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Say Who, Say Pod, Ep. 204 · Say Who, Say Pod

0:01
SPEAKER_03: Pod.
0:06
SPEAKER_03: Pod.
0:08
SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to another episode of Say Who Say Pod.
0:13
SPEAKER_03: He's Danny O'Neill, not in sports code.
0:15
SPEAKER_03: I'm Christian Caple.
0:17
SPEAKER_03: Last show,
0:18
SPEAKER_03: second to last show,
0:19
SPEAKER_03: depending on how we handle next week before training camp starts,
0:23
SPEAKER_03: before we have some pre-training camp press conferences and comments to break down.
0:29
SPEAKER_03: You excited?
0:29
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Is this the end of the offseason or end of the dead period?
0:35
SPEAKER_01: That's what it should be called.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: We are reaching the end of the annual dead period where nothing much is happening.
0:42
SPEAKER_03: We are.
0:42
SPEAKER_03: Folks are returning from vacation.
0:45
SPEAKER_03: The SEC is mid-media days as we speak.
0:48
SPEAKER_03: The Big 12 and ACC are done with their media days.
0:51
SPEAKER_03: Washington goes Thursday, July 30th in Chicago.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: I'm traveling.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: We were just talking before the show.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: I'm traveling the day before to go be there for that.
1:01
SPEAKER_03: So I'm not sure how we're going to handle next week's show.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Maybe we'll go a day early.
1:04
SPEAKER_03: But is there anything you're interested in hearing from Washington's contingent at media day?
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll be interested to see and hear how DeMond Williams handles questions
1:17
SPEAKER_01: and how much the sort of the conference,
1:20
SPEAKER_01: because this is outside of just Seattle based media,
1:24
SPEAKER_01: how much what their perspective is on his near departure or how is that?
1:32
SPEAKER_01: Is that something they still see as the dominant storyline for this team?
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think within the team.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: And certainly not in Jed Fish's mind,
1:41
SPEAKER_01: that that's something that happened six months ago, and we should be well past that.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how past that the
1:52
SPEAKER_01: general collective conscious of the media is going to be.
1:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think— If I were to rank like the frequency of questions to everybody,
2:02
SPEAKER_03: that's probably what I would put number one,
2:04
SPEAKER_03: my guess of who will field the most questions about what.
2:08
SPEAKER_03: It'll be to Jed Fish and to Damond Williams about Damond Williams Jr.'s January drama.
2:15
SPEAKER_03: You know,
2:15
SPEAKER_03: and enough national media have addressed it already
2:19
SPEAKER_03: that there will be some people there who have like already kind of touched on this
2:22
SPEAKER_03: and will maybe be moving past it,
2:24
SPEAKER_03: but you know,
2:26
SPEAKER_03: Jed Fish and Damond Williams have both had a lot of reps by now of talking
2:31
SPEAKER_03: about this the way that they're going to talk about it,
2:33
SPEAKER_03: the way that they want to talk about it.
2:35
SPEAKER_03: And so it might get a little exhausting,
2:37
SPEAKER_03: but I don't think it'll be all that like difficult to just kind of repeat
2:40
SPEAKER_03: the same things over and over, which I assume they will.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I was wondering is if Washington is going to be identified
2:50
SPEAKER_01: as kind of this year's Illinois,
2:52
SPEAKER_01: the team that is seen as a potential sort of dark horse playoff candidate or like,
2:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:59
SPEAKER_01: this team,
3:00
SPEAKER_01: because I get the sense that Illinois had more buzz this time last year
3:05
SPEAKER_01: than Washington does now.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't necessarily, I mean,
3:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm obviously going to be supremely biased here,
3:12
SPEAKER_01: but I think Washington should be in that category of team.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: I actually think there's more reason to have them in that than Illinois a year ago.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: But like I said, I'm also...
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm also somewhat biased in that regard.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: But I also think,
3:29
SPEAKER_01: and this is probably the difference where it used to be the Pac-10 and
3:33
SPEAKER_01: then Pac-12 conference.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: The reporters who covered the teams in the league had,
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I think,
3:39
SPEAKER_01: a better sense of the overall league than you do now with the people covering
3:45
SPEAKER_01: the Big Ten.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Just because it's so glued together and new that I think it's harder...
3:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't think people have as good a sense for the overall shape of the conference.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: They may know more about their individual teams or as much
3:59
SPEAKER_01: about their individual teams,
4:00
SPEAKER_01: but they don't have as much an idea of how things are stacked up outside it.
4:04
SPEAKER_03: Illinois last year also had that all-important 10-win season they were coming off of.
4:11
SPEAKER_03: And I think like when you look at a team that brought in
4:14
SPEAKER_03: where they have 16 starters,
4:15
SPEAKER_03: including their quarterback and I think most of their O-line.
4:18
SPEAKER_03: And when you look at a team that did win double-digit games the year before,
4:22
SPEAKER_03: like you see that 10-win and it's like a 10-win team,
4:25
SPEAKER_03: a 10-win Big Ten team bringing back 16 starters.
4:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:28
SPEAKER_03: Hell yeah,
4:29
SPEAKER_03: you know,
4:29
SPEAKER_03: whereas Washington,
4:31
SPEAKER_03: they won nine,
4:32
SPEAKER_03: which is only one fewer than ten,
4:34
SPEAKER_03: but nine's not ten,
4:35
SPEAKER_03: you know,
4:36
SPEAKER_03: and they are replacing some pretty key playmakers at receiver and running back.
4:44
SPEAKER_03: Which maybe changes the calculus a little bit.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: If the rest of their roster was exactly the same,
4:49
SPEAKER_03: but they still had Jonah Coleman and Denzel Boston,
4:51
SPEAKER_03: then I think they would absolutely be getting the Illinois treatment.
4:55
SPEAKER_03: And to your point, I think they might still.
4:57
SPEAKER_03: They're in every preseason top 25 I've seen.
5:02
SPEAKER_03: I assume they'll be in the AP preseason top 25 and the coaches poll when those come out.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: I think Phil Steele's power pole or whatever it was had him at 15th.
5:14
SPEAKER_03: I think Stuart Mandel at the Athletic had him at 15th or 17th, we talked about.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: So I want to say Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman at on three had them seventh
5:25
SPEAKER_03: in their Big Ten preseason power rankings,
5:28
SPEAKER_03: which is probably right around where you would have seen Illinois last year.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: So I do think the preseason 2025 Illinois buzz might be
5:37
SPEAKER_03: an apt comparison
5:39
SPEAKER_01: It's very funny to think,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: because even just now,
5:42
SPEAKER_01: as we're talking,
5:43
SPEAKER_01: going in my head through which schools kind of have the most on
5:46
SPEAKER_01: the line this season.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Like USC has a huge amount
5:49
SPEAKER_01: at stake in my opinion.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Maybe has the most at risk of any program in the conference.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Nebraska is right there, too,
5:59
SPEAKER_01: with the expectations that have been on the program,
6:03
SPEAKER_01: the prominence of the coach and the lack of returns or lack of clear returns.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: And Washington is there in the.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: The feistier up and coming portion of the conference of like,
6:17
SPEAKER_01: maybe you got to pay attention to these guys
6:19
SPEAKER_01: and Jetfish might really have it rolling.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: So they're they're not on the on the brink, but more on that.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Are they ready to are they ready for primetime?
6:30
SPEAKER_01: You know who's been ready for primetime since 1964, Danny?
6:34
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely do.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: They're they're located right there in Shoreline, which is the perfect place for primetime.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: It is.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: Nobody's more primetime.
6:43
SPEAKER_03: In the vehicle selling market.
6:48
SPEAKER_03: Then Chuck Olson Kia and Shoreline.
6:50
SPEAKER_03: Family owned and operated by a family of University of Washington graduates with
6:54
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6:58
SPEAKER_03: of vehicles.
6:58
SPEAKER_03: Make Chuck Olson Kia and Shoreline your next vehicle buying destination
7:01
SPEAKER_03: when you do ask for our friend Henry Olson.
7:04
SPEAKER_03: And when you find Henry, tell him Say Who Say Pod sent you.
7:07
SPEAKER_03: This episode of Say Who Say Pod also brought to you by our friends at Husky Mobile.
7:11
SPEAKER_03: Husky Mobile is partnered directly with the University of Washington
7:13
SPEAKER_03: to offer affordable phone plans for the Husky community with up to 7%
7:16
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7:19
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7:32
SPEAKER_03: You can do that at GoHuskyMobile.com.
7:36
SPEAKER_03: Thanks again to Husky Mobile for supporting today's show.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Should we talk about the collective story for a bit?
7:45
SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed the collective story.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: It popped into my inbox.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: I spent a good solid 10-15 minutes.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: I made a couple charts, Christian.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: Put together a couple of,
7:56
SPEAKER_01: I did, I did, I inserted charts into the Word document that I used to take notes.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you put together as, it's not really a post-mortem On Montlake Futures.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: It was taking advantage of, there's public information out there because it was a 501c3.
8:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you can read it on montlake.com.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: We were talking about this before the show.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: It's the worst kind of story to try to talk about or promote on social media.
8:24
SPEAKER_03: Cause there's a number and people just see a number and latch onto the number
8:30
SPEAKER_03: and make assumptions about what the number is and means.
8:33
SPEAKER_03: And most of them are not going to pay to read the 1500 words of context that follow.
8:40
SPEAKER_03: Um, what we know,
8:42
SPEAKER_03: and this is public information because as Danny said,
8:45
SPEAKER_03: Montlake futures was operating as a nonprofit, uh,
8:49
SPEAKER_03: A 501C3 and as such was required to file annual Form 990s,
8:55
SPEAKER_03: which is a basic information.
8:57
SPEAKER_03: It's not a tax return because you're tax exempt.
8:58
SPEAKER_03: You're not paying taxes.
8:59
SPEAKER_03: It's the whole point of being a nonprofit,
9:01
SPEAKER_03: but you're telling the IRS Here's how much we brought in contributions.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: Here's our revenue.
9:07
SPEAKER_03: Here's our expenses.
9:08
SPEAKER_03: And of course,
9:08
SPEAKER_03: in the case of an NIL donor collective,
9:10
SPEAKER_03: nearly all of your expenses are going to be payments to athletes.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: And in their last fiscal year,
9:17
SPEAKER_03: which mirrors the university's fiscal year, July 1,
9:21
SPEAKER_03: 2024 to June 30th,
9:23
SPEAKER_03: 2025, after which we know the collective was no longer functioning.
9:27
SPEAKER_03: They shut down as a kind of a response to the house settlement and the new rules and everything.
9:32
SPEAKER_03: They raised and paid in the neighborhood of $43 to $44 million to UW athletes.
9:39
SPEAKER_03: No, that does not mean the football program spent $44 million on its roster,
9:47
SPEAKER_03: which hopefully I detailed the nuance of that well enough.
9:51
SPEAKER_03: It's hard because it's not broken down by sport on the returns.
9:57
SPEAKER_03: But we've talked on the show plenty
9:59
SPEAKER_03: about how expensive last year's men's basketball roster had to have been.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: Right.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: And it's all rumor and innuendo and there's only a small handful of people actually know.
10:11
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, Hannes Steinbach and Wesley Yates and Desmond Claude and for better or worse.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: Zoom Diallo.
10:21
SPEAKER_03: Those guys did not come to Washington or stay at Washington for a nominal fee.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: I was getting texts from people in the industry as they were putting together
10:32
SPEAKER_03: that roster last spring portal.
10:36
SPEAKER_03: And before they were even really close to done, being like, what are they doing?
10:42
SPEAKER_03: Where are they spending it?
10:43
SPEAKER_03: Like they got that guy, that guy, that guy, and that guy.
10:45
SPEAKER_03: They got to be at 10 million.
10:46
SPEAKER_03: And that was still with like a few guys to go.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: The other piece of nuance on top of that is...
10:53
SPEAKER_03: You know, I would imagine like some of those deals were probably paid in full in June.
10:58
SPEAKER_03: So that number reflects like trying to get as much done for that roster before
11:06
SPEAKER_03: the terms of the house settlement went into effect as possible.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: I would imagine there might have been a couple multi-year deals in there as well.
11:14
SPEAKER_03: So it's not like...
11:17
SPEAKER_03: That $44 million is distributed across like regular monthly scheduled payments
11:24
SPEAKER_03: to all of UW's athletes over the course of a year.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: I would think that much of that was loaded in the final portion of
11:31
SPEAKER_03: that fiscal Fiscal year to pay out going forward.
11:35
SPEAKER_03: And kind of like I said,
11:37
SPEAKER_03: there's an individual contractor section where it lists like
11:39
SPEAKER_03: the five individual entities, be it an LLC or an individual who you paid the most.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: But that's not reflective of the fiscal year.
11:46
SPEAKER_03: That's reflective of the most recent calendar year.
11:50
SPEAKER_03: So whatever they paid guys on last year's basketball roster,
11:53
SPEAKER_03: like those guys wouldn't show up in the individual piece.
11:55
SPEAKER_03: That's what I would really like to see if they do file a return next year,
11:59
SPEAKER_03: which I don't know that they will because they're not going to do anything
12:02
SPEAKER_03: or pay anything over the next fiscal year.
12:03
SPEAKER_03: Like that's where those guys would show up.
12:05
SPEAKER_03: And so that I think would be a very telling number.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Let's go through the things that I did find most interesting,
12:11
SPEAKER_01: and then we'll add a little more context.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: But the first thing is that everybody needs to understand
12:16
SPEAKER_01: that $44 million was not spent on the 2024 Washington Huskies or
12:21
SPEAKER_00: the 2025 Washington Huskies.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: That number is not indicative of what was spent on football.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot that goes into it.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Here are the things that I found most interesting, is that you see how quickly...
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Compensation is spiraling, how quickly it is going up.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: And I know everybody wants to look at how much is Washington spending and what does
12:48
SPEAKER_01: that compare to other schools?
12:52
SPEAKER_01: A, we don't know how it compares to other schools because this is just a look inside
12:57
SPEAKER_01: under the hood of Washington's economics.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: But we know at Washington, and these were the things that jumped out.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: So payments of $100,000 or more.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: 2022, there's one, I think.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: 2023, there's 14.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: 2024, there's 30.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: Michael Penix, in 2022, in 2023,
13:24
SPEAKER_01: Is 1.1 million.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: We know right now
13:28
SPEAKER_01: that DeMond Williams is this this year's like all indications are it's
13:32
SPEAKER_01: over 4 million.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: And Michael Penix was the runner up in the Heisman.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: Like when he went into that final year,
13:38
SPEAKER_01: he was seen as one of the top quarterbacks in the league.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: DeMond Williams is seen as a rising quarterback.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: I think he's seen as someone that can have a breakthrough.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't think right now.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: He would be viewed as highly as Michael Penix was when Penix came back for his final season.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: Yet you're talking about 4x the salary or 4x the compensation.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: And so to me, what it speaks to is you've seen how quickly the money is ramping up.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
14:13
SPEAKER_01: that's it's a little jarring when you think about it,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: like how how massively like it is a huge influx of cash
14:22
SPEAKER_01: that is accelerating quite quick.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: I think in my head, I thought once they started.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: NIL compensation,
14:28
SPEAKER_01: you would see a huge jump at the beginning and then it would be
14:31
SPEAKER_01: a more gradual climb.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: And it's the exact like this looks much more exponential as opposed to,
14:37
SPEAKER_01: oh, now all this money's come in and it's it's kind of now incrementally rising.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: It's it's taken off like a rocket.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:46
SPEAKER_03: And Michael Panik certainly made more than that, too.
14:49
SPEAKER_03: Right.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: He had other deals.
14:51
SPEAKER_03: He had other deals.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: And there's, you know, you could.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: You could have a certain amount of money you paid to your LLC and a certain amount
14:57
SPEAKER_03: of money paid to you individually or,
14:59
SPEAKER_03: you know,
15:00
SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
15:01
SPEAKER_03: maybe there's an agent fee involved and the collective's paying that,
15:04
SPEAKER_03: you know,
15:05
SPEAKER_03: off the top before you get like calendar years and schedules are different.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: Like I kind of pointed out in the story, right?
15:11
SPEAKER_03: The form 990 is one data point.
15:13
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't tell the whole story, but it tells us more than we knew previously.
15:16
SPEAKER_03: And with Penix,
15:19
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that he was the highest paid quarterback in the country that year,
15:24
SPEAKER_03: but you talk about how much less he made than what DeMond Williams is going to make.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: Pennix was, I think, very much top of market or near top of market.
15:36
SPEAKER_03: That was a big deal for them.
15:39
SPEAKER_03: And like Ryan Grubb sort of famously said that he came to Washington in 2022 for zero dollars.
15:46
SPEAKER_03: You know,
15:46
SPEAKER_03: now was it that literally zero or was it like basically zero compared to what he
15:50
SPEAKER_03: then made?
15:52
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
15:53
SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
15:55
SPEAKER_03: and there's a world where if you're Washington,
15:56
SPEAKER_03: you feel fortunate to have gotten to Mont Williams Jr. for four million dollars.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: Obviously,
16:01
SPEAKER_03: there was another school out there or schools out there who was willing to pay him
16:05
SPEAKER_03: a couple million dollars more.
16:07
SPEAKER_03: Who knows what it's going to look like next year, right?
16:10
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
16:10
SPEAKER_03: unless they get something in place to sort of give schools a target to shoot for,
16:17
SPEAKER_03: a budget that they have to stay within that can actually be enforced,
16:21
SPEAKER_03: there's no reason to think that the market won't just continue to accelerate.
16:25
SPEAKER_03: So I did find that interesting.
16:26
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: The other thing I'd point out, I mean,
16:29
SPEAKER_03: I mentioned like Great Osebor was obviously like one of the players they paid
16:33
SPEAKER_03: the most during the 2024 calendar year.
16:38
SPEAKER_03: It was reported when he signed with Washington that it was for $2 million.
16:43
SPEAKER_03: So, and the number that was on that form 990 was not $2 million.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: So that's another kind of example of how money could have come to players
16:50
SPEAKER_03: in other ways that The information filing doesn't necessarily capture
16:56
SPEAKER_03: the entire period where that player might have been paid.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: So you might only be looking at partial compensation there.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: But we know even in Danny Sprinkles first season that they had
17:08
SPEAKER_03: at least one seven figure guy on their roster.
17:11
SPEAKER_03: The investment in men's basketball was very significant.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: We should also kind of talk about that a little bit because,
17:19
SPEAKER_01: and this is, you can correct me if I'm wrong here.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: My understanding is there's basically one person that's really invested in sort
17:25
SPEAKER_01: of funding basketball and has been responsible for a huge part of the uptick there.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: It hasn't been as effective as Husky fans would have hoped.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how that relationship is going to be going forward.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: But I viewed Washington's NIL basketball spending as basically like largely
17:49
SPEAKER_01: the whims of one guy.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that it is literally just one person.
17:56
SPEAKER_03: Probably not.
17:57
SPEAKER_03: But effectively speaking, I think you're on the right track there.
18:02
SPEAKER_03: And let's just say that program is working with a much smaller budget going forward.
18:10
SPEAKER_03: Which should not hurt results given
18:12
SPEAKER_01: what you saw.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure there is a school that got less bang for its buck last year,
18:18
SPEAKER_01: but I can't think of one.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard for me to think of one where, and it's not that the players weren't good.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Steinbach's, it was puzzling.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: That was a puzzling, puzzling thing last year.
18:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they put together an objectively talented roster.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: That didn't fit together at all.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Or that the coach didn't have an idea for how they were going to fit together.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: And that wasn't how he would have put together if he had had his brothers.
18:50
SPEAKER_03: I do think that this year's version of Danny Sprinkles Huskies,
18:54
SPEAKER_03: while not nearly as well compensated as last year's,
18:59
SPEAKER_03: Might be a more enjoyable experience for him to coach because they did have
19:06
SPEAKER_03: to moneyball it a little bit and go find guys who maybe got a little bit of a chip
19:11
SPEAKER_03: on their shoulder, maybe a little bit hungrier and want to prove themselves.
19:14
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, maybe they'll play better together as a result.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: The one and done has never worked at Washington.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: It is shocking the level to which it hasn't.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: The point you make, though, is good.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: And I can even sense in my summaries of it that there's a temptation to fixate on the hard work.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is generally true with college finance.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: Someone just takes a number and throws it on a graphic somewhere.
20:20
SPEAKER_03: What can you do, right?
20:21
SPEAKER_03: But hopefully...
20:23
SPEAKER_01: Here's the other thing, though,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: that I found really interesting is that in the story spells this out pretty clearly.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: This is also kind of a.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: It's a specific situation in which you had an entire system of compensation,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: which was collectives and lots of schools had them,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: maybe every significant school had one, and that system It was going away.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: It was being mothballed.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: And the reason it was being mothballed is because they were switching
20:56
SPEAKER_01: to what everybody calls the house settlement.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: So you went from having a collective that was sort of this black box
21:04
SPEAKER_01: that people contributed to,
21:06
SPEAKER_01: and then that money would then get funneled as quickly and efficiently as possible
21:11
SPEAKER_01: to the athletes on the teams that the contributors wanted to support,
21:16
SPEAKER_01: to the house settlement, which is...
21:20
SPEAKER_01: There's an allocated percentage,
21:24
SPEAKER_01: an allocated amount of money that goes toward,
21:28
SPEAKER_01: they don't call it compensation, it's not pay for play, but it is revenue sharing.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: They're getting a portion of that.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: And so as the collective shut down, There was kind of this last gasp of the Wild West.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: It's like, quick,
21:45
SPEAKER_01: everybody,
21:45
SPEAKER_01: before we have to go into this other thing,
21:47
SPEAKER_01: while we still have control over everyone,
21:49
SPEAKER_01: it's kind of like a flurry of spending takes place because the money
21:56
SPEAKER_01: that you pay out under the collective is not beholden to the restrictions or in
22:03
SPEAKER_01: the accounting of the house settlement.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: So you also had this kind of balloon of That inflated because this was
22:11
SPEAKER_01: a last chance,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: kind of like making your Roth IRA contribution right on April 15th,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: right before the deadline.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, OK, you can do it right now, but you got to do it all right now.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it's going to have to be accounted for in an entirely different matter.
22:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's a good point that.
22:28
SPEAKER_03: You know, forty four million dollars is not like Washington's.
22:35
SPEAKER_03: Should not be seen as the baseline for Washington's collective capacity if it were
22:40
SPEAKER_03: to continue, right?
22:42
SPEAKER_03: For, you know,
22:43
SPEAKER_03: for the reasons you just said,
22:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
22:45
SPEAKER_03: what they were,
22:46
SPEAKER_03: they were front loading in June,
22:47
SPEAKER_03: especially for the, for the basketball roster and, you know.
22:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, the 24-25 fiscal year was different in a couple different ways.
22:59
SPEAKER_03: But it does raise the question of like if they did still operate
23:03
SPEAKER_03: a third-party collective, what could they have in there going forward?
23:08
SPEAKER_03: I don't think you'd see...
23:09
SPEAKER_03: The basketball piece of it at quite the same level.
23:12
SPEAKER_03: And again, we don't,
23:13
SPEAKER_03: you know, sort of the limitations of the data.
23:15
SPEAKER_03: We don't know exactly how much of that 44 million was basketball.
23:19
SPEAKER_03: I know it's a chunk.
23:20
SPEAKER_03: I know it's a chunk.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: Probably a pretty healthy one.
23:25
SPEAKER_03: But, you know,
23:26
SPEAKER_03: could the football program raise,
23:27
SPEAKER_03: you know,
23:28
SPEAKER_03: I think they were in the neighborhood of like six
23:30
SPEAKER_03: to eight million dollars pre house settlement.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: I think they spent about eight on the 2023 roster,
23:36
SPEAKER_03: but that's might as well be a million years ago.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: Could they raise an additional five to 10 million a year or more to help with retention?
23:45
SPEAKER_03: I sort of think.
23:47
SPEAKER_03: Those debates will become moot sooner rather than later because I don't,
23:52
SPEAKER_03: and we talked about this before,
23:54
SPEAKER_03: I don't anticipate the 21.3 was 20.5,
23:58
SPEAKER_03: now this year will be $21.3 million house settlement cap.
24:03
SPEAKER_03: I don't anticipate that staying the same.
24:06
SPEAKER_03: It seems like there's a lot of movement to just raise that cap because there's
24:09
SPEAKER_03: so much,
24:11
SPEAKER_03: you know,
24:13
SPEAKER_03: reallocating and Creativity with trying to push deals through,
24:17
SPEAKER_03: I do think it probably makes the most sense to just say, just raise the cap.
24:20
SPEAKER_03: I would be an advocate for getting rid of it.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: I think they should get rid of it entirely and let every athletic department raise
24:26
SPEAKER_03: as much money as they possibly can and pay players directly as much as they want and
24:30
SPEAKER_03: as much as they're able.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: They're already basically doing that.
24:34
SPEAKER_03: You can't stop it.
24:36
SPEAKER_03: Just let it all be above board and official.
24:39
SPEAKER_03: I think that would pave the way eventually for employment and collective bargaining
24:42
SPEAKER_03: and everything, too.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: But before then, I think you'll probably see that cap raised.
24:47
SPEAKER_03: And I just reading Ross Dellinger's coverage of All this.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: It seems like that's sort of like the next workable bandaid is to just say like,
24:57
SPEAKER_03: hey,
24:57
SPEAKER_03: forget all this associated entity,
24:59
SPEAKER_03: move in Learfield money, move in Adidas money, Nike money, whatever.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: Like just let it come from the school.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: Stop with all the charade of, is it an associated entity?
25:10
SPEAKER_03: Is it not?
25:11
SPEAKER_03: Raise the cap and let schools raise to the number.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: Right?
25:28
SPEAKER_01: To go from collectives to the house settlement to, okay, it's just internal and there's no cap.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: It's just internal within.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And it feels like stories from the tech sector, the move fast and break things, that...
25:49
SPEAKER_01: It's only two or three years down the road that people are going to start to be able
25:54
SPEAKER_01: to even really see what has happened.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: That's how it's coming out.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: You're seeing in the rearview mirror.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think there's any way to change that.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's a flaw.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: It's just...
26:08
SPEAKER_01: The system is changing so fast.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons it's changing so fast is because the NCAA drug its heels for
26:15
SPEAKER_01: so long on any changes.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: They basically fought tooth and nail to hold on to the existing system.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: And as a result,
26:23
SPEAKER_01: When it really became not viable, now it is truly trying to build from scratch.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: And two years down the road, oh, this structure doesn't work at all.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: We have to move it to that structure.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that structure doesn't work either.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to abandon that.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: And it's only after that system's been mothballed that anybody gets a look under
26:42
SPEAKER_01: the hood to see what was actually going on.
26:47
SPEAKER_03: Do you believe,
26:48
SPEAKER_03: Greg Sankey,
26:49
SPEAKER_03: that the SEC is willing to execute Plan B,
26:53
SPEAKER_03: as they're calling it,
26:54
SPEAKER_03: and break away if federal legislation is not passed and
26:57
SPEAKER_03: if federal legislation is not passed with the changes that they and
27:01
SPEAKER_03: the Big Ten have recommended?
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: I do believe that the Big Ten and the SEC are poised to make their own thing.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: And then...
27:13
SPEAKER_01: I think that their long-term plan is that others will fall under the umbrella of
27:20
SPEAKER_01: the structure that they make.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't think their long-term
27:27
SPEAKER_01: 20-plus year is like, we're going to be our own closed society.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that is their long-term plan,
27:35
SPEAKER_01: but I do think that they believe they're better capable of building a structure
27:40
SPEAKER_01: that works for It seems like some of the coverage of this,
27:44
SPEAKER_01: like I was watching Pete Thamel on ESPN, centers around like
28:06
SPEAKER_03: The SEC dominates ratings, right?
28:09
SPEAKER_03: Their games are as watched as any leagues.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: They got a ton of big brands.
28:13
SPEAKER_03: We all know that.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: Would that continue if they only played each other?
28:19
SPEAKER_03: If they played a full-on SEC scheme?
28:21
SPEAKER_03: Would the rest of the country,
28:23
SPEAKER_03: obviously like your diehard Alabama,
28:25
SPEAKER_03: Georgia, Auburn,
28:26
SPEAKER_03: LSU fan,
28:26
SPEAKER_03: like you're watching your team,
28:27
SPEAKER_03: but would the rest of the country have as immense of an interest in the SEC,
28:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:33
SPEAKER_03: more from a casual college football viewer standpoint,
28:37
SPEAKER_03: if they were disconnected from the rest of college football?
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm going to ask, and this is, I might be wrong here.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Like I realize I'm kind of being either provocative or antagonistic,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: but Why do ratings matter in this conversation?
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I ask that is because there is this I think there is
28:57
SPEAKER_01: a legitimate possibility that if the SEC and the Big Ten sort
29:03
SPEAKER_01: of cut themselves apart from the rest of college football,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: that they're going to lose some of their popularity,
29:10
SPEAKER_01: like that they that will come at an expense.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: But.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Ratings in and of themselves don't actually mean all that much.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: The only reason ratings matter is because that's what TV entities use to sell advertising.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's...
29:37
SPEAKER_01: I think this is true in a lot of different things,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: but people become fixated on ratings as if the goal is to get as many people
29:43
SPEAKER_01: to watch as possible.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: That's not true.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: The goal is to get as much money as possible for people watching it.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: You're not collecting a micropayment from each person that tunes in.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: And so when people start injecting ratings into this...
30:03
SPEAKER_01: There's a part of me that feels that that is self-interest on the part of
30:07
SPEAKER_01: the networks as opposed to what ratings have to do with.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Ratings are a downstream thing.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: They're not what dictate the flow of or the change of structure.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: But it's all about.
30:26
SPEAKER_03: Whether ESPN believes that the value they could get from their deal with
30:33
SPEAKER_03: the SEC would meet or exceed what they're paying them currently if they were only in
30:39
SPEAKER_03: a world where they were broken away and only playing themselves.
30:41
SPEAKER_03: I suppose a breakaway doesn't necessarily have to mean
30:44
SPEAKER_03: that no SEC team would ever play a game against any other non-SEC team, right?
30:49
SPEAKER_03: I think that's the assumption, but...
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, is that true?
30:56
SPEAKER_01: I guess I've always assumed that...
31:00
SPEAKER_01: I've always thought that what they're talking about when they talk
31:03
SPEAKER_01: about breaking away is the regulating element of it.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Like that...
31:08
SPEAKER_01: How our programs are regulated, we're going to determine ourselves.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to let federal legislation or some sort of NCAA-like entity.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: We're going to determine the rules.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Our members are going to be required to play games that we tell them to play.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: But if they have open dates,
31:28
SPEAKER_01: almost like employing a freelancer,
31:31
SPEAKER_01: you could hire somebody else from a different division to come in if you want.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: They just have to understand that they're not able to impose their rules on how you operate.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: When you mention ESPN, that is an interesting question.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: I consider when Greg Sankey...
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Or the Big Ten commissioner talk.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: I kind of assume that they are speaking for their network.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't, I don't, I'm not going to say that the conferences work for the networks.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: But I also don't think that the networks just take what the conferences tell them.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: I think they're much more on the same page as opposed to ESPN.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know if I like what the SEC is going to do.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: If ESPN didn't like it, I don't think the SEC would do it.
32:18
SPEAKER_03: It's true.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: Generally got to be lockstep with your primary network partner.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: Kirby Smart— Do you believe them?
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, do you think that they could break their intent?
32:30
SPEAKER_03: I don't— Yeah.
32:32
SPEAKER_03: Do you think— I definitely believe they're discussing it.
32:36
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like,
32:39
SPEAKER_03: I'm reading Seth Emerson kind of broke this down for The Athletic and talked about,
32:43
SPEAKER_03: like, well, if they do break away, like, what would it look like?
32:46
SPEAKER_03: And there's, like, the nuclear option, which is, yeah, break away and have your own playoff.
32:50
SPEAKER_03: And then more mild options,
32:52
SPEAKER_03: which are,
32:53
SPEAKER_03: you know,
32:54
SPEAKER_03: still competing with schools outside the SEC,
32:57
SPEAKER_03: but you're making your own rules on compensation and those sort of things.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: And I forget, like...
33:02
SPEAKER_03: Kirby Smart has said,
33:03
SPEAKER_03: and Georgia's president,
33:05
SPEAKER_03: have said that an SEC football playoff would be,
33:08
SPEAKER_03: quote, fantastic, reading from the article here.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: I am certain not everyone in the SEC shares that opinion.
33:16
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I mean, gosh,
33:19
SPEAKER_03: if the SEC playoff was its own championship playoff,
33:26
SPEAKER_03: Like a ton of people would watch that.
33:28
SPEAKER_03: For sure.
33:29
SPEAKER_03: But like if the rest of the sport is playing by a different,
33:32
SPEAKER_03: and it probably wouldn't be the rest of the sport, right?
33:34
SPEAKER_03: Like whatever the SEC does, I think the Big Ten would probably do something similar.
33:39
SPEAKER_03: But if the rest of the sport was playing for its own national championship,
33:44
SPEAKER_03: like if you're the SEC champion, are you not still feeling left out?
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Well,
33:49
SPEAKER_01: what automatically comes to mind is that there would then be a whole bunch of money
33:53
SPEAKER_01: from being able to play the SEC champ against whoever wins the other playoff.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And if there's one thing that I am certain of in college football is when there's
34:03
SPEAKER_01: a whole bunch of money to be made, they're going to find a way to do it eventually.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: So...
34:10
SPEAKER_01: They could talk all they want about how it would be great to have an SEC championship.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: There's no way that would go for more than a year, in my opinion, of being the final endpoint.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: Because the next year there would be some sort of after playoff.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: That would become part of the march.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Hell, they might call it the Super Bowl of two rival leagues.
34:35
SPEAKER_03: Uh, IP McFarland does not have an opinion about the SEC breaking away,
34:39
SPEAKER_03: but he does have a question about network television.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about golf.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Here's our weekly conversation with IP McFarland.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, guys.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, Christian, I hope you're surviving the heat.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: Danny, I hope you're surviving the flooding.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is scary and kind of gross.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, hope everything is okay.
35:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, While I was like most people and did watch a fair amount of World Cup over
35:07
SPEAKER_02: the weekend,
35:08
SPEAKER_02: in my world and my viewing habits,
35:13
SPEAKER_02: that was not the biggest international sporting competition this weekend.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: That would,
35:16
SPEAKER_02: of course,
35:17
SPEAKER_02: be the Open Championship where the charming and affable Ryan Fox won his first
35:26
SPEAKER_02: and what most believed to be his only major championship.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And he did so by making an 11-foot putt with all the pressure in the world on him.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: And he hit the putt 22 seconds after his playing partner, Sam Burns, had holed out.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm a fast golfer, and I play for very small stakes.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: I average more than 22 seconds on two-foot putts.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: That mean virtually nothing.
35:54
SPEAKER_03: So, he's fast.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: The reason I bring up The Open is because it's a unique viewing experience on NBC.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: You can either watch their main telecast,
36:04
SPEAKER_02: which I usually spend the majority of the time on, which is horrendous.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: It's absolute anarchy and there's no analysis.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: They just tell you what's happening and then play commercials.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: In fact,
36:18
SPEAKER_02: they had six commercial breaks in the last 39 minutes of crunch time,
36:22
SPEAKER_02: which is inexcusable and they should lose their contract for it.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: But on Peacock,
36:28
SPEAKER_02: they also play you the international feed,
36:32
SPEAKER_02: the Sky Sports feed,
36:34
SPEAKER_02: where there's no commercials and you get to listen
36:39
SPEAKER_02: to charming British people make little isms that we don't hear here
36:44
SPEAKER_02: and occasionally see a player that you've never heard of,
36:48
SPEAKER_02: but they seem to think is pretty important.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Regardless, you see a lot more golf and you don't have to put up with NBC.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: I mention this because college football season is starting and the Big Ten has
37:04
SPEAKER_02: a broad reaching contract that you get a whole bunch of different presentations
37:10
SPEAKER_02: of college football.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious, what elements of a broadcast do you think really enhance it above others?
37:18
SPEAKER_02: And what things would you like to see more of in broadcasts
37:23
SPEAKER_02: or something people should be trying that they're not doing now?
37:30
SPEAKER_02: I wish you guys a good week.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Go Dawgs.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: I would like,
37:40
SPEAKER_01: as part of their broadcast,
37:42
SPEAKER_01: to see a little more of the actual surrounding environment of
37:48
SPEAKER_01: the college football games.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: The stadium, or the pregame, or the entrances.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: I've always thought that that is one of the most unique and endearing parts
38:02
SPEAKER_01: of college football, are...
38:06
SPEAKER_01: Sort of the local traditions of what people do before games and then how the home team enters.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: And there's certainly sometimes that they do a great job of that.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: But I think highlighting that is the actual setting itself would be one of
38:23
SPEAKER_01: the things that I'd emphasize.
38:26
SPEAKER_03: Connor from Ann Arbor says he'd like to see tighter shots of the opponent's sideline.
38:33
SPEAKER_03: I could see that.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: Stallions?
38:36
SPEAKER_03: It's a Connor Stallions joke.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Wild Stallions?
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: That would be kind of fun, though.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Is that the name of Bill and Ted's?
38:42
SPEAKER_01: I believe that was Bill and Ted's heavy metal band, was the Wild Stallions.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: Was it?
38:48
SPEAKER_03: Are you familiar with Bill and Ted?
38:50
SPEAKER_03: I am.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: But was it Stallions with one L or two?
38:54
SPEAKER_01: It was with two, but it was spelled with a Y. I think it was W-Y-L-D-S-T-A-L-L-Y-N-S.
39:02
SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's how Connor Stallion spelled it on his credential request.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: Did you watch that Netflix special on him?
39:10
SPEAKER_01: I did, yeah.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: That was the biggest crock of shit.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: I know.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: It was so bad.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: It kind of glorified him.
39:21
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think a lot of Michigan fans have glorified him.
39:27
SPEAKER_03: One thing I really like is that the ACC broadcasts have done is that you get
39:33
SPEAKER_03: the full audio from the Replay Command Center on every replay review.
39:39
SPEAKER_03: I think every league should do that.
39:40
SPEAKER_03: I think that should be standard.
39:42
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: One of my big complaints about NFL coverage is that they go to break when there's
39:49
SPEAKER_01: a replay review.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And when it goes to replay review,
39:53
SPEAKER_01: I want them to stay there and show me the three or four different angles.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to come back and find out what to call.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: I think that's an abomination.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I would say that the ACC, the replay.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm tempted to say no coach interviews at halftime,
40:10
SPEAKER_01: but that's actually not true because I kind of like watching the coach get annoyed.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: I feel bad for them.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a terrible job assignment.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: That's a really hard thing to do.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: But I also feel like the people who do it really embrace the challenge of it.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: And I...
40:28
SPEAKER_01: I kind of like watching the coach try to put on a happy face or try to be polite
40:34
SPEAKER_01: when their head's about to explode.
40:37
SPEAKER_03: I would keep the halftime interview just on the off chance that,
40:41
SPEAKER_03: you know,
40:42
SPEAKER_03: like a guy left injured and that's the first chance anybody has to ask the coach
40:47
SPEAKER_03: and like hear something about it.
40:48
SPEAKER_03: Now, you might counter that and say, how often is that something useful, right?
40:53
SPEAKER_03: Half the time they say, oh, he should be okay and then he's not.
40:56
SPEAKER_03: And so it didn't really tell you anything anyway.
40:59
SPEAKER_03: But it's at least something.
41:03
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I kind of like...
41:05
SPEAKER_03: You know, if a coach is clearly irritated during the halftime interview, that's information.
41:10
SPEAKER_03: That tells you something, right?
41:12
SPEAKER_03: That adds to the,
41:13
SPEAKER_03: so the questions and answers are more or less irrelevant unless it is like
41:17
SPEAKER_03: a literal injury question or, hey, you took so-and-so out.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: He took the starting quarterback out and he appeared to be totally fine.
41:23
SPEAKER_03: Like, what was the thinking there?
41:25
SPEAKER_03: Like, that at least gives you something.
41:26
SPEAKER_03: But even just their reactions, I think, make it worth it.
41:30
SPEAKER_03: Are they largely useless?
41:31
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
41:32
SPEAKER_03: But what else are you going to show for those 15 seconds?
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: I'd never thought about it.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: It's not actually about the questions or the content of the answers.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: It's entirely vibes.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: One thousand percent.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: I just I just want the vibes of it.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: I I've always wanted broadcast football broadcast to do a better job
41:56
SPEAKER_01: of letting us know about substitutions.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: But I I think that.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: I think that's just really hard bordering on impossible.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: And even if you got that information,
42:08
SPEAKER_01: it would come in so fast that I'm not sure I'd be able to process it.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: Because that was the first thing that came to my mind is like,
42:17
SPEAKER_01: oh, I'd like to know these three players are going off.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: These three players are coming on.
42:21
SPEAKER_01: So I would know who's on the field.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: But I think in reality, I don't think that would actually add much to the viewing experience.
42:30
SPEAKER_03: I do like that idea.
42:31
SPEAKER_03: You'd have to keep it pretty small.
42:33
SPEAKER_03: Your screen's probably getting pretty busy at that point.
42:35
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, just a little, a little, and it wouldn't be for everybody.
42:40
SPEAKER_03: A lot of people watching wouldn't care that much.
42:42
SPEAKER_03: But just something like, here's who's on and here's who's off.
42:46
SPEAKER_03: You know, you got one person on the crew who's responsible for tracking that.
42:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:52
SPEAKER_03: You know,
42:52
SPEAKER_03: NFL broadcasts have done so much more with like advanced data and analytics
42:59
SPEAKER_03: and percentages and stuff.
43:01
SPEAKER_03: And I find that stuff kind of useful.
43:03
SPEAKER_03: Like I think about the Apple TV MLB broadcasts.
43:07
SPEAKER_03: And, you know,
43:08
SPEAKER_03: depending on the count and the batter,
43:10
SPEAKER_03: like the likelihood of a strikeout or the likelihood of him getting on base
43:14
SPEAKER_03: or whatever, like some of those live statistical probabilities I find interesting.
43:20
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that most people do or care that it really adds to the broadcast.
43:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, is more better, is less better?
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: So Apple does a pretty good job because one of my main complaints,
43:34
SPEAKER_01: and I think Sunday Night Football on NBC is the one that does this the most
43:38
SPEAKER_01: where they have AWS stats, that those are like catch probability in football.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a bullshit stat.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: I think they pull that out of their ass.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't find that tells me anything because I don't believe it factors in all of
43:56
SPEAKER_01: the things because you'd have to consider tightness of coverage.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Quality of throw, timing.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: There's just so many variables that I don't believe that's true.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: But knowing how often a team converts on third and one,
44:09
SPEAKER_01: both in that game, that weekend, or that season, would be useful.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: Knowing the percentages...
44:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, but you feel,
44:18
SPEAKER_01: I haven't watched as much of Apple's,
44:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't have Apple,
44:22
SPEAKER_01: so I haven't watched this year,
44:25
SPEAKER_01: but I did watch some of the Mariners games last year, and I,
44:28
SPEAKER_01: I guess I do remember their,
44:29
SPEAKER_01: their stats being better, um, Like,
44:33
SPEAKER_01: baseball has some Gemini ads that talk about the number of players who tap
44:38
SPEAKER_01: the plate twice before hitting.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, this is stupid.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is idiot minutiae.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, that is not analytics.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: That's moronity.
44:48
SPEAKER_03: You don't like the Google Cloud ads?
44:50
SPEAKER_03: Da-da-da-da-da-da-da!
44:55
SPEAKER_01: What percentage of players hop over the foul line?
44:59
SPEAKER_01: No.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: No.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: No one should know.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: I actually don't want that information cluttering up any space in my head.
45:07
SPEAKER_03: I would imagine that the officials would not want this and
45:10
SPEAKER_03: the conferences would probably agree,
45:12
SPEAKER_03: but I would love an official mic, a ref mic for official huddles before big calls.
45:21
SPEAKER_03: Honestly,
45:21
SPEAKER_03: I think It would do more to like ingratiate the officials to fans than anything else
45:28
SPEAKER_03: because I think you would get a real look at like here's just how careful they are
45:33
SPEAKER_03: and here's who's tracking what and here's who's looking at what
45:35
SPEAKER_03: and like here is what is discussed during these decisions.
45:39
SPEAKER_03: It would not saying that there's ever any impropriety
45:42
SPEAKER_03: or like hey let's wait till they show this on the scoreboard before we you know make
45:46
SPEAKER_03: a call or whatever but with replay anymore you kind of don't need to do that anyway.
45:51
SPEAKER_03: I think it would Yeah.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: And how someone clarifies, no, I have a clear view of that.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's that person's call or someone saying, I saw this clearly.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: And the other person saying, I didn't have a view of that.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: As you're saying that,
46:33
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking back to when we started talking about the story on The Collective,
46:37
SPEAKER_01: where...
46:39
SPEAKER_01: There's a parallel there because transparency,
46:43
SPEAKER_01: I think we would generally agree is a good thing.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: And being able to scrutinize and look at something honestly is helpful.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: It breeds understanding of how difficult certain things are or what is actually happening.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: But there's a level of trust that's required to do that because you know
47:03
SPEAKER_01: when you open up and Do speak or talk about either a difficult decision
47:11
SPEAKER_01: or something,
47:11
SPEAKER_01: work your way through a problem that
47:17
SPEAKER_01: people who are not operating
47:20
SPEAKER_01: in good faith can really make you look silly.
47:24
SPEAKER_01: And the same thing would happen the same way that somebody could grab a number from
47:29
SPEAKER_01: a story on the collective and use that to...
47:33
SPEAKER_01: To provide an inaccurate picture of Washington's finances in
47:37
SPEAKER_01: the same way you could take an excerpt or one element of a conversation
47:42
SPEAKER_01: between officials and make them look really stupid.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: But I agree with you.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: If you heard how officials debate through or work their way through a call,
47:52
SPEAKER_01: you'd realize you'd gain more appreciation for the degree of difficulty
47:57
SPEAKER_01: for their job because it is really hard.
48:00
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm thinking about,
48:01
SPEAKER_03: like you mentioned,
48:02
SPEAKER_03: you know,
48:03
SPEAKER_03: finding out which officials really have the gumption to step up and say,
48:06
SPEAKER_03: no, like I saw it this way.
48:08
SPEAKER_03: This is the right call.
48:09
SPEAKER_03: I know it's the right call.
48:10
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm thinking about like, would that lead to fans singling out officials?
48:16
SPEAKER_03: It's always the ref who calls it.
48:19
SPEAKER_03: And the ref, in a way, sort of, he's like the head coach, right?
48:23
SPEAKER_03: He protects the rest of the crew.
48:25
SPEAKER_03: It might have been the back judge or the umpire or whoever who really stepped in
48:29
SPEAKER_03: and said, no, no.
48:30
SPEAKER_03: I had this.
48:30
SPEAKER_03: It was this.
48:32
SPEAKER_03: But like the scorn is always directed at the referee.
48:34
SPEAKER_03: And as the referee, you understand that's part of the job.
48:37
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I don't know.
48:39
SPEAKER_03: Would referees say, well, like I I'd rather keep it that way.
48:44
SPEAKER_03: I don't want you know,
48:44
SPEAKER_03: I don't want people knowing that it was someone else on the crew who,
48:48
SPEAKER_03: you know, really stepped in, you know, basically provided the.
48:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: The NFL has a lot of mic'd up segments and those are always done.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: The team reviews them.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: Like the team has to authorize the sound to be released when players are mic'd up during a game.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: And largely it's just to protect the players and to keep like profane things
49:39
SPEAKER_01: from hitting the air.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: I'd be okay if officials did that.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: If they...
49:47
SPEAKER_01: Released a couple of conversations in a game that they reviewed first
49:53
SPEAKER_01: and decided like, OK,
49:55
SPEAKER_01: because I think there probably are situations where if if an official didn't see
50:01
SPEAKER_01: the play, like you probably don't want him saying I didn't see that.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: In something that you show to the to the audience, but I I'd like to see.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to see excerpts of how a play works,
50:15
SPEAKER_01: how how officiating a call works in a best case scenario,
50:19
SPEAKER_01: like understanding that this isn't representative of how every call is made
50:23
SPEAKER_01: and they're probably going to choose things that make them look good.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: I'd still be interested in hearing how they arrive at those calls.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: And I do think that the ACC's instant replay that they're.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: And allowing you to hear how they walk through a replay review is super helpful.
50:43
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a tremendous amount of upside in that.
50:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
50:49
SPEAKER_03: Transparency is good for everything, like you said.
50:52
SPEAKER_03: And it's also just very interesting.
50:54
SPEAKER_03: You know, I don't.
50:56
SPEAKER_03: Imagine if those USC Wazoo replay reviews had been broadcast
51:04
SPEAKER_03: and it would have either captured Woody Dixon's interference or kept him out of it.
51:09
SPEAKER_03: That will
51:11
SPEAKER_00: remain.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: Who's on the phone?
51:13
SPEAKER_03: Who's he talking to?
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Who is that?
51:18
SPEAKER_01: Is it Woody Dixon?
51:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that Leach just didn't give a rip about talking about Leach.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: It was the perfect combination of,
51:28
SPEAKER_01: or maybe it just,
51:29
SPEAKER_01: it takes someone like Leach to,
51:32
SPEAKER_01: who really truly doesn't care about spitting in the eye of power to do that.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: God, that was such a funny story.
51:42
SPEAKER_03: You know what they need?
51:43
SPEAKER_03: They need like the equivalent of a first down marker on the sideline so that if
51:48
SPEAKER_03: a sideline interference infraction is called,
51:51
SPEAKER_03: you don't have to wonder who it was or what happened.
51:55
SPEAKER_03: Like, there's an alert that goes off if someone crosses that line.
51:59
SPEAKER_03: You'd also find out just how often that happens
52:02
SPEAKER_03: for every team throughout every game, and it's not penalized.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: Could you, instead of the penalty, could we just do an invisible fence?
52:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, everybody wears a dog collar.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: A dog collar.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: You got somebody, like, down on their knees all the time.
52:22
SPEAKER_03: Now, does this hurt the position, coach?
52:26
SPEAKER_01: And like, what's the penalty?
52:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're kind of discombobulated.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: You got your brain fried for a little bit.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: Now you got to get back up, rub some dirt on it, and go to work.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: Have you ever rubbed dirt on a wound?
52:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I've ever rubbed.
52:41
SPEAKER_03: I feel like that's the last thing I would do.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: I did grow up in a pretty boondocky part of the world,
52:49
SPEAKER_01: though, so I wouldn't put it past that to have happened at some point.
52:53
SPEAKER_03: We get a lot of notifications from our daughter's preschool that she tripped
52:58
SPEAKER_03: and fell and scraped her knee and they put a Band-Aid on it.
53:02
SPEAKER_03: And every time I'm like, I'm glad they didn't rub dirt in it.
53:06
SPEAKER_03: It's okay to encourage like, hey, it's all right.
53:10
SPEAKER_03: You're fine.
53:10
SPEAKER_03: Let's gather ourselves and move about our day.
53:15
SPEAKER_03: And we don't need to go introducing bacteria or anything into an open wound.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Here might be the funniest story that I have of growing up and being,
53:23
SPEAKER_01: well, this is one of two very funny stories.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: I won't tell the other one.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: I was riding in the back of a pickup truck.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: I was probably six or seven years old.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: At this point, I was pretty young.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: I was riding.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: We were off-road.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: We were out in Eastern Oregon near Bly.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: And it was a pickup truck, like a big, bigger, old pickup truck with a canopy.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting on the tailgate, and the lid of the canopy was up.
53:56
SPEAKER_01: And we weren't going very fast, but it was very bumpy, very bumpy.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: And on one of the bumps, the canopy lid kind of swung up and then it uncaught.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: So like it came swinging all the way back down and it nailed me at the top
54:13
SPEAKER_01: of my forehead, like kind of right at my hairline.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: I didn't fall out of the truck, but I got knocked over.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: And then it was bleeding everywhere.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of blood.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: The wound wasn't that deep.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: And my dad, who is a logger, kind of is looking at it.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: He kind of looks and he's like, yeah, it's really not that big, Danny.
54:35
SPEAKER_01: If you look, it's like the size of your pinky nail.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: It's just bleeding a lot.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: And my younger brother, Casey, who was in diapers.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so I was probably like eight or nine.
54:44
SPEAKER_01: They towel it off with diapers.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: My dad put scotch tape
54:49
SPEAKER_00: on it to hold the wound together.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: Hell yeah.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: And my mom is like, I think we need to take her to the hospital.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, this is going to be fine.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: It's totally going to be fine.
55:00
SPEAKER_03: Did it hold it?
55:02
SPEAKER_01: It did.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: It did.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: And the wound, I think it was one or two days later, my mom did take me to the doctor.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: And the doctor was like, yeah, this really should have had stitches.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: But now it's pretty much healed.
55:13
SPEAKER_01: Like, we can't do stitches now.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: He's fine.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't really matter.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: He's just going to have a little bit of an uglier scar.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: But it's in his hairline.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: Nobody will see it anyway.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: But I'm always like, that was the answer.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: And that'll be just fine.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: We'll just use a little scotch tape.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: It'll work just fine.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: And it did.
55:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure your dad heard it should have had stitches,
55:31
SPEAKER_03: but now it's fine as, no, you were right to put Scotch tape on it.
55:36
SPEAKER_03: See?
55:36
SPEAKER_01: That is exactly how my dad heard it.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like he would say that so he could charge us to put the stitches in your head.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like I used some backwoods ingenuity.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: He's planting a seed
55:46
SPEAKER_03: for next time.
55:47
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
55:47
SPEAKER_00: So for life, son.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: Go get the stitches.
55:51
SPEAKER_03: But he notably did not rub dirt on it.
55:54
SPEAKER_03: Well, see,
55:56
SPEAKER_03: and I feel like that's a situation where if ever you were going to rub dirt
55:58
SPEAKER_03: on something, it's before applying a piece of scotch tape to close a canopy wound.
56:05
SPEAKER_03: Getting young children to understand that the amount of blood coming from like
56:11
SPEAKER_03: a relatively minor scrape is not necessarily an indication
56:15
SPEAKER_03: that like your leg is going to fall off is an ongoing challenge.
56:21
SPEAKER_03: But I understand like...
56:22
SPEAKER_03: Young person, you're not used to bleeding, man.
56:24
SPEAKER_03: Anytime you see blood, it's freaky.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: And now when you get older, it's just annoying.
56:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:31
SPEAKER_03: It's like, how much do I like this shirt?
56:35
SPEAKER_03: Dude, that sucks.
56:36
SPEAKER_03: Do I need to go get a paper towel or something?
56:40
SPEAKER_01: 51 years old, you'd figure I know how to shave.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
56:46
SPEAKER_03: No blood on the podcast, thankfully.
56:48
SPEAKER_03: No.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: No.
56:49
SPEAKER_01: I think this was fairly harmless, quite fun.
56:53
SPEAKER_03: I think we'll try.
56:54
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't know.
56:54
SPEAKER_03: Does Tuesday next week work as we plan out our week on the recording here?
56:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:59
SPEAKER_03: We'll probably record next Tuesday.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we can give it a shot.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
57:04
SPEAKER_03: It's now this Tuesday, right?
57:07
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
57:10
SPEAKER_03: I've always struggled with when you say next Tuesday, next Thursday.
57:13
SPEAKER_03: Are you talking about simply the Tuesday or Thursday that falls next week,
57:19
SPEAKER_03: or are you talking about the Thursday or Tuesday after the one
57:24
SPEAKER_03: that is coming up most imminently?
57:27
SPEAKER_01: If you tell me next Monday right now, I assume you are meaning a week from Monday.
57:33
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: If you say we're talking on Monday, I assume it's this coming Monday.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: So we are going to talk on Tuesday.
57:40
SPEAKER_03: I believe we will sit down to record on the very next Tuesday that is coming on the calendar.
57:46
SPEAKER_03: So I think we'll still talk to you next week, a day early.
57:51
SPEAKER_03: Let's do it.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: This is a football nightmare, brother.