Latest / The Regulars / Pablo Torre Vindicated: The Clippers' Massive NBA Fallout

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Pablo Torre Vindicated: The Clippers' Massive NBA Fallout · The Regulars

• 0:00
  Rules are getting changed in the Hall of Fame for Mr. Bill Belichick.
• 0:04
  LSU debacle reaches a new fever pitch. And wow,
• 0:08
  what the fuck is an insider and what the fuck is a journalist?
• 0:12
  Hey, Tanya, everything is upside down and we're here to
• 0:15
  turn it right side up or fucking get drunk in the process. We're playing
• 0:19
  the hits today, Cody. I'm excited for this. I'm excited for you guys.
• 0:23
  Let's do this. Welcome to The Regulars.
• 0:30
  You're with your friends, you're in a safe space,
• 0:34
  you're in a place to have yourself a nice little cocktail, maybe a glass of
• 0:37
  wine like this wonderful Sauvignon Blanc. What brand is it? You don't pay us,
• 0:41
  bitch. Anyways, welcome to the show. First of all, they've— we've never spoken with them,
• 0:46
  so— but you pay us, bitch. They didn't say they wouldn't.
• 0:49
  That is fair, that's fair. A little harsh. Maybe I'm a little aggressive today.
• 0:52
  Uh, it's been a long, long, long day. And Tanya, what can I say?
• 0:56
  The sports media world is, uh, exactly where it's been. But you know what?
• 0:59
  There is some hope because it seems like— and tell me what you think of
• 1:02
  this— some people are starting to fucking come our way. It seems like
• 1:06
  certain companies, even though they're not writing about us at the moment, it seems
• 1:10
  like they're watching. People are watching because we have— we've
• 1:13
  been banging some drums that seem to have suddenly started
• 1:17
  to be echoed across the more free sports
• 1:21
  media places. And we've— there's a few stories
• 1:25
  in our show today that we've kind of touched on before that continue to develop.
• 1:29
  And we're seeing some— we're just seeing some new things being discussed. It's interesting.
• 1:33
  It's a lot. It's like a lot of opinions that have been said on this
• 1:36
  particular show, really, and a lot of opinions that are now all of a sudden
• 1:39
  shared by other people in this industry. Interesting. And it's just really interesting
• 1:43
  that all of a sudden people are starting to see what we've been fucking saying
• 1:46
  for the last 5 goddamn months. Well, luckily we have receipts. We have— we have
• 1:50
  when we started talking about this and it was long before everybody else. Um,
• 1:53
  but today's show is chock-full. I mean, one of the easier
• 1:57
  rundowns I've made in quite a minute. It's amazing. It's like a fucking greatest hits
• 2:01
  album. Yeah, uh, we have— it's— I've been talking to
• 2:04
  like everybody in my life about this, and most people already know this, that like
• 2:07
  as soon as football season hits, like I hit the ground running. It's,
• 2:11
  it's kind of non-stop from September to February,
• 2:14
  right? But like, this is cross-sport.
• 2:18
  This isn't even just NFL. Like, we're going to have a bunch of NFL-heavy shows
• 2:22
  for the next few months, but this is not just NFL. So we're
• 2:26
  not even kicking it off with that right now. We are
• 2:29
  kicking it off with one of the biggest NBA stories
• 2:33
  in quite some time. And the reality
• 2:37
  is it's, it's a media headlines crossover.
• 2:41
  It's media headlines crossover. It really is. And it's— there's a few things that we're
• 2:44
  getting to today. One, I already mentioned that we already talked about the Belichick thing
• 2:47
  earlier on this year. Uh, we've already talked about this LSU thing in
• 2:50
  the last 2 weeks. We've already talked quite a bit about the Diana
• 2:54
  Rossini debacle. That— and why I'm saying the Diana Rossini debacle, I'm not
• 2:58
  referring to Diana Rossini herself, the debacle of the whole thing. I'm talking about the
• 3:02
  debacle of the coverage of it. And if this week is not super,
• 3:05
  super fucking glaring, because obviously congratulations Pablo Torre,
• 3:09
  take all the victory laps, and you are just honestly— I mean, he's a Pulitzer
• 3:12
  already. He's got a Pulitzer and, and that, uh, Edward R. Murrow Award.
• 3:16
  So did he? I believe so. I believe so. Don't I guess don't worry about
• 3:20
  it. Well, if he didn't, he should. He should get the Edward R. Murrow Award.
• 3:22
  He should get an Oscar. He should get a Tony. He should. Give him the
• 3:27
  whole thing. What's it called? Oh, it would be an EGOT. An EGOT,
• 3:31
  yeah. Give him the EGOT. Give him the EGOT. The PEGOT. Because if you get
• 3:35
  a Pulitzer, we can add that in. I think they usually use it
• 3:39
  like, say, Peabody for the P. But we're going to put in Pulitzer
• 3:43
  for it. Well, here's the deal. We got lots to talk about and only so
• 3:46
  much time to do it. So let's go ahead and get to it. Let's get
• 3:48
  over. To headline number 1. Tanya, take it away.
• 3:52
  Like I said, we are in multi-part— it's a multi-part media
• 3:57
  corner/headlines crossover. We are known— well, I would say we are known for our media
• 4:00
  corners. I would agree. You know, I mean, I think that's a big part of
• 4:03
  what we do. And we're going to kick it off with a little crossover of
• 4:07
  everything. We know by now that Pablo Torres' entire,
• 4:13
  you know, crusade in reporting around the Clippers
• 4:17
  was proven true. Going to quickly— going to quickly go
• 4:21
  through the details. So Ballmer,
• 4:25
  Steve Ballmer, the owner of the Clippers, had repeatedly and vehemently denied any
• 4:29
  involvement in the allegations of salary cap circumvention. And Tory
• 4:33
  had received a barrage of public criticism for his in-depth
• 4:38
  reporting from the likes of Ballmer's billionaire pal and former NBA owner Mark
• 4:42
  Cuban and former NBA turned podcaster— player turned podcaster
• 4:46
  Ty Lawson. His reporting was even undermined by his former employer ESPN
• 4:50
  by reporters Don Van Natta and Baxter Holmes and Ramona
• 4:55
  Shelburne under the headline, Sources: NBA Has No Evidence Ballmer
• 4:59
  Funneled Money to Leonard Via Sponsors. That came out a couple of weeks ago,
• 5:02
  August 17th, I believe. And here, you know what I think is really interesting is
• 5:07
  outside of all this. So I've— I have spoken with both Don
• 5:10
  Van Natta and Baxter Holmes, like in my past, like we've had great
• 5:15
  conversations. I've never actually had a conversation with Ramona Shelburne, but those
• 5:19
  3 people, by all accounts, are genuinely
• 5:22
  good, real reporters. Yes. And this is something we're going to
• 5:26
  touch on later on in this show. Yes. That's where shit is really bumming me
• 5:30
  out and why that report— I was correcting it at the time on social
• 5:35
  media because I was like, oh, that's— this is simply not true.
• 5:38
  So turns out all the allegations against
• 5:42
  Pablo Torre of chasing clout and clicks and building his audience.
• 5:46
  Yes. After winning a Pulitzer, by the way. Yes.
• 5:50
  Turns out they were all wrong and Pablo was right. On September 2nd,
• 5:53
  the NBA handed down its punishment and it was historic. The biggest
• 5:57
  penalty levied against a team in NBA history.
• 6:01
  Going to quickly just tell people, just in case you don't know, the Clippers
• 6:05
  will lose 5 first-round picks. So 2029 straight
• 6:10
  through 2033, the Clippers will be fined $30 million.
• 6:14
  Just for comparison's sake, for Deflategate,
• 6:19
  the— just essentially like just circumventing the
• 6:23
  investigation. Yeah, they were, they were fined $1 million. By the
• 6:27
  way, I believe for Spygate they were also fined $1 million and maybe 1 or
• 6:30
  2 first-round drafts. Yeah. And I believe based on the rules, the most you can
• 6:32
  fine an actual person is like $7.5 million. And the reason it's gotten to $30
• 6:36
  million, because they've tied together like 5 people together, which actually equaled out to like
• 6:40
  $30.7 million for the whole crew, for the crew.
• 6:43
  Clippers owner Steve Ballmer will be suspended for 1 year for knowingly seeking to
• 6:47
  help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities. This is around Kawhi Leonard.
• 6:51
  Kawhi Leonard's uncle, Dennis Robertson, is banned from engaging with NBA teams for
• 6:55
  5 years. Clippers President Lawrence Frank will be suspended for 6 months,
• 6:59
  and Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker is
• 7:02
  suspended for 1 year. Leonard, for his part, was fined
• 7:06
  $700,000 despite pocketing tens of millions of dollars from the deal.
• 7:09
  And was not suspended. Yeah, I don't really feel
• 7:13
  the need to get into that part of it right now, although there's plenty we
• 7:16
  could say about that specific part. Yes, I did say, of all people, Stephen A.
• 7:19
  Smith, I saw him say that the trade to Toronto
• 7:23
  should be voided. I wouldn't hate it if like
• 7:27
  that's what, you know, I just don't think— I don't
• 7:31
  think that punishing Toronto, if you're not going to punish Kawhi, like it all
• 7:35
  feels like now you're screwing over a team that, that like You can't screw
• 7:38
  over Toronto because they weren't involved in all this stuff. So like, if he gets
• 7:42
  suspended, that's one thing. I think that's why the suspension was so light, because it
• 7:45
  wouldn't be screwing the Clippers, it would be screwing Toronto, which I'm pretty sure is
• 7:49
  what LA was counting on. That's neither here nor there. So we had Amin on
• 7:52
  the show yesterday talking about this a little bit because obviously he's
• 7:55
  right in the midst of this entire story. And the one thing he told me
• 7:58
  that was really— I mean, El-Ehsan. Yeah. So it was really interesting what he told
• 8:02
  me on this on the show was specifically why it got done this exact
• 8:06
  way. And it almost seems like, like I'm paraphrasing a little bit,
• 8:09
  almost Like Kawhi was put in a position because, of course, NBA had to work
• 8:13
  through the Players Association to kind of get Kawhi to put out the statement,
• 8:16
  quote unquote, to kind of fall, kind of accept guilt and then take the fine
• 8:20
  type of thing. But the reasoning behind that whole setup, basically Kawhi saying,
• 8:24
  yes, I let people in my inner circle do
• 8:27
  this, which is his way of saying, yeah, but other people—
• 8:31
  5-year-old man who knew exactly what he knew. Pablo Torre had the receipts.
• 8:35
  He had the fucking receipts. So let's be real clear. He was not some unwitting
• 8:38
  unknowing person in this. It's just also the aspect
• 8:42
  of apparently it was also done in a way so that the Clippers wouldn't
• 8:46
  be able to go to arbitration with this, which I'm assuming would be a terrible
• 8:49
  thing for the NBA and probably the Clippers themselves.
• 8:53
  But the Clippers did kind of also put out like a little thing which I
• 8:55
  thought about. Is this just the tip of the iceberg? Of course they're probably not
• 8:58
  the only ones circumventing salary cap. My thought is, is this
• 9:03
  the beginning of something more? Yeah, well, I mean,
• 9:06
  you know, it might— what usually when you see something like this, it is a
• 9:09
  warning shot, which is that it's like Adam Silver and the
• 9:14
  league know that they're not the only ones who've done it. But if you have
• 9:18
  done it or you're in the middle of it, stop. Right. That's the warning shot.
• 9:21
  That's why you usually do something like this is to say, hey, by the way,
• 9:24
  if you do something like this or you are doing something like this, fucking stop.
• 9:28
  Astros sign stealing scandal, anyone? Right. So I think it's
• 9:32
  maybe trying to make an example out of them. I'm not, you know,
• 9:36
  for someone like Steve Ballmer, $30 million isn't going to, you know, not going to
• 9:40
  do— No, it's nothing. But, you know, I do think it's like first round picks.
• 9:43
  That's devastating. You basically just put this team in the Dark Ages for like the
• 9:45
  next fucking decade. Yeah. And we're not even counting the other first round picks that
• 9:49
  they gave up to get their hands on Paul George and Kawhi and all that.
• 9:52
  Like this, this run that they just did cost them like 10 first
• 9:56
  round picks. I mean, it's tanked the Clippers. It's in every possible way.
• 10:00
  Like, this is, this is devastating. This is, this is a death sentence. Sentence to
• 10:03
  a team that just built a brand new stadium over there in,
• 10:06
  in Inglewood. And, you know, Ballmer's trying so much to separate
• 10:10
  from everything in downtown LA with the Lakers and yada yada yada, and it's fucking
• 10:13
  a disaster. It's— this is maybe one of the biggest disasters ever. And,
• 10:17
  uh, by the way, I think there's implications going all over the place because you
• 10:20
  better believe the Major League Baseball PA is sitting around going,
• 10:24
  oh, thank you, Exhibit A, bitches.
• 10:28
  Well, there's that. And there's the reality that,
• 10:32
  um, in a world where we're constantly told that there's no
• 10:35
  such thing as real reporting, no real such thing as journalism, not even just in
• 10:39
  sports but everywhere, a one reporter
• 10:42
  and their work exposed something that has caused
• 10:46
  the biggest fine and the biggest sort of— and these some of the biggest suspensions
• 10:50
  in the history of the NBA. And for his part, uh,
• 10:53
  Pablo Torre has, you know, sort of— he's He's— he came
• 10:57
  out on top here, but it hasn't been without like a bunch of bullshit
• 11:01
  from establishment media trying to discredit him. Uh, so he spoke with Variety,
• 11:06
  and in that, uh, in that interview he was asked, it says a lot about
• 11:09
  your work, uh, a lot that your work was deeply reported and won a Pulitzer
• 11:14
  Prize, yet a good portion of the public chose to side with the billionaire
• 11:17
  and the superstar. Something you and I have talked about a lot, which is that
• 11:20
  people still cannot seem to grasp the idea that these billionaires
• 11:25
  and these incredibly extraordinarily wealthy people behave this
• 11:29
  way and that this is something that happens all the time. And he said it
• 11:32
  was for that reason both vindicating and the opposite. I don't want that
• 11:35
  to be the standard. I think it's good that people have high standards, but the
• 11:38
  way to assess that is by assessing the work on its own merits. What I'm
• 11:41
  heartened by is for the people who did take the time to listen or watch
• 11:44
  and they really followed the story, um, he said there was no ambiguity
• 11:47
  about what this was. And I agree, you, you and I both like
• 11:51
  there was no part of us where we were like, I don't know, this doesn't
• 11:54
  seem true. And I'll tell you something about, you know, I'll admit this
• 11:57
  is not the first time Pablo Torre was the lead on a pretty big story.
• 12:02
  And the first time he did it, I was not— Pablo was always to me
• 12:05
  like a personality, like, who had journalism experience, of course, was super, super smart.
• 12:09
  I didn't realize he had this level of journalistic experience.
• 12:13
  So he originally broke the crazy shit around
• 12:17
  Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson. He was the
• 12:21
  one who was like telling everybody like, oh, she's involved in
• 12:25
  like everything he's doing right now, laying it all out, reported it
• 12:29
  all out. And then it got started getting picked up by tabloids and I was
• 12:31
  like, Pablo Torre, I don't know about this. This seems a little bit— I
• 12:35
  was dead wrong. Yeah, he's killing it. And after that, there was nothing like—
• 12:39
  there was no reason for me to discredit him. This is not the first time,
• 12:42
  the way he's covered a bunch of other stories. Yeah, but By
• 12:47
  now, to be discrediting that level of reporting was crazy. This is
• 12:51
  the big thing I want to discuss is the interviewer said, I want you to
• 12:54
  talk about ESPN's report on August 17th that claimed the NBA has no evidence that
• 12:58
  Ballmer funneled money to Leonard via sponsors. This is your former employer
• 13:02
  that rather coldly showed you the door, releasing a story which seems to
• 13:06
  be pro-Clippers/Ballmer propaganda and undermine your reporting.
• 13:11
  Tori said, my experience with that report was not great. Uh, it was a sign
• 13:15
  of the power from the mainstream media entity. And the question I always had
• 13:19
  with this reporting I've been doing for a year, which they were not, was why
• 13:21
  they felt comfortable framing the story that way and why they never called me before
• 13:25
  they published it if they were going to frame it that way. And why,
• 13:27
  after I provided a statement after it was published, after being told that they would
• 13:31
  include it, they never included it. And the statement, to paraphrase
• 13:34
  it, was simply, we stand by our reporting. And what my own reporting
• 13:38
  suggests is that the Clippers and a crisis PR manager hired by Steve Ballmer were
• 13:42
  shopping around a story that would be their best chance at telling a version of
• 13:46
  events that would be helpful to a man who we now understand, based on the
• 13:49
  NBA's investigation as well as my own, to have repeatedly lied about what really happened.
• 13:53
  In retrospect, what seems to be the case is that Clippers fed ESPN information
• 13:57
  that the NBA immediately refuted that deeply resembles
• 14:00
  the exact press release that the Clippers released almost concurrently with the
• 14:03
  story. So it's not a mystery where the information fucking
• 14:07
  came from. I added the fucking just for my own little razzmatazz
• 14:12
  for Pablo. So, so we'll get more into
• 14:15
  this media corner. But you said something earlier is like their journalism and
• 14:19
  one guy in the— here's, here's why this is. And I appreciate what Pablo
• 14:23
  said, how, yes, vindicating, but also like kind of disheartening at the same time.
• 14:28
  Him being discredited by ESPN
• 14:32
  the way they did. And the reason why it bothers me— ESPN immediately—
• 14:37
  the NBA immediately refuting ESPN's reporting.
• 14:40
  I know, I know. It's just the way this was done
• 14:44
  and the way this was handled, I think, is the most
• 14:47
  glaring example of exactly what ESPN is now.
• 14:50
  Yeah. Something you and I have been banging the drum on. And I really hope
• 14:54
  that this is the one that makes everyone understand what has
• 14:58
  been taking place. Uh, I said on my show today specifically, we still don't
• 15:02
  know shit about the Shanahan thing. We do know that plenty of those ESPN insiders
• 15:05
  knew about the thing. Also, there has been misreporting on that thing. That's a
• 15:09
  huge fucking scandal, yet somehow it's nothing, just completely brushed under the rug.
• 15:13
  Uh, this to me is so glaring of what ESPN
• 15:17
  is being used for and what their insiders are being used for, because even hearing
• 15:20
  someone— not insiders, by the way, in this particular— they used reporters too. In this
• 15:25
  particular situation, that's what blew my mind. Yeah, Shelbourne is a Real reporter.
• 15:28
  Don Van Natta is an investigative reporter. He is just like
• 15:32
  what Pablo Torre is, and he's been doing it for a long time. Baxter Holmes
• 15:36
  is a reporter, a beat reporter. That is
• 15:40
  what's crazy. We're not even talking about the big-time insider types.
• 15:44
  No, it wasn't Shams. We have— although Shams did throw some things
• 15:47
  out there, like one thing where Shams tried to say, and Pablo Torre went ahead
• 15:51
  and posted on the Shams Report, which I thought was the funniest thing he did.
• 15:54
  Because Shams goes on there, he's like, yeah, but really this was all the Clippers.
• 15:58
  And of course, uh, Kawhi seems like he unwittingly didn't know anything. And then
• 16:02
  he just was like, that's Kawhi's signature on the fucking paper,
• 16:06
  just with eyeballs on it. He didn't say that's his signature on the fucking paper,
• 16:09
  but he posted the paper and just eyeballs. I'm like, fucking A+.
• 16:13
  No notes. Fucking phenomenal. I— that's where like the— like everybody
• 16:17
  always thinks what we're spouting on here is theory. It's not theory. I'm telling you
• 16:20
  what's happening because I've been watching it and I've been in it. For 16-plus years.
• 16:24
  But for essentially what happened is ESPN went
• 16:29
  to Don Van Natta, Ramona Shelburne, and Baxter Holmes and said, you are putting your
• 16:33
  name on this report. I am like, that is devastating.
• 16:36
  Like, it's like, that's devastating to me for them. It is. And also,
• 16:40
  like, they have— this is, this is
• 16:44
  where the rubber meets the road in terms of,
• 16:47
  of journalism in ESPN at this point is it's,
• 16:51
  it's, it's basically cannot exist. And this proved it. This proved it
• 16:55
  without a shadow of a doubt. Now, moving on
• 16:59
  to the final part of this story is that
• 17:03
  Pablo Torre today on his show, Pablo Torre
• 17:07
  Finds Out, yes, has debuted that he will be investigating the
• 17:11
  Mark Walter story. Oh boy. That is probably the worst thing
• 17:15
  Mark Walter has ever heard in his fucking life. He is like the
• 17:18
  Grim Reaper at this point, knocking at your door. Yeah, he says he's investigating.
• 17:23
  Good fucking luck. People are like, hey, any chance you guys could investigate the
• 17:27
  Republicans before the midterms? Like, oh my God. Yeah, because he's the only one really
• 17:30
  doing it right now. But freshly armed with— can we get him on The Epstein
• 17:33
  Files? I, I mean, I honestly think, yeah,
• 17:37
  probably is our best shot. When you're done with Mark Walter, get on The Epstein
• 17:40
  Files. It's the only way we're going to get any news. Um, but also,
• 17:44
  you know, we need Pablo Torre to stay safe. Never mind, never mind. Just,
• 17:47
  just keep it— like he's safe exposing the Guggenheim Group.
• 17:51
  I mean, it's safer than— safer than whatever's going on. I guess
• 17:56
  you're right about that. Maybe. Who fucking knows at this point? Most of what
• 18:00
  he kind of talked about today— so he, he debuted that he
• 18:03
  is going to be investigating this from his end. Yeah. Uh, but most of what
• 18:07
  he, uh, spoke about today has already been reported, but Tory and crew
• 18:11
  do a great job of laying it out from beginning to end, connecting all the
• 18:14
  data points in between, which is really, really helpful to start out with these really
• 18:18
  in-depth investigations. As he points out in the podcast, he's like, listen, we're talking
• 18:22
  about like bank statements and shit, like kind of stuff that is difficult and convoluted.
• 18:26
  It's difficult, convoluted, and like just deeply uninteresting
• 18:29
  to a lot of sports fans. Like, it's hard to parse, but he
• 18:33
  has earned so much credibility that I think sports fans now are like, okay,
• 18:36
  I got to tap in, right? Yeah. And I've done a decent amount of digging
• 18:39
  into this and I'm still not fully abreast to all of it because it was
• 18:42
  a long podcast. I didn't listen to the whole thing and I've been getting clips
• 18:44
  by clips and I've been doing like research from part by part. But I will
• 18:47
  say the Magic Johnson portion, yeah, is the thing that was kind of glaring to
• 18:51
  me today because I'm like, ooh, I have yet to hear Magic's name being included.
• 18:55
  And this is a little interesting, specifically inevitable, right? Yeah. And I knew I had
• 18:59
  a feeling it was only a matter of time, right? Because I've always wondered exactly
• 19:02
  how Magic Johnson got in specifically with like the Guggenheim Group,
• 19:06
  considering the fact that's like a group of 8 partners who are all billionaires.
• 19:09
  And Magic Johnson's Magic Johnson. Is he a part of the Guggenheim Group?
• 19:12
  I don't know, but he's a part of this ownership group, right? I thought he
• 19:16
  was separate. There was just a whole thing about it I never understood, but I'm
• 19:18
  like, oh, he's a great face to have there, so whatever. But now learning— and
• 19:22
  I'm still trying to understand this a little bit, so please forgive me— but
• 19:26
  learning, huh? Yeah, but this, this, the idea that basically
• 19:30
  Mark Walter, for lack of a better phrase,
• 19:33
  gave Magic Johnson a full insurance company.
• 19:37
  And it's a little confusing and strange. So weird too, because Magic
• 19:42
  Johnson has been a successful businessman for 40-something years. Like,
• 19:45
  Magic Irving, you didn't need this.
• 19:49
  Like, because like, this is— this— I don't know what's gonna happen. It does sort
• 19:53
  of feel like he's now tied into something that like, and maybe he is you
• 19:56
  know, maybe he's going to be exposed too, and I just don't want to see
• 19:59
  that happen. Um, according— you know, one of the more interesting parts,
• 20:03
  um, was the chain of events,
• 20:06
  you know, as detailed on the podcast,
• 20:09
  that kind of led into this stuff. So in
• 20:13
  2012, Walter was one of the multiple bidders, right? Yeah,
• 20:16
  along with Magic Johnson. Came back at $2.15 billion,
• 20:20
  obliterating the previous record for an MLB franchise valuation.
• 20:26
  Um, for example, what the Padres just sold
• 20:30
  for, $4 billion. $3.9. Yeah, $3.9. And the Angels also for—
• 20:33
  this is 14 years late. Uh, sorry. Yeah, no, this was 2012.
• 20:38
  So yeah, 14 years later. Yeah, my— that just freaked me out.
• 20:42
  It's been that long. 2012 was 14 years ago. Crazy. And I don't like— I
• 20:45
  don't— time is fucking bullshit. Listen, my beard's getting a little longer because I'm
• 20:49
  getting ready for Halloween a little bit. Uh, there's— the grays are coming. The grays
• 20:53
  are coming in. You know what? You— yes, I kind of like them. I— gray
• 20:57
  in a beard is ideal. I kind of like them. I, I'm at the point—
• 20:59
  I'm at that— the age and stage of my life where if I don't see
• 21:02
  gray in your beard, ew. Yeah, right? Like, sorry, you have
• 21:07
  a young man's beard. I do know that this is off topic, but, uh,
• 21:10
  length— how are we doing right now? Because like, I like the shape of it.
• 21:12
  I like it. I normally don't like going this long. Really? No, I really don't.
• 21:16
  Yeah, because like, I always feel like it makes look like thicker. No, no,
• 21:19
  I think this is growing in kind of well. No, it's growing in really well.
• 21:21
  It's because of the way it's shaped. Yeah, so the guy that shaped it did
• 21:24
  a really good job. It will eventually get to a point where you start looking
• 21:27
  like Sons of Anarchy. Yeah, you are not there. But it's funny you say that.
• 21:29
  That kind of is somewhat— there is connection to my Halloween costume. I'll tell you,
• 21:33
  it's not a big secret. I'm just wondering, should we do a show in full
• 21:35
  costume? I mean, maybe, because I'm thinking about it. That's a good idea. I haven't
• 21:39
  done a good costume in a while. Me neither. And I found it and I'm
• 21:42
  like, maybe I should do it. It's a little timely considering the what's going on,
• 21:46
  especially in the last couple days. Okay, all right, should I tell you or— I
• 21:49
  don't know, maybe let's keep it a secret. I mean, you can look at— how
• 21:52
  about this? Look at— you guys can guess. How about this? Just look at this.
• 21:55
  I won't be wearing glasses, basically this, and I'll be making this face a lot.
• 22:00
  Okay, just, just look here. And I think you also look at the bulk of
• 22:03
  me as well. It also fits as well. It's not that hard to figure out.
• 22:06
  Yeah, especially if you look at recent events in castings
• 22:10
  on particular things. And look at me and then picture which member of
• 22:14
  Guns N' Roses you think I'd be. That's only one, unfortunately. There's only one blonde
• 22:19
  member, and I saw a video of him singing the other day and I decided
• 22:22
  not to get the tickets. I'm gonna be in his— I'm gonna be him in
• 22:25
  his prime with the fucking thing in there. As you should. Great. It's gonna be
• 22:28
  great. I love it. I love it. Fucking jumping off of aircraft carriers in that
• 22:31
  fucking weird-ass music video. Yeah, it's either that or, uh, it's always either that or
• 22:34
  like Legolas. That's an easy one. Yeah.
• 22:38
  Yeah, yeah. Sexy Legolas is— I need to be a long blonde-haired man, I think,
• 22:42
  is really just like— leaning into a blonde woman is not nearly as
• 22:45
  fun as being like— well, it depends what blonde woman you are. You, you know,
• 22:48
  you know what you could do? What? Go, go, because Baywatch is coming back.
• 22:51
  Do the Baywatch thing and be fucking CJ.
• 22:54
  Yeah, but she's so small and I'm so tall. That is true. Be a
• 22:57
  basketball-playing CJ. Like, wear, wear like a Sparks jersey.
• 23:01
  CJ Barbie. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Ideal. We're creative.
• 23:06
  Wow, that was perfect. That was amazing. That was amazing detour. Great aside.
• 23:11
  So we're back to— yes.
• 23:14
  So they buy— they buy this for— Walters Guggenheim
• 23:18
  Group outbids and has it— has
• 23:22
  this huge valuation. We later find out that MLB has struck a deal with the
• 23:25
  new owners allowing them to pay a smaller percentage of broadcast money into the revenue
• 23:28
  sharing pool, ostensibly since they were coming out of bankruptcy. Okay, we already knew about
• 23:32
  this. Yes. Walters Group then formed a new LLC called American Media Productions.
• 23:37
  That deal was backed by Time Warner Cable. Given the enormous amount of money they
• 23:41
  were paid for the rights, SportsNet LA and TWC tried to change— charge
• 23:44
  cable companies a higher price. And you'd think that that would result in another
• 23:48
  bankruptcy. But no, partially because American Media Productions is able to secure a loan
• 23:52
  from insurance companies. So this whole thing,
• 23:56
  I realize it sounds convoluted. When you listen through it all start
• 23:59
  to finish, you can kind of sense like, okay, like this guy's getting investigated for
• 24:03
  a reason. Like some shady shit's going down. This is the best way I can
• 24:06
  come up with because I've done it. It's very interesting. It's like a snake eating
• 24:09
  its own tail when it— but consider that with money. Just think of it as
• 24:13
  a circle. Money starts here at the insurance company. Mark Walton owns the insurance company.
• 24:16
  He then loans himself to the Dodgers money from the insurance company,
• 24:20
  and he then loans that, which is also the insurance company, like owns the
• 24:24
  television network. Which this television network that is owned by the insurance company is paying
• 24:27
  the Dodgers, which is also owned by the insurance company and the television network.
• 24:30
  So it's just this weird fucking convoluted circle, and I don't understand
• 24:35
  how it's legal. If you've ever watched like how mafia
• 24:39
  people like wash and launder their money, it does sound like that.
• 24:42
  It's just not that different. All the— all these white-collar billionaire ways of
• 24:46
  like, you know, moving money around that are illegal are
• 24:49
  super similar to all the ways that we know from crime movies. Yeah, it's even
• 24:52
  right here. Isaiah says insurance money has its own set of rules and
• 24:56
  And you know, it's all shady shit. Yeah, it's just— I don't— I don't understand
• 24:59
  how this is legal because it just sounds like money laundering.
• 25:03
  Yeah, that's how they get paid out of paying taxes. That's exactly right.
• 25:07
  That's nice. And there's the— that's the crux of why Walter's
• 25:12
  being investigated. Like, yes, insurance companies routinely invest the money that their policyholders
• 25:16
  pay them. Yes, we— that's hedge funds. That's— we know how that
• 25:20
  works, but it's generally into safe and boring investments—
• 25:24
  bonds, real estate, low-risk, stuff different from a hedge fund, right? That's what kind of
• 25:28
  stuff. Um, if they invest in business ventures that are owned by the same person,
• 25:32
  there are laws to ensure that the relationship is properly disclosed. If it's
• 25:35
  not, insurance companies could theoretically invest all their money
• 25:39
  into the owner's Beanie Baby venture and then go bankrupt.
• 25:43
  That's what they were— that was the kind of the thing. And yeah, like,
• 25:46
  you can't just be like, oh, like, thanks for your money and we are going
• 25:49
  to invest it in my, like, my new brand of canned water.
• 25:52
  Like that, you know. It's— come on. So this
• 25:57
  is about to be a really interesting time in Los Angeles,
• 26:02
  more than it already is. Yeah. By the way, saw you were talking about
• 26:06
  this on The Fan earlier today. The Dodgers are struggling.
• 26:09
  Like, the Dodgers are not doing well. By the way,
• 26:13
  all these struggles started right around when the announcement of this investigation began.
• 26:17
  And it's been about 2 full months since this all started. Yeah. And I'm not—
• 26:22
  this is not hyperbolic. Literally, it was almost to the fucking day.
• 26:26
  Yeah. This team since July 1st is exactly .500, which, by the way, charmed life.
• 26:30
  Your worst time of your life, you're playing .500 baseball. But I will tell you,
• 26:33
  having watched the Dodgers every day because I talk about the Dodgers every fucking day,
• 26:36
  right? Like, you're actually watching the baseball. You don't seem to understand. This is actually
• 26:39
  like a frighteningly frustrating team to watch right now. Yeah. Something's really
• 26:44
  wrong. And I— and it ain't the pitching and it ain't the lineup.
• 26:47
  But no one on the lineup's hitting. Shohei Ohtani's clearly hurt. The vibes
• 26:51
  are just fucking gross. By the
• 26:55
  way, since we're going to talk about bad fucking baseball vibes before we go to
• 26:59
  headline 2, can we very quickly talk about— no.
• 27:02
  Okay. We do not speak poorly of Ketel. I don't
• 27:06
  know what's happening. We don't. Okay, fine. We'll move on. What we will— no,
• 27:09
  but what we will talk about is Will Middlebrooks and Will Fleming on
• 27:13
  the Red Sox radio broadcast talking about Jazz Chisholm. Did you hear about this?
• 27:16
  I heard Fleming. Did Middlebrooks say it? Uh-huh.
• 27:21
  Well, I thought it was Fleming that said it. They were both going in.
• 27:23
  Now Fleming was the one who called it bush league. Yeah, but no,
• 27:27
  no, Will Randall Brooks was in on the mix, you know, in a way that
• 27:30
  was not acceptable. Oh, well, come on, you know better.
• 27:33
  Did you listen to the call? I heard the— I heard the line where they
• 27:37
  said someone needs to throw at Jazz. I heard that, which by the way,
• 27:40
  no, no, no, it was a 4-minute rant Really?
• 27:45
  Well, because Jazz— he stole third base and there was no play on it.
• 27:48
  They were up by 6 runs or 5 runs. They were up by 6 runs
• 27:52
  at the bottom of the 8th against the Red Sox and decided to keep playing
• 27:54
  baseball. Yeah. Wow. What a fucking shock. It was not out of— that was not
• 27:58
  out of reach. So Middlebrook starts talking about unwritten rules, how you
• 28:02
  don't play the game that way. He doesn't play the game the right way.
• 28:04
  These guys go— Fleming's calling him bush league,
• 28:07
  saying he should get thrown at, saying someone should fight him.
• 28:11
  Meanwhile, the Yankees are crushing home runs. Yeah, this whole time they're
• 28:15
  crushing home runs. It has to— they have to interrupt them talking shit about
• 28:19
  Jazz Chisholm for playing baseball while the Yankees
• 28:22
  are crushing home runs. Dude, that's brutal. The dog whistling was so bad.
• 28:26
  Now, I will say the harshest dog whistles, the, the harshest dog whistles
• 28:30
  and most obvious ones came from Fleming. But Will Middlebrooks
• 28:34
  really disappointed me in this call and As somebody
• 28:37
  who has— I love Will. And like, he might be a nice guy, he might
• 28:41
  be whatever. But this is the thing, Cody, and this is like, this is what
• 28:43
  I need to like remind people over and over again, is that so many people
• 28:47
  think they are beyond their own biases. They think that they
• 28:51
  are not susceptible to the, to the dog whistles and the racism and the
• 28:55
  biases of the, of the past. And when I
• 28:59
  tell you this call was trash, it made no baseball
• 29:03
  sense. Yeah, it made no baseball sense to be mad that the Red
• 29:07
  Sox were quitting and that Jazz Chisholm wasn't just letting them quit. This is
• 29:11
  Red Sox-Yankees. Yes, this is Red Sox series. Like,
• 29:14
  come the fuck on. And by the way, they're both playoffs. They are neck and
• 29:17
  neck. Yeah, both players have been fighting, right? And they're
• 29:21
  probably gonna play each other in the first round again, just like last year.
• 29:24
  And you think that Jazz should let up on 6
• 29:27
  runs? How many times in baseball history has someone made up 6 runs in an
• 29:30
  inning? Fuck off. Quite a few times this year. They weren't up by 20.
• 29:33
  So here's the deal. Like, I was furious.
• 29:37
  Yeah. Like, this was fireable shit. And I am sorry. This is
• 29:40
  not— no problem with Will Middlebrooks. No problem with Jenny Dell.
• 29:44
  But I have a problem with Will now. I got to be honest. The apology
• 29:48
  was whatever. They had to apologize. I got to tell you, I had no idea
• 29:51
  Will was on this call at all. I really didn't, bro. It was fucking bad.
• 29:54
  That's bad. It's bad. Here's— here, like, I want to make it abundantly clear
• 29:58
  on this one. I do love Will Middlebrooks. He's a good guy, good teammate,
• 30:00
  but this is clearly a fucking mistake. And I can't stress enough, this— you
• 30:04
  can't do this. It's fucking insane. One of my biggest pet peeves in baseball history
• 30:08
  is, is the unwritten fucking
• 30:12
  rules and the fucking— the way— and here's the reason why I hate them the
• 30:16
  most. I hate them the most for one particular reason, because if it should be
• 30:19
  a rule, then you should write it down. Well, yeah. Well, here's the thing.
• 30:22
  Every unwritten rule is for one reason and one reason only. It is to fucking
• 30:26
  safeguard somebody's fragile bitch ego. I don't got fucking time
• 30:30
  for that. And we're grown men playing a sport. They routinely, for some reason,
• 30:34
  affect Black and, and the Dominican
• 30:37
  and the, you know, the Spanish-speaking players. Boom.
• 30:41
  There is a very stark contrast of the play the
• 30:45
  game the right way to basically play the game the white
• 30:48
  way. All the old timers always talk about what games got to play
• 30:53
  this way when Really, it seems like they always are clamoring for a time
• 30:56
  of before an influx of Latin players and Black players really kind of came to
• 31:00
  the game. I can't stress enough, they were like, oh, there's a bunch of unwritten
• 31:03
  rules actually that you're not supposed to do that. Oh, it's amazing how all these
• 31:06
  fucking unwritten rules came out. Oh, you can't show flash at the thing. I'm sure
• 31:10
  they wanted to throw out Dusty Baker when he fucking invented the high five at
• 31:14
  Dodger Stadium. I'm sure they fucking thought that was just fucking the most
• 31:18
  insane thing in the world. It was so bad. I don't know what to say.
• 31:19
  Say other than the unwritten rules of baseball are bullshit,
• 31:22
  bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If you're someone that says unwritten rules
• 31:26
  of baseball, fucking slap yourself in the balls. I'll give you a minute.
• 31:29
  You're fucking stupid. I don't know what to say other than it is the oldest,
• 31:33
  whitest, fucking dipshittiest way. The only thing that I think
• 31:37
  is just as bad, and it's becoming like a similar dog whistle, and it's,
• 31:40
  it's not for— I don't even know who it's for at this point— is the
• 31:43
  guys like, yeah, I don't like sabermetrics. Oh yeah,
• 31:47
  shit. You don't like the fucking quantifiable,
• 31:50
  unarguable math? Yeah, it's fucking math.
• 31:54
  Isn't, isn't like WAR sabermetrics? Yes, but like, but like,
• 31:59
  like everything is. But that's the thing, like, no, I like a guy with an
• 32:01
  RBI, like that gets RBIs. Yeah, good, that's in sabermetrics. That's part of— that's the
• 32:05
  same math. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like guys getting guys over and on. Yeah,
• 32:08
  those, those are stats. Yeah, but they don't— sabermetrics, you fucking stupid dolt.
• 32:12
  But God forbid you steal a base at the wrong time in the wrong inning,
• 32:15
  and then now we don't want to. So, you know, the rule was always that
• 32:18
  I always heard was 6 after 6, but like, I don't fucking care if it's
• 32:22
  a 10-run game. Okay, don't steal second base if it's fucking
• 32:26
  5 or 6 runs. No. Also, by the way, by the way,
• 32:29
  September Red Sox-Yankees fighting for, for the playoff home
• 32:33
  game. I— they could have been up 90. You fucking play like
• 32:38
  What do you guys give a fuck about rivalries? Do you give a fuck about
• 32:40
  people caring? Do you give a fuck? I want to see the Yankees give the
• 32:44
  Red Sox the middle finger in that spot. I'm a Red Sox fan, right?
• 32:46
  Yeah. So in that spot, if they want to— if they want to pepper
• 32:50
  their asses into the ground before the game's over,
• 32:53
  please do. That's right. That's what I— fire their
• 32:57
  asses up. Make them mad. Fucking the— look
• 33:02
  what they're doing to you. They don't fucking take you seriously. Get fucking mad.
• 33:06
  And Will Fleming's like, I was just emotional because Hey, get a fucking grip.
• 33:09
  You have a job to do. Yeah, you get a job. And like, if you're
• 33:12
  saying you're not getting emotional about your job, is now you're talking trash about Jazz
• 33:15
  Chisholm. I'm so sick of fucking— I'm so sick of these dudes getting mad
• 33:19
  about Jazz Chisholm playing baseball a way that they don't think
• 33:23
  is appropriate. You don't— oh my fucking God, this is Lamar Jackson. This is
• 33:27
  Allen Iverson. This is— how many fucking times are you idiots going
• 33:31
  to do this before you fucking realize you're racist? By the way, and when I
• 33:34
  say you're racist. I mean you are racist in the sense that unless you are
• 33:38
  checking your ass every fucking day, unless you are constantly doing the work,
• 33:42
  you are going to say racist shit. Being anti-racist
• 33:46
  is the only way that you're ever even going to come close to not being
• 33:48
  racist. But when you're doing fucking Allen Iverson bullshit to Jazz
• 33:52
  Chisholm in 2026, I'm clocking your ass as being racist.
• 33:56
  Do better. If that offends you, do better. Here's the deal, like, I— there is
• 34:00
  a way to to tell that story of like the unwritten rules of baseball
• 34:04
  and announcing that. And this is how I would have done it. And you tell
• 34:06
  me if I'm wrong. Maybe I'm out of bounds on this. Maybe this isn't it.
• 34:08
  Sure. If he steals that third base and you— and I'm an announcer that's like,
• 34:11
  ooh, that's close. I'm like, I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa. Like,
• 34:15
  Jazz steals third base. No attempt made on the play. It seems
• 34:19
  like he caught him off guard. But I could— you know how baseball players can
• 34:22
  be. This might lead to something later on in the game. Keep your eyes out
• 34:25
  just in case. And if not today, Maybe even tomorrow. That's it. I want
• 34:29
  to tell you the story of what could take place on the field because people
• 34:32
  on the field get sensitive and shit could happen. So I'm just going to prepare
• 34:35
  you for it. But I'm not going to be like, you know what we should
• 34:37
  fucking do? Throw at them. You know what? Someone should just cold cock
• 34:41
  them now. All you got to do is say Red Sox might see that as
• 34:44
  a slight. They're down 6. They might see that as like as the team running.
• 34:47
  And then, by the way, you know what you need to do after that,
• 34:49
  Cody, is when the, when the Yankees still clearly
• 34:54
  are hitting for power and trying to hit home runs on your ass and successfully
• 34:56
  doing it, then you say, oh yeah, yeah, no, it's not just Jazz. This whole
• 35:00
  team is trying to shove it down their throats. But for some reason, the only
• 35:04
  smoke they had was for Jazz. Again, Jazz on base,
• 35:07
  home run, home run, and they're, they're still only talking
• 35:11
  about— I can't believe Jazz did that.
• 35:14
  Like, oh my, why did Jazz make them hit those
• 35:18
  home runs? I wish it was anyone but Will. I fucking love Will. And you
• 35:21
  know what, Will has every opportunity to better himself, and, and that,
• 35:25
  and that is what needs to happen, right? Because his wife's a really good broadcaster.
• 35:29
  If you said something like that, or if you ever did something like that,
• 35:31
  I'd be like, I love Cody, and now Cody, like, time, time for you to
• 35:35
  prove exactly where your actual values are. Well,
• 35:39
  listen guys, I didn't mean it this way, but it doesn't matter. That's how it
• 35:41
  came off, so I fucked up. And well, not even— I hope you guys give
• 35:44
  me the opportunity to do a better job. Listen, at the end of the day,
• 35:46
  It doesn't— he did mean it that way because you don't say it. You just
• 35:49
  don't say it like the, the microaggressions don't
• 35:53
  come. You said it specifically about Jazz, bro. It's fair. So you
• 35:57
  meant it that way. And now you have to— now you have to unpack why
• 36:00
  you meant it. Why? That's, that's all I want you to fucking do. You know,
• 36:03
  I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful he makes amends and,
• 36:07
  and does a good job going forward. Yeah, I hope. I hope. Because I listen,
• 36:10
  it's personal for me, obviously, because I like Will a lot. He's a friend of
• 36:14
  mine. He's an ex-teammate. I firmly believe he's like one of the most talented guys
• 36:17
  I've ever played on a field with. Like, he was really talented. Like, the numbers
• 36:21
  don't show how talented he was. That being said, that's what I say about you
• 36:25
  all the time. I'm like, the numbers don't show how talented he was. It is
• 36:28
  true. The numbers didn't really show. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, I feel
• 36:31
  like the numbers completely didn't show. You know who is not going to have a
• 36:35
  job moving forward? Hey, congratulations. Your paper.
• 36:39
  Your paper fucking Commissioner's fucking leaving.
• 36:42
  She's not even the commissioner anyways. Kathy Engelbert, headline number
• 36:46
  2, by the way. Headline number 2. We're finally on number 2, 40 minutes into
• 36:49
  the show. Shit. She is retiring after the 2026
• 36:53
  season. That'll be as of December. She was named the league's first ever commissioner
• 36:57
  in May of 2019. This is the WNBA commissioner, by the way,
• 37:01
  has overseen 2 collective bargaining agreements and helped grow the league.
• 37:05
  I don't think she's helped grow the league. I think that uh, A'ja Wilson
• 37:10
  being one of the best basketball players we've ever seen, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese
• 37:13
  coming into the league with a pre-existing stardom and rivalry helped grow the league.
• 37:16
  I'm not sure that she had much to do with the fact that they have
• 37:19
  this record-breaking, um, TV deal or
• 37:23
  anything like that. Uh, they— the, the players fought tooth and nail for the
• 37:27
  CBA that they have, for the massive— like, we're not going to give her credit
• 37:31
  for the players getting fucking paid when she didn't want to pay them. No.
• 37:33
  And to her credit, I mean, Congratulations. The biggest boom in WNBA history
• 37:37
  happened under her stewardship, but it wasn't— it could
• 37:41
  have happened under a rock. It literally happened under anybody. Like Eric Bischoff couldn't
• 37:46
  have fucked— I think your dog Franklin could have— Franklin would have— this would be
• 37:49
  a multi, multi-billion dollar operation if my
• 37:53
  Great Dane Franklin was running this fucking show. So there you go.
• 37:56
  I will say they give her credit for the, the what
• 38:00
  they called the wobble during the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
• 38:04
  Pulling that off and avoiding the cancellation of the season mid-pandemic was—
• 38:08
  that, that is something I do think was very commissioner, um,
• 38:12
  based and something that she did pull off. And I like— I think that that
• 38:16
  was an unprecedented thing. Great. And not losing women's sports in that time,
• 38:19
  especially because the women were using that platform
• 38:23
  during the mass protests during, uh, Black Lives Matter,
• 38:27
  was a really big deal. So I'll give her that. That's where I'm giving her,
• 38:30
  um, In a statement on Friday, the head
• 38:34
  of the WNBA Players Union, Nneka Ogwumike, praised Engelbert for helping the league
• 38:39
  through a period of extraordinary change and championing new growth initiatives.
• 38:42
  She did agree with Nafissa Collier last year when they questioned
• 38:47
  Cathy, and Nafissa called her the worst leadership in the world. So Nneka
• 38:51
  is being nice. That's funny.
• 38:54
  So, you know, that's, that's where things go. There's a lot of very hopeful
• 38:58
  WNBA fans out there who are celebrating Cathy being
• 39:02
  gone. And I totally understand that. And I think celebrate it. I think
• 39:06
  be happy that there's going to be, you know, a change of scenery in that
• 39:10
  capacity. Uh, the reality is, like you mentioned, that like we've talked about many times,
• 39:14
  this is a— this is a lot of what Kathy was up to was
• 39:18
  headed by, spearheaded by Adam Silver. And that is not going
• 39:21
  to change. Adam Silver is very much going to be at the— in
• 39:25
  the driver's seat of deciding who is the next commissioner. And that next commissioner
• 39:28
  is not going to be, you know, one of my friends today was like,
• 39:31
  oh, I really hope it's Lisa Leslie. And I was like, babe, guys,
• 39:35
  it's not going to be a, like, a beloved WNBA
• 39:39
  player at the head of like, that's not fucking happening. Tanya, what is it?
• 39:42
  What is a commissioner of a league's job?
• 39:46
  To do what the owners want them to do. You are the union head chief
• 39:49
  of the owners. You are not safeguarding the league. No,
• 39:52
  that's what the job is. We have pointed this out before. Yeah. There was
• 39:56
  a time when commissioners were more player friendly. These are billionaire
• 40:01
  owners. The commissioner exists to do their bidding. The commissioners
• 40:05
  are not player-friendly. If they are player-friendly, that is seen
• 40:09
  as antagonistic to the actual owners themselves. Yes. So the
• 40:13
  best we can— the best we can get at that position is
• 40:17
  somebody who will be willing
• 40:21
  in some way, shape, or form to communicate with the players in a much healthier,
• 40:24
  much more pro— like progressive and, um, invested way.
• 40:28
  Kathy started getting very distant and she wasn't reaching out.
• 40:31
  Like, she was just not a people person. They need a people person.
• 40:35
  What— that's the best they're gonna get. If you think they're gonna put somebody in
• 40:38
  there that's gonna be invested in the players over the owners, you've— it's just
• 40:42
  not gonna fucking happen. I agree. It's always gonna be the players union versus
• 40:46
  the owners in the league, and that's, that's the structure of these,
• 40:49
  these situations. So I don't hate to rain on people's parade, but like,
• 40:53
  I mean, I, I do hate to rain on people's parade, but it's gonna happen.
• 40:56
  It's, it's not gonna be Lisa Leslie. It's not gonna be NECA.
• 41:00
  It's, it's just not. It's not. And that's just— I am— as much as you
• 41:04
  want it to happen, it's not gonna happen. It's just, it's just the sad truth
• 41:06
  what this is. Yeah. Whoever's going in this spot, I'm willing to bet it's just
• 41:10
  gonna be another figurehead the same way Kathy Engelbert was. And that is just— or
• 41:12
  they're gonna find somebody who is like a, you know, an actual like you
• 41:16
  know, has some sort of like front office experience that like
• 41:20
  it can start to sort of take the reins from Adam Silver as the team
• 41:23
  grows a little bit. But we'll see what happens going forward. But listen,
• 41:27
  I still, I still think the WNBA is in a phenomenal spot. I love that
• 41:30
  Team USA was trending as hard as they were this morning. That actually made me
• 41:34
  so fucking happy to see women's basketball trending for something awesome today.
• 41:37
  FIBA was so fucking great. Yes. More of that, please. That the
• 41:42
  video of Angel fucking Reese guarding the 7'3 Chinese girl
• 41:45
  and fucking owning her. Also badass. Paige Bueckers is
• 41:49
  the funniest person alive. Did you see her? She went up to Zhang, the fucking—
• 41:53
  yeah, she's like 7'3, and Paige too shorted her.
• 41:58
  There's pictures of it. I'm like, Paige is such a little troll. I love her
• 42:01
  so much. And I saw Caitlin Clark make a fucking half court. Caitlin, like,
• 42:05
  everyone did their shit. Everybody was playing well. You know what I thought was really
• 42:08
  funny? What's that? Some Caitlin— Caitlin somehow wasn't flopping
• 42:12
  all over the court. In FIBA. No, she was— that was interesting. I actually really
• 42:16
  liked that, by the way. Uh, I didn't, because that— you know what that proves
• 42:19
  is that it's all a fucking performance. I agree. It's all a performance for
• 42:23
  her stupid racist bullshit fans. Now she gets over in China, she's like, you know
• 42:27
  what, in against China, and she can suddenly fucking get through a game without throwing
• 42:30
  herself into the stands. Wait, maybe— I want to be positive
• 42:35
  today. Give me a second. Hey, you can just hear me out. I'm not gonna
• 42:39
  stop you. What if it's the beginning of a new Caitlin Clark?
• 42:42
  Uh, maybe there's a new tough Caitlin Clark we're about to see.
• 42:45
  Tough? Okay, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say tough. Let's just fucking take— what if
• 42:49
  she's joining like a sweet biker gang and she's just like, I'm fucking not,
• 42:52
  I'm not flopping for shit, I'm a fucking jacked badass now?
• 42:56
  That type of shit. Okay, well, I think,
• 42:59
  I think we just getting to the point where she can get through a game
• 43:02
  without flopping— I loved it— is— I want more of it. I'm sure
• 43:05
  you do. We've all wanted that. I know, but this is the first time we
• 43:08
  got it. Maybe it's the sign of things to come. Does it not make you
• 43:11
  wonder why she flops so much in the WNBA. It has to be. It might
• 43:14
  be maybe because her fandom absolutely fucking— oh well, I mean,
• 43:18
  because Congress gets on her side. Tanya, did it cross my
• 43:21
  mind? Yes. Is it most likely always on my mind?
• 43:25
  Yes. Am I hoping for something better that can maybe counterpoint this
• 43:30
  for a second? Yes. All right, do I believe in the bullshit I'm
• 43:34
  saying right now? No, but I want to. And you know what, that's what matters.
• 43:38
  Um, all right, so a new version of you, please. Uh, check in on— check
• 43:42
  in on FIBA. It's been awesome. Team USA, we've got a lot— we've a lot
• 43:45
  to come with that group. And by the way, seeing all those women together is
• 43:48
  sick. There was a picture of, um, Angel, Paige, and Caitlin Clark, like,
• 43:52
  you know, or a video of them like all on the bench, like whatever.
• 43:54
  And I was like, God, what if they fucking love Team USA? What if they
• 43:57
  fucking like become best friends? What if her and Angel like become friends? Caitlin?
• 44:00
  Yeah, what did that happen? No, I don't think you under— like, I— she's not—
• 44:04
  I know, I know, she's not likable. But what if she's already best friends with
• 44:08
  Paige? Angel and Paige, it's too late. She's already got her white sidekick. It's It's
• 44:12
  too late. Um, the Pro Football Hall of Fame has overhauled the voting after
• 44:16
  the Bill Belichick snub disaster last year. Yes, and it was a disaster.
• 44:20
  It was a disaster. Uh, Bill Belichick did not get in first ballot.
• 44:23
  Don't know if you know, he has 8 Super Bowl rings. He was pretty
• 44:26
  good. I don't know, we've, we've been talking about him as the GOAT for a
• 44:29
  while. Pretty sure, pretty sure if someone's first ballot Hall of Fame as a head
• 44:32
  coach— it was a disaster. People were very mad about it,
• 44:36
  even media that normally doesn't say shit, was mad about it.
• 44:39
  Yeah, it was a disaster. The revised bylaws halved
• 44:43
  the voting body from 50 members to 25, which I found that
• 44:48
  to be really interesting. I'm not sure that that's a fix. Plus 3 non-voting members
• 44:51
  to comprise a 28-person selection committee. The voters are no longer
• 44:55
  designated by the past geographic model with 1 selector per
• 44:59
  club. Instead, there will be 27 at-large selectors and
• 45:02
  1 Pro Football Writers Association representative. What at-large
• 45:07
  selectors means, still a little bit of a mystery to me. Like, if like at-large
• 45:11
  is, is obviously an indicator that you're not covering one specific
• 45:15
  team, but that doesn't mean you don't have one specific team that you might have
• 45:18
  like regularly covered more or that you weren't on their beat before. It just means
• 45:22
  that you're currently not attached to a specific team. So I don't, I don't know
• 45:26
  about that. Candidates will need to secure 80% of the vote for enshrinement.
• 45:29
  Significantly, the controversial seniors designation given to players who
• 45:33
  had been retired for more than 25 years has been eliminated, with all former players
• 45:37
  now grouped into a single category. Previously, a maximum of
• 45:41
  3 seniors could be included on the ballot of finalists.
• 45:44
  Players also no longer graduate to the seniors category after a number
• 45:48
  of years, meaning all players, all player designees remain in the same pool.
• 45:52
  So this is gonna like, to me, this is gonna make it a little bit
• 45:55
  more convoluted than it even was before. I don't like
• 45:59
  reducing the pool. I don't like saying that they're at large
• 46:02
  when in reality you're still going to have the same sort of biases.
• 46:07
  And my biggest problem with this is that I don't
• 46:11
  genuinely— the only way that this makes me feel better about the snub,
• 46:15
  if you're like mad about the Bill Belichick snub, the only way it makes you
• 46:18
  feel better is if you think that he was snubbed because of the way that
• 46:21
  the voting was executed. He wasn't snubbed because
• 46:25
  of the voting. He was snubbed because He— the writers wanted to snub him.
• 46:28
  They wanted to send him— the voters were sending a message. The voters knew
• 46:32
  exactly what they were doing. The voters said, we, you know,
• 46:35
  we've been tortured by this dude for fucking 20 years. We have all of our
• 46:39
  beefs from across the course of time. He was never good to the media.
• 46:41
  He always antagonized us. They had their beef and they fucking took it out on
• 46:44
  him. Yep. Let's just be really fucking clear about that. It would have been very
• 46:48
  easy to vote Bill Belichick in last year. It was not a question. Nobody even
• 46:52
  considered it not happening. Like, everybody was shocked because it was going
• 46:56
  to be very easy for Bill Belichick to have been voted in. So this
• 47:00
  doesn't fix what snubbed Bill Belichick. Is he going to get in this year?
• 47:02
  Yes, of course he's going to get in this year. And that's that. But like,
• 47:05
  that doesn't fix that. And all it does is make it a little bit weirder.
• 47:09
  I don't know that I like this. I feel like it's like PR bullshit.
• 47:13
  It kind of is. And I get it less now,
• 47:16
  which is great. Yeah, sorry about that. And And,
• 47:20
  um, yeah, it's, it's a weird overcorrection of like of this
• 47:25
  weird convoluted nature because they're trying to save face from their very,
• 47:28
  very clear fuck. It seems like no one was on the same page. It seemed
• 47:31
  like 5 writers like, I'm gonna do this, it's gonna be funny, and then all
• 47:34
  the other ones are like doing the same exact thing, and then they fucking happen.
• 47:37
  Like, fuck. They were like, no, I was supposed to be the one who didn't
• 47:40
  vote for Bill. I was the protester. You weren't supposed to.
• 47:43
  Fuck. And now our votes
• 47:47
  Take it away. We are. Yeah, now, now half y'all asses are gone, by the
• 47:49
  way. Good job protesting. Great job. Fucking good job. Now you all lost your fucking
• 47:53
  vote. So, uh, that's what you get, I guess. I am actually intrigued to see
• 47:57
  who's— who the voters are because, uh, are they gonna announce that? I don't know.
• 48:00
  I mean, usually we can get a good sense of who the voters are.
• 48:03
  Usually they're, you know, um, people will say whether they are Hall of Fame voters
• 48:06
  and or, you know, whatever. So I'm gonna— you usually can find out.
• 48:10
  Oh, by the way, uh, it's funny, but I say Bill's got to bring the
• 48:12
  college girlfriend on stage next year just, uh, act like an asshole. No, I want
• 48:17
  her to give the speech. Jordan. I want Jordan to be right there.
• 48:20
  I want him to be— I want him to like wheel up in a wheelchair.
• 48:23
  I want this to be like— like, I want this to be extra creepy at
• 48:26
  this. Bill is so honored. Yeah, and he's just sitting there like
• 48:30
  in comatose mode. He looks like fucking Mitch McConnell. Here's the thing though,
• 48:34
  after seeing Bill Belichick at the Tom Brady roast,
• 48:37
  I'm like, I think a Bill Belichick acceptance speech is important
• 48:41
  to Yeah, because like he can be— I mean, I've always known
• 48:45
  this because I've covered the team, but like he can be charismatic
• 48:49
  when he wants to be. I've heard that from a lot of people, by the
• 48:51
  way. So, and we saw it when he was that, um, that one season during
• 48:54
  the media, like the way he got along with some of them. Yeah, he almost—
• 48:57
  the Reclamation Project. Yeah, it almost worked, and then he went to UNC and Jordan
• 49:02
  got further involved. Yeah, but like I do need to see the acceptance speech.
• 49:05
  I need to see the whole deal. I need to see who what players show
• 49:08
  up. He has some players that hate him. He has players that are very loyal
• 49:11
  to him. So yeah, but all in all, we just
• 49:15
  needed to shout out the fact that this was not an actual fucking reasonable change.
• 49:18
  They didn't change this because of a system like clerical
• 49:22
  error. No, this is PR. This was, this was them fixing people
• 49:26
  out of fucking voting again. All right. Headline number 4,
• 49:30
  Tanya. In LSU and the SEC's dizzying
• 49:34
  court battle, one thing is clear. No one's in charge,
• 49:37
  Cody. Dude, what a fucking rudderless ship. The latest reminder came 42
• 49:41
  minutes into Thursday's hearing in Louisiana District Court, in which more than 30
• 49:45
  athletes fought to be included within the NCAA rule change that effectively gave
• 49:49
  every athlete 5 years to play 5 seasons. That's when the SEC filed
• 49:53
  a federal lawsuit against one of its charter members, LSU, and high-profile
• 49:57
  football coaches Lane Kiffin over their intention to put some of their players
• 50:01
  on their roster. It complicated an already complicated
• 50:05
  situation that grew even more complicated when 9 hours later that district
• 50:09
  court ruled against the NCAA and the SEC. Who gets to decide
• 50:12
  whether a few dozen athletes, including a few who spent time in NFL training camps
• 50:16
  or signed as undrafted free agents, gets to extra— gets the extra year
• 50:20
  of eligibility to play this year? Who makes the rules? The answer should be
• 50:24
  the NCAA, but that's not the case. The district court judge ruled Thursday that the
• 50:27
  NCAA, at least on a preliminary basis can't enforce its rule that withholds
• 50:31
  an extra season from the departed members of the 2022 high school recruiting class.
• 50:35
  All of this stems from a relatively tame, by on-field standards,
• 50:40
  situation. The 2 most high-profile remaining plaintiffs in Louisiana signed
• 50:44
  NFL contracts as undrafted free agents.
• 50:47
  So this is Daquan Wright and Xavian Harris.
• 50:51
  Although both could contribute for LSU after starting every game for Kiffin's
• 50:55
  Rebels last season, Neither is expected to be the difference between finishing 8-4
• 50:59
  and making the college football playoff. So like, I need you guys to understand that
• 51:04
  this is 2 players who were on, on the Rebels last season,
• 51:08
  ended up in some training camps undrafted, and then were like, you know what,
• 51:11
  fuck it, we're going back. It's just not that fucking big
• 51:15
  of a deal. Now, why, Cody, do you think that, uh,
• 51:19
  an organization like the SEC, the NCAA, but the SEC specifically,
• 51:22
  would make something this big of a deal when
• 51:26
  it's actually not going to have a material effect on the game?
• 51:30
  What might be your thought process? My thought process is simply this,
• 51:34
  because it opens up a massive can of worms and it makes the
• 51:38
  NCAA what it's always been— officially a professional
• 51:42
  league. And that is something they're trying very hard
• 51:46
  to keep it from being labeled as. And if you make it a competing professional
• 51:51
  league, then people from the NFL opens up the floodgates of just— which is
• 51:54
  so fascinating to me because they've been making professional profits. They sure
• 51:59
  have. And their coaches have been making professional salaries. They sure
• 52:02
  have. So now that it's— now that their coaches can make all of this money
• 52:06
  and they can rake in absolutely enormous revenue and profit,
• 52:10
  that's fascinating. So why might
• 52:15
  they continue to be taking this to court? Because they're not— they've now lost
• 52:18
  the reins of their own operation? I'll tell you. It's because
• 52:22
  the NCAA would like everybody to believe that the
• 52:27
  problem here is not them. It's not any of that. It's not
• 52:30
  them refusing to institute anything in place that actually,
• 52:34
  like, creates specific legitimate guardrails. The problem is
• 52:37
  NIL. The problem is that the players are getting paid. These greedy players.
• 52:41
  Where have we heard that before? Where have we heard these greedy players
• 52:45
  before? Players, you know who needs make more money. The Nick Sabans of the world.
• 52:49
  Yeah. Dabo. Yeah. He's not making enough.
• 52:52
  Dabo Swinney's got to be making more. So this is— everybody's
• 52:57
  like, why don't— why has the NCAA let this become the Wild West?
• 53:01
  Or why? Why can't they get their shit together? Because they don't want
• 53:04
  to. They never did. What happens is if they— if
• 53:08
  this stays as unregulated and as much of a nightmare as humanly
• 53:11
  possible, they turn around and look at all the fans who miss our fake
• 53:15
  golden era of football that never existed. Never existed. And then they say, say,
• 53:19
  don't you guys remember when we used to be able to strip someone's Heisman
• 53:22
  for getting bought a car by boosters? Wasn't that better?
• 53:25
  Don't you guys love that? Because back then they had to stay on the
• 53:29
  team and then we could fuck them over later on. They don't want NIL to
• 53:33
  work. They saw the writing on the wall that the players were going to get
• 53:36
  paid, but they also saw an opportunity to say, hey, what if we just let
• 53:39
  the, the Wild West play out? What if we let the transfer portal
• 53:42
  get insane? What if we let— oh, I don't know, NCAA players suddenly
• 53:46
  be able to sign back with the teams if they've been on training camps.
• 53:49
  I bet we can turn a lot of fans up against the players.
• 53:52
  Fucking working. So I'm all over the internet and I'm watching people be
• 53:56
  like, this is a disaster. LSU is fucking stupid. Lane Kiffin, blah, blah,
• 53:59
  blah. Oh my God, guys, I am begging you. I am
• 54:03
  begging you to see the forest through the trees here.
• 54:06
  The NCAA and the SEC The
• 54:10
  most power-hungry, corrupt Power 5 conference
• 54:16
  is not the good guy here. The fucking
• 54:19
  2 undrafted fucking training
• 54:23
  camp players playing for Lane Kiffin at LSU are not the
• 54:27
  enemies. You are so— you're being so short-sighted
• 54:31
  here because you don't like Lane Kiffin and the SEC. I am on that list,
• 54:34
  by the way. Begging you. I'm begging you. I don't like Lane Kiffin. I'm on
• 54:38
  that list. I don't like LSU. I'm on that list. That's not what
• 54:42
  this is about. We have to take fandom out of this. They fucking prey on
• 54:45
  your inability to separate these 2 things.
• 54:49
  The SEC will never be the good guy when
• 54:54
  it comes to creating like fairness and equality.
• 54:58
  They don't actually think that, that college football should be fair.
• 55:02
  They are on record as saying they don't think it should be fair. They want
• 55:06
  money. More money. They want bigger TV deals. They think
• 55:09
  that they should get preferential treatment for carrying college football.
• 55:13
  Now, have they been? No, that's been the Big Ten, which is what their fucking
• 55:16
  problem is to begin with. And then I'm seeing people
• 55:20
  talk about they should kick LSU out of the SEC. You fucking morons,
• 55:23
  they're not kicking LSU out of the SEC. It's the 2nd highest fucking revenue team
• 55:27
  in their whole fucking conference. It's a charting member. LSU makes more money
• 55:31
  than every team but Alabama. Are you guys Okay.
• 55:36
  Okay, I'm done. So I don't think that players that
• 55:39
  play professionally should go back to college. That being said, that is not— they didn't
• 55:42
  play professionally. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm not done. That being
• 55:45
  said, my reasoning has nothing to do with anything other than they didn't
• 55:48
  play professionally. I just want to make that clear.
• 55:55
  But that is currently not happening. See, you happy? You're fucking happy.
• 56:02
  Fuck. I also, honestly, I'm not gonna lie, they could have played in the Super
• 56:05
  Bowl last year, and I'm not taking the SEC side, but I, I won't take
• 56:09
  the SEC side. Here's the thing, I will— I, this has gotten so
• 56:13
  ridiculous and become such a weird-ass disaster that I, I can't help but love
• 56:16
  it, and I hope it gets worse. Um, it's gonna, you know,
• 56:20
  it's great. I fucking love it. I hope they all kill— I hope they all
• 56:23
  fucking eat each other. Like, that's what I hope happens now.
• 56:26
  Um, I, I, I think the way I think,
• 56:30
  but not because of I'm on the NCAA side, because it's
• 56:34
  clear these motherfuckers are just doing whatever they can to fuck over people.
• 56:38
  Um, I, I mean this from the bottom of my heart. If you are
• 56:42
  thinking this is bad because of nostalgia,
• 56:45
  you are wrong. The end. Actually, I'll go a step further. If you think anything
• 56:50
  and your answer is nostalgia you're wrong about that thing.
• 56:53
  The end. It's just, it sucks. Nostalgia is a real bitch
• 56:57
  because nostalgia isn't real. Nostalgia is this feeling you get of a
• 57:00
  longing of a period that never happened. Like making America great again, back in
• 57:04
  the time when it was great. What years were those? Don't worry about that.
• 57:08
  What's important is that we make it great again. Also, who was it great for?
• 57:10
  It was great for some people. Right, right, right. So I can't stress enough,
• 57:13
  it's just this weird thing that people do.
• 57:17
  And if you find yourself on the side of the SEC and
• 57:20
  the NCAA, you should probably find
• 57:25
  out who's getting paid for what. That's exactly that. It's like, you know,
• 57:28
  sometimes I'll see, I'll see people and be like, hey, you do know that
• 57:32
  the thing you're saying, like, is, is a right-wing talking point,
• 57:36
  right? And they're like, but this specific thing. And I'm like, no, no, no.
• 57:39
  When, when you're siding with a known
• 57:43
  like bad actor with somebody or an institution
• 57:48
  who has never been on the right side of history,
• 57:51
  ever. You need to question.
• 57:54
  Now, you could say that. You could be like, well, Lane Kiffin. Lane Kiffin's one
• 57:57
  man. Now, granted, Lane Kiffin's one man, but the SEC
• 58:01
  and the NCAA are billion-dollar institutions. No, I agree. I completely know.
• 58:04
  But if your counterpoint is, but Lane Kiffin, I am willing to
• 58:08
  hear your argument because that fucking— I hate Lane Kiffin. See, but like, so it's
• 58:12
  really funny because like I hate Lane Kiffin, but like I name a— I,
• 58:15
  I can name, I don't know, there's other— one football
• 58:18
  coach I've ever not like, that I've ever thought like wasn't a
• 58:22
  bad deal. Excuse me, Bob Chesney is the greatest man who ever lived. Who?
• 58:25
  Bob Chesney. Bob Chesney? Bob Chesney, the current head coach of
• 58:30
  UCLA. Oh no, let me enjoy this.
• 58:33
  Bob Chesney out of JMU? You bet your ass. Okay. He took JMU to
• 58:38
  the fucking playoffs. Well, you know, when they went to UCLA instead of Penn State,
• 58:40
  that's a good— scandal is 3 minutes, 3 years away. He could have gone to
• 58:43
  Penn State. He went to UCLA. That's a good decision. Who cares? Was it
• 58:46
  a good decision? It's fucking Penn State. Yeah. You know what you did? You fucking
• 58:50
  know what you did. Well, I think everybody knows what they did. Well, they seem
• 58:53
  to have forgotten. I don't know if you heard what the new, like, wing they've
• 58:57
  just made for fucking Patino. Well, they've never cared. They've literally—
• 59:02
  Paterno. Paterno. Same thing. I was like, what did Patino do?
• 59:04
  Probably somebody. Well, he has done— he's done shit.
• 59:08
  Sorry, Paterno. So this is what I'm saying, that college football,
• 59:12
  more than anything, any— more than the NFL,
• 59:15
  is full of like absolute dirtbags. Yeah, it's the worst. So like Lane
• 59:18
  Kiffin is just a louder, like more out— like
• 59:23
  in so many ways, I almost respect it. Like, I, I almost
• 59:27
  respect how outwardly he doesn't give a fuck. Do I think Dabo
• 59:31
  Swinney has the fucking moral high ground on Lane Kiffin?
• 59:35
  No, they're in Same fucking level of bullshit,
• 59:38
  right? Like, fuck off. So yeah, I get it, guys, but like,
• 59:43
  Lane is just more— it's sort of like the shit that people are always talking
• 59:46
  about Bill Belichick too, where I was like, yeah, of course he fucking sucks.
• 59:50
  By the way, can I introduce you to the 30 other head
• 59:54
  coaches? I promise you, they're not like your favorite people. They really are.
• 59:57
  I will— the one person that I have literally never
• 1:00:01
  heard something about that, like, I would be surprised if something came out about them
• 1:00:04
  in the end as an NFL head coach is Mike Tomlin. That's it. Same.
• 1:00:08
  That's it. Same. 100% same. So, so we've done it. We've gotten
• 1:00:11
  through our headlines. Took us an hour to do it, but we felt like it
• 1:00:14
  was our greatest hits, so we had to do it. But let's get some more
• 1:00:16
  greatest hits over here. We only have one media corner story, but it's the greatest
• 1:00:20
  hits because we talked about this at a very, very, very high
• 1:00:23
  level for a long, long, long, long time. And those of you that are wondering,
• 1:00:27
  oh, have you changed your mind? Are you guys no longer on the side of
• 1:00:30
  Diana Rossini because of this Athletic report? No. Fuck The Athletic. Can't stress enough,
• 1:00:34
  very much still on Diana Rossini's side. Tanya, take it away.
• 1:00:37
  Uh, I will say The Athletic, we like— I do think that
• 1:00:41
  they're putting out like some reporting that matters. And so like, this is what's so
• 1:00:45
  interesting about this is The Athletic said Rossini's relationship with a
• 1:00:49
  coach violated its standards. Now I want to go through that a little bit because
• 1:00:53
  as soon as I started reading this, I was like, interesting, I wonder what they're
• 1:00:56
  gonna say violates their standards. I'd love to know if they're going to
• 1:00:59
  put on the record what their standards are. So they
• 1:01:03
  said that their internal investigation found that the relationship between Diana
• 1:01:07
  Rossini and Mike Vrabel was a clear violation of the company's standards.
• 1:01:11
  The report detailed findings of its month-long investigation. The Athletic
• 1:01:15
  said that the relationship gave the appearance of a conflict of interest and
• 1:01:19
  Ms. Rossini should have revealed it to the company regardless
• 1:01:22
  of whether the relationship was romantic. It was a breach and should have been
• 1:01:26
  disclosed. The Times and The Athletic declined to comment beyond what's in the
• 1:01:30
  investigation. Rossini did not respond for comment, said in a statement to The
• 1:01:34
  Athletic, I stand by any and all reporting I've done in my career.
• 1:01:38
  In its report, The Athletic said it neither completed— it neither
• 1:01:42
  completed an investigation nor reached any conclusion about the nature of the
• 1:01:46
  full relationship between Vrabel and Rossini. But the totality of the
• 1:01:50
  public photographs are enough to conclude a violation of company
• 1:01:53
  policy. Specifically, The Athletic said Ms. Rossini had failed to comply
• 1:01:57
  with the policy that requires its journalists to reveal those sources or
• 1:02:01
  affiliations that may put into question our ability to be credible.
• 1:02:05
  The report also noted, without elaborating, that Rossini had shared with them a story to
• 1:02:08
  explain the photos that did not align with the facts. So I
• 1:02:12
  would like you to just note what I said in there, which was that they
• 1:02:16
  didn't do a fucking investigation. They revealed
• 1:02:20
  the investigation that was not an investigation. They did
• 1:02:24
  the same level of investigation, at least what they're revealing to us,
• 1:02:28
  that you and I did. They looked at the fucking photographs, saw,
• 1:02:32
  oh, these people clearly had some sort of relationship that was beyond just,
• 1:02:36
  you know, uh, reporter and, and source.
• 1:02:40
  And they were like, hey, you should have told us. Now fine, you should have
• 1:02:42
  told us. Fine, okay. That's really
• 1:02:46
  fascinating. What exactly are the types of relationships that your
• 1:02:50
  insiders and reporters are allowed to have without reporting
• 1:02:54
  it to you as a potential conflict
• 1:02:58
  of interest? Are you allowed to be on a yacht drinking alcohol?
• 1:03:02
  Are you allowed to be out at a club doing who
• 1:03:06
  knows what in those clubs? Are you allowed to be at a
• 1:03:10
  country club corner booth? Are you allowed
• 1:03:13
  to meet up on vacation at the pool? Are you allowed to host
• 1:03:17
  pool parties? Interesting. This is a question that Awful Announcing
• 1:03:21
  posed when they were looking at, you know, the interesting
• 1:03:25
  conversations around what insiderdom is.
• 1:03:29
  Because the brightest, the biggest and brightest
• 1:03:32
  of all NFL insiders, Adam Schefter, has been caught in precarious positions on multiple
• 1:03:37
  occasions. There was, of course, the infamous email unearthed in which he
• 1:03:41
  called Washington GM Bruce Allen for approval, calling him Mr.
• 1:03:45
  Editor. Then there's his complete lack of neutrality towards anyone from Michigan,
• 1:03:49
  whether that's disgraced former head coach Jerome Moore or J.J.
• 1:03:52
  McCarthy. Schefter was also at the center of one of the more bizarre stories
• 1:03:56
  of the summer in the NFL, the car accident involving 49ers head coach Kyle
• 1:03:59
  Shanahan. By the way,
• 1:04:05
  After all, he helped Kyle's father write a book
• 1:04:09
  about their time in Denver when Mike coached the Broncos and Schefter wrote for the
• 1:04:12
  Denver Post. Conveniently, Schefter's reporting didn't include any unflattering
• 1:04:16
  details about Shanahan, such as his use of a cell phone or being deemed at
• 1:04:20
  fault for the accident. Insiderdom is a world where Jay Glazer hosts
• 1:04:24
  pool parties for NFL coaches and cuts off players who don't want to be workout
• 1:04:28
  buddies. Oh, you didn't know about that? Oh, he stops. Okay.
• 1:04:31
  Oh, it's a world where their agents now make sure to get their handles in
• 1:04:35
  transaction announcements so they can get proper due, even if it means
• 1:04:38
  people suddenly get labeled a tight end guru. It's a world where
• 1:04:42
  what matters most is whoever can copy and paste from the group chat to
• 1:04:46
  social media first in a race against the clock. So what I want to know,
• 1:04:50
  Cody— yes— is what is an appropriate
• 1:04:54
  relationship for an NFL insider? No fucking idea.
• 1:04:58
  But apparently, apparently Diana Rossini
• 1:05:02
  is the wrong kind. I can't stress this enough,
• 1:05:06
  this is fucking stupid. I don't know how to say it. It's sexist,
• 1:05:10
  stupid bullshit. If you think people aren't fucking each other in this
• 1:05:13
  industry, you're wrong. Hell, if you think some men aren't fucking each other in this
• 1:05:16
  industry, you're very wrong. I don't know what else to tell you other than this
• 1:05:20
  is so fucking stupid, I don't know what to do with myself. Myself. This has
• 1:05:24
  been one of the most nauseating stories I've ever watched in my life. By the
• 1:05:27
  way, Dana Ruisini, awesome chick, great person. I love every single time
• 1:05:31
  I've ever chatted with her. Literally never met someone who doesn't like her. I've never
• 1:05:34
  met someone who she didn't treat well. I literally beloved universally.
• 1:05:39
  I have, by the way, had heard far fewer stories
• 1:05:43
  about her relationships with sources than I had any of the men I just brought
• 1:05:46
  up. Boy, who they don't even— Jay Glazer has made an entire,
• 1:05:50
  an entire career out of being their buddy.
• 1:05:54
  Buddy. Like, that's what it is. Friendly friends going on vacations,
• 1:05:59
  apparently getting into drama with them. Oh,
• 1:06:02
  okay. But Fox put him on NFL Sunday every— no problem. Okay.
• 1:06:06
  Adam Schefter is a disaster. We've completely been talking about that.
• 1:06:10
  Did we not mention Shams today putting out whatever's put in front of him,
• 1:06:13
  period? And these are the— just the people that are constantly
• 1:06:18
  being talked about. I have been watching it firsthand my entire career.
• 1:06:22
  It is— you can say that you hate it or like— we don't actually even
• 1:06:26
  have to take a moral stance on it. What I'm telling you is it's not
• 1:06:29
  any different. I'm telling you that when you create a personal
• 1:06:34
  relationship with a source, that is no different whether
• 1:06:38
  it is romantic or platonic, because at the end of the day,
• 1:06:42
  there are feelings getting hurt, there are lines being crossed
• 1:06:46
  in both types of relationships. There are risks
• 1:06:50
  to both types of relationships. Have you ever had a friend breakup? They're worse sometimes
• 1:06:54
  than real breakups. I have had— I have been broken up
• 1:06:58
  by a best friend in a way that almost ruined my life.
• 1:07:01
  That would be like legitimately worse on my ability to stay
• 1:07:05
  unbiased than someone I was just— who I just happened to be like fucking.
• 1:07:09
  Now, I don't— again, I don't know the nature of their relationship because it really
• 1:07:12
  just— apparently no one's going to investigate it because they can't.
• 1:07:15
  Love that for— I love that all these leaks resulted in like,
• 1:07:19
  oh, we still don't really have anything but these photos, you know? Like, and by
• 1:07:22
  the way, I saw somebody making a joke. She's like, yeah, she's gonna just go
• 1:07:25
  and do a podcast and yada yada. I can't wait for her to fucking talk.
• 1:07:28
  I hope she does. I hope she does, dude. I hope she fucking burns all
• 1:07:31
  you motherfuckers to the ground. She's funny and cool and hot. Like, do a podcast.
• 1:07:35
  Do it. Do a podcast. Because like, I want to hear— she has so much
• 1:07:38
  information. She has so much insight. She knows ball. She does. Like,
• 1:07:41
  so like, like, truly, like, Diana Rossini is like exactly who I
• 1:07:45
  like want in this industry. Uh, you mean a female that's cool as
• 1:07:49
  shit, everyone likes, and she's really good at her job? Okay,
• 1:07:52
  yeah, yeah, I want her in the industry. Like, what is fucking wrong with all
• 1:07:56
  you people? Oh, she might have had an affair with somebody.
• 1:07:59
  That ain't your business or my business. And you know for a fucking fact
• 1:08:02
  every fucking coach is probably having an affair with somebody.
• 1:08:06
  Like, it's okay if it's a waitress,
• 1:08:09
  but It can't be Diana Rusev. I'm just like, this is so fucking stupid.
• 1:08:13
  I don't— it's just so fucking— the amount of, the amount of, the amount
• 1:08:17
  of illicit sexual relationships in
• 1:08:20
  these, in this industry is so mind-bogglingly
• 1:08:25
  high that like, this, this was essentially— The Athletic
• 1:08:29
  just confirmed it for me. I feel like the people at The Athletic were like,
• 1:08:31
  well, we can't say too much because we're all having affairs too. Like, they did.
• 1:08:35
  Yeah, probably. Fucking investigation. Why are all— but just
• 1:08:39
  side note, everyone apparently has affairs. I'm like, I never did that. It's not necessarily—
• 1:08:42
  so it's not necessarily like, oh, we're lying to our significant other. I— there's a
• 1:08:47
  lot of understandings. There's a lot of— right,
• 1:08:50
  there's a lot of like, you know, whatever. There are affairs, 100%. There's that
• 1:08:54
  too, like secret ones, shady ones. And then there's people just—
• 1:08:58
  the world is full of adults that don't follow the rules that were,
• 1:09:02
  you know, When you are cool and in a cool industry,
• 1:09:05
  sometimes things get a little— they're a little crazy. I'm gonna break
• 1:09:09
  away from societal norms. Societal norms have killed us all,
• 1:09:12
  gang. They've killed us all, people. I mean, it's starting to— I mean,
• 1:09:16
  is it not starting to seem like we maybe like prejudge the whole thing?
• 1:09:19
  Like, everybody's marriages are still intact, by the way. Isn't that
• 1:09:22
  weird? Nobody seems that mad.
• 1:09:26
  I don't know what to say, man. Oh, by the way, Mocha's not
• 1:09:31
  the chat. Love and miss y'all. Mocha's not here today. Mocha's sick today, which is
• 1:09:33
  why I got this remote over here. I'm trying to do Mocha's job, which is
• 1:09:36
  why things have been a little janky today. Uh, Mocha, we love you.
• 1:09:39
  Feel better. We can't wait to have you back. So weird that he just messaged,
• 1:09:42
  because I just looked over at that empty chair. I deadass— by the way,
• 1:09:44
  I, I, I said something and looked right, hoping that Mocha was there, and he
• 1:09:48
  wasn't. I'm like, oh, fuck. I needed, I needed a millennial voice.
• 1:09:52
  I mean, I needed the Gen Z voice. I feel like we needed him to
• 1:09:54
  like laugh at us while we were talking about like— yeah, this is not dog
• 1:09:58
  shit podcasting. It's, it's not. If I'm in it,
• 1:10:02
  it's that it's not. Okay, you're right. Well, it's because you're attractive. Exactly. Yeah,
• 1:10:06
  no matter what, I'm trying to bring the funny. Okay, I am so sick
• 1:10:09
  of having to be the hot one on this. You are also hot. Slow down.
• 1:10:13
  I have been throwing out some thirst traps. That's what I'm saying. No, I've been
• 1:10:16
  trying to, but I'm not gonna be the only one taking credit. What I
• 1:10:20
  need help with is is because, like, I've told you this before, and this is
• 1:10:24
  not hyperbolic, this is not a joke, I don't get me.
• 1:10:28
  I don't. I look in the mirror, I'm like, that— this is just a better
• 1:10:32
  kept together Jay Decker, and that is not the greatest bar in the world.
• 1:10:35
  Oh yeah, well, nobody else has seen Jay Decker, so they're not projecting that onto
• 1:10:39
  you. But I have. Okay, uh, so that being said, I just need to learn,
• 1:10:42
  like, for instance, why— why is Daddy wearing black today?
• 1:10:45
  Because Tanya said I looked hot in and black. Yeah, I don't know if that's
• 1:10:49
  true, but she said it, so I'm gonna fucking trust it. Because your summer tan,
• 1:10:53
  the all black with the glasses, like, it's— it gives a whole vibe. Okay,
• 1:10:57
  so I got a vibe today. So I'm working, I'm trying to learn. Listen,
• 1:11:00
  I'm turning 40, uh, in just a couple of months, and I— and it's not
• 1:11:04
  like a midlife crisis, it's more like I need to know what to do with
• 1:11:07
  40. That's all. This is 40? Are you gonna do it? No, no, I just—
• 1:11:10
  I want to know what to do with it. Okay, I think— I think you're
• 1:11:13
  doing with it— the guy I want to age exactly like at this point is
• 1:11:17
  Dave Bautista. Well, you might have to do steroids for that.
• 1:11:21
  Uh, I'm— well, actually, he's gotten really jacked. He's getting jacked again.
• 1:11:25
  Yeah, God of War. But yeah, but like right now we're roughly the same size.
• 1:11:28
  Are you? Roughly, yeah. Well, he's taller than me. He's way taller than me.
• 1:11:30
  Oh, is he tall? I think so. I think he's like 6'3. Oh, I'm only
• 1:11:33
  5'11. I never— I'm aware. I'll tell you, I've never broken the 6-foot mark,
• 1:11:37
  which is why I'm very proud of it, because some— I am so proud of
• 1:11:40
  you for not saying you're 6 feet. Yeah, I hate when people do that.
• 1:11:43
  No, no, 5'11. Never got to 6-foot marker. By the way, my mom wants
• 1:11:47
  proof that— she wants to see the suit with the
• 1:11:51
  tats exposed. She specifically told me that
• 1:11:55
  she wants to see what that looks like. She wants visual confirmation
• 1:11:58
  that it looks as cool because she, she's into it. She's into the whole vibe.
• 1:12:02
  So you might have to debut that look at some point. Mama Fox, you're gonna
• 1:12:06
  love Tuesday's show. It just comes in full time. I'm gonna wear a 3-piece
• 1:12:10
  suit And I'm going to fucking take off the jacket mid-show. And guess what?
• 1:12:14
  Cufflinks are coming up and rolling up the sleeves just ever so
• 1:12:18
  slightly. And I'll just, I'll just do the whole show like that. That's interesting,
• 1:12:21
  Tanya. Tell me more. What do you mean? Hold on.
• 1:12:25
  Tell me more about— it's like someone with their cleavage. I'm going to wear 2
• 1:12:28
  fucking watches. Just fucking— so you can do either one. Oh my God.
• 1:12:32
  That's interesting. Oh, tell me. You should drink a martini too. Oh, don't fucking threaten
• 1:12:36
  me with a good time. I'll drink a martini. Martini Tuesdays, baby. Martini Tuesdays.
• 1:12:40
  So we— yeah, we don't care. We like— uh,
• 1:12:43
  Athletic didn't do an investigation. They just acted like a bunch of people. They're like,
• 1:12:46
  oh, you guys saw photos too, right? Oh, that's why. So whatever.
• 1:12:50
  Like, dude, this is so fucking stupid. I can't wait for Diana Roussine to be
• 1:12:52
  back. Insiders all do what Diana did.
• 1:12:56
  And to be quite honest, maybe worse. If Diana said, hey, it never affected my
• 1:12:59
  reporting— you— and you have no evidence it did, by the way. You have no—
• 1:13:03
  no evidence. Did she ever write a Mr. Editor to anybody? Nope. No, just checking.
• 1:13:06
  Just checking. I think that's so fucking— did you ever publicly admit to
• 1:13:10
  kicking someone out of their friend group because they wouldn't work out with them?
• 1:13:12
  No. Oh, that's weird either. Those are 2 things that I would honestly say are
• 1:13:16
  fucking worse. So interesting. Uh,
• 1:13:19
  justice for Diana. Can't wait to see what she does next. Oh, and I hope—
• 1:13:21
  and I hope to God she takes a tomahawk specifically to Aaron Rodgers. Not sure
• 1:13:25
  what for, but I hope she does it. Um, Cody? Yes?
• 1:13:30
  I finally caught up on Lanterns.
• 1:13:33
  Pop Culture Corner. I want to make this abundantly clear. I want
• 1:13:37
  to, I want to, I want to give everybody a quick little thing. I am
• 1:13:40
  a massive comic book nerd, like a massive. I have in my possession— well,
• 1:13:44
  it's in, in, it's in my storage, but I have over 5,000 comic books.
• 1:13:47
  I have like 1,000 trade paperbacks. I worked at a comic book shop when I
• 1:13:51
  was in high school. I worked at another comic book shop when I was at
• 1:13:53
  UCLA in college. I, I love comic books. I love the lore
• 1:13:57
  of comic books. I have too much of a psyche encyclopedic
• 1:14:01
  knowledge of comic books and their lores, both Marvel and DC, but I'm a bigger
• 1:14:04
  DC guy myself. Okay. And specifically around DC,
• 1:14:08
  my favorite comic book of all time, my favorite character of all
• 1:14:12
  time, is Hal Jordan's Green Lantern. Okay, so this was
• 1:14:16
  pre— like, like since you were a kid? So when I say,
• 1:14:19
  okay, I've been fucking waiting for this,
• 1:14:23
  I was waiting in 2011 for the
• 1:14:27
  other Green Lantern movie. I'm so sorry that happened to you.
• 1:14:31
  Side note, it was directed by Martin Campbell, who is one of my
• 1:14:35
  favorite action directors. He did Casino Royale and GoldenEye. It was— the cast
• 1:14:39
  was nuts. It was starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan. It's like a perfect casting.
• 1:14:42
  And it was— the music score was by James Newton Howard, who is one of
• 1:14:46
  the greatest composers who have ever done, uh, cinemas. This movie
• 1:14:50
  was dog shit. I, I'm still so mad about it. Still so fucking mad
• 1:14:54
  about it. Like, I, I forgive everyone because the movie's not like a a complete
• 1:14:56
  lost cause. It's just like, I— it ended, I'm like, that, that was,
• 1:15:00
  that was it? It was pretty bad. It's a fucking space epic, that was it?
• 1:15:04
  And that's why I was worried when they initially announced what this show was going
• 1:15:06
  to be. It was going to be like this detective show, like True Detective show.
• 1:15:09
  And then I'm like, you know what, then I'm like, but I kind of like
• 1:15:11
  the idea of it having being a buddy cop thing that could be like a
• 1:15:13
  little bit more gritty, because Green Lantern's kind of gritty. I would love to see
• 1:15:17
  like an epic space opera, but you know what, I'll take this. This actually sounds
• 1:15:19
  cool. It's fucking perfect. It's fucking perfect.
• 1:15:24
  Kyle Chandler, you're fucking perfect. Perfect. You're perfect.
• 1:15:29
  You're perfect. I love you. Perfect. Cody loves Kyle
• 1:15:33
  Chandler. I didn't even know I liked Kyle Chandler until this show. I can't believe
• 1:15:37
  you didn't know that. I didn't know enough about Kyle Chandler. I've seen him in
• 1:15:39
  a bunch of shit, but I've never really realized that. I'm like, holy shit,
• 1:15:42
  he's the best actor, like, ever. He's so good in this. Oh, good. He's so
• 1:15:45
  good in this. Um, here's the thing. You haven't watched season episode 3?
• 1:15:49
  No, episode 1 and 2. But I do know what episode 3 is almost entirely
• 1:15:52
  about. I don't have the details of the episode, but I know it's— so we'll
• 1:15:54
  only really like— we'll get through season 2 or episode
• 1:15:58
  2. If there's people who haven't watched who want to watch, we probably will talk
• 1:16:01
  about— I did hear real quick about episode 3 before we— because I know we're
• 1:16:04
  not going to touch on episode 3, but I know it's entirely about the backstory
• 1:16:07
  of John Stewart specifically, the African-American Green Lantern.
• 1:16:10
  And I did see the discourse online of a bunch of dumb fucks who,
• 1:16:14
  uh, or claim to be comic book nerds but are actually just a bunch of
• 1:16:17
  racist assholes. Oh, the, the comic book nerds and the lore people, like the This
• 1:16:20
  happens with the Star Wars people, it happens with the Star Trek people, it happens
• 1:16:23
  with like— well, not Star Trek because they've always— no, that's actually the woke group.
• 1:16:26
  Um, it happens with like all of these like fandoms that get pissy about
• 1:16:30
  it. But, um, spoiler alert, we will talk about a couple of things.
• 1:16:34
  So first of all, I think that Aaron Pierre is
• 1:16:37
  like such— like, I didn't really know much about him going
• 1:16:41
  into this. Like, I obviously had seen him like in— bothers me
• 1:16:44
  how handsome he is. Yeah, I mean, like frighteningly handsome. I think he's so handsome,
• 1:16:48
  but I also think he's like interesting looking enough that it's not just like a
• 1:16:50
  boring level of— he's got to— you know what it is? He's got those striking
• 1:16:53
  eyes, so it's like he's like really— it's everything
• 1:16:56
  about his features is like makes him look like very like, like striking
• 1:17:01
  on camera in a way that's like just not boring handsome. Yeah. Um, but like
• 1:17:05
  also he's playing the— you know when
• 1:17:08
  sometimes people do stoic, it's,
• 1:17:11
  it's very one note? Yes. He is not doing
• 1:17:15
  one note. No, he is not. It is is so like refreshing. It almost
• 1:17:19
  feels like somebody I've met before in the real world, like an actual person
• 1:17:22
  that exists that's like, oh no, I'm like, like, I'm like reserved, but I'm
• 1:17:27
  not like a boring loser. I'm not like a fucking buzzkill,
• 1:17:30
  right? And they always turn stoic into buzzkill. Yeah.
• 1:17:33
  And they're not doing that with him. No, because like episode
• 1:17:38
  1, he fucks. Yeah. Which I love. I love.
• 1:17:41
  I was like, okay, okay. Kyle Chandler. I mean, Hal Jordan
• 1:17:45
  was also like, okay, it was like the first moment that he realized he liked
• 1:17:48
  Jon Stewart. Yeah, he was like, all right, it's like we've been here for 12
• 1:17:52
  hours. Yeah, well done. But like,
• 1:17:56
  that's a big part of it for me was I already knew I was gonna
• 1:17:59
  love— I knew Kyle Chandler in this role was gonna work. It made
• 1:18:03
  so much sense to me, and he's been fucking amazing, and he's
• 1:18:07
  so hot. He looks great. Aaron Pierre's so hot. He looks great.
• 1:18:10
  By the way, everyone in the show is kind of hot, to be quite honest.
• 1:18:13
  Everyone's really good looking. Everybody looks great.
• 1:18:16
  And the, the— I am not, unlike you,
• 1:18:20
  not— I've never been like huge into DC. I wasn't a
• 1:18:24
  comic books kid. I got into comics or like the
• 1:18:28
  lore of superheroes with the influx
• 1:18:32
  of the like Marvel Universe,
• 1:18:36
  and then retroactively got super, super into X-Men.
• 1:18:40
  Okay, so like X-Men's got— honestly, as far as the Marvel Universe
• 1:18:44
  goes, even though I like other, other characters a little bit more, I do think
• 1:18:47
  of the best nuanced stories have always been X-Men. So once I started getting into
• 1:18:51
  the Marvel Universe of those movies, I started watching the
• 1:18:54
  X-Men movies, the original ones that they made like when we were kids
• 1:18:58
  or like younger. Like, have you watched X-Men '97 yet?
• 1:19:02
  What is that? Oh,
• 1:19:03
  tell Is it one of the older ones? I don't know. So, no, so have
• 1:19:07
  I— so X-Men was really popular. The reason why the X-Men movie was like the
• 1:19:09
  thing that really kind of jump-started the like comic book movie trend— actually,
• 1:19:14
  I would actually say Blade did it first, but then X-Men came on. X-Men hit
• 1:19:18
  a lot of nostalgia for a lot of people in the '90s because X-Men was
• 1:19:21
  super popular in the '90s because of the X-Men Fox Kids television show, right?
• 1:19:25
  So it retroactively has been retitled X-Men '90s.
• 1:19:29
  '97. Okay, DC, uh, Disney+ brought back the series, a sequel
• 1:19:33
  series to the old X-Men cartoon, and they titled it X-Men '97. Okay,
• 1:19:37
  2 seasons in, it's maybe the best Marvel property that exists.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, yeah, it's so good. I would love that. Like, I love the X-Men,
• 1:19:44
  I love those stories. So that was like always my— once
• 1:19:49
  I started getting into that, whatever it was, 15 years ago, that was like
• 1:19:53
  my lane was Marvel, and like DC was still out of my radar. And then
• 1:19:57
  when— and then DC just wasn't catching up in terms of making good stuff that
• 1:20:00
  I could get interested into the lore. I understand. But the few things that I
• 1:20:04
  have really liked, I have. And I knew fucking shit all
• 1:20:08
  about Green Lantern. I knew nothing. I've just like
• 1:20:12
  known nothing. Anytime I get into something, I then retroactively
• 1:20:15
  go back and start like going through lore. I did this with Game of Thrones.
• 1:20:19
  I did this— anything that's like super lore-heavy, whether it
• 1:20:22
  is comic books or like novels or whatever else, if if the— if I'm introduced
• 1:20:26
  through it through a visual medium, I'm then going to be a nerd-ass fucking ADHD
• 1:20:30
  hyperfixated on figuring out the whole world. And I will
• 1:20:35
  say I haven't done that with this show specifically for the
• 1:20:38
  reason of wanting to experience this specific take on
• 1:20:43
  it that is clearly grounded in like modern
• 1:20:49
  like racial dynamics and modern, um, class dynamics.
• 1:20:52
  By the way, part of the comic too. Right, which I know. I know he—
• 1:20:56
  I know him being a Black, um,
• 1:20:59
  Lantern is a big deal and it's discussed. But I also like—
• 1:21:03
  for, for me specifically, this is grounded in our timeline,
• 1:21:07
  like in our— in, in— so they start in— there's a reason they did 2016,
• 1:21:11
  right? 2016 was the year Trump was first elected. That was a
• 1:21:16
  fucking choice. Like, for me, that's like such a specific choice. It could have been
• 1:21:19
  2015, it could have been 2017, it was 2016. And then we're grounded back into
• 1:21:22
  2026. Something there. Um, so like,
• 1:21:26
  I'm trying to like resist the super, super spoiler stuff, but I am listening to
• 1:21:30
  companion podcasts, um, from my 2 favorite people who
• 1:21:33
  do like lore stuff. Yeah, that are like gonna give me some of the backs—
• 1:21:37
  the backstory. So having said all that,
• 1:21:41
  this— like, I can't get enough of this show. Like, I think it's— I genuinely
• 1:21:45
  think it's so fucking good. I think it's like funny.
• 1:21:50
  First of all, Kyle Chandler is funny as fuck. Yes. I don't understand
• 1:21:54
  how he's so fucking funny. So fucking funny in this. The writers are using him
• 1:21:56
  perfectly. It's amazing. The homages to, by the way, Friday Night Lights,
• 1:22:00
  right up my fucking alley. Obviously everybody knows I love Friday Night Lights and
• 1:22:05
  the homages are like they continue to come through big
• 1:22:09
  time. The amount of time he spends on a football field is just fucking delightful
• 1:22:13
  for me. It's just great. By the way, The one
• 1:22:16
  thing, uh, do you know who was originally offered that role and did
• 1:22:20
  turn it down? How? Yeah, he wasn't the first choice. Tell me. There was
• 1:22:24
  someone else that was offered the role. Tell me. And he— you could see,
• 1:22:27
  you'll see it— Josh Brolin.
• 1:22:32
  That's good. It would have been good because he's also funny. But I
• 1:22:37
  honestly, and I'm not saying this for— I think this is better. I think
• 1:22:40
  this— because I— but Josh Brolin did say something that he might
• 1:22:44
  have let something out of the bag. I firmly believe this might happen.
• 1:22:48
  I think Josh Brolin might be the DCU Batman.
• 1:22:51
  Really? Because he, he, he kind of said like, oh yeah,
• 1:22:54
  I'm interested, but like, we're gonna have
• 1:22:58
  to— he's like, we had different— we had our talks continued afterwards. Okay. I'm like,
• 1:23:02
  no, no, he wants something else. And there's only one part that I think this
• 1:23:05
  would work, and it would be Batman. This is better. He'd be— so I'll tell
• 1:23:09
  you why this is better. Number one, I I'm a big Men in Black person,
• 1:23:13
  and Josh Brolin was young Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black 3.
• 1:23:17
  Yes, alien-adjacent superhero style shit. You are correct.
• 1:23:20
  Same sort of vibe of like gruff, like, you know,
• 1:23:24
  vibe, whatever. I, I needed Kyle. This Kyle
• 1:23:29
  Chandler is perfect. Like, and I know his— I know he's gray is
• 1:23:32
  perfect. And I know once they had him is why they, they sort of centered
• 1:23:36
  certain— like, there's no way that they needed everything to happen on a goddamn football
• 1:23:41
  field originally, right? So I know that, but like, it's worked out so beautifully.
• 1:23:44
  Um, and but they are super similar now that you say it, like, in the
• 1:23:47
  way that they are this like gruff, handsome, but also
• 1:23:51
  like so sneaky funny and dry in their delivery.
• 1:23:55
  Um, but I also do think that Kyle Chandler
• 1:23:59
  has a like confused
• 1:24:04
  uh, element to his, to his humor
• 1:24:08
  that Josh Brolin doesn't. Josh Brolin is always a little bit more angry and edgy,
• 1:24:12
  and like, to me, Kyle Chandler's always just like, I don't
• 1:24:16
  understand why you're fucking with me right now. And there's like an edginess to his
• 1:24:19
  confusion that I really, really like. I knew his portrayal was gonna be perfect with
• 1:24:23
  his first line. His first line when he rolls up and pulls
• 1:24:27
  up the car, because you know the cliché line, you're right. Yeah, he just pulls
• 1:24:30
  up, nothing's said, and he just announces is it? I'm late. I'm late.
• 1:24:35
  I'm like, fuck, he's perfect. And then Pierre was perfect when he was
• 1:24:38
  like— when he was like, aren't you mad? And he was like, no sir.
• 1:24:41
  And he just kept calling him sir every— why does it sound like every time
• 1:24:45
  you say sir it sounds more and more like fuck you? He's like, I'm not
• 1:24:49
  sure. Yeah, sir, sir. It's so good. So good. It's great dialogue, but it's
• 1:24:53
  great performance. I will say the, the introduction of all the lore,
• 1:24:57
  they did a really good job of like showing us the suit Showing us the
• 1:24:59
  Lantern, showing us— what did they— the, like, revealing what
• 1:25:04
  a Manhunter is, which I'm still figuring out what a Manhunter is, but they gave
• 1:25:06
  us enough. And so I'll tell you what, we got to see Sinestro, which I
• 1:25:09
  did not think was gonna happen. So fun fact, so here are what the Manhunters
• 1:25:13
  are. Yeah, before the Green Lanterns ever existed,
• 1:25:16
  the Guardians of the Universe, who you have now met because you've seen episode 3—
• 1:25:20
  yeah, the Guardians of the Universe created a robot
• 1:25:24
  army called the Manhunters. And in there— and it was working.
• 1:25:27
  It was their intergalactic police force, these things called Manhunters.
• 1:25:31
  Until one Guardian went rogue, wanted to prove how bad of an idea
• 1:25:35
  this was and how easily corrupted they could be. So he purposely corrupted
• 1:25:38
  them. And in Sector— and yes, this is very
• 1:25:42
  much on purpose— in Sector 666, a group of Manhunters
• 1:25:46
  brutalized and massacred the entire sector based
• 1:25:51
  on what this one Guardian did. So then the Guardians decided we have
• 1:25:54
  to destroy all the Manhunters. So they did, except for several Manhunters
• 1:25:59
  that were able to escape the Guardians' destruction of their own creation.
• 1:26:02
  But— and then they created the Green Lantern Corps.
• 1:26:05
  But why would they call them Manhunters if like
• 1:26:09
  they had mostly ignored Earth? Which is like— why?
• 1:26:12
  Probably because comic book writers in the 1960s
• 1:26:17
  were not as imaginative when naming shit. Okay, because that's bad because it's
• 1:26:20
  been bugging me since the second they bought Manhunters. That is why they're called Manhunters.
• 1:26:24
  I don't think there's a good reason. You've never been to Earth until like the
• 1:26:27
  last 40 years. No good reason other than that. Okay, uh,
• 1:26:30
  they're called Manhunters. And then, and I will also say their,
• 1:26:34
  their famous quote that they would say in unison is very lazy:
• 1:26:38
  no man escapes the Manhunters. Oh no, now we're talking full-on. Yeah,
• 1:26:41
  that's not good because you guys just told me that you only— you didn't even
• 1:26:45
  care about Earth, and now— but you've Named these things Manhunters? Earth has
• 1:26:49
  the most Green Lanterns. Okay, Earth has the most, most Green Lanterns by far.
• 1:26:52
  We're about to find out. You will find out how many there are. Oh,
• 1:26:56
  I don't know if they're doing in the show, but there's a lot of Green
• 1:26:57
  Lanterns that come from Earth, and there's a reason. Because the first Green Lantern—
• 1:27:01
  the first Green Lantern, it's actually a weird thing. In the 19th— in the Golden
• 1:27:04
  Age, it was called Alan Scott, but it was not the exact same power set.
• 1:27:07
  It was like the ring and all this. Okay, then when they revamped it for
• 1:27:11
  the Silver Age, they created Hal Jordan, created this new version of the Green Lanterns,
• 1:27:14
  and And it turns into, it's basically an intergalactic space police force.
• 1:27:18
  And Hal Jordan was— So Hal Jordan is the first Earth Green
• 1:27:22
  Lantern. Green Lantern, yes. Really in the canon. Yes, in the canon,
• 1:27:26
  yes. And then we get our guy. And they get John Stewart to be his
• 1:27:30
  replacement. Don't tell me anymore. And John
• 1:27:34
  is trained by Hal. By the way, I know— And they become very good friends.
• 1:27:37
  I know a little bit more about that after episode 3.
• 1:27:41
  The lore backdrop on his family in
• 1:27:44
  episode 3, fucking holy shit. Can't wait,
• 1:27:48
  cannot wait, cannot wait, cannot fucking wait. Oh, I'm gonna
• 1:27:52
  give you— I'm gonna buy you a trade paperback of my, probably my favorite comic
• 1:27:55
  book of all time. It's a Green Lantern story, and it's the— in
• 1:27:59
  case you don't— I don't know how deep you've gone in the lore, but the,
• 1:28:02
  the story of Hal Jordan is so unique and so great. Hal Jordan,
• 1:28:05
  who was this greatest Green Lantern, he the main character of Green Lantern for like
• 1:28:09
  35 fucking years, except for like, you know, the years where they decided to go
• 1:28:12
  with John Stewart and Hal takes a step back. But Hal comes back out of
• 1:28:14
  retirement, does this thing. Hal Jordan becomes the biggest supervillain in all of
• 1:28:19
  DC Universe. Yeah, then I could track that. Becomes a character named Parallax,
• 1:28:23
  more powerful than Superman, almost destroys the entire universe, but has
• 1:28:26
  moments where he kind of turns back into Hal, sacrifices himself to save
• 1:28:30
  the universe. There might be people here that we listen
• 1:28:35
  Listen, don't get— this is just comic book lore. They're— you never know what they're
• 1:28:36
  changing shit up. You don't know what they— he could be Parallax. He might be,
• 1:28:40
  and I hope he is, because then— but then you find out later on what
• 1:28:43
  Parallax is, and then you find out that Hal— then Hal's dead,
• 1:28:47
  but they bring Hal back as the Spectre, the Spirit of Vengeance. By the way,
• 1:28:50
  I haven't seen you this animated talking about something since you— since you were telling
• 1:28:53
  me about Green Lantern, since you were giving me Doctor Who lore, which I get.
• 1:28:57
  Doctor Who is exactly Doctor Who, same shit. So I have to get in on
• 1:29:00
  that. I'm gonna give you a comic book called Green Lantern: Rebirth. It is
• 1:29:03
  the return of Hal Jordan. Okay, and all the
• 1:29:07
  Green Lanterns, and it's like, it's this 6-issue
• 1:29:11
  arc that basically brings back John Stewart,
• 1:29:14
  Guy Gardner, Hal Jordan, all of them. I've heard of Guy Gardner.
• 1:29:17
  Well, he's played by Nathan Fillion. He was in the Superman movie. Oh, okay.
• 1:29:20
  Yes, he told me about that. Isn't he in episode 3? I thought he was
• 1:29:23
  in episode 3 of this episode. I thought he was in this episode. No.
• 1:29:25
  Oh, then he must be coming in the next episode. Then. I don't think— I
• 1:29:28
  didn't see Nathan Fillion. Oh yeah, Nathan Fillion is playing a big role in this
• 1:29:31
  series. I really hope I didn't miss something in this episode. You should not
• 1:29:35
  have. I don't think I was locked in. You better be. But Nathan Fillion stands
• 1:29:40
  out. Laura Linney was in it, and I love her.
• 1:29:43
  So I don't know, but no, I— yeah, Nathan Fillion in a bowl cut would
• 1:29:47
  have— okay, I'm buying you Green Lantern: Rebirth, and it's gonna— it's gonna—
• 1:29:51
  you're gonna read it, you're gonna cry multiple times. Great. And then you're gonna go
• 1:29:55
  back and buy like 19 trade paperbacks. So you're gonna want to read how this
• 1:29:58
  fucking— there's a comic store down the street from my house. I know, I've been
• 1:30:01
  there. You have? Is it Comics Inc.? I don't know. It's on Overland.
• 1:30:05
  No, no, mine's in, um, on— well, I don't want to say
• 1:30:08
  where. Yeah, never mind. Oh, I know which one it is. I know it's the
• 1:30:12
  one on the corner that looks like a little— yeah, I don't know. That's a
• 1:30:14
  good one. It's a good one. Lanterns is fucking great. That's what—
• 1:30:18
  if there's one thing— doxxed myself. If there's one thing you could take away from
• 1:30:20
  today's show is that Lanterns is fucking great. It's my favorite thing ever,
• 1:30:24
  and I cannot, cannot, cannot wait. Uh, he says Guy has not made his cameo
• 1:30:28
  yet. He'll be in the next one. Okay, I was just— I was like,
• 1:30:30
  I really don't think I would have missed that, but like, no, you're not missing
• 1:30:34
  Nathan Fillion in a crazy— Isaiah said that.
• 1:30:37
  Okay, all right, cool. So, all right, watch Lanterns. We did it, guys! We did
• 1:30:41
  a show without Mocha. Hated it. Yeah, well, let's never do that again. I miss
• 1:30:44
  Mocha. I know. I mean, sometimes we have to. We're gonna have to do it
• 1:30:46
  for what, uh, close to a month month because we are gonna have to do
• 1:30:49
  it for close to a month because he's gonna be out most of October.
• 1:30:51
  But listen guys, you're gonna have us, and I want to remind you, you're gonna
• 1:30:54
  get us rogue for the Halloween episode. So fucking rogue. But also,
• 1:30:58
  do me a favor, we are currently at 843 followers on—
• 1:31:03
  subscribers, I'm sorry, on YouTube specifically. Our goal is to get to 1,000.
• 1:31:07
  The faster we get to 1,000, the faster we get to do more things with
• 1:31:10
  you guys here. We want to do, uh, Monday Night Football watch-alongs here. We are
• 1:31:14
  going to be doing the shows going forward on Tuesdays and Fridays so we
• 1:31:18
  can have Monday Night Football here. Yeah. And so that we can talk about the
• 1:31:21
  games, you know, the next day, so we can really recap the whole week.
• 1:31:24
  Yeah. Um, on, on our shows and, and be—
• 1:31:27
  if, you know, then we also don't want to counter-program with
• 1:31:31
  ESPN, not gonna lie. And here's the thing, like, it also gives us an opportunity
• 1:31:35
  to do more things, and we are looking forward to doing more things with this
• 1:31:38
  platform and this show. We would love to have watch-alongs and stuff that are subscriber-based
• 1:31:43
  specifically so that like the people who are supporting the show can get a more
• 1:31:45
  intimate experience with us. So yeah, that'd be great. So like,
• 1:31:48
  share, and subscribe wherever you hear podcasts, but of course tell
• 1:31:52
  your friends, share this with them over there on YouTube, especially if you dig what
• 1:31:56
  we're doing, if you're digging the honesty of what you're getting out of this sports
• 1:31:58
  media show. I hope you guys enjoy it and know that certain people in this
• 1:32:01
  industry have been watching it. So thank you, keep up the good work, and whatever
• 1:32:06
  whatever it means to you to keep up said good work. And Tanya?
• 1:32:09
  Yeah? I fucking hate Kurt Schilling. You know what? That's the thing
• 1:32:13
  about this is no matter what we do, no matter how big we get,
• 1:32:17
  no matter how many people subscribe to The Regulars,
• 1:32:21
  I think someday it's going to be in the thousands and thousands, maybe even
• 1:32:24
  millions. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe. But even if it is, whether it's
• 1:32:28
  863 or 2 million, It's fuck you,
• 1:32:33
  Kurt Schilling.
• 1:32:35
  Fuck you,
• 1:32:37
  Kurt Schilling.