, Wisconsin, next USC. It's gonna be four games in a row. I'll be watching all day Saturday. So no, I think, I guess. I guess. My point was politically is there was a moment in time where you felt almost guilted into having strong opinions on it. And I always look

at my entire life as editing. Even though I'm doing a three hour show, it's ninety minutes after ads and then I have one to two guests for ten to twelve minutes. And my takeaway is I leave a lot out. I can certainly leave politics out. I leave hockey out, and NASCAR in the baseball regular season, I leave them all out. I can leave politics out. And I never really felt guilty when ESPN went into that space. I

was like, hey man, you go for it. Nobody's coming to CNBC for football picks, Like that's not my take. I'm editing out of those important issues because I don't think anybody thinks I'm well versed enough to have a strong opinion on them.

investment strategy. And I just I know that at least in the twenty years that I've done this, I feel like you kind of owe it to the like, you know, you want to you want to do something that's like we answer emails about advice at the end of it, you know, but it's more of a mechanism to have fun and close the podcast fast. I just I didn't really understand it. And I even did a segment on it back back when I was at ESPN. I was kind of like, what's the job becoming? Because this is

this what the job is supposed to be. And I to your point, like I don't know that I ever met anybody, was like, you know, I really like your basketball stuff, but I hope you share. I hope you do little stuff on the primaries. That's funny.

I'm not doing this. I'm over it. I want to cover the games. And if I'm a simplistic person, fine, but I have takes. None of them are about bureaucracy. Like but people, when when I heard this on the internet, how come you don't have an opinion on Lebron and China because it's not interesting. I don't care about Lebron and China and his opinion. I'm sorry. If it's you could label it as you want, like you know me well enough. My rule in the entire business is just

be interesting. Don't don't be paralyzed by wrong. Be interesting.

not letting you cut. If I've thirty two, I'd let her go twenty four absolutely, sixteen year turn. I was at nine. I counted mine. I'm like eight nine. I looked at her. I was like, talk to the hand. Take on that.

and it went right past me. And I was like, all right, I'm not gonna get mad about this. And then I saw her put the divider down and she was going to do two separate transactions for her and her mother. So the woman was like fifty and the mom was don't one hundred and twelve. And so I

was like, oh, we're doing two transactions. We're doing two, and she goes, you were out of the way, you were grabbing water, and so she immediately knew, and I was like, yeah, that's kind of the point, like you're pointing out, you're pointing out to me why I'm right, and you already had like you already had your defense ready in case I was ready to say anything. So like, to me, you're even more guilty now, And I went, you know what I was doing? I go, I was

reaching for water. The aisle was wide open, I have these four things. You have a cart, and now it's two transactions. I go, you know, you don't need to do that. And then she just got really aggressive, and I just said, you know what, you're right, I'm wrong.

what was what was she going to do? Shave eighty seconds off her day.