Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Bob Uecker Passes Away, College Football & NFL Playoff Breakdown & How NASCAR Can Get New Fans | Charlie Marlow & Eric Messersmith

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Bob Uecker Passes Away, College Football & NFL Playoff Breakdown & How NASCAR Can Get New Fans | Charlie Marlow & Eric Messersmith · Kenny Wallace Media

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I want to talk a lot of College Football Playoff, NFL playoffs,
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but today is some sad news. Bob Euchre passes away at the
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age of 90 and we throw around this term whether it's legend
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icon and all that, but this dude really was Bob Euchre, the
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broadcaster of the Milwaukee Brewers, but not somebody that
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just baseball fans knew his his his legacy went so far beyond
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that. Back in the day was a was a huge
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guest on Johnny Carson would always go on.
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Johnny Carson was really funny. He was kind of Johnny Carson's
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sports guest. Mr. Belvedere, the show you
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probably remember growing up watching Mr. Belvedere then for
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most people, but also sports fans from Major League Harry
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Doyle, the fact that he was so funny as the the announcer, the
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broadcaster of the Cleveland Indians at the time for Major
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League, so many great lines. The team sucks and he's drinking
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up there at one point he's drinking.
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He's got like a life beater shirt on and he's got his buddy
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who doesn't say anything and dynamite drop in, right?
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And he's just so, so funny. So I know we throw that term
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around legend and all that, but Bob Euchre, truly somebody who
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transcends sports, just pop culture, had a legacy of what I
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mean, 50-60 years and he was a player.
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So I'm here in Saint Louis, one of the famous stories back in
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the day. So I think it was one of the the
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World Series teams in the 60s. He famously was shagging balls.
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He wasn't very good. I think he was a backup catcher,
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but he was shagging balls and he grabbed a tuba.
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I don't know if you've heard this story.
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There was a band or a marching band or a school band, whatever
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it was, I'm pretty sure somebody checked checked me on this, so
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I'm not wrong. I think it was a World Series
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game. Think about it.
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I mean, he the tip top and he's out there shagging fly balls
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with an actual tuba in the outfield.
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Bob Euchre. One-of-a-kind, Eric.
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Yeah, he really was. I mean everyone knows just a bit
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outside, tried the corner and missed.
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Everybody knows that's right there.
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I saw actually one of the funny things on X because amongst all
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the other crap you see, you do get some good Nuggets, which is
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why we keep doing the the doom scrolling.
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There was 1 today from Howard Stern.
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Where Artie Lange and Norm MacDonald told us or telling a
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story about hanging out with Bob Euchre and what he was like.
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And it was absolutely hilarious. I mean, what a guy.
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Like they were talking about how in the booth he would be calling
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the game and he was a great broadcaster and he was really
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good at what he did. And then he would hit the cough
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button, which we all know that working in media, the mics, the
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mic switch, and he would quickly turn off the mic and say
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something about like one of the women he saw walking by and then
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go right back to calling the game.
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And I mean, he was apparently he had a incredibly foul mouth and
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was just a hilarious guy on air, off air.
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What a character, man. What a character.
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All right, College Football Playoff.
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We'll start here because you are a Penn State grad didn't go well
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for you, but really good game. Both of the College Football
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Playoff semi finals were, were really, really good games.
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How about this? We'll, we'll start here.
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Penn State. I don't want to call him little
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brother 'cause that's, that's what Michigan and Michigan State
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say. But they're, they're that
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second. I don't know if it's even fair.
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You tell me, is it, is it fair to call them second tier of the
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Big 10? If you're saying traditionally
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Ohio State, Michigan, 'cause I'm not trying to disrespect Penn
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State, Penn State is really, really good, but they seem to be
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that really good program that can never quite, since Joe
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Paterno can never quite get over the hump.
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It seems like they're always top 10:00-ish.
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But can they crack the top five? Can they win a national
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championship? Can James Franklin ever win the
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big game? And it seems like they just
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always fall a little bit short. But again, I'm not trying to
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disrespect them because they're right there.
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They're right there on the doorstep.
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Yeah, I think that is fair because Penn State was one of
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the premier programs in college football in the 1980s and even
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into the early 90s and even into the period where they, so they
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won a couple national championships in the 80s, I
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think it was 82 and 86. And then they had that like
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Carrie Collins, Kajana Carter team that won the Rose Bowl.
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And I think that was right when they joined the Big 10.
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So for a few years they were, I think, the cream of the cropper
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in the conference. But that quickly disappeared.
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And I mean, look, Ohio State and Michigan have dominated.
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Penn State dominated. I was looking the other day
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'cause Penn State used to play them both every year.
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Now with the expanded Big 10 to like 46 teams, I think they only
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play Ohio State every year. But the the year there were
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almost no. I think I found one year where
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Penn State beat both of them in the same season and most years
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lost to both of them in the same season and going back to
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decades. It's just that is what Penn
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State has been before Franklin got there.
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Even Franklin's done a great job of getting Penn State back
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because remember, after the whole Jerry Sandusky thing and
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Penn State got hit with huge scholarship reductions and
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massive penalties, Penn State was in in bad shape.
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So I give Franklin a lot of credit, but he has not been able
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to get over the hump. And you saw that again even
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against Notre Dame. Like Franklin's really good.
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His record in games against teams outside of Ohio State and
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Michigan is amazing over the last several years, But Ohio
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State, Michigan, and now against a A-Team like Notre Dame in the
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College Football Playoff, you see there is kind of a ceiling.
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Although Penn State was very much in that game and certainly
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had a chance to win. Even if they had, though, it
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would have likely ended the same way it usually does against Ohio
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State with your Buckeyes winning again, which I'm sure they're
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probably going to do against Notre Dame as well.
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We'll see. I hope so.
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Afterwards people kept trapping on James Franklin and I get it,
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whatever his record is 1 and 14, I don't know exactly, but it's
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something like that against top five teams or whatever it is.
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And I'm thinking to myself, why can't we just sit and instead of
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he sucks, he chokes? Why can't it just be this dude's
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a top 10 coach who's probably not a, a, a top five coach,
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right? That that's what it is to me.
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And and if he ever wins a couple of those big games, he can
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become that top five coach. It's kind of the same with Ryan
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Day. Not not exactly the same because
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Ryan Day's overall record is much better.
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But the people that are saying Ohio State, they're fan base,
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they're the lunatic fringe. And I'm thinking all that Ohio
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State fans wanted was for Ryan Day to win a big game or two,
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right? It wasn't personal.
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Ryan Day did inherit amazing Urban Meyer teams.
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He's had top five AP teams all six of his years.
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And everybody's saying, oh, it was just because you're, you're
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judging them based on one game versus Michigan.
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And that's not that's not what it was.
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That was the worst of it because they were about a three
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touchdown favorite. Michigan kind of sucked this
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year. Ohio State was at home and was
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supposed to roll, but Ohio State really hadn't won a game of
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significance in four years. They really had.
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They hadn't beat Michigan since what I guess 19.
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They didn't play in 20, but they hadn't won a Big 10 championship
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since 20. They hadn't won a national
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championship. And I understand that's a very
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high bar, but essentially Ohio State hadn't accomplished any
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goals, any of their real goals in four years.
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So I do think Ohio State fans are getting a little bit of a
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the bad rap there. And then look now Ryan Day, he's
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won three big games and he stays.
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He's going to stay. Obviously, even if they lose to
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Notre Dame. You look at the, the, the, the
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road they've had to travel, they're going to have to beat
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like four straight top eight teams.
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I did see somebody tweet this. It's the the hardest 4 game
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stretch in the history of college football.
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When you think about going whatever Tennessee was, I think
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Tennessee was 8, Oregon was one. And then the other day Texas was
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what, four, I think. And then you're going to have to
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play Notre Dame, whatever they're ranked six or five,
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whatever it is. So to me, those just Ryan, Ryan
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Day just had to win some big games.
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And now he is and it's all good. It's It's as simple as that.
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Yeah, the the expectations are ridiculously high at a few
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colleges in Ohio State is one of those programs, as it should be,
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by the way. And so you're judged by a
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completely different standard because in almost any other
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program, what Ryan Day has done would be incredible and no one
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would even think about firing him.
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But the question is always are you maximizing the resources at
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your disposal? And college football is not like
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the NFL. There's no salary cap.
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It is essentially a skewed field where a few schools with their
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tradition and their resources have such a massive advantage on
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everyone else that the expectation should be that high.
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And I think it was. I don't know if I would have
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fired Ryan Day if he would have lost in the first round of the
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College Football Playoff, but I think it was.
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It should have been on the table to at least think about
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considering how good Ohio State was every year, but particularly
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this year and how much the eyeball test told you the talent
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that they have. And you see it now with how
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they've run through the playoff. By the way, with Franklin, I
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just looked it up while we were talking career at Penn State,
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he's one O 1 and 42. He's finished in the top 10 five
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times. This will be the 6th time
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regularly they appear in New Year's Day bowls, right at the
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same time, his record against AP top ten teams is 4 and 19.
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And when Penn State has been in the top ten against another top
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ten team, they're 3 and 10. So I don't, here's the thing,
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here's why I would not. They're not obviously going to
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move on from Franklin. I don't think they should.
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And the reason is because I don't think Penn State is on
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that level of Ohio State of of Michigan when they're good,
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Michigan don't have it having it down here this year.
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And so I think there's something to be said for the program he
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inherited and where he is taking them and the consistency with
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which he wins. Now, there is going to come a
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point where you do have to have the breakthrough.
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But I think he's done so much to get Penn State to that level
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that even though he's one in 14 against top five teams, I still
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think you got it. You got to keep going back with
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him and hope he gets over the hump at least for a little while
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longer because he has done so much to get the program to a
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good level. But man, that one in 14 against
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top five teams. The lone win by By the Way, was
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against #2 Ohio State in 2016. So who do you like for the for
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the championship game? I, I got to go with Ohio State.
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Although it wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me if Notre
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Dame wins the game. I will say this, also watching
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Ohio State in the first couple of games of the College Football
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Playoff, they rolled Tennessee, they rolled Oregon.
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Those were both 2025 point wins and they weren't even that
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close, honestly, because Ohio State kind of called off the
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dogs and there were some cosmetic scores at the end of
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those games. I did like the fact that I'm
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watching that game the other day as an Ohio State fan, which is
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the only team I care about in all of sports that was a
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freaking nail biter. And the previous two games, I
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was so looking forward to those games and they were over within
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5-7 minutes. Ohio State was up whatever it
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was, 14 zip, 21 zip, so early. That was a really, really good
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game. I do think, I think both
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Michigan earlier in the year and Texas, they've given Notre Dame
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a blueprint for how to stop Ohio State and if if you just if you
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double. Cover.
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Jeremiah Smith, 'cause that that's the thing that happened
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in the first two games. Ohio State was so explosive with
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these big vertical pass plays. Then all of a sudden you blink
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and a 21 zip and the game was over.
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I think Jeremiah Smith had one catch for three yards.
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What? Whatever it was right there.
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But if if you take away the big vertical passing play now,
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obviously Ohio State scored on the 75 yard screen pass.
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But if you can no longer, as they say, take the top off the
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defense, I could see that Notre Dame keeps it close.
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And and then weird stuff. If if weird stuff happens there
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a fumble here, a fumble there. I just think I think Marcus
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Freeman is a really good coach. I, I love what he's doing at
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Notre Dame and I grew up not liking Notre Dame, but he's hard
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not to like. So I think this is going to be a
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good game. I can see it being really close
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at halftime. I can see Ohio State going up,
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whatever it is, a touchdown, maybe the end up winning by 7 to
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10 to 13 points. I I don't know.
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But I don't think it's going to be a blow.
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I think we're going to get a good game.
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OK, I think Ohio State's going to win fairly easily.
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I look, Texas did give them the blueprint.
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We'll see if Notre Dame can do it.
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The longest catch, by the way, other than that Henderson
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touchdown was 18 yards. So that just showed you look,
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But Texas's defense, everyone knows how good that front is.
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They really held the run game pretty much in check and then
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they took away the big play, but Ohio State still won by two
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touchdowns. Now they needed that goal line
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stand, but that goal line stand is kind of what Ohio State does.
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You know, no one can run it in on them for the most part this
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season. So we'll see.
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I, I think Ohio State just has so much talent that I I say 14.
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I'll put I'll I would take the I would I would take Ohio State at
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what are they a nine point favorite 8 or 9?
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I would give the 9. I think I think it's close for a
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while and then Ohio State kind of gets a late touchdown to to
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put it away wins by in the 10 to 14 range.
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I'll take it. I I do think it's funny.
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I was talking to my buddy about gambling and so you mentioned
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Ohio State, they win by 14 points.
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But the, the fact that if you didn't watch that game and you
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just look at the box score and you don't even look at how the
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points are scored, you go Ohio State, they were whatever 6
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point favorite, they win by 14. They probably took care of
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business. What's interesting though is
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this is from a gambling perspective.
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I'm saying if you had Texas in that game and your thought was
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Texas is going to keep it close, Texas is going to keep it within
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a touchdown. You were 100% right, by the way,
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if you made that bet. And then so this is where
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gambling, which has obviously a point spread, is different than
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the real game. Because if if the goal of the
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game was for Texas to score the most possible points and not
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care about winning, well, then at the end there they could just
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kick a field goal, right? They would lose the football
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game, but all the betters would win.
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But of course, nobody's going to do that because the point is to
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win the football game. And that's what's funny to me is
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sometimes good bets lose and bad bets win.
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And if you're sitting there with the Ohio State ticket, by the
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way, first half also, I believe first half Ohio State -3 1/2
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Henderson scores that 75 yard touchdown basically at the
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buzzer, whatever it was, 20 seconds left in the first half
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to swing all those bets. And then same at the end there,
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you essentially have Texas knocking on the door, they are 1
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yard from tying the football game and they lose by two
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touchdowns. It's crazy.
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It's a bad beat. That's that's what happens
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'cause you're right, they're right there and then you have
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the the fumb, the strip sack, fumble return for a touchdown
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and now you go from A7 point game to a 14 point game and the
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cover in Ohio State covers it. It really is crazy how often
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times that happens. And that is why, Charlie, it is
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almost impossible to make money betting on sports, particularly
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in the NFL or big time college football.
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OK, so College Football Playoff, the early rounds sucked, but the
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semi finals were awesome and hopefully we get a great
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national championship game and we'll kind of use that to
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transition to the NFL because for the most part, not a lot of
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great games. I'll be the first person to
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admit I didn't really watch that much.
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I watched a decent amount of the Eagles and Packers, honestly
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more so of the pregame. I was kind of, I was kind of
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fascinated by the saxophone player and the eagle coming down
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and all that. I didn't even see that.
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Yes, this kind of gets into RFK, like, you know, he's a Falconer.
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I just think it's cool. I think it's cool to see the
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eagle go down, lands on the woman's arm, and then she ties
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the thing around the the feet. And I always want that eagle to
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go rogue, but it never does. So that's my that's my
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breakdown. I didn't really watch much of
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the games, but I'm not a really big NFL fan anymore and fantasy
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football's over, so I'll let you take over here.
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You may not have watched the games, but you got a, you got a
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breakdown definitely of the Eagle pregame ceremony.
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Well, look, yeah, five of the six games were blowouts.
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The, the home team won them all. All five of those, the one that
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was a good game was the road team that got the win, the
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commanders and and that turned out to be a pretty exciting
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game. It's interesting now 'cause you
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you would think now that you're down to the final eight this
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weekend, you would have four really competitive games.
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We'll see. But based on point spread, the
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only one projected to be super competitive is the Bills Ravens,
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which is the game of the weekend.
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They are both legitimate Super Bowl contenders.
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Both had great seasons led by quarterbacks.
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We're probably going to finish first and 2nd in the MVP voting
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and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
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Baltimore's a one point favorite on the road.
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I think the Ravens are going to win this game.
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Buffalo's really good. They're at home.
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But I this just feels like the Ravens year to me.
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It feels like everything has come together for them with
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Derrick Henry now and Lamar back there and you get a defense
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that's playing really well the second-half of the year.
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Also, I've been watching Hard Knocks this year on on on Max,
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which is following the AFC North.
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And as a Steeler fan, I hate to say this, but it's made me kind
17:48
of, I don't know if like the Ravens is too strong, but have
17:52
some respect, begrudging respect for them and Harbaugh and what
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he's done there. I, I really feel like this is
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the year they breakthrough finally with Lamar Jackson.
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And then the other three games the the the spreads are Eagles
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by 6 1/2 over the Rams, Lions by 9 1/2 over the Commanders and
18:09
Chiefs by 8 over the Texans. Now, judging by past history,
18:14
one of those games will end up being really close and maybe
18:17
producing an upset because you often see the teams that get the
18:21
buy used to be two teams that got the buy in each conference.
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Now in this recent playoff format, it's one those teams
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often lose or are really challenged in that division
18:32
round even though they have the buy.
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So we'll see. I think probably the team most
18:36
likely to be really challenged actually is the Chiefs, the two
18:39
time defending Super Bowl champs, because that's just the
18:42
way they play all year. Almost all of their games, if
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you watch them this season were decided by 1 score and they won
18:48
all of them basically. I think they have 15 or 16
18:51
straight wins when games decided by 1 score, which is incredible.
18:55
That's just kind of the way they play now.
18:56
Their offense isn't as explosive as it used to be.
18:59
Their defense is really good. They've got a great coach and
19:02
they've got, even though he's not going to win the MVP,
19:04
probably the best quarterback in the game and one of the best
19:07
ever in the home. So that one to me would be the
19:11
one I could see being close. I think the Lions are just going
19:13
to roll over the commanders. They look talk about a team that
19:16
looks like this is their time. That's that's what you see with
19:20
the Lions. And look, the Rams played great
19:22
on Monday night against the Vikings.
19:24
They really did. So I wouldn't count them out
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against the Eagles and maybe making that game somewhat
19:29
competitive. So that's kind of my rough
19:31
breakdown of the games this weekend.
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But the Bills, Ravens is definitely If you're only going
19:35
to watch one game, that's the one.
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Yeah, I know you're a Steelers fan.
19:38
I've always thought the Ravens were likable.
19:41
I think I think Harbaugh's likable.
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I think Lamar Jackson's likable. I also think Lamar Jackson, he's
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had so many great regular seasons of the MVPS and all that
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and and just the narrative obviously, which keeps building
19:54
year after year that he can't win the prowl.
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I'd like to see him actually breakthrough Now the one story
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again, not on the field. This is me.
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I'm I'm paying attention to the sax one player, the the.
20:05
The eagle, the actual eagle, the bird, but then the the viral
20:09
story about this eagles fan. I'm sure people have seen it.
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If not, I'm not going to include it here, but just you can see it
20:16
anywhere on social media. So this Eagles fan apparently
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calls this Packers fan in the stadium a dumb C word.
20:24
And I I believe it's either husband and wife, boyfriend,
20:27
girlfriend, whatever it is. And and apparently now this
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Packers fan also may be a little bit of a of a schemer.
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And he used a GoFundMe. I don't know if he was trying.
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I don't know if he was trying to go viral and create a viral
20:40
moment because instead of defending his wife or
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girlfriend, and I should know this by the way, but whatever,
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I'm not going to look it up. I don't care that much.
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Instead of defending the woman being called a dumb C word, he's
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he's he's video it obviously with his camera.
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And then of course, you know what happens.
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The Internet does its job and they find this guy apparently.
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I see he's ADEI consultant somewhere.
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And he was a Dick, by the way. Which is hilarious.
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Right, he clearly deserved he deserved all of the negative
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commentary he's getting. From what I've seen he was a
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toll a hole. But then I see these stories
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too, and I understand people are are a holes if you don't
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physically assault someone, right?
21:25
I mean, a couple months ago, that Ravens fan, if you saw he
21:29
beat the hell out of somebody, that's different.
21:31
You're committing assault If you just use really bad language.
21:35
I totally get the Eagles saying, hey, you're not allowed back in
21:38
the stadium. I get that.
21:40
Even though the guy's a Dick, when you get to the point where
21:43
you're you're getting people fired.
21:45
I don't know, I don't like this dude.
21:47
I'm not, I'm not trying to defend him, but I feel like when
21:50
you're getting fired from your job, I do look at these people
21:53
still as human beings. You're trying to make a living
21:55
potentially if you have a wife and kids and all that.
21:58
I think sometimes we go too far. But if his company also saw that
22:02
behavior and said we don't want to be associated with this guy,
22:06
I guess I can get that. Yeah, look, the company has the
22:10
right to do it. I understand why they did it,
22:12
but I'm a little uncomfortable with it as well.
22:15
Another thing when it comes to technology, he if this same
22:18
thing happened 20 years ago, well, 25 years ago, that guy
22:21
would not have been fired because we would not have video
22:23
of it. No one would have had a cell
22:25
phone to record it. So I think that we have to
22:28
remember that people have bad moments and they do and say
22:33
shitty things sometimes. And if we're going to start
22:36
firing everybody who does something like that because they
22:40
have a bad moment, again, I'm not defending what the guy did.
22:42
He seems like an asshole and I don't feel a ton of sympathy for
22:44
him for getting fired. And if I were that other guy, I
22:47
might, I might have fought him. I mean, he was beat.
22:49
But we also don't know the full context of everything that
22:51
happened too. That's another thing to think
22:53
about. We we haven't, we saw that that
22:56
clip of that interaction, which made him look terrible,
22:59
obviously, but we didn't see the full thing.
23:03
He didn't have a great moment. I don't like people being fired.
23:07
And I said the same thing when we talked about kind of the
23:09
cancel culture thing. I just don't like people being
23:13
fired for non criminal activity when especially if it's a one
23:19
time thing and we it's, it's maybe their worst moment or
23:24
really bad moment and we don't maybe have all the contacts.
23:26
It just I don't know. I don't like it.
23:28
And and I hate defending to some degree this guy cuz again, he
23:32
seems like a total asshole and I have very little sympathy for
23:35
him. But it's more the principle of
23:37
the of the larger point of should we be cancelling people?
23:42
Cuz that's essentially what happened for bad, rude, nasty
23:47
behavior that isn't criminal. That makes me uneasy, I'll be
23:51
honest. OK, let's let's end here because
23:55
the first half of the show kind of a cultural, the second-half
23:59
sports. But because I'm now Mr. NASCAR,
24:02
I've become Mr. NASCAR over the past three years.
24:05
I want to ask. Bob Bucher is Mr. Baseball.
24:08
You are now known as Mr. NASCAR. Right.
24:11
I think this is relevant though, because we do have a big NASCAR
24:13
audience. And is it, is it fair to say,
24:16
Eric, you're a sports fan? Are you a casual sports fan?
24:20
You're not a NASCAR fan, correct?
24:23
Correct. OK, here's why I ask.
24:27
NASCAR had this clash out in the LA area where you live for three
24:32
years now. They did it.
24:34
They did it in the football stadium.
24:35
They switched. They're going to Bowman Gray for
24:39
this year's clash. Do you remember, did the clash,
24:42
did it stir up? Were people in LA talking about
24:45
it? Because the reason they did
24:46
this, they probably lost money on the infrastructure, but they
24:49
wanted to get into the second biggest media market and and not
24:54
somewhere on the outskirts. Literally in LA they did the
24:57
same thing. At the Chicago.
24:58
The Rose Bowl, yes, so did that, or I'm sorry, not the.
25:03
They did it at the USC Stadium. Yes, yes, the Colosseum.
25:08
Did that work in your opinion at all?
25:10
Did it stir up interest? Did you see some billboards and
25:13
all that? Do you think there's more NASCAR
25:15
fans in the greater LA area because they brought it directly
25:18
to you guys? That's a good question.
25:21
So it definitely stirred up interest nationally because I
25:26
heard about it from, and I saw it and I, I, I, it was probably
25:32
the biggest event I remember of that NASCAR season in terms of
25:35
the national publicity I saw surrounding other than like, you
25:39
know, the Daytona 500. But locally.
25:42
Now, again, this is kind of skewed because as we talked
25:44
about before with social media and everybody on their screens
25:47
all day, my circle of friends out here is not huge.
25:50
You know, I'm not in a native. I've been there for about 5
25:52
years. So I don't know that I'm a fair
25:55
representation, but based on my experience, no.
25:59
And the people all I come in contact with, I heard, I
26:01
remember hearing 0 people talking about NASCAR, how
26:04
excited they were to go see the race at the Coliseum.
26:07
I thought it was a really cool idea.
26:09
I watched it on TV for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, just kind of
26:12
checked it out because I thought it was cool.
26:14
But I don't know that it necessarily got a ton of NASCAR
26:18
fans on board, although it was a really cool idea.
26:22
I don't know. But part of that isn't
26:24
necessarily an indictment on NASCAR.
26:25
Part of that is just LA, like LA is not in terms of its sports
26:30
affinity, it is not a Northeast or Midwestern city.
26:34
And and there there are probably several reasons for that.
26:37
I think one of them is obvious with the weather the year round,
26:40
good weather matters. It matters that people aren't
26:44
stuck inside to escape snow or rain or the freezing cold for
26:48
certain parts of the year. That just isn't a thing here.
26:51
And so also a ton of people here are transplants.
26:54
So that has something to do with kind of a lack of affinity for
26:56
teams, certain team sports and loyalty there.
26:59
So I just think there's, and also there's just so much going
27:03
on here. If you brought an event like
27:05
that to a city that didn't have as many major pro team sports,
27:11
it probably would have been an even bigger deal.
27:13
But here in LA, you've got not just one, but two teams in all
27:17
of the major pro sports leagues, plus USC, plus UCLA.
27:21
And then you have all the entertainment things that are
27:24
going on here, concerts and comedy shows and again, all of
27:29
the weather you can surf year round.
27:31
There's mountains, there's ski resorts right outside LA.
27:35
There's just so much to do here that I just think breaking
27:39
through and making something like NASCAR a big deal here.
27:42
I just don't see it. Although if you go to rural
27:45
areas of California, as you said, they have a NASCAR race.
27:48
What about an hour outside of LA that does, you know, Real does
27:53
well? All right, so my, my NASCAR
27:57
follow up, what would NASCAR have to do to get Eric
28:00
Mastersmith to pay more attention?
28:03
I'm, I'm wondering if you're flipping through the channels
28:05
and you see there's seven laps left in a race, are you going to
28:09
watch? I mean, if there's 57 laps, I
28:12
get or 100, but if you see there's five laps left, are you
28:16
going to watch the last five laps?
28:18
That's a good question. You know what's funny is with
28:21
this is this gets back to another thing with the
28:23
difference of how we grew up versus now.
28:26
I really don't flip anymore. You know, I think that is that
28:31
is a thing that's kind of lost is I just go to what I want, you
28:35
know what I mean? So very rarely am I like
28:38
searching for something. I wonder if so, so it doesn't
28:41
even come under my radar. But if it did and there were
28:44
only 5 laps left, I probably watch it.
28:46
Remember, I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, which is NASCAR
28:50
country. I mean people love NASCAR where
28:53
I grew up in central PA. So I grew up watching to some
28:56
degree. I was never a huge fan, but but
28:58
my step that would have it on, I would watch it.
29:00
But here's the answer to your question.
29:02
What would get me interested is is personalities.
29:07
Part of the reason where the fuge used to have where the Dale
29:10
Earnhardt's of the world. Even I, I always liked who was
29:16
the guy who was from California, who was an all time great driver
29:19
who everybody else hated. I don't know why I'm blanking on
29:22
his name. Jeff Gordon.
29:24
I always like Jeff Gordon because everybody else hated it
29:26
and I thought it was cool. Like here's this guy who's not
29:29
one of the good old boys. He's kind of the pretty boy.
29:31
And so the drama, the tension that the personalities like who
29:36
are the really, really big dynamic like Jeff Gordon broke
29:41
through. People knew who he was outside
29:43
of NASCAR. Same thing with Dale Earnhardt,
29:45
obviously with Dale Earnhardt Junior.
29:48
Is there that guy today? Jimmy.
29:52
Johnson was probably the last one.
29:54
But he was boring, that's the thing.
29:56
The the knock on him was that he was born.
29:57
He just, he just won. What's interesting is so Kyle
30:01
Larson is a superstar and he can run any type of car, but he's
30:05
not a big name. Denny Hamlin is a superstar,
30:08
never won a championship. You can make the case that the
30:12
the most interesting people in NASCAR are the owners.
30:15
Case in point, so you have Michael Jordan.
30:17
Michael Jordan right now is suing NASCAR.
30:20
Here's the biggest story. The biggest story of this past
30:22
week, it happened yesterday, is Dale Earnhardt Junior is
30:26
fielding his first ever NASCAR Cup car and he's partnering with
30:30
Chris Stapleton. So Chris Stapleton Traveller's
30:33
whiskey is going to be on the car and they're not even
30:36
guaranteed a spot. The driver is Justin Allgeier.
30:40
So they have to qualify now. They're probably going to
30:42
because they're going to, they're going to make sure they
30:43
get that car into the Daytona 500.
30:46
This is A1 race deal, but it is kind of interesting.
30:49
The biggest superstar in NASCAR is still Dale Earnhardt Junior,
30:54
and he's about 49 or 50 years old.
30:56
He hasn't really run a Cup race in however many years.
30:59
He'll run about one Xfinity race every year.
31:02
But this is a good thing and a bad thing.
31:04
The fact that the the the highest selling die cast, you
31:07
know, NASCAR is obsessed with those die cast cars.
31:10
People collect them. The top selling one last year
31:13
was not a NASCAR. It was Dale Earnhardt Junior
31:16
brought back the Budweiser Red 8 paint scheme for a late model
31:22
race at a small track. But that was such a big seller.
31:27
That was a bigger seller than every other NASCAR, which is
31:30
great for Dale Earnhardt Junior, but it also says a lot about the
31:34
sport that somebody who's 50 years old hasn't really been
31:37
really involved in whatever it is 810 years.
31:40
That's the top selling car. That tells you two things.
31:43
NASCAR LAX superstars, but also Dale Earnhardt Junior is just
31:48
one of these larger than life figures also.
31:51
Yeah. And I mean, if I was looking at
31:53
it from an outsider perspective, which I am, because I'm not a
31:56
fan of, like I'm thinking, OK, what would I do to change the
31:59
sport? Part of it is I, as I said, you
32:02
need the names. Like for instance, one advantage
32:06
that NASCAR has over something like baseball or, or especially
32:11
football or basketball is guys can have longer careers.
32:14
It's kind of like golf in that respect.
32:16
Like you can golf and be pretty good and even contend for a
32:19
major in your 40s unless you're LeBron James.
32:23
You can't do that in the NBA or pretty much any other sport.
32:27
But in NASCAR. Like for instance, Dale Hernart
32:30
Junior, he did, correct me if I'm wrong.
32:32
He didn't retire just because he he couldn't do it.
32:34
Like is it wasn't because he got too old, right?
32:37
He just kind of walked away. Like Jimmie Johnson was still
32:41
really good when he left too, right?
32:43
Jeff Gordon was still pretty good when he left.
32:45
So my point is some of this is you have that advantage of
32:49
having guys who not only can still do it, but can still
32:52
compete at a fairly high level as they get older.
32:56
It would be nice if they stuck around for a while, right?
32:58
Like why couldn't Dale Hernhardt junior have had a 30 year
33:01
career? Why couldn't Jeff Gordon have
33:03
had a 35 year career? So it's interesting some of the
33:06
names you mentioned. So look, Dale Earnhardt senior
33:09
obviously passes away. I think he was, I think he was
33:12
right around 50. But Dale Earnhardt junior had
33:15
concussion issues and that's one of the reasons that he walked
33:18
away, which also I think started when you have a superstar like
33:23
that that has to walk away because of concussion.
33:26
And then obviously you can have way worse outcomes than even a
33:30
concussion. Just look at his dad.
33:31
But I do think somebody like Carl Edwards, who's from
33:35
Columbia, MO, now, he was kind of pissed at NASCAR, but he
33:38
retired. I think he's my age, maybe your
33:41
age. I think he's 4445.
33:43
He retired about eight years ago.
33:46
So I do think you're, you're seeing guys they want to keep
33:48
their health intact and their brains intact and they made a
33:53
hell of a lot of money. That's the difference.
33:55
The NASCAR drivers nowadays actually aren't making as much
33:58
money as the guys who are driving 10/15/20 years ago,
34:02
which is crazy that that's a big story in NASCAR.
34:05
What other sport are are the athletes making less now?
34:10
NASCAR might be the only sport you're seeing.
34:12
Quarterbacks make $50 million a year.
34:15
NASCAR drivers are actually making less than they did 10
34:18
years ago. Yeah, Look, I can't blame their
34:21
individual decisions. I hell, I want to be clear, I
34:24
would do the same thing. Like, that's a crazy sport.
34:28
Yeah, as you say, I know the technology since Earnhardt
34:30
junior has improved, Earnhardt seniors improved dramatically.
34:34
So I I know that it's less likely something like that
34:37
happens now, but the fact that it's even in play, I can totally
34:41
understand why people would make that individual decision.
34:44
But for the sport, it's not a good thing.
34:48
It because you're losing these names and you're not replacing
34:50
them with other names. That's what draws in the casual
34:53
fan. The other thing, the only other
34:54
thing I can think of, and I think this is true with all
34:56
sports, is the attention span issue.
35:01
This effects every sport. It's why baseball made really
35:05
dramatic rule changes to speed up their games over the last few
35:09
years. Things that wouldn't have even
35:11
been possible, like no one would have agreed to a pitch clock 30
35:14
years ago. But they did because we realized
35:16
that people's attention spans are so much shorter than they
35:19
used to be. So when I look at a NASCAR race,
35:23
what are we do? We're, we're doing, I know they,
35:25
they, they're different, right? But it's like a lot of them are
35:27
200 or 250 laps, right? I mean, Daytona 500, five, 100
35:32
miles. So you're talking about going
35:33
around the track in most of these races a couple of 100
35:37
times. These are what, four or five
35:40
hour events? And then if there are cautions,
35:43
they drive around the track and it takes forever to start again.
35:47
And sometimes the race ends like that.
35:49
I mean, it's So what would I do? I would shorten the races.
35:53
I would do events. I know that like the playoff
35:57
thing was great. I think that they did because
35:59
that made it so that you knew, OK, here's how you qualify.
36:04
And then each week a certain number of drivers are
36:07
eliminated. So you go from like, what is it
36:08
16 to 12 to 8 and to four? And so now there are real stakes
36:12
and you're building towards something.
36:14
I think that's great. I think leagues need more events
36:18
like the NBA Cup is doing have events during the season.
36:21
So it's like in NASCAR, the Daytona 500 is a huge that draws
36:25
in the casual fan and then there's really nothing else like
36:28
that until the playoffs. And now part of that is because
36:32
the Daytona 500 has that history.
36:33
But maybe you could do something where you had different kinds of
36:37
races. I know they do obviously Rd.
36:38
Rd. courses, but I'm talking about like different formats.
36:41
Like, OK, this is going to be a race that's 25 laps just balls
36:47
to the wall for an hour and that's this race, you know, and
36:52
like so the people know, OK, I'm not investing 5 hours of my
36:56
Sunday to watch the race. I've got a one hour race.
37:00
They're going to go like hell and they're not going to end it
37:03
under caution. You know, they're going to do,
37:05
they're going to end it racing like rubbing some paint baby
37:09
that I might watch that might get somebody like me to tune in
37:14
if I know instead of having to sit there and watch them drive
37:17
around the track for five hours, they're going to be racing hard
37:20
for, you know, 20 laps. So here, here's where I do think
37:25
you need to watch the end of some races because NASCAR has
37:29
made some changes where they have this green, white
37:32
checkered. Now some people say it's
37:34
actually too gimmicky, but at the end if they have a caution,
37:39
they will basically re rack the field and they'll go balls to
37:43
the wall. And what usually happens is a
37:45
caution will breed another caution.
37:47
Now, technically you can still have a race and under caution if
37:52
if the leader on the last lap, right?
37:55
If if you've gone the first lap of the they call it overtime.
37:59
If you've gone the first lap, if that leader is, then if there's
38:03
a caution on the final lap, technically that guy wins.
38:06
But they've created this overtime, which I like.
38:09
I think it's great for casual fan.
38:11
The old school fan doesn't like it because it does become
38:14
gimmicky. It becomes a wreck fest.
38:17
But it's pretty damn entertaining if you're just.
38:20
I know you say you don't flip around, but if you are flipping
38:22
around it is pretty cool for the casual fan.
38:25
Yeah, I just think all sports, like sports leagues can't just
38:29
and that's why I think baseball was really smart to do what they
38:32
did and and it's helped them. Their ratings were up this year.
38:34
Not part of that was they the Dodgers and the Yankees in the
38:36
World Series. But the the game times are way
38:38
down. They got the result they were
38:40
looking for, which is what do people want?
38:42
People want more action. It's like we talked about why we
38:46
do scroll social media. We, we, we don't want to watch
38:49
commercials anymore. We don't watch commercials
38:50
anymore. We get what we want when we want
38:52
it and we want action. We don't want 1000 timeouts at
38:55
the end of an NBA game and the last five minutes takes 45
38:58
minutes. We want to see the action and I
39:01
think that's part of the issue with NASCAR is there is good
39:05
action in NASCAR. I've seen some exciting
39:07
finishes, but there's also a lot of OK, we're on lap 186 of, you
39:12
know, 250 and here comes another caution and now we'll drive
39:16
around the track for 25 minutes till everybody gets good and
39:19
they clean up, you know, the rackets.
39:21
And look, some of that's going to happen no matter what, right?
39:23
They're driving 200 miles an hour.
39:24
But I'm just saying whatever they can do to speed up the pace
39:28
and bring the action, I think would make would make it more,
39:32
more interesting. I would, I would, I would mess
39:35
with the formats of the races in terms of the length.
39:37
I would do like, I know they've done some of those stage things
39:40
right where they they race for a certain number of laps and so
39:43
one person will win that stage and then they'll race for
39:46
another amount of laps That I think is good.
39:48
Anything you can do that can give people more of the action
39:52
and less of the delay, I think, I think would help any sport.
39:57
See, I agree with you and the old school NASCAR fans that see
40:00
this, they're going to disagree with both of us.
40:02
They don't like the stage racing I do, but it's all good.
40:06
Different people like different things and we do like
40:08
commercials, especially if they're for Triad Bank, for our
40:11
local Saint Louis people here, Triad banking.com.
40:15
Best thing I ever did for my rental property business, taking
40:17
all my loans from a big National Bank that didn't care about me.
40:20
Eric. To a local bank over there in
40:23
Frontenac, Triad Bank, you have Saint Louis lawn care if your
40:26
lawn care needs. You have Saint Louis equipment,
40:28
snow plows and all that. We got a ton of snow in Saint
40:31
Louis. That's stlmowerrepair.com.
40:33
You got quarter butcher and chop house over there in Fenton
40:36
Valley Park area and also corner butcher W out in Ellsville.
40:41
Eric, great show, buddy. I think we're going to do, I
40:43
think we should do a weekly, just a NASCAR hit.
40:47
And I'm serious, I'm not just doing this because we have a
40:50
NASCAR audience that will like this, but also I think Eric as
40:54
the casual sports fan, how we get Eric into NASCAR.
40:57
I think we should try this. OK.
41:00
All right. All right, maybe I maybe I will.
41:02
You tell me when the race is and tell me when the exciting part
41:05
will be like what time I can watch the last like 10 laps and
41:09
I will, I will try to do that. I'll, I'll, I'll give you a
41:13
report back. All right, see you, buddy.
41:16
Take it easy, everybody.