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FedEx Slips After First Earnings Since Spinoff · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 2: FedEx reported some numbers last night. I thought there were
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  Speaker 2: some pretty good numbers, given what's going on out there
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  Speaker 2: in the world. Sex kind of unchanged on the day.
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  Speaker 2: It's up thirty five percent year to date. Let's break
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  Speaker 2: it down because we all deal with FedEx almost on
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  Speaker 2: a daily basis. It seems like Lee Klasical, Senior Transport
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Logistics and Chipping analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence. He's also a
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: host of a weekly podcast, Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports. Lee
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  Speaker 2: talked to U about FedEx. What did we learn from
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  Speaker 2: their earnings?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, Paul, I thought they did a pretty good
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  Speaker 3: print for their physical fourth quarter. You know, what they've
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  Speaker 3: been able to show is that their car controls, they've
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: had a number of different programs in place that are
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  Speaker 3: really starting to pay off, and that kind of helped
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: them with their beat. They also painted a relatively okay
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: demand picture for us. They noted that you know, they
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  Speaker 3: didn't see much demand destruction from higher fuel costs, which is,
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  Speaker 3: you know, a very good thing to hear. And also
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  Speaker 3: they mentioned their B to B business has been benefiting
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  Speaker 3: from the built out of data centers and all the
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  Speaker 3: stuff that goes into that. You know, they're helping bringing
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  Speaker 3: those technologies to the places where they're building those centers.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, they pointed to you know, decent top
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  Speaker 3: line growth. And also, you know what they also did,
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  Speaker 3: which is kind of probably why the stock is down
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: so much of the last twenty four hours, is is
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: you know, they provided their first calendar year outlook because
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: they were on a physical calendar. Now they're going on
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  Speaker 3: a regular, good old fashion calendar reporting schedule, and so
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  Speaker 3: I think that might have raised some confusion. Also, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the guide, which topped out at eighteen dollars and ten
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  Speaker 3: cents at the top of the range, I think was
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  Speaker 3: slightly below whisper numbers that we were hearing, you know,
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  Speaker 3: call it a dime or a quarter. So nothing terrible.
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  Speaker 3: So I think, you know, analysts are going to be
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  Speaker 3: rejiggering their numbers to probably fit within management's expectations. But
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  Speaker 3: what I would note is that management recently has been
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  Speaker 3: doing a pretty good job of providing some sort of
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  Speaker 3: modest guidance, if you will, and then beating that. And
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  Speaker 3: that is something that the street definitely wants to see
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  Speaker 3: because prior to i would say, the last couple of quarters,
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  Speaker 3: they had a history of doing the opposite, maybe over
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  Speaker 3: delivering and under over promising it under delivering.
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  Speaker 4: So investors tend not to forget that certainly when it
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  Speaker 4: comes to competition. I mean, there's only so much Effetex
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  Speaker 4: can do about things like oil prices and tariffs, and
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  Speaker 4: demand is tied to how the economy is doing when
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  Speaker 4: it comes to competition. And Amazon, of course plants to
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  Speaker 4: expands logistics business, how well positioned or perhaps not so
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  Speaker 4: well positioned is FedEx and along with its peers for that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, Amazon made an announcement a couple
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  Speaker 3: of weeks ago that it was broadening out its logistics
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  Speaker 3: services to third parties. This really wasn't new news. They've
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  Speaker 3: were kind of doing these services for a while, they
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  Speaker 3: kind of more or less free packaged that. Yes, they
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  Speaker 3: are a competitor to FedEx, but fed X really doesn't
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  Speaker 3: want the same business that Amazon's going after. You know,
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  Speaker 3: Amazon first and foremost is starting these business to reduce
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  Speaker 3: their overall costs to deliver their packages, and if they
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  Speaker 3: can offset that cost by putting other freight in their
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  Speaker 3: into their system, They're they're absolutely for it. You know,
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  Speaker 3: FedEx would rather have you know, obviously all growth is
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  Speaker 3: relatively good growth, but if they had their choice, they'd
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  Speaker 3: rather have B to B business with tend to be
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  Speaker 3: higher margin business than B two C business.
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  Speaker 5: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 4: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: All I know is the weather apps on my phone.
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  Speaker 2: They're getting better and better and better. It tells you now,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: which is so cool, particularly when you're a beach guy
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: when you need weather forecast for boating and fishing. Is
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: rains can start in twelve minutes? Sure enough, twelve minutes
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: later it starts raining.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Gone are the days where you
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: had to stay up and watch the eleven PM news
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: to figure out what things would look like the next day.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: You would think some guys people actually get PhDs in weather.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: That's the thing. You know. Our next guest does that,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Ryan Ward. He's a weather associate b n EF. Ryan
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: talk to us about AI is hitting all parts of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: our life. It's got to be impacting your business forecasting
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: weather because it's all about the models and what this
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: model is saying. How is AI being used in the
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: world of weather.
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people think, you know,
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: they hear AI and the thinking like Claude or chat
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: GPT or whatever. We have very specific models now that
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: are emerging for a variety of purposes and weather, and
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  Speaker 6: I think the one that we're I think really shocked
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  Speaker 6: and excited by right now is tropical cyclones. Right it's
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  Speaker 6: hurricane season right now. We're expecting probably a lower than
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  Speaker 6: average count of hurricanes this year. But surprisingly, you know,
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  Speaker 6: last year was basically the first year that AI models
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  Speaker 6: were deployed to actually model hurricanes, and they did really
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  Speaker 6: well insofar as they did basically better than every model
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  Speaker 6: that already exists, models that have been here for thirty
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  Speaker 6: plus years.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess the question is how far back do
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  Speaker 4: the models go when it comes to data, because I
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  Speaker 4: remember how often we hear that this was the storm
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  Speaker 4: of the century, or we haven't had this kind of
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  Speaker 4: storm in X number of years, And if your data
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  Speaker 4: only goes back, say fifteen, thirty, even fifty years, that
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  Speaker 4: doesn't take you far back enough.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely, I think this is one of the major
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  Speaker 6: concerns is that we're concerned that if AI models are
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  Speaker 6: only trained on previous data and storms are getting more extreme,
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  Speaker 6: maybe they won't be able to actually predict those future
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  Speaker 6: storms that are you know, the most extreme stored on record.
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  Speaker 6: And yet last year we had one of those, it
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  Speaker 6: was Hurricane Melissa. And yet you know, the Google Deep
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  Speaker 6: Mind model, which is an AI based model, did better
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  Speaker 6: than every other hurricane model. Basically got its intensity basically correct,
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  Speaker 6: and its path you know, where it exactly went, also correct.
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  Speaker 6: And it's a storm that it could never have seen
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  Speaker 6: in the trading data.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 6: So that was I think really remarkable and exciting for us,
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  Speaker 6: as you know, meteorologists, that these models are doing so
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  Speaker 6: exceptionally well given they're like, you know a couple of
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  Speaker 6: years old.
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  Speaker 2: What is El Nino and how's it going to impact
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  Speaker 2: hurricane season?
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  Speaker 6: This year. Yeah, a lot of people are talking about
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  Speaker 6: on Nina right now. It's you know, it's this large
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  Speaker 6: scale climate phenomenon. It basically all it means is that
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  Speaker 6: the Pacific is warmer than average, But that has a
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  Speaker 6: lot of downstream implications for whether across across the world. Really,
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  Speaker 6: as far as hurricanes are concerned, we nominally expect that
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  Speaker 6: there will be fewerhurricanes than average. You know, if there's
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  Speaker 6: maybe average seven hurricanes in the Atlantic that this year,
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  Speaker 6: no expects maybe somewhere between three and six something like that.
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  Speaker 6: And so you know that basically just results from the
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  Speaker 6: fact that the wind patterns change of the Atlantic and
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  Speaker 6: it's less conducive for hurricanes this year.
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  Speaker 4: And what is a relationship between hurricane season here in
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  Speaker 4: North America versus say, the typhoon season in Asia. Does
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  Speaker 4: it affect that.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. So what we generally expect is that the
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  Speaker 6: relationship between al Nino and what happens in the Atlantic,
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  Speaker 6: that's a pretty tried and true impact. We can look
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  Speaker 6: over fifty years of date and see usually during al
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  Speaker 6: Nino years there's less hurricanes in the Pacific. You kind
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  Speaker 6: of see different effects in fact on the Eastern side
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  Speaker 6: of the Pacific, closer to the United States, you see
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  Speaker 6: perhaps more hurricanes than average. Right, So the way that
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  Speaker 6: all Nino impacts globally, hurricanes and the circulation patterns, it's
• 7:53
  Speaker 6: different depending on where you are, and so we may,
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  Speaker 6: you know, just because we see less here, we might
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  Speaker 6: still see more in the Pacific depending on where you are.
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  Speaker 2: So who's is who does who predicts like our hurricanes
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  Speaker 2: and tells us where they're going and all that kinds
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  Speaker 2: of Is that the government or is that a private thing?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah? I think it's a lot of people are So
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  Speaker 6: there's there are a lot of government agencies which have
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  Speaker 6: these models because the models are.
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  Speaker 2: Really the Canadian model, American model.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, hear about exactly exactly. I think as far
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  Speaker 6: as tropical cyclones are concerned, American stakeholders are more interested because,
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  Speaker 6: you know, the Canada, the Canadians don't really have an
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  Speaker 6: incentive to make a really great chopical cyclone model because
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  Speaker 6: there's not like a lot of hurricanes in Canada, you know.
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: But Noah, I think is usually the gold standard for.
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  Speaker 2: This kind of north Who is it national?
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  Speaker 6: Noah, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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  Speaker 4: Are they are they still funded. I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 4: Doage took a you know, cut a lot of jobs,
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  Speaker 4: and I'm guessing that you know, something that forecasts weather
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  Speaker 4: is not high on the current White Houses list party lists.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. I think we've seen pretty big heights and lows,
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  Speaker 6: probably as far as Noah's concerned. You'll see there's hiring
• 8:53
  Speaker 6: pushes very recently to bring back meteorologists because some were
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  Speaker 6: you know cut in that you know that of it,
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  Speaker 6: all right, and so you know, I think but you know,
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  Speaker 6: all that aside, like the media all just started doing
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  Speaker 6: Hurricane prediction and general weather prediction are like super important, right,
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  Speaker 6: so these feel a little bit more like jobs that
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  Speaker 6: have a little more staying power, I would hope.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: All Right, so we're fewer than average hurricanes.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: That is good news. That's good news for everyone. Just
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: a quick question. You have your PhD in atmospheric science.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: When you were growing up, what did you want to be? Like?
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: You knew you loved weather, but like how did you
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: see things playing out?
• 9:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah? I think for me, there was two things. I
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: was always like really interested just like we I grew
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: up in Florida and so Florida is known like it's
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: in this area where like the clouds are crazy. Like
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: I lived in La for five years, there's like no
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: clouds there ever, But in Florida you look up outside
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: any day and just like the scale and scope of
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: the clouds are so crazy. And I was just like
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: always fascinated by that. And then also the BP oil
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: spill was like such a huge impact on like all
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: of our like golf communities, and I think just like
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: that really got me turned on to like, you know,
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: environmental like engineering science.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Well in the historical time coming up for ESPN that
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: we definitely want to spend some time talking about Linda
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Cone Joints, a sports center anchor for ESPN, retiring after
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: thirty four years from ESPN. Linda, thank you so much
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: for joining us. I guess I'd love to just get
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: a sense since you've seen everything in sports television, for
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: better or worse, how has it changed? How has sports
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: television changed? Because ESPN changed everything.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Paul and
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Scarlett really appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a fun time
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: for me. The big shows, the final shows or this Friday,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: and so I have seen everything, and most of it's
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: been for the great you know. I like telling this story.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: You know, I started in nineteen ninety two, July nineteen
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: ninety two, for those who can do the math, thirty
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: four years and when they first instituted the Institute of
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: the bottom line, that ticker at the bottom before that,
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: you know, telling the scores before we gave them the information.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: I share this story because many of us on camera
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: a sports center anchors were horrified about this because we
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: really cared about our writing and telling a story, setting
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: up the highlight of the game you're about to see,
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: but you're giving away the score. And this was I
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: don't even know what year this was. It might have
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: been late nineties or whatever, but it was it was like,
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: you know, Swilight Zone ish for us, so you know
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: what I mean. And it was like and we thought
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: there was a talent meeting and all of us like
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: stood up and made our case how awful this would be.
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: Of course we didn't get our way, and then it
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: turned out to be again one of these things that
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: if we don't see, you know, what's wrong with the TV,
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: there's no bottom line that tells us a store before
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: we talk about it. So that's always the first thing
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: that jumps up. But then technically all the stuff we
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: see when we watch live football get any kind of
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: sporting event, making it easy to watch and all this.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: But for Sports Center ESPN, yes, we were always ahead
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: of it. And I'm really proud that I, you know,
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: I played a you know, small part of it with
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: my colleagues from the golden era.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: I feel like you played an instrumental part of it,
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: not a small part of it.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: And the fact that Scarlett, the fact that.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: You started in radio that's near and dear to our parts.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: Of course, because we're talking to you on radio right now,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: just give us a little bit of background about you,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: because I'm in chiage by the fact that you played
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: hockey as a teenager with the boys and against the boys.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: How much did that factor into your wanting to go
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: into sports broadcasting.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, and thanks Scarlett for saying that. Yeah, first, I
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: don't want to forget to say this. How you know
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: young women like yourself. All these women have reached out
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: to me that are in the business, and that is like,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: I'm really proud of that professional legacy of inspiring all
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: these young women who are in kindergarten, first grade, second
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: grade watching the sports in early years before they jumped
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: on the boss, realizing that they too could do it
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: if they saw a woman up there telling them about
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: what happened in the game. Right. So I'm really professionally
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: almost proud of that the most. So getting back to
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: the hockey thing, I was a kid with very low
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: self esteem. I wore very thick glasses. Now the glasses
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: are not as thick, thank god. But I love sports,
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: watched it with my dad. Sports gave me something to
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: look forward to. That's how I always phrase it. Because
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: I didn't really have a lot of friends. I mean,
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: I mean I listened to the Carpenters growing up. I
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: love depressing stuff. It was it was all it wasn't
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: you know, I would don't worry no what happen emailfore
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: your time? Yeah, exactly exactly, Scarlet. So anyway, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: then I then I started playing street hockey with the boys,
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: and I realized, you know, I'm really good at this
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: goalie thing. And what I loved about that position is
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: that I could determine here's this girl, low self esteem,
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: shy as a as a wallflower, you know, just kind
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: of melted into the wall and playing goalie, realizing that
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: I was good at it. And I got contact lenses
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: by the way, that helped my vision, and you know,
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: and then I was like, Wow, people are noticing me.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: And it wasn't like, you know, conceited kind of way,
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: but I felt like I was, Wow, I'm helping people,
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: I'm winning games, I'm making the safe at the right time.
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: I'm suddenly like somebody. And so I rode that emotion
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: and I added that to just my love of sports
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: and my sports teams and watching the games with my dad,
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: but being a goalie. I liked telling this story too,
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: because I don't think I ever would have had this
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: career in broadcasting and then onto ESPN, you know, because
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: I start out in radio, like you said, in New York,
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: working seven days a week. Loved it. Then I you know,
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: hosting three hour solo sports talk shows. It's the best thing.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: People don't get and that has made me a better
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: sports center anchor. Oh, by the way, so about getting
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: back to the goalie story quickly. You know, when I
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: was playing with the boys. When I first started, my
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: mom found a league on Long Island that you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: I was fourteen. I wanted to play ice hockey. I
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: learned to skate with forty pounds of goalie equipment on
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: me and I played. They didn't let me play with
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: fourteen year old boys. That I had to play with
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: eight year old boys back in the day. It was
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm dating myself, but you can just google me.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: And it was nineteen seventy, nineteen seventy, like mid seventies,
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: five seventy six, this kind of time. And so I
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: heard the moms, like I heard the moms whispering, well,
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: what is that a girl in that? I see a
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: ponytail out of behind her mask? All this kind of
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: and I had to block out the noise. I had
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: to block out the critics. I had to block out
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: the people who are like, what is she doing here?
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: Type of verbiage, type of words that I heard and overheard,
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: And man, if that doesn't prepare you for, you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: breaking into the boys club, like I did. And I
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: wrote a book years ago called Conehead and I kind
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: of put that tagline on it. I don't know what
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: does because I learned to block out the noise. I
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: had my moments, I had my days, I had my
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: crying episodes in ladies' rooms, in various workplaces. I'm only human.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: But you know what, you just believe in yourself and
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: you get enough validation to keep going, right. You know,
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: we always need a little extra validation like Okay, this, that,
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: this that, but you uh, you know, it's just when
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: I look back, it's been a great, great ride.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: And now, Linda, I mean your business, the business of
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: sports cable TV. Now it's streaming, it's changing yet again.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: But yeah, what do you think the future is of
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: ESPN and this new world we're in.
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't have that crystal ball. I just know that,
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: you know, full disclosure. I'm glad I'm not starting out
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: on the business now. It would be very things have changed,
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: would be very challenging. We know about AI, we know
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: about all that. I'm not saying they're gonna take the
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I'm not gonna take the play, but
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: not gonna see robots and sports, that or chairs, But
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure what we're gonna see. On one hand,
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: streaming is exciting. On one hand, AI is exciting. Uh.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: But you know, kudos to ESPN and with all these
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: super in the last five, six, seven years, as you
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: guys have witnessed, it's really jumped leaps and bounds with
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: all these technical changes and adjustments you have to make,
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: and the competition what I love about When I broke
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: in and then, you know, probably the first twenty five
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: of the thirty four years, maybe the first twenty eight
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: of the thirty four years, you know, there wasn't a
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: lot of super competition to ESPN, right and especially the
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: early days that was a big thrill for all of
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: us that we were the only game in town, like
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: meaning that's all you could turn to to see anything.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: There was, you know, no internet, blah blah blah. So
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: how all are these changes going to affect ESPN? Honestly, guys,
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: I don't I don't know, but I will be watching.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: They'll be watching as well, we all be, as will
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: all be. One question I do have for you, Linda
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: is that you have always said you approach your job
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: as a fan first, because you are not a professional
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: athlete who then transitioned into becoming an on air talent.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Now that most of the commentators on live sports are
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: former athletes themselves, what do normal people like a Linda
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: Cone offer that you know, a Charles Barkley doesn't. I mean,
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: what can you say? What can you bring to the
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: table too audiences that former athletes can't and don't.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you're right about your observation. And a lot
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: of former athletes have become analysts and that's great. And
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: you know, being in a very lower level a college athlete,
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: you know, I get that, and I always I always
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: been athlete friendly, player friendly, that type of thing. But
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: you know, the young people, the young men and women
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: coming out of college still want to be in the business.
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: There's so many great things that can hone their skills,
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: whether it's YouTube, whether it's TikTok, all these things you
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: know that I didn't have, that many of us didn't have,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: so there are I would I would really concentrate, even
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: though you know AI is there and all that, and
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: it's all about videos now. But the writing, I mean
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: that is something, the journalistic skill, the writing, you can
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: be way ahead of the former athletes. You can guide
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: them and the way you speak, you know, the one
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: thing I really had to learn, and thank God goodness
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: for radio guys, because I learned to communicate naturally, not
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: feel like I was reading something, you know, because I
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: started out doing updates, and then I started hosting radio
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: shows and then you have a suddenly like, Okay, be conversational,
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: and so that was great and that helped me in
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: TV and that helped me for thirty four years on
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: the Sports Center set. So back to your original question, yes,
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: I mean that's where you could bring it, being conversational,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: connecting to the fans. Yes, I say I'm a fan
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: first because I am. I'm just as nuts about my
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: teams than they are the people watching me, and I
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: tried to show that. But you can also channel that
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: into Okay, you be smart, you know what you're talking about. Prepared.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: You have to be prepared. When I'm prepared, man, my
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: confidence boost when I'm not prepared, right, I mean, when
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: I'm not prepared, I'm doing something like I don't know
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: about this assignment. Oh, I'm getting nervous about it? All
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: comes on, you know, right, Linda, exactly scall it.
• 21:15
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