It's interesting how what winning can do, right. Yeah, I mean it's it's awesome stuff. I absolutely love.
It winning, and I think it almost Sheppak kind of speaks to a narrative you were talking about in the last segment, which is, I mean, fans just want people to spend money, right, But that's almost their defense mechanism when the team's not winning. If the team's winning and the team's cheap, who the hell cares how much they're spending. It's just about winning. And when you're not winning, fans want to instantly pivot to the easiest target, which is while they're not spending money.
Well, you're right, one hundred percent. It does matter for the future because people feel like, you want my hard earned dollar, You're going to raise my prices. It's going to cost a lot to park around there. You know how much it costs to eat and drink inside a ballpark or a stadium whatever. Where is the give back. It's kind of like when I when my kids were young, all my boys wanted to play hockey, and I said, okay, it can be an expensive sport. Every sport can be.
I said, okay, give back. So I literally had a meeting with each one of them, and I said, I expect something in return from you, and especially since two of them played travel, I said, if you're not practicing, if I don't see you working at it, then and you should want to work at it because it's it's it's supposed to be a passion of yours, then don't expect me to give the financial buy it. You want to buy in from me. I want the passion from you,
and I don't want fake passion. If you don't want to, if you don't enjoy prepping for it, then don't worry about it. It's I'm not going to hold it against you, but I'm not going to spend the money. So one of my sons all summer long didn't do anything to do anything to improve his his hockey skills, didn't do anything. Passion comes around hockey sign up and he's like that, it's about time to sign up for hockey. I said, you're not playing. What do you mean I'm not playing?
I said, I said to him, I told you, I told you this after the season. You want the financial buy in from me with your two brothers, I want some type of commitment from you. I didn't see it and you have to admit that. Well, you're right, Okay, you're done. That's how fans feel about athletics. You want me to buy in. I'm paying forty bucks to park, I'm paying whatever it is to cost to go to a game. I'm spending a ton of money eating and drinking. Where's the buy in from? Where's the give back on
your part? So I get it. That's fine. You're one hundred percent right. When a team's not winning, that's what they look at. When a team is winning, they don't care. The only thing I would say is when a team is winning and you don't care and you don't see the financial buy in, you got to be careful because that will affect you the following year and the year after and the year after that. That's what keeps you. That financial commitment in the right places, that's what keeps
you competitive. We saw it firsthand with the Red Wings. The Red Wings didn't say I'm going to go out and I'm gonna spend money on Brett Hall when Luke Roboti and Domino Kashik and the like and then say, all right, well we had our run, we had a nice championship, and now we're done spending money. No, they continue to spend.
Yeah, that's what it is, right, I mean, if nothing else, and I like what you said about it's got to be in the right places. But if nothing else, spending money as an indicator that the franchise is actively making moves to try to win, absolutely in most cases.
Or yeah, and spending money doesn't have to be on free agents, by the way, correct, it can be on Like you think that the Red Wings are committed to winning. They have locked up Dylan Larkin or it's Cider Lucas Raymond, two longer term deals, right, yep. So by looking at that alex to brink it, by seeing all that, you feel like, Okay, this is a team that cares. They care. They go out and get Tarasenko, they care about me, they care about winning.
They want to keep those guys your long term. They have a vision, they want to build around them. It's the same as the Lions bringing back Penney Sewell and Broy Zara geoff the going rate, right, and you.
Know they're gonna pay Aiden Hutchinson absolutely, And by the way, they signed Taylor Decker. That shouldn't go unnoticed. All those things, right, I don't want the Tigers to go out and sign Danny Jansen, who will be a free agent catcher and is twenty nine years old, and I think would be a nice fit here. But I don't want them to go out and get him just for the sake of getting him and saying, look, I just spent money. Now, if you go out and get him for three and
a half million dollars, I'd say, good for you. But I don't want you spending seven million dollars on James McCann when James McCann is going to be thirty five years old, coming off a season where he wasn't very good, and coming off a backup season. He's only going to play the role as a backup anyway. No, that's not financially responsible. I don't want that. I hope they don't, and I don't think they will. I want to spend in the right place that gives you a long term solution.
So the obvious answer to a lot of people would be, let's go get Jack Flaherty. Let's make sure we resign him. Okay, that's a possibility. I could see that although he's in Los Angeles, he's back home. He's with the Dodgers who consistently win, you can understand why you'd want to stay there too. Money doesn't cure at all. It might make you feel good for a moment, but then, and we've had this topic before see Ben Gordon, see Charlie Villanueva right,
see a Croup. See certain guys who you spent money on or offered money to Juan Gonzales and said, just didn't work out.
Do I have to do I have to see that Do I have to remember that ship? Do I have to really go down memory lane?
You know what, It doesn't even have to be that long ago. You can just hovey your bias. Okay, there it is, and that hurts too,