You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.
He's the commissioner of the NBA for the last eleven years. Adam Silver joining us on the program. High Commissioner, How are you?
I'm good, Dan, I need some more stuff on my desk.
What happened?
It's clean? I like all the stuff you got there.
Though, Well, you got some poll with teams. Why don't you just have a little choskeys garre. You get bobblehead dolls up there?
I've got him. I just I put paper on my desk. We have a different jobs.
What is the coolest thing in your office?
I have one of shacks shoes. It looks like a snow boot and you could use it as a planner.
Well, I have one too, his rebox shoe.
Yeah, it wasn't it was the brand that he created, okay. I think it was like dunk Man. I think was the brand.
Okay.
And it's enormous. It looks it doesn't look real.
Well, he only gave me one. I don't know why he only gives out one shoe.
He gave me the other. I only have one left, right.
I think I have the left one, but.
I get the right He split the pair between us.
I got Tim duncan shoes from when they won the NBA title against the Knicks, and he said, I'll give you my shoes if you tell me who's the number one sports century athlete. They just win the NBA championship. He comes in, I'm doing Sports Center. He's got his shoes and he writes to DP Tim Duncan and then he said, right, who's number one on the list and I I nobody knew because we had that countdown. I said it's Jordan and he said, all right, here's your shoes.
So I got Tim Duncan's shoes after the NBA Finals. Did you get any Jordan stuff when you were with the you know, Commissioner Stern?
No, I mean only because it wouldn't inappropriate. I mean, I guess I was around a lot of Jordan's stuff, but I wasn't a collector. I don't think it will be appropriate.
Well, when you weren't the commissioner, you could have said, hey, be nice to get a pair of Mike's shoes.
Yeah. I bought a lot of Jordan shoes over the years.
Yeah. Well, I I talked to who is it Tim? Who's the Tim the Tim No, no, Tim, who was the bulls pr guy, Tim, Tim Hallum, Yeah, Tim. He would get Jordan's shoes after every NBA finals, every title he Mike would take off the shoes and autograph them and hand them to them after everyone. I don't know if he sold those things, but those things got to be worth because their championship warn NBA shoes by Mike, they got to be worth a whole lot of money.
And I'm think about the business Mike created as a division of Nike, the Jordan brand. I mean, it's you know, it's a multi billion dollar business at this point. I mean, how many think about how many athletes have retained, Yeah, a kind of notoriety, you know, this many decades post playing career, and it's I mean, he's an amazing guy obviously, and he's still a small owner in the league and Charlotte.
But might you know I post his playing career. I mean I knew him a bit over the years, but you know, post playing career, we got to be really close and he was obviously one of my bosses for the first several years I was a commissioner and still amazing person.
Give me the list here, like what's top on your list here of what needs to be addressed with the NBA.
I think top on my list is the transition we're going through in media now. I mean, we locked in our new media deals for essentially the next decade, staying with Disney, ABC and ESPN, moving to Comcast Universal Peacock in addition to being on NBC and now Amazon. But I think more interesting in a way is not just moving from one partner to another, but the shift in live sports to streaming. And I think where is most
fancy it now? And maybe even a little bit of a pain that they got to switch off their box or whatever else and then find the app or however they have to do it. From a programming standpoint, it's still they're finding what, in essence looks like the same game. It's just streamed as other than being on broadcaster conventional cable.
What's really fascinating to me is all the functionality that sort of Internet TV will allow through streaming, all the personalization, the customization that will come, all the new types of information you can present to fans as they're watching games. You know, all that optionality. I think, I mean, you know, when I when we first met I was at NBA Entertainment and sort of sort of began my career on
the production side. And I think it's at this moment we can redefine how we present the game to fans and also make it a lot more convenient. I mean, in our new deals, every game will be streamed, and we have a very young audience. You know, they're watching more screen time than ever before, but not traditional television. And I think our ability to bring those games directly to them and in ways they want to consume them.
I'll add to that as well. I think using social media to engage fans, I mean, not just to interest them. I mean, like example, talked about recently, Victor Wembinyama was in New York on Christmas Day and then was around for two more days because then he played in Brooklyn two days later, and he's a chess player and he went to Washington Square Park. I'm sure you saw that clip.
Something like one hundred million people, you know a week saw video of him playing chess in Washington Square Park, and our viewership, which is fine, pales though in comparison to the social media following of these players and the league. That number you know, on a global basis is over two billion, and I think sort of my job is to get more basketball lovers to watch the NBA and
watch it longer. And I think there's an opportunity to use social media to create more engagement, and not just to show how multifaceted Wemby is and he loves to play chess, but to teach people about the game, to celebrate the game, to demonstrate why, I know you're a college basketball player, I know you love the game, Like why this is such an incredible game, and help people better understand what they're watching, understand the finer points of the game, and fair to be critical of it at
times too, and you know, should there be less three points doing et cetera. I mean that's something we're very focused on. But when I day in and day out, you know, and I have all the various streaming services and have all the different programming available to me, I don't think it's an accident that people are increasingly gravitating towards premium live sports, not just basketball, but obviously football, hockey, baseball,
et cetera. WNBA. Now, I think because people crave something that's live, something that's you know, unscripted, something that can be entertaining as well, and I think the basketball in the NBA can be all those things. But we also our job has become that much harder because we're competing
against so many different forms of entertainment. It's podcasts and social media and unlimited numbers of channels and programming, and so we have to up our game too to make sure that we're finding ways to engage viewers and again to teach people about the game. And that's that's been one of my frustrations. I think that don't blame the broadcasters, and it's hard you've broadcast a lot of basketball that
the game's moving so quickly. You don't have the space that you might have in football or in baseball to be talking more about what's unfolding before you.
But what bothers you more the ratings or the coverage of the ratings.
The ratings are fine. I mean, we're roughly even with last season for the regular season, which was the highest ratings for a regular season in four years. There is I get it. There was a narrative early in the season we were down a bit. I you know, you've been covering the league for a long time. I mean, it seems that there's always a narrative around our sport. You know, too physical, too much isolation, scoring, too low,
you know, super teams, player empowerment. I mean, I could go on and on, and then the narrative early in the season became the ratings are down because of three point shooting. I think those are two independent issues. The ratings are now about even with last year. And as I said, you know, if you look more broadly at other measures of engagement, our attendance last season was the highest in the history of the league. I mean, you can't look at social media over too long a spectrum
because it didn't exist. But if you but when you add in social media, the game has never been more popular in terms of the engagement. So do I get frustrated about around the narrative around ratings, Yes, especially when because of the decline in traditional television, decline in cable homes, everyone's down a bit so, you know, Plus we entered into our new deals for the next decade, so I
feel good about that. But I think those narratives become a reality to the extent, especially even when we're doing well, it's still only a significant a relatively small percentage of the population that's watching live games. So there's a lot of people out there who may not be fans of the NBA and become consumed with that story. And again, NBA seems to take a disproportionate amount of that discussion. I think maybe because we're so relevant from a societal standpoint.
Our players have been outspoken, there's been a history of activism certain cases in this league. For whatever those reasons, I think at the end of the day, my job is to find more people who are inclined to want to watch live sports, to want to watch basketball, and convert them into NBA fans.
All right, let me.
I don't want to lose sight of that.
Let me do rapid fire because there's a few topics here. The NIL ruling has made college basketball more of an attractive path for athletes in recent years. I don't know if that changes allowing players out of high school that you will revisit that. But what is is the NC DOUBLEA a friend or a foe to the NBA.
NC DOUBLEA is a great friend. In fact, Charlie Baker, who's formed governor of Massachusetts, I've gotten to know well over the last couple of years, we're talking about more that we can do together. I mean, you remember, in the not so old days, if we touched a amateur, you know, high school player, we could cause them to lose their eligibility. Now, of course, you know, through collectives and NIL they're paid. And what we've been talking the NCAA about is we should jointly get more involved in
youth basketball, particularly the training of elite players. The vast majority of them we'll never make it to the NBA, but we'll play in college. And so we have a joint interest not in developing elite players and then for the broader base of players. We have a joint interest in for young boys and of course young girls, getting them to be more active. You know, basketball is a great sport to do that, getting them again to love the game. Charlie Baker himself was a college player. So
we're working together. I think on the specifically and I own collectives. I think there's work to be done in college basketball because just like in the NBA, where over successive collective bargaining agreements we've helped to level the playing field in terms of competition. We've had six different teams
when championships over the last six years. At the end of the day, we're selling competition, and I think college has to work through some issues where now as players in essence, through the portal can become essentially free agents every year. You know that there's no really real salary structure, so you have a lot of real, you know, out of whack balance in terms of teams ability to compete.
And I think for fans of the college game, and I'm one of them, at the end of the day, you want to see great competition in Division one.
Will you revisit like the G League. You've got players who are just going to the G League. If you allow them to come out of high school to the NBA, they wouldn't be going to the G League.
I would imagine, well, yes, But in fact, you know, back before those court rulings which allowed the collectives in NIL, at the urging of Condallisa Rice, who oversaw a commission with the NCAA and President Obama to a certain extent, we were asked to create a professional track because the view was it was unfair to so called force these young men to go to college for a year before they came into the NBA. So we weren't ready to return to eighteen as the mini mage in the NBA.
We stayed at nineteen. But through the G League we created something called Team mcnight, where we were paying players several hundred thousand dollars a year in a pro track and then come into the NBA. That seems like a pittance now based on what players are able to earn
in Division one through these college programs. And frankly, I think the track through these great college programs is better than what we were offering them in the G League because they have first class training facilities, some of the greatest coaches out there, planes, et cetera. That didn't make sense in our economic model and still doesn't for the G League. So I'm perfectly fine with them going to college.
And by the way, you know what you've also seen with NIL and collective money is there's a big pool of international players who would have stayed largely in Europe and played but are now coming to play Division one basketball because it's a better economic situation for them and ultimately a bet probably better development too, if their goal is to get into the NBA.
Give me the wildest thing that you guys have considered. I'm sure there's always you know, we're going to try this, you know, the NFL doing the kickoff the way they did. It's pretty crazy that that's what it looks like. Give me a this has been discussed, I mean.
One that's only been discussed a little. I wouldn't put it necessarily in the category of being so wild. Is potentially two free throws for a foul and a three point shot. That's I don't necessarily think I would do it in the last two minutes of the game. But I think that's something interesting, something else that I'm a fan of, and I'm probably in a minority as we
get more involved in global basketball. The NBA is the only league that plays forty eight minutes, and I would be I am a fan of four ten minute quarters. I'm not sure that many others are. I mean, putting inside what it means for records and things like that. I think that a two hour format for a game
is more consistent sort of modern television habits. I don't think people in arenas aren't asking us to shorten the game, but I think as a television program being two hours, that's Olympic basketball as being is two hours, you know, college basketball courses.
If you like it, I'd say it has kind of a little bit of a push there.
Yeah, but it's such a dramatic change to the game. I mean, I think something like that would have to be talked more about over time.
I mean, incidentally dramatic commissioner.
Yeah, no, I get it, And I don't know if I'm a fan of what baseball did. I'm a baseball fan, and I think some of those changes have really increased sort of the engagement, the entertainment value of the game, and so I'm paying a lot of attention to that. And in fact, I've used you know, the pitch clock, the sort of the increasing the size of the base,
et cetera. In meetings at the NBA to say, you know, if baseball, which is more locked into tradition, and I don't I don't mean that negatively than any other sport. And part of what baseball provides is the tradition, the legacy that if they're able to make those changes, certainly we shouldn't be afraid to look at changes as well. So, you know, I also think though we have made a series of changes over the years, they haven't been as
dramatic in many cases. You know, we've we've changed the format in the last two minutes of the game so we wouldn't have as many stoppages. We have a coaches challenge now know we did. We had the hack a shack issue. We changed the rule there. I mean, there's there's this. We added the cup, you know, which we now have. We have a play in tournament. I mean, so we've made significant changes.
I have an idea before I let you go. How about we take away the three point line during the in season tournament.
Interesting. I mean it's it's like the issue there.
Interesting.
I'm not like I like the three point shot. I mean, let me take a step back. I mean, if you think from when you first started covering the NBA to the skill level of big men now, I mean, look at Victor Webben Yama, look at Jannis you know, look look at Yo Kisch. Look what these guys can do. You know, it was it was like the fact that they are so skillful that they can shoot from these kinds of distances, shoot in the way guards used to be able to, like, like, is there too much three
point shooting in certain situations? Maybe? But I also don't want to overreact to what we're seeing in the game because the game goes through transitions. I think the game is incredible right now, day in day out. I think some of the criticism is a bit unfair, and that goes back to my earlier point that I think the league needs to do a better job teaching about the game so that there's real appreciation for what people are seeing out there. And again, you know, ratings are fine,
We have enormous global interest. People like what they're seeing right now on the floor, So I don't necessarily buy into the premise that it would be a better game if you if you eliminated three point shooting.
How about we make the floor like a pinball machine where the three point line lights up, and when it lights up, then you know you're able to take threes like you could. You could really dress up the floor. You guys did a pretty good job at the end season, but why don't we make it pinball like I don't know.
If you remember, but last year at All Star on All Star Saturday night, we had literally a lit court. Yeah, and we've played with things like that. I mean, like I have one foot in sort of the traditionalist camp. You know, and I really do care about the game, and I think it's so special that I think when you moved to that place that where it seems too gimmicky, and I don't think, and I think what Baseball did?
They found right down the middle path where they preserved what's so great about that game, but found some ways to speed it up. I think have been very effective. So we're open here. We talk a lot about potential change the game. I just add back to some notion of a forty point of a forty minute game. I mean, because this game is so global, one of the things we'd like to see over time is creating a more consistent set of rules globally around the game, like you know,
again the Olympic basketball. I'm sure you watched you know on NBC and Peacock the US, Serbia, US France. Those people are basketball. Some are saying those are two of the best games they ever saw. Concidentally, if you went to a forty minute game with the issues around load management and resting, it would be the equivalent of I don't know the exact math, taking like fifteen games off
the season. I like that so and I don't think most fans would be disappointed if it was a two hour presentation instead of a you know, our game is actually about two hours and fifteen.
Well, you're going to find out the reaction the rest of the day as this gets posted that you're considering ten minute quarters. I gotta go.
Well, I didn't fully say you asked me for some ideas till not quite at that level.
I'm not saying there's a vote this week, Commissioner. I'm just saying social media will look at this and go, hey, that sounds great. Now we got guys playing more. Maybe the games are more intense and it's forty minute games, and it's great for TV, great for everybody. For another day, For another day, I have to go.
Muriel in Jackson Square in New Orleans. Okay, Muriels, I'm not sure, in all due respect to your caller, I would go to I'd go to New Orleans for sushi.
Can I drop your name at Muriels.
I'm not sure it'll be helpful, but absolutely, do.
You have an open tab at that restaurant?
I will if you go.
Okay, awesome, Uh, but I'm not going alone. I'm bringing my my, my whole team here. Yes, they're going.
With longtime listener.
Day great, great to catch up with you again. Thank you, Commissioner.
Ye bye bye.
That's commission Adam Schilder. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to listen live.
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A lot of it has been made of the Chiefs, their villains, and I keep thinking, are they villains? You know, when you talk about a villain, I think about the Bad Boys, the Pistons, like they were villains, but they embraced it.
Here.
You know, there's certain wrestlers who like being the villain. But you know, what is a villain? I have the definition, but I want you to hear from Travis Kelsey was on his podcast with his brother and talking about embracing being a villain in the Super Bowl.
I love it at one point, at one point in time, you know, it wasn't that and.
You were the sener. You guys are the dollars in the NFL.
I was the do you feel bad for him?
Guys?
And you're not the he I'm I'm just I'm enjoying. I'm enjoying doing this with the guys together, the guys that we have in there, because it's it's like, it just makes us even more of a family.
Okay, that's the New Heights podcast with the Brothers. A villain is a character person who is intentionally evil or harmful to others. Villains can be fictional or based on real people. So the intent part of that, are they intentionally evil? Are they intentionally good or great? I think they came along at a time we were like, yeah, somebody other than the Patriots, and then all of a sudden, it's like, now we're waiting for somebody other than the
Kansas City Chiefs. But I mean, Patrick Mahomes not a villain. Kelsey, Andy Reid, Chris Jones, I don't get it. I think we're tired of the story. And that's natural for sports fans. It's like, okay, somebody else. Boy, we're really rooting for Buffalo or we're rooting against Kansas City because we want somebody else in there. Buffalo would be great, you know, Baltimore would be great. We want somebody else in there. This happens with dynasties. We get tired, same stories, same people.
Everybody's doing commercials. It's a big deal. Every game is the nationally televised game. It's the big one on Sunday night or Sunday afternoon on Fox or CBS. So we're so familiar with this story that that's why we wanted something else. Even the Eagles, you know, we had them in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. We're very familiar with the Eagles. Now you got Saquon Barkley. Okay,
you can root for them. And I never thought I would hear, you know, the national audience saying, yeah, I guess I'll root for the Eagles, and it's like Notre Dame or Duke Basketball, uh, somebody other than them. Then Notre Dame became likable this year. It's like, oh, you know, there's a national audience that's going, hey, I kind of like Notre Dame this year. So then I'm not buying. But Kansas City should embrace it because it's there, it's real,
and you know, fans want to see Kansas City. I don't know if they want to see the Eagles win as much as they want to see Kansas City lose. They want to see what happens with Travis Kelce when he's walking off the Field, Taylor Swift, Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid. But I look at this as extremely skilled football all three phases. They just do it right and I can't argue about that. I can't complain about that. Do they get calls? Is the perception they're getting calls? Yes, but
it's not their fault. You know, if they take advantage of the rules, then change the rules. You know, the Patriots, you could say, were villains because they cheated and they were involved in a couple of nefarious situations there. Their head coach wasn't likable. Brady we embraced because it was an underdog story, Julian Edelman, underdogs, like they had so
many underdog stories. But then we got tired of them, and then they're cheating, and then all of a sudden you hated to see Brady's face because the you know, the good looking quarterback, got the cheerleader and won the championship. Bill Belichick always be even if he won. You know, we got tired of all of that. But I view them as villains, not the Kansas City chief So if it helps the Chiefs and Travis Kelcey and you embrace that, then great. But I don't look at them as villains.
I look at them as one of the great teams of all time with what they've done this run, Mahomes and what he's done historical Andy Reid, what he's done to maybe be He's the guy who couldn't win the big game. Remember, couldn't win the big game? And then he goes to Kansas City. Huh great, Yeah, maybe you'll get to a conference title game. He was good doing that in Philadelphia. Now we're looking at him. Man, guy's an offensive genius. He should be up there with Shula, Belichick, Lombard,
I mean, all the greats, and rightfully so. And Mahomes. He's going to be the greatest quarterback of all time probably when it's all said and done. What did he do wrong exactly? I don't know what he did wrong. I mean, is he cocky? Does he get calls? Okay, that doesn't make him a villain? Now, that can make you root against them because they get the calls. You know, Brady got called. The greats get calls, or the perception is they got a call, and they're always on national TV,
so you're seeing all this. They don't play one o'clock games, not very often. Every game is magnified. Every game Monday is a referendum on that game and that team. Yes, Marvin, I think for Mahomes, I think it's the people around Patrick Mahomes that makes people root against him. It's not even Patrick Mahomes himself, it's the people around him. I'll just leave it at that. Maybe referencing family members there maybe yeah, yeah, But that doesn't make him a villain.
That doesn't make the Chiefs a villain. But I would say most people, if you're not an Eagles fan or a Chiefs fan, you're rooting against the Chiefs and the Super Bowl. It probably if you did a football map, I would guess that most of the states would be rooting, maybe not for the Eagles, but against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Yeah, Pullming, I think your point was right when you
explain what villain means intentional. The word intentional. If you go back to Belichick, especially the last six or seven years of that run, he was difficult with the media on purpose, and it seemed like he got more difficult and it's us against the world, and I'm gonna give you a hard time because I've got a handful of rings, and he could get away with it so and also the cheating accusations, some real, some not with the Patriots, that's true.
Villainin a character in a story who opposes the hero. A person who is guilty of or likely to commit a crime. A person who is cruel or evil, A person who is blamed for a particular evil. Certain villains Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Darth Vader, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wicked Witch of the AFC West, Bill lame Beer.
Uh.
But hey, I don't blame you, embrace it. You might as well. Hey, all right now, they can't say nobody thought we would be here. You know, it's not one of those like their villains are favorites as far as you're not an underdog story, because it's hard to hate a villain who's an underdog. Yes, yes, Neil, I think they've also been preseason betting favorites for like six years in a round. Yes, Yes, this isn't one of those oh my gosh, heartwarming stories. It's not. But when you
think about it, Mahomes was nobody in college. Kelsey was a former quarterback. He played at Cincinnati. I mean came out of nowhere. Nobody knows where Chris Jones went to college. I mean that's why when you start to look at Isaiah Pacheco went to Rutgers, Tyreek Hilt. Now you know, you could maybe not like Tyreek Hill, but they traded him away and they did a great job finding Tyreek Hill. So I look at that front office unbelievable, plug and
play unbelievable. And the constant is your GM, your coach, and your quarterback and not in that order. It should be a story that we embrace or at least we respect. But it's almost like, oh God, this is going to happen on Super Bowl Sunday. There'll be that moment where, oh god, they get all the calls. It's gonna happen. And I hate when it happens because then we lose sight even leading up to the Super Bowl. This is going to be a big storyline next week. Oh the villains,
people hate us, that's okay? Or people saying, oh, they get all the calls? Are they going to change the rules in the offseason, Adam Schefter joins us, now, shifty, are they going to change the rules? Yes, help is on the way, Like that's what it's gonna be. Instead of these are two great teams, really really well run. When you look at the GMS, the talent both sides of the ball. Yetto Chiefs are a one and a half point favorite. I mean, this is what you want.
You want a super Bowl? You know I used to cover the Super Bowls when it would be how badly is the AFC going to lose? How badly are the Broncos going to lose? Oh it's fifty five to ten. You want all right, sorry, DoD You want competition. You won a great game, and there's so many things at stake. What would a Super Bowl do for Jalen Hurts, Nick Sirianni, Saquon Barklay. We'll talk about that next hour. Add another super Bowl to Andy Reid's resume or Patrick mahomes resume?
Does Kelsey retire after a super Bowl win? Like, there's a lot of great storylines here, And you know there are times when I can be a cynic, but you know I still love covering sports.
I don't.
I I hate being the Oh god, they get all the calls, that's not fair. They cheat whatever it might be. They spend more money than any but then you lose sight of what we grew up wanting, and we took for granted there weren't controversies when we were growing up. I don't know if anybody said kind of I hate the Packers in the late sixties. You're like, damn, they're good Kansas City. Man. They got a weird huddle with Lenny Dawson and Hanks Traham. But I like him. Joe Namath, Like,
that's what you grow up with. I'm okay with. You know, a guy or a team that you want to beat, that they're the team to beat. I'm okay. You know, I grew up a UCLA fan, and everybody wanted to beat Ucla. But I like the fact that there was that one team you wanted to beat. The Cowboys for a while, the Packers for a while, the Steelers for a while, the Niners for a while. Man, We're so lucky to have those years where you saw greatness, true greatness.
Yeah, Pauline, I want to ask you a back of the day question before we break. When Joe Namath was going to win the Super Bowl or getting ready to win the Super Bowl, was he beloved embraced by the national sports fans, or was he like, oh, this cocky guy from this upstart league.
I think that since they were eighteen point underdogs, that there was a like a snickering curiosity of damn, can't believe he guaranteed they were going to beat the Colts. And you know, he had long hair, so he looked like he was, you know, the fifth Beatle. But when you watched him play at white shoes and then if he was not able to play, had this big fur white fur coat on, and so there was a curiosity.
But I don't know if he was warmly embraced. I think because I grew up as an AFC AFL fan, I should say an AFL fan, so I loved that they were wide open football. The NFL was boring. It was like three yards here, and here's his sweep for four yards and there's a seven yard touchdown. Like it was boring. The AFL it was awesome. It was like the ABA. It was fun. And then you know, the same thing happened in the NBA. The NBA looked at the ABA and go, man, they're doing some fun things.
The NFL did that with the AFL. Bring those teams in, they're having fun. The Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, the Jets. So you know, this just goes along. You know, this is history. Every few years it's that guy or that team or both. And that's what's to me great about this. It's why I still love coming to work every day. You have these stories, they're fun, Embrace them.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio w APP.
Jim Gaffigan currently on his Everything Is Wonderful tour. You can check out the new special The Skinny, now streaming on Hulu as we make way for that former college football great Jim Gaffigan back on the program. All the memories the older you get, the better you were in college, Jim.
You know, it's one of those things where I I you know, I literally didn't barely played, so but it is a nice little fact that is like an asterisk next to my name and there's a picture of me when I walked on it Purdue. But I was literally there for two weeks and now people are like, yeah, he the Big ten football player.
I remember that game he played against Ohio State. He was incredible. Jimmy Gaffigan was all over the field.
Yeah, it's just sad that I didn't play in the NFL. Yeah, even though I didn't really even play Division one.
A lot of hairback then too.
I had some.
Hair back there, those really good old days of hair and you know, energy stuff like that.
Yeah, when people see you, Let's say you're walking into New York and you know, Sally and Tommy from Tulsa come up and go Jim Gaffigan, how much pressure do you have to be funny in the moment, Like did you have a go to joke or line that you say?
You know, sometimes people will say you look like Jim Gaffigan, and I'll go, I hope I do.
That.
Guy's good luck here, you know. But otherwise, you know, usually I find that I get a lot of If it's a really beautiful woman that comes up to me and has like a certain excitement, they usually always say, my grandfather is a big fan. So there's it's you know, there's going to be something to take the air out of me.
Yeah, is there part of you? Some comedians like to go up there and kind of in the moment make up something or degree of difficulty where they don't want to go as scripted. Are you one of those methods comedians?
You know at different times. I mean that's where I think a really good audience, when it's really flowing, that's when kind of magic hits. You know. I don't want to sound like Bono. You know, it's not like the Holy Spirit is coming down and giving me words, but there is something of when you're in front of an audience that understands your sensibility and you can kind of play and it's like joking around with friends. It's yeah, it really can be great.
Give me the joke you wish you had written.
Oh, I I mean, I love you know. Larry Miller had the Five Stages of Drinking, which I think is really brilliant. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but he also has Larry Miller has a very matter of fact delivery. He's kind of one of the best
from that eighties era. I love George Carlin's Chunk on Suicide, which is just so dark and uh so so perfectly George carl And he goes right now somewhere someone's getting ready to kill themselves, you know what I mean, And just he goes through someone trying to plan their own suicide and just you know, I can't do it that day, I got a meeting with Mavis and stuff like this, Mom's coming over. Maybe I should do it when Mom's coming over. So it's just really dark and cynical, and
he does it with such glee. It's so amazing.
Do you can you give us the five stages of drinking?
Well, the five stages Larry Miller's Five Stages, which people should google. It's because I'm gonna not do it. Justice is, it's it's a it's it's familiar. It's like you go, you know, you're like you're going to go out with friends during the week. You're gonna have a drink, and then you'll be home by blank, you know, by eight, you'll be in bed by ten, and then before you know it, then it's the second stage. You know, it's
it's midnight and you're like, all right, that's fine. If I go home right now, I can get five hours of sleep. And then the next stage is like you're drinking some blue liquid that you all you know is they clean combs with it in the barbershop. And besides, you don't even need to sleep. You're gonna tough it. Through. Then the next stage is you're driving to Florida, And then the next stage is you've met a woman who has a tattoo that says something ridiculous and she's the
most beautiful woman you've ever met. And then then he talks about like the last age is when you're you leave the bar and the sun's out and it's just, you know, you feel like you're walking on the surface of the sun. It's it's simply brilliant and neat and tidy and encompasses everyone who's had that regret.
You know, did you get into bad situations habits when you're on the road before you got married?
Oh yeah, I mean, you know, the for me, I actually never really I went through a period where for about ten years I didn't I didn't drink or do anything because I you know, when I had a day job and I was taking acting classes and I was doing stand up at night, I would get sick once a month. So I was like, I'm just going to get rid of drinking, and so I you know, really I almost kind of started drinking when I got married.
But I go through different phases, you know, now I'm now I'm I'm a bourbon drinker, and you know that would you know ten years ago that would never be the case.
So have you gone on stage having been drinking? No? No, I can't really.
I'm such a low energy guy that I can't really even eat that much before I go on stage because I'm so slow talking.
He's Jim Gaffigan, the comedian, actor, writer, producer, author. Damn, that's a lot of things there are you truly all of those?
I mean, you know it's you know, you write a book. You know it's like, am I an author? Or did I, you know, complain about my kids for one hundreds?
He is currently on his Everything Is Wonderful tour and you can also check out his new special The Skinny, now streaming on Hulu. How often do your kids your wife saying, hey, don't make this part of your act because things happen naturally at home where you go.
That's funny, Yeah, it's there's no. I mean, first of all, I never ask, hopefully my kids would care more about if I posted a photo that they appeared in then me referencing. And I also have five kids, so when I reference a son, it can be one of the three sons, and or if I reference a kid, it can be one of five, so there is plausible deniability for each of them. But you know when it comes to the wife, that's that's a different thing. And you know there is you know, you know the days of
Henny Youngman, like take my Wife. You know that you have to craft it in a way because you know, an audience is savvy and you know, a guy complaining about his wife is considered hack and people are suspicious of it. So but you can craft it in a way where you just kind of pile on yourself a little bit and then you can throw up, you know, something at your wife here and there.
First comedian you saw and you said, that's what I want to do.
I think I remember seeing Jonathan Winters on I think MERV Griffin or something like that. But yeah, there was something really funny about him. You know, it was all self contained and it wasn't the jokes were kind of hidden that I thought was really interesting, But I don't know, sometimes it's it's a blur, you know. And also being from Indiana seeing Letterman on TV, it just he would hit him and John Mellencamp were the only people that like were from Indiana that it seemed to do anything.
Obviously it's not true, but like to the teenage meet, it was like, wow, those are the two guys that got out.
What was it like the first time you were on Letterman?
Oh, it's you know, it was you know, the business has changed so much, but it was the threshold of status among uh, particularly New York comedians. But I would say comedians at that time. It was, you know, the credit that everyone wanted because if you you know, the first ten years I was doing stand up. Obviously it's different today, but if you said you were a stand up, they would say have you been on Letterman or the
Tonight Show? And if you said no, they'd kind of look at you like, oh, uh, you're crazy, you know what I mean? Or you're just saying that you're a comedian. So it gave you legitimacy.
Yeah, and then to hear Dave laugh if you're a stand up comedian, or if Johnny Carson brought the comedian over and you got to sit down next to Johnny, then you had made it like now, yeah, he had separated you absolutely.
And I feel like I was the last one of my comedy peer group that really got a late Night Show, and it was Letterman, and I was invited over to sit on the couch afterwards, and I got a development deal Dave and Worldwide Pants and Robert Att gave me
a development deal. And that really shifted a lot of things, because if Letterman thought you were funny, then people in the entertainment industry were much more open to viewing you as talented, because it's the entertainment industry is so risk averse. Like we have this notion that people are discovered in soda shops, but like really that, you know, people try and eliminate any risk.
Obviously, we'll have fun on the road. Jim Gaffigan a man of many hats. Well he's got one hat on, but he's a comedian, actor, writer, producer, author, and a football legend. The new special The Skinny now streaming on Hulu. Thanks Jim, thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
That's Jim Gaffigan.