County Crows are in town tonight at Usana Amphitheater, Gaslight Anthem opening.
That is gonna be a damn good show.
And our next guest is in town only to be in studio to do a hit with me and actually has run into.
Some good fortune because he gets.
To see his buddies tonight, our guy Roxy Bernstein, live and studio.
Great to see him, man, how are you. I'm great, Spence. It's good to be here.
Good to see you face to face for sure, and come on this time of the year. It's great to be here, and I'm excited for tonight. It's gonna be a great show. It's gonna be a fun couple of days for me here in Soul one hundred percent. And you've been coming on the show.
We just turned six last week, so I feel like we've had you on pretty much since the start of this show with our old connections with a PAC twelve network.
But face to face is different, man, So it's good.
I don't know that I've ever even you've been in town when I've been at games and you've been calling, like at Huntsman or whatever. But I'm not gonna like roll down in the middle of the first quarter and like interrupt you and Bill Walton may he rest.
In jee tap us on the shoulder.
But it's great to actually kind of put a face. Even though I've seen you on television, I'm not sure that we've ever met face to I don't.
Know if we have.
Yeah, because yeah, I've been here, but then you've had other engagements when you've been out of town. It's like two ships passing in the night. Yeah, So finally we're physically in the same place.
Yes, and it's excellent to have you in. So have you talked to I know Adam is your boy, the lead singer accounting crist Does he know you'll be in the house for the show that?
Yeah, we were texting earlier day. He knew I was coming out.
Like I always, I always try to pick a place Spence where there's gonna be none of our friends, right, it's we can just hang out because like they played Berkeley last week and it was a complete zoo, just chaos backstage, and I did get to spend some time with him, but there's he's getting tugged in so many different directions. We're here, we can just go hang out. So literally, when I get done here, I'm gonna hop in an uber and head out to Asana and just
hang out. They got i think sound check at four, and I'll just hang without him until the show tonight.
Now, the reason that's pertinent is, you know, Adam from cal right, so he has a lot of friends in that market, and.
He grew up there and we didn't go to college. Adam's older than we are. You and I are the same age, but we had a bunch of mutual friends and that's how we became friends. And we've been connected now for I don't know thirty plus years. And he's, as you know, a huge sports fan, a huge cow fan, but he's a huge Warriors fan, Oakland A's fan. I'm not going to say the Sacramento As, but the Oakland A's. He was an Oakland Raiders. He still follows the Raiders
even though they're in Vegas. Loves hockey, He's just he's a huge sports fan in general.
That's and you know, as a child of the nineties, as a proud Jet xer, the Crows have a very special place in my heart. I've probably seen them six or seven times, so I'm not as jealous that you're seeing your guy tonight. But I'm jealous you're seeing Gaslight because I've never seen them. I've never seen them live. I've listened them for years, but Gaslight anthem and you're referenced. Their lead singer is a huge sports fan as well.
He is so Brian is a huge fan growing up in New Jersey, New York area, Like, how did he become a Niners fan? Well, a bunch of people in his family were Jets fans, and the Jets are the Jets right, And when he was growing up, he's a little younger than we are, not much, but I think of a few years, but the Niners were dominating with Montana and Rice and then to Steve Young and Ronnie Lott, all those great Niners from yesteryear.
They were winning him and so.
It's easy to become a forty nine er fan back then the team of the eighties and into the nineties, and so he's been a huge Niner fan. It was funny because they were at the Forum in La last Tuesday, then played the Greek Theater in Berkeley on Wednesday, and he asked Adam Durretz, Brian, did are we going anywhere near Levi Stadium.
I want to go in, Like, well, it's fifty miles away.
But then he took Brian into the Cal equipment room at Memorial Stadium. They rated it. He puts on his Cal football T shirt for the gig that night. It's awesome and he's like, yeah, now I'm a cow fan. So you know, bribery kind of worked its way, but now Cal's got a new big fan and Brian from a gas line anthem.
One more thing before we get into some sports. Is our guy Adam dating right now?
Yes? Okay, well, and do we approve? Yes, we do very much.
So now the only reason I bring it up is my potentially my favorite bit because when you first said this on my show, I'm like, he's can't be serious. Is the fact that you legitimately were beefing with Courtney Cox because of the way she treated your friend Adam.
Yeah, it's there's a lot there. There's a lot to unpack Spence in that statement there.
But but I really I'm like, he's got to be pulling my leg, like, there's no way our And you know, Adam during the nineties had a run.
Where he dated Courtney for two years. Was there two full years. Two years. Wow.
I felt like every couple of years he was moving on to the next like celebrity, right, I mean, because he for a while he did okay for himself. But for a while rock Syed the Counting Crows were potentially the biggest band in America for about four or five years in the nineties.
When they were in that conversation, they burst out of the scene.
Was almost like overnight now they Adam struggled for a while. He didn't make it till his late twenties, which is kind of a rare story for somebody to make it that late. But when mister Jones and the album August and everything after, it just took off and it exploded to the point where he had to get out of Berkeley. Like he was living in Berkeley still and he had to move because it was just he was getting oversaturated in his front yard. People were coming to hang out.
His parents still lived there for a long time, but Adam moved to la And then of course, Recovering the Satellites was the second album, a great follow up, but it just amazing over the span of a month how much the band exploded.
It must have been so cool as a friend to watch that success, because you know, we only hear about it when they are in our consciousness, when they become famous, we rarely see the backwork. And it sounds like Adam was probably grinding on smaller tours for years with other bands.
That's so cool.
Like he was at a band called the Himalayans where if you kind of google that, there's the original version of round here, which is very different from the one Counting Crows performed. But he brought it over and they tweaked it and it was on August and everything after. But like the Himalayans, it was almost more acid rock than it was what it became. And it's interesting to hear the difference between the two.
That's really cool. That's really cool.
All right, let's start with I think most everyone including me around here, we know you from the Fact twelve network, right, and that obviously I don't know if you've heard it's not a thing anymore really. Yeah, So your full time, your full time with the ESPNS. Yeah, for some reason I just thought you were like contracted out all over the place. But your full time with the ESPN. So what does the roxy Burnstein fall calendar look like.
So, I've got some college football lined up. I've got Arizona State's opener coming up on August thirtieth. Then i jump back into Major League Baseball Labor Day. I'll be in Detroit for the Mets and the Tigers. I have a family situation going, our family thing down in La so I'm not working college football week two, but then
week three I'm jumping back in. And I've got TCU on September thirteenth, and I'll be doing the first two rounds of Major League Baseball playoffs more than likely National League Wildcard and Division Series, which I've been doing for them for years and can't wait for the playoffs and down the stretch. And I'll do a number of Pennant Race games for ESPN Radio as well.
So I always have almost like a reverent respect for people like you, because you know, another front of the show, Iron Eagle, Yeah, who can do anything. And you do hockey, you do basketball, you do football, you do baseball.
Is there one that you prefer?
And what are the challenges of bouncing back and forth between sports?
The way you do the pacing is very different bence in terms of baseball, for example, hockey and basketball are so quick, but baseball has that deliberate pace to it, and the back and forth unless you're prepared mentally, can be a little different.
Yep.
And like I'll be going from football to baseball a couple of days later. But I love the versatility that I get to deal with in the variety of sports. Like, Okay, you have to have a certain amount of bandwidth to be able to comprehend everything and remember all that stuff. But I follow it religiously, like I you know, I'm so invested in football, in basketball where most of my relationships are, but major League Baseball I've worked for a
long time and the NHL. It's funny when ESPN got the NHL package back, I hadn't done a hockey game in probably twenty years, Like I worked for the San Jose Sharks years ago, okay, and then my pat took
me in a different route. But then when ESPN got the NHL package back, I'm like, hey, you know, I do hockey, and they threw me on some games and I've been part of their stable of coverage since this will be what now four years now that ESPN has had the NHL package of that seven year contract and at least three more years and we'll see where it goes. But it seems that ESPN's invested in hockey and they're going to stick with it.
Is there a endgame that you have in mind?
Because it's you know, like Joe Buck did baseball for years, and he did a little bit of everything for years, and then he's the voice of money that football, and so I would imagine if you got the offer to be the voice of money at football, that'd be a good endgame for you. But I have a little bit of a layered question because you are a utility guy for ESPN, and you know, it's important to have a comprehensive, complete skill set while you're working your way up to
whatever that endgame looks like for you. I wonder if you have that, you know, that vision in your mind about what the endgame would be and what's it like to kind of be the guy that ESPN relies on for a number of different job opportunities.
I'm so happy with where I'm at now.
That's cool. ESPN's been great to me, and for example, they let me work for the PAC twelve network. Yes, I was fully invested in the PAC twelve. As you know, and I born and raised, grew up on it, and it was gut wrenching when everything came crashing to a halt like it did. But ESPN has been fabulous to me and my family, and I love that they let me do all these different sports and they give me
that freedom, that flexibility. I don't know if there's like a Okay, I have to have this job or that game, or this is my end game right now?
You know what I do it.
I was doing Major League baseball in Miami. I worked for the Marlins for three years, and my wife and I did not want to raise our kids there. We were determined to come back out west. And I grew up and born and raised in the Bay Area. My wife's from Santa Barbara, but we wanted to raise the kids somewhere out west, and coming back home was a natural fit. I was still doing radio in the Bay Areas, doing colgames on the radio. Even when I was doing
baseball in Miami. I was by coastal, Oh Okay, and so that made it tricky, especially come spring training and heading into March Madness.
Sure, but I.
If some opportunity presented itself, yeah, I'd take a look at it. But right now I'm thrilled where I'm at. My I just sent my oldest off to college. She's a freshman at TCU very nice. And my son has just started his sophomore year of high school. So we're in trench in the Bay Area for now. It doesn't mean I'll be there forever.
Yeah, what if like a team came calling, Like, is that the type of dream gig, you know, baseball, basketball, football? I guess it depends on the team, depends on the market.
Yeah, And look, I've had opportunities and I've looked at him, and I've talked with teams, and some have been pretty close to happening. But it's it's tough with the family because look, it was just me Spence or just my wife.
Yeah, it's different.
The kids are in trench all they know, and to rock their world and turn it upside down would be very difficult for me to do.
Yeah.
I was eleven when we moved back east when my father took the job in New York with MSG, And it was a hard thing. Man like when when you're uprooted from your friends, and certainly there's a little bit of a culture shock when you go from Salt Lake City to New York, I mean, you know, and then back again too. And my family's still back east. But I want to ask you about Bill Walton. You're wearing a shirt that says Walton on it, and you know one of the you know, met Bill several times over
the years. But when my father retired from Madison Square Garden about a week after, I was home visiting from college and he called me and said, Spence, come down in my office listening to this. So Bill Walton had left him like a five minute voicemail and it was just like I'm doing the chef's kiss thing. It was quintessential Bill Walton for five minutes, non sequiturs, from the Knicks to the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains where our
family's from. Like and it, I mean, I I very much from a distance.
I didn't know him like you did. Really loved him in a way.
That you know if you're a sports fan and appreciate the way he approached the craft. I know he wasn't for everybody, but that's all right. You know, our job, it's not unlike a band, it's not unlike counting crows. Discretion is important sometimes the albums are great. Sometimes the songs don't land whatever. Everybody has their own preference. But what was it like working with him side by side and then getting to know the man outside of just the broadcaster.
It was awesome. Bill was the greatest, He really was.
And I think of Bill every day, and you know, I honor him wearing this shirt wear pretty often. It became a staple of my wardrobe. It's great. But just his impact on me, Like we became friends. And I remember the first game we did together, and it was we were doing an n game at the University of San Francisco years ago and it was LSU at USF.
First off, Bill was ecstatic to be there because Bill Russell was his hero and that's where Bill Russell went to college, won the national championships with the Dons back in the fifties, and so he was super excited. He's always extremely excited to be anywhere he's at, that's the best thing about him. But he was really really pumped up to be on the hilltop at USO the Bill
Russell statue and all that. But this was the first game that I was working with him, so it was a little nervous and I knew about Bill obviously, and as custom with Bill, we don't talk during the day. He tries to keep it fresh and organic for when we go on the air. He did introduce himself to me at shoot around. I'd met Bill before, but you know, Bill plays the joke what's your name again?
I mean that was synonymous with Bill.
And so we're about thirty seconds away from going on air and doing our open for the game, and Bill looks at me, takes out his gum, he says, what's your name again? I go Roxy, He goes roxy, I'll try not to get you fired. And then literally we're on the air, and that was the start of a friendship. We went to dinner that night, crazy enough in to hate Ashbury, right down the street from the University of San Francisco, which Bill probably spent many nights with the dead in that area.
And it was the start of a great friendship. And still his day.
I text his wife Laurie all the time, text one of his son, Luke, because we work in kind of the same circles.
He's in the NBA. But yeah, now a day goes by, I don't think of Bill.
Is Luke still coaching? You got he's an assistance with the Pistons. Yes, that's right. You know, it's interesting before my father actually took the job of the Jazz when I was a pop we lived in Boston, he was with Bain and so my first NBA experiences were the Celtics of the eighties and Bill was the sixth man on a Celtic team that won the championship.
So I'm not.
Old enough to remember Bill Walton like prime Bill Walton
with the Blazers. But if you watch the documentary, if you listen to basketball historians, it feels like if Bill Walton would have just been able to stay healthy and play at that level consistently, we would be talking about him like the way we talk about Larry Bird or the way we talk about Magic Johnson, like he truly had a career arc that if he would have continued and not had the myriad of injuries that plagued him quite frankly his entire life, he could have potentially been
one of the greatest basketball players of all time?
Is that fair to say? Oh, it's fair to say. I mean, he was the MVP in what's seventy eight, and I'm like you, I didn't I'm not old enough to appreciate him from his prime, yep. And I remember that the broken down Bill that did come off the bench. It was a key part at Celtics championship team in
eighty six, for sure. But the stories that I hear, for example from my uncle that he's a retired doctor now, but he was doing his residency at UCLA when Bill was playing there, so we got in a huge basketball fan. He went to every game the Bruins played and got to see Bill play every UCLA game of his career.
And just how well Bill changed the poet, the really the game of basketball from the center position because with his outlet passes, his ability to see the floor, it was unheard of for somebody at that stage that big to be able to do what he did. Like people marvel at what Jokic does now, Well Bill was doing that forty plus years ago. Yeah, and probably even better
than Jokic is doing, even though Jokic is an unbelievable player. Yeah, but Bill went twenty one for twenty two from the floor in a Final four game.
Yeap, incredible.
You know it's funny you bring bring up the Jokic thing because when Jokic kind of burst on the scene. Unfortunately for our show, Jeff Van Gundy is back coaching in the NBA, so I can't get him on. But when he was with you know, ESPN and NBC, I had him on almost every week, and Jeff was the first one when I asked him like, does Yokich remind you of anybody? Said yeah, Bill Walton. Bill Walton was like the original of what Jokich is doing. Now let
me so we don't have a ton of time. I want to make sure and it's good you're going out there early. Let me just say this to you, Sana. Yeah, and it's good you're taking maneuver parking and traffic out there can get wild, so I want to make sure I let you go on time. So let's move over here. Talking about this yesterday the current state of college football. So Brian Rolap, who's the new commissioner or CEO on the PGA Tour, Friend of the show. We've had Brian
on spend twenty two years in the NFL. For the first time, he spoke yesterday about his vision for the future of the PGA Tour and I thought it was just dynamite.
He talked about innovation.
I think he said innovation five or six times, and I juxtaposed that to change for change sake, which is what I feel like college football continues to do. So the Big Ten floats out this twenty eighteen playoff model, and you're like, dude, yes, I'm a grown up. I understand that means more revenue, but there's a limit. You can have a one hundred teams in the playoffs too,
and you would make more money. But at some point, if you do away with what I perceive makes college football special, and that is the prescient nature of every weekend, the urgent nature of every game, certainly conference games. You kill conference championship games, you do away with the urgency of every single weekend. I do think you're in danger of diluting your product a little bit. And I guess
the bottom line is there's nobody in charge. So the Big ten knows that they can float out whatever idea they want. So can the SEC and say, look, we're the Big ten, You're gonna have to deal with our ideas. Are you concerned at all about where we find ourselves now or in the future of college football? Or is it simply Saturdays in the fall are always going to feel the way they do to people that love to consume the product.
I think for some, but that could be a small percentage spence of the traditionalist in college football. I'm with you worried about it. It's going to get diluted if you do expand that greatly, just the way college athletics is going.
I've been worried for a while.
And now that they're trying to get a hold of the NIL model and make it a revenue share. It's all fine in dandy if you take it for what it is, but there's still going to be people trying to circumvent it.
And are we going to go back to the old days where.
You're getting paid under the table, And because now there's this clearinghouse, if you have an NIL deal, you bring it to them and they have to approve it for anything over six hundred dollars. There is so much in the game of college athletics that's concerning and with this revenue share model, for.
Example, well, what's going to happen to the Olympic sports? Right?
Okay, football and basketball they're going to be fine, But what happens to baseball, to volleyball to soccer, and all these great athletes that could be losing opportunities. And that's something that's troubling to me, just the potential for all these sports to be pushed away and the revenue share model. Look,
I firmly believe this, dude, athletes should be paid. I do because they're out there drawn eyeballs and these large television contracts or they're a big part of why the Big ten and the SEC and the ACC are making the Big twelve or making all this money. But at some point I'm worried for the Olympic sports that things could be pushed aside and we could be looking at a real cut down model of what college athletics is.
Mark Harlin on Saturday of last week addressed some Utah alumni and Utah boosters. Utah Athletics reported like an eighteen million dollar loss last year. Final two years in the Pac twelve. They made a little bit of cash couple mill two or three, and Mark talked about the.
Reserve they have.
The president of the university right now is a brilliant businessman. His name is Taylor Randall. He's the dean of the Business school before taking over as president. So I think the athletic department's in a fine spot. But I do believe there's this narrative that every school is like printing money. And you know, I think Utah as they move forward in the Big twelve, will you know, inch closer and closer.
To maybe being in the red.
But did I read that Cal is considering doing something drastic with their football program?
Okay, no, no, no, that was somebody just threw it out there to be a troll it. It was an Oregon State fan that did that. Problem with Twitter, it took off. There is Ron Rivera is now the general manager for Cal football. He reports directly to the chancellor. He circumvents the ad they are firmly committed to football, that they're determined to be successful. That's why they brought it wrong.
Good, good, good to hear, and you know, it's it's interesting to hear Mark talk about, you know, the plans with the rev share. Every school now has twenty point five mil. That doesn't include nil. But the other element that I and I've always said this, college football to me has always been the hardest sport to predict, no matter what. Now it's even more so because most every school has at least thirty to forty new players.
Ronco Menanol has eighty new players in Logan.
For Utah State, it just makes them possible to kind of predict the landscape of what college football is going to look like because of the changeover. When it comes to the Big Twelve, it feels like once again, seven or eight teams could be in the mix.
You know Utah football, you know the program.
Well, what gives you faith that year two in the Big twelve will look a little bit better than your one did?
For the youths.
Kyle Whittingham is number one, Yeah, just because of the culture he's established, and I know it's been a couple of rough years, but the consistency throughout his career gives me optimism that Utah can push and make a run in the Big Twelve. Look, nobody thought Arizona State was going to do what it did last year. Picked last and they wanted and were in the College Football Playoff. Now all of a sudden, they're in the crosshairs.
Right.
Everybody's trying circling Arizona State on their schedule because of what they did last year and what Kenny Dillingham has done is phenomenal. But you know, I think Kyle's happy if Utah and just kind of lay in the weeds and people will look other places and he can just go about his business. But when they have the fifth up front, which they do on both sides of the ball,
that's where it's established for a Kyle Whittingham team. So for me, in my perspective, the Cam Rising soap opera's gone now right for years was.
Hovering over the program. Is he going to play? Is he not going to play? What's going on with Cam?
You've moved on from that, which I think makes it easier for everybody to operate up up the hill.
Yeah.
No, for sure, there's no ambiguity about who's under center. It's Devin dan Pierre, who's a New Mexico transfer, and they bring his offensive coordinator, Jason Beck, a running back and a wide receiver that played in New Mexico a year ago. I do think there's a little trepidation about taking a step up in competition.
From the Mountain West to the Big twelve.
But we saw cam Ward do it right and we've seen other players do it as well. What experience, if at all, do you have with the BYU Utah rivalry.
I've done the basketball game on.
You've done the basketball game on TV a few times.
One of my funnier moments we were doing the game down at the Marriott Center and Bill and I did the game. It was back in December. This was years ago when BYU was still in the WCC and of course the youths were in the PAC twelve and Larry K.
Stoviac was coaching Utah and I don't.
Even think I think it was still day Rose was coaching BYU at that time, and so I couldn't get into town first off, the night before to have dinner with Bill. So I set him up to have dinner with Tom Holmo the a d at b YA. And first off, Tom grew up in La a huge UCLA fan and a huge Bill Walton fan. So this was like geeked out night for Tom. He was so excited to have dinner with Bill. I was doing a game
the night before. I couldn't pick up my phone. But Tom calls and leaves me a voicemail and he says, I understand it. Now, I get it because Bill at dinner was peppering Tom with question after question after question about the provost, City Library, the faculty at BYU, the campus, everything he wanted to know. And I did tell Tom, be careful what you tell Bill, because there's a chance no matter what you say, will get on the air.
And the next night, of course, he just rattles off all these answers that Tom gave him and all the information he's able to dig up. But we were doing it on camera and some BYU student walked over with like a solo red cup and handed it to Bill and he drank it. And I'm like, Bill, did you know that guy? He goes, no, And you took a drink from somebody in a cup? He goes, yeah, it
was thirsty to look good. I go, well, if you're gonna do it a place anywhere in this country, BYU is probably your safest place to do it.
I was gonna say, was it milk? You know? Because it was some punch, That's all. I'll say.
Fair enough, fair enough, all right, before I let you get out of here to get to the show. We are a hockey city now, yeah, And you were one of the first guests that I thought of Devon as soon as the announcement came down. It's no longer the Utah Hockey Club, it is the Utah Mammoth. They were right in the mix for a wild card until the final couple of weeks. They've made a couple of good acquisitions in the offseason. What should we expect is it?
Do you think playoffs are reasonable for our hockey team this year?
You've got to stay healthy this year, Spence, especially on the blue line. The injuries that they dealt with, Whether it was Jersey last year, they were beaten up on the blue line, missing Marino for as long as they did then it was it made it tough for them. And then with connering or Minnato lineup with his stuff going on off the ice. But I do believe that their talent is there. Certainly, Keller made a huge jump last year and has turned into one of the elite players.
I think you make a tray with Buffalo to get a twenty five goal scorer, which just don't grow on trees. Okay, you gave up kessel Ring, which is a I'd like. It is a nice piece to have, sure, But the one thing that worries me for them, do I think they have the talent to do it?
Yes? I do.
The Division is so tough when you look at Colorado and Dallas and those two teams. You start there with Winnipeg and then Saint Louis made that push last year. Central Division is hard, and unfortunately, I think they're in the toughest division. I'm not saying they can't do it and get to a wild card to finish in the top three, but they need things to go right, and they can't have the barrage of injuries they had a year ago.
Well said, all right, favorite Counting Crows opener and closer. What do you want to see him do tonight?
Well, I kind of know you. No, No, I don't because they make it up like it's not all of a sudden, this same generic set list every night.
But you'll you'll know the set list prior to the show.
Roxy jeez at a time, my bathroom breaks properly and if I have to.
Go fair enough, So can I ask you what they're opening with tonight? I don't know.
I really don't know what they're opening with. It seems on this tour they have been opening with, uh, the new song, Oh Tulsa Spaceman in Tulsa. Okay, that's a possibility. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it's funny. I had him as he's evolved over the years, realized there's about five songs I have to play every night.
Sure, and I would say more than that to be honest.
Yeah, but he's also trying to push the new album. Yeah, but mister Jones, Rain King Long December, and King hanging around round here. Those are songs omaha. I mean, those are songs that are probably gonna be I'm guessing. I don't know, but they could be in the setlist today.
All Right, man, Well we'll set you loose. Thanks so much for enjoy the show. Okay, the great Roxy Bernstein from ESPN