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Sporting a New Game Plan: The Podcast Pivot · What’s Up, Wake

• [00:00:00] Melissa: I really wanted to hit it out of the ballpark for our second episode of What's Up Wake. So I reached out to the winners of our Wake Living Reader's Choice Award for Best Local podcast. I figured this episode is a twofer because sports fans will love learning more about this duo, and maybe I can pick up some podcasting pointers in the process. These guys have reported on sports through most every platform. Writing radio, [00:01:00] YouTube, and now they've taken their talents from the radio waves to the world of podcasts. They're both NC State alums. So I think it's safe to say that I was smart to wear my Wolf Pack shirt to the studio today. I'm in a safe place. I will admit that I might be outta my league with these two, but I'm still hoping for a slam dunk. Please join me in welcoming the literal OG of North Carolina Sports Podcast. Joe Ovus and Joe Gilio of the Ovus and Gilio podcast. Thank you guys for being here today. Joe Giglio: Thanks for having us. Great to be here. And Melissa: I've already made it clear to you guys before we started recording that, I'm probably gonna mess up your names at some point. My last name is Wta Huff. So we are all, we're all together in this difficult last name, situation we've got going on. And also, I wanna point out that . My producer is also named Joe, so we're in a conundrum here. Joe Ovies: You're outnumbered. Yeah, Melissa: Joe. Joe must be the hit name of the day. Okay, so first of all. Thank you again for being here. I'll [00:02:00] admit too that my husband, when I told him that I was interviewing you guys just looked at me like I had three heads and he was like you are gonna talk sports. And I as , as all good wives do. I told him to be quiet and worry about himself. Yeah. But, so yeah, I'm a little over my head, but I do love basketball. Mm-hmm . I will start there. I've always loved a CC college, basketball. Of course, NC State, NC State's, our fans are the best in the country because we're the most loyal, really. I mean, we have been with them. Through Mostly thick. Joe Giglio: Yes. ? Yes. A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. A little Melissa: thin, but mostly thick. And I'm also a basketball mom. I, I've got two boys and a girl. Both my boys play basketball, so if I'm not watching them, then maybe I have some time for a CC. But now I wanna start with you guys about the art of pivoting, because I think that even beyond sports, I. [00:03:00] Everybody can relate to. At some point we've had sudden life changing moments that we've had to find our footing. And you guys were let go from your radio gig a couple years ago, right? Mm-hmm . 2023, I believe. Yeah. 2020. Joe Giglio: It was in 2023. Yes. Melissa: Okay. Which was a, a very sudden. It was a shock. Joe Giglio: Yeah. It was the day before the NFL draft when the Carolina Panthers had the number one pick in the draft. It wasn't like there wasn't anything to talk about. Yeah. Plus the Carolina hurricanes were getting ready for a playoff push. And of course you have things like off season discussions about basketball and football. It happened on a random day. But that's, to be fair, and to be clear, for those who don't understand this about the media business, that's pretty typical. Mm-hmm . Especially in radio, radio, does not afford you a lot of goodbyes. Oftentimes people just wake up one day and they find out they don't have a job, or the format of a radio station has just been changed. It goes to Christmas and then it, it's immediate. Melissa: It's, yeah you're, you're done today. Get your stuff and leave. Yeah. Joe Giglio: I mean, that's literally how it happened. We wrapped up the show management said, Hey, meet us in the conference room. And they had papers ready for us to [00:04:00] get out . Mm. Because it was, it's like that. But again, to be clear, that's the business. It's a cold business. Yeah. What you do after that happens, . It depends on, where you are in your career. And while Gilio is approaching 50, and I'm in my mid forties. We like to think we still have a lot of time left that we can still do this. Mm-hmm . That we have things that we still want to say and that we're very good at doing that. And technology is at a point now where it's really easy to pick up and go. It's easy to pick up the equipment. It's affordable finding podcast space, whether you do it on your own or a place like this, it's out there now. Mm-hmm . If this were to happen 10 years ago. I'm not quite sure we would've been able to do it the way that we did it. I would probably be looking for another job within a radio company or some sort of media business, Melissa: and most likely not getting to do it with your pal too. No. There would've been a, a very high likelihood that you guys would've had to go your separate ways. Yeah. Joe Giglio: Joe, you're probably going back to the paper business or writing mm-hmm . After that, [00:05:00] Joe Ovies: maybe Costco. That was the, that was the backup plan. No. It's funny, we, the next day we went downtown to the Raleigh Times, and at three o'clock, which is when our show was on, we sat down, we had a mutual friend just happened to walk by on Harget Street. Joe Giglio: Mm-hmm . And Joe Ovies: he told us straight up, he goes, you don't see it right now, but the way that they got rid of you is actually a gift. They did you a favor. And what ultimately happened was it motivated our audience to go with us. And once we had our audience, you can start selling things because of people know who we are. Yeah. And they and our audience delivered for us. Mm-hmm . A a lot of fortunate breaks along the way. You said pivot. ? Mm-hmm . I laughed a little bit. That's one of those corporate words, right? Pivot. Oh yeah. Melissa: I think about Ross from friends, right? Yeah. Anytime anybody says the word pivot. Pivot . Joe Ovies: Pivot to video was a big thing in the newspaper business, 15 years ago. So I just kinda laugh almost like we did it on purpose. Yeah, we definitely didn't, no, did not do it on purpose. Joe Giglio: We did not do it on purpose. But there's a lot of people in our [00:06:00] situation that might go out on their own. They see where things are going. We got a kick in the butt to go do it. And we're glad that we did. And to Joe's point, how it happened he's selling short. The person who told us this, the person who told us this is a very well made marketing person, somebody who knows these things. Oh, Melissa: interesting. Okay. Joe Giglio: Okay. Who has been helpful in my career in the past. Mm-hmm . Melissa: So Joe Giglio: when he's telling you, Hey man, he's telling Julio, look. Mm-hmm . You might not see it now. I'm gonna listen to what he says. Yeah. Because he knows what he's talking about. Melissa: Uses this to your advantage and Yes. And take your your He did it very quickly. . Because I do think that radio listeners are very loyal. But we do have a short attention span, like we said. So if you waited too long, they might've moved on or forgotten about you and lost their anger over . What, how you lost your jobs. Yeah. Because people have to be a little bit mad to, to. Wanna move on and follow you somewhere else. Yeah. Joe Giglio: And you ride that wave and we mm-hmm . Started up literally a week later. [00:07:00] So you get fired on a random Wednesday. We started the podcast on a random Wednesday. Okay. The following week. Mm-hmm . So that's where we were. It took us a week. It did not take long to get the equipment, thank goodness the shipping's pretty quick these days. Yep. Good old prime. Melissa: Mm-hmm . And we were Joe Giglio: set up and ready to go within a week. And we've been doing this now coming up on two years, and there's been a lot of, as I like to say. Flying the plane and building it at the same time. And that's what we've been doing here in the last two years. And we've learned some things along the way. Some things have worked, some things have not. But that's kinda the fun part to figure these things out on the fly and for the audience who's been there from the jump. Like Joe said, when the, when, when, when Gilio says the audience came with us, they wanted to see where we're going next, they also feel like they've been part of this journey to get to the Yeah. Year two mark. Mm-hmm . Of where we, where we're going with this podcast. Melissa: They're the OGs of the og. Yes. Yeah. Yes. The OG audience members. Joe Ovies: The thing we learned too, in podcast form, the audience is younger. You're talking about people in their thirties, you're talking about people in late twenties, and, and that to me [00:08:00] has really been rewarding to see us go from maybe that forties and fifties to demographic into that twenties and thirties. It shows amongst other things, and appreciation for our historical knowledge and perspective, and that's really what, mm-hmm . Makes us different is we can tell you the story from 20 years ago. We can tell you the story from 30 years ago. We can have those people like a Holden Thorpe on our podcast and tell you how a CC expansion went in 2012. We can have a Debbie Yao come on and tell you, yeah this is why I fired Coach X. This is why I hired Oh, okay. Coach y. You see we have a way of putting things in context. That in the media business in general is losing because they're just, they just want younger and cheaper. Joe Giglio: Yeah. It's interesting. Gilio brings up the audience. There's, it's a twofold thing. Yes, the audience has gotten younger 'cause it's matching the platform that it's on podcasts and YouTube. But also those who might've dabbled in listening to a radio are now telling me they listen to the show more. They listen to [00:09:00] more of what we've had to say. They listen to the show longer rather than popping in and out while they're in their car, and they only catch five minutes of the show. Yeah. Melissa: I, I think that's what makes podcast more relevant these days because you can . Turn it off in the car, step out of the car and keep on listening to it. Joe Giglio: And it also affords you, you can see, again, how you present. These things matter, and I'm very adamant about like, all right, here is the list of things we were talking about today with timestamps of what we're talking about. I'm here to meet your needs. Mm-hmm . Okay. You don't care about NC State losing again today, but you want to hear our thoughts on what happened with the Carolina Hurricanes. There it is. Just go right to it. Yeah. You don't have to sit and wait. It's not a matter of you're not talking about what I want you to talk about today. Mm-hmm . No, we are just skip to it. And a lot of people get that. And, and to back up Julio's point about the audience, when you were introducing us and you were talking about. Sports and being casual and things like that. That's great. Mm-hmm . That's what we want. I think we've lost along the way the, the fact that what makes sports great is that it brings people together. It brings people to an arena. You ain't get 18, or it Melissa: gets people arguing [00:10:00] and and mad at each other. That's Joe Giglio: a separate, that's a separate aspect of it. Yeah. Also a feature though. Yeah. That is, that is a feature. But you know, we'll use NC State's final for run as a prime example of this. Mm-hmm . There's a lot of people who've been riding for NC State through thick and thin, and that's what makes having not won an a CC championship for 37 years, extra special mm-hmm , but there's also people who are new to it who might now find themselves hooked on a CC basketball or, I didn't really consider this one thing before, but now this has been a lot of fun and I wanna be a part of this. So the one thing that the biggest compliment you can give the podcast is that We make it easy to understand why things are the way that they are. Mm-hmm . And it's not about just talking about the old days and how things were better in the old days. We are not interested in doing that. What we are interested in doing to Julio's point is letting you understand, okay, because this happened 20 years ago, it explains why people react the way they're reacting right now. Melissa: Yeah. Joe Giglio: If you got that historical context, you will now feel [00:11:00] a little bit more part of the community, which is important here in the triangle. You bring up the argument. That's also a feature of the triangle, which makes it really, really unique. Nowhere else, nowhere else in the country do you have three universities playing at a high level like we do here. Yeah. And that creates situations when you go back to work on a Monday and you know you're at NC State fan and you're miserable, but you know who else is miserable right now? The Tar Hill fan. Melissa: Yeah, . Joe Giglio: So you go into work on a Monday, you're like. Oh man, I can't believe we lost him. Selfishly, Melissa: I'm loving that the Tar Hill fans are feeling a little bit of the pain. So to thank you very much to, to Joe Giglio: that point. Mm-hmm. You get out, get to breaking that up to your TAR fans and you're like, oh, it's a little difficult uhhuh to, to have a good basketball team when you don't have a Hall of Fame coach. Melissa: Yeah, exactly. Yes. So those Joe Giglio: are the types of things that make this area so unique. That we're trying to tap into, and I think we do an excellent job of it. Melissa: And we have so many people moving to North Carolina now too. Mm-hmm . I'm a native, born and raised in Raleigh, so I'm, I'm used to the tobacco road scene and the rivalries and, [00:12:00] we, we get heated, we really do. Mm-hmm . But outsiders don't really get it. To your point. Like you said, people come in and they're not used to having three major universities within walking distance. Mm-hmm . Essentially. Mm-hmm . Okay, so I wanna go back a little bit and learn about how you guys got started in, in sports. I know that Gilio, you started as a writer, is that right? With with sports writing? But you, OVS has been always in radio, right? Joe Giglio: Yeah, it was always radio. I mean, I was at NC State from 1997 and graduated in 2001. Originally I wanted to get into, FM music and that's the dream, go to rock shows and hanging out with superstars and things like that. Zoom morning crew, right? He, Melissa: he wanted to be Ryan's Seacrest, Joe Giglio: basically. Yes. , Melissa: I mean, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Giglio: I thought that was great. I, I still think that's cool. So for me it was just to work in the format. I liked the format. I, it wasn't that I wasn't a sports fan but sports talk radio was not my first choice. okay. I listened to Sports Talk [00:13:00] radio. Mm-hmm . My dad. Raised me on sports talk radio, but it wasn't my first choice, but it was the job that was available at the time. Okay. While I was a senior at NC State. And then once you get in the door and you start getting into the format and you start getting into those dynamics, as we mentioned, you get hooked on it and you fall in love with it even more. And then, the, the format itself and the medium itself is why you continue to do it. I always like to say that I root for the show, not necessarily teams. I root for storylines. I wanna see what sports does to people. And I want to be the conduit to get that kind of story out through the audio medium, which is, was radio, but now it's taken on different formats, whether it's YouTube, podcast, radio, et cetera. Mm-hmm . So that's how I, I wound up here. Mainly. It was the, the love of the format and then using that to get into sports. Melissa: Okay. And Gilio, this question is a little bit selfish because I was a writer and I'm now moving into podcast and that's been your path as well. So [00:14:00] tell me how you bring your writing talents into this totally different world, but not, I mean, it's not too totally different. There are some similarities, but how, how do you blend those two worlds? Joe Ovies: So first things that I had to realize was I wasn't that good of a writer. . I did it for 24 years. Mm-hmm. But that was never really my strength. My strength was always Roy Williams. I got to cover Carolina for one year. Okay. Roy Williams and I had a, a great, we, we still do, we have a great relationship. Melissa: Mm-hmm . But Joe Ovies: we get to the NCAA tournament in Charlotte and I had asked him a question of, his grandson was with him. He was sitting on his lap. He was a baby infant. Sitting there. Bouncing him on his lap before they had played Lipscomb in the, in the NCAA tournament. So after the game was over and everybody wants to talk about Theo Pinson had 17 points and, so and so had 12 rebounds. And I just had, had said to Roy, I said, you didn't get a chance to do this with your son. What does it mean to have your grandson and, and [00:15:00] take a moment and appreciate it? And he started crying and he does the whole thing. Ah, and then five minutes a, after the press conference, he came down. Towards the press area. Joe Giglio: Mm-hmm . Joe Ovies: And he goes, he comes and he, he waves to me, emotions to me. He said, come here. I said, yeah, so how you doing? He's I'm okay. He goes, I wanna tell you something. I go, what? He goes, you're really good at asking questions. And I said, thank you. Now that was 2018. So now you're 20 years into your career and you're sitting here going what am I good at, right? Mm-hmm . Because let's be honest, the writing newspaper business has changed tremendously. Melissa: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, newspapers, magazines, all, I'll print me. Everything has really changed a lot, so Joe Joe Ovies: and I had a similar path in that, and we're both very proud of this. There's no journalism school at NC State, and we both took jobs either at News Server or with eight 50 that were entry level. I. and worked our way up to the top positions at those [00:16:00] respective media companies. Mm-hmm . So when the opportunity was there in 20 mm-hmm . To, to work for the other media company, I said, I'm better at this. I'm better at asking questions and talking than I am actually at writing. Okay. And what would be better for me moving forward. And you get tired of things too. Melissa: Yeah. You get burnout. Burnout is high with writing. Mm-hmm . It really is. Joe Ovies: My, my mentor was Colton Tudor, who was a long time writer and columnist for The New Observer. And I remember one time we went to a game and I wasn't at Exci, it was a state Carolina game over at PNC or Lenova Out Dare. And I said, I was just, he's what is wrong with you? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm just not that excited. And he goes. If you're not excited about the state Carolina game, you need to figure it out. Mm-hmm . Because, because this is the reward that is eye-opening. Yeah. Is these are the big days for us. Mm-hmm . And that was my thought. Like how do I really use my skills to my, to the best of my advantage and try to take a look ahead to see what might possibly be the better option for this. What you want next. Melissa: Yeah. Sure. Joe Ovies: And what, and what makes you happy. Melissa: Yeah. Joe Ovies: We, we [00:17:00] did a interview this summer with Ron Shelton who wrote Bull Durham and White Man Can't Jump. Mm-hmm . And Tin Cup. I don't think I've ever been that excited in my entire life. You were hyped Oh, okay. To talk to somebody. Melissa: Mm-hmm . Joe Ovies: He came into the studio and that was, that was the most enjoyable interview I've ever had. Melissa: Yeah. Joe Ovies: And he gave us great answers. We had a great conversation and to me, Joe likes to tell me we're the show when it comes to the podcast. But I enjoy those interviews 'cause, people do care what we think. But I really enjoy those interviews that we do. And we just had a podcast. Event at the Rialto in, in Raleigh, and we had Lavelle Moton there and Scott Wood there and Tyler sbo and Marcus Guignard, and they were all so good. Melissa: I've interviewed Lavelle and I could talk to him for days. Yes, he is amazing. That Joe Ovies: to me, and again, they're giving you good answers. Not necessarily 'cause your questions, but they understand that you get it. Joe Giglio: Yeah. Joe Ovies: And there's something to that, mm-hmm . [00:18:00] I, I pretend to have no answers about how this industry works. Mm-hmm . Other than ultimately what all of this is, is about your people skills, and that is both how you interact with the people that you have on your program and ask questions to, and also the people that you have to sell to, our sponsors and the people who, mm-hmm Take care of us. That's the only way that any of this works, because they're the ones who, who, who make it work for us. Melissa: I think this goes from to my next question a little bit, which is how, how is radio different than the podcast world? I'm assuming you can be a lot more yourselves and show more personality on a podcast because you don't have to really hold back or conform in any way to another company, per se. Joe Giglio: Yes and no. If you're not showing your actual personality on the radio, then . The audience is not gonna connect with you. Yeah, that's true. You have to, 'cause you did Melissa: have your fans already Joe Giglio: for that. People can sniff out inauthentic, inauthentic [00:19:00] behavior on the radio real quick. Whether it's a fakey laugh you don't really believe what you're saying. Those types of things, you have to be you. Otherwise the audience is not gonna connect with you. And even if you are you, that doesn't necessarily mean the audience will connect with you. They, they might just reject it, which is fine. That's something you have to square. If you ever get into this business, people just might not like you. It's that simple. And we have plenty of people who do not like us. Mm-hmm . But you know, that's everybody. So that's, that's not unique. So the issues with radio versus podcast is. Where the business is heading on traditional formats versus where we are now. You are trying to speak to the widest audience possible. You are trying to make sure that you're getting as big of what's out there in the pool. That, that you can just, Joe Ovies: in case you didn't en en enunciate that it was [00:20:00] the wide widest, widest, widest, okay. The widest . I used to tell him all the time he used to do this radio spot for craft beer. Yeah. And he would, I said it a little too fast and he would never enunciate crap beer. Oh yeah. And I go, Joe, no. I don't know what kind of beer you're trying to sell, but I ain't buying crap beer . Joe Giglio: But I mean, let's be real. I mean, the sports Talk radio listener is predominantly white. So let's go ahead and say that too. So it is, you are, you are trying to reach as many people as possible, which can, to your point. Water down some things. Mm-hmm . Or you find yourself having to be all things to all people, so you end up talking about things that you don't necessarily want to talk about. The one thing that Gilio had to learn when he got onto the radio side that I had forgotten it was, Hey man, you might not care about this one particular thing. Yeah. But good chunk of the audience might, and, and you, Melissa: you gotta make it sound interesting and you Joe Giglio: gotta make it sound interesting. Mm-hmm . And you gotta make it sound like you care. Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. Joe Ovies: Yeah. Technically speaking, the one thing [00:21:00] I couldn't stand was a reset in the interview. You introduced us at the beginning of the interview, right? Mm-hmm . I couldn't stand, we would get Roy for 10 minutes and for two of it, we'd have to ask him, introduce him. Yeah. Ask him like two questions. Then you have the reset. Oh, we're here doing da, da, da, da, da, da. Yeah. And you. And now all of a sudden there's no flow, there's no interact. You know what I'm saying? And it's over. It's over. Okay. Melissa: And bye. Thanks for coming. Yeah, Joe Ovies: because, so I hate the reset and I the time constraint. So if, if we have a good conversation with somebody. . Yeah. When this happened the other day, I forgot who it was already, but Matt Norlander. Oh, with Norlander. He's oh man, I know you, I know you guys are up against it and you gotta go. We're like, no, Matt. Yeah. We don't have a break to hell. We can Joe Giglio: be here all day. Yeah. If the conversation's good, let's go. But to to, to Joe's point about the reset the reason why you reset to get too radio nerdy here is because you might have had a new audience member come in in the last two minutes while Roy Williams is talking. Just because I know what Roy sounds like over the phone. Yeah. And you might know mm-hmm. What Roy sounds like over the phone. The audience that doesn't is going, who's this guy talking? Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, [00:22:00] yeah. And Joe Giglio: if they don't, and you Melissa: can't rewind it like you do a podcast, . Yeah. And if, Joe Giglio: and if they don't know, as fickle as the audience might be, they might just move on. They have no idea. But then if you go, Hey, we're talking to Roy Williams oh, it's Roy. Oh, okay. Got it. Mm-hmm . When you're listening to a podcast yeah, man, it's in the podcast name. Yeah. It's, it's, it's in the Melissa: title. Yeah. Mm-hmm . You, Joe Giglio: you, and that's the other thing about radio versus podcast that I'll, I'll make a very, very quick point that hopefully will crystallize it. Radio is passive listening. It's on in the background. You might not be hearing exactly everything that's PA taking place. You got in your car, it just magically turns on, right? Mm-hmm . Whereas podcast listening is active listening, I am choosing to listen to this episode. Yeah. If that podcast title, if that YouTube doesn't hit me in the title I. You're not talking about something I'm not interested in. I don't have to click on it. Mm-hmm . So that's been the biggest difference in that active versus passive that I've had to rewire my brain after 20 some odd years of doing it radio wise and not being so and cheerio busts me all the time for this of not being so rigid about the format. Nah, [00:23:00] let it breathe. It's okay. That makes for a better and you can Melissa: also edit it if you have, if you really need to. , Joe Giglio: I, I hate editing. 'cause I think that again gets back to authenticity. Yeah. I get the, there are different formats, don't get me wrong. Mm-hmm . If we're doing a storytelling podcast, then by all means there's gonna be a lot of editing. And we've done that. We've done a storytelling podcast a couple of times, and editing is key in that situation. But for what we're doing, which is sports talk, for lack of a better term. Let it flow, let it cook. Mm-hmm . If I screw up, so be it. I can get it tomorrow. Let you know. We can make it a bit mm-hmm Ah, hey, I got this wrong. Here's a song and then we explain why we were wrong. Okay. Joe Ovies: Of course, of course. The, the ultimate difference, there are no FCC rules Yes. On the podcast, but some people don't like Joe Giglio: cursing so Melissa: Yeah. Not, not everybody appreciates it, but I have heard, and maybe I'm just making this up, but I have heard that. People who curse have a higher intelligence level. So joke and Joe Ovies: live longer, I think too. Melissa: They must, [00:24:00] because you get it, you get it off your chest, then this guy's gonna be hugging three. Joe Ovies: Don't . Melissa: Okay. So you guys have have dubbed NC State the year that they're having right now. The year of the hangover. Joe Ovies: Yes. This is the hangover year. Melissa: Yeah, as, as a fan, I wanna know, will it just be one year? Are we gonna have to go through this mean the Joe Giglio: old, the older you get those hangovers last a little longer, yeah, Melissa: yeah. They become more and more painful. Mm-hmm . Joe Giglio: What used to be about a six hour turnaround time, it could take two days. Now Joe Ovies: we sold sweatshirts that said, feels like 24. I would encourage you to get one. I would wear it and, 'cause maybe you know you're gonna need that in a few years. It's Melissa: the last time we get to wear something like that. For a while. It might be, Hey man, just appreciate. I mean, it was years the first time around. It could, it could be a while. It feels like 24. Yes. That was the year of the Wolf. And now 25 is the year they hangover. So I'd like to move on to a segment that I'm introducing for this particular episode, and we'll see how often I have to come back to [00:25:00] for other episodes. This segment, I'm gonna call Dumb It Down for me. I. There are some newish terms in the world of college. I think mostly basketball, but maybe football as well. Melissa: Yeah, definitely football as well. See, I'm working through this. I'm workshopping it as I'm talking, but I, I would like for you guys to put it in layman's terms for me, transfer portal. Joe Ovies: It's just the ability to go from one school to the other without having to sit out. Or any kind of punishment. Melissa: So back in the day, , somebody would want to transfer to a different school and they would have to sit for a year. Joe Ovies: They'd have to sit out for a year, and they'd have to get permission from the school that they were out to be released from their scholarship. Melissa: And now they can just go willy-nilly. Correct. Joe Ovies: It's, think of it more of like free agency. Okay. Yeah. Melissa: Next term is free agency, Okay. No. Next term is name, image, and likeness, because I also [00:26:00] known as NIL. You guys mentioned this on your show a lot and you just gloss over it. So Sure. Dummies like me don't really know what that means. I know that it's, it's meaning that I, athletes are getting, college athletes are getting money. Mm-hmm . Whereas they used to not get paid and some of them are getting a heck of a lot of money. Joe Giglio: Yeah. Melissa: I mean, there's somewhat. Duke and UNC players that are making a million bucks a year now. Joe Giglio: Yeah. Or more name, image, and likeness simply means a player's ability to make money off exactly that like any other high level athlete would be able to do off of their notoriety. So LeBron James can knock out all these media deals. There's nothing stopping them. In the old days with the NCAA and the rules, the scholarship, once you sign that scholarship, it prohibited you from making any money. Any money. That the scholarship was the consideration, the exchange. Okay. That Melissa: was the, that was the payment. Joe Giglio: That was the payment essentially. And you signed all your rights away to the school. And the school was the one making all [00:27:00] the money off of Could sell jerseys. Yeah. Posters, whatever. Mm-hmm . So this is something that's been long and fought over over the years. And they finally did the right thing by changing it so players could do that. But where we get into the confusion is that the schools are not the ones paying the players. These deals are coming from outside sources, which gets into the whole collective . Perspective and these collectives, which Gilio can do a better job explaining is a, a way to funnel these deals, these branding deals to the players so that they do make one, five, $6 million in a season. Joe Ovies: It's pay for play. NI Ls pay for play. It just. The way that the schools and the NCAA have enacted it, it becomes a tax on the fans instead of a revenue share. There is some legal work going on this summer that could get us closer to a revenue share, but right now, NIL name, image, and likeness, it's, it's basically pay for play. Melissa: So why do [00:28:00] some athletes and some schools have higher paychecks for their, for their kids, for their players than say, NC State? I know that was an episode you guys talked about recently. Mm-hmm . That. NC State, can we really keep up with Duke and, and Carolina and these, quote, bigger programs when we cannot play our, pay our players that much. Joe Ovies: Yeah. Collectives are technically groups of fans who get together and put funds together. Sometimes it's a, one single. Person who's got a lot of money, a, a booster with a lot of money, right? Mm-hmm . Then sometimes, maybe it's 10 or 12 boosters who get together and put a lot of money together in a, in a collective and then pay out to those players. So it's crazy if you think about that. Someone would put half a million or a million dollars into a pot just to give to a player to, to play for your school. But yeah, think about all Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, like they all would gladly sign up and willingly do it mm-hmm . Caroline is trying to get in that direction [00:29:00] with what they've done, the financial commitment that they've made to Bill Belichick and football for next season. Mm-hmm . Duke has already been there for football and basketball. Ultimately, the way Duke does it was the way it was supposed to be initially set up. Duke has deals with Gatorade, at and t, Nike, bigger brand companies, that it's not just coming outta one person's pocket, rather it's coming from these corporations. What it's become though, like I said, is, is ultimately attacks on the fans. Melissa: But the way it's set up, it's supposed to be that the school itself, like Duke makes a deal with Gatorade. And that goes well, the collective itself. So Joe Ovies: you're, you're, you have a little bit of separation at church and state, but there, Joe Giglio: there's, there's a buffer. And then you also have you use Duke basketball as a prime example. They have a general manager. They have a general manager. Yeah, the general manager. Yeah. We didn't even get Melissa: into the whole GM talk. Yeah. So the, yeah, the, Joe Giglio: they hired a general manager. This general manager came over from Nike, was a Nike exec, and that way it facilitates and helps brand deals for say a Cooper flag. Mm-hmm . Some players come in already [00:30:00] with these brand deals ready to go, but that general manager helps. The school and the player, make sure that everybody's on the same page Cooper Flag has a deal with New Balance, the shoe company. Mm-hmm . But Duke is a Nike school. How do you balance that? That's where the general manager comes in to make sure that Cooper Flag is able to make the money he wants to make individually. Mm-hmm . And then also the school's able to make the money off the brand themselves. But to, to get back to what you were asking about, why NC State is in a position that they're in, versus Carolina, duke, et cetera. Some of it is sheer numbers. NC State doesn't have the same kind of fan base. Yeah. No doctors, no lawyers, Melissa: Excuse me. NC State, sir. NC State. NC Joe Giglio: State. NC State's biggest. Sorry. What's funny? The biggest No. Law school. No medical school. Yeah. NC State's biggest advantage for a long time before everything changed was they used to be able to get a little from a lot of people. Whereas Carolina could get a lot from an individual. Melissa: Yeah. Joe Giglio: Okay. That doctor, that lawyer that Gilio just referenced. Mm-hmm . Same with Duke. But [00:31:00] now the issue is just the overall brand and you're fighting a. Decades of Carolina basketball success and what people associate with college basketball. They think Carolina, they think Michael Jordan, they think the shorts, that stuff matters. And when you play at those places, the brands wanna associate with this iconic branding. Same with Duke. They won these national championships. If NC State didn't go through the. Title Desert for nearly 40 years. Maybe things go a little bit differently in basketball in terms of branding 'cause it's not, let's not act like NC State doesn't have an association with March Madness. I mean, they are March Madness because of Jimmy V, but when you go near nearly 40 years of not competing, then that's where you end up in the situation where it's tough for people to get behind NC State on that branding level. And that also affects NC State and what player they're able to get for their basketball program. Melissa: All right. Thank you for dumbing those down for me. . I, but honestly, I'm a little bit more confused than I started out with and I don't even, [00:32:00] I even look, don't, to be fair, Joe Giglio: I even get confused about certain stuff too. So I Melissa: don't think it's the explainer's fault. It is. It is. It is the student's fault. Joe Giglio: Yes. Melissa: Okay, we're gonna end today with an OG lightning round. So I'm gonna go OG and you guys get to, Joe Giglio: okay. Melissa: Answer my lightning round questions. Alright. Oh, what is your favorite month for sports? So not just like baseball season, is there a particular month that you love? Oh, it's March. Joe Giglio: It's always March. Okay. March hits differently here for a variety of reasons, whether it's the ACC tournament, the NCAA tournament, and you get to the final Four. And then also you have this interesting turnaround where people are starting to lock in on hockey. Yeah, they're really starting to pay attention to hockey again, and they're getting into, they're, they're getting into the anticipation of the playoffs. So March will always be my favorite month. Melissa: Okay. G, if you had to watch one sport on repeat forever, which one would you choose? Joe Ovies: Ooh, that's a really good [00:33:00] question. I only get one. Yep. I'll go basketball. Melissa: Okay. Oh, what pro sport do you wish would come to North Carolina? Raleigh in particular, but Joe Giglio: baseball, because this area still needs something to do in the summer. I do. I've always wanted to know what it's like. To be in a market where people really are obsessing over the starting rotation in the middle of July. Mm-hmm . Like that, kinda people get very opinionated about that sort of thing. Yeah. We just don't have that here. And I, I grew up playing baseball. I love baseball and I think this market actually would, would do pretty well when it comes to having a baseball team. I think Melissa: so too. Mm-hmm. And there's a lot of excitement around it, so I, I do hope it happens one day, but I would hope that baseball and people might be mad at me for saying this would not be in Raleigh. Because it's a summer sport. I love the summer in the mountains. Mm-hmm . Push it somewhere near Boish, Asheville. You would want it in Joe Giglio: Charlotte. No. No, because Melissa: they already got two teams. That's not [00:34:00] fair. Spread it out. I mean, Joe Giglio: you're, you're, you're really looking at three areas potentially. You're looking at the Charlotte area, you're looking at Greensboro. Mm-hmm . Which has long been the place that people have said That's 'cause it's centrally located. Yeah. And then here, but then of course when you say here, what exactly does that mean? 'cause I mean, there's any number of places in the triangle you might be able to put it. But I know that Tom Dunning, the northern, the Carolina Hurricanes has this group and they've I know they have plans. Mm-hmm . They have ideas of where they want to put it here in Raleigh. Yeah. If they can make it happen. So we'll see what happens. Melissa: Okay. Alright. G. Favorite tailgate food? Joe Ovies: Ooh, very. That's a really good question. See, like wings are too messy. Yeah. And then pizza doesn't really do well outside they may not be a sponsor. I won't use their proper name. I'll go with fried chicken. Melissa: Oh, I mean, I was gonna say, a Bo box is hard to beat. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Oh, favorite show on TV that is not sports related.[00:35:00] Joe Giglio: It would have to be, pick a Star Wars show on Disney Plus at this point. Okay. No, I think, honestly my, my favorite show on television right now would be. And or which is about to come out for season two, the the second. Okay. Melissa: I have not seen that. Joe Giglio: It's all tied to Star Wars. It leads up to what happened with Rogue One, which led to the Death Star plans. I'm getting really nerdy here, but the point is it's really, really well acted, well done sci-fi that happens to be Star Wars. Star Wars and or would be my answer. Melissa: I've got a couple kids who love Star Wars, so we'll, we'll definitely check that out. And final question, G One athlete past or present that you'd like to meet? Joe Ovies: We've debated this on the show because we feel like Michael Jordan and I would have gambling stories to tell. Mm-hmm . Or even gamble over who's the worst gambler. So I might go with mj, but you're giving me anyone all time. All time. I mean, babe Ruth kind of invented sports in [00:36:00] this country. Mm-hmm . Gimme George Herman Ruth. Melissa: Yeah, that would be a great one for sure. But you know, he was known Joe Ovies: to party a little bit too, so Yeah. Melissa: But you know, you could be best friends with Michael Jordan and that would be pretty cool. Joe Ovies: Who would take, but it might not last very long. Ask Charles Barkley. Joe Giglio: Yeah. . I was gonna say, because I was gonna ask a bonus question for that related to Michael Jordan, who would take losing worse. Oof. You or Jordan? Oof. Joe Ovies: Would be a toss. Melissa: So you're, you're a sore loser. Oh Joe Ovies: yes. the worst. The absolute worst. Melissa: Alright, guys, thank you so much. I wish you a lot of continued success. . You're already off to a good, a good start with winning the Reader's Choice Award for Wake Living. Joe Ovies: Yes. And we appreciate that, Rob. We appreciate you guys taking care of us. Melissa: You got some loyal fans Joe Ovies: and we love them for that. Melissa: All right. Thanks guys. [00:37:00]