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Episode Two Hundred Nineteen: Goodbye 2024 · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and nineteen of the Death
0:03
Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
0:05
Speaker 1: host of the Today's show. The NFL sends a clear
0:09
Speaker 1: holiday message about who runs television, and there may be
0:12
Speaker 1: significant ramifications. Three stories out of the University of Miami
0:17
Speaker 1: further revealed just how broken college sports really are. We
0:21
Speaker 1: do an extensive rap of the year twenty twenty four,
0:24
Speaker 1: including the death of former President Jimmy Carter, the first
0:28
Speaker 1: ever interview with my seven year old daughter Diana, and
0:31
Speaker 1: I explained where this podcast will be going in twenty
0:35
Speaker 1: twenty five. I hope you had a great Christmas holiday,
0:41
Speaker 1: and if you've already celebrated New Year's Eve, I hope
0:43
Speaker 1: you had a good New Year's as well. Christmas and
0:46
Speaker 1: the Zigler family was about as good as we could
0:48
Speaker 1: have possibly hoped for. Of course, there is always the
0:51
Speaker 1: big letdown on December twenty sixth, which is inevitable when
0:56
Speaker 1: you have two small kids, or not as small as
0:59
Speaker 1: they used to be, but twelve and seven year old
1:01
Speaker 1: daughters who are super duper into Christmas. Christmas is basically
1:05
Speaker 1: a five or six week festival in our family, and
1:09
Speaker 1: then December twenty sixth I've come to really kind of
1:13
Speaker 1: loth is the one of the worst days of the year,
1:17
Speaker 1: the massive post Christmas letdown we had that this year.
1:20
Speaker 1: But I guess that's actually a good sign that the
1:23
Speaker 1: season itself, at least for the kids, was as good
1:25
Speaker 1: as they could possibly have ever hoped for, and probably
1:28
Speaker 1: even better than they deserved. So we'll talk a little
1:32
Speaker 1: bit more about that in my interview with my seven
1:34
Speaker 1: year old daughter Diana later on in this podcast episode.
1:39
Speaker 1: We've got a ton to get to, but I want
1:42
Speaker 1: to start off by kind of explaining and clarifying where
1:47
Speaker 1: we're going with the podcast in twenty twenty five. I
1:49
Speaker 1: want to do that right off the bat, and then
1:52
Speaker 1: in great detail explain my thinking behind it. At the
1:55
Speaker 1: end of this episode, it appears as if most, if
1:59
Speaker 1: not all, of you already gotten an email indicating that
2:02
Speaker 1: there's going to be a price reduction per month to
2:05
Speaker 1: a measly six dollars a month in twenty twenty five,
2:08
Speaker 1: and I've already gotten several questions about that. So with
2:13
Speaker 1: the stipulation that I'm going to explain why this is
2:16
Speaker 1: going to be the case later on in this episode,
2:19
Speaker 1: let me right off the bat, just say in twenty
2:21
Speaker 1: twenty five, we are greatly adjusting how we're doing this podcast.
2:26
Speaker 1: There were basically two options there. In my mind, keeping
2:30
Speaker 1: it as it was going twice a week with two
2:34
Speaker 1: two and a half sometimes three hour episodes was just
2:37
Speaker 1: not possible. Again I'll explain why later in this episode.
2:42
Speaker 1: The other option was to just kill the podcast entirely.
2:46
Speaker 1: Our executive producer, Mike Gagavino said, he'll do whatever I
2:50
Speaker 1: want to do. It seems like people want this to
2:53
Speaker 1: can continue in some form. So the only plausible path
2:57
Speaker 1: I see here is to do this just one one
3:00
Speaker 1: time a week, with the option to do two episodes
3:04
Speaker 1: given the nature of events, whether they be planned or
3:08
Speaker 1: breaking news. So basically, I'm gonna be calling this the
3:11
Speaker 1: one plus system. I'm making a I guess an allusion
3:17
Speaker 1: to my preferred college football playoff system, which would have
3:21
Speaker 1: been the plus one. So this is the one plus.
3:24
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, We're going to be doing one
3:26
Speaker 1: episode a week. It'll be taped on Wednesdays. It'll come
3:30
Speaker 1: out overnight Wednesday into Thursday, which is our normally our
3:34
Speaker 1: second episode in any particular week. But some weeks there
3:38
Speaker 1: will be a Monday taping of an episode released as
3:42
Speaker 1: had been the case in twenty twenty four, Monday night
3:45
Speaker 1: into Tuesday. That's not going to be the regular procedure,
3:49
Speaker 1: regular schedule. It's not gonna happen all that often, but
3:52
Speaker 1: it will happen, like, for instance, in January. And there's
3:56
Speaker 1: been a little bit of confusion at least on my part,
3:59
Speaker 1: as to how this was all going to be implemented.
4:01
Speaker 1: There's so many frustrations about this entire process. But apparently
4:05
Speaker 1: the price change is not going to happen until February,
4:09
Speaker 1: so that gives us a little bit of a limbo period,
4:12
Speaker 1: so we're gonna have a safe transition. Basically, the way
4:16
Speaker 1: I see it is, we'll do two episodes to start
4:18
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five year in the first week of January.
4:22
Speaker 1: There might be a slight adjustment and how that first
4:25
Speaker 1: episode is done because I was not planning on doing
4:27
Speaker 1: it for reasons. I may explain it another time, but
4:31
Speaker 1: obviously there will be another episode on the inauguration day
4:34
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, which is Monday, January twentieth, So we
4:38
Speaker 1: will do a couple of episodes on those Mondays in January,
4:42
Speaker 1: but after that it's basically going to be breaking news
4:47
Speaker 1: or a major event, maybe like the Super Bowl something
4:49
Speaker 1: like that. Other than those situations, it's gonna be once
4:53
Speaker 1: a week, and consequently, you're going to basically be paying
4:56
Speaker 1: half of what you currently do, and frankly, I think
5:00
Speaker 1: probably going to get more bang for your buck in
5:02
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five if this goes anything close to the
5:04
Speaker 1: way I anticipated going. But the only other alternative was
5:08
Speaker 1: just to kill the podcast entirely, and for reasons that
5:11
Speaker 1: I will explain again at the end of the podcast
5:14
Speaker 1: in extensive fashion. That was not the decision that I
5:17
Speaker 1: thought was best as well, by the way included in
5:21
Speaker 1: that explanation, at the end of the podcast, there will
5:24
Speaker 1: also be I guess a bit of a Penn State
5:27
Speaker 1: Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky update. I will warn you that
5:32
Speaker 1: it will be a vague update because I am very
5:35
Speaker 1: restricted in what I'm able to say, but that does
5:37
Speaker 1: play at least a small role in my thinking as
5:42
Speaker 1: to how we move forward with the podcast into twenty
5:44
Speaker 1: twenty five, and then again for the like the fifth
5:47
Speaker 1: or sixth time and final time, I'll be promoting that
5:51
Speaker 1: for the end of this particular podcast, after the interview
5:55
Speaker 1: with my seven year old Diana in her broadcast debut,
5:59
Speaker 1: if you will, doing her first interview on this podcast.
6:03
Speaker 1: So that's I think the headline here. The podcast will
6:08
Speaker 1: continue into twenty twenty five, but it will be adjusted.
6:11
Speaker 1: You'll be paying less as a subscriber, and it'll basically
6:15
Speaker 1: be once a week, with the option to do two
6:18
Speaker 1: episodes given of the nature of the news or if
6:21
Speaker 1: something massive happens. Obviously scheduled subject to change. All right, now,
6:25
Speaker 1: I want to start this episode the news part of
6:28
Speaker 1: it slightly differently than normal. I generally start with politically
6:33
Speaker 1: related news or whatever the big so called news story
6:36
Speaker 1: of the day is. And obviously Jimmy Carter has passed
6:39
Speaker 1: away at the age of one hundred. I will get
6:42
Speaker 1: to that as we review the year a little bit
6:44
Speaker 1: later on. I want to start, though, with a subject
6:48
Speaker 1: that I don't think is getting nearly enough attention. And
6:51
Speaker 1: this is generally the way I do things. If I
6:54
Speaker 1: have a take on something that is either unique or
6:58
Speaker 1: close to unique, and a story is not being given
7:02
Speaker 1: nearly enough consideration or getting enough commentary for various reasons,
7:07
Speaker 1: and I feel like I have some level of expertise
7:10
Speaker 1: on that particular subject, I'm generally going to bring that
7:15
Speaker 1: to the forefront in a prominent way, and I'm going
7:17
Speaker 1: to do that in this episode because I think something
7:20
Speaker 1: happened over Christmas that is really going to change the
7:26
Speaker 1: way football and sports are broadcast on television in a
7:32
Speaker 1: lot of different ways. And I think it's it's incredibly obvious,
7:36
Speaker 1: but no one is talking about it, and it basically
7:39
Speaker 1: has to do with what the National Football lig did
7:42
Speaker 1: over the Christmas holidays. And I'm going to include in
7:47
Speaker 1: that what the National Football lig did during the first
7:51
Speaker 1: round of the college football playoffs, which we talked an
7:54
Speaker 1: awful lot about, but I neglected to mention partially because
7:58
Speaker 1: I didn't realize the tent to which the National Football
8:01
Speaker 1: League was doing this. I neglected to mention that the
8:05
Speaker 1: NFL was proactively urinating all over the college football playoffs
8:11
Speaker 1: during that weekend and then did the same thing to
8:15
Speaker 1: the NBA on Christmas Day. Christmas Day has generally been
8:20
Speaker 1: the NBA's day, and there's been a lot of discussion
8:22
Speaker 1: this year about how the NBA is very weakened when
8:26
Speaker 1: it comes to television ratings. They've lost half their audience
8:29
Speaker 1: in about a decade, they've lost an enormous amount of
8:32
Speaker 1: audience this year. A few thoughts on why that is
8:35
Speaker 1: in just a bit, but I want to explain why
8:38
Speaker 1: I consider this story to be so culturally significant. So
8:42
Speaker 1: here's what happened. On Christmas Day. The National Football League
8:46
Speaker 1: put two games on Netflix. Now, obviously Netflix is a
8:51
Speaker 1: streaming service, not a over the air broadcast network. Generally,
8:56
Speaker 1: the National Football League has been broadcast on and over
9:00
Speaker 1: the air networks other than on Thursday Night Football, which
9:03
Speaker 1: is on Amazon Prime. So Netflix was doing this for
9:07
Speaker 1: the first time. By the way, the Netflix broadcast was
9:10
Speaker 1: incredibly woke. Their broadcast team looked like it was picked
9:15
Speaker 1: out of a Dei handbook, and that's not an exaggeration.
9:20
Speaker 1: They went all out the NFL and Netflix did to
9:24
Speaker 1: really implant their footprint on Christmas Day, which of course
9:28
Speaker 1: was a Wednesday. That's incredibly eat of this whole thing. Generally,
9:33
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday, the National Football League would have just
9:36
Speaker 1: taken a pass. In years gone by, they would have said, well,
9:40
Speaker 1: you know what, that's the NBA's day. The NBA can
9:42
Speaker 1: schedule every day if they want to. Because of the
9:45
Speaker 1: nature of the sport, we can't do that because we're football,
9:49
Speaker 1: we play once a week, we need at least six
9:51
Speaker 1: seven days in between games. So sorry, this year we
9:56
Speaker 1: can't do anything on Christmas. Well, the National Football League
9:59
Speaker 1: decid we're not gonna let that stop us, so we're
10:03
Speaker 1: going to bring in two big hitting games. We're gonna
10:07
Speaker 1: have Beyonce do the halftime of one of the games.
10:11
Speaker 1: By the way, the Beyonce halftime show was right out
10:14
Speaker 1: of the cultural appropriation handbook. And if she was a
10:18
Speaker 1: white star, like a Miley Cyrus trying to be black,
10:23
Speaker 1: there would have been riots in the streets. But Beyonce
10:28
Speaker 1: trying to be white, even you know, all of her
10:30
Speaker 1: black dancers wearing blonde hair except for her daughter, or
10:33
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I mean, everything was white, white, white, white, white.
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Speaker 1: Literally empolishment. I liked because the American flag was all
10:39
Speaker 1: over the place, and she's trying to be a country star.
10:42
Speaker 1: More power to her. But I just thought that the
10:45
Speaker 1: double standard there when it came to cultural appropriation was
10:48
Speaker 1: just extraordinary. But that was a minor story in the
10:51
Speaker 1: overall significance of what really happened here. So what really
10:55
Speaker 1: happened here was Netflix and the NFL basically conspire to
11:00
Speaker 1: take away the NBA's day on Christmas Day, but because
11:04
Speaker 1: this was a Wednesday, I think it's so much more important.
11:09
Speaker 1: So the NFL sets the precedent. We've already talked about
11:12
Speaker 1: this previously. I warned you that if the NFL got
11:15
Speaker 1: away with putting a playoff game on Peak their streaming service,
11:20
Speaker 1: NBC's streaming service, which they did last year, and they
11:24
Speaker 1: got away with it, by and large, if they get
11:26
Speaker 1: away with it, eighty bar the door, there's no going back.
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Speaker 1: So they put two of these games on Christmas Day
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Speaker 1: on a Wednesday, on streaming on a streaming service Netflix,
11:38
Speaker 1: and it absolutely killed in the ratings, literally killed the
11:43
Speaker 1: NBA by about a five to one ratio. Now, interestingly,
11:47
Speaker 1: the NBA did pretty well, especially considering how bad their
11:51
Speaker 1: ratings have been this particular year. But I mean, this
11:54
Speaker 1: is traditionally a huge day for the NBA. They put
11:58
Speaker 1: their best matchups together, they possibly can, all their star power,
12:03
Speaker 1: and they got out rated by about a five to
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Speaker 1: one ratio by the National Football League on Netflix, on
12:12
Speaker 1: a streaming service. Now, why am I so exercised about this?
12:16
Speaker 1: Why is this so significant? Well, there's at least two
12:19
Speaker 1: elements of this, and they're related. The first is I
12:23
Speaker 1: am one hundred percent convinced now we're going to a
12:26
Speaker 1: mostly streaming onlane or subscription service only for National Football
12:32
Speaker 1: League games in the not too distant future. That's where
12:36
Speaker 1: this is heading. People have been warning about this for
12:38
Speaker 1: a long time. You know, it used to be pay
12:40
Speaker 1: per view. Now it's subscription services, and that's where this
12:45
Speaker 1: is going to go because the National Football League has
12:47
Speaker 1: proven they're going to get away with it. From a
12:49
Speaker 1: pr standpoint, there's no blowback and there's no diminishment of
12:54
Speaker 1: the audience. I think there was a fear at first, well,
12:57
Speaker 1: if we put this on streaming and this isn't available
13:01
Speaker 1: to the general public that's not a subscriber to Netflix,
13:04
Speaker 1: then we're going to be diminishing our own audience. That
13:07
Speaker 1: has clearly not happened. About twenty five million viewers watched
13:13
Speaker 1: each of the two NFL games on Netflix on Christmas Day. Now,
13:17
Speaker 1: I'm sure the Beyonce draw helped that. The Kansas City Chiefs,
13:21
Speaker 1: of course helps that Taylor Swift effect, even though she
13:25
Speaker 1: wasn't there, you know, the whole bit. They put out
13:28
Speaker 1: everything they could to make sure they owned that day.
13:32
Speaker 1: So the streaming element of this is very important. Another
13:35
Speaker 1: aspect of this, which is related is the fact that
13:38
Speaker 1: this happened on a Wednesday. Now, the National Football League
13:43
Speaker 1: basically bent over backwards. They put the same teams on
13:46
Speaker 1: the previous Saturday, kind of almost like a round raingbin deal,
13:50
Speaker 1: where the same teams then played four days later on Wednesday.
13:54
Speaker 1: Im how you calculate the days, But from a Saturday
13:58
Speaker 1: to a Wednesday, they're playing a Wednesday afternoon for all
14:02
Speaker 1: intensive purposes on extremely short rest. The Pittsburgh Steelers ended
14:07
Speaker 1: up losing three games in eleven days, unheard of in
14:13
Speaker 1: the history of the National Football League other than maybe
14:15
Speaker 1: during the crazy COVID year. And I told you many
14:18
Speaker 1: times COVID was going to destroy football in many aspects,
14:21
Speaker 1: but one of which was the initial Football League realized
14:25
Speaker 1: that they could get away with crazy scheduling. And you know,
14:29
Speaker 1: the public wouldn't block, the media wouldn't balk, the players
14:32
Speaker 1: wouldn't even bunk all that much. And so now here
14:36
Speaker 1: we have a situation where the National Football League has
14:39
Speaker 1: caused their major teams to play three games in eleven days,
14:43
Speaker 1: play on a Saturday on a Wednesday. They get huge ratings,
14:47
Speaker 1: no blowback on the subscription service, the use of Netflix,
14:52
Speaker 1: no over the air broadcast. To me, this is a
14:57
Speaker 1: green light, a green light in the football league for
15:01
Speaker 1: a permanent schedule change, a fundamental alteration of the actual
15:07
Speaker 1: football calendar. Now you might not think that's very significant.
15:11
Speaker 1: I think it's huge, not just for as a sports
15:14
Speaker 1: fan or a football fan. I think there are societal
15:17
Speaker 1: and cultural and television implications of this all over the place.
15:21
Speaker 1: But bear with me here. I think that within a
15:24
Speaker 1: few years, I think it'll probably be five years. I
15:27
Speaker 1: don't even think we're going to be even close to
15:29
Speaker 1: coming to ten years. I think it's going to be
15:30
Speaker 1: within five years. Within five years, you're gonna see the
15:35
Speaker 1: National Football League use this example and go to themselves,
15:38
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, can you imagine what we can get
15:41
Speaker 1: away with here? We just proved that we can have
15:44
Speaker 1: these guys play after four days, three games in eleven days. No, no,
15:50
Speaker 1: you know, not a huge number of injuries. Nothing, no
15:53
Speaker 1: major blowback, no media narrative, no nothing, no nothing. Why
15:58
Speaker 1: the hell wouldn't we play on Wednesday every week? We
16:02
Speaker 1: already got a Thursday game. Let's have a Wednesday night game.
16:05
Speaker 1: A Thursday night game. You know, Fridays used to be
16:07
Speaker 1: sacred because of high school football. Fuck dad, we were
16:11
Speaker 1: killing all the sacred cows here. Let's go Wednesday night,
16:15
Speaker 1: Thursday night, Friday night, and you know what dollars football
16:19
Speaker 1: is and sacred either. There's no Pack twelve anymore. Let's
16:22
Speaker 1: put a night time game on Saturday. There used to
16:25
Speaker 1: be Pack twelve after dark. They got nothing. Now let's
16:28
Speaker 1: that spot is wide open. Let's take over. Let's take
16:32
Speaker 1: over a Saturday night game. So so now we'll get
16:37
Speaker 1: We'll get a game every single day of the week,
16:39
Speaker 1: night of the week, except for Tuesday. We'll leave Tuesday
16:42
Speaker 1: because we need to have at least the impression that
16:44
Speaker 1: we've started a new week. It might get too confusing
16:47
Speaker 1: if you have a game every single day. So we'll
16:49
Speaker 1: have the one day in a regroup on Tuesday, and
16:52
Speaker 1: we're gonna on Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night,
16:55
Speaker 1: Sunday night. Will get over the air. By the way,
16:57
Speaker 1: all these are gonna be on subscription. That's how they'll justify.
17:01
Speaker 1: Wednesday n will be on Netflix, Thursday night, Amazon, Saturday Night, Peacock,
17:06
Speaker 1: I know, Saturday, Who the hell knows someone will pick
17:08
Speaker 1: it up Disney, and then you know, they'll probably keep
17:11
Speaker 1: the over the air on Sunday and Monday night just
17:14
Speaker 1: is about a tradition. Now, these games will still be
17:17
Speaker 1: on local television because they'll kept to avoid you know,
17:20
Speaker 1: issues with the with the Congress and the FCC and
17:24
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And then plus they won't they
17:25
Speaker 1: won't want to block out you know, huge portions from
17:29
Speaker 1: the local audience for their for their games, so they'll
17:32
Speaker 1: they'll still be a local over the air I think,
17:34
Speaker 1: at least into the foreseeable future. But it is my
17:38
Speaker 1: prediction that in five years we're going to see a radical,
17:41
Speaker 1: radical off clearing altering of the NFL schedule where effectively
17:46
Speaker 1: they're going to play at least five nights a week,
17:49
Speaker 1: if not six nights a week. And they're going to
17:52
Speaker 1: be able to do this from a profitability standpoint because
17:55
Speaker 1: it's perfect for streaming, and they're gonna be able to
17:58
Speaker 1: do it from a scheduling perspective because one they've already
18:01
Speaker 1: gotten away with it with no blowbak, and two, this
18:05
Speaker 1: is why everything is related to each other, folks. This
18:09
Speaker 1: is why the game has gotten so soft. It's not
18:13
Speaker 1: just about of a winning Injuries and concussions and liability.
18:16
Speaker 1: That's a big part of it. It's not just because
18:19
Speaker 1: they want to be PC and you know, they want
18:22
Speaker 1: to appeal to a brand new Taylor Swift audience that
18:25
Speaker 1: doesn't like the violence. No, no, no, no. The greatest attribute
18:29
Speaker 1: of making the game soft, making it more like basketball,
18:33
Speaker 1: is that now they can play a basketball like schedule,
18:37
Speaker 1: and a basketball like schedule means you don't need as
18:41
Speaker 1: much time in between games. If you can get away
18:45
Speaker 1: with having playoff teams play on a Saturday and a
18:48
Speaker 1: Wensday and play three games in eleven days and no blowball,
18:53
Speaker 1: and it works for you in the streaming look out,
18:57
Speaker 1: look out. This is how you know growth everything. Growth
19:01
Speaker 1: is the holy grail of all businesses in twenty twenty four,
19:05
Speaker 1: this era, and so this is the path for growth
19:09
Speaker 1: for the National Football League when it comes to generating revenue.
19:14
Speaker 1: So there is no question in my mind that this
19:16
Speaker 1: is gonna happen. Exactly Hall and went I don't know,
19:20
Speaker 1: but this is a huge benefit to making the game sath,
19:25
Speaker 1: making it a lot more like basketball, because now they
19:29
Speaker 1: can get away with this stuff. And this is the motivation,
19:33
Speaker 1: this is one of the motivations. There's a defensive motivation
19:37
Speaker 1: preventing lawsuits to what have you, and there's the offensive
19:40
Speaker 1: motivation more games in prime time on different days of
19:44
Speaker 1: the week. And what just happened on Christmas, I believe
19:48
Speaker 1: proved that the National Football League has the power to
19:51
Speaker 1: do it and they're going to be able to get
19:53
Speaker 1: away with it scott free, both from a streaming perspective
19:57
Speaker 1: and a scheduling standpoint. Now, I mentioned that this wasn't
20:00
Speaker 1: just a shot at the NBA, this was a shot
20:02
Speaker 1: at college football as well, and boyd did the National
20:06
Speaker 1: Football League show their dominance Because there were those four
20:11
Speaker 1: playoff games in three day, one in the evening Friday
20:15
Speaker 1: evening and then on a Saturday afternoon, three on Saturday,
20:18
Speaker 1: one on Friday night. They were all crap games. But
20:21
Speaker 1: the two games on ESPN basically did twice the audience,
20:26
Speaker 1: actually slightly more than twice the audience. Then the two
20:30
Speaker 1: games that were on TNTTBS. Now one that shows me
20:34
Speaker 1: how amazing it is that people know how to find
20:37
Speaker 1: ESPN and aren't as used to finding tnttvs for college
20:42
Speaker 1: football games. By the way, I couldn't even watch those
20:44
Speaker 1: games because my crappy cable, those channels were out for
20:47
Speaker 1: some reason. Even though I'm a subscriber to HBL Max,
20:50
Speaker 1: which was also air of the game, I couldn't get
20:52
Speaker 1: the goddamn in. So you know, here we aren't twenty
20:55
Speaker 1: twenty four and these college football playoff games I couldn't
20:58
Speaker 1: even watch at home two of the four games because
21:02
Speaker 1: they were on TNTCBS. Well, those two games did much
21:06
Speaker 1: more poorly in the ratings than the ESPN games, partially
21:10
Speaker 1: because of the outlet in which they were on, but
21:12
Speaker 1: partially because the National Football League big foot of them.
21:16
Speaker 1: That's when, to a large degree, the National Football League
21:20
Speaker 1: decided they were going to air games on that exact day,
21:24
Speaker 1: no deference to college football at all, and once again
21:26
Speaker 1: they showed their nominance because the NFL one in a
21:30
Speaker 1: very very big way. Then, of course Christmas Day comes around,
21:34
Speaker 1: they take their shot at the NBA and they dominate
21:37
Speaker 1: the NBA five to one. And this just provides me
21:40
Speaker 1: an opportunity to chime in with my two cents. I'm
21:43
Speaker 1: not going to go into great detail. Maybe I'll do
21:45
Speaker 1: that in some later episode of the podcast, because I
21:48
Speaker 1: do think it's an interesting and somewhat important conversation. But
21:51
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of discussion, a ton of discussion
21:56
Speaker 1: over the last few months about the ratings decline of
21:59
Speaker 1: the National Basketball Association. In my two sents is that
22:03
Speaker 1: I think, like most things, this is a perfect storm situation.
22:06
Speaker 1: You have all sorts of reasons why the NBA is
22:11
Speaker 1: diminished in popularity, especially when it comes to television ratings. Yes,
22:15
Speaker 1: I agree that the game itself sucks too many three pointers.
22:19
Speaker 1: I get it. Frankly, to me, when your sport has
22:24
Speaker 1: the most fundamental rule that exists, which is what the
22:28
Speaker 1: definition of traveling is, and you can't decide what traveling is,
22:32
Speaker 1: that it makes no sense and it's arboitunally enforced. I mean,
22:35
Speaker 1: traveling has always been an issue in the NBA, but
22:38
Speaker 1: it's gotten ridiculous now they've completely altered the traveling rule
22:42
Speaker 1: without actually changing it. So those elements of the game
22:46
Speaker 1: itself that are very frustrating to watch, but to me,
22:50
Speaker 1: that's window dressing. I think the bigger issues are the
22:54
Speaker 1: players are just making way way way too much money.
22:58
Speaker 1: They are not reliable. I think fans have no problem
23:02
Speaker 1: with superstars, legitimate superstars making tons of money, but when
23:07
Speaker 1: guys that are not that good are making ungodly amounts
23:10
Speaker 1: of money, money to the point where they have no
23:13
Speaker 1: real motivation to really give it their best effort, where
23:17
Speaker 1: you know, unless they blow it, all their their children
23:20
Speaker 1: and their grandchildren's trust funds were already taken care of.
23:23
Speaker 1: And you're not even a star player. You can't relate
23:26
Speaker 1: to these people. And it's obvious when they're not giving
23:29
Speaker 1: maximum at maximum effort, and that is manifest itself and
23:33
Speaker 1: the whole you know, issue over whether or not the
23:36
Speaker 1: stars are going to play every game. Load management is
23:38
Speaker 1: what they call it. I think that's another part of
23:41
Speaker 1: this perfect storm. But I think there are two other
23:43
Speaker 1: things that are not getting enough attention in this conversation.
23:47
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna briefly mention them, even though they
23:50
Speaker 1: kind of open up a can of worms. I don't
23:52
Speaker 1: have time to go through the whole can of worms.
23:55
Speaker 1: Maybe again, I'll do that another time. But to me,
23:58
Speaker 1: the two most underrated elements what's happened to the NBA
24:02
Speaker 1: are as follows. Number one is there has been a
24:06
Speaker 1: total loss of the college identity that the star players
24:12
Speaker 1: have when they enter the NBA. And that's happened mostly
24:16
Speaker 1: because of the so called one and done phenomenon where
24:20
Speaker 1: stars play one year in college and then they immediately
24:23
Speaker 1: go to the NBA, so there's no opportunity for fans
24:27
Speaker 1: to get to know them, there's no identity associated with them.
24:33
Speaker 1: By the way, because college basketball has destroyed itself and
24:38
Speaker 1: there's so much fragmentation, you don't have nearly the same
24:41
Speaker 1: level of mainstream audience that's even aware of a star
24:44
Speaker 1: player in college in comparison to what used to be
24:47
Speaker 1: the case, for instance, in the late seventies and the
24:50
Speaker 1: early eighties, which I would consider to be the heyday
24:53
Speaker 1: of this phenomenon where college created stars for the NBA
24:58
Speaker 1: and really save the lead. I mean, when you look
25:01
Speaker 1: at the history of this, there were three NCAA Basketball
25:06
Speaker 1: Championship games that effectively set the NBA up for well
25:10
Speaker 1: over a decade. Nineteen seventy nine versus Magic Larry Burdon
25:16
Speaker 1: Midgic Johnson in the finals, most highly viewed basketball game,
25:20
Speaker 1: highly rated basketball game in college history. Then you had
25:24
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. You had my alma mater, Georgetown with
25:27
Speaker 1: Patrick Ewing going up against Michael Jordan and James Worthy
25:32
Speaker 1: and one of the most highly rated and watched college
25:35
Speaker 1: basketball games of all time. Two years later, you had
25:38
Speaker 1: Patrick Ewing against a team Elijah, and these were guys
25:42
Speaker 1: who all played multiple years in college basketball. Patrick Ewing
25:47
Speaker 1: went to three finals. Three final games in four years.
25:52
Speaker 1: Never happened today with a star player like Patrick Ewing.
25:55
Speaker 1: That set the NBA up for an extended period of
25:59
Speaker 1: time through the era. And then the two stars did
26:03
Speaker 1: not come. The two biggest stars did not come from
26:07
Speaker 1: college basketball. They came from high school. Kobe Bryant and
26:10
Speaker 1: Lebron James. Now there were other stars, but those were
26:13
Speaker 1: the biggest, and they got so much hype because they
26:17
Speaker 1: came out of high school and Kobe had had a
26:20
Speaker 1: father who played in the NBA and Lebron was the
26:22
Speaker 1: most hyped high school player of all time, and he
26:25
Speaker 1: lived up to all the hype. So the NBA was
26:27
Speaker 1: able to survive the death of college basketball as a
26:30
Speaker 1: feeding system. But then that ran out because we're at
26:34
Speaker 1: the very very very very end of the Lebron James
26:38
Speaker 1: era now and there was really nobody to replace him.
26:42
Speaker 1: So there's a lack of that pipeline where you have
26:45
Speaker 1: these ready made stars because the college basketball system has collapsed.
26:51
Speaker 1: I think it is now being seen in a lack
26:54
Speaker 1: of a mainstream audience when it comes to the NBA.
26:58
Speaker 1: But then there's the part of this element that no
27:01
Speaker 1: one wants to talk about. No, no, no, how many give
27:04
Speaker 1: a deal it is, But I think it's significant and
27:06
Speaker 1: it's worthy of discussion. But nobody wants to touch this
27:11
Speaker 1: this issue with a ten foot pole, and that is frankly,
27:15
Speaker 1: there are not enough American born, white players in the NBA.
27:22
Speaker 1: There are not. Now that sounds racist, I don't think
27:26
Speaker 1: it's racist at all. I think it's purely an issue
27:29
Speaker 1: of people not having someone that they can relate to,
27:32
Speaker 1: partially because how much money these guys make. But there's
27:36
Speaker 1: a lot of ways you can relate to somebody. No
27:38
Speaker 1: one ever talks about how it would be terrible for
27:42
Speaker 1: a black kid to relate to a black player, or
27:45
Speaker 1: an Asian kid to you know, to relate to Jeremy
27:48
Speaker 1: Lynn during Lynn sanity a decade or so ago with
27:51
Speaker 1: the New York Knicks. Well, when it comes to a
27:54
Speaker 1: white kid or a white adult, who.
27:56
Speaker 2: Are you going to relate to to prove it it's
28:00
Speaker 2: not a racial issue, it is because it's also an
28:03
Speaker 2: American issue, because I don't think that white guys from Europe.
28:07
Speaker 1: Aren't really all that relatable to white people. So it's
28:10
Speaker 1: not the race, it's having things you can relate to
28:14
Speaker 1: with regard to a particular player. And there are there
28:17
Speaker 1: are a few, they're not non existent, but there are
28:21
Speaker 1: not nearly enough American born white players who are stars
28:26
Speaker 1: or even close to stars significant players in the NBA
28:30
Speaker 1: for the white male audience to remain invested in an
28:35
Speaker 1: era where the players are making way too much money.
28:38
Speaker 1: They don't give a shit. The regular season is too long,
28:42
Speaker 1: the game has completely changed, the uniforms have even changed.
28:46
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a middle aged white guy like me,
28:48
Speaker 1: there's nothing about the NBA that looks anything close to
28:52
Speaker 1: the game that you may have been in love with
28:54
Speaker 1: as I was in the seventies and the eighties, going
28:57
Speaker 1: up in Philadelphia and having doctor Jay Julius Irving and
29:01
Speaker 1: winning an NBA championship in nineteen eighty three and all
29:04
Speaker 1: that those days. I mean, there's nothing that even comes
29:07
Speaker 1: close to looking like it. I mean, at least the
29:10
Speaker 1: National Football League tries to make it look like in
29:12
Speaker 1: baseball to some degree, with some teams tries to at
29:15
Speaker 1: least make it look like not much has changed since
29:17
Speaker 1: those days, but the NBA doesn't even try. So there's
29:21
Speaker 1: a whole lot of reasons why the NBA ratings are
29:24
Speaker 1: in the toilet. But on Christmas Day, the National Football
29:28
Speaker 1: League made sure everybody knew who was boss, and that
29:32
Speaker 1: was the NFL, not the NBA. And there are a
29:36
Speaker 1: lot of reasons for that, and I just stated some
29:38
Speaker 1: that you're not going to hear from too many other people. Now.
29:41
Speaker 1: By the way, with regard to the race issue, I
29:44
Speaker 1: think the National Football League needs to be a little
29:46
Speaker 1: bit wary. Now. There's nothing that the National Football League
29:50
Speaker 1: is doing in recent years that has harmed them at all.
29:53
Speaker 1: I mean, they seem to be immune from all the
29:56
Speaker 1: other factors that are harming other political other political elements
30:01
Speaker 1: of the sports elements, other entertainment elements. They seem to
30:04
Speaker 1: be immune. But I think eventually, I think the National
30:08
Speaker 1: Football League could be in some dangerous territory because they're
30:14
Speaker 1: gonna get a situation that's not going to be as
30:17
Speaker 1: problematic in the racial area as the NBA with regard
30:21
Speaker 1: to there being no American white stars for white people
30:26
Speaker 1: to relate to, but they're getting into an area that's
30:29
Speaker 1: somewhat close, specifically when it comes to the black quarterback.
30:33
Speaker 1: I mean, the black quarterback is taking over the National
30:35
Speaker 1: Football League. I have no problem with it. I don't
30:39
Speaker 1: really like running quarterbacks because I think running quarterbacks are
30:42
Speaker 1: kind of cheating. I mean, the difference between a scrambling
30:45
Speaker 1: quarterback and a running quarterback when you run on a
30:49
Speaker 1: design play is now as normal for several quarterbacks in
30:53
Speaker 1: the National Football League, and the rules are so in
30:56
Speaker 1: your favor. To me, it's cheating. I mean, you're not
30:59
Speaker 1: really allowed the tackle the corner. Last night on the
31:02
Speaker 1: Sunday Night football game and overtime Jaden Daniels, who everyone's
31:06
Speaker 1: slabbering all over. He's a great player, great athlete, but
31:10
Speaker 1: he could never have played in the National Football League
31:13
Speaker 1: ten fifteen years ago because he wouldn't have made it
31:16
Speaker 1: through a season. I mean, there was a perfect example
31:18
Speaker 1: of this in overtime. You know, he's basically a designed run,
31:24
Speaker 1: semi design ran, and it's a key play in their
31:27
Speaker 1: drive that ended up winning the game. And the you know,
31:30
Speaker 1: the announcers are Mike Trico and Chris Collins were there
31:34
Speaker 1: slabbering all over him, how he's gliding, and you know,
31:37
Speaker 1: the NFL even put out a tweet to that extent
31:41
Speaker 1: and how graceful he looks and how easy going it
31:45
Speaker 1: all seems to be. And I'm thinking, well, no crap,
31:48
Speaker 1: it's easy no one when he's gliding because at the
31:51
Speaker 1: end of the play, the defense back instead of co
31:55
Speaker 1: operating them, which would in every single situation that was
32:00
Speaker 1: similar ten to fifteen years ago, the National Football League
32:03
Speaker 1: literally stops and allows him to walk out of bounds
32:08
Speaker 1: untouched because he's so terrified of getting a penalty. That
32:15
Speaker 1: to me is the key part of what has changed
32:17
Speaker 1: with football, which is the equation has been completely altered.
32:23
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson, another great athlete, Lamar Jackson and Jaden Daniels
32:28
Speaker 1: could not have run the offense that they currently run
32:33
Speaker 1: because over time, percentage wise, the lottery number would have
32:40
Speaker 1: come up. They would have gotten hit in a way
32:42
Speaker 1: that either caused an injury or a concussion or something
32:48
Speaker 1: like that. And I'm not justifying that. I'm not saying
32:50
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. I'm just saying what would have
32:53
Speaker 1: been the case and why this is a new phenomenon.
32:57
Speaker 1: So if you think there's a percent chance that if
33:00
Speaker 1: you go one out of a puff that you're gonna
33:02
Speaker 1: get hit in a way that could damage you either
33:05
Speaker 1: a little bit or lot, or you know, the wear
33:07
Speaker 1: and tear effect. You're not going to do it because
33:11
Speaker 1: over a season long, five percent is going to add up.
33:14
Speaker 1: But if you think it's only half a percent a
33:17
Speaker 1: chance that you're gonna get damaged at all by running,
33:21
Speaker 1: guess what, you could easily make it through a whole
33:23
Speaker 1: season and never have anything significant happen. So the entire
33:28
Speaker 1: equation has changed, and so under the rules and the
33:32
Speaker 1: way they're enforced currently, I think that's cheating. The reason
33:36
Speaker 1: I don't like it has nothing to do with the
33:37
Speaker 1: race in the cornerback. It would be the same way
33:39
Speaker 1: I hate it when Josh Allen White quarterback fakes his slide.
33:43
Speaker 1: I tend to like pocket passers because that, to me,
33:46
Speaker 1: is the way the game was supposed to play. Scrambling
33:49
Speaker 1: can be fun, you know, it was a lot of
33:51
Speaker 1: fun to watch scrambling quarterbacks, even back in the day
33:54
Speaker 1: when they played real football rather stawmat Fran Tarkington. You know,
33:57
Speaker 1: people like that. That's fantastic, But so to me, it
34:02
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with race. As far as whether
34:05
Speaker 1: you like it or not, but it has a lot
34:06
Speaker 1: to do with race. No one wants to accept this.
34:10
Speaker 1: No one wants to talk call white. This is the case.
34:12
Speaker 1: But there's a reason why there are no almost no
34:15
Speaker 1: white cornerbacks in the National Football League. Why there are
34:18
Speaker 1: no white point guards in the NBA. By the way,
34:21
Speaker 1: you know, there used to be lots of white point
34:23
Speaker 1: funds in college in the NBA, they don't exist anymore. Well,
34:26
Speaker 1: the same thing's gonna happen with regard to the quarterback
34:30
Speaker 1: in the National Football League, and I think over time
34:34
Speaker 1: that's gonna take a toll on the NFL. No one
34:38
Speaker 1: wants to talk about that either, but that's gonna take
34:40
Speaker 1: it all, much like I think it's taken a toll
34:42
Speaker 1: on the NBA. To what extent, I don't know, but
34:45
Speaker 1: we've already seen we've already seen evidence that there's this
34:50
Speaker 1: disperate need for there to be white heroes in the
34:55
Speaker 1: National Football League. One of the biggest de parsters in
34:57
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, think about this, One of the biggest
35:01
Speaker 1: NFL endorsers at twenty twenty four is a guy who
35:05
Speaker 1: doesn't even play anymore. Was a center and his biggest
35:09
Speaker 1: claim to fame is that he's the brother of a
35:12
Speaker 1: guy who is dating Taylor Swift, Jason Kelsey and by
35:16
Speaker 1: the way, he just survived an episode using the F
35:20
Speaker 1: word for as a homosexual slur three times on a
35:24
Speaker 1: viral video. It made no impact on his endorsement career.
35:29
Speaker 1: I like Jason Kelcey, but if Jason Kelsea wasn't white
35:32
Speaker 1: and didn't represent a portion of the fan base that
35:36
Speaker 1: the NFL and everyone related to the NFL doesn't realize
35:40
Speaker 1: that they're at least a little bit vulnerable on because
35:43
Speaker 1: of the way the game is changing, there's no chance
35:46
Speaker 1: he would be one of the top endorsers after he retired. Again,
35:50
Speaker 1: they like Jason Kelcey. I just think that there's an
35:53
Speaker 1: issue here that no one wants to talk about because
35:55
Speaker 1: it's too risky. We're so damn afraid of the racial
35:59
Speaker 1: issue because everyone things that they say something is gonna
36:01
Speaker 1: be misperceived as racist. Well, I know I'm racist. I'm
36:04
Speaker 1: just telling it like it is. People like to relate
36:07
Speaker 1: to people who are like them, and there's a lot
36:10
Speaker 1: of things that, you know that make it more difficult
36:14
Speaker 1: for people to relate to you. One of them is
36:16
Speaker 1: like in the NBA being an American speaking English, not
36:20
Speaker 1: having a name that you can pronounce properly. It's nothing
36:23
Speaker 1: to do with racists. Those people tend to be white.
36:26
Speaker 1: So so human beings are gonna be human beings. And
36:30
Speaker 1: so while there's no sign that this is hurting the
36:32
Speaker 1: National Football League now, over time might be the case
36:36
Speaker 1: because there's no question the way the rules are going
36:39
Speaker 1: and as soft as the game is becoming, the prototype
36:42
Speaker 1: quarterback into the future is going to be Alan Iverson.
36:46
Speaker 1: You may not remember Alan Iverson point guard for the
36:48
Speaker 1: Philadelphia seventy six years and my Georgetown hoy Is and
36:51
Speaker 1: many other NBA teams. He was actually a spectacular high
36:55
Speaker 1: school football quarterback and almost played college football and that
37:00
Speaker 1: of basketball. You watch some of the highlights of him.
37:02
Speaker 1: He was amazing, but there was no chance in that
37:05
Speaker 1: era he could have gotten through college football playing that
37:08
Speaker 1: type of game. Now, no problem at all. That's going
37:13
Speaker 1: to be the prototype, and they ain't gonna be white
37:16
Speaker 1: in all likelihood. There's not too many Johnny Menziel's are.
37:19
Speaker 1: And you see how long Johnny Manzel lasted. Although in
37:22
Speaker 1: this day at age, maybe Johnny Benzel would have had
37:25
Speaker 1: a shot in the National Football League because it's just
37:27
Speaker 1: gotten that soft. I want to take one more turn
37:32
Speaker 1: what happened with the college bowl games, because I think
37:34
Speaker 1: some significant things occurred having nothing to do with the
37:38
Speaker 1: actual game on the field. But in general, I would
37:42
Speaker 1: say that the college bowl games have been the non
37:45
Speaker 1: playoff games have been better than I had feared or expected.
37:50
Speaker 1: Now it's clear that part of that is because a
37:53
Speaker 1: lot of them are getting paid nil money. There's one
37:55
Speaker 1: benefit to the nil money, and that is a lot
37:58
Speaker 1: of the guys seemingly felt obligated to play in their
38:02
Speaker 1: bowl game. There was even a lot more talk about
38:05
Speaker 1: insurance policies being taken out by schools. Deon Sanders at
38:10
Speaker 1: Colorado bragged about how his guys were going to play
38:14
Speaker 1: in a bowl game, and Colorado announced that they had
38:16
Speaker 1: a record setting insurance policy for their star quarterback and
38:20
Speaker 1: their Heisman Trophy winning wide receiver and cornerback. Well didn't
38:25
Speaker 1: help very much because while they were there in person
38:28
Speaker 1: for the game, they got their butts kicked by BYU
38:31
Speaker 1: in the Alamo Bowl, and so I don't know, you
38:34
Speaker 1: know whether or not they were giving full effort, or
38:36
Speaker 1: maybe they're just not that good. Who knows, but it
38:39
Speaker 1: was a disaster on the field for Colorado, but at
38:42
Speaker 1: least they showed up. And while there were some exceptions,
38:46
Speaker 1: I think and I KNOWL has helped a little bit
38:49
Speaker 1: when it comes to at least getting people to show
38:51
Speaker 1: up for their poll games because they're getting paid and
38:55
Speaker 1: or they have insurance policies in case they happened to
38:58
Speaker 1: get injured. So I should point out that both Army
39:01
Speaker 1: and Navy won bowl games, which is amazing. I mean,
39:05
Speaker 1: We're never going to see another year where Army and
39:08
Speaker 1: Navy combined for twenty two wins, two bull wins, at
39:12
Speaker 1: a conference championship, a Commanders in Chief Trophy which Navy won,
39:17
Speaker 1: all in the same year. It's probably Joe Biden's greatest
39:20
Speaker 1: achievement of his final year. He had anything to do
39:24
Speaker 1: with it, But thank you Joe Biden for the amazing
39:26
Speaker 1: year that Army and Navy had. So that's the positive
39:29
Speaker 1: side of what happened with the non playoff bowl games.
39:34
Speaker 1: But there were also some disasters which ESPN and the
39:38
Speaker 1: sports media have tried their best to mitigate, mute, or ignore.
39:44
Speaker 1: I've already talked about what happened with Marshall University battling
39:47
Speaker 1: on their bowl game against Army because they didn't have
39:50
Speaker 1: enough players or they felt like they didn't have enough
39:52
Speaker 1: players because of the transfer portal. But what happened at
39:56
Speaker 1: the University of Miami in multiple ways really exposed just
40:01
Speaker 1: how totally broken the entire system really is, even if
40:05
Speaker 1: NIL can put a band aid on at least some
40:09
Speaker 1: of the hemorrhaging when it comes to people not showing
40:12
Speaker 1: up to play in bowl games. Miami played in the
40:14
Speaker 1: Pop Part Bowl, which is hilarious on its face. Pop
40:19
Speaker 1: Tart does a hell of a job manipulating that whole
40:22
Speaker 1: situation for marketing purposes, which I have no problem with.
40:24
Speaker 1: They're paying the bill, and you know, they put out
40:27
Speaker 1: viral videos involving, you know, people pretending to be pop
40:31
Speaker 1: Tart sent It's pretty funny. But from the perspective of
40:35
Speaker 1: the actual game, some significant things happened. Number one was
40:39
Speaker 1: that their quarterback cam Ward, who you know, was once
40:43
Speaker 1: considered a Heisman Trophy candidate and is considered a top
40:47
Speaker 1: NFL draft prospect. He got a lot of praise for
40:51
Speaker 1: actually playing in the game, and he played the first
40:54
Speaker 1: half and he broke allegedly this is all bogus because
40:57
Speaker 1: they play way too many games these these days and
40:59
Speaker 1: compared to what they used to do. But he broke
41:02
Speaker 1: the all time record for college football touchdown passes, and
41:06
Speaker 1: that was obviously why he decided to play in the game,
41:09
Speaker 1: in addition to whatever nil money he was getting, because
41:13
Speaker 1: at halftime he was taken out of the game. Now
41:16
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of ambiguity as to when that
41:18
Speaker 1: this was planned. This was his idea. The coaches, whether
41:22
Speaker 1: they were on board or not, you know, I couldn't
41:24
Speaker 1: tell from the postgame press conferences. But dam Ward did
41:28
Speaker 1: not play the second half of this game, a bowl
41:30
Speaker 1: game that was very very close, a game that his
41:33
Speaker 1: team ended up losing by one point, and even when
41:38
Speaker 1: they got the ball back with like a minute left
41:40
Speaker 1: in the game, just left in the minute left in
41:42
Speaker 1: the game, all they needed was a field goal to win,
41:45
Speaker 1: dam Ward still didn't get off the sideline. He did
41:48
Speaker 1: not play in the second half. He was not injured,
41:51
Speaker 1: he just decided he ain't playing. Now, this created a
41:56
Speaker 1: lot of controversy online, but as is usually the case,
42:01
Speaker 1: the sports media moorings, who are incredibly pc, decided that
42:07
Speaker 1: they needed to mute this story as much as possible,
42:09
Speaker 1: and ESPN absolutely led the way. Let me give you
42:13
Speaker 1: an a couple of examples. Todd McShay, who used to
42:16
Speaker 1: work at ESPN as a draft analyst, but I think
42:19
Speaker 1: he got laid off there earlier this year. How about
42:22
Speaker 1: this tweet about the cam Ward situation. Now, to be fair,
42:25
Speaker 1: there were a lot of prominent sports commentators who were
42:28
Speaker 1: enraged by what cam Ward did. Letting his team down
42:31
Speaker 1: and not playing in the second half of a game
42:33
Speaker 1: that he had played the first half. He wasn't injured
42:36
Speaker 1: and he just let his team lose by one point
42:38
Speaker 1: kind of shows that the whole thing is as a farce, right,
42:41
Speaker 1: I mean, who cares? I mean, the players aren't even
42:43
Speaker 1: willing to play in a game where they're dressed up
42:45
Speaker 1: and they're healthy and they got their record, and so
42:48
Speaker 1: they're just going to let their team lose in the
42:50
Speaker 1: second half by one point. The whole thing collapses, right, Well,
42:54
Speaker 1: Tod mcshae, I mean, mister PC and obviously having ESPN
42:58
Speaker 1: still in his bloodstream, he tweeted, I appreciate the cam
43:02
Speaker 1: Ward in this day and age in college football played
43:06
Speaker 1: at all. Well, first of all, that's bogus because he's
43:09
Speaker 1: now being paid to play. So you know, if you're
43:12
Speaker 1: getting paid to play, that changes the equation completely. But okay,
43:16
Speaker 1: back to Tom mcshay's tweet. But I just can't imagine
43:20
Speaker 1: starting any game with teammates, especially as a quarterback, and
43:24
Speaker 1: electing to pull myself out. Well, my teammates are still
43:27
Speaker 1: trying to finish the job in a back and forth battle.
43:31
Speaker 1: I'm a realist. I know the climate. I'm not even
43:36
Speaker 1: knocking tam here. It's just different. Wow. Wow, I want
43:42
Speaker 1: to courageous stand there by Todd McShay. I honestly think
43:48
Speaker 1: that that's the way that people have worked at ESPN
43:52
Speaker 1: think of these things. Well, cam Ward is a black quarterback,
43:55
Speaker 1: so we can't attack him. It's a business decision. But boy,
43:58
Speaker 1: this just seems different, just seems weird. And then ESPN
44:03
Speaker 1: itself they promoted going into It in the halftime of
44:08
Speaker 1: the Army game that was supposed to be against Marshall
44:11
Speaker 1: turned out to be against Louisiana attack. They promoted their
44:14
Speaker 1: half type butt show with the headline tam Ward goes
44:18
Speaker 1: out in Style. See tam Ward gets out in style.
44:24
Speaker 1: That was the headline because he broke the record this
44:26
Speaker 1: bogus record, but didn't even play the second half. Not
44:29
Speaker 1: the headline being tam Ward lets his teammate stand. Cam
44:34
Speaker 1: Ward shows what a shame all these bugs were showing
44:37
Speaker 1: you all. No, no, no, can't Wark goes out in style.
44:40
Speaker 1: That was the ESPN headline. It's absolutely amazing. And ESPN
44:46
Speaker 1: is just you know, furthering this fairytale because obviously they're deeply, deeply,
44:50
Speaker 1: deeply financially invested from a programming perspective on these bowl
44:55
Speaker 1: games not being seen as the farce that they are.
44:58
Speaker 1: And then, speaking of far all of college football was
45:02
Speaker 1: exposed as a farce by another element of that Miami
45:06
Speaker 1: game where there was a video that went viral of
45:10
Speaker 1: one of their players hugging a friend after the game
45:14
Speaker 1: because it was the end of his college career. His
45:18
Speaker 1: college career had finally come to an end after nine seasons,
45:24
Speaker 1: after nine seasons, his college football career was finally over.
45:30
Speaker 1: And as I posted that video, I said, you know,
45:33
Speaker 1: the ninth year of college football always seems to be
45:36
Speaker 1: the most emotional. People seem to get a kick that
45:42
Speaker 1: ninth year. It really times at March Streets nine years
45:47
Speaker 1: and this is not going to be all that. You know,
45:49
Speaker 1: there was obviously unique circumstances here because of COVID and
45:53
Speaker 1: injuries and all sorts of other things to get him
45:56
Speaker 1: to nine years, a record as far as anyone can
45:59
Speaker 1: tell for the number of years played in college football.
46:02
Speaker 1: But with this new JUCO ruling and other aspects of
46:07
Speaker 1: this whole thing and unlimited transfers, you could see that
46:11
Speaker 1: become not the norm. But five, six, seven years is
46:14
Speaker 1: not going to be unusual. You're going to see twenty
46:17
Speaker 1: four to twenty five year olds, especially linemen who are
46:21
Speaker 1: at the peak of their physical maturity, playing college football.
46:26
Speaker 1: You know, BYU used to get an advantage of that
46:28
Speaker 1: because they would have guys that would be a little
46:30
Speaker 1: bit older because they would take a hiatus as part
46:33
Speaker 1: of going to school at BYU. Well, now every school
46:36
Speaker 1: is going to have that because of this JUCO ruling
46:39
Speaker 1: and all the other crazy rules they're involved in, all
46:42
Speaker 1: this and NIL giving further incentive for an older guy
46:46
Speaker 1: to hang on like he's a a lifetime minor league
46:49
Speaker 1: baseball player. It's just insanity. But all that's not as
46:54
Speaker 1: crazy is what also happened at the University of Miami
46:57
Speaker 1: with their basketball team. Their basketball coach, a god by
47:00
Speaker 1: the name of Jim Larondega, who has been to not one,
47:04
Speaker 1: but two final fours in college basketball, just decided to
47:09
Speaker 1: quit in the middle of the season. Why because he
47:13
Speaker 1: just could not take it anymore with regard to what
47:15
Speaker 1: has happened to college sports in the nil instant transfer era.
47:21
Speaker 1: And this this is a team that had just been
47:24
Speaker 1: to the Final four under this coach a year and
47:27
Speaker 1: a half earlier, and he's clinking in the middle of
47:30
Speaker 1: the season because he's just exhausted, in his words, because
47:35
Speaker 1: of the insanity that he has to face, where he
47:38
Speaker 1: just simply was not cut out for this. And you know,
47:43
Speaker 1: there was some outrage on his behalf, but by and large,
47:47
Speaker 1: especially from the sports medium morons, there was either muted
47:51
Speaker 1: commentary or even criticism of him for quitting on his team,
47:56
Speaker 1: or hypocrisy and a double standard because after all, he
48:00
Speaker 1: left George Mason when he went to the Final four
48:04
Speaker 1: and he got a better job offer, and you know,
48:07
Speaker 1: why can't players do that? Of course, my response to
48:09
Speaker 1: that is, hello, can you please understand the difference between
48:13
Speaker 1: an employee and a student. That's at the fundamental basis
48:19
Speaker 1: of this entire problem. People and there's so many people
48:23
Speaker 1: on social media who are under this bizarre perception that
48:28
Speaker 1: there's no difference between a coach and a player. By
48:30
Speaker 1: the way, now I guess there isn't, and that part
48:33
Speaker 1: of the problem is the coach has no damn fohr
48:35
Speaker 1: because in a lot of situations, the player has been
48:40
Speaker 1: paid more and has more stability and more power and
48:44
Speaker 1: more flexibility to leave than the coach does. At least
48:47
Speaker 1: the coach has a bite that it goes to another
48:50
Speaker 1: school or another job situation. But there's a difference between
48:55
Speaker 1: an employee and a student. We have somehow forgotten that
48:58
Speaker 1: the clinics of some To me, it's fundamental and it
49:03
Speaker 1: destroys the entire argument on which all of this nonsense
49:07
Speaker 1: is based. But here is Miami's now ex basketball coach
49:12
Speaker 1: talking about why he decided that he had to give
49:15
Speaker 1: it up. He tried to hang in there, but this
49:18
Speaker 1: new system is just too insane, too nonsensical for him
49:22
Speaker 1: to be able to deal with, and so he's retiring.
49:26
Speaker 3: What shocked me beyond belief was after we made it
49:31
Speaker 3: to the Final four just eighteen months ago, the very
49:37
Speaker 3: first time I met with the players, eight of them
49:39
Speaker 3: decided they were going to put their name in the
49:42
Speaker 3: portal and leave. I said, don't you like it yet?
49:46
Speaker 4: No?
49:46
Speaker 1: I love it.
49:46
Speaker 3: I love Miami.
49:47
Speaker 1: It's great. But the opportunity to.
49:54
Speaker 3: Make money someplace else created a situation that you have
50:01
Speaker 3: to begin to ask yourself as a coach, what is
50:05
Speaker 3: this all about?
50:07
Speaker 1: To me? It couldn't be more clear about what's really
50:09
Speaker 1: going on here. I mean, that really crystallizes it. When
50:12
Speaker 1: you have a coach that's that successful and had just
50:16
Speaker 1: taken that team to a Final four two seasons earlier,
50:20
Speaker 1: and he just says, you know what, I can't do it,
50:23
Speaker 1: just tosses his hands up in the air. Then, especially
50:26
Speaker 1: when this comes after Nick Saban, the modern legend of
50:31
Speaker 1: college football, effectively doing the same thing after last season,
50:36
Speaker 1: and when you have situations like UCLA's head coach decided
50:40
Speaker 1: to take an assistant job in Ohio State. I mean,
50:42
Speaker 1: all sorts of other examples. If this doesn't tell you
50:46
Speaker 1: how insane things have gotten, I don't know what I
50:49
Speaker 1: can do. I mean, this is the ultimate proof that
50:52
Speaker 1: what I told you was going to happen has happened
50:55
Speaker 1: even more dramatically and more quickly than even I expected.
50:58
Speaker 1: Was possible, and it's just a shame. We've destroyed every
51:01
Speaker 1: aspect of college athletics, and we have done so in
51:05
Speaker 1: record time. And by the way, I think we're only
51:07
Speaker 1: seeing the beginning. They're going to be ramifications of all
51:10
Speaker 1: of this on other sports and in other ways that
51:14
Speaker 1: we haven't even considered yet. And I don't know that
51:17
Speaker 1: there's enough. I don't think there's enough wherewithal I don't
51:20
Speaker 1: think there's enough political will. I don't know that there's
51:23
Speaker 1: enough time to be able to reverse course. I am very,
51:27
Speaker 1: very pessimistic about where we're heading when it comes to
51:30
Speaker 1: all college sports, not just college football. Now I want
51:33
Speaker 1: to turn now to some political news. There have been
51:36
Speaker 1: some interesting things that have happened in Trump world. I
51:38
Speaker 1: don't want to get too deeply into it, partially because
51:41
Speaker 1: this is going to be a long episode of the
51:42
Speaker 1: podcast to begin with, but I have to at least
51:44
Speaker 1: mention the very I think telling controversy that erupted over
51:49
Speaker 1: the last few days involving the Vake Ramaswami Elon Musk,
51:53
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump over the issue of H one B visas.
51:57
Speaker 1: This is basically the visa program for highly skilled workers
52:02
Speaker 1: to come to America. This is a classic example where
52:06
Speaker 1: the details really really really matter. But basically what happened
52:11
Speaker 1: here was that the Veke Ramaswami, or the fake Obama
52:14
Speaker 1: Swamy as I refer to him, And boy did I
52:17
Speaker 1: call Theveke Obama Swamy. I mean, come on, folks, I mean,
52:21
Speaker 1: I was wrong about some things during this election cycle,
52:24
Speaker 1: but one of the things I nailed, other than the
52:26
Speaker 1: fact that Donald Trump was going to be the nominee
52:30
Speaker 1: sooner than almost anybody else, was that Aveke Ramaswami is
52:34
Speaker 1: a fraud, a fake, and a phony, which is why
52:37
Speaker 1: I refer to him as a fake Obama Swamy. But
52:40
Speaker 1: he really stepped into it. I don't know if he
52:43
Speaker 1: did so on purpose or not, but he put out
52:45
Speaker 1: a post on Twitter that ended up going viral that
52:48
Speaker 1: was very oddly written and it was basically an attempted
52:53
Speaker 1: argument for the H one B VISA program. But in
52:57
Speaker 1: order to get there, the fake Obamas basically allowed himself
53:02
Speaker 1: to be perceived as ripping on white culture, white American culture.
53:07
Speaker 1: That's how it was perceived. And of course, you know,
53:09
Speaker 1: most of MAGA, especially on line, is white, and it
53:15
Speaker 1: seemed as if the fake was going after white people
53:19
Speaker 1: in an effort to make the argument to expand the
53:22
Speaker 1: H one visa program under Donald Trump, which would in theory,
53:27
Speaker 1: be against Trump's entire philosophy of America First, right, American
53:32
Speaker 1: jobs first. And there's a very strong argument to be made.
53:36
Speaker 1: Ronda sentis iron and has made it in the last
53:39
Speaker 1: few days very forcefully and convincingly that this program undercuts
53:45
Speaker 1: American jobs, both from the standpoint of who gets the
53:49
Speaker 1: job as well as what your leverage is in negotiating
53:54
Speaker 1: your job. I mean, if there is a supply and
53:56
Speaker 1: demand issue. So if you're in a realm where you know,
54:00
Speaker 1: you bring in a bunch of foreign workers who are
54:02
Speaker 1: highly qualified and skilled, and that's going to diminish your
54:06
Speaker 1: bargaining leverage and your ability to you know, you're all
54:12
Speaker 1: sorts of things from your salary to your job security
54:15
Speaker 1: to everything else. So there's all sorts of elements that
54:19
Speaker 1: seemingly go against the America First philosophy and the anti
54:23
Speaker 1: immigration philosophy of Donald Trump. And Viveight got torched me.
54:28
Speaker 1: He got torched online. But then Elon Musk came to
54:32
Speaker 1: his rescue, and Donald Trump also effectively came to the
54:37
Speaker 1: fake Obama Swami's rescue, and that kind of made it
54:41
Speaker 1: die down because once the cult leader says that he
54:44
Speaker 1: has spoken, then it doesn't really matter phillosop to at
54:47
Speaker 1: least to a lot of people. You know what the
54:50
Speaker 1: situation is. So Trump has been all over them up
54:53
Speaker 1: on this issue, as he is on many issues. I
54:57
Speaker 1: think that the most significant part of this really has
55:00
Speaker 1: very little to do with H one B visus. I
55:03
Speaker 1: can see both sides of the issue, so that's not
55:07
Speaker 1: worthly where I'm concerned. What I found most potentially significant
55:12
Speaker 1: and interesting is that this was another test of the
55:16
Speaker 1: Musk Trump relationship. And I'm definitely in the camp of
55:20
Speaker 1: those that believes that the Musk Trump relationship is going
55:23
Speaker 1: to be paramount and determining to what extent the Trump
55:29
Speaker 1: second presidency, second term is successful or not. And I
55:34
Speaker 1: believe that it's inevitable that that relationship is going to
55:37
Speaker 1: fracture at least to some degree. Now it has not yet,
55:42
Speaker 1: but we're not even into twenty twenty five yet, we
55:45
Speaker 1: haven't even had the inauguration yet, and the relationship survived this,
55:51
Speaker 1: maybe even got strengthened a little bit in the short run,
55:54
Speaker 1: but at what price? Because now a narrative is being formed, rightly.
56:01
Speaker 5: Or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, a narrative is being formed
56:06
Speaker 5: that once again, Trump has shifted his position and in
56:12
Speaker 5: this case, against one of his core beliefs, in one
56:16
Speaker 5: of his core issues immigration, to be.
56:19
Speaker 1: In line with Elon Musk. And that is a dangerous,
56:25
Speaker 1: dangerous narrative for their relationship going forward, because you know,
56:30
Speaker 1: we've already seen Trump brushing aside, you know, jokingly that
56:34
Speaker 1: you know that Elon Musk's not the president, he's not
56:37
Speaker 1: eligible to run for president, he wasn't born in America.
56:41
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about Elon Musk. That's fine.
56:44
Speaker 1: It starts off as a joke. But with Trump, it's
56:48
Speaker 1: going to get under his skin. And now that you
56:51
Speaker 1: get more and more bullet points promoting this narrative that
56:55
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is in control of that relationship and Elon
56:59
Speaker 1: Musk is a effectively a co president, that that's going
57:02
Speaker 1: to cause a problem. That is an inevitable problem. Now
57:08
Speaker 1: how and when it explodes, who the hell knows, But
57:13
Speaker 1: that whole situation involving the controversy over H one b visas,
57:19
Speaker 1: to me, the real significance was not forvek Obama Swami
57:23
Speaker 1: getting torched by Maga on social media. The real significance
57:27
Speaker 1: was it was another major data point in this very
57:31
Speaker 1: dangerous narrative that I think eventually is going to cause
57:35
Speaker 1: a chasm between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. We'll see
57:40
Speaker 1: now a couple of other things involving Donald Trump and
57:42
Speaker 1: switching positions. Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to
57:46
Speaker 1: pause the law that would ban TikTok on January nineteen. Now,
57:52
Speaker 1: this is another topic where Donald Trump has completely changed
57:55
Speaker 1: his position. He has done so seemingly because a major
58:00
Speaker 1: owner of his who owns billions and billions of dollars
58:03
Speaker 1: worth of TikTok, met with him and then immediately Trump
58:07
Speaker 1: changed his tune. And then, of course his campaign did
58:10
Speaker 1: very well with TikTok. And the way Trump looks at
58:14
Speaker 1: the world is if something is good for me, if
58:16
Speaker 1: somebody says something nice about me, or if this act
58:20
Speaker 1: helps my campaign, it's inherently good. It's inherently good. It
58:25
Speaker 1: can be Gavin fucking Newsome and if he says something
58:28
Speaker 1: nice about Donald Trump, and that means he can't be
58:31
Speaker 1: all bad. Trump said himself, I can't knock him, he
58:34
Speaker 1: said about news because he said nice things. Well, TikTok
58:37
Speaker 1: has been good to him, and he's got a major donor.
58:40
Speaker 1: He's an owner of TikTok or an investor in TikTok.
58:45
Speaker 1: So you know, of course I'm going to change my mind.
58:48
Speaker 1: So I changed my mind on a TikTok ban, and
58:51
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna actually try to get the Supreme Court
58:54
Speaker 1: to pause the law. And did not step in because
58:58
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court is all he decided they're going
59:00
Speaker 1: to take this case, but he wants Trump wants them
59:03
Speaker 1: to pause the law and effectively, based upon the amicus
59:07
Speaker 1: brief that Trump filed or his lawyers filed for him,
59:11
Speaker 1: that Trump wants the Supreme Court to seede to him
59:15
Speaker 1: that the way it was that Trump thinks that he
59:18
Speaker 1: can handle this situation, that let me negotiate this, which
59:23
Speaker 1: you know, and it's not in an area where I'm
59:25
Speaker 1: an expert. But this feels like a separation of powers
59:27
Speaker 1: issue because the Supreme Court has to decide on whether
59:31
Speaker 1: or not a law that with van TikTok is constitutional,
59:35
Speaker 1: largely on free speech grounds, that that is an important
59:39
Speaker 1: thing for the Supreme Court to decide with regardless of
59:42
Speaker 1: whether not Donald Trump thinks he's the best person to
59:45
Speaker 1: negotiate a solution to this problem. As far as the
59:48
Speaker 1: actual substance to it. Substance to it, you know, I
59:51
Speaker 1: like tig talk. It's a big part of my life,
59:54
Speaker 1: my daughter's lives. There's good elements to it. There's some
59:58
Speaker 1: parts I hate about it, and some of the to
1:00:00
Speaker 1: crack my daughter's watch is very depressing. So if that
1:00:04
Speaker 1: were to go away, that wouldn't be the worst thing
1:00:06
Speaker 1: in the world. But by and large, as an app
1:00:08
Speaker 1: it's quite extraordinary. However, I am absolutely concerned about the
1:00:14
Speaker 1: security issues involving a Chinese company. That horse may have
1:00:19
Speaker 1: already left the barn as far as I can tell
1:00:21
Speaker 1: from a data perspective, But I am all in favor
1:00:24
Speaker 1: of the idea of forcing a company, for this company
1:00:29
Speaker 1: to seed control to somebody in the United States. I'm
1:00:34
Speaker 1: fine with that. Now it appears this if China doesn't
1:00:38
Speaker 1: want to give up the algorithm, and so they may
1:00:40
Speaker 1: just let the whole thing down, is possible. There's kind
1:00:44
Speaker 1: of a game of chicken going on here. But you know,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: as far as banning TikTok, I can understand why Trump
1:00:51
Speaker 1: has changed his position, especially since TikTok was nice to
1:00:54
Speaker 1: him in the campaign. There is an important legal free
1:00:58
Speaker 1: speech issue that the Supreme Court needs to decide here,
1:01:02
Speaker 1: and so I'm not really particularly comfortable with the way
1:01:04
Speaker 1: that Trump is acting here, especially since he's not yet president.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: But it is very indicative of the way that Donald
1:01:11
Speaker 1: Trump does things, that he's being influenced in his beliefs
1:01:16
Speaker 1: by things that have probably absolutely nothing to do with
1:01:18
Speaker 1: what is right or wrong, or good or bad. It's
1:01:22
Speaker 1: just what's good or bad for him in his perception
1:01:26
Speaker 1: on that particular day, and that's certainly what's going on
1:01:29
Speaker 1: with TikTok. Now, a similar issue came up with the
1:01:34
Speaker 1: incoming chairman of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, who's
1:01:39
Speaker 1: obviously going to be a Republican appointed by Trump, and
1:01:43
Speaker 1: they went after ABC News. And this is a situation
1:01:48
Speaker 1: that is kind of classic John Ziggler, where I agree
1:01:52
Speaker 1: philosophically with the substance of everything that was said, but
1:01:57
Speaker 1: I have a problem philosophically with the idea that the
1:02:02
Speaker 1: incoming chairman of the FCC is saying it in a
1:02:06
Speaker 1: threatening fashion to a media outlet. Here's the story on
1:02:09
Speaker 1: CNN the incoming chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is
1:02:13
Speaker 1: sending a stern message to the owners of television stations
1:02:17
Speaker 1: and networks, and he is using ABC's recent settlement with
1:02:20
Speaker 1: President Elecdonald Trump as a newspeg of sorts. Brendan Carr,
1:02:25
Speaker 1: a Trump appointed commissioner who will become chairman next month,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: wrote to Disney CEO Bob Iger over the weekend about
1:02:32
Speaker 1: the Disney owned ABC Networks negotiations with its affiliated stations
1:02:37
Speaker 1: across the United States. The letter, which was obtained by CNN, begins,
1:02:41
Speaker 1: Dear mister Iger, Americans no longer trust the national news
1:02:45
Speaker 1: media to report fully, accurately and fairly. I agree with that,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: and that's a major problem. But I'm not sure that
1:02:53
Speaker 1: that's something that the chairman of the FCC, or the
1:02:57
Speaker 1: incoming chairman of the FCC, should be writing in a
1:03:00
Speaker 1: letter to the chairman of Disney. But I digress back
1:03:03
Speaker 1: to the CNN article, car sites polling data and says
1:03:07
Speaker 1: ABC's own conduct has certainly contributed to this erosion in
1:03:11
Speaker 1: public trust. For instance, ABC News recently agreed to pay
1:03:14
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars to President Trump's future presidential Foundation and museum,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: and additional one million dollars in attorney fees to settle
1:03:22
Speaker 1: the defamation case. Car then delineates between national networks and
1:03:26
Speaker 1: local stations, which are licensed by the FCC, saying Americans
1:03:31
Speaker 1: largely hold positive views of their local media outlets. He
1:03:36
Speaker 1: indicates support for more local programming, hardly a controversial idea,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: but his emphasis on the national media's trust deficit and
1:03:45
Speaker 1: his choice to write to Eiger shows that Car, a
1:03:48
Speaker 1: commissioner since twenty seventeen, has different priorities than Republican and
1:03:53
Speaker 1: Democratic chairs in the past. And I think that that's
1:03:57
Speaker 1: actually an understatement coming from CNN. Let me put this,
1:04:02
Speaker 1: you know, out of the theoretical into the practical. Let
1:04:04
Speaker 1: me let me break it down for you. That's a
1:04:06
Speaker 1: shot across the bow. That is an attempt to intimidate
1:04:11
Speaker 1: ABC News and basically threaten their licenses. That's what that is. Now.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: ABC doesn't never quite understood in the modern era why
1:04:21
Speaker 1: ABC as a national network and certainly Disney would care
1:04:26
Speaker 1: as much about their licenses, because we're living in a
1:04:30
Speaker 1: streaming world and you know, the cable world and over
1:04:34
Speaker 1: the air means very very little unfortunately in this day
1:04:37
Speaker 1: and age, because I think local programming, which is where
1:04:39
Speaker 1: the FCC ought to be focused, is in dire straits.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: I mean, we are losing local news programming in all
1:04:49
Speaker 1: sorts of ways. I think it's frankly concerning. This is
1:04:52
Speaker 1: the data journalism podcasts, and don't talk nearly enough about this,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: but that's where the FCC focus ought to be. I mean,
1:04:59
Speaker 1: we're becoming being nationalized and homogenized in all sorts of ways.
1:05:03
Speaker 1: Local news and whether it's newspapers, radio, or television are
1:05:07
Speaker 1: dying even more so than national news broadcasts. There are plenty,
1:05:12
Speaker 1: plenty of ways to get your national news, it's becoming
1:05:15
Speaker 1: much more difficult to get decent local news. And local
1:05:19
Speaker 1: news is extremely important, and that is really the jurisdiction
1:05:24
Speaker 1: of the FCC in strengthening local news and information outlets.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: But what they're doing here is they're trying to threaten ABC.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: The commissioner is threaten ABC effectively, you know, use your
1:05:39
Speaker 1: brain here with their licenses because ABC owns several local
1:05:45
Speaker 1: stations and most of the major markets, and you know
1:05:49
Speaker 1: they somehow lose those licenses, they would lose those stations,
1:05:52
Speaker 1: and he's doing it for obvious political purposes. That's in
1:05:57
Speaker 1: my view inappropriate. I agree totally with the idea behind it.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: I agreed completely that they've lost the trust that they
1:06:05
Speaker 1: need to fix it, But that's not the way to
1:06:07
Speaker 1: fix it America. We should not be using governmental intimidation.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: This should be a market situation. This should be a
1:06:18
Speaker 1: situation where people are incentivized to do the right thing
1:06:21
Speaker 1: and punished by society if they don't. And we're already
1:06:25
Speaker 1: seeing that. We're seeing the demise of the legacy news
1:06:30
Speaker 1: media all over the place from a commercial perspective, because
1:06:34
Speaker 1: with loss of Christ has come lost of audience, and
1:06:37
Speaker 1: that loss of audience has come right in the time
1:06:40
Speaker 1: bread when the business model has broken. They they're losing
1:06:46
Speaker 1: money now there's a least not making nearly as much
1:06:49
Speaker 1: money as they used to, and they're hemorrhaging jobs and
1:06:52
Speaker 1: hemorrhaging credibility and influence and all of that. But to me,
1:06:58
Speaker 1: that's not the job of the FCC chairman. And there's
1:07:01
Speaker 1: a similar situation going on when it comes to RFK
1:07:04
Speaker 1: Junior and his desire which got reported a few days
1:07:08
Speaker 1: ago to ban pharmaceutical television ads and I guess radio ads,
1:07:14
Speaker 1: and I totally ge't why people are in favor of this.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: Momenta loves this idea because man hates the pharmaceutical companies
1:07:22
Speaker 1: and all. They also hate the news media that reluing
1:07:26
Speaker 1: on pharmaceutical television ads. I mean, can you imagine it
1:07:29
Speaker 1: is badly broken as the business model currently is for
1:07:35
Speaker 1: television networks if they lost pharmaceutical television ads, I think
1:07:41
Speaker 1: it would be complete catastrophe. I don't know what percentage
1:07:44
Speaker 1: of their advertising revenue come from pharmaceutical commercials, but it's
1:07:50
Speaker 1: a huge, huge part of it. And so you know,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: now where it comes to RK Junior and coming head
1:07:57
Speaker 1: of the Health and Human Services somehow wants to ban it. Now,
1:08:01
Speaker 1: first of all, I don't know by what power would
1:08:05
Speaker 1: RFK Junior be able to do this. That's my first
1:08:07
Speaker 1: concerns because you know, I believe in functioning government the
1:08:12
Speaker 1: way that it was supposed to be run, and not
1:08:14
Speaker 1: by edicts, by unelected bureaucrats and deep state. You know,
1:08:18
Speaker 1: boogeymen like RFK Junior would be considered to be I mean,
1:08:21
Speaker 1: as liberal as he is if he was working for
1:08:23
Speaker 1: a democratic administration. I mean, magat people would hate R.
1:08:27
Speaker 1: Tacher regardless of what he was saying. But you know,
1:08:33
Speaker 1: you know, there's a point with regard to the proper
1:08:35
Speaker 1: way to do things. You know, if you want to
1:08:37
Speaker 1: ban pharmaceutical ads, tell us a law. I mean, we
1:08:42
Speaker 1: already have the president here, which actually think was a
1:08:46
Speaker 1: very dangerous president when it comes to banning to go ads.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: And there are some similarities, but all whole lot of similarities.
1:08:55
Speaker 1: I think there's a fundamental difference between the pharmaceutical industry
1:09:00
Speaker 1: and the tobacco industry. Some people would disagree with that,
1:09:03
Speaker 1: but I think there's a difference. But my bigger question
1:09:06
Speaker 1: is philosophically, where would this end? And when it came
1:09:11
Speaker 1: to the tobacco companies, the tobacco companies, now they were
1:09:13
Speaker 1: forced at gunpoint, but the tobaco companies agreed to advertising
1:09:18
Speaker 1: as part of the settlement. So if you froce this
1:09:23
Speaker 1: without the pharmaceutical companies agreeing, that's a huge free speech issue.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: In my mind, the free speech issue is as dangerous
1:09:31
Speaker 1: as it was when it came to the tobaco companies.
1:09:34
Speaker 1: Was not that to me that troubling because the tobacco companies,
1:09:39
Speaker 1: again with a gun to their head, agreed to it.
1:09:42
Speaker 1: You're not going to get the pharmaceutical companies in my view,
1:09:45
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. And you're certainly not going
1:09:47
Speaker 1: to get the television media to go along with this
1:09:51
Speaker 1: because this would be an economic catastrophe for them. But
1:09:55
Speaker 1: let's say somehow RFK Junior pulls this off. Now, I
1:09:58
Speaker 1: don't think he's going to be able to, and I
1:09:59
Speaker 1: don't think he should be able to for philosophical reasons,
1:10:03
Speaker 1: and that are really important. I mean, precedent matters. Where
1:10:07
Speaker 1: does this end? And if you do this with tobacco
1:10:11
Speaker 1: and you do this with pharmaceutical sales ends, which I
1:10:14
Speaker 1: think it is a completely different animal, But where does
1:10:17
Speaker 1: the end from there? I mean, why would you know
1:10:20
Speaker 1: in an RFK Junior world, why would fool and PEPSI
1:10:25
Speaker 1: be allowed to keep advertising? And then once you're gone there,
1:10:31
Speaker 1: where does it stop? I mean, this is the ultimate
1:10:33
Speaker 1: slippery slope. There's a huge problem here. And I don't
1:10:36
Speaker 1: care that my enemies in the legacy media would be
1:10:40
Speaker 1: warned by this, because it's wrong, it's Unamerican, it's anti
1:10:45
Speaker 1: free speech, it's against the First Amendment, and it creates
1:10:48
Speaker 1: an incredibly dangerous precedent and a very very slippery slope.
1:10:53
Speaker 1: So I'm very much against what RFK Junior is proposing,
1:10:56
Speaker 1: especially given the parent reality that this would not be
1:11:01
Speaker 1: based in any sort of law or even an executive
1:11:05
Speaker 1: order from the president, but you know, by an edict
1:11:08
Speaker 1: from an unelected bureaucrat or something to degree or that,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: you know, in that form of fashion, that would be very,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: very troubling and wrong. And I don't think it's going
1:11:19
Speaker 1: to happen, but it shouldn't even be discussed in a
1:11:22
Speaker 1: serious fashion in my opinion. All Right, time out of
1:11:25
Speaker 1: turn to the year in review, and I'm not going
1:11:27
Speaker 1: to try to review the entire year comprehensively, but I
1:11:31
Speaker 1: do want to go through some of the bullet points
1:11:34
Speaker 1: that I found to be most interesting in twenty twenty four.
1:11:38
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously this is the death of journalism
1:11:40
Speaker 1: podcast and the death of the news media was a
1:11:44
Speaker 1: huge portion of the narrative when it came to news
1:11:47
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. There's no question that the death
1:11:51
Speaker 1: of the legacy news media was a big thing that
1:11:55
Speaker 1: happened in twenty twenty four, and it has happened more
1:11:58
Speaker 1: quickly and more dramaticly than even I thought was likely.
1:12:02
Speaker 1: I have for many years thought the only way to
1:12:05
Speaker 1: save journalism and to save the news media was for
1:12:09
Speaker 1: there to be essentially an economic catastrophe in the media
1:12:13
Speaker 1: in general. But my vision for this was that you know,
1:12:18
Speaker 1: there would be less clutter, that you would get to
1:12:21
Speaker 1: get rid of a lot of let's say, you know,
1:12:23
Speaker 1: the hundreds of cable news channels, or that you know,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: all all these podcasts would go out of business or that,
1:12:31
Speaker 1: so that we would go somewhat to a less fragmented
1:12:35
Speaker 1: media environment. Well that has not happened. In fact, the
1:12:39
Speaker 1: opposite has happened. We've had more and more fragmentation as
1:12:42
Speaker 1: we go from being a broadcasting world to being a
1:12:45
Speaker 1: cult casting world now to a micro cult casting world
1:12:49
Speaker 1: and all sorts of elements of problems that that creates.
1:12:53
Speaker 1: And so you know, now we have the situation where
1:12:58
Speaker 1: the outlets that are hurting them most economically are the
1:13:03
Speaker 1: news media outlets because their audiences continue to erode. Doing
1:13:08
Speaker 1: news doing it well is extremely expensive, a lot more
1:13:13
Speaker 1: expensive than other varieties of entertainment. And you know, live
1:13:20
Speaker 1: live content, sports, you know, talk shows, what have you.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: That's a lot easier than doing hard news. Hard news
1:13:28
Speaker 1: is hard work if it's done correctly, and it costs
1:13:31
Speaker 1: a lot of money. And so then the expensive expenses
1:13:36
Speaker 1: have not gone down, although there's going to be a
1:13:39
Speaker 1: lot more layoffs, especially into the coming year, an attempt
1:13:43
Speaker 1: to control expenses, which of course is only going to
1:13:45
Speaker 1: make the news product worse because you're going to have
1:13:48
Speaker 1: less people and less expertise and less resources. But the
1:13:51
Speaker 1: ratings have also gone down, especially post election. There's been
1:13:55
Speaker 1: a total collapse. It's one of the biggest stories in
1:13:58
Speaker 1: the media in twenty twenty four. It was the complete
1:14:00
Speaker 1: collapse of cable news ratings accepted Fox News Channel after
1:14:04
Speaker 1: Trump's victory, a completely different scenario than what occurred after
1:14:09
Speaker 1: Trump's win in twenty sixteen, with CNN and MSNBC leading
1:14:14
Speaker 1: the way. So the biggest media story of twenty twenty
1:14:17
Speaker 1: four is the lack of trust, lack of influence, the
1:14:21
Speaker 1: implosion of the business model, layoffs, and a ratings collapse
1:14:26
Speaker 1: post Trump victory. That really is going to set the
1:14:29
Speaker 1: scene for how the mainstream news media or the legacy
1:14:33
Speaker 1: news media attempts to cover Donald Trump in twenty twenty
1:14:36
Speaker 1: five and beyond. Now, that's probably a completely separate issue,
1:14:41
Speaker 1: an episode of the death of journalism podcasts, but I
1:14:43
Speaker 1: wanted to at least mention that right off the top
1:14:46
Speaker 1: in this Year in Review, because obviously that's a major
1:14:50
Speaker 1: topic that we discuss on the death of journalists and
1:14:52
Speaker 1: podcast and we do it almost every single episode. But
1:14:56
Speaker 1: there's no question that was one of the biggest stories
1:14:59
Speaker 1: this year of the legacy news media, especially as it
1:15:02
Speaker 1: related to the presidential campaign. And it's interesting to look
1:15:08
Speaker 1: every year at what the biggest news stories were and
1:15:12
Speaker 1: look at them from the respective of Okay, how did
1:15:14
Speaker 1: the news media do when it came to covering the
1:15:17
Speaker 1: biggest news stories of any particular year, And in the
1:15:21
Speaker 1: last few years, almost universally, the bigger the story, the
1:15:25
Speaker 1: worse the media coverage was. And I think you can
1:15:28
Speaker 1: make a similar argument in twenty twenty four. First, you
1:15:31
Speaker 1: have by far the biggest story of the year in
1:15:36
Speaker 1: my view, because of all the implications that it probably
1:15:40
Speaker 1: did have and certainly could have had, and that was
1:15:44
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the first one where
1:15:47
Speaker 1: he was hit in the ear with a bullet, which
1:15:50
Speaker 1: is obviously the biggest what if in political history. I
1:15:55
Speaker 1: actually don't think enough has been talked about or said
1:15:59
Speaker 1: about what could have easily happened if that bullet instead
1:16:04
Speaker 1: of grazing Donald Trump hits him even an inch or
1:16:08
Speaker 1: two from where it hit him in the ear, hits
1:16:10
Speaker 1: him in the head, kills him, and everything changes. I
1:16:15
Speaker 1: mean everything changes. The mind boggles as to what would
1:16:19
Speaker 1: have transpired if Trump doesn't turn his head exactly the
1:16:23
Speaker 1: way that he did. Frankly, it's so amazing that it's
1:16:27
Speaker 1: remarkable to me that this is not more conversation because
1:16:32
Speaker 1: if he doesn't turn his head, obviously, first of all,
1:16:35
Speaker 1: he's not elected president because he's not alive. Who the
1:16:38
Speaker 1: hell knows who the Republican presidential nominee is. In all likelihood,
1:16:45
Speaker 1: Donald Trump dying causes incredible unrest who knows to what degree.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: But Joe Biden probably doesn't even get out of the
1:16:55
Speaker 1: race because of all the turmoil that would ensue and
1:16:59
Speaker 1: because there wouldn't be the same pressure to get out
1:17:01
Speaker 1: of the race that had been building for a couple
1:17:04
Speaker 1: of weeks at that point. And I think the assassination
1:17:06
Speaker 1: attempt actually was really the final straw that broke the
1:17:10
Speaker 1: camel's back, combined with Joe Biden getting COVID. So if
1:17:15
Speaker 1: Trump dies during that assassination attempt, he's obviously not president.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: Who knows who the nominee is, Joe Biden doesn't get out,
1:17:23
Speaker 1: Joe Biden probably therefore wins the presidency, and who the
1:17:29
Speaker 1: hell knows what this means over the next four years.
1:17:32
Speaker 1: For sure, there's no way Joe Biden finishes another four years.
1:17:38
Speaker 1: That means Kamala Harrins is eventually president. I mean, that's
1:17:42
Speaker 1: how significant those couple of inches were when it came
1:17:46
Speaker 1: to the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, and as far
1:17:49
Speaker 1: as the way the media handled it, First of all,
1:17:51
Speaker 1: their coverage of the initial event was terrible. In this
1:17:55
Speaker 1: day and age of instant communication, it took way too
1:17:58
Speaker 1: long to have any clue as to what actually transpired.
1:18:03
Speaker 1: There was all sorts of very bad reporting, as there
1:18:06
Speaker 1: usually is in the midst of chaos. But to me,
1:18:09
Speaker 1: in this day and age, there was no excuse beyond
1:18:12
Speaker 1: the first few minutes, and it took way too long
1:18:15
Speaker 1: to get a handle on what actually did and did
1:18:17
Speaker 1: not happen. But even to this day, we don't really
1:18:21
Speaker 1: know why it happened. Now. Part of it's because the
1:18:24
Speaker 1: shooter was instantly killed and that didn't have much of
1:18:28
Speaker 1: a online footprint, and we don't know that much about them,
1:18:31
Speaker 1: and therefore we're never going to know that much about them.
1:18:34
Speaker 1: But the lack of curiosity by the news media in
1:18:38
Speaker 1: finding out anything about the motive here or even really
1:18:41
Speaker 1: how the whole thing transpired, is really quite stunning, And
1:18:45
Speaker 1: there's no chance that that would have been the case. Had,
1:18:47
Speaker 1: for instance, Kamala Harris been you know, shot at and
1:18:52
Speaker 1: hit during her presidential campaign, we would never have heard
1:18:56
Speaker 1: the end of it. We would know everything about the
1:18:58
Speaker 1: person who did the shooting were, regardless of whether or
1:19:00
Speaker 1: not they died or whether or not they had any
1:19:02
Speaker 1: sort of a social media footprint. So there's been very
1:19:06
Speaker 1: poor work done on the most of the secret service
1:19:10
Speaker 1: failures on who the assassin was, what was going on,
1:19:15
Speaker 1: what was the motivation, how did this happen to me?
1:19:21
Speaker 1: It's been very poor. I would give it about a
1:19:24
Speaker 1: CNUS to a D plus at best. The news media
1:19:28
Speaker 1: coverage of Donald Trump's assassination attempt from beginning to end. Now,
1:19:34
Speaker 1: of course, I've already alluded to the fact that one
1:19:37
Speaker 1: major story beget another, and that was what ended up
1:19:41
Speaker 1: being the biggest political story of the year. Joe Biden
1:19:47
Speaker 1: effectively being forced out in a coup, deciding to withdraw
1:19:51
Speaker 1: from the presidential race and the Harris switcherou that followed. Now,
1:19:56
Speaker 1: we talked an awful lot about this during the entire
1:19:59
Speaker 1: election campaign. I still believe this is an incredibly underreported
1:20:03
Speaker 1: story from every aspect. We don't really know how it
1:20:07
Speaker 1: was that Nancy Pelosi pulled off the code read against
1:20:10
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. There was nowhere near enough attention in the
1:20:14
Speaker 1: news media put on the fact that Kamala Harris was
1:20:17
Speaker 1: handed the nomination and what were the circumstances under which
1:20:20
Speaker 1: she was handed the denomination. There was no real vetting
1:20:23
Speaker 1: of her or even acknowledgment that she had gotten to
1:20:26
Speaker 1: this position without any real vetting. There's a story out
1:20:30
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post which I think has been overblown
1:20:34
Speaker 1: and manipulated by others for clickbait material and to try
1:20:40
Speaker 1: to get a viral story. But I at least should
1:20:43
Speaker 1: acknowledge that the Washington Post as a story that indicates
1:20:46
Speaker 1: that aids close to Biden say that he regrets the
1:20:51
Speaker 1: decision to pull out of the presidential race and still
1:20:53
Speaker 1: thinks that he could have beaten Donald Trump. Now, to
1:20:56
Speaker 1: be clear, these are not even quotes, These are background
1:21:01
Speaker 1: statements from anonymous people. So I don't really put a
1:21:05
Speaker 1: lot of stock in background statements, not even quotes from
1:21:09
Speaker 1: no one who's willing to go on the record, and
1:21:11
Speaker 1: it's not even supposed to be from Joe Biden or
1:21:13
Speaker 1: anyone you know, really close to Joe Biden. To me,
1:21:18
Speaker 1: it felt very clickbaity. But at least there's some belief, apparently,
1:21:22
Speaker 1: according to The Washington Post among people who are still
1:21:26
Speaker 1: close to Biden, that he regrets getting out and thinks
1:21:29
Speaker 1: that he could have beaten Donald Trump. I don't think
1:21:32
Speaker 1: that that's likely at all. I don't think he could
1:21:34
Speaker 1: have beaten Donald Trump at all. I think he would
1:21:37
Speaker 1: have been a short loser. I mean, we already know
1:21:40
Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris was a loser, and so I think
1:21:43
Speaker 1: Biden would have lost by at least the same amount,
1:21:46
Speaker 1: maybe even more, depending on how many gaps he would
1:21:49
Speaker 1: have committed in the final months of the campaign. But
1:21:53
Speaker 1: from a media perspective, this whole story really was the
1:21:57
Speaker 1: biggest flop of the year the news media, and it's
1:22:01
Speaker 1: a flop that really goes way beyond what happened this year.
1:22:05
Speaker 1: It goes to the cover up of Joe Biden's mental
1:22:08
Speaker 1: decline and how It was that somehow the president of
1:22:11
Speaker 1: the United States was allowed to be handed the Democratic
1:22:15
Speaker 1: presidential nomination and go in front of a national television
1:22:19
Speaker 1: audience in a late June presidential debate and completely ship
1:22:23
Speaker 1: the bed without anyone's stopping this from happening, and with
1:22:28
Speaker 1: the news media then pretending is if, oh, my god,
1:22:31
Speaker 1: and you believe what we just saw. Well, actually, yes,
1:22:35
Speaker 1: we can believe what we just saw because we've been
1:22:37
Speaker 1: seeing it not just this year, but for multiple years prior.
1:22:41
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was in the Christmas of
1:22:47
Speaker 1: what was it twenty twenty one? Was it twenty twenty two?
1:22:51
Speaker 1: Twenty one? Was I guess it was twenty twenty one,
1:22:54
Speaker 1: one of those Christmases where Joe Biden was fooled by
1:22:59
Speaker 1: someone into saying, let's go Brandon, which is a euphemism
1:23:04
Speaker 1: for fuck Joe Biden. He said this on the Christmas
1:23:08
Speaker 1: Eve event where they're tracking Santa Claus, and he had
1:23:12
Speaker 1: no idea, no idea what the hell he was talking about.
1:23:18
Speaker 1: It was at that moment that everyone should have known, Okay,
1:23:21
Speaker 1: we got a major, major problem here. If the President
1:23:24
Speaker 1: States can be fooled into effectively saying fuck Joe Biden
1:23:28
Speaker 1: on a on a live broadcast and have no idea
1:23:32
Speaker 1: what the heck he did. This is not a guy
1:23:35
Speaker 1: that can run for reelection, can serve a second term
1:23:38
Speaker 1: in office. And you know, the news media either willingly
1:23:43
Speaker 1: or you know, by lack of curiosity or just not
1:23:49
Speaker 1: wanting to rock the boat, wanting to make sure that
1:23:53
Speaker 1: they stayed on their the side of their their liberal
1:23:56
Speaker 1: friends and the Democratic Party. For whatever the motivations were,
1:23:59
Speaker 1: the mainstream news media did an absolutely terrible job of
1:24:03
Speaker 1: documenting this issue with regard to Joe Biden's mental decline,
1:24:08
Speaker 1: and even when they finally acknowledged it, even when that
1:24:13
Speaker 1: finally happened, in some ways, it happened in a way
1:24:17
Speaker 1: that was almost hilarious and extremely tailing. And I'm referring
1:24:21
Speaker 1: to what happened over this weekend on Face the Nation
1:24:24
Speaker 1: where Major Garrett was filling in for Margaret Brennan and
1:24:28
Speaker 1: he was doing a roundtable, and he asked those on
1:24:32
Speaker 1: the roundtable, these journalists, what the most underreported story of
1:24:36
Speaker 1: the year was. He went to a woman by the
1:24:38
Speaker 1: name of jan Crawford, and Jack Crawford told the truth
1:24:45
Speaker 1: about what the most underreported story of the year was,
1:24:47
Speaker 1: but did so in a way that had no self
1:24:51
Speaker 1: awareness and really was making it sound as if like, well,
1:24:56
Speaker 1: you know, we just kind of screwed this up, no
1:24:58
Speaker 1: real big deal. Nobody else on the panel picked up
1:25:02
Speaker 1: on it at all, and just the whole tone of this,
1:25:05
Speaker 1: to me is so hilarious and so telling. But here's
1:25:09
Speaker 1: what happened on CBS based the nation when somebody in
1:25:12
Speaker 1: the legacy media finally says, after all these years, you know,
1:25:16
Speaker 1: maybe we should have got a better job of destrimating
1:25:19
Speaker 1: the president of the United States mental decline. One of
1:25:23
Speaker 1: the things we also do in the year end Correspondence
1:25:25
Speaker 1: round Table is dig into what was undercovered or under reported.
1:25:30
Speaker 6: Jan undercovered underreported That would be to me, Joe Biden's
1:25:35
Speaker 6: obvious cognizant decline that became undeniable in the televised debate.
1:25:40
Speaker 1: The presidential debate was.
1:25:42
Speaker 6: Unquestioned, and you know, it's starting to emerge now that
1:25:45
Speaker 6: his advisors kind of managed his limitations been reported in
1:25:50
Speaker 6: the Wall Street Journal for four years, and yet he
1:25:53
Speaker 6: insisted that he could still run for president. We should
1:25:56
Speaker 6: have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for
1:26:00
Speaker 6: office for another four years, which could have led to
1:26:02
Speaker 6: a primary for the Democrats. It could have changed the
1:26:06
Speaker 6: scope of the entire election. Yet still, incredibly we read
1:26:10
Speaker 6: the Washington Post that his advisors are saying that he
1:26:13
Speaker 6: regrets that he dropped out of the race. You know
1:26:16
Speaker 6: that he thinks he could have beaten Trump. And I
1:26:18
Speaker 6: think that is either delusional or their gas la.
1:26:20
Speaker 4: President Biden has said repeatedly he was sick during the
1:26:23
Speaker 4: debate June twenty seventh in Atlanta, and he's always been fine,
1:26:26
Speaker 4: and he leaves fine. That is his position, the position
1:26:30
Speaker 4: of many of his top aides as well, even though
1:26:31
Speaker 4: there is that reporting.
1:26:32
Speaker 1: Robert, when I saw that, my general reaction was oh so,
1:26:42
Speaker 1: no big deal. Then other than that, missus Kennedy, how
1:26:46
Speaker 1: was the trip to Dallas? I mean, what else matters
1:26:51
Speaker 1: if the news media can't get that rate, if they're
1:26:54
Speaker 1: not able to tell the public what most of the
1:26:57
Speaker 1: public already knows. The surprise of the Unit of States
1:27:00
Speaker 1: is in significant mental decline. It is not capable of
1:27:03
Speaker 1: running for reelection and serving a second term. And yet
1:27:05
Speaker 1: somehow he gets handed the presidential nomination and shows up
1:27:09
Speaker 1: out of debate. And it was only at that moment
1:27:12
Speaker 1: when the mainstream news media suddenly goes, oh my gosh,
1:27:16
Speaker 1: what do we got here. That's a damning indictment. And
1:27:20
Speaker 1: you know, the great irony is the only moment this
1:27:23
Speaker 1: year when the news media still showed they had potency
1:27:27
Speaker 1: was when they also showed they were incredibly biased and
1:27:30
Speaker 1: maybe even corrupt, and that is that they turned on
1:27:34
Speaker 1: Joe Biden on a dime. The cover up was instantly
1:27:38
Speaker 1: ended because they saw it in their self interest and
1:27:42
Speaker 1: the self interest to the Democratic Party to get in
1:27:44
Speaker 1: the hell out of there. And for three weeks they
1:27:48
Speaker 1: pounded relentlessly with the you know an interlude when Trump
1:27:52
Speaker 1: got shot, they pounded relentlessly on getting Joe Biden out
1:27:58
Speaker 1: and frankly he even though they were eventually successful in
1:28:01
Speaker 1: that and enabling and helping Nancy Pelosi and others to
1:28:05
Speaker 1: pull off the code read against Joe Biden, in a
1:28:08
Speaker 1: weird way, it showed their impotence because in the olden days,
1:28:13
Speaker 1: where the legacy news media still had real power, this
1:28:16
Speaker 1: would not have taken three weeks. It would have taken
1:28:19
Speaker 1: three days tops if a Democratic president lost the support
1:28:26
Speaker 1: of the legacy news media to the degree that Joe
1:28:28
Speaker 1: Biden did. After that debate, he would have had to
1:28:32
Speaker 1: have dropped out immediately. Frankly, his polling numbers never really collapsed.
1:28:38
Speaker 1: That was what was the most remarkable punk of the
1:28:40
Speaker 1: whole thing. There was some softening of the numbers, and
1:28:45
Speaker 1: it was clear that Trump was going to beat him
1:28:47
Speaker 1: unless something dramatic happened. But it was not as if
1:28:51
Speaker 1: there was a total collapse because the news media turned
1:28:55
Speaker 1: on Biden. And remember, the news media and the legacy
1:28:58
Speaker 1: news media has way more influence and still a lot
1:29:02
Speaker 1: more trust among liberals than they certainly do among conservatives
1:29:06
Speaker 1: or independents, so Biden's supporters would theoretically be far more
1:29:10
Speaker 1: influenced by the fact that every major legacy media outlet
1:29:15
Speaker 1: was essentially telling Biden to get the hell out, and
1:29:18
Speaker 1: it barely worked. It took three weeks, an assassination attempt
1:29:22
Speaker 1: on Trump and Biden getting COVID, all in a very
1:29:27
Speaker 1: short time period before Biden finally said uncle and gave
1:29:31
Speaker 1: up the car keys. And that is a remarkable and
1:29:36
Speaker 1: damning indictment with the national news media is in twenty
1:29:40
Speaker 1: twenty four. Even when they finally got their way, it
1:29:44
Speaker 1: was barely and it was in a fashion that ended
1:29:46
Speaker 1: up backfiring because in the end, the American people did
1:29:50
Speaker 1: not go for Kamala Harris because her campaign was terrible
1:29:55
Speaker 1: and I was fearful that you know that she wasn't
1:29:58
Speaker 1: going to be New Koke. The people would be fooled
1:30:00
Speaker 1: by this, that the news media would still have the
1:30:02
Speaker 1: power in twenty twenty four to carry her over the
1:30:05
Speaker 1: finish line. And they didn't have it. Now, granted they
1:30:09
Speaker 1: had a terrible candidate to work with, but the old
1:30:12
Speaker 1: news media would have had the power. The old news media,
1:30:15
Speaker 1: I don't know when they lost it to the point
1:30:18
Speaker 1: where they couldn't drag Kamala Harris over the line, even
1:30:21
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump. But they didn't have it in twenty
1:30:25
Speaker 1: twenty four. They might have had it in twenty twenty
1:30:27
Speaker 1: because obviously we saw what the media did with COVID.
1:30:30
Speaker 1: But I think the COVID panic probably was the death
1:30:34
Speaker 1: knell among certain portions of the population when it came
1:30:37
Speaker 1: to blindly trusting the mainstream news media. That's another aspect
1:30:41
Speaker 1: of this old thing that the news media has has
1:30:44
Speaker 1: been blind to for obvious reasons. I think that played
1:30:48
Speaker 1: a role, at least subliminally when it came to what
1:30:50
Speaker 1: ended up happening with Trump defeating Kamala Harris. Now, I
1:30:54
Speaker 1: want to talk about the year in sports real quick,
1:30:57
Speaker 1: because a lot of this stuff we've talked about, but
1:31:00
Speaker 1: I think it's worthy of mention at the end of
1:31:02
Speaker 1: the year. You know, to me, you know what's happened
1:31:06
Speaker 1: with both college football and pro football, not to mention
1:31:11
Speaker 1: college basketball, but pro football and college basketball. Let me
1:31:15
Speaker 1: pick that up again. Sorry, three to two to one.
1:31:19
Speaker 1: To me, what's happened with both pro football and college football,
1:31:24
Speaker 1: and yet the sports media has ignored to a large
1:31:28
Speaker 1: extent both of these stories. Is the most significant thing
1:31:33
Speaker 1: that's happened in sports. I think that pro football has
1:31:37
Speaker 1: effectively become a form of flag football and nobody wants
1:31:41
Speaker 1: to talk about it, and college football has become professional sports,
1:31:46
Speaker 1: and nobody really wants to talk about. How much damage
1:31:49
Speaker 1: has been done because of that. And that's largely because
1:31:52
Speaker 1: the sports media is just as broken as the news
1:31:55
Speaker 1: media is, sometimes even more so, partially because they have
1:31:58
Speaker 1: dumber people working there, and they have even greater conflicts
1:32:02
Speaker 1: of interest when it comes to the corporate entanglements that
1:32:06
Speaker 1: they have with the sports that they're covering. I mean,
1:32:10
Speaker 1: the sports media is I think way more broken than
1:32:13
Speaker 1: even the news media, and oftentimes it's even way more liberal.
1:32:16
Speaker 1: But we've talked a lot about how soft the National
1:32:19
Speaker 1: Football League has gotten and will continue togain, partially because
1:32:23
Speaker 1: their incentive is very much in favor of that direction.
1:32:27
Speaker 1: I mean, this year in the National Football League, they
1:32:29
Speaker 1: essentially ended the kickoff. They had this crazy new kickoff
1:32:33
Speaker 1: rule that was supposed to at least increase the number
1:32:35
Speaker 1: of kickoffs. It didn't do that at all, like a
1:32:37
Speaker 1: couple percentage points. But you know, the play the kickoff
1:32:42
Speaker 1: in football has essentially been eliminated, and other than a
1:32:45
Speaker 1: few snarky comments from Al Michaels at the beginning of
1:32:48
Speaker 1: the year, nobody's even mentioned it. We're just all supposed
1:32:52
Speaker 1: to pretend that we just didn't eliminate the kickoffs. And
1:32:56
Speaker 1: you know, similarly, in college sports, it is not an
1:32:59
Speaker 1: exaggerate to say that the Doctor Pepper commercials for Fansville
1:33:05
Speaker 1: have done a better job documenting the destruction of college
1:33:08
Speaker 1: football than ESPN, Sports Center or Game Day have ever done.
1:33:14
Speaker 1: That's not an exaggeration. That's where you get the truth
1:33:18
Speaker 1: what's going on with college football. Although even those commercials
1:33:22
Speaker 1: have softened a little bit this year, but over the
1:33:24
Speaker 1: last couple of years, I think that the Fansville Doctor
1:33:28
Speaker 1: Pepper commercials are a more liable source of information than
1:33:32
Speaker 1: ESPN is because ESPN has a missive corporate conflict of
1:33:36
Speaker 1: interest and everybody at ESPN is terrified of criticizing the
1:33:40
Speaker 1: system that their corporate overlords effectively created. And you know,
1:33:46
Speaker 1: I would say the craziest thing that happened this year,
1:33:48
Speaker 1: other than maybe the University of Miami basketball coach quitting
1:33:51
Speaker 1: in the middle of the year and Nick Saban quitting
1:33:54
Speaker 1: at the end of last year because of a reaction
1:33:57
Speaker 1: to this crazy world, was the story involving Dave Portnoy
1:34:00
Speaker 1: from Barstool Sports getting on a zoom call with the
1:34:05
Speaker 1: girlfriend and or wife I'm not sure which, And still
1:34:09
Speaker 1: I've seen different stories on whether they're married or not,
1:34:12
Speaker 1: of multi multi billionaire Larry Ellison and them conspiring to
1:34:17
Speaker 1: steal a quarter from LSU, paying him ten to twelve
1:34:22
Speaker 1: million dollars to go from LSU to Michigan. I mean,
1:34:25
Speaker 1: this is this is insanity crazy, and the story get
1:34:30
Speaker 1: that much attention, and to me, it was just it
1:34:33
Speaker 1: was emblematic of all of the other craziness that has
1:34:38
Speaker 1: completely taken over college football in this nil instant transfer world.
1:34:44
Speaker 1: But instead of talking about the destruction of college sports
1:34:48
Speaker 1: or the wissification and the end of tackle football, ESPN
1:34:54
Speaker 1: was completely dominated by stories on Bronnie James, the son
1:34:59
Speaker 1: of Lebron James, who had no business being drifted or
1:35:02
Speaker 1: playing in the NBA. That's been proven already. I told
1:35:05
Speaker 1: you that. Many other people that weren't working at ESBN
1:35:09
Speaker 1: told you that. And when they weren't talking about Bronnie James,
1:35:12
Speaker 1: they were talking about Aaron Rodgers coming with the Jets,
1:35:15
Speaker 1: and that turned out to be a complete non story
1:35:18
Speaker 1: and a total disaster. So you know, Bronnie James and
1:35:21
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers got a hell of a lot of news
1:35:24
Speaker 1: sports coverage in twenty twenty four. They didn't deserve any
1:35:27
Speaker 1: of it. Meanwhile, major major stories involving the destruction of
1:35:32
Speaker 1: football on the pro level and on the college level
1:35:36
Speaker 1: and college sports in general effectively got no coverage at all.
1:35:40
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