CHUCK KLOSTERMAN Talks Football, Violence, American Identity

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Well, no signups, no subscriptions, no learning curve. Just visit Duck.ai and start chatting. DuckDuckGo has been protecting privacy online since 2008, raising the standard for trust on the internet. Duck.ai lets you use popular AI chat tools privately, and it's free. If you want to use AI without giving up your privacy, visit Duck.ai slash Adam Friedland today. That's Duck.ai slash Adam Friedland, a private way to chat with AI from DuckDuckGo, where AI is always optional and private. This time of year, I'm trying to stay consistent with eating well, but between work, workouts, commuting, cooking isn't just happening. Tempo gives me fresh, balanced meals ready in two minutes so I can eat the way I want without losing time. Folks, Tempo delivers fresh, chef-crafted, dietician-approved meals right to your door. where each meal is perfectly portioned for lunch or dinner, and ready in just two minutes. That means real food, real fast, without the sad desk lunch or drive-through regret. 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He wrote a book on football. I know. I know. This is going to be... You don't even know who Cletus is. I am. That's right. You're talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could have consulted with me. You should have had a whole damn chapter on this. I thought you were talking about the Simpsons character for a second. I believe his name is Cletus. And if his name isn't Cletus, I'm going to be really embarrassed. Can someone look that up? It's Cletus? Dominated once again. Clip that. Yes. Clip that. Clip that. Oh, it's Adam Friedland Show on my TV. Hello and welcome back to the Adam Friedland Show. I'm Adam Friedland. First off, I'm doing Helium Comedy Club February 19th to the 21st. And also, I will be in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater May 9th. Here's a link in the description. There is, there's a, there's a link. It's a different word. There is a link in the description. There is a link in the description for tickets. For tickets. That's fine. I'd like to thank our members for supporting us here on YouTube.com as always. You guys are the ones that make the show possible. You keep the lights on. And if you'd like to join at the second or third tiers, you can get your name in the credits of this fine program. Click join at the top of the page or click the link in the description below. And there's also a link for a Patreon if you prefer Patreon. merch is available the out of freelance show check it out my guest this week is American author Chuck Klosterman Chuck is known as one of the country's premier cultural critics tackling any and all facets of pop culture through his writing for the last 30 years his newest book football is about exactly that football the games past present and future it's a perceptive look into what entices us about the uniquely American sport and it's on the shelves now so Check it out, football. We've got the big game coming up. Might want to read it before then so you can understand the big game. Now before we begin, I'd like to introduce a new segment called My Two Cents. Where I give my two cents on topics of the day. Today, in honor of our guest, here's my two cents on football. Like Chuck Klosserman, I'm a football fan. Or at least I was up until they started doing that so-called dancing in the end zone. If I wanted to see that garbage, I'd stay up past 10 p.m. and turn on VH. VH1 or... Right. Whatever happened to scoring a touchdown politely, handing the ball over to the official, saying thank you for being you, go you, that's what I would say. Go you. Getting back to doing your job. And if you want to celebrate with your win with a dance, we could just please keep it classy. Instead of the jerk or the soldier boy dance, How about the Foxtrot, the Bolero, the Viennese Waltz? But hey, that's just my two cents. Please welcome. Please enjoy. Chuck Klosterman. I like that. Our next guest is the writer Chuck Klosterman. His new book, Football, is out now. Everyone, check it out. Everyone, Chuck Klosterman. What's up, dude? Hey. I'm really excited. Well, it's great to be here. I appreciate you having me on. I guess I was a bit nervous because, you know, I've seen clips from your show where the subject comes across as a moron, but that's not your fault. I try to be the moron. Well, the straight moron or the straight man, yeah. Certainly not. Certainly not straight. Don't tell the family, Ollie. My girlfriend's cousin is doing sound. This is not making the episode. I'm a big fan. I used to read you from the time I was like, I think late high school. I know, it's weird to hear that, but I understand it. Yeah, it was like, I think the way I found out about cool things, because it was prior to like Spotify or whatever, I'd like go to like Barnes & Noble and like open up Spin Magazine. I'd write names of bands, and then I'd download them on Kazaa. And through that process, I became familiar with you. Well, when I was at Spin, it was the early 2002 to 2006, and it was strange because the perception at the time then is like the cool part of Spin was over. Everyone believed that had happened in the 90s, but I guess then when we left, 10 years moved on and people said the same thing about our little period. Yeah, I remember I read your books and I thought it made me feel cool, I think. But for the audience and the people that don't know you, effectively what you kind of write about is kind of, it is the nonsense that me and my friends spend hours over. Like, you know, what would have happened if Drew Bledsoe didn't get hurt. You know, like speculative kind of. But then the intersection with that and culture, I suppose, yeah. Well, it just seems completely unmeaningful now. The idea of writing about culture seems very common. It was less common in, like, book form when I first started publishing. It was seen as sort of this strange, gimmicky, novelty thing, and now it's, like, it's not weird at all. Yeah, I think for me it was, like, David Foster Wallace and you. I mean, those were the two guys that were writing about, like... Yeah, the cheaper version, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, really? Oh, for sure. I thought pretty equal, actually. Were you guys, like, did you know him? Never met him. Never met him. Never met him. Do you think he would have been mean, do you think? No, I don't think he would have... What they always say about him is that he was very kind. That doesn't necessarily mean he was nice. But everyone had always said that, at least outwardly, he was over-the-top kind, that it was rare that someone had an encounter with him that was negative. Although now there's a biography about him and completely changes the way that everyone... That he stalked that lady. Yes. And the one thing that's a little disenchanting is... I mean, he was probably the last writer who really did sort of influence me. Like, in that I would read this and I was like, I wonder if I could do something like that. And I feel like you become a writer when you stop that. But the thing that was kind of a bummer is it sounds like the most interesting things from his nonfiction work were the parts that he made up. Yeah. And that was, because those are the things that are so memorable. Like, he wrote this very famous essay about going on a cruise ship. Of course. And there's one section there where he's playing chess against some random little kid. And it's an amazing passage. And he's memorizing these moves and all these things. And maybe it turns out that didn't happen. So the thing I remember most is the thing he added. But that's creative nonfiction, I guess. Two things that that reminds me of. One is, did you see the last Scorsese-Dillon documentary, The Rolling Thunder? Oh, that one. Yeah, the fake documentary. So yeah, it was like half fake, which kind of made it like, but there was something about it that was true, you know what I mean? Like, because it was half fake, like narratively, it's like we buy, basically, when I learned about Bob Dylan or the Beatles, it's like looking at a picture of your parents before you were born, right? It's not real. Like, you weren't there, right? You create a story, right? And that's what I found to be the brilliant thing about that. What I wondered about that film was if someone liked Bob Dylan but knew nothing about the movie, so they just came into it cold, I wonder at what point in the movie they would have been like, oh yeah, this couldn't have happened. Because if there's one, you know, he wore like white kind of pancake makeup for a while. And in the movie he's saying like, this girl went and saw Kiss and she came back and told me about it. And then Bob Dylan has written with Gene Simmons. They have some relationships. I was like, could it be? I knew going in though that this wasn't all real. But I was thinking about myself. When would I have figured this out? I think people probably would have bought it. Because it was presented as a documentary. It is. And people know Bob Dylan's real. And also, it doesn't matter at a certain point, right? It doesn't. Well, I mean, I think Dylan would say it absolutely doesn't. That he would probably argue that whatever myth you project on him is the most important thing about his identity, outside of the music. Yeah, yeah. Have you seen that film, I'm Still Here, with Joaquin Phoenix? That's one of my top five favorite movies ever, actually. Basically, it's this documentary that you later find out was kind of a project that Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck were doing for a year, which is he presented that he was going crazy and wanted to be a rapper, and he went on Letterman famously. That was the big thing. It was almost like the promotion for that movie was as important as the film. Right. And what you find at the end, there's like, he goes to Costa Rica or something. Or like, I forget. He goes to some place where his father lives. He's in a rainforest and he goes in this lake. And there's this baptismal kind of scene at the end. But you realize this man is exhausted. it. Like it doesn't matter if it's fake or if it's real because it happened. Right. Like, and kind of that blurring, I'm like, oh, that's what art is, you know? And like that's, it kind of like made a huge impression on me shortly after I was probably reading stuff written by you. What's interesting about that though is because of when it happened, you know, in the 21st century, as opposed to happening in the seventies, there's almost an assumption there had to have been from them that of course people are going to realize that this isn't real. where there was a time when you could have done something like that and the artifact would just be what it is. And people would say, is this real? Is it not real? I don't know if they were like steering into the fact that we can do this because eventually people will know or if that was the last attempt to legitimately fool people into thinking something false is actual. I mean, I would guess that there were some people, when Spinal Tap came up, They might have watched the first few minutes of it, especially when they're talking to the people in the crowd shots. They might be like, well, I just never heard of this band. The band Anvil had a documentary, and people wondered, is this real or false? It's an amazing documentary, Anvil. And is real. And I will say, when I was a little kid, I thought Spinal Tap was real. Did you? I thought it was a real band. What age did you see it at? Maybe five. Wow. Yeah. Because I saw it when I was a junior in high school. Exactly, yeah. It must have been like 93. Why were you watching this is Spinal Tap at 5? My parents let me watch anything. They covered my eyes for the sex parts, though. Well, there's no sex in that. In any movie. They covered my eyes for sex and let me watch violence. So what was the most insane thing you saw at the earliest age? Like, would they let you watch 9 and a half weeks or something when you were a kid? Or like Faces of Death, were you watching that at 7? No, I wasn't watching like fucking... Yeah, yeah. I wasn't watching Red Asphalt, the Driver's Head movie. You remember that? You remember the Driver's Head movie? You're like, Last House on the Left. You're like, oh, he'll love this. He'll teach you about neighborhoods. I was watching mainly just like this, your neck snap. I was watching a lot of Dolph Lundgren, John Claude Van Damme. Sure. Schwarzenegger, Stallone. Yeah, I was watching all. I watched all of those movies with my dad. A lot of the, like, secure the perimeter. Yeah, lock it down. Like, a lot of that. And then a guy's neck gets snapped. But I think, this is kind of like a tangent, but I think because they covered my eyes for the sex and let me watch all the killing, I think killing, I didn't want to do it because it wasn't a taboo. But sex, I was like, I wanted to do sex because it was against the, you know. It is a common thing you'll hear people say. It's like, you'll be like, oh, it's crazy. You know, we'll let kids watch violence, but we won't let them watch sex. But actually, it actually makes sense. Because the fact of the matter is, people are going to encounter sex in their life. And if they watch a film version or pornography or whatever these things are, an early age is going to warp their perception of this thing that's actually going to happen to them. They're probably not going to encounter a mass shooting. And if they do, I would almost want my kid desensitized to it. I would rather have him be able to be like, I understand that this can exist in the world. It does seem weird to demonize sex more than violence. But the fact of the matter is, sex is something that's part of the average person's life. Violence is not. One time a guy did a splits and then punched me, and I was like, I'm desensitized. Yeah, I was comfortable with that. You knew it could happen. You knew it could happen. I'd seen him do the splits and punch a guy, so I was like, this is... Finally, it's... I mean, if there ever was... It's happening. If there ever was a zombie apocalypse, there are plenty of people ready for that. Like, they have learned what to do. Like, where to shoot it. Those are some of the worst people in society. The ones with the sticker that like zombie defense unit are like on their car. Those are the worst guys. Well them and Patriots fans I guess. Okay. Let's get to you. Because going back to the David Foster Wallace thing, you guys were both kind of doing this social criticism I guess. What would you, how would you describe like kind of what you've made your bread and butter doing? Well, you know, he would have said that he was a novelist, and he also did nonfiction. It was kind of journalism, and it was kind of cultural criticism. His journalism was really essayistic or whatever. I suppose for me, like, I worked at newspapers for about eight years, and it was very, like, I loved the job, you know, but it was limiting. And I wanted to be able to do things outside of that, and I was like, the only way to do that is books, because I wanted to sort of write about things in a way that, I don't know, was more kind of entertaining, interesting in a different way. So I suppose it's cultural criticism. Do you think a girl has ever read one of your things? Ever? Yeah, yeah. Probably. It's got to be like maybe like triple digits. It's a little bit like being in Rush. I think it's for us. Yeah, where it's like it was. But I will, you know, this was a bit, you know, I wrote this first book, Fargo Rock City, and it was just about listening to hair metal in the Midwest. I would do book readings and like 14 people would show up and they were all exactly like me. I mean, exactly. Like they looked like me. And then I wrote Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and the biggest change about that is that book readings, there were suddenly knowing more people, but like a third of them were women. That was very surprising. Nice. You think because of sex, you put sex in the stuff? Well, no, I think I talk about John Cusack in that book. I don't know. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure how, why. You know, and then, and now it's like, Kenny, your career goes up and now I'm kind of on the other side again, sort of moving. I assume by the end, like the last time I write a book, it'll be like the first one where like 14 people exactly like me will show up. Yeah, that's kind of beautiful. It is. That's how it is. That's how it goes forever. It's a rise and fall. Yeah, yeah. You got to expect it. It's kind of what life is, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the book is football. I think it's for women. Yeah. it's great for your book club it's been compared to the to the gay hockey Netflix show a lot yes I'm hearing that everywhere you have the QB1 and of course the center it's right there it was right there the whole time you know guys how were you the first guy to realize that there could be something between a center and a corner I'm sorry, I have the brain of a one-year-old. I literally have a baby. That would be good material for a one-year-old. Okay, going back to the DFW thing, though, you guys, I mean, he's from Champaign-Urbana, right? You're from North Dakota, right? Do you think, coming from a place like, you're from North Dakota, like, I never think of North Dakota, does it make it easier for you to be an observer of culture, right? Well, I'd say the main thing is it makes me in a better position to do criticism about mass culture because that was the only culture that gets to a place where I was from. Yeah. I mean, I've mentioned this before, but that John Cougar Mellencamp song, Small Town, I assumed he was talking about my town with 500 people. Turns out he's talking about Bloomington, Indiana, which to me would have seemed like a big place. Like, I didn't recognize how bizarre where I came from was to most of the country, particularly until I moved to New York and I would be talking about my hometown and people would ask me questions like, did you grow up in Russia? Did you grow up in the Depression? I know that that's in America, actually. Those people are idiots. What people? North Dakota. The people that think that's Russia. Well, it would be more the description of what, like, I would describe how a wedding would work in our town and people would be like, it would seem like something that you would read in a Russian novel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the entire town get to go to the reception and they would drive the fire trucks out of the fire hall. That's where the dance was. The families supplied all the booze and the sandwiches and anyone could come. It was just a totally different thing. Did you say the first and the last name like a Russian novel? Were you like, Bob Lundrigan? You know how they say both? Yes. Yeah. I mean, some people just go by both names. I feel like you're somebody. I feel like people refer to you by both your names. And sometimes people just refer to me by my first name, which is, I always think, surprising. People who don't know me. People say Adam Friedland to me? Yeah. That's how, I mean, if I said just your last name to someone that was going on your podcast, I'm not sure they would know who it was. And if I said both names, they usually do. Is that good? I don't know. You're one of my heroes now. Now you're making me self-conscious. Why would you be self-conscious about that? Well, I know what it's like. Why would that make you self-conscious? I know what it's like where you grew up, dude. You do? Yeah, there's a guy, obviously, that's in Minneapolis, and he works at a car dealership, right? That his father-in-law owns, right? And he's been, you know, am I on to something here? You know a guy in Minneapolis? Yeah. Are you describing the plot of Fargo or something? Yeah, it's okay. So you grew up playing football, though, right? Was it because you were just one of the, there was not enough? Well, I mean, in truth, probably, yeah. Were you wearing glasses under the helmet? Contacts then. Contacts, nice. I wore contacts in high school. Because you were a popular kid. I was 23 kids in my class, so it was like the difference between the most popular kid and the least popular kid was not that big of a casual. So the girls had to play football too? No, no girls. Because in North Dakota, girls basketball happened during the fall. They happened at the same time, those seasons. Really? But it also was the 80s. It was nine on nine, correct? We played nine man, yeah. Right, because why? Because it wasn't enough guys? Yeah, I mean, that's like in small, in some states, you know, like in Texas, they have six man. In Wyoming, they play eight man. But we played nine man. So it's like on offense, you remove the offensive tackles. On defense, you remove the cornerbacks. And then you try to play football as close to the conventional way with those, you know. And all the teams use two tight ends, basically, so it's still a five man line. If you were watching a nine-man game, it would take you a while, I think, before you realize there's something wrong here. Did kids try to go Brett Favre Lambeau no sleeve? Sometimes, yeah. It had to suck. Well, it was cold, sure. Did you have those heat blaster things? Are you kidding me? What the hell are you doing out there? Your parents let you? What do you mean? I don't want you out there in the cold like that. That's not how it was where I grew up. That was not, there was, I can't remember. I mean, we, I remember that like they would, they canceled school for two days one time because the wind chill was going to be 85 below. So they canceled school on Thursday and Friday. And almost everybody was upset. Every parent was upset. All the teachers were upset. Some of the kids were like, this is crazy. And then we still played our basketball game that weekend. Like we still came into town for that, you know. Wait, so, wait, because everyone loved school so much? No, it was just the idea. It wasn't that we loved school, but it just seemed absurd. Why didn't you move to Arizona? This is ridiculous, you people up there. Well, that's a, you know. It's ridiculous, and they have two senators? Don't get me started on North Dakota. Are you going to abolish the Senate guy? I mean, it doesn't make sense. I didn't mean to bring that up, but yeah, it doesn't make sense. Well, it depends how you look at it. I mean, in a way. Well, yeah, I mean, like, God forbid we let, I don't know, like minorities vote or something. That's what the Senate was there for. Well, it just... Well, okay. Well, let's talk about sports, brother. Let's talk about sports. Okay. Yeah, but you were on a farm. You had youngest of seven siblings? Correct. Really? What kind of farm was it? A snow farm? Yes, we raised snow by the bushel. You know, for snow cones. Yeah, well, when I was a real little guy, it was like wheat, and we had dairy cattle. Then we got rid of the dairy cattle right before that became lucrative and went into beef cattle and did that until that got, and just before that got lucrative, we sold all those. My dad wasn't always the greatest businessman. And by the end, it was just what was considered row crops. Corn, beans, things that are grown in a row, and we didn't have animals anymore. And then my brother took over the farm, and then now he's retired, and now it's out of the hands, out of the family. You guys sold the farm? Yep, sold the farm. How did it feel to sell the farm? It's time. It was time to sell the farm. I remember my family, too. When you sold the farm? Yeah, we sold the farm. You said you're from the southwest? Yeah, I'm from Las Vegas. You're from Las Vegas. Actually from Las Vegas. I grew up in, yeah, we moved there when I was first grade. But your postal address was Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. What was that like? You and Jimmy Kimmel were the only people. Boring? Boring, yeah, yeah. It was well A it was the fastest growing city in America at the time like White Flight America so everyone was from somewhere else Tracked housing kind of like looked like that show Weeds Have you seen the show Weeds All the houses looked the same. So were you there like during like the UNLV basketball period? Or was that... I was there. The TARC years were like right... Like, I guess as we were moving there, like maybe right before. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like our age difference... I was there for Sean Marion. Sean Marion. So yeah, I used to go watch UNLV. Because if we're just talking, it feels like we're the same age. But if we talk about the past, it won't be that way. Well, I mean, we're both old souls, you know? We love rootin' tootin' football. We love, you know. No, I guess, yeah, that was like, I guess to segue, I think to put in context, like if we're talking about things happening right now, the national championship is happening tonight. Tonight, yes. Are you excited? You're excited. You're like a... And John Cougar Mellencamp... He'll be more excited than me. He has a little place to watch the games at Indiana Stadium. His own little cabin on top of the stadium. So historically, we have this team, Indiana, which was historically just... They're supposed to lose. They're historically the worst program in college football history. It's kind of a tradition as it is that LSU is good or something. or like, you know, Ohio State is good. But even more so because like, you know, Alabama and these schools, Texas, they have down years. There was no up years for Indiana at any point. Yeah. You know, I mean, they had years where they weren't terrible. That was the highest they ever ascended to. And so I'll let you run with it. But like, how would you characterize their rise in the last two years? Like, related to the NIL, of course, and the transfer portal and like. Well, you know, when that all came into being, when the NIL stuff happened and the Portal stuff happened, I think everybody who followed college football was like, well, it's some team that we've never really expected to be dominant is going to take advantage of this and rise up. And I think people thought like, oh, maybe it'll be a school like Liberty or maybe it'll be, you know, it'll be a school like Oregon or I guess it'll have been good or whatever. No one thought it would be Indiana. I mean, their coach just understands this stuff more deftly than anybody else. He's a good coach anyways. He would be a good coach in the old style. But he's really great at this. I mean, he just, you know, he came from James Madison, and he took the best guys from there. He built that, you know, that was like a subdivision program, and they moved up, and then he brought them all over. He just really knows what he's doing. And he somehow is able to be both things. Like, he's both this very modern, sophisticated evaluator of talent who understands that everything has changed. but he seems to coach the guys in the traditional way. With Bob Knight, like tough, bare Brian. Yeah, maybe not to that level, but close, yes. I mean, Nick Saban, he came from that coaching tree. Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, tonight we're going to see some 23, 24-year-olds. I think the average age for Indiana is like 23 and a half. Yeah. Let's get into your book, and we're going to go back to the NIL and the college stuff. And like your book posits that probably in 50 years you don't think football will be a relic. It won't be extinct. It'll kind of be like, I don't know, marching band music. It'll be like John Philip Sousa. Yeah, yeah. It'll be like something from the olden days, right? Well, I have a suspicion that it will be like a niche interest, yes. It won't be the sense. Like right now, like everyone's like there's no more monoculture except for football and Taylor Swift. And I think in 50 or 60 years, I don't think even football will have that role. I don't think it's possible. And I know it seems crazy. Like, everybody, when I get interviewed for this book, everybody wants to talk about that last chapter. And I understand why. Because it seems extremely counterintuitive. It seems more likely that football would actually swallow up every other sport in America. And it would be the only sport anyone cares about. But I don't think it'll happen. I mean, I'll be dead. I'll never be able to be proven wrong if I am. So right now, 2026, it's incredibly popular. It's the most popular thing. You cite this statistic that 93 of the top 100 highest rated programs, was it last year? 2023 it was. 23. It went down a little bit in 2024 because of the election, but still, it was still in the, I believe, in the high 80s or 90s. Yeah. And then there were like four more that were college games. College games, yeah. So one thing that kind of made me realize is like probably it's a product of how we consume content these days. Like the Survivor finale probably would have been on that list like 25 years ago, right? There's no live events. Oh, you're saying like the first season of Survivor? Yeah, yeah. Or like the American Idol finale. There are no events anymore other than kind of football, right? Like, these are the things that we consume live still. We'll, like, go on streaming and we'll binge, like, a show or something. But, like, these are the things that, like, collectively Americans will sit down and watch together. Yes, but even, like, when you look at other countries, you would think that there would be kind of a similar phenomenon, and it's not this dramatic. Yeah, yeah. It is like the dominance of football in the United States now is it's like it's actually like an underrated phenomenon. It defies logic in so many ways. You know, it's interesting because I remember 10 years ago in the last 10 years, there were a couple of moments where I'm like, this is just isn't going to like continue. And first was the concussion like thing. But I mean, we've seen shocking things happen. Like, you see Sandy Hook happen, and then they don't bang guns. Like, we saw Junior Seau. For me, like, when I was a kid, I used to get SI for kids. And I remember, like, the two, like, guys that would always be in SI for kids were Grant Hill and Junior Seau. Yeah, well, SI for kids really cared about the NFL man of the year. Yeah, yeah. To that, that was bigger than the MVP. Man, you know, it was like, oh, look, he's a good person as well. You know, that's, I mean, there was a guy for the Bears who committed suicide, and he shot himself in the chest and he specifically left a note so you can study my brain. I thought Junior Seau did that as well. He killed himself. I think you did the same thing. They were able to look at it. I don't know. I didn't see the autopsy. We've had these shocking events happen. This cannot continue. That conversation was much more prevalent 10 years ago than it is now. Part of the reason, the NFL did something very brilliant, I guess arguably diabolicals, anytime there was somebody who came out and was like, I'm a scientist, I have troubling information about this, they were like, we're going to hire you to help. So that's the smartest thing you can do. Like an oil company. Yes, yeah. And then also the other thing I want to bring up was Kaepernick. I remember I was like, this is terrible PR for the NFL. This doesn't look good. We saw this guy in the fucking Super Bowl. I totally agree with you when you say it's like bad PR, but this is also what sort of sets football apart from all these other things, is that people actually care about the thing. Like bad PR for baseball and hockey and NBA, that is meaningful. It doesn't really matter what happens in the world outside of football coverage because people actually care about the product. But, you know, whenever people talk about sports in general and, you know, they're saying like, well, you know, the NBA, they're really great at sort of marketing these guys. And you can see them and like, you know, like the 20 most famous NBA guys are certainly more famous than the 20 most famous non-quarterbacks. Yeah. You know, and, you know, in baseball, they're like, you know, can we get Otani to be a personality? But that's a mistake. It's a mistake to build your thing around the individual because feelings about them change and the individuals change. football by having this almost faceless automaton world where we're just like watching this simulation of warfare or whatever with just a clash of colors. That's what people like and that's why it doesn't really, all these other things don't damage it the way they would damage other, like, like, you know, boxing was damaged by the perception of violence to it. Football was not damaged by the perception of violence in it. It's kind of bullshit like that they have analysts that are offensive linemen, right? I said this to Nick Wright. Like, I don't want to see you unless you did awesome things like sacks or touchdowns. Why would you say that? I don't care what Jeff Saturday has to say about a game. I want to see some guy that just used to slang it, used to dunk. So Gary Danielson was a great analyst for a bunch of years. Don't care. Yeah, so you'd rather see Tom Brady. You rarely see Tom Brady because he was better on the field. That makes no sense. Yeah, Tom Terrific, of course, yeah. I don't care. I don't want to see the big old guys. Maybe it's just they're not my taste. It's a taste thing But they're talking now You're not looking at it Blah blah blah Okay How about Greg Olson You like Greg Olson He was tight end Yeah he was Because only Because of that rap song He made at the University of Miami I know what you're referring to It's a good song Well it is It's a good song You guys Ollie Added a new idea Ollie have you heard that song Yeah The 7th Floor Crew Oh my god After the show I'm going to tell you What did he call himself Well Let's look it up right now He discusses his third leg, I believe, in this song. It's very funny. He used to rap with his teammates when he was at Miami. They got him in big trouble. And then he said he got G-Reg, did he call him his name? I can't recall the exact answer. I got a third leg. If I named G-Reg and I got a third leg. That's very interesting. Do you think the third leg helped him at the Carolina Panthers? He made him a more charismatic, confident guy, I suppose. And that probably transferred over into the field. So let's zoom out again. Tell us the story of football. Just tell us like, no, no, seriously. I know. Because it's this ridiculous thing. Okay, but here's how I see it. It's this ridiculous thing where you see these, first of all, they're mushing, right? And you can tell these guys are just mushing their heads, right? And then you've got the big guys mushing their heads. Then you have this whole like arcane set of like tort law, right? Where like they have to go and like. Hyper complicated, yes, yes. I don't know, read the fucking Federalist papers to understand. Well, that's good for them, though. It's good to have a good understanding. I mean, that's valuable. Did he break the plane? Okay, how do you feel about this? Then they have a chain. They literally have two flags and a chain that they have to bring out. And they have the guy come out on the chain. Catches football in the physical world. That's good. And then they have, you know, okay. So the origin, like, okay, you know what the believed origin of American football is? And it's a pig. They're throwing a pig at each other. His skin. Yeah, yeah. The belief that it's hard to verify this, but kind of the consensus about the origin of football was after the Civil War, there was this belief that young men were no longer going to face conflict. They were not going to be involved. Yes. And it was going to soften society. So they were like, we need to find some surrogate for going to war and watching all your friends die or whatever. So they invent the sport of football. They kind of create this game. And then it evolves sort of in a way. It evolves for 70 or 80 years. And it kind of intersects with television and ends up becoming the thing that we think of now. But that is kind of believed to be the origin of the game. It literally was supposed to simulate the experience of going to war for young men. And who was the first modern football player? You say Jim Thorpe, right? Well, no, no. The first modern football player, that's a really hard question. because I suppose in some ways it was Jim Brown. Yeah. In terms of he's probably the person you can go back the furthest and make a real argument that if we literally transported him, like just in a time machine or whatever, he might be able to still play. I mean, in some ways, like Johnny Unitas and Sammy Baugh were the first sort of modern quarterbacks, but it's a hard question because the modern version of football, I mean, no sport adopts technology and modernity as much. So it's much different than, say, baseball, where the way baseball was played by Babe Ruth actually is not totally unlike the way it's played now. Yeah, yeah. And so in terms of its popularity, how did that evolve over time, especially in the last 30 years? Well, it was already the most popular sport in the country in the 70s, but it wasn't perceived that way because it was still like baseball's the national pastime. But already by then, people cared about football more because of the television experience. You know, and I mean, it's just, it's like almost the perfect marriage of these two things. Football is the ideal product to show on television. Nobody would, no one could have obviously anticipated that from football's side or television's side. Yeah. And how much do you attribute, like, it's like success on television to Cletus? What? Cletus. Cletus? He's the robot that plays electric guitar. Oh, yeah. Well, I think that widened sort of its popularity among mechanical prog rock fans. Yeah, yeah. And there was a segment of the audience that was maybe underserved. Who at Fox came up with that? I don't know. The CGI electric, because it's awesome when you see it. Yeah, it obviously worked. I mean, you know his name. It's like, how do you know his name? Because I like sports. Yeah, I know, but how do you, where did it, where is that, I mean, I like sports, but You see him getting defensive? He wrote a book on football. I know. I know. This is going to be... You guys even know who Cletus is? I am. That's right. You're tight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could have consulted with me. You should have had a whole damn chapter on this. I thought you were talking about the Simpsons character for a second. I believe his name is Cletus. And if his name isn't Cletus, I'm going to be really embarrassed. Because I'm going to look that up. It's Cletus? You've got a fast team here. Dude, dominated once again. Flip that. Yes. Flip that. Put that out. Put that out. Sales are going down to zero, Penguin. By the way, it was this proliferation on television, right? Like TV rights deals kind of like proliferated football in a way that like... Well, yes. I mean, but also, you know, football is different in the sense that they have this real strict salary cap and no guaranteed contract. So as the money is inflated in all these sports, football has been able to almost benefit more because they don't have to pay as much to the talent. It seems kind of satanic a little bit, no? Well, I mean, yeah. You're mushing your brain for two seasons, and then you shoot yourself in the chest. But at the same time, the NFL is probably the greatest example of successful socialism in the United States, so you should be into that. Is it? Well, I mean, they do all revenue sharing. They sort of invented that. Pete Rozelle said, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. And none of the big markets wanted to do it. And he's like, it's going to happen. And that's why every six years, or eight years, or whatever it is, the likelihood that some random franchise will be good again keeps happening. But, like, it's not fair. If you sign a contract and then, like, they're like, oh, it's over. You mushed your brain too much. So what would be fair? I'm not saying I disagree with you. If a company that's making the most money, kind of, like, there's remuneration for mushing your brain. Well, if you're saying that the NFL should definitely pay for the guys at CTI, sure, sure. They stand by a contract that you've signed. Yes, yes. I mean, I think it's cool that Bobby Bonilla gets a million dollars every year. It is a cool fact. Everyone loves to mention that. That comes up every year. I think it's cool. I just think, fuck the mess. Whatever. Give him a million dollars. Yeah, I guess it's like there is an aspect about how it's better on TV. Like baseball is a sport that's better live. Well, it can be both. If you're in a nice ballpark on a nice day, it absolutely is better live. There's no question. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's, you know, especially the way they've changed the way baseball is broadcast now, it has become, again, a good thing to watch on TV. I mean, like, basketball games, if you're courtside, it's awesome. If you're in the rafters, it's bad. The best shot, actually, the best place to sit is really where the camera is for the show. Yeah. Hockey's better live. That's the only sport that's obviously better live. You can't follow the fucking puck when you're watching on TV. So you can't, most sports try to transfer the live experience to television, and you can't transfer the feeling of guys hitting the plexiglass. But football doesn't try to do that. The live experience of watching football and the televised experience have no relationship. Yeah. American culture is awesome. Like, if you go to the middle of nowhere, people know who Mickey Mouse is, right? American monoculture has proliferated. Like, if you listen to the Rolling Stones, like, mix singing in an American accent, right? Yep. For sure. We're so powerful, especially in the 20th century onwards, as a cultural exporter. Why is this the one thing that—it's such an outlier because it's the one thing that hasn't proliferated, yet somehow it's the most fucking popular thing that we have going on here. Well, I mean, that's actually a really good question. You know, I think it probably is that football is almost, as you stated, unnecessarily complex, right? It's a hard thing. Like, you can't just get 22 guys together and play a football game. Like, you can, but it's not going to be anything like what football actually is. It took basketball a long time. And if it hadn't been for, you know, the original dream team, I think that a lot of these countries would still be probably 40 years behind us in basketball. It takes a long time for people to watch a sport, implement it, and also implement it for kids. Because, you know, football really isn't a great game to suddenly start playing when you're 19. And you need that kind of infrastructure. And I also think that, I think probably, you know, it's popular in Germany. It's not really, though. Well, I mean, not popular. The Rhine fire. But what I'm saying is I taught in a couple. Do they still have NFL Europe? Well, I don't think, no. The London Dragons? Yeah, yeah. Or the Barcelona Dragons. The Barcelona Dragons, yeah. I taught a semester of school in Leipzig, Germany, in like 2008. And I was surprised how much awareness of American football was there. But, you know, at the same time, I think that, you know, when people, you say how American culture is just a wonderful thing. And, you know, as Americans, we can feel that way. But I think for a lot of other countries, they see it as sort of oppressive. in football represents the one thing they were able to stay off. I remember when I was teaching this class and all the kids were always like, America has no culture. That was their big thing. And I'd be like, well, all you guys love hip-hop. And they're like, well, that's an immigrant culture. And I was like, well, really? No, it's not immigrants. It's people that have been here for 400 years. I just thought it was a very funny perception of what they thought of hip-hop. Well, they were immigrants 400 years ago during the slave trade, but yeah. No, I I guess it's, yeah, but it is weird, isn't it? It is. It's surprising. Why are the Beatles like... Well, they're from England. No, no, no, but why are the Beatles hearing old rock and roll records, right? Or the Chuck Berry records, you're saying. Yeah, yeah, or Muddy Waters records, and then giving us back our culture in a new, exciting way. That cultural exchange has always been fascinating. Why are you going to Tokyo, and you see American culture everywhere, but it's like they've advanced it and like you know just fashion wise or whatever like they've taken our culture and they're obsessed with our culture and then they've enhanced it you feel that way about film do you feel that the best films are now made outside of the United States no I'm not that kind of guy no no there are great films made outside of the United States but I I don't I think because rock music is the clearest example yeah we're that you know and there are other examples you know of it can you describe kind of like briefly like how see the decline working the next 50 years yeah I mean it's it's hard to do it briefly because like yeah obviously it's a long section of that book and if I describe it briefly it's gonna seem like too simple but like I think that the that there's gonna be this kind of this cultural shift where people have less of a interpersonal relationship to football outside of it as an entertainment like a distracting kind of entertainment like they won't have played their father won't have played Maybe even their grandfather. Maybe they didn't know anyone in high school who was on the football team or whatever. They just see it as this thing that's on Saturdays and Sundays and Monday night and Thursday, and they watch it sort of to kill time. So they'll still like it. It will still be very popular because it's kind of a tautological thing now. Football is what you watch on Sunday, so that's what you do on Sunday. But it won't mean as much. And I think that the economics of advertising are going to change in 50 or 60 years. and suddenly these huge deals that, it's not that they're going to disappear entirely, but these huge deals that Fox gives or Amazon Prime gives or whatever, the number won't go up. The number will either stay the same or go down at some new contract. But the players are being like, we're not going to take a reduction in salary. The league will be like, what are we going to do? Go to 22 games? There'll be a big work stoppage. And what will be different about this future work stoppage is that people won't miss it the way they would now. I mean, there were strikes, NFL strikes in the 1980s. And people were very, you know, they cared a lot. They were like, we've got to get these games back. If that happened now, it would be like a catastrophe. People would be like, what am I going to bet on? What's my life like now? But I don't think, like two generations removed, I don't think that relationship will still exist. It'll still be this popular thing. But a distraction can be replaced. And football is like, it's not one of these things where it's too big to fail. It's too big to stop. COVID was a great example of this when they had to play those games. That's when you really recognize Major League Baseball and the NBA had to go to the bubble and all these things. These leagues could not... They kind of tried to position it almost as if, well, people are stuck at home. The fans need this. We need this. But that wasn't... I mean, the Big Ten was not having classes, but they were still having their football games. They had to do it. And that showed the fragility. As the culture changes, it's the big things that can adjust. The small things are flexible. What games were you getting in the 80s? I wasn't alive. Were you getting 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and then Sunday night football? Okay, first of all, it was college football. There was one game a week, which was bizarre. Sometimes two, but usually just there would be one game on Saturday. The last time there was a work stoppage, I mean. Oh, during the work stoppage? Yeah, yeah. Was there? Was there that 10 hours on a Sunday? No, no, no, no. So they didn't have that. There was, most of the teams played at, I guess it would be like 1 o'clock Eastern, 12 Central or whatever. Yeah. There would be a few sort of national games at, for me, 3 o'clock. Usually the Cowboys, if it was an AFC game, it would be like the Broncos or a West Coast team. There would be the Monday night game. There would be games on Thanksgiving and the occasional Thursday. But for me, as a kid, in the 80s, I would watch, the Vikings were the local team. I'd then watch the national game. And then I'd get to see half of the Monday night game and then have to go to bed. So everything, it was like, it was a, and you know, it's a strange thing. It was like, now there's almost this assumption that if you say you're a football fan, you're supposed to have watched every game. You're supposed to have seen everything and know everything that's going on. that pressure didn't even exist for journalists. It used to always be a big controversy that somebody would win the Heisman Trophy and they'd be like, well, it should have been a guy from the Pac-10 or the Pac-12, but none of these media guys watch the Pac-12 game. It's too late or whatever. That'd be unthinkable now. It would be unthinkable for someone to say, well, I voted for the Heisman and I voted for a guy from Florida because I can't stay up for those West Coast games. But that was a totally normal thing. That conversation came up anytime Like, you know, like Herschel Walker won the Heisman over John Elway. Many people said it was because, well, nobody sees Stanford play. They play, you know what I'm saying? The same thing has happened actually in soccer. Like, TV rights deals have expanded. You, like, there was something called Match of the Day in England, where the only way you could watch, like, every team's highlights was there was this one program on the BBC. You would usually just get one game. You couldn't get games in Italy. You couldn't watch games on the continent. In fact, like, the old Arsenal, I'm an Arsenal fan, like, their old manager, George Graham, in order to, like, scout players would have, he would get every newspaper from around the country. And he would read and say, oh, this guy that's up at Leeds is, like, he's young and he's good. And then they'd sign them based on, like, just reading the local beat writers, right? Like there wasn't like video scouting even back in the day. But I mean there was also a higher trust society. They trusted those guys way more than they would now. You would never do that. You would never make a decision now based on media reports of a guy's talent. Right. So in the Premier League like I watched soccer and we get it before basically football starts on a Sunday or Saturday morning also before college starts And that's basically how it is. There are three blocks of time primarily blocked out in the same way as it is. And if anything is better for television because it's kind of a dedicated amount of time. Like it doesn't actually like, you don't have overtime games. That's to me the biggest upside soccer has. If you start watching a game, no one's going to end. You can say, I'll meet you at the bar at this time. You're going to be able to make it. The wife won't be killing you. I was a little kid, in the late 70s, nearly 80s, the only way to watch Seasoccer was on PBS. PBS on Friday and Saturday night would sometimes show a Premier League. I remember me and my sister thought it was hilarious. It was the first time we ever heard nil, meaning zero. So we would say that. But that's how sort of arcane it seemed at the time. It would be something you'd see like Masterpiece Theater, Upstairs, Downstairs, and Premier League Soccer. But functionally, there's this aspect of the weekend, right? In their society, the British underclass, and actually when the Queen died, they canceled the games that weekend. And there was a big uproar because it's like, we go to the football, right? That's what they say, the football. You work your ass off during the week, you're fucking miserable, and then you go to the football. right now uh you know they could watch games like uh all day in the way that we can on saturday watch the college games and on sunday you you know you could like have a crappy week and you could be like this is what i do on saturday and sunday i sit on my couch i drink beer i watch football there's a there's a demand for that content to fill that aspect of people's time Oh, it is, yes. So when I'm thinking about the decline of football, I'm like, what are they going to do? If that happened now, absolutely. I think two generations removed, I don't think that person will exist in the same way. Just the thing you say about drinking beer. It's shocking to me, the statistics of how a senior in high school and likely has never drank in their life. I think that part of life is going. It's just going away. Now, it may come back. Certainly enough time, you know, things wax and wane or whatever. But it is hard to think about the future of a sport without kind of projecting the present on it. In the same way, it's hard to think of the past without projecting the present on it. It's human nature to do that. I don't think our populace possess the capacity to throw a brick sometimes. And I think it's because there's too much Mandalorian. You know what I mean? Or there's this all day on Sunday, right? And it's just like, things can be falling apart outside, but we're going to want to sit down and just watch this crap. Well, I think I totally agree with you, although I think for a slightly different reason, I think that, maybe we're saying the same thing, but a bad sort of dead-end life in America is still not necessarily a terrible life to experience. because there are so many ways to find meaning within that. Like, even if, I mean, the Mandalorian's an interesting item, but possibly. Like, something like that. You know, I mean, like, what you're saying about football in that way, like, that's definitely, that's like a Noam Chomsky argument, that basically that these things aren't... It's a way it's stage capitalism. Yes, or that this is a way to basically, to sedate the populace and to have them feel as though that there's something meaningful in their life and they won't think about things that are actually meaningful. Of course I've thought about that. I mean, I write about it a little in the book, but I also think that— It's meaningful to us. I mean, sports are meaningful to us. You can't—it's one thing that you see, especially in sort of like the social media world, is sort of this idea that like, well, you shouldn't care about anything if I can point out something that's a more important thing. That somehow you are morally failing if you have an investment in this thing that when these other things are happening, they matter so much more. But of course, if you shift those things, there's still a person who's going to find the next thing. It's like, well, yeah, but yeah, but the climate. It was like, you know, it's like, I just think that that is a kind of an idiotic way to go through it. I'm not saying that we should. Yeah, I know. I know you're not. I'm not in any way saying you said it. I'm saying this is something that I kind of think about. But like, you know, sort of at what point do you have to weigh your actual individual experience against what is happening in the world and how much you're supposed to devote your thinking toward that. Beyond saying this is an opiate of the masses, this is a way that we can kind of cope with reality. In a large way, I think about Arsenal all week long. I think about our fucking starting 11 against Nottingham Forest all week long, and I'm a loser. I feel like a loser that I care, but I fucking do care. you know well I mean you say it's a way to cope with reality I mean sports are part of reality yeah granted what's happening on the floor on the court reality yeah well no the hard reality like it's happening yeah part of the world too like what's happening on the field is a simulation of things there is an unreality to what's really going on the stakes are completely fabricated like you know one thing that's really interesting is and I'm like anybody else right it's hard for me to sit through a preseason NFL football game doesn't seem like it means anything. None of them mean anything. No one's going to die. But yet, but we... If you win the Super Bowl, they play the next year, right? Exactly. It's still, like every game, every sporting event's an exhibition. They're all exhibitions. They're exhibitions. Now, we impose these meaning onto them, and I'm like, it's not like I'm beyond this. I feel the same way. You know, it's like I'm traveling for this book tour. I was missing some of these football games. I was like, ah, I hate missing them or whatever. But, you know, I wouldn't feel that way if I was traveling at the end of August and I was missing the Hall of Fame game. It would have never occurred to me. It's like, oh, my God, I'm missing them. But yet there's more similarities between those two things in a macro way than there is a difference. Yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying. You don't talk about, like, what could potentially replace it very much. Yeah, I don't think anything would replace it. I think that, you know, I hate always just saying monoculture, monoculture, but, you know, it's an interesting deal. So I'm sure you know this. So what's the highest rated television program of all time? A Super Bowl. I mean saying like a broadcast show. Oh, MASH? The last episode of MASH. Yeah, yeah. And that will never, ever be beat. Like everyone has said statistics. Because of the proliferation of cable and the way things work, there will never be an audience for a television show like that again. And yet, what were they talking about when that show was on? They were like, the monoculture's over. We have cable television now. USA Today is making... The exact, very similar argument was being made at what we now consider to be the apex of the monoculture. So I think that it's just a continual erosion of that, of this shared... I mean, there's so many things, and I sound like a thousand years old, but things like Johnny Carson, And there was meaning to that in the sense that even people who did not care about The Tonight Show or watch it knew that that's what was on and that's what he was like and all these things. And those things are just not going to be part of life. I mean, that's done. We were talking before the show about soccer. I'm a big soccer fan. For me, football kind of like the tuck game, I remember when I was a kid. I'm a Raider fan. And probably part of my waning interest in football. I have a friend who's a Bills fan, so I'll watch with him. I love Joshie, and it breaks my heart what they go through, especially kind of from supporting this team of Arsul. I've never seen them win the league in 22 years. Do you like the book Fever Pitch? No, I like the movie with Jimmy Fallon about the Red Sox. Really? Really? Oh, okay. Okay. No, no, but yeah, I know Nick Hornsby was an Arsul fan. But they are this fucking team that, like, they say it's the hope that kills you. It's kind of the, there's a lot of, it's very Bill's-y. But, like, for me, the Tuck game, I was like, it just wasn't fair. And it was like, you know, Charles Woodson had that strip. And, like, it was just like, it broke my heart. And I was like, well, fuck this shit. I loved those Raiders teams. I loved, like, the Rich Gannon West Coast offense. Like, Jerry Rice's. The Grunera, that's a joke. Jerry Rice's last ride. Like, fucking, like, that team. Like, Gannon would go, like, he'd go, like, 51 for 63. Do you remember? Like, all those little dumps. Yeah, because, you know, he had been with the Vikings, and he was always like, ah, well, this guy, he's never, but when it was the end of his career, he sort of became this different person. There was something really lovable about that team, but beyond that, like, I watch soccer now, and part of it is as a product. You know, much is made about that statistic, about 11 minutes of actual action within the four hours of an NFL game. But there is two 45 minutes of just flow. There's no commercials, right? I fucking hate commercials. You could just sit there and watch the one thing and it's not interrupted. And in terms of gameplay, it's just, I feel like it's the best. Even in the NBA, the last two minutes of an NBA game, with the fouls and free throws, it's just like there is, the game kind of slows down. If anything, football has the best last two minutes, I think. Well, I mean, my argument is basically that, you know, there are kind of three kinds of sports. There's one that are kind of almost these nonstop, mesmerizing, hypnotic sports. Soccer, basketball, boxing to some degree, auto racing. Then there's these very cerebral sports like baseball and golf, where almost all of the importance is based on what will happen, what just happened, what could happen later. Like the action is just a very small part of it and it's all kind of prologue to the end. And then the third one is football, which is a cerebral game in the sense that there are all these stops and all this sort of, you know, it's like... Chess match, yeah. But the moments of action are so hyperkinetic and violent that it creates almost the illusion or maybe just, I guess, the sensation of real intensity and a real kind of dynamic thing. So, I mean, like the idea that there's only 11 minutes of action in a three-hour football game, that's always used like as a criticism of football, but 11 minutes is the right amount. It's like the perfect, for the way, I think people, and this is like a weird thing to say that I can't get in other people's brains, but I think what people say they want from entertainment and what they actually do are very different. I think that the way our mind works actually kind of contradicts what we would say consciously is our desire. Going back to the soccer point, one thing that I've found is really special is that there is a different talent development system. Yeah, you were saying that. That was interesting. Youth academies. So, like, when a player plays in a youth academy and then breaks through into a first team, it's almost as if it's like they are – it's a fan stream, right? because they've been playing with like a Arsenal have guys that were there when they were 9 years old, right? And the cool thing is when they're playing like the under 15s, they're playing the under 13s or whatever they're wearing the same uniforms as the guys in the big stadium. And you could tell that there's something that means so much. Like no one's in the Jacksonville Jaguars Youth Academy, right? No one's like dreaming for the time that they're 10 years old of like playing on the Jags. Well, I mean, I guess a kid who goes to junior high in Jacksonville. But then they get drafted in Buffalo, right? They have no control. They can't enter the pipeline. And then there are other stories of kids that have been cut from academies. There's this guy on Arsenal right now who was cut when he was, I think, 14 years old, and he worked his entire career to get back to Arsenal. Now we just signed him again, and he's 25 years old, I think, now. And there's a romance in that where you could, like, members, we're all members of the club, right then we have a board of directors we have a manager and then we have our first team right and there's a there's a there's a sensation of like um when someone comes through an academy and has been there for a long time and their family has made sacrifices to drive them two hours to training every day when they're like a little kid because of a dream of the family there's like an assumption of that they're one of our own right um kobe bryant was my favorite basketball player, because he was with the Lakers for 20 years, he felt like one of our own. And in American professional sports, we kind of don't have that, like, romance, I think. Well, it's really interesting, because the way you describe it does sound very romantic. Now, you could describe it in the exact same terms, and some would say, like, so you like the corporate nature of these soccer factors? I mean, what is interesting that what you say, though, is that particularly, you know, like in the Northeast here, in the Pacific Northwest, there's a lot of places where increasingly, I think there's a lot of pressure on parents to not let their kids play football. And now in some places, that's not going to change. It's not going to change in parts of Texas. It's not going to change in Georgia and in Florida. And amongst the underclass too, right? But yes. Well, I mean, what do you mean? Like poor kids are still, like there's a version against football amongst, like it corresponds with socioeconomic. Yes, it's like the people watching football and the people playing football are increasingly getting separate. Which, ironically, in the NBA, socioeconomically, it's changing. I know. Yeah. I know. It's like the idea that basketball is your way out. Like, no, it's not. It doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. What is interesting, though, is that let's say that this continues to happen, that it becomes almost most high schools for insurance reasons or just because of lack of interest, they stop playing high school football. Eventually, that's going to impact these college programs. I wonder if in some future world this is how the NFL could find a way to keep talent they're like they could start this system that starts like you know if you're growing up in Jacksonville if you're one of the parents who wants their kid to play football we will make this happen we will create a youth Jacksonville Jaguar football league the best of those kids will move up to an advanced league they'll you know by that time college will be a completely different thing or Bama could be in the NFL right theoretically not not the University of Alabama but like kind of the crimson tide or something some some sort of replacement of that because effectively college athletics is well at Alabama longer than other places is a professional sport now totally now everyone they completely now everyone is Nick Saban well it is it is interesting how that is a thing that people say now it's like the SEC finally like now everybody can yeah you know what is interesting is that like it's hard it's really hard for them to deny that because prior to that there was like the it doesn't exist anymore but like the southwest conference this was like those were all the texas schools in arkansas before all this got changed and there's a like there's a documentary called pony excess about smu yeah and there's one yeah well excess that's in the documentary they were called the pony express okay yeah there was a 30 for 30 about yes yeah okay yeah But there's like one guy in that documentary who's like, there were schools giving $1 million to players who didn't win a game, which was basically saying like Baylor was giving $1 million to guys. So the idea that this has been going on forever, of course, everyone knows it. But there still is, like, it is very different now. It has been sort of like they've leveled the playing field, obviously, in this way. and I think in the short term that's actually going to kind of create a spike of interest in college football because places like Indiana are going to have this experience I'm watching tonight and I haven't watched college football in years because I want to see well A, it's the clips of that quarterback after the game I'm like that guy is hilarious I guess yeah wait actually you know he's getting paid 3 million dollars a year I believe to be at Indiana. That sounds about right, yeah. His high school senior thesis was on why NIL shouldn't exist. Did you know that? I did not know that. I did not know that. But it is, yeah, he has an interesting way of talking. It is somewhere, it's like somewhere between like AI and like a Christian musician promoting his record. It's like a weird, kind of strange, like he's like a guy from Striper and a machine, but it's like. He's great. Well, but yeah, Yeah, that's a great example. You're kind of interested in this. I do think that in the short term that this is going to increase interest in college football in a lot of different places. I think long term it's probably going to be catastrophic for the idea of what college football is because college football offered all these things that the NFL didn't. Like a regional quality, a real emphasis on history. The idea that when you're watching two teams, you are in some sense rooting for the kind of kid you imagine going there. Right, Wisconsin is going to be 12-14 final score. Well, they play that style. There was a regional call. The conference is all this. And that's going to disappear. They're all going to play. The talent's going to be equally distributed, just like in the NFL. In the NFL, all these teams fundamentally play the same. It's very rare that you see a team in the NFL who play. Sometimes there'll be an outlier on one end or the other. But for the 15 or 20 teams in the middle, they're basically carbon copies of each other. because when everybody has talent, you can't make a guy disappear. You can't use the system to be smart a guy. In college, you still could. You could still do these things. Something like Mike Leach, you know, he would like set up this passing game for Texas Tech or when he was at Washington. None of those guys. Like a spread offense. Well, yeah, or just like system-based. Like you used to hear like the system quarterback. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that basically meant that like if you were a system quarterback, it meant your coach was a genius who knew how to just run guys open. And as long as you could be accurate, Somebody like Kellen Moore, when he played at Boise State, I was like, there's no way this guy is not going to succeed at the NFL. He seems like he hits this guy every time. But then when he got to the NFL, there was no shot. Because it was green. Yeah, blue. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, no, no. Oh, the NFL, when he entered the green. They play on a green field. Yeah, yeah. All right. So I've been trying to be one of those people who hit their protein goals every day. And some days I'm great. And other days I look up and I realize I've only had carbs. That's why I started using the high protein starter kit from Huel It's five black edition ready to drinks Plus black edition chocolate powder And it's honestly the first thing that's made it easy for me to stay consistent And by the way, Huel just launched in Target nationwide So you can actually grab the ready to drink bottles straight off the shelf now Which makes life a lot easier So here's how I use the bundle On days I'm running out the door or heading to the gym I just grab a black edition ready to drink It's a complete meal, 35 grams of protein 27 essential vitamins, minerals, you get the whole deal. 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It's the beginning of the year, and the start of the year gets people thinking about their finances, like paying off debt, building your emergency fund, or saving for major milestones like buying a home, children's education, retirement, etc. I bet you all are doing that. Are you done with just tracking past spending? Do you want a tool that helps you plan and project and proactively achieve that goal? Set yourself up for financial success this year. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, budgeting, accounts, investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this year and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code TAFS. So guys, paying off debt, saving for major goals like a house or children's education is at the top of my mind right now, especially my children's education. 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Well, that's an interesting thing. No, it's Jordan. But it's like it's in a sense it really does show that he is not interested in his perception. Well, no. Because like Well, why do you say no? Because his entire dominance, I guess, was about completely shutting out the outside world. Yeah. Right? And this completely goes against everything we know about him. The Patriot way was that the locker room... I mean, they could have murderers in there. We'd have no idea. Eventually we would. But the Patriot way was about completely insulating everything from the media. His personal life being a matter of media spectacle. But he doesn't care what we think, is what I'm saying. It's like he doesn't care People like us It doesn't mean anything How were they this year at UNC? It was the first game of the year The opening drive They look awesome And everybody was like, aha And then it was just kind of Downhill from there And then at the end of the year They did play better, but the damage was done And sort of the The plan he has to make He was like, this is going to be like a way to get ready for the NFL. Like, that's all our whole thing. We're going to be a factory for the NFL, and the byproduct of this will be, we'll win the ACC, but that's not what had happened. I mean, it's... He's probably just going to copy Indiana, right? He's probably going to have like 45-year-olds, or not 45. No, I... He'll have like 28-year-olds. He'll find some way. He's the dark lord. He's Palpatine. It would be incredible if that happened. I, you know, I find him just intriguing and hilarious and I just I love listening to him talk I mean if you've maybe you've seen this YouTube clip where like a a reporter says like well this really isn't for my story but I have I'm curious it's like why do you have to hold a roster spot for your long snapper like isn't that a waste of a roster love special teams and he explained the history of kicking extemporaneously for like 11 minutes and it was like it was almost like this is the first time anyone ever asked him a question in a press conference and he was like, I'm going to reward you for this. Well, that's the surprising thing about Jordan Hudson is like I had no idea he was into anything else. Oh, you said you... I mean, I don't know. He also liked sex? It was bizarre. But there was that famous footage that went above him leaving some girl's house. Yeah, the ring camera. I don't think that wasn't her house. That was somebody else. Oh, he was a Lothario? I thought so. I thought so. I'm pretty sure. I'm almost certain that's someone else. It's an Airbnb that Pablo rented and then got a video. I know, I know. Wait, I asked Nick Wright this. Do you think that if David Stern were alive, Pablo would be dead? Do you think that he would just be, I think he would be in a dumpster, a trash can wreck? Well, I think that a lot of things that Silver has kind of allowed would not have been allowed, so maybe they'd never be in the position for... I know what you're kind of implying, but it's like a lot of these situations. I think that when Silver became the... I interviewed him for GQ, I think it was, and I was like, this is a really smart... For sexiest man in the world. Yes, exactly. He was like, this is a smart guy, and he's really kind of personable. He's a company man. He's like a lawyer, right? Well, he is... Stern may have been the last pro sports commissioner who will ever be that way. Like, I don't think that, I don't know if ownership groups will ever again allow someone, I mean, like, But he exploded the popularity. He did. Correct me if I'm wrong, I was born in the late 80s, but like, in the 80s, the NBA was kind of not a thing. Well, the first time, I was a huge Celtics fan, and when they beat the Rockets in 1981, half of those games were on tape delay. You'd watch them at 10.30 or whatever, and then that did totally change. that by the end of the 1980s, it kind of felt as though basketball and football might almost sort of be in a kind of collision course. But then it was too individually based because the two years that Jordan went away, that really showed the risk of that because suddenly there was the interest in the NBA went down. And then when he came back, the interest went back up. And it was like, that means they're not really into basketball. They're into this person. You can't build things around personality if you want to have long-term success. Wait, that's... I have no idea. Can you just break that down? So Michael Jordan stopped playing basketball? Are you being sarcastic? So why would he stop playing basketball? Well, oh, well, his father died. His dad died? I thought his dad was... His dad was murdered. Oh, I was going to say, his dad would never let him stop playing basketball. Well, his father's love was baseball, though. You know, you see that? Maybe you've heard that. And so was he good at baseball? Well, you know, he did not have a high rate of success. He, you know, he's been more successful than I think I would have been if I would have tried to play baseball. But no, he did not ever have a great... So his dad got whacked. He went to go play baseball. Well, it was a random act of violence. Is that really a whacking? It's not like, you know, Joe Pesci walking into a room. Okay. He was in a car. This sounds like you're making this all up. I thought that he just hung out with Tweety Bird, Bugs Bunny. I had no idea that Michael Jordan was playing baseball. Are you sort of saying that you actually believe that he was forced out? It seems plausible that the gambling thing maybe needed to cool off for two years. I don't know if I find that to be a very credible conspiracy, to be obvious. To be honest. I mean, yeah. And none of this is going to air because he's a friend of the show, Michael Jordan. Give it up for him, his airness. I don't know. It seems bizarre that, like, I don't understand how David... A commissioner that was so powerful, right, could have had the biggest player in the world kind of leave in the middle of his career like that. I feel like David Stern, as someone that was so kind of just viciously pragmatic and effective, I feel like there had to have been more to that. Well, when Jordan retired that first time, they had won three championships in a row, and actually the conversation then was sort of like, well, this is kind of like Jim Brown. Like he's leaving at the height. He left for civil rights, to be a civil rights leader. He left to be an actor. Yeah, actor. Well, we know he was a great actor. We've all seen Space Jam. It was phenomenal. Oh, yeah. You know, it's... And so it didn't... When he played baseball, it did seem really weird. But then the contract thing, because the Bulls and the White Sox were owned by the same organization, it made sense. Yeah. And then his... If you're David Stern... I mean, if you were David Stern and you did this, if it is true, it is beyond brilliant. Because his return was one of the most thrilling things of my memory of sports in the 90s. Yeah, the 45 to 23. Yeah. Well, just the game he played against the Knicks, and it was like he hadn't been back that long, and it was like he is instantly the best player in the league again. He has lost almost nothing. Okay. I want to do a couple hypotheticals with you. Sure. Okay. Let's stay on the NBA. If Tim Donahue, if it wasn't, if the New York Post, I believe, didn't catch wind of the fact that he was... Yeah, that was leaked to them, yes. He was going to turn state's witness, right? I think that could have happened. I think it definitely could have happened, yeah. My understanding is he was going to wear a wire, and then it became public knowledge that he had been caught in this scandal. like how much would that have diminished the credibility of the the refereeing and the NBA at large well it would have been a big deal I mean it would have been a huge deal obviously but I will say this because it would be an officiating issue it wouldn't have been as devastating as if a player point shaving situation happened I mean this just happened in college basketball there's all these guys now who got in you know in trouble for you know point shaving in a real obvious way but what is interesting is i this seems obvious now but it never occurred to me it's like it's always these point shaving situations are always going to involve teams that aren't good those are the teams you go to and because of that it won't bother fans in the same way like there's not going to be a point i mean i'll say this and it'll happen tomorrow you know juventus one of the best teams in italy historic team uh was caught in a match am i right sam yeah in a match fixing scandal and then they were sent down to the second division actually so it was a huge I'm not saying it couldn't happen but I'm saying that let's say you're a perspective guy and you want to you want to corrupt you want to pay off players and have them fix games it would be a huge mistake to try to get the kids from Duke or Kansas or any of these schools to do it for no other reason those games are really visible and these guys but if you find some guy from a college that is never on television Indiana football for it well yeah what do you think well it's not a hypothetical what do you think about the hypothetical... Did you read that, Caleb? What do you think about the hypothetical Beatles movie? What do you think about the hypothetical Beatles movie yesterday? Well, I never actually saw it, I guess. I saw it on a plane. I know something about it that to me is too big of a flaw. Which is what? The Beatles existed? Well, no. Nothing else changed. Ed Sheeran didn't exist. or he did exist well he's in the movie no he starts writing Fred Sheeran some bands don't exist oh you know what they say people don't smoke cigarettes really yeah cigarettes are popular we all know that the Beatles were famous for C yeah exactly do you think that Drake will ever win best actor for the Audacity of Hope Barack Obama biopic is he playing Barack Obama no but I've always said this for the last like 15 years that Drake will one day Do I think he'll win an academy? I think he'll be wrongly snubbed. Okay, yeah, exactly. I think so. Yeah, they'll give it to Kendrick Lamar for the Hillary Clinton. But he's a Canadian. Can a Canadian play an American president? If he's acting. Okay. Yeah, I guess he is eligible to play him, to be an actor. I guess you had to. Okay. Let's just stop calling these hypotheticals because half of these aren't. What's the best rock super group? Like, why are the Wilburys as good as Tom Petty? Why is it like a super team is really good at basketball? Like, if you have the best players, why does that? Why isn't Asia as good as its various components? Why are the traveling Wilburys the best band of all time? Well, because I mean, I don't know how seriously you want the answer. I would like it serious, yeah. No jokes. When they're all coming together at that point in their career, the idea is that we're doing this kind of like, we're almost everyone is conceding to every other person. Nobody has a real vision. Like Jeff Lynne is producing the record, but for the most part, it's like, well, won't this be fun? We actually produced some pretty good songs. It's interesting that Like, you know, it's strange when, you know, I think Bob Dylan was 47 when that band happened. Like, he already seemed so old to me. But, you know, and, like, Tom Petty was nothing. Tom Petty was, like, in his 30s or whatever. But you're not going to be committed in the same way. You know, like, a band like Velvet Revolver, I guess that was a kind of super group. So they're the best one, you're saying? Well, no, but I'm saying it's like they would. It's actually hard. It's actually hard to come up with what the best one. I mean, maybe the Traveling Wilburys actually might be the answer. They still might be the best one. Well, because that first record was pretty good, and their songs are memorable, and it also sort of changed the way people perceived those guys. It made them seem much less serious and detached. They were fun. Yeah. Okay. What would David Foster Wallace, Were You Alive, have made of Trump? Because his obsession was television, right? Like, this is the television president. It's kind of like... Well, I mean, it's weird because he was like, he wrote a long thing about, I believe, his obsession with John McCain, I think. It was like seeing him in this. So, I mean, I would think that he would think Trump is sort of like almost like the greatest extension of everything that has gone wrong with civilization unless it completely horseshoed around. And somehow he was like, this is actually what America is not. It's not good for America, but this is like the... To say interesting things about Trump is hard. It is hard because so many people are trying to do it. Everyone informs every conversation. In comedy, he's defeated comedy. He did. Yeah, because he's funnier. But it's just like there's so much runway in DFW to Trump that it's just like... Like, it's so embarrassing that I live in Brooklyn, and I'm saying I wish David Foster Wallace could, I wish I could read David Foster Wallace on Trump. Well, it's weird, because, like, you know, in Brady's analysis book, American Psycho, he talks about Trump constantly in that book. You know, and at that point, Trump was just some guy going around New York being rich, you know? Yeah, we were talking about, uh, Caleb Pitts, everyone. Caleb Pitts, everyone. Well, yeah. Give it up for him. Guys, Jesus. Christ a little bit of energy you ever considered using a studio audience that would really change the vibe here you know we have we have and they slid out their damn chairs they got so horny it was all real yeah Amazonian women uh I'm trying to think I there is in that uh in the what's it called like the rock and roll circus documentary the dirty Mac the rolling yes oh yeah okay so that's It's like John Lennon playing with the Stones. Mitch Mitchell, John Lennon. And also in that, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath plays with Jethro Tull in that performance. That's the only time Tony Iommi plays with Jethro Tull. I'm sure this is why women love going to my book readings. We're the same guy. I have this information. What would have happened if Mr. Mitch Mitchell, perhaps to me. The drummer of Jimmy Hendrix? The drummer of the experience. I think one of the most underrated drummers in rock history. Great drummer. What would have happened had he joined after the death of Keith Moon, had he joined... What do you call it? The Who? Wait, what? I don't know the name. The band with Tommy and... What was it called? Yes. They're a British band. The Who's on first, the What's on... Okay, let's move on, guys. Can you please support me in my dreams of being... Did you bring the Mitchell just to set up that joke? No, no, no. So you could actually, I can't fucking believe you would do that. I didn't plan that ahead. That's not that, I mean. Chuck, I didn't plan that ahead. Okay. My brain is atropeated. Okay, I just, you know. Because it wasn't terrible. I'm not saying it was terrible. I think I have a brain tumor. I just did not think that that would be. It was a horrible joke. I mean, it was dog shit. Absolute fucking steaming pile of dog shit. Well, it was just an arc. In front of my fiance's cousin, no less. It's just, it was an arcane or obterous way to get there. What if he joined the Who, though? Yeah. That would have been cool. Well, I think that he probably would have hung with them for a while. But they kept going anyways. What was the best post-Beatles career? Post-Beatles. Yeah. So Zeppelin started in 69. Well, no, no. Of the four. Oh, of the four. That's a great question. That's a wonderful question. The first three, John, are kind of top to bottom unfuckwithable. I mean, the best, Plastic Ono Band is the best of those records. Paul's career was the best. I think that All Things Much Past, in some ways, is like the record. The number one record of all that. Well, I mean, it does have, it's kind of samey at times, but I think if I had to actually rank them, I would say Plastic Ono Band is probably a better record. but it was one of these things where it was like, it's insane that they didn't let him write more of the Beatles when that record came out. So really, it's, I mean, and then, but you know, Ringo was in Caveman, so it's like, you know. So that's number one. Or no, was it, no, not Caveman. Richard Stark, number one. 3000 BC, what are you saying? Yeah, yeah. That's the best one? Well, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate you asking that question, though. Thanks. Why are they better? What? Why is England better at bands? Well, England was... What's the best American band? The best American band? I guess Bob Dylan. Well, no. It's not even a band. I would say it would be probably the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Van Halen, possibly Metallica. Creedence Clearwater Revival. Those are the six, I would say. But really with England, it's five bands. It's the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, the Who and the Kinks. Six bands. The Floyd, my brother. The Floyd. You can put them in there. That's actually, I agree. That's seven. And it is probably seven of ten best of all time. That is weird. Why are we letting them bastards over there take our crap and then be better at it? Well, I just, I think that they... It makes me one of the redcoats. They're our enemies. Yes, that's true. How do we allow this to happen? But that's a... I would, I don't... It's kind of baffling when you think about it. Well, it might have something to do with the singularity of the Beatles. I mean, the way, you know, like the Stones were just like a blues cover band. The first time they had a successful single, the Beatles wrote it for them in 10 minutes. So it's like, it's hard to... They went round the pub and just wrote it 10 minutes. Although they were like getting in a taxi cab or something. But so that had probably a lot to do with it. That created this idea that it's like, well, this is what, we can do this. Like, I didn't know we could do this. I guess we can. Well, because it was the 50s rock. Radiohead. Yeah. Well, it's a good, yeah, that's a good. Fuck. Why are they beating us, guys? What are we doing? It's like seeing these goddamn Europeans come to the NBA. Will you be troubled if Major League Baseball becomes dominated by the Japanese? No, I like that. You like that? I like that. It's really fucked up what we did to them. You think that's finally equating things? It's really fucked up. It's the only time it ever happened. Yep, the only time. And to them, really horrible. They handled it well. Did we say sorry like that good? How sorry did we say that? I don't know. We were like, my bad. Truman was like my bust. Yeah. Did you say my bust? There seems to be like, well, we did stop firebombing all these cities, but what's really interesting is when you hear how they picked these cities, I watched some kind of little documentary or it might have just been on YouTube, like how it was selected. And we didn't want to destroy, I believe it was like, they couldn't destroy Tokyo or something because they were like, that's where all the leadership is and maybe they won't have anyone who can even surrender. And one city was bypassed Just because one guy on the decision committee was like, I went there. It's a beautiful place. So they won't go Nagasaki. It's very incredible how the decision was made. This world time-changing decision was made much more capriciously, at least in my opinion, than I would have ever guessed. Do you think that there is a potential for soccer ever to take the place of football in the United States? Because they've been... Yes. No, they've been saying that since. Since the New York Cosmos and Pele. Yes, absolutely. The sport of the future, yes. Well, there was a time in my life when I would have said, absolutely not. Absolutely. There's no chance. At this point in my life, I would say, like, I don't think so, but who knows. I mean, every big thing I've ever predicted I've been wrong about, I think. Yeah. Every big thing. The only thing I really got right is on. Do you gamble? Nope. Yeah, because I lose. I lose everyone. I know. Yeah. Every time I bet. We had a New Year's Eve party at my house one year, and we all had to make predictions for the year, and we wrote them down in a book. And for some reason, I said, Michael Jackson's going to die next year, and there's going to be issues over his will. And I bring this up every New Year's for the rest of my life. It's the only thing you got right? It's the only thing I got right. The only thing I've ever totally got right. Ever. That totally. Like, I remember in 2016, I had this friend who was just totally freaked out about the idea of Trump, you know, and it was like, we're watching the election results come in. It was like 8.15 Eastern and she's texting with me and I'm like, no, don't worry. Like, he's not going to win. He's not going to win. It was like, I was like literally like minutes before. Every white person in America didn't think that. Well, I know, but what I'm saying, it was like, it was 8.15 or whatever. Like it was probably two minutes before and I was like, no, no. I just, I am not good at knowing what's going to happen before it does. and read his book about what's going to happen exactly 10 applause 10 applause come back Thank you.