Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / The State of Sports | Charlie Marlow & Eric Messersmith

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The State of Sports | Charlie Marlow & Eric Messersmith · Kenny Wallace Media

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What's up, everybody? All right, We are live.
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This is everybody. Settle down.
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Charlie Marlowe, the great Eric Messersmith.
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It's been a while since we got together here on the old podcast
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just because things were crazy. My kids were sick, my family was
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sick. I was out of town.
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So, Eric, I missed you, buddy. How you doing?
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Doing well man. Yeah, it has been a while, but
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good to be back. OK, let let's start here because
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you know, we're going to we're going to try to gear this
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towards sports fans. But to me, it's funny, as we're
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getting ready for this show, I was thinking to myself, what the
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F are we going to talk about sports wise?
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Because there's nothing going on right now, at least at least for
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me, I'm not. I'm not really into college
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basketball. I used to be growing up, I used
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to love Ohio State basketball. I went to Bradley.
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We have a pretty damn good mid major basketball team.
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I'm here in Saint Louis, where Mizzou is really, really good.
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But honestly, I don't. I don't know if I've watched.
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I don't know if I've watched one second of college basketball
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this entire season. However, a couple weeks from
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now, I'll be all into March Madness because I think the
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first two days, that Thursday, Friday of March Madness may be
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the best two days in sports yet. I have no idea what's going on
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with any team. I know I'm the same way similar.
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I used to fill out the bracket every year, fill out multiple
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brackets, be in multiple, you know, bracket pools to try to
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win money. I don't even I haven't even
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filled out a bracket the last few years, but I still do enjoy
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watching the first couple days even though I'm so disconnected
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from college hoops that I heard somebody say the other day, I
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think it was on pardon my take, they were saying this is
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actually the worst sports dead period of the year, even more so
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than the summer during the All Star break.
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I don't think that's true. I because I'm an NBA guy and so
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the last like quarter of the NBA season is when teams really tend
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to start to pick it up. And that's what we're entering
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now. Plus you have the post deadline,
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trade deadline move, so you get to see Luca now playing with the
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Lakers and Jimmy Butler with the Warriors.
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So if you're into the NHL or NBA, this is really the best
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time of the year, the end of the regular season, start of the
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playoffs, teams fighting for position.
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But I can understand if you're really not into those things in
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college basketball that this would be the dead period because
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you have baseball is around the corner, but it's not quite here
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yet. The Masters is around the
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corner, but not quite here yet. And of course, in the NFL, all
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you really have, you don't even have free agency yet.
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All you have right now is the Scouting Combine, which God help
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you if you're someone who watches a a ton of that.
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Yeah, it's funny you you say you're an NBA fan.
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Now I'm wondering is, is that because you're in LA, you got
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LeBron, you just made the deal for Luca and you know, I'm
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watching you guys, yourself and Brian Johnson.
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You're talking basketball. You're talking the Lucca trade
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and all that. And I actually growing up now, I
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was kind of an Oakland A's fan because of Jose Canseco.
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But I think when I was a kid and then even into my teens and
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early 20s, I was probably more of a Detroit Pistons fan than
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really any other. I mean, Ohio State football.
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But in terms of professional sports, the Pistons had their
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Bad Boys years. I was pretty Dang young, but my
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dad was into it. I was probably like, what, 678
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years old when they went back-to-back?
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But then that Pistons team in O Four that won it all.
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I love Ben Wallace, love Chauncey, Bill UPS and then I
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was working in Lansing so I would cover a good amount of
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Pistons playoff games. And so that was after they won
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the championship, but they were still good, right?
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Those Pistons teams, they went to the Eastern Conference finals
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a ton of times. Then they finally lost to LeBron
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and the Cavs. I think that was like O7O8,
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whatever it was O six O 7. I can't remember the exact year,
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but I'm telling you, man, and and used to live in Saint Louis.
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So I'm, I'm wondering, I, I blame Saint Louis on me losing
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all my passion for the NBA because ever since I got here,
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we don't have a team. I feel like on sports talk
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radio, you can't really talk a lot of NBA, although there's
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great players. I mean, I was covering Bradley
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Beal, Jayson Tatum right from Saint Louis.
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But I don't know, I'm going to blame Saint Louis because since
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I moved here, I feel like my my NBA passion and fervor has just
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fallen off a Cliff. Yeah, I, I NBA has always been
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my second favorite sport behind the NFL pretty much my whole
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life. And so I was always into it,
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like especially in the early 90s with the Jordan Arrow Bulls.
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I wasn't necessarily a Bulls fan, but I love watching those
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teams and I love the Jazz. I love I was a John Stockton
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fan. I love that, you know, the whole
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original Dream Team. By the way, great documentary on
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Max right now about the the game the Dream Team lost in 92 in a
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scrimmage to the College All Stars, which was like Grant Hill
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and Bobby Hurley, Jamaal Mashburn.
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It was an incredible team. And they lost a scrimmage in
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that summer of 92. It's become like folklore.
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So there's a really good documentary on Max right now
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that was produced by TNT about that.
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I think it's called like the team that beat the Dream Team or
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something like that. And all these guys are on there
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like magics on there, Jordan, Larry Bird, and then all the
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college kids that beat them. And they have some of the video
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of the game, which is, you know, pretty cool to see.
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So that era of basketball, I always loved that I did have a
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team in central Pennsylvania growing up because we were so
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far away from Philadelphia and there wasn't a team in
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Pittsburgh, obviously. So I actually became a Laker fan
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back then because of Magic Johnson back in the 80s.
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And so I, I always kind of was a casual Laker fan, not hardcore.
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But yeah. So now being out here in LA, I,
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I get to watch a good many of the games and I don't watch a
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ton of regular season NBA, but when I do, it's usually about
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this time of year. I start watching more games and
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then I really get in into the playoffs cause the, it's just
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like so many other sports. The season's just so long.
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I thought PK Subban made a great point the other day.
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Did you see that clip where he was talking about the difference
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between the NHL and the NBA and he was saying that the reason
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that the NBA doesn't have what the NHL has in terms of
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engagement is because of the fact that you have to play hard
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in hockey all the time. You have to give it basically
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100% effort or close to it throughout the even the regular
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season games because there's so much physicality and it's what
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the fans have come to expect. Where in the NBA guys take.
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I think the NBA thing about guys taking time off is a little bit
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overblown. I mean, if you watch night in
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and night out, the guys who are out there generally are trying
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pretty hard. But there is no doubt about it
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that the the level goes way up, especially on the defensive end.
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You when you get in, when you get into the playoffs for sure.
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Yeah, it's funny that Four Nations tournament and you're
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talking about PK Subban where he was comparing NHL to NBA.
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And that Four Nations tournament got so much hype.
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And you had the fights in the first game between USA and
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Canada and the Kachuk brothers talking about Saint Louis, two
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guys who grew up in Saint Louis, you had three fights there,
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whatever it was in the 1st 9 seconds.
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And so we've talked about this before where I kind of follow
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everything on social media. For me, I'm following it on X.
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And maybe this also comes down to media consumption habits
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because when I say that I don't watch a second of college
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basketball or NBA or even this, this Four Nations tournament,
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right? Like I didn't watch one second
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of the tournament on TV, but I feel like I'm able to consume it
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through clips on X enough where I get the gist of it, right?
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So I, I guess I can't say that my sports fandom has has totally
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fallen off because I am, I am watching a lot of it on X and I
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think maybe maybe that gets into a larger conversation about how
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we consume sports. Because for me, that's enough.
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Like for a lot of this stuff, I'll watch the big stuff.
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Of course, I'm going to watch the Super Bowl, I'm going to
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watch the NCAA tournament. But for some of this stuff, like
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it's enough for me to watch the highlights on X, right?
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To watch just just the goals, just the big dunks, just the
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fights and to watch it in little 22nd or one minute clips.
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I don't feel like I really have to watch.
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I don't want to say the full games, really any of the games.
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I don't know. What do you think?
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I think our attention spans changing as human beings is like
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we talk about a lot, but I think it's one of the underrated
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things we talk about in general. I just saw a story the other day
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that people are not reading. Book reading is down like 30%
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and even really successful college students are have
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finishing books and, and I think the same thing applies to even
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visual media as well. I think the Internet has
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particularly social media, the clips, the algorithms has
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changed our attentions. But I see it with myself and I
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didn't even grow up with it obviously like kids today do
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where they don't know anything other than that.
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You know, I grew up where you actually had to read a book or
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you had to sit down and watch a show at a certain time or try to
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figure out how to work your VCR to record it.
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So I it's it's really, it really is strange how that has changed
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so much. And I think it's leagues or
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sports leagues are trying to adapt to it.
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Obvious. I think baseball has been the
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biggest adapter with the pretty dramatic rule changes that
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they've implemented over the last few years, mainly with the
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pitch clock. But other other things, Well, to
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try to speed up the game and eliminate dead time because
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you're right, I just don't have the same bandwidth to sit.
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And some of that obviously is time as you get older and you
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have a family, more responsibility.
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But it's not all time. Some of it is just even when I
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have time, I choose to not sit and watch games for the most
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part. But I do like to.
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But I really am interested in knowing what's going on.
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So I, I, I want to see some scores, I want to see the
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standings, I want to know the big storylines.
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But I to sit through a two or three hour game, I think that is
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going the way of like the horse and buggy.
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I mean, I really do like the I just think people just don't
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have that attention span. They come in and out unless it's
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really big, big events like you were saying, like the Four
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Nations event, right? You get something like that.
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The ratings were huge just for that US Canada final.
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That was a really special event. And I think that is what sports
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leagues need to capture. Like the NHL.
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Think about it. They used to have an All Star
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game where people did not play hard.
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There was no checking. It was it was nothing like
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regular hockey. And they which you know, it's
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fine. It was a weekend to celebrate
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sport. You have the skills competition,
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but you took that away and you replaced it with an event where
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the very best players in the world were playing their
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absolute hardest with, as you said, fighting, checking real
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stakes. That was a brilliant move by
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hockey. The NBA did something somewhat
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similar with their NBA Cup. Obviously it's a much lesser
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version, but they took something which was so fairly meaningless
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regular season games and turned it into a chance to compete for
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a trophy, A championship, and guys did to some degree take
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that seriously. They wanted to win that.
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It's I'm not saying it's like the NBA playoffs, but it was a
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lot more than your typical October, November, December
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games for those kind of play in games and and the games in the
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in season tournament. So I think that's what sports
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generally needs to do. We you need more big events.
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Soccer is really good at this. They have all, you know, they
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got the Champions League, you got your club team and you so
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you need more events and then you also need to speed up the
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pace and baseball really, I think got ahead of the curve.
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They needed to because baseball, there's so much dead time.
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But I think other sports as well, like I, I, I heard Adam
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Silver the other day talk about shortening the games to to 10
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minute quarters, a 12 minute course trying to fit it into a 2
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hour window was what he was talking about because he knows
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people just have trouble sitting there for long periods of time.
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It's not just you. I think it's everybody and I
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think it's more, it's worse for people the younger that they
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are. And I think sports leagues are
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like the NFL will be fine because that's become kind of a
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a cultural institution and there's so much scarcity with
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only one game a week. But for these leagues that play
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a lot of games, baseball, football or I'm sorry, baseball,
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basketball, hockey, I think you do need more kind of gimmicky in
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season events. And also you need to find a way
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to increase the pace and, and, and try to as much as possible
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eliminate the dead time because people will just watch
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highlights now that's that is, it's so accessible and so easy
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to find. It's funny you mentioned the,
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the NBA All Star weekend and there's a good example and, and
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maybe I'm not the best example to, to bring this up because
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again, I'm not watching a lot of of really anything.
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But as a kid, I remember NBA All Star weekend was freaking must
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see TV, right? 3 point contest and I'm, I'm
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like what, 42? So I guess I was after like the
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Larry Bird years, But remember Craig Hodges won it, I think
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three years in a row. But then the dunk contest and
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even I don't even know if I was old enough when Jordan was in
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the dunk contest. Like I remember watching the
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highlights, but you know, Dominique Wilkins, Spud Webb,
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that was a little before my time.
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But Vince Carter, I guess that would've been I'm probably like
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a a teenager, early 20s. But even even some of the dudes
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who were kind of no names, right?
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Remember Harold Minor, baby Jordan, you had Sean Kemp.
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I feel like in some of those dunk contests, I'm trying to
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think some of these names off the top of my head.
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Who was the dude from UNLV who was really good?
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He played for he played for the Lakers back in the day.
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I'll I'll think of the name. But anyway, yeah, I know what
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you're talking about. I'm not thinking, you know, Nick
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Van Exel was Cincinnati, whoever the dude was.
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But anyway, I'll I'll think about I'll look it up when I'm
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done talking here. But like, I saw the dunk
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contest. There were some sweet dunks this
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year. But this Mac Mcclung guy, right,
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he's not even in the NBA, right? He's like AG league guy.
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And I know some of the bigger players are like, OK, if this
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Mac Mcclung is going to win the the dunk contest every year, I'm
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going to have to like join in. I I do think you need some star
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power there, right? You need whether it's John
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Moran, I think he tweeted he might do it like every once in a
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while, you need to have some stars.
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Like Dwight Howard was in it when he was a star with the
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Superman back in the day, right? Like, don't get me wrong.
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I have all the respect in the world for Matt Mcclung or Mack,
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whatever. I don't even know his name,
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right? I don't even know who he is.
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He's he's a great dunker. But like, I don't think Mac or
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Matt Mcclung should be your three time dunk champion and you
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have to bring a dude basically out of the G League to win your
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contest like that. That wasn't how it was in the
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80s and 90s when I was watching. I love how you said I have all
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the respect the world for a good dad.
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You didn't know what his name was and I don't.
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Think or Matt, whatever I think. It's one of those, yeah.
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But no, you're right, losing the stars was a big part of it.
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But also think about that event and what I was talking about
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earlier. 25 years ago, if you wanted to see the dunk contest,
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you had to either watch it live or you had to watch a highlight
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show at a specific time to see what happened.
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Now you don't have to do either of those things.
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You can be watching a movie while the dunk contest is going
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on and on your phone, see all the important moments.
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Like I didn't watch a minute of the dunk contest live, but I saw
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all of the big dunks in five, you know, 10 second clips either
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that night or the next day. So that's what I'm talking
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about. And, and look for sports in our,
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everything is fracturing in media.
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It's not just sports people are doing, they're on YouTube all
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the time. YouTube's the number one
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broadcasting platform. Isaiah Jr.
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Ryder. See, I was thinking of Isaiah
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Jr. Ryder.
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That's what I was thinking of. God, that goes, that goes back.
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So I think everything is fracturing.
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People are cutting the cord they're on.
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They're they're doing what we're doing right now.
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They're watching YouTube, listen to podcasts, they're on Twitch
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streams. Everything is fracturing, right?
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So sports in some way is better position than almost anything
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else because if you want to know what's going on and you want to
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see it, you have to watch it live.
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And that is a tremendous advantage.
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And that's why sports rights fees have continued to go up
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even though audiences have shrunk.
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By and large, except obviously for the NFL and to some extent
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big time college football like the World Series, ratings are
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way down from what they were 40 years ago.
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NBA ratings, there's been a big story, big stories about that
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this year. They're down from what they've
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been. And I think that is going to
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continue and, and to some extent that's OK because you're still
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going to have your hard cores who are going to pay a certain
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amount, right? Like baseball's going through
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this right now, losing their regional sports networks.
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A lot of them, I know in Saint Louis where you are, the
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Cardinals are going to offer a direct to consumer option.
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You pay a monthly fee, you get to watch the games that there's
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going to be a lot of people that pay the money for those in
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markets all over the country. But it's probably not going to
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be as much as some of the big TV deals you had before.
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So these sports networks have kind of had the golden goose for
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a long time because while people were cutting the cord and
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cancelling their cable subscriptions and everything was
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losing audience, the one thing that was still watched in pretty
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big numbers and making money was sports.
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And that is certainly true still of the NFL.
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If you look at like the 100 most watched programs in a given
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year, more than half of them are NFL games.
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A huge percentage of them are games in the NFL.
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So the NF LS on an island by itself.
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But all the other sports basically are now kind of in a
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similar situation where the audience is becoming so
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fragmented. It doesn't mean they're going to
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like go out of business. They're still going to have a
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big source of revenue, but if they want it to be these kind of
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ever increasing massive TV deals that we've been seeing, then
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they're going to have to come up with something different.
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They're going to have to come up with things like the Four
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Nations Cup, the NBA. You you mentioned how All Star
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weekend used to be special. It hasn't been special in a very
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long time. It yes, when we were growing up
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it was. So this year, I give them
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credit, they tried, they tried a new tournament style with four
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teams playing games to 40 and and it was a little bit better.
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I didn't watch a lot of it from what I saw, but it wasn't a
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dramatically better. I think they need to go to US
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versus international, kind of like similar to what the Four
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Nations does or do something really radical and do like three
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on three tournaments where guys really kind of have to play hard
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because there's only six guys out on the floor.
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Like the WNBA players are doing this in the offseason.
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They're do they have a three on three league in Florida that's
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gotten some pretty good reviews. Do you could do something like
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that? But the the point is you have to
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think outside the box. And I know that a lot of old
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school people don't like that and they want things to be the
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way they've always been. I mean, you saw that with
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baseball, the the opposition to the pitch clock was so intense
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for so long. And then what happened?
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We saw it in practice and we were like, oh, yeah, this makes
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sense. And yeah, for a couple months
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you had, you had some people bitching about it.
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You had a lot more infractions early on.
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What people are getting used to it.
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But then eventually it just became part of the game.
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And now I think most people watching on TVI think appreciate
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it. Now, if you're in the stadium,
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that's a little different. You're in the stadium.
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You don't mind that the game goes on for three or 3 1/2 hours
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because you've probably blocked about your day anyway, and
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you're there to enjoy the experience as well as the game,
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right? But if you're watching on TV,
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it's nice that the games are shorter.
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And so now I don't really hear people complaining about the
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pitch clock anymore. In just a couple of years, it's
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just become something we're like, oh, yeah, OK, that makes
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sense. Why don't we do that earlier,
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right? And I think that's.
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Credit Rob Manfred. I know he's taking a lot of shit
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for a lot of things, but credit him for that, for pushing
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through these kind of reforms the same way We can't keep doing
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it the way we've always done, because it's not just the
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society it's changed. It's human beings have changed
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with our detention spans in a really short period of time, and
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it's not going back to the way it was before.
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Yeah. It's funny, I was going to bring
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up the potentially the the US versus the world in basketball.
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And I was talking about this on on X with Kenny Wallace, who I
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do all the NASCAR stuff with in, in terms of people were trying
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to basically try to replicate the Four Nations, right, because
20:48
the NASCAR All Star event. How could you do that?
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I was thinking, and I'd have to break down the drivers.
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There's about 40 drivers, but could you do like the South
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versus the rest of the country and world, right?
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That's got to be close to 5050. You could kind of drum up some
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regional, you can even go like, you know, kind of playoff, some
21:05
Civil War type stuff, you know, drum it up there.
21:08
I think you could do that. But the NBA thing, so I saw
21:11
people that know way more than me talking about this on the NBA
21:15
and apparently, and I don't remember who tweeted this, so I
21:18
apologize, but apparently that's been discussed and US players,
21:24
some of them, some of the big ones, I, I, I don't know, maybe
21:26
aren't a big fan of that because they think United States team
21:30
would get worked. And you, you know, the NBA
21:33
better than me. But off top of my head, the
21:36
international team, you know, we, we kind of started this
21:38
podcast. You were talking about the dream
21:39
team. Well, back in the day, the Dream
21:41
Team was beating freaking everybody by 50 right in 1992,
21:47
and then a couple years later, a couple Olympics later, we didn't
21:51
even win the gold medal. And now, just off the top of my
21:54
head, the international team would have Djokic, Giannis, Luca
22:00
who? Who am I missing?
22:01
There's probably a bunch more, but like, that's a pretty damn
22:03
good team. But that would be a fun game to
22:05
watch although. He's hurt.
22:07
Oh yeah, Wemby, yeah, Wemby. He wasn't he wasn't hurt then.
22:12
So that that team would that starting five Shay Gil just
22:15
Alexander's from Canada, he might win the MVPI mean they
22:18
would be absolutely loaded in terms of their starters.
22:21
Now the Americans have more depth.
22:24
That's kind of the the Rob is the American players make up
22:28
roughly 70% of the league. So if you kept the four, if you
22:33
change that format, you would be giving half of the All Star
22:38
slots to players that represent 30% of the league.
22:41
So it wouldn't be exactly quote UN quote fair.
22:45
But my point is, who cares? It's an All Star game as long as
22:49
it's generally fair, right? That's the important thing.
22:52
We're the best players are getting like All Star snubs in
22:55
the grand scheme of things, not that big of a deal.
22:58
What is important is making sure your your fans and your audience
23:04
are happy and putting out a product that you can be proud
23:07
of. And everyone agrees.
23:08
The All Star game product has been such a joke for so long
23:11
that they literally are trying to do anything they can.
23:14
So so the fact that it wouldn't be quite quote UN quote fair,
23:17
who cares? I think it would be more
23:19
exciting and it would be more interesting and teams would
23:22
actually have something to play for that.
23:24
You know, the international guys would be playing hard and that
23:27
would make the American guys, I think play hard because they
23:29
would see like, Oh man, these guys are taking seriously and
23:32
they're probably better than us. So at least in the starting five
23:35
that I mean, that international starting five would be, would be
23:38
really good, especially because a lot of the Great American
23:41
players are aging LeBron, Curry, KD and they're good younger
23:45
American players too. So it would not be a blow up by
23:47
any means. You got Booker and Tatum.
23:49
So the Americans I, I don't think, I think could definitely
23:51
hold their own, but it it wouldn't, it would be a new link
23:54
and it would be exciting and I, I would like to see and I hope
23:56
they do that. They need to do something
23:58
because it just isn't working. What?
24:02
What's the? Baseball talk out there in, in
24:04
Hollywood, the Dodgers win the World Series.
24:08
You know, they won it during the COVID year, but it was kind of
24:10
like the asterisk in the COVID year.
24:13
They get to the World Series every year.
24:14
They finally win it and they're just, I don't want to say
24:18
they're buying everybody, but they they kind of are.
24:20
You got the Mets, the Dodgers going out there spending a ton
24:22
of money, which that doesn't really bother me.
24:25
Here I am in Saint Louis. Cardinal fans are at A at a
24:28
pretty low point. They thought no one Arenado
24:31
would be traded. He hasn't been.
24:34
I don't think he's going to at this point.
24:36
And you know, the Cardinals basically didn't sign anybody
24:39
this whole offseason. So, so out out there in in
24:44
Dodger Town, are they still kind of riding the wave of the World
24:47
Series or, or is it now I, I don't know what the pressure is,
24:51
but it's like when you spend that much money, what do you
24:54
think the, the pressure or the expectation for the Dodgers?
24:57
And I'm talking about realistically, like
24:59
realistically, you can't say we're going to win the World
25:01
Series every single year. But do you feel like the Dodgers
25:04
at this point with the way they're spending, do they have
25:06
to make it to at least the NLCF? Do they have to make it to a
25:09
World Series? I saw the the over under win
25:12
total for them with something like one O 3 1/2 right?
25:16
Something crazy like that. I mean that's for a pre season
25:19
win total. Like that's insane.
25:21
I'd probably take the the under just based on some injuries
25:24
maybe, but Otani's back pitching this year.
25:26
So like maybe I mean they could win 115 games if if they stayed
25:31
healthy. Like that's not out of the
25:32
question. Oh yeah, and there it's really,
25:37
I think the expectations are sky high and anything less than
25:40
probably a World Series appearance would be a
25:42
disappointment. Which is crazy to say 'cause
25:44
baseball's so random, especially in the post season.
25:47
I think baseball is potentially in trouble with with this
25:52
spending spree that the Dodgers and a few other teams are on.
25:55
I really do. I think it's not hit critical
25:58
mass yet, but it could. I mean, look, baseball's been
26:01
the sport of the big ones that's never had the salary cap and
26:05
it's worked for them by and large with parity still being
26:10
pretty strong Despite that. If you look at the number of
26:14
teams that make the play offs that have made the championship
26:16
in recent years of all the major pro sports it's pretty similar.
26:20
And baseball is the outlier there cuz the NHL and the NFL
26:25
both have hard salary caps. The NBA has a soft salary cap
26:28
and it's still constrained spending to A to a large degree.
26:31
So the MLB is an outlier there but yet they've managed to have
26:34
pretty good competitive balance. I think a lot of that is because
26:36
of what you were saying. There's so many injuries in
26:39
baseball, especially with pitching and baseball is so
26:43
random or has been in the post season where you know the 88 win
26:48
team can. It's not a shocker if they beat
26:51
100 win team in a playoff series, short series, anything
26:54
can happen. But I think at least last year,
26:58
you know, you had the Dodgers and Yankees, two of the big
27:00
spenders make it. We'll see what happens again
27:02
this year. But I think the the money has
27:05
gotten so big. Like, it's one thing if you were
27:09
spending, I don't know, 20 years ago, if you were a big market
27:12
team spending 150 million on payroll and a small market team
27:16
was spending 50 or 60, like that's an advantage.
27:21
But now the small market teams are still spending 506080
27:26
million. And the, the, the Yankees and
27:29
the, especially the Dodgers, they're at what, like 350 this
27:32
year? I mean, it's absurd.
27:34
They got two of the biggest free agents from Japan, you know, won
27:38
the bidding this offseason. They've got like 7 potential
27:42
frontline MLB starters on this roster.
27:45
Now that Otani's back. They are just absolutely loaded
27:48
now. Again, does that guarantee a
27:50
World Series? Of course not.
27:52
It never does. You have to.
27:53
You have to see if you stay healthy, how guys mesh.
27:56
But short series, anything can happen.
27:58
But we're headed in a bad direction.
28:01
I mean, baseball benefited for a long time because a lot of the
28:05
teams that had a lot of money either didn't want to spend it
28:09
or they spent it very poorly when they were mismanaged.
28:13
The Dodgers have gotten their ship right, right.
28:16
They had an ownership issue where their owner was in a
28:19
financial straitjacket for while.
28:21
So they weren't really able to spend the kind of money that
28:22
they could have. Obviously that's cleared now the
28:26
mats, they are starting to not only spend, but they look like
28:30
they're starting to know what they're doing and the Yankees as
28:34
well. So I think it's not going to be
28:36
fun if the same teams, if it's the Phillies, the Dodgers, the
28:40
Yankees, the Mets pretty much every year for a while, right?
28:44
That's not going to be a fun world.
28:45
And I'm we're not there yet. It, you know, it's been a year
28:48
or two where we see that. So anything can happen.
28:51
But the gap is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
28:54
And, and I talked about the TV money earlier.
28:57
Remember, unlike say, the NFL where where they get a huge
29:01
chunk of their money for each team through a national TV deal
29:04
where they're all partner, equal partners together.
29:06
It's completely different in baseball.
29:08
Baseball's model is a, a fairly small national TV deal.
29:13
I mean, you saw the news ESPN just cancelled their deal with
29:17
MLB that they just said, yeah, we're out.
29:20
So MLB still has Fox, which is its primary partner, but they
29:26
their money was made, a lot of it through ticket sales and
29:30
through local TV deals. And they were making a ton of
29:33
money on these regional sports networks.
29:35
But now that model is falling apart.
29:38
And these teams are scrambling to try to produce these
29:42
broadcasts, sometimes in combination with MLB, and then
29:47
try to market them and sell them themselves.
29:50
And they're gonna lose a lot of money on that.
29:52
I mean, where you are in Saint Louis, the Cardinals have said
29:55
part of the reason, or maybe the reason they didn't sign a single
29:58
free agent and didn't spend money is because of the collapse
30:02
of what used to be called Bally Sports with these regional
30:06
sports networks. And now that they don't know
30:07
what they're going to be able to make in terms of their local
30:11
revenue. And this is the Cardinals.
30:14
This isn't the Kansas City Royals or the Rays.
30:18
This is a franchise that draws 3 million fans a year.
30:22
That isn't a decent sized market, not a big market, but a
30:25
decent sized market, and has, maybe outside of the Yankees,
30:30
the richest history in the sport, the best fans in
30:34
baseball, like an incredibly massive fan base.
30:37
And they are now like, well, we're going to be a lot closer
30:42
now to the Royals than we are to the Dodgers.
30:45
Now, I know some people will say, well, that's because they
30:47
have cheap ownership. I don't think so.
30:49
I think it's because they are making a conscious decision to
30:52
realize kind of where they are in the pecking order with the
30:55
regional Sports Network model drying up.
30:58
And and like I said, we're at the beginning of this, so I
31:01
don't want to overstate it. Maybe baseball figures this out
31:04
and, and all of a sudden all of these teams that that had that
31:09
revenue pull back because of Bally Sports going bankrupt.
31:14
Maybe they figure it out and maybe the digital product sells
31:18
really well. The direct to consumer product
31:20
that a lot of these teams are are getting up and running and
31:25
maybe they thought they find other revenue streams.
31:27
Sports gambling is really something that could help save a
31:31
lot of these teams. They partner with sports
31:34
gambling operations in their states where it's legal and
31:38
which is most states now. And so that's that's possible
31:41
that we come out of this and in five years, it's it's no big
31:44
deal. This was just a blip.
31:46
It was an anomaly and everything's back to kind of the
31:49
way it was. But I think it's very possible
31:52
that it's not. And the Dodgers just keep
31:54
spending 300 or 50 or 400 million a year and they just
31:58
keep the they and the Yankees and the Mets and the Phillies
32:01
just keep buying the best free agents year after year after
32:04
year. And then I think you have to
32:06
have a real conversation. And I would not be surprised if
32:09
if the owners really make a push for a salary cap, which I think
32:13
is long overdue in baseball of some type, because it's getting
32:17
to the point where it's going to really affect the competitive
32:20
balance. And like, if you're a Cardinal
32:22
fan this year and you, I mean, I, I follow stole, obviously
32:26
having worked in Saint Louis, follow a lot of Cardinals fans
32:28
online, I really see like apathy setting in, which I never
32:32
thought I would see that. And if that's happening with the
32:35
Cardinals, what's going on with the Rays or the Marlins?
32:39
Like if Cardinal fans are out of them, right?
32:43
And it's funny, when you're talking about the Dodgers, you
32:45
know, the Dodgers have it both ways, though.
32:47
They're the best of both worlds. Because you know, if you think
32:50
about the Rays back in the day, how they built it on the cheap
32:53
and you had Andrew Friedman, who now is running the Dodgers.
32:57
And so the Dodgers are now the model organization in baseball
33:01
from a development standpoint. And oh, by the way, they're also
33:04
the richest. I mean, up there with whatever
33:06
the Mets and the Yankees, but not only can they go out there
33:10
and buy the best free agents and look, everybody wants to go
33:13
there. You mentioned this earlier.
33:15
Clearly all these Japanese players remember back in the
33:18
day, back in the like late 90s, early 2000s, it seemed like all
33:23
the Japanese players went to the Seattle Mariners.
33:26
Well, now they're all going to the Dodgers even.
33:28
And I don't even know the names of some of these guys, by the
33:31
way, obviously I know, I know Ohtani, the guy they brought
33:34
last year. But this other guy they brought
33:36
this year, I was joking in Saint Louis because the thought was,
33:39
oh, this guy he doesn't like, he doesn't like the bright lights,
33:43
he doesn't like the media. So maybe a small market team has
33:45
a chance. Of course not.
33:47
He goes to the Dodgers, like the Dodgers get every Japanese
33:50
player as well. And then you're talking
33:52
Cardinals and the gambling. So it was Bally Sports Midwest
33:56
and what is it now? It's FanDuel Sports Midwest,
34:00
right? And Missouri just legalized
34:03
gambling this past November. But it's weird, like there was
34:06
just a report that it's not going to be implemented.
34:10
It has to be implemented. I feel like I think legally
34:13
there's a date in December that it has to be implemented.
34:16
But I think people thought NCAA tournament, opening day,
34:20
whatever it is. Well, there's just a report last
34:22
week that it's not even going to be out till fall.
34:24
I'm sure I'll be ready for football season.
34:27
But I also think TV wise, that's the one thing that if you're a
34:30
sports fan, like you're going to pay if if you love the Cardinals
34:34
or the Blues, whatever it is, that's the one thing you're
34:36
gonna pay for. I think.
34:38
I think what's gonna suffer, and there was complaints about this
34:40
too with YouTube TV. YouTube TV just went up
34:43
apparently quite a bit. I saw a lot of people
34:45
complaining about that on X in the last month or so.
34:48
I think a lot of people are gonna ditch YouTube TV, They're
34:51
gonna ditch DIRECTV and they're just gonna do the sports
34:55
streaming. That's probably what I would do
34:57
at this point if I didn't, if I didn't have to watch the
35:00
Cardinals for that's a that's a good question.
35:02
If I didn't have to watch the Cardinals for work, I don't even
35:06
know if I would pay for the streaming.
35:08
Honestly, that that's weird to say, but I feel like it gets
35:10
back to the conversation we had earlier where I feel like I get
35:13
enough consuming the highlights on on social media, but the die
35:16
hard fans, I think they're going to choose the streaming, the
35:19
streaming monthly subscriptions over the cable.
35:25
Yeah, the ones who care the the, the what the issue for sports is
35:31
for a long time they made money from the people who didn't care
35:36
because of the cable bundle. Yep.
35:38
And so that's that's the that's what happened on the ESPNI mean,
35:41
ESPN was printing money for Disney for a long time.
35:45
And now that's happening less and less, less to the point now
35:47
where they're they're trying to potentially maybe sell it or
35:50
spin it off because they see what's what's already happened
35:53
with cord cutting, what the future is, because every person
35:57
who is subscribing to that bundle was paying for ESPN.
36:01
They were even if they never watched it, they were paying for
36:03
Bally's sports channels, even if they never watched them.
36:05
And now that's not happening. And I'm I just think it's not
36:09
sustainable for baseball. I real, unless they figure out
36:12
some type of model, it's just not sustainable.
36:14
The payroll, the estimated payroll is 2025.
36:17
The Dodgers 321 million. The Mets 3/15, the Phillies 279,
36:24
the Yankees 271. Then there's a $40 million drop
36:30
and it's the Blue Jays at 2:32. Then there's another 25 or so
36:35
million drop and you've got the Rangers, Astros, Braves,
36:40
Dodgers, Angels, all around 200 million.
36:44
But if you go down the list, it doesn't take long before you're
36:47
getting down to the 122 million, the Cardinals that we're talking
36:51
about. So think about that.
36:52
That's what, a little around 1/3 of what the Dodgers are
36:56
spending. The Royals are at 1:15 since
37:00
he's at one O 3. Pittsburgh at 75 million, the
37:04
White Sox at 59, The A's soon to be in Vegas 55,000,000, the
37:10
Marlins at 47 million. So the Marlins payroll are
37:14
doing, I'm, I know, math major, but that's roughly 1/7 of the
37:19
payroll of the Dodgers. I mean, think about that.
37:22
In the NFL, every team spends roughly the same amount of money
37:27
on player costs every year within say a 20 or $30 million
37:32
range. Nobody is even double another
37:36
team. Same thing pretty much with the
37:39
NBA and in the NHL as well. And in baseball you've got the
37:44
team at the low end having a payroll of 1/7 of the team at
37:50
the top. Now that doesn't matter if the
37:53
results aren't correlated much with how much money you spend,
37:57
which was generally true in baseball for a while.
38:00
I mean I remember when I was a baseball fan, big baseball fan
38:04
in the early 90's, the Mets were the story.
38:06
They were spending all this money like Bobby Bonilla
38:09
bringing in these guys and they suck the people.
38:11
Like I'll see money doesn't matter.
38:12
Well it didn't matter because they were stupid about it and
38:15
the money amounts we were talking about were small.
38:17
Nobody had a payroll 7 times another team.
38:22
But now, just like everything else in society, inflation, the
38:27
the massive amount of money people pay for sports rights,
38:30
the bunny's gotten so big that I just don't think this is going
38:34
to reverse itself. And so I think the problem
38:37
becomes if more and more and more, the money gap is bigger
38:41
and bigger and bigger and the correlation with winning becomes
38:44
more and more than teams at the bottom end.
38:47
And their fans are just going to be like, yeah, I don't really
38:49
care as much. And so baseball needs to, this
38:52
is like an existential thing, I think for baseball.
38:54
And I think the owners know that.
38:55
And I think they'll fight. I think they'll fight for a
38:57
salary cap. They've never been able to do it
38:59
before. The players union in baseball
39:00
has been too strong. And I mean, he'll remember the
39:04
the 94 season when they lost the whole season basically because
39:07
of because of trying to institute a salary cap.
39:11
So we'll see. I think in terms of the media
39:15
model, what would be best for baseball is if they could just
39:19
take control of everybody's sports rights.
39:21
And I think this is what they would like to see happen and
39:23
kind of what they're trying to do as the Valley Sports dive in
39:29
Sports, whatever it's called now, goes through the bankruptcy
39:31
process. And I'm sure they would love to
39:33
have like a centralized hub on MLB.com where you could go and
39:40
any fan in the country could buy not just a package of their
39:44
teams games. They could buy a single game,
39:47
any game, any night. You know, why not?
39:49
I mean, think about like, we live in a world.
39:51
Why would it be so crazy? If I wanted to watch the Yankees
39:54
play the Mets tonight and it wasn't on national TV and I
39:57
lived in Texas, why can't I go to MLB.com and buy that game for
40:01
$10? Well, the reason I can't is
40:03
because the net MLB doesn't control the media rights.
40:07
But if they did, they could do that.
40:09
They could sell individual games, they could sell certain
40:11
packages and then split that revenue among the teams.
40:14
But in order to do that, you have to get the teams to buy in.
40:20
And right now, the Yankees have their own network.
40:23
They have yes, network. They don't.
40:25
They don't care about what's going on with Diamond Sports
40:28
because they never had a regional network owned by
40:30
somebody else. They just own it themselves and
40:33
they print money from it. The Dodgers have a similar
40:36
situation out here. So again, it's the haves and
40:39
have nots, these teams that have their own sports networks or
40:42
advasters in their own sports networks.
40:44
They don't want to share with with Major League Baseball or
40:48
with anybody else. They just want to keep the
40:50
revenue for themselves. And these teams in the lower and
40:53
middle tier, they've got a band together and be like, wait a
40:55
minute, we're in this together. Like the theory of having salary
41:00
constraint in in sports is it's not the same thing as a private
41:04
business. It's like AT&T doesn't care if
41:08
Verizon sucks and goes out of business.
41:11
They're happy about it. But if the Pirates are awful and
41:14
go out and are essentially out of business because they can't
41:17
feel the competitive team, that hurts the Mets, that hurts the
41:21
Phillies because they're playing those teams.
41:24
And if those teams are always terrible, the sport overall is
41:28
hurt because they're all in it together.
41:30
They've got to sell the sport as a whole.
41:33
And I think that is more and more what we're we're seeing in
41:35
baseball. And I, I'm worried about it.
41:37
Like, I would be really worried about it if I were an executive
41:42
in MLB right now in terms of the looking down the horizon at the
41:46
competition you're facing from all these other sports leagues
41:49
going forward for eyeballs when you don't have the automatic.
41:53
Oh, people would just subscribe to the bundle.
41:56
The money train will just keep coming.
41:58
Well, that's not that World is. It's not quite gone yet, but
42:02
it's going to be gone soon. It's quickly disappearing.
42:06
Yeah, kind of staying in the sports realm, but also
42:08
entertainment. So Gene Hackman passes away 95
42:12
years old and there's some some potential controversy around his
42:16
death and his wife and a dog also, which I don't even know
42:19
what's going on. But when I'm just thinking Gene
42:23
Hackman, I start to think of the movies that I really like of
42:25
Gene Hackman. And then I'm going through it
42:27
here. I got it on my phone and like,
42:28
his catalogue is insane. And I was born in 1982.
42:33
He, he had a whole career of amazing movies before I was even
42:37
born, right? French Connection or then when I
42:39
was really little. But then when I knew what movies
42:41
were, let's say in the late 80s, early 90s, he had another
42:46
ridiculously amazing career. And so again, because we're
42:50
talking sports, Normandale Hoosiers, people obviously
42:53
remember that. Remember he was also the
42:55
football coach in the replacements.
42:57
Now I'm not putting the replacements up there with
42:59
Hoosiers, but that was that what Keanu Reeves movie.
43:02
And it's, it's funny how we remember movies too, because
43:06
when I was thinking of Gene Hackman, I'm like, OK, that
43:08
movie with him and Will Smith, which was really good about
43:11
spying and it's called Enemy of the State.
43:14
And then the other one I was thinking of, because, you know,
43:17
I really watched a lot of movies early to mid 90s.
43:19
I was thinking, you know, Gene Hackman.
43:21
I was like, he was so good in Maverick as Mel Gibson's dad.
43:26
And I'm looking through his catalogue and I'm thinking,
43:28
well, why I'm not? Am I not seeing that?
43:30
Well, it was James Garner, but I was convinced in my brain that
43:33
it was that it was Gene Hackman. You know what I'm saying?
43:35
I'm like, he was definitely in Merrick.
43:37
It was James Garner, but like Lex Luthor, Superman, obviously
43:43
behind enemy lines. And some of these movies I
43:44
haven't even seen. Like Royal Tenenbaums is a movie
43:47
that people love. I've never seen that movie, but
43:51
I mean, Get Shorty, Wyatt Earp, Unforgiven, Mississippi Burning.
43:58
I already mentioned Hoosiers. I mean, this dude had an
44:03
unbelievable career. And it's one of those like, you
44:05
knew he was a great actor, but then when you go through and you
44:07
look at all the movies he was in, it's freaking.
44:10
It's it's got to be up there with with the dude who's in like
44:12
the most best movies of all time.
44:14
Oh yeah, he. Was great and he was and he and
44:17
the actors love him. You know, he was like the actors
44:19
actor because he didn't he didn't look like a leading man,
44:23
right, And but he was because of his talent and ability in a lot
44:28
of movies and he played a lot of supporting characters too.
44:30
But the the thing that I will always think about with Gene
44:34
Hackman is the range like the Royal Tenon Bob's.
44:37
But then back in the day, Bonnie and Clyde, like the length of
44:41
the career that he had. I've never seen the French
44:43
Connection, but a lot of people say that's his best movie.
44:45
I'm gonna actually check that out.
44:47
I'm gonna put that on my list now.
44:49
So many incredible movies that he was in the firm.
44:55
You mentioned Hoosiers like an iconic movie.
44:57
I saw the story the other day. This is great.
44:59
So he did Crimson Tide with Denzel Washington and there's a
45:03
really tense scene where they're they're on the boat, they're on
45:07
the submarine and Hackman hits is supposed to hit him.
45:11
Well, he he actually did hit him and he like bloodied his nose.
45:15
He didn't mean to, you know, he's gonna do the fake punch and
45:17
they just went with it and that, I mean, that's so that's like 2
45:20
greats, you know, just just going with the flow.
45:24
It's incredible how good he was at at how long that career was.
45:29
I was thinking about kind of the people of that generation
45:32
because he was in a lot of movies with some of those
45:35
people, like he was in Bonnie and Clyde with Robert Redford.
45:38
But think about the people of that generation kind of in
45:40
there, guys who are roughly in their 80s and 90s.
45:43
You have him, you have Redford, De Niro, Nicholson, Dustin
45:48
Hoffman. I mean, that was Michael Douglas
45:52
is. He alive still.
45:54
Who's that? Michael Douglas.
45:56
Michael. Douglas is still alive.
45:58
I think he's slightly younger than those guys, but at a
46:00
similar age like those guys. That group of actors were in
46:05
some of the most iconic films of the last, you know, 70 years.
46:10
And they were movie stars. And we really don't have
46:14
younger, like, movie stars today.
46:16
Yeah, We talk about the fractured media landscape.
46:18
Who who is a legitimate movie star under the age of say 50 or
46:25
40? Who you think?
46:26
Oh yeah, that guy's going to be an all time great for guys.
46:29
For dudes, yeah, are. Like, are there any?
46:33
I mean, think about this group of people.
46:35
You had Hackman, Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford, Pacino,
46:42
De Niro, all of them from a similar generation and all of
46:46
them were massive stars before they were 40 years old.
46:51
They were in huge movies and became big, big movie stars
46:56
before they hit 40. Now, like, who's the the the
47:00
greatest movie, a male movie star or even female movie star
47:05
in America right now that that is actively working?
47:08
What isn't like an older person who just does a movie here or
47:11
there? Ryan Reynolds, maybe.
47:14
Yeah. The the.
47:15
First thing that came to mind. I know he's got to be well, I
47:18
was thinking of The Rock and I'm just talking about like box.
47:22
Now. We started this talking about
47:23
Gene Hackman, which is more of like a classical actor, right?
47:27
When I think of The Rock, I think more of just like a box
47:29
office summer blockbuster type guy.
47:33
And I, I think, I think what's changed the game for that for
47:36
me. And again, I don't really watch
47:37
any movies at the theater. I'll watch stuff on streaming
47:41
and all that. But these these comic book
47:43
movies, right? Like I I'm guessing it's
47:46
probably Robert Downey Junior in terms of box office or Chris
47:50
Pratt or whoever, Like these dudes who are in all these
47:53
Marvel comic movies, Chris Evans, right?
47:56
They're probably the biggest movie stars.
47:57
Now. I don't really watch those
47:58
movies. I know I've, I've read an
48:00
article where somebody said Glenn Powell, this dude is the
48:02
next big star. But like, I, I don't know, I
48:05
don't know anything about. And and maybe he's like the next
48:08
Matthew McConaughey where he starts out with like these ROM
48:11
coms and he becomes more of a serious actor.
48:13
But yeah, Gene Hackman is in a different category.
48:15
Like I'd put him in the more like the the Tom Hanks.
48:20
Kevin. Spacey not not off the field,
48:22
but I'm talking about like who who is who is the guy that was
48:28
so good in God see, I'm I'm losing my mind here in gangs in
48:33
New York guy who. Oh oh.
48:39
He's kind of tired. It's.
48:41
It's not your Dicaprio's in it, but that's odd you're thinking
48:44
of. It's Daniel Day Lewis.
48:45
Daniel Day Lewis is probably the greatest, like, living actor
48:50
who's still working regularly, yes, and in big movies he's
48:55
amazing. But he's probably in his 50s,
48:58
maybe 60s, and he might be done. He's not feel like he's done
49:02
much lately. Yeah, he's not a young.
49:04
Man, even the Rock You mentioned who I agree is a big movie star.
49:07
He's probably 50 now, right? Tom Cruise, I think in his 60s
49:13
though. Those are movie stars.
49:14
But who's the younger? Is it Zac Efron?
49:17
Maybe I, you mentioned Glenn Powell.
49:19
I don't know. I don't know.
49:20
I'm sure people will arise and they're probably, they're
49:22
probably younger people who are in like their 20s and 30s.
49:25
That would be like, of course it's Timothy Shalabay or
49:27
whoever, you know. Sure, but I'm saying what I, my
49:30
standard isn't OK, Who's like hot and popular in the moment.
49:35
My standard is if you asked a cross section of 100 people who
49:40
do you know who this person is and can you name it like a movie
49:43
they are in and and you went back in time, People could do
49:48
that with a lot of actors I think back in the day, right?
49:52
Like I think people knew even if they weren't, they knew who
49:55
Harrison Ford was, right? They knew who Dustin Hoffman was
49:58
and Robert Redford. I I'm talking about huge
50:01
majorities of people. I don't think huge majorities of
50:03
people know who Glenn Powell or Timothy Chalamet or, or, or they
50:07
might know the name, but maybe couldn't place them in a movie,
50:10
right, especially if they're older.
50:12
So I just think that that kind of times have changed in that
50:15
regard and movies just aren't don't have the same cachet as
50:19
they used to. I think that's what it comes
50:21
down to. Theater attendance isn't what it
50:22
is. You people used to go to the
50:24
movies all the time and theatre attendance isn't isn't what it
50:28
what it used to be. And the Oscars are coming up
50:31
this Sunday. I don't think that kind of has
50:33
the nearly the cultural cachet that it used to.
50:36
There's just so many more options now for for what you
50:39
could do. And also the home experience has
50:42
really caught up to the theatre. There's to be a pretty big gap
50:45
between, you know, you're watching your little TV with not
50:48
great sound and going to the movies.
50:49
It was a big thing. Now everybody has these 6570
50:53
inch TV's. You've got these super HD and 4K
50:58
and you can order basically any movie that's ever been made and
51:01
you can watch it anytime you want.
51:03
And so I just think the experience of going to the
51:07
theater, watching movies, that cultural experience isn't what
51:11
it used to be. And also TVI think in terms of
51:15
cultural quality from the visual medium is kind of overtaken
51:20
Movies, like the biggest video entertainment products now
51:25
typically are TV shows. We talk about them more.
51:29
The budgets are bigger. When I was younger, the best,
51:32
the best people in film by large worked in film.
51:36
They didn't work in television unless they were at only film
51:39
and only film, right. They you wouldn't see big time
51:41
stars on TV unless it was some kind of like stunts or guest
51:44
appearance or something. Same thing a lot of times with
51:47
the best directors and writers and the biggest budgets were
51:49
fulfilled. And now that's changed.
51:53
Right. That's what I was going to bring
51:54
up. Back in the day, if you were a
51:56
movie star, the only time you saw those dudes or gals were at
52:01
the movies, You'd have to go to the movies to see them.
52:04
And they didn't do TV, they didn't have social media and
52:06
they didn't do commercials. It was almost in a way, right?
52:09
It was, it was the big screen and the silver screen.
52:11
Like, OK, you could be ATV star, but you weren't as big as a
52:15
movie star, right? You were kind of looked down
52:17
upon if you did commercials. That is not the case anymore.
52:20
I mean, the biggest movie stars on Earth are doing Buick
52:24
commercials, right? Or freaking cell phone
52:27
commercials. The other thing is you know
52:29
everything about them because they're all on social media,
52:32
right? So there's, there's no mystery
52:34
or, oh, I got to go see this movie.
52:35
I never see this person. You could see this person
52:37
tweeting or on Instagram 500 times a day, right?
52:41
So that kind of mystique of being a big movie star, I think
52:44
has gone away as well. And you were bringing up the
52:46
Oscars. I don't know if you have a list
52:48
of movies. I'm trying to think of the last
52:49
movie that I saw. That was even in.
52:52
The in the Oscars realm, I think it was Green Book.
52:56
Wasn't that about five years ago?
52:58
I don't know if I've seen an Oscar quality.
53:00
I've seen some kids movies. I don't know if I've seen an
53:02
Oscar quality nominated movie in the last five years.
53:05
Like what are the ones this year that are up?
53:08
I bet you I haven't. I've always been a movie nerd
53:13
and so I was always the guy that like tried to watch at least
53:18
most of, if not all the Best Picture nominees every year.
53:22
And I kept that going up until the last couple of years.
53:26
And now I've started to lose it as I and I think it's because of
53:29
what we talked about. It's because of now I'm more
53:32
into TV. Also, obviously as you get
53:34
older, have kids, you have less time.
53:35
When I was younger, I was, I would go to the movies probably
53:38
3030 forty times a year. Now I go, we're going to go this
53:42
Saturday and that's the first time I've been to the movies in
53:45
probably two years. So I just do not I just do not
53:49
go anymore. But I'm going to see Anora,
53:52
which is nominated for best picture that I believe is the
53:55
betting favorite right now to win.
53:57
It won a lot of the other awards.
53:59
So we'll see. So you have Anora the Brutalist,
54:03
a complete unknown, which is the Bob Dylan biopic Conclave, which
54:08
is the movie, the fictional count of picking a Pope, Dune
54:12
Part 2. This is the one I've actually
54:13
seen, which I thought it was fine, but I'm still here.
54:17
Nickel boys the substance. I think that's the one with Demi
54:22
Moore wicked, which is the the I've heard of that the Wizard of
54:28
Oz prequel or sequel. I I saw it on Broadway, the
54:31
play, but I have not I have not seen the movie.
54:34
So the movie's nominated and then Emilia Perez or Amelia
54:37
Perez, which is I've not watched it.
54:41
It's on Netflix. It's a kind of it's a musical
54:45
that is pretty out there. I'll just leave it at that.
54:49
I've seen clips. It's an interesting film.
54:52
So that is your nominee list. So you have not seen any of
54:55
those Ted, You're O for Ted. Not only that, the.
54:58
Only one I'd heard of. Well, I'd heard of Dune and I've
55:01
heard of wicked because I feel like there's a lot of talk or
55:04
controversy about wicked. That's the only ones that I've
55:07
heard of from that group. But again, like I'm not and I
55:10
don't get me wrong, I like movies.
55:12
I love good, whatever you want to call it, TV content.
55:15
And I feel like a lot of it now is on Netflix or HBO Max or
55:18
whatever Paramount plus. Like I don't get me wrong, I
55:21
love and I'll I'll binge watch a show.
55:24
I got into the night agent, which season 1 was really good,
55:27
season 2 not as great. So I love watching good stuff,
55:30
but I don't know, I feel like a lot of that artsy stuff.
55:33
I'm not saying I don't like it, but I I do think sometimes, like
55:36
with the Oscars, they did get to a point where they were so
55:38
celebrating. I feel like the weirdness that
55:42
they're kind of overlooking really good popcorn movies or,
55:45
or even even I'm not saying slapstick comedy, but I feel
55:50
like every movie for a while they had to outdo themselves
55:54
with being as weird as possible, right?
55:56
Like it's more of a celebration of cinematography than it is.
55:59
I just like really good characters, really good dialogue
56:02
and I maybe I'm wrong. So this is a person who's I
56:05
haven't even heard of these movies.
56:06
I haven't watched them. Maybe they're great.
56:07
I don't know, but I feel like they did kind of get to a .10
56:11
years ago. You know, the, the movie that
56:13
I'm thinking about when I when I think of this is that Birdman
56:15
movie. I hated Birdman.
56:18
A bunch of people liked it and I thought.
56:21
They had a freaking. Drum beat in the in the
56:24
background the whole time. That was it.
56:26
It made it that you couldn't like really focus.
56:28
And I'm like, everything about that movie was a celebration of
56:31
cinematography. And I just like really good
56:33
dialogue between really good actors.
56:35
That's what I like in movies. Well, they I think you're right
56:40
that it did get a little too elites, but but one of the
56:42
things they tried to do is they expanded.
56:44
It used to be just 5 best picture nominees, but they made
56:47
it 10 and they clearly started in recent years putting in more
56:51
of what you're talking about like popcorn movies like Dune
56:53
Part 2. I mean, Dune Part 2 is fine.
56:56
It made a lot of money. I thought it was decent.
57:00
It is not a best picture quality movie, but it's in there.
57:02
And last year was the perfect example because last year was
57:06
the popcorn Oscars, because the Barbie and Oppenheimer were both
57:10
nominated best picture and they both made like a gazillion
57:13
dollars. You didn't see Barbie or
57:15
Oppenheimer. OK, I did.
57:17
I did. See Oppenheimer.
57:18
And I liked it. I liked it a lot.
57:19
And I'm a history buff, so I did like Oppenheimer, yes.
57:23
But you didn't see Barbie. No, I would.
57:25
I just. Never got around to it.
57:27
I probably should 'cause I I hear it was very controversial
57:30
or culturally important or something.
57:32
Yeah, a lot, a lot of things. A.
57:35
Lot of anti male sentiment in it and and that that's what I like
57:39
a little bit too much for me. Yes, I know you.
57:42
You're very much a feminist and this was definitely the movie
57:46
for you, but very anti toxic masculinity.
57:50
I know you so you you would like that.
57:52
But I'm going to see a Nora and on Saturday.
57:54
I'm excited actually, because it's been so long since I've
57:57
been to the movies. But like you were talking about
57:59
in a world where you have a real most people have a really good
58:03
home viewing experience. I mean help people have like,
58:06
you know, you can get a sound bar for like 100 bucks and the
58:08
sound bar gives you like incredible sound all through
58:11
your room. We've got these big TV's we can,
58:15
we can watch anything. It just the, there's the movies
58:19
just don't seem as special, you know?
58:20
So I'm, I'm excited to go back to movies.
58:22
I was telling my wife like it'll be weird walking into theater
58:25
for the first time in like 2 years, smelling the popcorn
58:28
again. It's like going back in time.
58:30
I'm excited, you see. Now I have seen like what
58:36
Migration that was a kids animated movie but we don't.
58:40
Even see that. Many movies in the theatre with
58:41
kids. Everything's on streaming,
58:43
right? Like Moana.
58:45
I feel like my, my, my kids went to see Moana two in the theatre,
58:49
but I feel like you can get all that stuff on streaming now.
58:51
All right, well, let's shut her down there.
58:53
We're almost there at an hour. Everybody settle down.
58:57
The sports entertainment version, Charlie Marlow, Eric
59:00
Messersmith. This is also available if you're
59:03
watching on YouTube, but also on Kenny Wallace Media podcast.
59:07
Eric, great to see you, buddy. We'll see you next week.