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Welcome into Part two of the podcast with Nick Right. I think the NFL views the sports world differently. So we all know that big eat small, right, They're just in business big eat small. Like at some point Fox is like, we can't build the scale to compete with Disney and Netflix. We're going to sell a big chunk of our business off. By the way, they took Disney
for a ride. They got about eighty billion dollars for a movie business that wasn't worth anything, and the twenty billion dollars for the regional sports network that was worth a nickel about a.
Year later, but.
The NFL has now scheduled another Christmas Day game. So there was always sort of a gentleman's agreement in sports. You know, you get Opening Day in baseball and the NBA gets Christmas Day, and then you know the NFL is going to dominate certain things in the fall. Now, I for the record, I've always believed, and I've thought this forever, that the NBA would be much better served starting two days after the Monday after Thanksgiving, the Wednesday
after Thanksgiving. Monday Tuesday is football talk from the weekend. Then Wednesday's a dead day, and that sports calendar NBA starts a month later plays into early July because those it's wide open and then so I've always thought the NBA's got their schedule, they should just move it a month later on both ends beginning and end. But it is interesting now kind of the pitbull attack mantra of the NFL. I think they see weakness, see I think they see Steph and Lebron getting older. And I think
that marketing Day on Christmas was a real thing. It was an introduction, as we're all home to the NBA. They put the biggest games, the biggest Stars and it was sort of their free marketing day and I think the NFL had not that they were getting huge ratings, but they were the biggest regular season game, and I think the NFL sees weakness. I think they watched the NBA during BLM and COVID, you know, lose some viewers for you know, maybe positioning marketing on that stumble a little.
Perhaps you can see some ratings erosion there. And then Lebron and Steph are getting older, the game's getting more a little bit more European, and it's it's interest like the gloves are off. It feels like to me, the NFL said we're going to squeeze you, and.
I I think, go ahead.
And I do believe that's a tipping point. That Christmas Day mattered a lot to the NBA, and those NFL games put a blanket over it.
So there's there's two angles of this. One is what it means for the NBA, and it's terrible for the NBA. The opening day in the NBA is fine, but it used to then have it used to have Christmas Day is a big day that's going away. The All Star Game Now it's like a nobody gives a shit about that joke. And then and now the NBA, both professional and collegiate basketball, at this point in this country, seemed to be moving towards we really love your postseason and
the rest of it, take it or leave it. Yep. So I think it is bad for the NBA in that regard. I also think, and this is where we might disagree long term, I think this is a massive strategic error by the NFL. And here's why. I think one of the secrets to the NFL's success it is all of us, and I don't mean media just we are in a different spot because it's literally our job.
But everyone that loves football has convinced all of their loved ones, spouses, children, whatever, who don't love football that the games are unmissible like it is. I don't know about you. I think most of your listeners at this point they don't even get shipped from their significant others. When my team is playing a NFL game, they know I am out of commission. I am watching. It is mandatory. I'm not going to a weddit correct? We will. We won't schedule our own events. We won't, you know what
I mean? No one's gonna ask me to take my kid to the birthday party. That no the okay. So here's why I think it's a mistake. It's the same reason I thought that putting on Christmas Eve that Bill's Chargers game on an app was a mistake, because it's Christmas Eve and it's on an app, and people are just gonna miss it, and the moment it starts being and Christmas Day, they put a Raiders game at one pm Christmas. Those fans are on the West Coast. That's
ten am, that's Christmas morning. So there were a lot of Raider fans who just missed the game. Here's why it matters. Now your significant other or your kid, or whomever says you can miss you missed the other. It was fine, you watched it later, you caught up. As soon as it becomes the if the inventory becomes so ubiquitous and that you put it on days where people are going to miss, and Christmas people are gonna miss some Thursday, right, then all of a sudden, it's like, oh,
you don't have to watch every game. You thought you did, but you don't. And even if you still think you do, your wife or your significant other, it's like you do not have to watch every game. I know it because we were at Aunt Margaret's house on Christmas. Even you didn't watch it and you were fine. So I think long term, I think it's a mistake. I'm the only
person that thinks this. I understand the ratings are going to be massive, but I think there has been a I think all of us, especially as they've added a seventeenth game, like I whisper, I don't want my kids to hear it, so I don't I have to hear it. Like I cover the sport. I could probably miss a game or two and be okay. But they don't think that. They're like, no, it's daddy's watching football. Don't bother them. I'm like, yes, it's worked. But all of a sudden,
you put games on Christmas, they're gonna be missed. Like now, I watched the Chiefs. It was my team played at one BM on Christmas. And that's the other thing that was also the worst dude, that was the Raiders game. Just a disaster. I mean, we haven't didn't lose sense, by the way, super Bowl champions, but uh, I didn't like I didn't love it because here's the difference. NBA
is watched passively. Yes, even on Christmas, Like even the Christmas Day games, it's in the background, it's on and then oh it's close with five minutes of them sit down and watch. I don't know how to watch football passively. I can't come in and out of the room and be like, that's just not how my brain works with football. So I just don't. I don't. And it's on a Wednesday. I don't know. I don't love the Christmas Day thing. I like the rule changes the NFL did I'm not
just trying to bang on the league. I think the Christmas Day thing's a little greedy. I don't love it, and I think it's short sighted.
Yeah no, I don't disagree. I you know, it's I tend to I don't know if this is selfish or not. I tend to look at the sports calendar and I see everything through the eyes of what does it do for the production of my show and my staff. So when they talked about eighteen games and that's gonna happen, they'll add a second bye week, Well, the season will end, the staff will go dark for a week, everybody gets vacation. We'll come back, we'll be right into free agency in
the final twenty games of the NBA season. So for me, I'm like, oh, I get rid of two dead weeks of sports talk. But you know, one of the things, like, for instance, college basketball is a prime example. I can absolutely be fascinated with something for three weeks and nothing more. And I think it's it's the sports brain. Like college basketball. This next weekend, Gonzaga Perdue will not miss it. These
big games this weekend will not miss it. I don't think the of college basketball is great, but I like the Mardi Gras field, that the annual party.
Listen every It's cliche and it's the only time anyone ever uses this specific word is with college sports. But it's the right word. The pageantry of it is something, yes, like the students and the band and all of it. It is it. It overcomes the fact that I'm like, I'm pretty sure this team shoots thirty six percent on open shots. Like I'm like, I am pretty like this
is not good. No, but it is entertaining. But you're right, I feel totally fine parachuting in Yes, like the I don't pretend to act like I'm a college basketball expert. I'm not and I came into the tournament, I'm like, eh, I used to live in Houston. I like the coach, I'll root for them, and other than that, I'll root for underdogs because it's fun. I'll root against Yukon because it'll cause Wild's pain, and then that'll just be it, like you know, and then I'm into it. And the
women's game has stars that I that I'm into. But I don't need to have a year long investment, That's right, I just don't well.
And the other thing is I had a four team parlay in college basketball last week, my first one of the year, and people are like, you don't you don't really follow the sport, and I'm like, it's math. Just look at certain numbers in the bat like I just made another four team. Or today Billy Bean didn't watch the A's play. Jerry West would not watch all the Lakers play. You start watching too much of anything, you get so viscerally emotionally distraught and connected, you make bad bets.
I've said this about the NFL. The red zone is perfect. The red zone gives me the great moments. I don't overthink football. Then I can go look at stuff when I make my blazing five picks. I can just look at numbers that are important, third down numbers that I worry about. How do you close, how do you start? How much do you run the weather, And it's like, I don't need to me. There is no proof that watching every Oregon game make me a better Oregon better.
It's like saying, Oh, it's like saying, you know, the more you drive, the better driver you are. I could argue, the more I drive, the more fatigued I am, the more numb I am, and the less alert I am.
So I think that's so. The I think that is on a general gambling perspective. I think that if you had a team the generic you, if anyone had a team that they watched and followed like it were their favorite team. Yeah, but that they did not give a damn about. Yes, that I actually think would okay, give them real insight on it.
So this is interesting. So Lem Banker, the late Lem Banker, was a gambler in Las Vegas, and I started gambling on sports in Las Vegas, and Lem Banker said, it's not a volume game. He goes find a team or a college conference, and within that conference, frying three or four teams and just watch them and bet them.
So that so that, so that's my So that's what I was getting to, like, I think, I No, I do not think it is gonna sound arrogant. I don't mean it too. I do not think Brett Veach, the GM of the Chiefs, knows more about the Chiefs roster than I do. I did, and that is only because I think I am maximum I know. I don't think it's possible to know more. I think I've reached maximum knowledge level of that roster. But I am not a good Chiefs gambler because I'm so emotionally invested in it,
and it leads to high high's low low. Like it's not it's not that you always overrate your favorite team. Sometimes as you underrate them, they're like they suck. What the hell? You know what I mean? But I I've watched everything and I consume everything. So if you did that with a team you don't care about just you
know what I mean. From a pure knowledge perspective, I do think you would be like, oh, nobody's talking about it, but our left guard, who wasn't that good, you know, is at fifty percent and his backup's terrible, and we got Jeffrey Simmons coming up that in and of itself is worth a point and half, you know what I mean, I do think you would have that. So I think that there is in theory, the more you watch, the
more knowledgeable you are. In practice, the thing you watch the most is the thing that you are going to care about the most, and then the emotion is going to pervert your logic on it.
Yeah, I mean, I really don't want to know about all my wife's relationship.
I don't want to add an interesting therapy.
I don't want to know about what my kids are doing. It doesn't make me a better parent or a husband all that knowledge. So my take has always been I like to watch things like a judge watches a case without emotion. I can go look up the data give me. My wife always says this. She says, you know, I'm always watching a game for an angle. I'm like, when I went to the Bulls Celtics, the first thing I
noticed the first four minutes of the game. The Celtics didn't start Jalen Brown, Poor Zingis or Drew Holliday, and the first thing that was obvious is Billy Donovan told his team, clearly, they're not as athletic.
Push the ball.
Horford's on the floor, old guy.
So Chicago came out going a thousand miles an hour, getting some easy buckets. And then later in the game, you could watch Boston, they've played together, older players, did a much better job. You could tell that Boston's coach had told them, don't io, We've only got Tatum. They're taking him out, and some say pass move the ball. We're we're a smarter team than they are.
Move the ball.
Boston at the end of the game was like it was a symphonic it was beautiful ball movement. So it's like that I was watching the game for angles, and I think you do the same thing. I don't need to watch entire games. I can go like I watch Yukon twice this year and I'm like, oh, nobody's gonna beat this team in college basketball, defense, scoring, coaching.
They're just too good.
They're too long, they're too And then I watched Carolina three games and I'm like, that's the only team that could give you con trouble and I don't. And I probably watched twelve college games this year. I watched Gonzaga, and I said they're good, they're not good enough to win the title. I watched, you know, I watched the series of teams. So and again it's not like I do chalk mostly on the college tournament. And I'm not I'm not Alan Boston, one of these legendary gamblers in
college basketball. But the truth of the matter is the more you do anything, the more emotional you get. And that's not always make you a better husband, a better parent, a better better a better boss.
In theory, if you could acquire the expertise without any of the like it's I'll use an analogy. Then I have a basketball take for you. You made me think of it when you're talking the NBA. If you're running a business and you are there every single day, and yeah, I mean you have employees, yes, so you actually so this is you are the expert act. But it is also very human to then develop relationships, yes, and so the what is best for the business versus I really
like this person? All this, you know, those things all intermix in your brain if you could, if you were, I think it's probably why. And I'm totally talking out of my ass here because I know nothing about running a business. And I just thought of this in the second, but I think, I think I'm right. It's probably why people bring in outside consultants. They're like, Hey, you don't know any You don't know this guy went through a divorce. You don't know this is my godparent. You don't know anything.
Come look at this place and tell me what works and want. Doesn't give me a cold calculated reading of it, because I am as the saying goes too close to it right like that is that is how human beings work, in that they can get too close to things they can know so much. I guess that's where the phrase can't see the forest for the trees, you know what I meaning comes from. So I do think there's something to it. Can I throw a pretty ridiculous sure, But
I believe it's correct. NBA take aut absolutely.
I love these.
Okay, so right now, if you had to pick a team to win the West, you would pick who.
I think the Lakers match up with Denver physically, now that Karl Anthony Towns is hurt, they don't. Okayse's too young, Phoenix to mid range too. They duplicate too many of their skills. I think Denver will eventually healthy win. I think Boston's deeper but will lose out west Yahn.
Denver is the heavy favorite by everyone. Right. I agree with you, even though they're the nine seed. The Lakers appear to me to have the most upside. Every everyone's healthy, everything clicks, all of it. But they can't beat Denver. They got swept by him last year, they got swepting in the regular season, games are closed, but they just can't beat them. Okay, So here is the gallic. Here is the take that's gonna sound ridiculous, but I truly
believe the Lakers should want Denver and round one. And here's why. If you have to beat them, no matter what. If the assumption is no one's gonna beat them for you, okay, you're gonna have to beat them. You want them in round two when you just went six or seven with Minnesota or OKC and they swept whoever they were playing. You want them in round three when the games are every other day, or you want them in round one when there's two or three days between games. At times, yep,
Lebron and ad can both play forty four minutes. You are as fresh as you're going to be at any point and try to knock them off when they you know what I mean, right before they have really hit their stride. So again, I think the Lakers in a series against Denver are like fifteen percent. And it's not like if they got them in round one they'd be fifty. But I think that fifteen percent might go up to
a round two. I truly believe, Listen. I don't think they could beat them in the guy every other day because you need Lebron to play too much, Adida play too much. But round one would be an intriguing spot where you could just play Lebron and ad like the whole game, like you have two days off.
This has been my theory on the Lakers. If it was March Madness style like the in season title, Di'd win the title. And if I was Adam Silver and I wanted to extend KD Lebron in Steph's efficiency and greatness, I would make the first round, three, the second two rounds, five games in the final seven. If Steph loses in the finals Lebron or KD, that's fine, I won. But asking older players, even if you're a dominant favorite, you lose games in a series because nobody sweeps anybody, I
mean outside of Lebron in the first round. Nobody sweeps anybody. So what's happening is you're making revenue, but you really lessen the chances of the Warriors. Instead, Steph is carrying the Warriors. Now he has to go six games in the first two playoffs. If it was three and they steal what Steph takes two. So I always said, forget
the greed. Shorten the playoff series until the finals, and it allows older players to remain viable in those last two to three years of their contract or career, like KD, Lebron and Steph right now, Well, so that's and the age thing.
This is what everybody, what nobody realizes is how old these guys are in NBA years. Kobe Bryant won the final playoff game. Kobe Bryant ever won he was thirty three. The final playoff game Michael Jordan ever won he was thirty five. Steph is thirty six. KD is either thirty six right nor about to be. I'm gonna check. Lebron obviously is thirty seven. We are already on KD is thirty five, turns thirty six in a few months. We're
on borrowed time with these guys. Historic we've been on borrow time with Lebron, but we are on borrowed time with these guys, and folks don't realize it, Like because Lebron has won a title at and finals MVP at thirty five and then was in the conference finals at thirty eight, that's not the history. That's not There is no precedent for that. Those guys are not supposed to still be carrying their rosters. And by the Durant thing man,
this is an unbelievable stat. Durant's first eleven years in the league gulling, he played forty nine conference finals or NBA Finals games one nine ninety nine minutes in the conference finals of the NBA finals. So in Durant's first eleven seasons, six years he was in the second to last you know, series of the year, and three years he was in the line one. In the six years he has played since then, he has played eleven minutes in the conference finals. In RNBA finals, Kevin Durant, in
his thirties has played eleven minutes passed round two. Hey, which is a damn shame, but it is wild that it has happened.
I said it when it happened. I know I'm giving myself credit, But when he left Golden State for Brooklyn, I said, this is the equivalent of Mahomes saying I have a friend playing for the Jets, I want to go to the Jets. We would go the fuck you talking about you're out of your mind, Andy Reid, Steve Kerr, Steph Clay Draymond. That is the difference between Lebron and KD. Lebron may have had a difference with teammates. Lebron will be like, this is a cash cow, I'm not going
any Lebron has left old d Wade, crazy Kyrie. He's left untalented Cleveland. If Kyrie would have stayed and Kevin Love he.
Would have stayed in Cleveland.
Lebron has left because of a His exit strategies were usually I can't win.
Bron has left because he thought that this is over. I need to be able to win.
Else steps and he did me.
And listen, KD, this is where you and I do someone disagree. I totally get why Katie left because we all said those rings don't count, loser, don't care. Everybody yelled at him, said, you're ruining the sport. The rings
don't count. It wasn't the leaving, just the leaving. It was the leaving plus being like, I'm going to go from the lowest maintenance, most reliable wingman superstar in Steph Curry to the highest maintenance, least reliable one in Steph Kurry in Kyrie, or like going from that to that is what the And then the Phoenix thing, like Phoenix built poorly. They just they you know, the roster never made sense. But it is. Listen, Katie's no longer a
true MVP candidate. He's closer to the tenth best player in the league than the best player in fair you know what I mean, which is but for him too in the last six years, not make it out around two is one of the wildest things ever for a player of his caliber to not get those his whole twenties NBA postseason Great Series moments. He was a part
of it. He was a part of the tapestry. And now he hasn't played you know, a really big he's played, in my opinion, in the last six years, one huge game, Game seven against Giannis round and that was round two and that was the game where he stepped on the line where he hit what he thought was the game winner and stepped on the line and then losing overtime. And that's it. Other than that, it's getting worked in round one or going out and round it's it sucks.
It's not what I and I'm not like killing him for it. I don't think it's because he's like not a great player, but it is a I don't have that, you know, I don't have it in front of me. But it feels a little like the last you know, half decade of Marino, or maybe eight years of Marino, where it's like it's not like there were a bunch of deep you know, I know, you didn't win a ring,
but you had deep playoff runs. It's like, no, there's, you know what I mean, a lot of years where it's just like you lost in the wild card round, you lost in round two, you missed the playoffs, you lost in the wild card round. So that's it's what Because I think the reason I'm bringing up is I think Phoenix is going to fall to the stay in the nine ten area. I think, you know what I mean, Phoenix, you lose to San Antonio without Wimby and Phoenix has have you seen Colin Phoenix's last ten.
Oh, it's brutal.
It's the hardest. I'm just gonna tell you what it is to the audience, because it is the hardest schedule left in the NBA by a mile. This is what Phoenix has the rest of the way at Denver, at OKC, at the Pelicans, home for the Calves. That's the easiest game. Home for the Timberwolves, home for the Pelicans, home for the Clippers, at the Clippers, at the Kings, at the Timberwolves. Every game they plays against a team with a better record than them. Six are on the road, four against
the top three seeds in the West. Like it is, there is no gimmis in there. And they've fallen already to the Have they fallen to the nine? I don't know if they've fallen to the nine or they're going.
I think the Suns are eight, Lakers, nine Warriors, right.
That's exactly right, and the Rockets are nipping at everybody's heels at eleven. Ye, the Suns are the eight, you're correct, and the Lakers are two behind them. And the Lakers are gonna by the time people hear this, the Lakers will have I would imagine lost to the Bucks. But the there's the thing for the Lakers not to do. Schedule, you know radio. The Lakers play the Bucks tonight and
they're getting rolled as we record it. After this, Grizzlies, Pacers, Nets are the next three, and then I think they have two easy ones. After that they go Grizzly Pacers, Nets, Raptors, Wizards. So yes, they have it. They're gonna lose tonight, and then they have five of the worst teams in basketball the next five. That's a tough spot for the Suns. Tough spot.
Nick Right, always love it, talk about it best.
Thank you for drinking with me.
I finished it at a perfect time.
So here's the thing, so I have, Uh, you know, everybody does podcasts differently, And this last thing I'll say, you and I I would say, whether it's the volume con coward podcast or what's right with Nick Right? You and I treat our podcasts like a you know, kind of more relaxed version of what we do in our regular lives, Like our regular shows. I know that there are other strategies that are far more aggressive or audacious
or whatever it is right. So maybe the happy medium, since we can't stop talking about them, is one time doing a four person pod, you, me and Danielle, and we just see how that thing goes. And if it's you know, there's a forty percent chance it's unairable for our sakes, then it just goes in the archives. But if not, it could be a viral bonanza. So think about that.
I told Anne we had a disagreement recently, and I said, I'm willing to do a fifteen minute pod on this disagreement and the audience decides who's right.
She was not down with it. How did that work out? Yeah? I would imagined she doesn't like any of this stuff. She hates me, I know. So here's the thing my say. I think our I think we need to get Anne and Danielle together and then maybe we could do it because I think that they will have enough commonalities between being married to us, living with us in their own stuff, then maybe we can do it one day. But this is fun as always. I'll talk to you next week, my friend. All right, buddy.
The volume, Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, take a moment rate and review