What the hell is this? What are we?
What are you playing on a Wednesday afternoon when you really only had one one job to.
Do with the music?
I did punt on this one to our guest k A little fairytale of New York here.
All right?
And I'm told that k joins us live from the top floor of the New York Times building in Midtown Manhattan?
Is that true? A fairytale of New York? If you will, Big city guy over here, Chris, what's going on? Man?
Coming? See you? Live at the fifteenth floor, staring out at forty first and eight. Big day in the Big Apple. Forecast called for rain, not so much rain, but the streets are starting to turn blue and orange. And I wonder why love hearing that?
So? As I often say, I like to claim that I'm from the right coast, Chris, you are from the left coast. How does a left coaster or digest being what I've in what I like to call the right coast.
It is a great question, and I'm glad to know that you accurately stated where we each lie on that left coast. Best coast is going to be my firm argument. But I would just say that being here. I would probably summarize it best by saying, like this is America, Like this is everything and anything you could possibly need to know about this great, beautiful, complicated country is right here, distilled into a very small piece of land between a bunch of random rivers.
It's such a great city. Man, I hate to be that guy. I miss it so much, and I miss it in the spring. Do you find yourself enjoying it? Because most people from the left coach coast, which is not the best coast, but we will not debate that today do not find themselves enjoying the right coast because it's a little more claustrophobic, shall we say?
So, do you find yourself enjoy in the endeavor?
I do. I very much enjoy it, but unfortunately I came at a very bad weather time. It is like fifty five and piss and rain off and on. And last year when I was out here it was like eighty five and perfect, and I was riding the rentable e bikes and all this stuff. And now I'm kind of like it's late May. Like your city should be giving me a little bit of a little bit of reason to sweat, you know, should be given me some humidity,
but instead it's windy, it's rainy, and it's cold. But alas, we're not going to complain fair enough.
One more thing here you referenced these streets are turning orange and blue, and there really is not a city that celebrates their sports teams and summarily dismisses them if we're fair, quite like Manhattan and the surrounding borough.
So is there a palpable buzz?
Can you tell that the Knicks are about to play in the Eastern Conference Finals?
The buzz is palpable. And in Times Square where I am, people are already walking towards you know, I don't know the address off the top of my head, so I apologize,
but they are walking toward MSG. And I can tell you that even just walking up to Central Park last night, even Senthya photo, there was a party bus that was painted blue and orange in honor of the Knix, and there was a basketball hoop on the back, and people were screaming into the microphone all sorts of you know, celebratory mix information and words that I can't necessarily express
on air, even though I did mistakingly last week. So for that, again, I apologize, But Yes, the city is ready for the garden to go nuts.
The address is very simple. People overthink it. It's four Penn Plaza, New York, New York. It is between seventh and eight, between West thirty first and West thirty third.
But the address is four Penn Plaza. Ck. That's all it is.
It's only like an eight minute walk from here. So if it stops raining, I might have to walk down and go check out some fellow big bombers. You know, maybe maybe maybe maybe get on a side talk video. Could you imagine me?
You you should, man, I bet it's a spectacle, like I mean, they haven't seen in twenty five years. If you have an opportunity, you should walk down and check it out.
It's your respect.
It's not quite you know, like what it's like outside Delta Center when the Jazz are playing in the playoffs, which is also fun.
It's just different in that city.
And the people watching is as a plus as it gets, which is something that I love to specialize in.
Yes, it is.
What are you doing there, young man? I know you're not there for the Nick game? What are you doing in midtown Manhattan?
Once a year, our college football staff has a big annual summit is what you say in big time business wig parlance. So where the staffers are getting together to talk about the year that was and the year that lies ahead, and you know, just getting to see lots of close friends and be the least smart person in the room.
So that's that's a group of college football heavy hitters on the media side of things.
I know you're not a name dropper, but who are in those rooms?
Oh, you know, the great Stu Mandel, Bruce Feldman, Chris Vanini, David Euban, the list goes on and on. We've we've had a very strong college football staff over the years, and we've had some people move on to other endeavors. I mean, once upon a time you had the the Nicole auerbacks and now Ari Wasserman's who are now at other publications. But we still have some heavy hitters. And again I'm not even in the ninth spot. I'm the utility man on the bench.
Well that's uh, I don't believe that's true. But I'll allow your feigned humility on the program today. But let me take advantage of this. What what are some of the if you would care to share? I know these are closed doors meetings with the athletic college football staff. What are some of the big time college football storylines and topics that are being bantered about in a room such as that.
Well, as you can imagine the house settlement that appears to be close to being done, We've been waiting for this ruling for a long time. One of my best and favorite colleagues, Justin Williams, is the man who's been tasked with sifting through these documents ad nauseum for the last year plus and getting to know sources at the you know, the law, the judicial, you know, collegiate, all these levels that are necessary that you need to learn to try to distill this down into something that is
tangibly easy to digest. He does a way better job than I ever could. We all make a joke that we decided to get into this business to cover college football, and we, in a weird way, turned out we had to learn how to cover the court system in real time. So lots of you know, house settlement stuff, the state of nil transfer portal, lots of things that you could easily imagine, and then you know, the interesting storylines this
upcoming season. You know, you can't get into a meeting about college football without talking about Deon Sanders or Bill Belichick at UNC or is Ohio State going to repeat lots of very you know, typical things. But it's just nice to be able to get together with colleagues once a year and just kind of shoot the breeze.
So I mean, let's start with probably the hottest topic. Can you conform or deny that Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson are engaged?
Oh? I cannot confirm that.
How much was that? How much was that topic Dan died about today?
I didn't hear much about it, just because I think we've been broken up into into different groups. But I can guarantee you there will be reported very fascinating stories on the topic of Bill Belichick at North Carolina at the in the coming weeks and months.
Fair enough, Fair enough?
All right, Chris, My guess is I don't even know if you've seen this, but because it's a big news here locally, I do need to ask you about it, and if you want to punt until you can look into it a little bit more, I totally understand. But according to the Salt Lake Tribune, our friends of the trib, Kevin Reynolds, and I don't know Jessica Shrifles. Is that correct? I mean, okay, so Jessica Shrifles, Kevin Reynolds. This was posted ten minutes before I cracked this microphone today BYU
quarterback Jake Rhetz. Laugh has been accused of sexual assault in a new civil suit. Okay, so he has not been criminally charged. And this alleged incident happened in twenty twenty three. Jake had just transferred from Riverside in California, so he was very new on campus. And look, everybody has due process, well everyone should, but let's leave that aside.
So we'll kind of see how this plays out.
Have you had a chance to dig into this, and if so, what are your thoughts on the news that broke about hour and a half ago today?
This is literally the first time hearing about it. All right, Well, I apologize to you and your staff. We've been in a closed door meeting just talking about story ideas for the upcoming college football season. So this was basically the last thing I was expecting you to tell me. So I'm going to have to get into my best punt formation and fire away.
All right, fair enough, fair enough? So sltrip dot com.
For our listeners that are just maybe hopping in your car, starting your commute home or what have you streaming online go to sltrip dot com.
It's all over the socials.
You know, ultimately, Chris, when it comes to a situation like this, we'll move away from the specifics because you are not familiar with it and talk about more of a macro viewpoint. You know, b YU as a track record of having zero tolerance for anything like this, and you know, again I'm being very careful here, Jake deserves do process.
This is not a criminal charge.
It is a civil suit, and trying to be analogous with any other situation feels a little up to sp The Brandon Davies situation come to mind. Brandon was not charged with a crime, nor was he sued. But that was a really good basketball team that had a chance to maybe even win a national championship with for debt, and they suspended him for the NCAA tournament. BYU is a team that most people have ranked in their top ten top fifteen range and thought to maybe have a
really really good chance to have an excellent season. Based off of your understanding and knowledge of the way that BYU works. I mean, this feels like something that they're not going to mess around with. And like I said, due process is needed, so we'll give the space for it. But your thoughts on what could potentially go down with BYU and how they're going to kind of traverse this space. And obviously Brian Santiago is a new ad, has a new list of things to take care of.
Now.
Yeah, it's a tricky, complex situation, and my guess would be that the University, Brian Santiago, the Athletic Department, they're all going to say that they're going to let the judicial process play out. I don't know for sure, do you know, Spence, if the if the core or if the case filing was filed today.
It was filed today according to the Trip.
Yes, So this is obviously very brand new information for everybody if it's just been today, and they're going to have to my guess would be that they're going to be very tight lipped about it, and they're going to say that they're going to let the judicial process play out. And honestly, I think that's the right thing to do.
And when it comes to the nature of things like this, it is irresponsible to really speculate on, you know, how certain outcomes may come about, especially considering the sensitive nature of it. But you know you're right. Historically BYU has had a fairly strict policy when it comes to off the field incidents or you know, allegations of the nature.
I don't have a great answer for you right now, just because I don't know the specifics, like I said, and it is unfortunately just way too sensitive of a topic for me to try to pontificate upon. So I apologize.
No, you're you're right, and I mean, the last thing I'll say on this now we'll move on, is for the idiots online taking victory lapse because you cheer for a different football team, like put the phone away. You don't need to tweet, like, let's there's a victim, alleged victim who is potentially involved here that probably has gone through something traumatic that none of us fully understand, So you don't have to tweet, put the phones away, move on, and we will now move on.
There's no comfortable way of doing that.
But let me ask you this, so you reference the conversations you're having in the rooms about the house v ncaa settlement which I don't know, maybe two months ago felt like it was imminent and now it feels like it might be far away and continues to be far away based off of some of the state by state legislation that has been passed to protect member institutions from the very settlement that you've been waiting for.
So, what are some of.
The conversations you guys are having about where we're at or House B NC double A and what do you think the latest kind of sounds like right now?
Yeah, you basically took the answer right out of my mouth, man Like. It is so ironic that every time they seem to make, you know, a few steps forward, you take a few extra steps back. The fact that states are getting involved on this at a level individually that could potentially make the kind of the blanket result that much more easy for everybody is very on brand for the state of college athletics, for college football, and dealing
with the NC double A as a whole. If and when this settlement gets done, it's going to be extremely important for everybody to get their ducks in a row. Obviously, but the fact that these states, I think Tennessee, maybe Kentucky, a couple other, if I'm not mistaken, are starting to try to dig their clause into this. The fact that they can make it that much more arduous and basically
muddy the waters. It is very unfortunate because I feel like we're so close to having something like tangible to be like, Okay, twenty point five million dollars is going to go to each member institution and they will be able to basically delineate that whatever way they want to, whichever program they want, and we can go from there. But like I said, things aren't done easily in this realm, and I think a lot of it honestly, Spence is
like I think people trying to capitalize on a murky situation. Anyways, some people are probably trying to come off as you know, pseudo want to be saviors, whether that's talking about individual
state legislators or just other people as a whole. The sooner this gets done or it is for everybody, because once this gets done, then we can finally get onto the bigger point of view, and that is, how is this twenty point five million dollars going to be basically chopped up and split up between each you know, major division one university across the country, and then at that time, hopefully for public institutions, we'll be able to get a
program by program breakdown and you'll get an actual, like real life way to correctly decipher what these guys are doing and why they're doing it. And the fact that we haven't been able to get there yet is very frustrating, and the fact that we could potentially be waiting even longer is even more frustrating than that.
So on May first, Bill Lee shout out Bill Lee, who's the governor of Tennessee. He signed a six page state bill bill number five thirty six, and Ross Dellinger was able to get the details, and it paves the way for the state schools at Tennessee, which of course University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Memphis, et cetera, and their affiliated collectives to break house settlement related rules and prevents college
sports quote New Enforcement entity from penalizing those schools. So what the officials from the Power for Conferences have done in response is they're circulating a draft of what's called a groundbreaking and a first of its kind document intended to prevent universities from using state laws to violate new enforcement rules and essentially require schools to waive their right to pursue legal challenges against the new enforcement entity, which
is known as the College Sports Commission. So you combine that with what happened in February where power conferences simply are seeking more control over NCAA championships, namely March Madness men's and women's basketball tournaments, and obviously the CFP.
All of this.
Feels like we are moving towards the shift where power conferences, not the NCUBA, will control policing athlete compensation, and that's not surprising anybody, Chris.
But what we're moving into.
Now is the haves are now fighting amongst each other, where some of the schools that exist in states that are passing bills that literally say you do not have to follow the guidelines that are given to you when the House free NCUBA is actually settled. They're now being warned by the P four institutions that you're not allowed to use state rules to circumvent the actual rules that are in place when the settlement comes down. Like somehow
they've managed to make it more convoluted. When it seemed like we were inching closer and closer to the finish line.
Okay, I'm in your city and I'm going to draw the most perfect analogy possible severance.
I can feel it.
You knew it, You knew it. You We have to we have to we have to figure out which conference is Connor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know which conferences shive, Which conference is the eldest boy? Like that's that is what it feels like. And it makes sense because there is meat on the bone for the powers that be to try to grab power, and a lot of it is grand standing and I get that. But again, until there is a set, you know, firm, firm set of rules in place, people are going to try to capitalize
on the quote unquote wild west of college athletics. So the fact that the big boys are infighting now and are going to do their best to potentially try to police the stuff makes a ton of sense because why wouldn't they Because they know that they can throw their weight around, because they know, at the end of the day of their brands are the things that shoulder the load in college athletics. They know their brands are the things that drive money when it comes to TV rights
and meteorites and all of these things. This is the reality of where we are right now, and it's going to stay that way for a while until we get some sort if we ever get that, if we ever get to the point that somebody is going to draw a line in the sand and say this is how you operate within the confine of the rules. Otherwise these guys are going to throw their weight around.
All right, I'm gonna try to do this. I'm gonna try to do this.
Are we Are we allowed to include wom's gams in the conversation or does it have to be the kids?
I think it's got to be the Core four.
Okay, Well, because Shiv is married to Tom, they're the SEC. They have the power. I'm going to say Logan Roy is Mark Emerate no longer with us. Let's see here, I'm going to say Connor Roy is.
The PAC twelve. Okay, I'm gonna say he's the PAC twelve. Just hanging out.
How dare you you wrote off? You wrote off this presidential campaign before it even started.
Let's see, we'll make uh, We're gonna make Kendall the big ten because you know, the oldest boy, you cannot deny the power. But ultimately he's not the SEC. So We're gonna give that to Shiv. We'll make let's see, we'll.
Make Roman is the Big twelve is a great fit.
We'll go Roman Big twelve. Okay, and let's see that leaves. We'll make cousin Greg the ACC. No one really cares about him with they're.
Fuck great, great, great move. I mean, dude, I don't know, man. This is sports talk radio, Edita Pecks. I'm not even being funny either. This is and I'm on the fifteenth floor. You know, the city is alive. There's an ambulance driving right by right now, like this is as real as a kids.
We need to get a little succession soundtrack. We need the piano in the background. We need get we need to get that done. Okay, So there we go. So Roman's the Big twelve, Shiv is the SEC. We're giving Kendall the Big ten. We're given. We're giving conn Or the Pac twelve, and we'll make cousin Greg the ACC. And again Logan is Mark Emert because he's dead and doesn't matter anymore.
You said it, not me.
That all works.
Oh goodness, gracious, all right, let's move over to what are we doing? What is going on today? I'm no, it's wonderful, it's great, it's great. All right, let's move over here. So I'm sure you guys discussed this today, and I'm honestly conflicted because you cannot debate that the best football is not played in the Big ten of
the SEC consistently. It does not mean that there couldn't be a Clemson or a Florida State, or a Utah or a Texas Tech or whatever that rises up, and it belongs in the ranks of the College Football League from time to time. But the expanded sixteen team CFP proposal includes four auto bids four SHIV, four auto bids for Kendall, two auto bids for Roman, two auto bids for cousin Greg, one auto bid for our guy Connor Roy,
and the Group of six. So again, this is a proposal that gives half of the sixteen team auto bids. I wonder how many people are like, what the hell are they talking about? This is a proposal to give sixteen like half of the sixteen auto bids to the Big ten of the SEC, two auto bids to the Big twelve, and the ACC one auto bid to the Group of six, and then three at large bids and then ultimately that's how you land on the number sixteen.
Apparently there's there's a lot of pushback on this.
But again I'm conflicted because at some point there's the conversation about the Big ten and the SEC taking their ball and doing.
Their own thing. Anyway, how do you think this plays out?
What are some of the conversational pieces you guys are having about the proposal on the table to expand this thing to sixteen.
Well, I think what we've talked about and what everybody realizes is that there may never be an endpoint to this thing. I think it could be a moving target. It could be twelve, it could be fourteen, it could be sixteen, depending on the success each year, depending on the amount of money they make with media rights deals and on campus home games. You never know, man, Like, never in any sense of reality did we think one day we would leave the BCS system behind for you know,
a four team playoff. And never in you know, nobody in their right mind ever thought it would go to twelve, And here we are already talking about it expanding again. Don't. I don't personally have an issue with the Big ten and the SEC getting the bulk of the auto bids mainly because they feature the best teams in the country. And if you're talking about it, logically, even the most casual of fans want to tune in to watch potentially
dominant teams that they don't really want to root for. Now, that isn't great for a market like ours, where we have a couple of Cinderellas who want to dance once every decade or so. But if you think about it, when was the last time a non on Big ten or SEC team won a national title? And we can take Clemson that like Clemson is the answer, but like, when was the last time a non Big Ten, non SEC, non Clemson team won a national title? I honestly couldn't even tell you.
Yeah, And that's what makes it complex, because we're in Big twelve countries, so we can yell as loud as we possibly can, as we can yell as loud as we want to, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of the blue bloods in college football exists in the Big ten and in the SEC.
Does it feel like to you that we are.
Still moving into a world where college football win the dust settles will look a lot like pro football, or to your point, will this just be an ever living organism that changes kind of year by year.
I believe it's going to be the latter. I think the fact that they've the powers that be have been proven year in and year out that they can change the game, they can move the goalpost, they can do it differently and still make more money. It behooves them to be able to maintain that flexibility rather than kind of putting themselves in a box so I could be proven wrong and it eventually one day they could be, you know, deciding to do that super league model that has been
bandied about for a long time. But I think at least in the very near future, it doesn't really benefit them to constrain themselves that way because they've been proven time to time again that they can make more money even though changes can come.
Is the New York Times building somewhere where you find that it's a nice safe space where you don't have to pretend that you like Hamilton.
Well, I find it a safe space to pretend that I don't like college football, because until people figure that out, I have the ruises up. Man.
See, the problem.
The problem with these interviews is now I'm just thinking about succession quotes that are just bouncing around in my mind. All right, Chris, before we set you loose, we'll let you get back to what you have going on. I still can't believe this conversation with the direction it did, but you know, that's what makes it fun. I'm quite sure you did not have a chance to listen to the gaffer himself, Pablo Maschuni on the program yesterday.
Yes, I was on a Delta flight to JFK, so apologies, I was not able to.
Did you watch anything on the plane? How did you How did you pass the five hour flight?
I took a little bit of a fake nap, closed my eyes for about an hour, and then watched a film.
Would you share the care? Would you care to share which film you watch?
It's called The Bike Riders. It's a film with with Tom Hardy and a couple other very handsome looking gentlemen. It's about a motorcycle club in Chicago in the sixties. I enjoyed it b plus interesting.
I'll check it out.
So, Pablo, and this took three or four different follow up questions where I definitely was blaboring the point because the fact of the matter, Chris, is this like, once upon a time in MLS, you didn't have to be labored to point about economic confusion in your club. You didn't have to spend twenty thirty forty million whatever it is. Hence two thousand and nine our guys lift the trophy beating David Beckham and Landon Donovan, you know, with that
club with Javier and Kyle and Nicky in the whole group. Well, MLS is not on the level of the NBA or the NFL, but it's grown to the point where it's no longer even an option to build a club without economic confusion. If you want to build a winner, and if you want to be competitive, if you want to be unserious about competing and simply develop young players and then move them on for a premium so you can
satisfy your investors, you can do that. But that's such an unserious approach, and that is what we've kind of experienced over the past little bit, and I think it's kind a lot of people off guard. Pablo yesterday dropped a bit of a bomb on the program. It's a little breaking news, accidental journalism that he was told this week by the New ownership group that they are no longer interested in selling any of their young players, namely Diego Luna, who rumors flying that he might be gone
during the summer transfer Windo. Now, look if a La Liga club or Bundesliga or EPL or whatever, if any club in Europe calls Kurt Schmidt and says we will pay you twenty five or thirty million dollars for Diego Luna, I get it. But what do you make of what I perceive to be a really massive change of direction and ethos by the Miller family now that they've taken
taken over in forming Pablo in the front office. They're not interested in this ethos of developing as a you know, developing players as a club and then moving them on.
They want to build something for the long haul.
Well, this is a multi layered conversation, and if we take Diego as the prime example, it kind of makes sense because if you haven't had that twenty to thirty million dollar offer yet, unless he goes on to score twenty goals and have fifteen assists, maybe you're gonna get an offer from Aliga at Mcki's team in the ten to fifteen million dollar range. But is Diego Luna worth that much to you as a club? I would argue yes, especially considering where you are with the state of the
franchise and the roster as a whole. There are some decent bones beyond Diego Luna. I know, you know a Mecca and Ellie is a potential MLS you know, All eleven caliber player, and there are some nice bit pieces, but Diego Luna is a pretty damn good starting off point. If you want to say, like, this is the guy
we want to build our team around. And maybe I'm gonna get lazy here and I'm going to do the sports radio thing and say, like, does it make sense to compare having a Diego Luna to a Donovan Mitchell type figure perhaps in the MLS RSL soccer realm. I
don't think it's that far off. If you talk about a young, dynamic, very you know, tantalizing player that has captivated the heart and soul of your fan base, that has been through the ringer in the last five years, if he wants to stay and you can pay him the wages that he will eventually deserve if his star continues to climb, then it makes sense to build around him. Now their problem isn't you know, the potentially ditching that ethos.
Their problem is is they have to figure out that the new ethos is going out and spending a lot of money, more money than RSL historically ever has. And I know last year they sold Andra Skomas for reported twelve to fourteen million and the Barajas Kid went to achieve us for like four to five. But really, if you think about it, in the annals of RSL history,
those are really kind of the two big transfers. RSEL hasn't really developed any other players, at least especially out of their academy system, that have gone on to become big time purchases from clubs overseas or I'm a continent. So great on you on you know, getting Pablo to divulge some accidental journalism. I know that's your your secret superpower, but it's listen, man, this summer is going to be big and they regardless, I think RFL is kind of
firmly out of the playoff spot. I think they've already lost more games so far this year than they have than they did in the entirety of twenty twenty four. But if if the Millers say they want to hold onto players and not sell them. That's great, but you have to be willing to spend a whole lot of money to bring in players as good or better than Diago Luna. If you want to prove to your fan base you're serious about winning. There it is.
Had to do it, had to do it. I really don't know what's my favorite? Which one is? My favorite?
Ship?
Is the SEC rules? If I'm on yuh? Roman is the Big twelve is incredible? But you know Connor is the Pac twelve seems to work? Yeah, do you have a favorite? Before I set you this?
Connor is the pack full? For sure? An independent you know, living off the grid on the West coast, you know Connor living in that New Mexico you know mansion you know north of Santa Fe. It just plays that hits for me the most.
Give me a Nixon six k.
Are are we are? We are? We are? We worried about what Tyres Haliburton and Miles Turner can do in the pick and roll? Are we worried about?
Look at you? Look at you? We are not? But I appreciate the ball breakdown? All right?
Let me know if you need any restaurant Rex. I'm sure you're well taken care of, save travels. Thanks for the time, Bud, appreciate you. Chris com Roddie from The Athletic Got Lou says it always does