Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / Steve Raible on the Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl rematch in NFL kickoff next week, From player to voice of the team + more

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Steve Raible on the Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl rematch in NFL kickoff next week, From player to voice of the team + more · The Sean O'Connell Show

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show.
0:06
Speaker 2: Our next guest has one of the coolest resumes you're
0:10
Speaker 2: ever going to find.
0:30
Speaker 1: In any business.
0:32
Speaker 2: Steve Ray Bull is currently the play-by-play voice of the
0:36
Speaker 2: Seattle Seahawks. Before that, he was the lead analyst on
0:40
Speaker 2: the broadcast. Before that, he was a Seattle Seahawks professional
0:45
Speaker 2: football player. And by the way, he's won some Emmys
0:48
Speaker 2: as well, working in... sports and news uh because i
0:52
Speaker 2: guess he's just good at everything he does and we're
0:54
Speaker 2: lucky enough to welcome him to the sean o'connell show
0:57
Speaker 2: because we are going to be broadcasting seattle seahawks games
1:01
Speaker 2: on espn 791 fm during this upcoming 2026 season steve
1:07
Speaker 2: thank you so much for the time how are you
1:08
Speaker 2: sir well.
1:10
Speaker 3: I'm fine trump thank you and uh you know i'm
1:13
Speaker 3: lucky to be doing what i'm doing uh I don't
1:15
Speaker 3: know about being talented or being good at any of it,
1:18
Speaker 3: but I appreciate the opportunity that everybody has given me.
1:22
Speaker 2: So I'm going to selfishly pick your brain about the
1:24
Speaker 2: broadcasting stuff here for a second because I do play-by-play
1:29
Speaker 2: in the MMA world, in the combat sports space, as
1:33
Speaker 2: a former competitor, as a former professional fighter. And, of course,
1:37
Speaker 2: that is not the normal transition that the athlete makes.
1:40
Speaker 1: Most of the time, people go from the.
1:44
Speaker 2: Competitive floor to the analyst chair, which is of course
1:48
Speaker 2: something that you did. And for most people, they stay there.
1:51
Speaker 2: Why play by play? A lot of guys don't want
1:53
Speaker 2: to do the play by play. A lot of guys
1:54
Speaker 2: don't have the radio chops or the television chops, the
1:58
Speaker 2: formatics to do the play by play.
2:00
Speaker 1: Why did you decide that this was the right move
2:02
Speaker 1: for your career?
2:03
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting. And by the way, I'm amazed at
2:08
Speaker 3: what you people do. You guys in the ring, it's
2:12
Speaker 3: just phenomenal to me. I wore a helmet and still
2:14
Speaker 3: tried to stay away from getting hit. And you guys, literally,
2:17
Speaker 3: that's what you do for a living. But now you're
2:20
Speaker 3: on radio. I hope it's a lot safer for you.
2:23
Speaker 3: As far as how this all came about, so I
2:27
Speaker 3: retired after my sixth year of playing. I was right
2:30
Speaker 3: up to training camp of my seventh season. And the
2:34
Speaker 3: radio station that had had the rights to the Seahawks
2:37
Speaker 3: since the first year, 1976, and owned by Bonneville Broadcasting.
2:44
Speaker 3: I've been to the headquarters there several times in Salt
2:47
Speaker 3: Lake City. And what they did was they came to
2:52
Speaker 3: me and said, listen, we see you've done lots of
2:54
Speaker 3: work in the off-season, radio and television. We think you
2:57
Speaker 3: could be pretty good at that. And we have some
2:59
Speaker 3: jobs available here in television and on radio, but you're
3:03
Speaker 3: going to have to retire from football. So I said, well,
3:06
Speaker 3: what are the jobs? And one of them was to
3:07
Speaker 3: become the analyst on the broadcast. The analyst that we
3:11
Speaker 3: had for the first six years was moving on to
3:13
Speaker 3: the 49ers. They said one of the jobs is going
3:15
Speaker 3: to be to be the backup sports guy to our
3:18
Speaker 3: main television sports broadcaster. So I said, okay. And what's
3:22
Speaker 3: the other part? And the other part was to do
3:25
Speaker 3: an evening magazine show five nights a week called PM Magazine.
3:29
Speaker 3: And they said, we think you could do that. And
3:33
Speaker 3: so we'd love to entertain you on those things. So
3:37
Speaker 3: my wife and I talked about it, and she called
3:39
Speaker 3: him back and said, I'll have him there on Monday morning.
3:43
Speaker 3: That's kind of the way it happened. And so the
3:45
Speaker 3: very first thing was getting to stay close to the
3:48
Speaker 3: guys that I literally had just come off the field with.
3:51
Speaker 3: All those guys in 1982 were all my teammates. And
3:55
Speaker 3: it was a tough year. It was a strike year.
3:57
Speaker 3: They fired our head coach, Jack Patera, in the middle
3:59
Speaker 3: of that season during the strike. But the good thing
4:02
Speaker 3: that came out of it was that Chuck Knox was hired,
4:04
Speaker 3: and from there on it was just a race to
4:06
Speaker 3: get to the playoffs with Chuck and with predominantly the
4:11
Speaker 3: guys that I had played with. So that was a
4:13
Speaker 3: comfort zone for me. Then as I went along in
4:16
Speaker 3: my career, one sad thing that happened was our play-by-play
4:20
Speaker 3: guy who started as the voice of the Seahawks, a
4:23
Speaker 3: gentleman named Pete Gross, got kidney cancer and eventually died.
4:30
Speaker 3: He was inducted into our Ring of Honor two nights
4:32
Speaker 3: before he died. It was during the season of 1992.
4:35
Speaker 3: And it was a very jarring thing for all of us.
4:40
Speaker 3: And we had a couple of backup guys fill in
4:43
Speaker 3: for the rest of the season. Then they hired another
4:45
Speaker 3: play-by-play guy for a couple of years, and that didn't
4:47
Speaker 3: work out really well. They hired another guy for a
4:49
Speaker 3: couple of years. So now we get to 2004, and
4:54
Speaker 3: a gentleman named Warren Moon, became available. He had been
4:58
Speaker 3: working for Westwood One as a sideline reporter. We knew
5:01
Speaker 3: he was going to make the Hall of Fame. He
5:03
Speaker 3: was an established star. He was an institution here in Seattle,
5:08
Speaker 3: having played for the Huskies. And he let it be
5:11
Speaker 3: known that he would love to be on our radio broadcasts. Well,
5:14
Speaker 3: the question then became, if we want to keep Rabel,
5:17
Speaker 3: and he was an original Seahawk, and it's not like
5:19
Speaker 3: he's done anything wrong, can he do play-by-play if we
5:23
Speaker 3: bring more at all? And I had done enough television
5:26
Speaker 3: and enough radio by that time. By that time, I
5:29
Speaker 3: was in the news department, so I was anchoring the
5:32
Speaker 3: main newscast. I had done a lot of breaking news,
5:34
Speaker 3: so I could think on my feet. I could do
5:36
Speaker 3: all those things. And so they gave me an opportunity.
5:40
Speaker 3: And during the offseason, I sat with Warren. We sat
5:43
Speaker 3: in a room with a big screen, and we just
5:46
Speaker 3: did games over and over until we started to get comfortable.
5:50
Speaker 3: And that's how it started for me doing play-by-play. The
5:53
Speaker 3: Seahawks gave me that opportunity, just like the folks in
5:57
Speaker 3: the television business gave me an opportunity to learn how
6:00
Speaker 3: to become– I didn't major in journalism. I majored in
6:04
Speaker 3: industrial management at Georgia Tech. But they gave me an
6:07
Speaker 3: opportunity to learn on the job, which is, as you know,
6:10
Speaker 3: it's almost unheard of. And so I just– like I said,
6:15
Speaker 3: I was blessed. And I've been at it now for
6:19
Speaker 3: this will be my 40 but 44th year in the
6:22
Speaker 3: broadcast end of things. And my 23rd year as the
6:26
Speaker 3: play by play guy.
6:28
Speaker 2: Thank you for telling that story. It's really incredible because
6:31
Speaker 2: it's just not. it's not the path most traveled. So
6:34
Speaker 2: I like to hear that. That's how you got there.
6:36
Speaker 2: And obviously, you know, like you said, original Seahawk and
6:39
Speaker 2: you've seen the lean years, you've seen the not so
6:42
Speaker 2: great years. And I imagine there's a certain amount of
6:45
Speaker 2: gratification having been with this franchise, every step of the
6:48
Speaker 2: way with the way things played out this past year,
6:53
Speaker 2: once again, Superbowl champs up in Seattle.
6:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It's truly amazing. I mean, I can
7:00
Speaker 3: tell you literally the, the, the, Best things that have
7:02
Speaker 3: happened to me since I got to Seattle, making this
7:07
Speaker 3: team was certainly one of them. But I met my
7:09
Speaker 3: wife here. We've been married now 45 years. And so
7:12
Speaker 3: that's like right up at the top. That's the number
7:14
Speaker 3: one thing on the list. But then you look at
7:17
Speaker 3: all the football things that have happened. We've been to
7:18
Speaker 3: four Super Bowls now. We've won two of them. I've
7:21
Speaker 3: broadcast all of them. Uh, NFC championship games were undefeated
7:25
Speaker 3: in those. Uh, and we've hosted those games here in Seattle.
7:29
Speaker 3: I will say, I think my wife is the reason why,
7:31
Speaker 3: because some of the only games that she comes to
7:34
Speaker 3: during the season, she'd come to the NFC championship and
7:37
Speaker 3: she'd sit in the broadcast booth with us with, if
7:39
Speaker 3: you've been to Seattle, uh, As you might know, our
7:42
Speaker 3: broadcast booth, you have to literally go out the door
7:44
Speaker 3: to change your mind. You've got to go out in
7:46
Speaker 3: the hall. It's that tight in there. But she comes,
7:49
Speaker 3: and we've won all those games. So she's that lucky
7:52
Speaker 3: person for us. But I've just been truly remarkably blessed
7:58
Speaker 3: to be here and to be able to stay on
8:01
Speaker 3: this road through different ownerships, through different general managers. through
8:05
Speaker 3: head coaches, and it's been a great, great fun for me.
8:11
Speaker 3: I hope to be able to continue it for a while,
8:13
Speaker 3: but I'm also a realist, I know, and you're in
8:16
Speaker 3: this business, so you know there's always somebody that's going
8:18
Speaker 3: to come along that has, for television-wise, better looking, has
8:23
Speaker 3: more hair, has a deeper voice, has a better broadcast
8:26
Speaker 3: voice for radio. That day is going to come, but
8:28
Speaker 3: I hope I can make that decision. I made my
8:31
Speaker 3: decision to retire from football. I didn't let somebody else
8:34
Speaker 3: tell me You're not good enough. So I'd like to
8:38
Speaker 3: be able to make the decision when that time comes
8:40
Speaker 3: that I think, OK, now's the time for me to retire.
8:43
Speaker 3: And I don't think it's, you know, in the foreseeable future,
8:47
Speaker 3: but a couple of years from now, you know, I'm 72.
8:50
Speaker 3: I hope to do this for a while longer, but
8:53
Speaker 3: I'll also be realistic about it, I hope.
8:55
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you get to make that decision because
8:57
Speaker 1: I think that's the right thing.
8:59
Speaker 2: Especially someone who's put this much time, energy, effort, passion
9:03
Speaker 2: into the craft for one particular franchise. I hope that's
9:07
Speaker 2: how your career ends up playing out. But like you said,
9:09
Speaker 2: I hope that's not anytime soon. So let's talk about
9:12
Speaker 2: this Seahawks team because I'm a Niners guy to be transparent.
9:16
Speaker 2: So it's a bad taste in my mouth almost giving
9:20
Speaker 2: them the credit that they deserve.
9:21
Speaker 1: But one of the.
9:23
Speaker 2: Interesting things, one of the most interesting things about this
9:25
Speaker 2: team is the fact that you want a super bowl
9:28
Speaker 2: and you want a super bowl with Sam.
9:29
Speaker 1: Darnold is the quarterback.
9:31
Speaker 2: In a league where everyone for years has talked about.
9:34
Speaker 2: It's all about who you got taking snaps. It's all
9:37
Speaker 2: about that guy. That's the most important position in all
9:39
Speaker 2: the team sports. And there were several franchises who had
9:43
Speaker 2: written off Sam Darnold before Seattle figured out. And I
9:47
Speaker 2: guess you got to give some credit to Minnesota. You
9:50
Speaker 2: got to give maybe a little bit of credit to
9:52
Speaker 2: the 49ers at some point there, but Seattle said, you
9:57
Speaker 2: know what?
9:57
Speaker 1: This is going to be our guy.
9:59
Speaker 2: Sam deserves credit because he put in the work himself,
10:02
Speaker 2: but the Renaissance of his career all the way to
10:06
Speaker 2: the point where he won a super bowl and got
10:09
Speaker 2: a ring in Seattle really is one of the more
10:11
Speaker 2: fascinating stories in modern football for me.
10:14
Speaker 3: And it is, I think for most football fans and, and,
10:18
Speaker 3: Look at how his career started. He was the number
10:20
Speaker 3: two or number three overall pick in the draft, and
10:23
Speaker 3: he goes to a losing team. That invariably is what happens,
10:27
Speaker 3: that losing teams draft quarterbacks very, very high and then
10:31
Speaker 3: expect that quarterback to raise the level of everybody. Well,
10:34
Speaker 3: the reason you're a losing team is because you don't
10:36
Speaker 3: have all the other pieces besides the quarterback to make
10:40
Speaker 3: you a winning team. And so he went to places
10:43
Speaker 3: that were going to be impossible for him to make
10:45
Speaker 3: any headway, the Jets being the worst of them. Carolina
10:49
Speaker 3: was in not much better shape at that point. He goes,
10:52
Speaker 3: you know, eventually to Minnesota or to San Francisco where
10:56
Speaker 3: he talked about, you know, I finally started to learn
10:59
Speaker 3: how to prepare for games and understand how to let
11:02
Speaker 3: go of a bad play and to move on to
11:05
Speaker 3: the next one. He learned that by working with the
11:10
Speaker 3: 49ers coaches, offensive coordinators. He also learned how that system,
11:15
Speaker 3: which is the system that he's basically playing in today,
11:17
Speaker 3: then goes to Minnesota and gets to open things up
11:20
Speaker 3: and unlock it a little because he had some good
11:22
Speaker 3: teammates around him, a coach that believed in him, and
11:25
Speaker 3: some really good players on offense and defense. But then
11:28
Speaker 3: the Vikings make the mistake of saying, you know what?
11:31
Speaker 3: We drafted a guy from right here in our own
11:33
Speaker 3: backyard with the first-round pick to be our future quarterback.
11:37
Speaker 3: He was hurt this season. We need him to be
11:40
Speaker 3: our guy. Part of that's a financial decision. Part of
11:43
Speaker 3: it is that emotional decision of, I don't want to
11:46
Speaker 3: be wrong on a first-round quarterback pick. And so they
11:49
Speaker 3: went with J.J. McCarthy. And as soon as that window
11:52
Speaker 3: opened up, John Schneider said, this could be our guy.
11:55
Speaker 3: We knew we had lost by that time. We had
11:58
Speaker 3: lost our quarterback. Geno Smith, he wanted more money than
12:03
Speaker 3: I think we were willing to pay him. And the
12:05
Speaker 3: decks were starting to clear. It was time to start anew.
12:08
Speaker 3: We had a guy who everybody believed could be a
12:10
Speaker 3: number one, but the folks outside of Seattle didn't see that.
12:15
Speaker 3: But we saw it in Jackson, Smith, and Jigba. What
12:17
Speaker 3: we needed was that guy, that quarterback. And so Sam
12:21
Speaker 3: came in knowing the system, understanding what his weaknesses were
12:26
Speaker 3: and how to get better at those. and how to
12:28
Speaker 3: become the best quarterback and leader he could be. He's
12:31
Speaker 3: always been a leader, but that has remarkably shown through
12:35
Speaker 3: since being here and in Minnesota to a certain extent
12:39
Speaker 3: as well. They loved him back there. His teammates did.
12:41
Speaker 3: He is just a terrific person as well as a quarterback.
12:45
Speaker 3: And listen, the run that he led us on to
12:48
Speaker 3: end the season after that Rams game where he had
12:51
Speaker 3: four interceptions and Ernest Jones stood up at the microphone
12:54
Speaker 3: in the postgame and said, he's our leader, and if
12:57
Speaker 3: you don't like it, you know what you, and that
13:01
Speaker 3: kind of let everybody know that they had his back
13:04
Speaker 3: and Sam went on from there and was just dynamic
13:07
Speaker 3: the rest of the year. So he's been a remarkable story.
13:10
Speaker 3: And I think, I think it's going to continue to
13:13
Speaker 3: play out. I just think he's, he gets better every game,
13:17
Speaker 3: every play, every practice.
13:19
Speaker 2: Steve Rabel is our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show.
13:22
Speaker 2: He is the voice of the Seahawks, who will kick
13:25
Speaker 2: off their season against the Patriots on a Wednesday night,
13:28
Speaker 2: which is a little bit odd, but that's how things
13:30
Speaker 2: go when you've got international Thursday games in Australia and
13:34
Speaker 2: everything else. Steve, how sustainable is it, this success, this
13:38
Speaker 2: high-level success?
13:40
Speaker 1: For the Seahawks?
13:41
Speaker 2: Because it's not like college football where you get a
13:43
Speaker 2: little dynasty going. It's really, really difficult to repeat in
13:47
Speaker 2: the NFL. Very few teams are able to do it.
13:50
Speaker 2: Can the Seahawks?
13:52
Speaker 3: Well, I think they can. More importantly, I think they
13:55
Speaker 3: believe they can. And the way that they believe they
13:59
Speaker 3: can do that is not by thinking about dynasties or
14:03
Speaker 3: repeating a Super Bowl or having 12 game winning streaks
14:07
Speaker 3: to end the year. The way to do that is
14:11
Speaker 3: they feel like we have to get better every single practice.
14:15
Speaker 3: And I know this sounds kind of trite. You hear
14:17
Speaker 3: this every team, every coach, every player you talk to.
14:20
Speaker 3: But it is a remarkable sense on this team as
14:25
Speaker 3: to how they're going to get better, how they prepare
14:29
Speaker 3: and and what they put into it every week. And
14:32
Speaker 3: it's literally play-to-play. Mike talks about when he first got here,
14:36
Speaker 3: he started talking about we need to stack wins. And
14:39
Speaker 3: I kind of thought, well, that sounds kind of cliché.
14:43
Speaker 3: What does that mean? Now I understand what it means.
14:46
Speaker 3: And now he's down to the micro level of talking
14:49
Speaker 3: about stacking plays, stacking individual performances, play-to-play. Coaches have different
14:56
Speaker 3: ways of saying it. Pete used to always say there's
14:58
Speaker 3: no next week. We're only worried about the game we're
15:01
Speaker 3: playing today or this week. And that really is what
15:04
Speaker 3: you have to do as a player. You can't look
15:06
Speaker 3: ahead to see, okay, when do we play the Rams?
15:08
Speaker 3: They've looked at the schedule. They know we play the
15:10
Speaker 3: Rams two out of the last three weeks of the
15:12
Speaker 3: regular season. Okay, that's fine. And everybody is saying, well,
15:16
Speaker 3: the Rams actually have the best roster in football, maybe
15:19
Speaker 3: not the Seahawks. I would dispute that, and so would
15:22
Speaker 3: the Seahawks. But I think this team is singularly set.
15:28
Speaker 3: We've lost two starters from the Super Bowl game, and
15:31
Speaker 3: virtually everybody on that team that really contributed is back. Now,
15:35
Speaker 3: we lost our starting running back, but we got a
15:38
Speaker 3: guy who's younger, maybe a little faster, better receiver, and
15:42
Speaker 3: I think should prove to be a really good running
15:45
Speaker 3: back in this league in Jadarian Price. So he's our
15:49
Speaker 3: first-round pick. You know he's going to play. He's got
15:51
Speaker 3: all the other tools around him. Our entire offensive line
15:54
Speaker 3: is back, made stronger through our off-season program. And the
15:58
Speaker 3: defense was lighted out to end the season last year.
16:03
Speaker 3: I think this team is set to do it. But, again,
16:06
Speaker 3: this is football. It doesn't bounce the same way twice.
16:10
Speaker 2: I think even though I'm a Niners guy and you're
16:12
Speaker 2: a Seahawks guy, I think we can agree on one thing,
16:15
Speaker 2: that we need to somehow join forces. and take down
16:19
Speaker 2: the evil empire of the Los Angeles Rams who figured
16:24
Speaker 2: out a way to get two of the best defensive
16:26
Speaker 2: front players, the best defensive lineman in the last decade
16:30
Speaker 2: or more of football to be on the same team
16:33
Speaker 2: at the same time. This is a, this is a
16:36
Speaker 2: wild experiment that they're running down there in LA. And
16:39
Speaker 2: I wonder what you think the results will be.
16:43
Speaker 3: Well, you're right. Excuse me. They are as individuals, fabulous players.
16:49
Speaker 3: I think the thing that we will see is them,
16:51
Speaker 3: because neither of them are kids, you're not going to
16:54
Speaker 3: see them play every play. You're going to see them,
16:57
Speaker 3: I think, situationally. You'll see them, the defense will be
17:02
Speaker 3: somewhat built around their skills. But ultimately, you know, they're
17:07
Speaker 3: going to have to play team defense. So you're not
17:08
Speaker 3: going to give a guy, just because he's a former All-Pro,
17:13
Speaker 3: I don't think, at least this is my estimation, me
17:16
Speaker 3: knowing coaches now having been around this league for 51 years,
17:20
Speaker 3: that coaches just say, okay, you have carte blanche, do
17:23
Speaker 3: whatever you want to do. This isn't the days of
17:27
Speaker 3: Lawrence Taylor and, okay, you just go. You do what
17:31
Speaker 3: you're going to do, and the rest of us will
17:32
Speaker 3: fill in around you. Defenses have to be much more
17:35
Speaker 3: aligned because offenses are so good. We'll take advantage of that. And, yeah,
17:41
Speaker 3: they're going to get through. They're going to make some plays.
17:42
Speaker 3: There's no question about that. The key for us is
17:46
Speaker 3: those two guys don't play against our defense. They play
17:50
Speaker 3: against our offense. So our defense is, I think, one
17:54
Speaker 3: of the best in the league. We gave up a
17:56
Speaker 3: lot of big plays to the Rams last year. Puka
17:58
Speaker 3: Nakua single-handedly, along with Matthew Stafford, you know, beat the
18:02
Speaker 3: living tar out of us. And still they couldn't win
18:05
Speaker 3: the games, even when he caught 250 yards worth of passes.
18:08
Speaker 3: They are really, really good. But if you can keep
18:11
Speaker 3: a team from putting 12, 14, 18, 21 points on
18:15
Speaker 3: the board, you don't need a lot of points to
18:18
Speaker 3: win a football game. Our defense is of that belief.
18:22
Speaker 3: that that's their job is to keep the other guys
18:24
Speaker 3: out of there. Plus, our special teams are really good.
18:26
Speaker 3: The Rams, if they had an Achilles heel last year,
18:28
Speaker 3: it was their special teams. So I think they've gotten
18:31
Speaker 3: better there. But, again, this is a team game, 53
18:35
Speaker 3: guys on the team, 22 on the field at any
18:37
Speaker 3: one time. And so to think those two guys are
18:40
Speaker 3: going to make an absolute and unbelievable difference in the Rams,
18:44
Speaker 3: I just find that kind of hard to believe. We've
18:46
Speaker 3: got some pretty good players on our side that will
18:48
Speaker 3: be involved in making sure that those guys are at
18:52
Speaker 3: least neutralized, if not knocked back off the line of scrimmage,
18:56
Speaker 3: we hope.
18:58
Speaker 1: I already alluded to this.
18:59
Speaker 2: San Francisco versus L.A. in Melbourne, Australia at the legendary
19:04
Speaker 2: cricket ground, the MCG, on a Thursday night. New England,
19:09
Speaker 2: Seattle will proceed. They'll kick off the season on Wednesday night,
19:13
Speaker 2: a week from today. And this Australia game is one
19:18
Speaker 2: of many international games being played this year. As a
19:21
Speaker 2: guy who's been around the NFL, part of NFL growth
19:24
Speaker 2: in a market like Seattle, and you've kind of seen
19:27
Speaker 2: every phase of what this league has become, America's number
19:32
Speaker 2: one pastime now, they want to make it an international
19:35
Speaker 2: game also, the way that the NBA has done. Do
19:38
Speaker 2: you think NFL football can do that successfully? I'm a skeptic,
19:43
Speaker 2: even though I'm a huge football fan, it's quintessentially an
19:46
Speaker 2: American thing. And I know it's a fun little freak show.
19:50
Speaker 2: for European fans and maybe even South American and Australian fans.
19:54
Speaker 2: I have my doubts about whether or not it'll be
19:56
Speaker 2: truly adopted. Gridiron, as they like to call it in Australia.
20:01
Speaker 2: Where do you stand on the NFL's international initiatives?
20:05
Speaker 3: Well, I can appreciate your sense on that I never
20:12
Speaker 3: played in an international game, but I've been overseas many
20:15
Speaker 3: times with the Seahawks in different situations. Going back to
20:20
Speaker 3: late 80s, early 90s, we played in Japan against the
20:23
Speaker 3: Broncos in a preseason game. And then, of course, regular
20:26
Speaker 3: season games, we've been to London, we've been to Germany,
20:29
Speaker 3: we've played in British Columbia. Our viewership is huge here
20:34
Speaker 3: in the Northwest, into Canada, through Idaho and down South Colorado,
20:41
Speaker 3: you know, just all around, we have great listeners and
20:45
Speaker 3: great broadcast partners, of which, again, we hope you guys
20:50
Speaker 3: are going to be involved in that, because I know
20:53
Speaker 3: we have a lot of fans back there. I find it,
20:56
Speaker 3: and I've talked to the commissioner about this, I've talked
20:59
Speaker 3: to folks who are in position to, if not make
21:03
Speaker 3: the decision, to have certainly a say in it. It's difficult.
21:08
Speaker 3: It would be really difficult But the time change is
21:12
Speaker 3: a problem. The other problem is if you go to
21:16
Speaker 3: a place like Australia, I mean, first of all, it's
21:18
Speaker 3: a forever airplane trip. And so if you're going to
21:22
Speaker 3: go there, you better have more than just one team
21:25
Speaker 3: to go all the way over there to play and
21:27
Speaker 3: then come back. This was the conversation about Europe 10
21:31
Speaker 3: years ago. Do we have more than one team? Do
21:33
Speaker 3: we have like two teams in Britain? Do we have
21:35
Speaker 3: two teams in Germany and maybe a team in France
21:38
Speaker 3: or one in Italy? so that then when you go
21:41
Speaker 3: to Europe, you're hitting two or three of those teams,
21:45
Speaker 3: but your road trip is going to be like a
21:47
Speaker 3: baseball road trip now. You're on the road for three
21:49
Speaker 3: or four weeks, which that in and of itself makes
21:52
Speaker 3: it difficult. You're not just traveling 20 guys or 22
21:55
Speaker 3: guys on a baseball team and a manager and a
21:57
Speaker 3: few bats and balls. You're traveling a hell of a
22:01
Speaker 3: lot of people and equipment to make an NFL team run,
22:04
Speaker 3: and that becomes a serious proposition. You know, in my
22:10
Speaker 3: humble opinion, what sometimes appears to me, you go play
22:13
Speaker 3: these games, like you said, this experiment, but you play
22:16
Speaker 3: a game that counts overseas. But the real key is
22:19
Speaker 3: going to be selling all of those folks on buying
22:24
Speaker 3: the opportunity to watch the games in America. You know, yes,
22:28
Speaker 3: it'd be great to fill up Wembley Stadium seven or
22:31
Speaker 3: eight times a year with fans to watch a local
22:35
Speaker 3: pro team play there. But I think you can, you know,
22:40
Speaker 3: get an awful lot out of it when it comes
22:42
Speaker 3: and it's eventually going to come to pay for you.
22:44
Speaker 3: I think that everybody agrees that eventually that's going to
22:46
Speaker 3: happen to some extent anyway. And overseas might be the
22:49
Speaker 3: place that you experiment with that. You can make a
22:52
Speaker 3: lot of money doing that and not have to fly
22:54
Speaker 3: a team over to Italy to play. So I think
22:58
Speaker 3: it would be difficult to do that. I think right
23:01
Speaker 3: now they see this as this opportunity to make us
23:03
Speaker 3: international without having to become international. Now, that's just me.
23:08
Speaker 3: What do I know? I'm a dope. I played in
23:09
Speaker 3: this game for a while. And I'm not, you know,
23:13
Speaker 3: automatically know I'm not very smart. But that just is
23:16
Speaker 3: how it appears to me.
23:18
Speaker 2: Well, we'll see how it all plays out. Have a
23:21
Speaker 2: great call a week from today. Thanks so much for
23:24
Speaker 2: joining us. And I guess fans here in Salt Lake
23:27
Speaker 2: City are going to be hearing a lot more of
23:28
Speaker 2: your voice.
23:30
Speaker 3: I sure hope so. And I apologize up front if
23:33
Speaker 3: you don't like that voice. There's nothing much I can
23:35
Speaker 3: do about it at this point. But I'll do my best.
23:39
Speaker 3: And I love this team. I love the guys on
23:42
Speaker 3: it and the coaches. This is a special group of players,
23:46
Speaker 3: really special. And I've been around all the Super Bowl teams.
23:49
Speaker 3: And this group is as close as any group I've
23:52
Speaker 3: ever seen. And so I look forward to broadcasting their games.
23:55
Speaker 3: I look forward to a great season.
23:57
Speaker 1: We appreciate your time and your perspective, Steve. Thank you.
24:01
Speaker 3: John, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
24:03
Speaker 2: Steve Rabel, voice of the Seattle Seahawks, former wide receiver
24:06
Speaker 2: for the Seahawks, who then became a radio analyst, then
24:09
Speaker 2: became the play-by-play guy, and he's been doing it up there,
24:12
Speaker 2: as you've heard, for more than 40 years as part
24:15
Speaker 2: of that broadcast.
24:16
Speaker 1: Big thanks to him for hopping on.