Latest / Bottom Line on Sports / Money in Volleyball, Impact of CTE Report on NFL Future, NFL Players Go Back to College & Ohio State

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Money in Volleyball, Impact of CTE Report on NFL Future, NFL Players Go Back to College & Ohio State · Bottom Line on Sports

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, what's up, everybody?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to another episode of the Bottom Line on Sports, our show about the intersection of sports and money.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: He's Jeremy Peak.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Jean-Jacques Taylor.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you know how we get down.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: We like to start every show with a number.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: This week's number, tell us about it, man.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's one million.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is one million dollars.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the grand prize for an event that's happening in your backyard that I'm sure you're excited about.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Spikes Under the Lights, which is a terrible name.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a college, a women's college volleyball tournament of four teams.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently these are the four four of the better programs in the country.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the winner of the tournament gets a million dollars.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: How are you feeling about that?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, who are the four teams?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I knew you were gonna ask me that.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know SMU is one.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Penn State is another.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't recall who the other two are.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm curious, what why does that why would that matter?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious who the teams are.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: I just wanted to know who's playing.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, all right.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, man, you sent me that, and I was like, I haven't heard anything about that term.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's in it's in it's in uh Jerry World, you know.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's even worse.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: Now, in my defense, I've my my my sports appetite has changed um in the last five years.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I'm sad to admit this publicly.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so here's the deal I'm sad to admit this publicly.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm prefacing this for a reason.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um I know, dude, I no longer am a subscriber to the local papers.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, as a former sports columnist for the Dallas Morning News, you're not subscribing to your local papers.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I stopped this.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: I stopped my subscription to the morning news the other day, and I was pretty pissy about it.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they were trying to charge$31 a month for that thing, and I'm just like, Y'all are drunk, man.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's a lot, that's a lot for the morning.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all are drunk, and they were like, hey, but you can get it for a dollar a week for six months.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: I go, but then it's going to revert to$31 a month, and I don't want to hang with y'all every six months about what's right.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm done with it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: But that's my point is because I'm not a subscriber, and I haven't I haven't had it delivered to my doorstep in like a decade.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: But I used to get the uh I used to have the digital description.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: I used to like to to read the digital paper on my laptop or whatever.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: But um, and and you know, I say this in all honesty.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh many of my favorite writers there have moved on or done other stuff or retired.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so it the it doesn't offer me a lot to there's not a lot that I want to pick it up and read it every day.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But but do you want would you would now are you gonna resubscribe now that you know you're missing out on on events like spikes, spikes under the lights?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: No, nor do I listen to a lot of local sports talk radio where maybe they might have mentioned it, nor do I watch the local sports news.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't so we're really in a in a Twitter bubble.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so if it's amazing across Twitter, I ain't gonna know about it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right, all right, interesting.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're still you're you're heavily using Twitter.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the teams are SMU, which I was right in Penn State, Nebraska, and Florida.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, see, I had the other two.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think uh I think it's interesting that I mean I do get around town, I do wander into stuff and stumble into stuff.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's interesting that like I had I've heard nothing about this.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um I did seem like I saw a headline in the last 72 hours because I'll go over to the morning news's website and look at some stuff.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just not gonna pay for it.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it seems like I saw a headline that said something about volleyball in Dallas, it kind of like, but they were talking, it seemed like the story is more about club volleyball doing really well here, and that was probably some kind of story that they were using to talk about why the church was.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, some right, right, some sort of sidebar to get into it or something.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: But clearly they didn't impress me enough to capture my attention, so I took the movie.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I I checked to see how much tickets are.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, let me guess.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's the least expensive ticket that you can get to go to Spikes on the lights?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I checked in uh it was either SeatGeek or Fanduel.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recall.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not FanDuel.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: I would say uh stuff up.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: I would say probably$25 is the cheapest ticket.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can get one for$11.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so it's affordable.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, how much is the most expensive ticket?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's the one.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The most expensive ticket that I recall seeing was, and this was like you know, sitting right at uh you know, courtside level or whatever the equivalent is, was about$600.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: $600?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now that again, that's on Stub Hub or one of the secondary markets.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what it is an hour before spikes on the lights, under the lights, or whatever the hell it's called, starts.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Now my granddaughter played volleyball in uh junior high.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And my daughter, my daughter was, you know, varsity volleyball player.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Captain.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: So you went to a lot of volleyball games.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so yeah, so what I what what I find notable about this is that it's a that's kind of what I thought.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I figured you hadn't heard of it because no one's heard of it, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a million-dollar prize for four women's college volleyball teams, which says to me the following, which is that sports and any sort of sporting event where there's decent competition is a big event these days.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is, you know, sports has kind of transcended all other events.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: That that's the that's the event where people are paid, and that's the event where people are gonna actually watch.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm surprised Texas isn't there because traditionally Texas has one of the best teams.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, SNU has had a good volleyball team.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I taught there as an adjunct for probably 13, 14 years, and I had a couple of volleyball players in my class over the years uh that I remember being very good students and very, very tall.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, so I don't know.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know who the favorite is.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let's go with Hometown Team SMU.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, you know, I like volleyball, but I'm not going to watch five sets of it.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I like the event.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just wish they would change the name because I can't remember it.
• 6:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Something spikes.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Spikes under the lights.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's got kind of a catchy phrase, I suppose.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I guess.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if I can get some free tickets.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't I don't I think you can, I think you can probably.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll give you I'll give you 22 bucks.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can take your wife, you know.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So all right.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's our number.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: One million.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: One million dollars for the winner, which is great, actually.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: In many ways, it's great that there's, you know, but it to me it's an indication that live sporting events, even something like this, which you haven't heard of, which is although women's volleyball is pretty popular, but but which you haven't heard of, um, is able to generate that much uh kind of revenue.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I gotta tell you, I would be kind of curious as to I realize the the revenues going to the school, but I wonder if you get invited to a million-dollar tournament and you win it, how much does the athletic department allow us give to you?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because you know, the volleyball team ain't running on no on a on a college football budget.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so if they had you know an extra 250,000, extra 500,000, they could do some damage.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: Whether I agree, I agree.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a that's a that's a good point.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it's uh uh you just wonder if there was a basketball tournament, you know, an NCAA basketball tournament preseason, which had you know Duke and Kansas and Kentucky and UCLA or whoever whoever it would be.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why would why won't they do that?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's stopping them?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh that's coming.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I I think we'll see more of that.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: Bottom line for me, hey, good for them.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I hope they get a big somebody's going to get a big paycheck, and I hope the athletic department allows them to keep a chunk of them.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line for me, great indication that's big sporting uh sporting events are are transcending kind of all other events, but I just wish they would change the name.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a couple big NFL stories this week.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we'll talk about one of them, the Pro Bowl.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: In the end of the Pro Bowl, we'll talk about that next week.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but there was a story that came out this week that essentially said one out of four or five NFL players over the last six years during the time of this study suffered from CTE.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that was sort of a minimum estimate, too.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I tell you, man, I'm not surprised.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, not at all.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: We these stories, whether whether it's guys like Chris Johnson and OJ Brigant and others suffering from ALS, or whether it's uh, you know, guys having all kind of off-the-field issues, and you go, like, I mean, seriously, who amongst us thinks that whenever Antonio Brown dies, we're not gonna find CTE.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, quite possibly because his behavior has been so it was at this level and then it became abnormal over a very short period of time.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, you know, so I'm not surprised by that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: So the question is okay, check this out.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not surprised.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody who plays in the National Football League should be surprised by that.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But are they but when when you were in the locker rooms, would people talk about this?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not CTE specifically, but you know, former players or current players and you know, issues that they were having off the field, and they did they attribute it to you.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh it wasn't it wasn't in the locker rooms, you don't think.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: No, but you know, you gotta remember, I haven't really been in locker rooms really for probably three or four years.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't been in the locker room very much since COVID.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: So that's my that's more like five years.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right, but because you know, because they still went.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but the CT stuff was out in you know 2014, 2015.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but still it's not, you know, here's the problem with with football players in specific.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, football players coming from a world of machismo, typically they've always been bigger, faster, stronger than everybody.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: They're built like Greek gods, and they're most they're most likely to be nothing.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that happens to other people.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't matter.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so they don't really, even if it does out there, well, that's not gonna happen to me.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't seen any signs of it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, so I don't think it's uh I think now um more people pay attention to it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um it'll be interesting to see how they how they adapt to it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I will tell you I find this interesting.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: My 11-year-old grandson is playing football, a rite of passage in Texas.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um in the last two weeks.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: Now I don't go, I haven't been a very they've just been scrimmaging.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: Now, we'll talk about this topic another day as well, because we already touched on it once.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: Dude, they're charging$15 to watch 11-year-old scrimmage.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's outrageous.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's beyond that.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, I love you, but you're not really, you just playing.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: You ain't really like, I want to be an NFL star.
• 11:55
  unknown: Right.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: So my so I'm not, you know.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, I've been to a couple games, a couple scrimmages, and dude, I've seen last week in particular, I saw one player rocking the guardian helmet.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I was at another scrimmage two or three weeks earlier, and I saw one rocking the guardian helmet, and one of the kids, you know, all these organizations got a seven-year-old team, eight-year-old team, blah, blah, blah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: One of the kids in his team's organization that practice was rocking the guardian helmet.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing about the guardian helmet, though, and the thing about all these other helmets is there's no indication that they're actually safer than the regular comments.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: But it's if you're wearing one, it's an indication that you understand.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: That I agree with that.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: I heard this might help me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: So let me wear it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: When my they're sort of cognizant that it's an issue, or at least they're parent, at least their parents are.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I did write a column about this, and it's very uh uh, it was very poignant for me.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, when my son started playing football as a seven-year-old, uh, I mean, he really played flag football.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: He was one of those cats who wanted to play, like, hey, I want to play.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't any, hey, let me sign you up.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, hey, I want to do this.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so um I wrote a column, uh, probably as here as he was an eight or a nine-year-old, I think.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: But it was like, am I introducing him to something that I'm going to regret later on?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because he appeared to me very early on, and this played out to be a kid who's gonna play youth, middle school, high school, and have a chance to play college ball.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: And had he not hurt his knee, I think he'd have been playing college ball somewhere at some level.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: He'd have been because he loved playing football.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so my way of coping with it was I called the cowboys, probably when it got to be about 10, because then they can start, they can really start hitting because you got bigger guys.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I called the cowboys and specifically called my the equipment guy, Mike McCord, and I said, Hey man, my son's about to start playing youth football.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: What's the best helmet I can get him?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, Oh, we use this as our rep.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: Call him and tell him you want this brand of helmet.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Okay, so I called the dude like literally that afternoon, and that helmet was probably$245 uh back in 2012.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I didn't care because I wanted him to have the possible helmet.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so you know, had to show up, had to paint it, had to go get the logos put on it, but it was size, probably it was a perfect helmet for him.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: But that was my way of trying to deal with.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: I know this is not the safest sport, right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: Let me give you the best possible headgear to help you get through.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, this to sort of move the topic a little bit, you know, our show is about like the impact, the money impact on it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's two different ways to look at potential money impact on it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: One is the players, or the how what do the players think about this?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And are they gonna continue to want to get paid?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you can usually comment on that in a second.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing, too, is that do you think as you get more and more stories out there about this, that the viewing public will go, huh, I'm not sure I want to watch this anymore.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think they will.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's not, it's gonna be, you know, it's like uh there's there's a there's a saying that, you know, risks happen slowly and then all at once.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that this will happen slowly, and then all at once, you're gonna see not a lot of people watching football.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know when it's gonna happen.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: It may not happen for five years, may not happen for 10 years, but if you start to see stories like this keep going, I'm not sure how much longer this will you'll you'll get an audience of that size.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, see, I think it's um we live in a very aggressive, violent society.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so I think this is legalized violence.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I consider it not consider it, but I look back, it you now don't laugh.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, it's that whole Roman gladiator thing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: You got this this team of gladiators represents our city, and they're going up against this team of gladiators that represents another city, and you know, we want our guys to win.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think the other thing is it's so ingrained in our culture that it seems hard for it to uh not be uh and it's it's it's so much more popular than any other sport.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: It seems that it would be hard for it to go the other way.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: I will give you one uh two reasons why it could go the other way that are realistic to me.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: One is that happened in boxing.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, people were like exactly people are dying in the ring.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and so it it just kind of boxing used to be one of the top three sports in America, and now it's you know dying it who knows where on the list.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: And secondly, and this is uh this would be the more interesting thing, and people have talked about it from time to time, so it's not like I'm breaking news here.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: Will mamas continue to let their sons play football?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's because that's the bigger question.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, you know, do mamas have a vote?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like in my particular house, I wouldn't say mama had no vote, but I was in charge of that, you know, and and I'm not some super chauvinistic guy.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm also I was also in charge of cooking.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I was in charge of uh this my son.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna dress him, and if he wants to play sports, I'm in charge of practices and all that.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: But that's just my house.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's not everybody's house.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: I know some some friends of mine, they're they're their wives like, my son's not playing.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I think more than some, you know, I think that's that's gonna be it's this is gonna be a big, this is gonna be a huge and growing issue over the next number of years.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what I would say is I think that football's popularity will probably be at its apex right now, and I think it's gonna decline.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it may not decline in a you know in a huge way, you know, but it's gonna decline over time.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, see, I don't know, man, because what is what's the ground roots football thing right now?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Women and girls.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like they're starting flag football leagues, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: And and those kids are going to have those women, those girls playing football, and it's exploding in in Texas and a couple other places.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: But those girls who are playing will become women who have sons.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think those sons will play flag football.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, see, I think what'll happen really is um I think there will I think what'll happen is there will come a time where youth football will end.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll be that'll be the beginning.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right, but it'll be more like you can, and you've heard several people say this um flag football until you're 13 or middle school, then you can play.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, so I think you can see some of that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but it's uh it's a very interesting.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: I can I could kind of see where you're going because of this.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um like my son was a natural physical dude.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: He never minded contact from the time he put on some pads.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: My grandson, this is his first year playing football, he's 11 years old.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: He got no interest in contact.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's like he's like Aaron, he's like Aaron Rodgers today, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's got no interest in getting hit, yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a it's a whole different thing.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that's because what he didn't grow up getting hit at six years old and seven and eight, and figure out that, oh, I got these pads on, and so it's not really that big a deal.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: All he knows is man, it looked like that hurt.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: I ain't trying to do that.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So so I look at this non in a dissimilar way to smoking.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: The what when smoking became smoking was wildly popular, and then smoking became so bad for you that it just stopped in its popularity, and it just declined.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it went from being just an incredible social statement, it was in movies, it was in everything, to think about the last time that you went to, you know, think about when we were growing up, right?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or we're not growing up, we think we were at Ohio State.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: If we went to a bar, you knew you came home, you're gonna be covered in smoke.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you knew you're gonna it was gonna be smoky.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then as the years progressed, okay, maybe you had a non-smoking area, and then you had people start to smoke outside of the bars, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now nobody smokes.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't smoke because it's really, really bad for you.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that once the really, really bad for you starts to permeate in society, it changes things.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's huge money behind smoking back then, too.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Huge corporations were behind smoking, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I think, so I think the impact is going to be I think we're gonna see the apex of football's popularity, which is gonna decline in popularity, maybe not precipitously, but I think it's gonna decline.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think it's gonna be used as a point in negotiations by the media companies with football, uh with the league right now.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: In terms of why they're not paying as much?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of I think they're gonna either A, why they're not paying as much, or B, why they're they're gonna wait to renegotiate.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it'll be one of many points, but it's it gonna be a point that's gonna be used.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And or there's gonna be there's gonna be elements written into contracts that will contemplate what happens if there are laws written to outlaw football in its current form.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think the uh you know one of the reasons it's hard for it to go away is why did people box?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like people always knew boxing wasn't necessarily good for it's my way to get out.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's the one thing I can do, it's my way to get out of my environment.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right, and that's a different that's a different angle.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the players themselves, I mean we talked about this briefly.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: The players themselves, as you said, don't you know, they don't care, they want to get paid because this is this is a great gig for them, and even and it's worth that risk.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not just a great gig, it's um you know, some people are born to play sports, some people are born to be academicians, some people are born to do both.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but if you're only born to do, if you're only if football is your way to a better life, and that's you know, it really became football is my way to a scholarship, which is a way to a better life.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I play.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then I figured out I was good enough to go make some money playing professionally.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the money is also so big and generational that you know it's a it's the it's the one way you can really change your life substantially in a shorter period of time.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so that's why I even when you talk to all these guys now who have these catastrophic injuries, when you talk to them and you say, you know, I and let me see how to say it.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: The guys I talk to somewhat regularly, I wouldn't say they have catastrophic injuries, but they have normal football life, which is they walk funny, they've had knee replacement.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's incredible when you see football players in their 40s and 50s.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you go, so duh.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: Was it worth it?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I've yet to meet somebody who said it wasn't.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: And their bodies are mangled, they got fingers pointing in all kinds of weird ways, and knuckles that are you know, their knuckles are like this, and they just all go, yeah.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's remarkable.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so uh the bottom line for me is uh it's gonna be fascinating to watch the evolution of football over the next 10-15 years and see where it goes because I don't know where I I have no idea where it's going.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but but bottom line for me, I think this is the this is the apex of football's popularity right now for two reasons.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: One is that I think the viewing public is could is now cognizant of of this and may not want to watch as much as they once did.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I could be wrong.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're right, it's a violent society.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, I think the rules are gonna have to change somehow.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that might also be a way for the that might also uh create uh decline in popularity.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'll I'll piggyback on that because you say something interesting.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think like Chris Johnson, we still haven't had a big enough name.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: Has been tragic.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Not everything that's happened to him, whether it's you know Steve Gleason or all these other guys, have been tragic.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: And Chris Johnson is another tragic story, but you haven't had that Hall of Fame guy show up with ALS or something like this, and you that really drives home what it's all about.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe you can say um the defensive lineman for the Bears.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, Junior Sayao triggered a lot.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, he triggered a lot, but it was but he wasn't that he wasn't big enough of a name.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you have a quarterback or if you have a well-known wide receiver or Sayo might have been a big enough name, but you know, even that was probably 15 years ago, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so the world, if he had if that had happened during the social media, like we are in the would have been a much bigger deal.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's true, that's very true.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um but because it wasn't, it just kind of became part of the regular news setup.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, you can also I think you can also trace the decline in boxing to when Muhammad Ali started to show symptoms of uh of the effects of boxing.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was that's to your point, which I hadn't thought of to your point, he's maybe the biggest sports figure of my lifetime.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if he's if if he's showing that kind of impact from from boxing, that's gonna have that's that's gonna have a major impact on on everybody who who consumes it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh another interesting story out is now all these, not all these, several guys who are who are in NFL training camps and mini camps and OTAs, they're trying to go back to college, man.
• 27:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: And at one level, I don't really blame.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: I don't like it, but I don't blame them.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the the uh the Big Ten put out a statement today, the SEC put one out today that basically prohibits that from happening.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, by basically punishing the the coaches, uh Lane Kiffin, um who who who acquiesce and add those players to their rosters, uh the whole key will be that all of this is going to court and it's what the courts decide.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, it uh my suspicion is it will all all of this will end up in front of the Supreme Court at some point, because that to me that's the only way it can go because there's there's so much, so many moving parts to it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think it's another indication that we've talked about this for a long time, that college football is essentially minor league football.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, minor league baseball, you're allowed to go back and forth between triple A and the major leagues.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is the question is whether or not there will be some sort of comp some sort of compromise that says, oh, you can go back to college once and that's it.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you can only go back to college for a specified period, you know, you can only go back for one year and that's it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You create, you know, the equivalent of like when you're options from triple A.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: That may be that may be a compromise.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure it's a good one, but but other than that, it's gonna have to be litigated for sure.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what people have to understand is uh because you know, I got some friends who are all up in arms, you can't do that.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Dude, the only thing that matters is some kid calling player X is trying to get paid.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: That I agree with.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's all they're trying to do.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't care if I get paid by State U or the Dallas Cowboys.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: I just gotta support myself and my family.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is the skill I have, and I'm I'm just trying to get paid.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I wasn't good enough to make the NFL team uh because that's a very hard thing to do.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: So if I can dip back and make let's be reasonable, six hundred thousand dollars again.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: What did I tell you?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh hey man, do you know many college graduates that get make six hundred thousand dollars of school?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: So even if you do that for a year and you just say, hey, after taxes, I netted$300,000.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm I'm starting my life with a$300,000 nest egg, and my opportunity to succeed is a hell of a lot better than somebody who's making$80,000 or$60,000 coming out of the school.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I so I think I think there's gonna end up being a series of restrictions, not dissimilar to have in, you know, in order to join the NFL, you have to be out of school for a few years.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: In order to join the NBA, you have to be, you know, a year, you know, a year removed from high school or whatever, whatever the uh whatever the criteria is today.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think colleges are gonna end up, and they've been working to this to have a fixed number of years of eligibility.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think then a corollary to that might be they put some sort of age limit on people who are allowed to play in college.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that may be a legal way around it for at some point, but I think it's gonna get litigated.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it also could be very collusive in that college coaches, college coaches might end up just saying we're just not gonna do it.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and then that will create court cases of their own.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's the problem, is you can't restrict people's ability to make money.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's ultimately what we're trying to do, which is what I always tell people they say, well, I'm gonna limit you to this, or I'm gonna you can't limit me.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: If I want to go to four schools in four years, and somebody wants me, it's not for you to say I can't do that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I can do whatever I can do whatever I'm allowed to do by the rules in place.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the other the other thing that deserves that just always has bothered me is when fans and others are going after you know a quarterback or a star NBA player and saying you should take a team-friendly deal, you should get paid less.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, no, they shouldn't.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, they shouldn't.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: They should get whatever they should get whatever money they can.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody nobody's coming to you and say, Jacques, you know that book advance you got?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Simon and Schuster needs to pay five other authors, so why don't you take half your book advance?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you do that?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, never happen.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: Fans in general are some of the most because they're fans, yeah, and they they root only for this for the name on the front of the jersey.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they would they want their athletes and coaches to do all kinds of ridiculous things that they would never do themselves.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely would never even consider themselves.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, but but the restrict the restrictive nature of this is the key.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're right.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: The restrictive nature is you can't inhibit anybody from making a living in any way.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to disabuse yourself of the idea that these are uh student athletes.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, these are professionals, right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there can be a transfer between one professional group of professionals to another group of professionals, unless a contract, you sign a contract specifically that prohibits it, it's a non-compete or whatever that contract might be.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's gonna go to restricting age and restricting the number of years of eligibility for college, which I think will ultimately both things will be legal, but I think it's then gonna create some sort of deal between the NFL and college football of uh some sort of option kind of contract.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can be option once or option twice.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I like that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: Matter of fact, I heard um I think I heard it on the radio I was driving around today.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: Something about the NFL had had flipped the other side that said, you know, they were putting their thing together, which is if you've done something in college, then you're not eligible to play.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, if you dip back to the league, if you've been in the NFL training camp or OTA and you go back to college, you're prohibited from entering the league for a calendar year or something like that.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the same thing as an option.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the same, it's the equipment's the equivalent, you know.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the it's an option, a different name.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what's gonna happen.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's uh it's a weird time.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you I can't say I had all this on my bingo cart when it came to NFL and and uh college football.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean we're we're talking like CTE issues and the impact in the future of football, which I think is I I think this study, that study's a huge, I think it's a really big deal.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um I did not see the I did not see an NFL player going into college either.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't see that happening.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: It makes perfect sense though, if you as you think about it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, and I think we could all expect to see, and uh, I'll give Land Kiffin credit uh because he's getting a lot of a lot of slander today.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: Now he's he's kind of a in my opinion, kind of a swarmy dude.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: So when he gets slander, it's it it just is what he's easy, he's easy for people to slander.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: But the the the most intelligent thing he said was these kids are going to play for somebody.
• 34:35
  unknown: Right.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: So if they're going to play for somebody, right as well play for me.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't really have a problem with that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a professional program.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: What what whatever you want to say, it's not these are not college students, it's a professional program.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, their teams are our beloved bucks got a$40 million payroll.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I ain't really trying to hear it's a game for amateurs and and tries.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not and and and forget all these traditions and everything.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is it's a new era.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a new era, exactly right.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, bottom line for me, uh, I don't know where college football is going, but I hope it doesn't destroy itself in the process.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line for me, this issue, uh, as you have pointed out, will ultimately be litigated.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: As I've said, I think it'll it'll revert to some sort of the three things it'll revert to, which is a limit on the age you can play in college, limit on the number of years of eligibility you can play in college, which is already happening, and uh some sort of option between college and the pros that will be restricted in some fashion.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Now, after this lively discussion, surely you want to rever review, rate, and give us five stars.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I would.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: I would I would too.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: Matter of fact, I've already done that as many times as allowed.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that being said, hit the subscribe button and uh get more of this uh thrilling uh conversation about the business of sports.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh now it's time for our favorite uh segment of the week, Ohio State.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I had an interesting thought, or at least I thought it was interesting.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I figure Ohio State has paid Jeremiah Smith somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to ten million, maybe more, but somewhere in that ballpark.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: And the question I had was has the ROI been worth it?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I say, yeah.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's been worth it in terms of production.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's been worth of it in terms of publicity.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then I think it's been worth it in terms of other receivers, high school receivers have some have seen what he's done on the field and said, you know what?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think I want some of that.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'll go to Ohio State and play receiver.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so it doesn't always work like that, that you get a good return on investment.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I think in this particular case, it's uh it's been uh terrific.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I agree.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think that the market dictates what a player is worth, and that this is what he's getting paid, and his return has been a national title.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I would say is an iconic catch the end of the national championship game a couple of years ago, uh pass from Will Howard.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was uh I think that his his play against uh Tennessee and Oregon in the national championship are the reason the Buckeyes won the national title that year.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: He he broke out that during those two games, gave Ohio State confidence.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's the one of the, if not, he may be the single biggest reason they won a national title.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: For that reason alone, yeah.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh uh I'm going to say this because it's not always a given.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm knocking on wood.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_03: He's also remained out of trouble.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like there's been nothing, nothing on his name, but you know, in today's era, speeding, DUIs, possession, any of that stuff.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he's managed to avoid all of that thus far.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's that's part of your return on investment, which is I'm giving a young person more money than they really can even conceive of and hoping that they don't destroy themselves before their eligibility is up.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: Because um if you give anybody, any young person, any any person still maturing that much money, just look at all the child stars who've gone haywashed.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: But it's incredibly hard to remain normal and and not find yourself in some kind of uh some kind of issue, and he's he's avoided that.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you add that to his athletic prowess, um, you know, he's he's been terrific across all boards.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can criticize, you can also you can criticize Ryan Day about his coaching and you can criticize him about a lot of things, but the players on since Ryan Day's taken over the program, it's been a pretty clean program, certainly relative to other places.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: Relative to college sports, uh you can't have 105 players on your team.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it's been it's been it's been a relatively clean program.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the stars have been very clean in the program.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's that's credit, you know.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of there's a lot of other programs, particularly uh Georgia.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, there's you know others in the Big Ten uh that we know of.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't I didn't say that, but but but they have had they have had, yeah, as I always say, they have had more scandals uh this century than they've had victories over Ohio State, but that's a different story.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um scandal free.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's true.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, and I and I think uh by the way, I think Michigan hired the right coach uh in Whittingham.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think Michigan, yeah, I think that's a good I think it's a good hire.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: No, he's a I mean He's what they need.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: He he's he's the kind of guy that that program needs.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a good idea.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because he'll he'll he'll do it all the right way.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I thought it was I mean, I laughed at it because I get it.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, people giving him the business because he says he doesn't hate Ohio State.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: Let me tell y'all something.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: And most of y'all probably know this.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: You can't find a rivalry more intense than Utah and BYU.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's every bit as intense as Ohio State in Michigan, intensity-wise.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now, obviously the teams aren't as good, but from a sports hate's perspective, it doesn't get any more intense than that.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, and and uh and those teams have actually been pretty good over the last decade or so.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: So he understands, yeah.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: He understands what big time rivalry is and what sports hate is.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, he's just trying to uh to play it a little closer to the vest.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: But uh yeah, man, I think uh the ROI on uh Jeremiah Smith has been great.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I think uh Ryan Day has done a good g it's criticized a lot for a dude who's lost like 12 games in eight years.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing, yeah.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, but my fan base is is insane, like most uh fan base.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's the the yes.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a people think the oh, he's making so much money.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hard job on in it's and it's an endless job and it's a thankless job.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's all of that is is true.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh bottom line for me, Jeremiah Smith, one of the best eight to ten million expenditures Ohio State has made in the last four years.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but bottom line for me, uh agree a hundred percent with you.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's totally worth the money, and he will be the first non-quarterback picked in the NFL draft next year.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I buy that.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't step on a very sturdy branch.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was a that was a really, you know, really, really big uh big thing to say.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh with that, uh, until we chat again next week, you guys be blessed.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we'll see everybody next week.