Share & Halftime & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain

Remember when "In Living Color" tried to steal the Super Bowl — and changed it (seriously) forever? How do you compare boners while not dying? And why did the NWSL dare to abolish the draft? Plus: payment-processing gargoyles, Jim Carrey, mascot auditions, Winter Magic, Taylor Swift, Richard Gere's alleged gerbil intimacy... and The Turgid Place. Further content: "In Living Color": 1992 Live Super Bowl Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EY-7OuP8uE Bryan Johnson and the Birth of the Blueprint Religion (Ashlee Vance) https://www.corememory.com/p/bryan-johnson-and-the-birth-of-the A Tectonic Shift in the American Sports Landscape (Good Game with Sarah Spain) https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-good-game-with-sarah-spai-185664375/episode/a-tectonic-shift-in-the-american-209236895/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. And look, I've chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It is 100% fresh beef, cooked right when you order it, with no artificial flavors, colors, fillers, or preservatives in the beef. The onions are hand-topped by someone who knows the perfect amount by memory, two slices of cheese and a star, and two pickles, side by side. So every bite gets both. And every time one's ordered, a cowbell sound rings in the kitchen. That's the grill master's cue to put a fresh patty on the grill. My move?

• 0:42Pablo Torre?

  QPC, fries and a drink after a long day of recording. That is my happy place. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Onnit's Black Friday Sale doesn't start until later this month, but listeners get in early. If you're new to Onnit, go to Onnit.com and use code PABLO for 30% off your first order, starting today. If you've never tried Onnit, start with AlphaBrain. It's their daily nootropic built to support focus, memory, and mental clarity on days when you need to be locked in, whether that's powering through a tough workout or staying focused during back-to-back meetings. Get early access and save 30% off your first order at Onnit.com. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com. And use code PABLO. Some exclusions apply.

• 1:54Pablo Torre?

  This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools.

• 2:36Pablo Torre?

  It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. And today, we're going to find out what this sound is.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Just real quick, back to the boners.

• 3:10Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 3:13Pablo Torre?

  You're listening to DraftKings Network.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  By the way, nice to meet you, Wyatt.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  It's very nice to meet you.

• 3:31Pablo Torre?

  I'm not a good host. I'm not introducing people.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  I'm a very big fan of yours, and my husband and I really loved your show, Problem Areas, because I thought the vibe was just excellent.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. That really means a lot. I know, I'm a fan of yours as well. I was wondering if we had met before, but yeah, I've always been a big fan of you, and I miss seeing you on Around the Horn because you were so much fun on that show.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:57Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, Pablo was never fun on that show, except for as the whipping boy.

• 4:02Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, I'm also, and I'm here too, on the show.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're fine on it.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're okay.

• 4:09Pablo Torre?

  I'm getting, I'm getting a vibe that I did not ask for, actually, here.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I mean, the show is just what you find out. It's not about what you ask for.

• 4:19Pablo Torre?

  What I found out is that you guys are already better friends with each other than you are with me, which is a hard thing to learn three seconds into a program.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, we've already started three different text threads.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, we actually started some group chats with multiple other people, too, but didn't invite you.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:35Pablo Torre?

  Sarah, it's good to see you.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  You too.

• 4:38Pablo Torre?

  The last time you were on the show, you were super horny for mascots, and I presume that's still the case.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Still am.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  When I was in college, I auditioned to be the mascot and I didn't get it. At Carolina? At North Carolina, yeah. You, you, what's, what's the Rams name? Ramses. Hmm. It's, they put a lot of thought into it. What was that audition like? They put you in the costume and then you got to like dance around and do stuff. And I didn't really know what to do. I just thought it would be fun. And so I put it on and I think I just did a bunch of like hip thrusts and crotch grabs. And they were like, that's enough and told me I had done things in that costume that had never been done before and should never be done again. Somehow you were too horny for the Rams.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I feel like we view mascots the same then.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  The immediate, the immediate urge was the crotch grab.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, those mascots are here for our sexual pleasure.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Clearly. Have you seen Benny the Bull?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, huh. He's, he's a smoke show.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Yep, he can get it.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Wyatt, what did you bring us today on this edition of Share and Tell? So today I brought, we do have a Super Bowl coming up. There's a lot of talk about- Not familiar. Oh, well, there's a Super Bowl, there's a sport called futsal. Are you aware of that? Go on. You, it's different from the English futsal. But it's still with people, not with feet. But, Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar is performing. A lot of big conversation around that. Now that Taylor Swift will be in attendance at the Super Bowl, maybe Taylor Swift will be- Leaving the skybox to make a surprise appearance, who knows?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  They do have a tune together, yep.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  They do, that's right, yeah, exactly. Or maybe Taylor Swift just sings it from the skybox. They just hand her a microphone and she slides the glass open and is like, "I'll do my part, sure."

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Or she could Tom Cruise it and like fly down on a wire from the suite to the field, like he did at the Olympics.

• 7:03Pablo Torre?

  Oh, sure, Burj Khalifa style, just rappel down the side of the building. I like that we've already checked off all of the SEO bait for the episode. And the beginning of this topic.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  The biggest show on turf. And it wasn't always recognized as that. But there was a time when the halftime show, it would be like Up with People or a high school marching band.

• 7:27Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  And it was just kind of filler while everyone went to the bathroom and no one really saw it as...

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Smoked a couple of cigs in the locker room.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. Wow, those were the good old days. You could just smoke in the locker room.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Drugs that made your body still function, but completely unfeeling.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, get drunk a little bit. So just in thinking about that, that's what the halftime show was. And then something had to change it.

• 7:54Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  There was some moment that was that sort of catalyst moment that said, "Your tube is not good enough." And the thing that changed it was the sketch show in living color.

• 8:08Pablo Torre?

  So I didn't know anything about this.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Neither did I.

• 8:11Pablo Torre?

  And I've thought a lot about the halftime show as a cultural institution before. I didn't know about this until you brought it to us and we actually looked into it.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Right, yeah. You didn't believe me at first when I just told you this.

• 8:23Pablo Torre?

  I did not.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  And then you said, "We had to look into it."

• 8:26Pablo Torre?

  I mean, it actually does like demand a further explanation because it does not make sense, the sentence that you have said.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  I don't know, it makes pretty good sense to me. Roll the credits, show's over. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metalark Media Production.

• 8:41Pablo Torre?

  All right, we don't need to do just a straight up impersonation parody of me.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  I don't know that that wasn't a good impression of you.

• 8:49Pablo Torre?

  Mildly disrespectful.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  No, this is my impression of you.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metalark Media Production, and we'll see you next time.

• 9:03Pablo Torre?

  Why Wyatt, did you even discover that In Living Color was involved at all in this?

• 9:09Speaker 03

  I grew up watching In Living Color. It's a show that I enjoyed as a kid. It was one that inspired me to do what I do. But then also, a few years ago, I had been having some preliminary conversations to make a documentary about In Living Color.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  No way. Are you still doing that? I would love to watch that.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, it fell through there, I think, were just too many things, one of which being Disney owns the IP, and so there's a lot of stuff there to navigate. And then with all the cast, they are all giant mega-stars, and so...

• 9:49Pablo Torre?

  Well, to remind people, right, this is, I mean, I don't want to lead with Jim Carrey, but Jim Carrey was on In Living Color.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Sure, you had Damon Wayans, you had Jim Carrey, you had David Allen Gruyere.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Jennifer Lopez was a fly girl.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. Rosie Perez was the choreographer.

• 10:06Pablo Torre?

  Right, this was a sketch comedy show on Fox.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  It ran for five seasons, and in that time, in that short amount of time, has done so much, as far as like, given us so much entertainment, both the show itself, but then the people who came from that show, that there is no real story about it. Like, I remember when the show had had like, its 10-year anniversary, and its 15-year anniversary, and nobody would write about it. Like, there was never like, the Vulture article that was, hey, here's a...

• 10:41Speaker 02

  The oral history of, that we've seen for so many other things.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so, in doing the research for it, to kind of pitch the idea, one of the things that I got really into was, at the time that CBS, at that moment, had the Super Bowl, that Fox, as this kind of upstart network, had decided, "We want to do something outrageous. What if we could steal some of the Super Bowl audience?"

• 11:07Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  And what could we do to do that? And initially, they said, "What if we got MC Hammer to perform, and then we could get, like, In Living Color is..."

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Our big show, what if we got them to do some live sketches?

• 11:24Pablo Torre?

  Right, this is 1992.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  And to your point, they were not winning halftime. It was dead time to go get your snacks, or you'd turn away and watch something else. So they were trying to keep people around in a way that you never have to do anymore, because it's part of the show.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  And every network at that time had just seeded that to the NFL, that like, whatever network it was on, if it was on CBS, then we're never even thinking that like halftime could be a thing, or even counter-programming against the Super Bowl.

• 11:54Pablo Torre?

  It's the least thinkable thing now to go head to head against the Super Bowl halftime show.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:59Pablo Torre?

  But at this point in 1992, Fox sees this opportunity when CBS has the Super Bowl, and they say, "Let's create a distraction."

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:08Pablo Torre?

  That's gonna steal audience and bring it over to us, just for the period of halftime.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Right, yes. And so that's what they started talking about. And they said, "Yeah, what if we get MC Hammer, and then we'll have the In Living Color folks just do a couple sketches." And then what was, when it was presented to Keenan and the folks at In Living Color, they said, "Fuck that. What if we do a show and MC Hammer can be our musical guest?" And so the network was like, "All right." They started going for it. They got some corporate sponsors. It was taking too long. MC Hammer eventually dropped out and was replaced by, "If you can't get MC Hammer, who do you get? You get 'Color Me Bad.'"

• 12:52Speaker 02

  So they got 'Color Me Bad' to close things out. I presume "I Wanna Sex You Up"?

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, when you got mascots, what else are you gonna do? That's the theme song for every mascot.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  As I learned it.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  That was the music I asked to play when I auditioned for Ramses.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  As Ramses.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  It was like, "I brought my own music. Here, here you go."

• 13:22Speaker 02

  And now we have wet [BLEEP] pussy. The times have changed.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  So, yeah, they get "Color Me Bad", and they do this.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  Hey, I know what you guys are thinking. You're thinking, "Here, are these bozos gonna make us miss any part of the second half?" Yeah!

• 13:37Speaker 06

  That's where this comes in. Our Super Bowl Countdown Clock. It'll be coming on later in the show to let you know when to switch back to the second half. You won't miss any of the senseless brutality.

• 13:48Speaker 07

  But check this out. The Bad Boys of Comedy got a lot of action for you right here. Fire Marshal Bill Menon and "Color Me Bad" performing here live.

• 13:57Pablo Torre?

  I love Wyatt, they have a clock in the bottom left corner. They're like, they're very clear about what they're trying to do.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:04Pablo Torre?

  It's like they're playing a prank on CBS specifically.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  Because CBS had planned their Super Bowl halftime show would be a promo for the upcoming Winter Olympics, which would be a salute to the Winter Olympics that would feature two small ice rinks.

• 14:21Pablo Torre?

  I just like the idea of, on one channel is the In Living Color Super Bowl Halftime Party, and then in the Metrodome in Minneapolis is what is being hailed as this.

• 14:33Speaker 08

  ... presents the 1992 Super Bowl XX halftime spectacular, Winter Magic.

• 14:51Speaker 09

  Hi, everybody! Come on and feel the cold. Come to Minnesota where winter's the hottest time of the year. It's winter magic!

• 14:58Pablo Torre?

  Who says feel the cold?

• 15:02Pablo Torre?

  It's winter magic, Wyatt. You know?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna lie, Brian Boitano was big in our family. Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill getting excited for some Winter Olympic figure skating? We would've been in.

• 15:14Pablo Torre?

  I mean, were you a big enough fan to continue watching this?

• 15:23Speaker 02

  No. Nope.

• 15:25Pablo Torre?

  Like, the visuals on this, there are umbrellas with snowflakes painted on.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  It does sort of... I mean, in a way, though, it does resemble Super Bowl Halftime's in the sense of, you know, taking over the field with all these dancers and visual elements. It's just so, like, corny.

• 15:46Pablo Torre?

  They go on to do like, uh, Christmas songs.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 15:50Pablo Torre?

  It's February, it's a Super Bowl, they're like doing, it's, it's kind of mind blowing. It's like, again, Brian Vitano, Dorothy Hamill, uh, the 1980 US Olympic hockey team.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 15:59Pablo Torre?

  Shows up at one point.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, they also have jet skis, but the jet skis are on wheels. So they're like, they're being like held up on wheels and so they can drive around.

• 16:11Pablo Torre?

  They do the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy at one point. And meanwhile, over on Fox, uh, this is happening.

• 16:19Speaker 10

  Jewelry, jewelry, jewelry. Check it out, Super Bowl rings and things. Now I know some of y'all sitting out there saying, homeboys, these rings are a little big for me. That's why with every purchase, we gonna give you absolutely free, this jar of NFL vitamins. That's right, within six months, you'll be wearing these bad boys like pinky rings.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Oh, so good. I can't believe I've never seen that before.

• 16:44Pablo Torre?

  Holding a giant plastic like, uh, cheese ball jug, just full of steroids.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:51Pablo Torre?

  They were like poking fingers in all of the eyes available to them.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  All the bears were getting poked that day, yeah. And the whole show, I mean, there, everything was just [BLEEP] all over football. And people loved it. They drew a huge portion of the audience away.

• 17:09Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  And even kept some of it. And, and so the gambit worked. And it was successful. And after that, the decision was made, we have to do something different. And we can't, there became a fear that now, this is like, we have, we have shown a weakness. We have to come back with the most strength possible.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  What's also fascinating, and for the youngsters watching, they might not realize this, but Fox Network did not launch until 1986. So this is four years after the network launched. And if you remember, the beginning of the network was all about being disruptive to the traditional ABC, NBC, CBS. It was Tracy Ullman, The Simpsons, In Living Color, Married with Children. It was all these things that were a little bit edgier. And the idea that Fox now couldn't do those sketches because they want the rights and own the rights. Like, everyone's in bed with the NFL now, or everyone feels like they have a chance to be in bed, because you can even have games as Netflix and streaming services. Back then, Fox was like the little kid, the little brother, that was never gonna win rights to have the games.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  So they felt perfectly comfortable skewering them. Like, you just don't see that these days from major networks, because they all have to be playing nice, just in case they have a deal with them. The same way, like ESPN had to stop running that Playmaker show. And, and the NFL was like, "Yeah, sorry, you can't do that." They have so much power now that to watch that is something to think about here, where it's like, "Oh, you could just do that then," because they didn't think they had a shot. And now, of course, Fox is, is in bed with the giant.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Well, and also, what's wild, too, is thinking about just how cautious those networks get. Because at that time, so they had two sponsors that were interested in being the corporate sponsor for the In Living Color halftime show. One was Frito-Lay, and the other was Pepsi. And at the time, Pepsi was really excited about this idea. And they started talking about, "Hey, if this works, then maybe we could also take the characters from In Living Color and put them in the Pepsi Challenge. And so we'll take, like, Homie the Clown and do some Pepsi Challenge spots with Homie the Clown.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  And we'll take, you know, the Men on guys and put them in some Pepsi Challenge things, which now is a thing that you see more commonly, where you do see, like, sketch characters from SNL being used in commercials. This was the proto of that. But the live in Living Color, they were so disruptive and so like-

• 19:53Pablo Torre?

  It's insane to watch it.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  They pushed the boundary so far. One of which making a joke about Richard Gere. Uh, that there was-

• 20:04Pablo Torre?

  Oh my god, yes.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  There at the time had, there, there had been a-

• 20:07Pablo Torre?

  We all grew up with the gerbil story. We all knew the gerbil story.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Sure, yes, but there, um, there might be younger audience members who are not familiar with this, but there was a time where it had been intimated that, uh, Richard Gere had gotten intimate with a gerbil.

• 20:23Pablo Torre?

  Well, the gerbil had gotten into Richard Gere, I think.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Into, yeah. Yeah, just to be more specific, to put a finer point on it, Richard Gere allegedly put a gerbil in his [BLEEP].

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah. As, as, as one might.

• 20:36Pablo Torre?

  Allegedly.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so they make a joke about that, which they got past the censors. They made a second joke that got past the censors. And both of those things were the bridge too far for Pepsi, where they then said, eh, you know what? Never mind, we're gonna cancel this deal.

• 20:57Pablo Torre?

  And so the NFL, and rather, um, the networks that have the rights to the most important piece of cultural real estate that we have now, um, they decide to change gears.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, to sort of silence Tiny Little Fox at the time. And they went and they got Michael Jackson. The biggest pop star of the moment.

• 21:32Pablo Torre?

  And this now, this Michael Jackson halftime show is the thing that all of us know.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  Yes, and it sets the precedent.

• 21:39Pablo Torre?

  Literally, American culture was never the same because In Living Color threatened those dancing children-

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:46Pablo Torre?

  In the Metrodome.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  To your point about, you know, going hard, once you pull out your Michael Jackson, so to speak, no one's really gonna lay what they've got on the table to try to compete. So, once you've established that this is what the halftime show looks like from here on out.

• 22:01Pablo Torre?

  Exactly.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  It's no longer about trying to counter-program. It's about understanding that it's, you know, you're not winning.

• 22:08Pablo Torre?

  The war was over.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:11Pablo Torre?

  Nuclear deterrence had prevailed.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Right, yes. But it also then set the precedent and set the standard for the NFL that, well, [BLEEP], we gotta do this every year now. And so then, every year, it became, alright, who's a giant sponsor we can get? So Pepsi, even though they initially were gonna be in bed with Fox and in Living Color, they were like, eh, we're good. Oh, Michael Jackson?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  The Super Bowl, yeah, you can have our money. There's nothing controversial about this.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  No, I was gonna say, we want nothing to do with controversy, so we're backing Michael Jackson.

• 22:52Pablo Torre?

  In no way will this age poorly, to be laughed at later by podcasters revisiting the history of this program.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  But also age poorly seven months later, because the first Michael Jackson child abuse allegations came out that summer.

• 23:11Pablo Torre?

  Oh.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  So that Super Bowl, Michael Jackson performs, and not just performs, does a whole section about kids and wanting to love and protect the kids.

• 23:22Pablo Torre?

  They do We Are the World with a children's choir.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  And then does a thing where the audience participation is holding up little stick figures of children while he goes and stands among children and picks them up and is like doing a whole thing. That summer is when those allegations come out.

• 23:41Pablo Torre?

  Luckily, though, this year, there is thankfully zero subtext when it comes to such a topic with the current performer we're about to watch together.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Yep, nothing to do with minors whatsoever.

• 24:04Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. I'm pretty sure this won't shock anyone out there, but buying a car is just a hard process. You have to figure out what you want from thousands of options, then you have to find somewhere that's offering a good deal, then you get hit with unexpected fees. But let's just break it down,

• 24:48Pablo Torre?

  and think about how you describe your ideal car to a friend. You know, something like, good gas mileage, four-wheel drive, reliable, under 30 grand. Luckily, CarGurus makes it that easy. Just describe it to CarGurus the same way. With Guru, you search in your own words, and you get listings, real listings, that match. No endless filters, just the car that fits your life. CarGurus also helps you shop with more transparent pricing, allowing you to see when dealer fees are included so you can compare listings with greater confidence. And with more than 4 million listings, CarGurus has the biggest selection of cars. So it's easier than ever to find the right car, and the right deal. It is no wonder CarGurus is the number one

• 25:33Pablo Torre?

  most visited car shopping site, according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. cargurus.com.

• 25:54Pablo Torre?

  Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more. They can inspire more discovery, give more confidence, and unwrap more of who you are. This Black Friday, give a gift that goes beyond the box. The Dell XPS 13 laptop. With a beautiful design and cutting-edge performance, it helps you unlock more possibilities. It's the thinnest, lightest XPS laptop yet, with touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, and long-lasting battery life to power you through your day. Built with a durable aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds, and Intel Core processors, it's fast, reliable, and portable enough to keep up wherever you go. Visit dell.com to explore the possibilities with XPS. While shopping, you'll also find great perks like Dell Rewards,

• 26:39Pablo Torre?

  fast free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Plus, you can find great deals on monitors and accessories. That means you can score a whole new setup now for less. This Black Friday sale is one you don't want to miss. Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

• 27:04Speaker 11

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 27:43Pablo Torre?

  I did want to talk about the curious case of tech mogul Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson is a guy who may have come to your attention recently because he posted a tweet about his boner as it compares to his son's boner. And in case you are wondering, why am I using these words? This feels gross. Here's the tweet. Quote, "Nighttime erection data from my 19-year-old son, @TalmageJohnsonAndMe. His duration is two minutes longer than mine." Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright. Followed by all of these biometric boner charts. So, you know, this is the guy, in case you weren't familiar, also in the documentary,

• 28:27Pablo Torre?

  Don't Die, he's the guy. You guys, I mean, hold on, before I go any further. You guys had heard of Brian Johnson before I said we gotta learn about the boner data?

• 28:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  I had only remembered seeing the photo of him where he got a bunch of fat injected in his face and he looked like that lady who got more and more progressively like a cat due to her plastic surgery.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Jocelyn Wildenstein.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  That's the only reference point I had to this guy.

• 28:49Pablo Torre?

  You know that lady's name?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  I can't believe you know the cat lady's name.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jocelyn Wildenstein lives rent-free in my brain. Also, hashtag rest in peace, Jocelyn. She just passed away.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  She, we lost her in 2024.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  I guess I should say meow.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Cat nap in peace.

• 29:05Pablo Torre?

  So, so.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  You sweet, sweet Sheba.

• 29:08Pablo Torre?

  This is what Brian Johnson looks like in the photo Sarah was alluding to as he was engaged in Project Babyface. So, Brian Johnson, Sarah, is the guy who is basically on a mission to reverse aging. And he has done this in a way that has been startling and has a sports context. LeBron James famously has been spending $1 million a year on his body, but Brian Johnson in comparison spends about $2 million a year on his body. And so that's according to reporting from Ashley Vance, formerly of Bloomberg, who chronicled this, was involved with the documentary. He's now running a great publication called Core Memory, in which he talked about interviewing Brian Johnson. This is a very rich tech

• 29:48Pablo Torre?

  guy who's like, I'm gonna be the face and the leader of a movement in which I'm going to basically discover where people have been too afraid to go when it comes to living forever. And in case you were wondering, wanted to find out, how does one measure such boner data? You do it this way.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 12

  And what is this other contraption that you?

• 30:14Pablo Torre?

  That is how you can measure your night directions.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  I mean, where am I gonna put that?

• 30:22Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, so you, you put it on your shaft. And just gently, yeah, there you go, gently pull that. And so you put, there you go.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, I just go to sleep hard and I wake up hard.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Don't have to get ready if you stay ready, you know what I mean?

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, Brian, you need to work on, you need to work on that endurance, my man. Get your numbers up, Brian. His phallus, turgid.

• 30:50Pablo Torre?

  Turgid, turgid's a great, that's, that's-

• 30:52Speaker 02

  What a good word.

• 30:53Pablo Torre?

  When, when else is turgid used if not for, uh-

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Sort of like flaccid.

• 30:58Pablo Torre?

  erection description.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  You can't say flaccid without thinking of a dick.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 31:02Pablo Torre?

  Flaccid and turgid are the yin and yang of boner adjectives.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  That would be a good rap duo. Then who ends up with flaccid, I guess?

• 31:11Pablo Torre?

  A real, a real, a real goofus and gallant situation, turgid and flaccid.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  The Highlights magazine of, uh, of sexual health.

• 31:21Pablo Torre?

  What, what Brian Johnson is trying to say, though, about his erection and his son's erection is that they are-

• 31:26Speaker 03

  They're nighttime erections, just clarifying, they're nighttime erections.

• 31:29Pablo Torre?

  Nocturnal, his, his nocturnal-

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Separate, not going together.

• 31:33Pablo Torre?

  Well, separate and unequal, it turns out, is what he's making the case. His son, uh, Brian Johnson's trying to assert that his nighttime nocturnal turgidity is, is to be reckoned with. And Sarah, I just want to explain who Brian Johnson is because he is the star of this doc called Don't Die on Netflix. I want to just give a clip from the trailer, um, just to give a sense for people to catch up real quick on what kind of an archetype we're dealing with. I do worry about him.

• 32:05Speaker 12

  I've never felt more understood by anyone than with you. I really want to have multiple lifetimes with my son. A hundred years is not gonna be enough.

• 32:16Speaker 12

  What if you donate your plasma to me, I will to dad, it'll be this multi-generational thing.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  You don't, though.

• 32:26Pablo Torre?

  So this is, it stops on a clip of them in a photo shoot. It's Brian, his dad, and Brian's son, who is the aforementioned.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Talmage.

• 32:37Pablo Torre?

  Talmage, Turgid Talmage.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Turgid Talmage.

• 32:41Pablo Torre?

  They basically made a sort of just, yeah, they gave plasma to each other, youngest to next oldest, in a way that feels like exactly what we were joking that Peter Thiel was doing with his blood boy in Silicon Valley. Brian Johnson is saying this is part of his very detailed and now public plan for how you can live forever.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Right, yeah. Vampire your children.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:10Pablo Torre?

  I mean.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  And then test each other's boners. I'm starting to try, I'm trying to piece together how we went from getting plasma to boner data.

• 33:20Pablo Torre?

  Well.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  I mean, you get, you get three to five guys in a room and

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  there's nothing on TV. It's at some point, I think, just naturally, the conversation is gonna wind its way to boner data.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Right, it's, it's, what's that, what's that, you know, you talk long enough and Hitler comes up? It's that for men with [BLEEP], yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:42Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, it's, it's, however many monkeys in a room, eventually typing out boner data.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:48Pablo Torre?

  I believe is how that.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:50Pablo Torre?

  That old saying goes. Brian Johnson, by the way, it's just interesting how, like, I mentioned Peter Thiel, who was, again, from the PayPal mafia famously with Elon and David Sacks and all these gargoyles that we know now. But Brian Johnson, he had built an online payment processing company himself called Braintree, which bought Venmo, and then he sold Braintree, it turns out, to PayPal in 2013 for $800 million, which is to say that somehow, like, online payment processing is a real through line in the dystopian future we have entered.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Just real quick, back to the boners. His name is Johnson, it's a little on the nose, or I guess on the [BLEEP], but the point is, he's testing his boners next to his sons in order to prove that that part of the aging process that isn't affecting him is sexual virility.

• 34:36Pablo Torre?

  I mean, what he's saying is that one of the indicators of the way in which he has slowed the rate of aging is nighttime erections. And so Brian Johnson, at age 47, is on par with his 19-year-old.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Couldn't you compare it to other 47-year-olds instead? Or couldn't you compare it to anonymous data from many people in their early 20s? Instead of weirdly posting about your son's boners, tagging him in those posts, and then saying, "Raise your kids to stand firm and upright." This part, to me, is like a departure from the already weird obsession with not dying, is also this desire to be connected to his son, both in terms of injecting his plasma into him, but then also having boner-offs. Like, is this weird to you guys, or am I just a woman?

• 35:27Speaker 03

  No, that's, I mean, there's a very weird part of like...

• 35:31Speaker 02

  You're just skipping over it.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  I mean, well, even as you said it, it is like...

• 35:36Pablo Torre?

  When you put it like that, I mean...

• 35:38Speaker 03

  He is sharing his son's medical data, which also feels like a violation. And everything about it, what you've shown me, what I've read about it, what I see in that dynamic with the son, if there's anyone I am horribly worried for, it is Talmage Johnson. Because at some point, Brian is gonna realize, maybe there's science where I could just put my brain in Talmage's body. Like, he's saying, "Oh, I want us all to live forever."

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Or clone him, or, you know, any number of weird sci-fi, rich-person weird things to take the next step.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Like, he wants to get out his own son.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Or Talmage might already be in the sunken place.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  He's in the cult.

• 36:27Pablo Torre?

  He did quote tweet the tweet from his dad, saying, quote, "I'm grateful for the way my dad has raised me." Period.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's already, that sounds like something you'd write with a gun to your head.

• 36:40Pablo Torre?

  He's in the turgid place.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  He's in this legit place. He can't think straight. He's constantly erect. His dad won't let him stop getting boners. Also, not the point of the clip, but isn't he rich enough to get a more believable hair dye? That doesn't occur in nature. Like, if the point is to look younger, like a real easy, just boxed hair dye is not going to cost you much and it's going to do wonders for selling people on your age.

• 37:09Pablo Torre?

  Right. I do feel like for all the sincerity and for all of the pills and for all of the, you know, 4:30 a.m. wake-ups he has, like, it must suck when someone's like, "You kind of look like you're in your mid-40s."

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:22Pablo Torre?

  You guys are familiar with ESPN announcer Mark Jones?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, Mark Jones is on the substance.

• 37:29Pablo Torre?

  Well, I just want to know what program Mark Jones is on. Mark Jones is 63 years old.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:35Pablo Torre?

  Mark Jones looks younger than Brian Johnson, and it's not close.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  I'm 85. What the [bleep] are you talking about? Yeah. It's called melanin, my friend.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Get you some. Yeah. He doesn't need 130 pills. Just get some melanin.

• 38:01Pablo Torre?

  Did you know over 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated and 90% don't get enough potassium, which is a key electrolyte responsible for energy, muscle function, and clear thinking? Well, that's why you can be drinking water all day and still feel tired or foggy or just off. And while most hydration packs really load up on the sugar, Instant Hydration contains zero sugar. There's no glucose spike and no sugar crash. And that is really important to me because it not only gives me electrolytes without loading me up with sugar, but it also helps me avoid that late afternoon crash. You know, that time of day when your eyes start drooping as you reply to yet another email and you need something to get you back on track.

• 38:42Pablo Torre?

  Just mix a packet of Instant Hydration with water and I am feeling ready to push through to the end of the day. For a better way to stay hydrated, go to instanthydration.com/ptfo and use my promo code PTFO for over 40% off your first subscription order. It's Instant Hydration's best offer available. That's instanthydration.com/ptfo, promo code PTFO.

• 39:07Pablo Torre?

  Cozy makes furniture for the part of life that nobody warns you about. Getting the couch into the room, making the room feel like you, then actually living on it, spills it all. With Cozy, your home can grow with you by adapting to new spaces, new styles, and every era of your life. It's modular furniture, so you can actively adjust your furniture to fit any space. It's all built around making the entire home comfortable and easy, so that your stuff works with your life, not around it. The covers are washable and interchangeable, so a refresh is only one wash away, and the spill goes from panic to shrug. And it all ships to your door in easy-to-move boxes. Plus, Cozy's free one-on-one design consultations make the whole home vision a lot less intimidating. Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan,

• 39:52Pablo Torre?

  because Cozy makes every part of the process easy. So, visit Cozy today. That's C-O-Z-E-Y dot com, and make yourself at home. Life in 2026 is tough. We all have our struggles, and we could all use some help. But trying to figure out how to get the right mental health treatment for you can feel overwhelming. Talkiiatry helps you move from "I know I need help" to actually having a psychiatrist who listens, and a clear, personalized treatment plan. Talkiiatry is 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more.

• 40:36Pablo Torre?

  With Talkiiatry, you can meet with a licensed psychiatrist, who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and supports you over time with consistent, evidence-based care. And all 800-plus clinicians are in-network, with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network costs. Head to talkiatry.com slash P T F O to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y dot com slash P T F O to get matched in minutes. Talkiatry dot com slash P T F O.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  I don't want to bring the party to a flaccid point, but I brought a sports topic. I forgot which show I was on, I guess.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  But I did want to bring it because I think you're both brilliant dudes, and I'm kind of interested to see where your brain takes what could happen next. So I don't know how familiar you are with the NWSL having a new CBA that they signed a couple of months ago. And part of it that we're now seeing manifest is they got rid of the draft altogether. They got rid of the college draft. They got rid of the expansion draft. There's no restrictions on movement for players at all. If you're out of a contract, you get to decide where you go. If you want to get traded, you have to agree to it. A team cannot trade you anywhere without you agreeing to it. And free agents can sign whenever they want. There's not even restricted free agency, where the team that originally had their rights has a chance to match.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  It is entirely players' rights now. And this is in part because the NWSL is having trouble competing with world soccer and FIFA that operated in an entirely different way. Right? So if a global team was trying to get you to play for them, you might choose them purely because you don't want to get drafted to somewhere that you have no choice.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  And, you know, that was a disadvantage to the NWSL. So this is the first real offseason where we're seeing not only collegiate and younger players just sign with whatever team they choose, but also seeing all these free agents potentially choose NWSL, WSL, which is the European Women's League in England. Naomi Germa, who's a superstar for the US national team and was playing for the San Diego Wave, just left and went to Chelsea out in England, had the biggest transfer fee of over $1 million for a female player ever, and signed a four-year deal with them. And because of the way they restructured their rules, that was able to happen during a transfer window.

• 43:15Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, that's right. Naomi Germa is a Chelsea player, which means Naomi Germa is now the world's most expensive player.

• 43:23Speaker 13

  Naomi, welcome to Chelsea. How does it feel to be here? It doesn't feel real. I'm just so excited to be here in person now. It's, yeah, it doesn't feel real.

• 43:33Pablo Torre?

  I actually just wanna jump in to say that like, it's amazing that the NWSL, the National Women's Soccer League, did the thing that every think PC analyst in sports has been musing about, which is abolish the draft.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:47Pablo Torre?

  No league in America has done that of this stature. And so the experiment, which I have been, I'm one of those people in that choir, by the way, of just like, look, there are two levels, Wyatt. Like, one is the level of fairness, obviously. Like, it's insane always that in this industry, in sports, you have zero control despite having all of this value

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:12Pablo Torre?

  over what you are and where you are going to actually use your talents, to misparaphrase LeBron James. But then the second level is like, well, doesn't that also, as much as I love the draft, raise new opportunities for like, what to do in replacement of it? The television show of the draft, you abolish that too. And that's always, John Skipper says it all the time. Like, the reason he would never wanna do it is because the TV show. But now you're actually forced to be creative about the entertainment of a world that is more fair and now, again, far more open in terms of like, how you're gonna go around both making decisions and then portraying them to your audience.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's the spectacle and the entertainment side of it, but then there's also how it serves the league. So for instance, in the past, there was a Supreme Court ruling. This Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in Brown versus Football, 1996, "Clubs that make up a professional sports league are not completely independent economic competitors as they depend on a degree of cooperation for economic survival." So in the past, basically, antitrust laws and things that people felt like a draft were in violation of, were able to be saved around the idea that each individual part of a professional league is really just one company, sort of. And in the NWSL, that argument really wouldn't have worked because it didn't help the health of the league

• 45:37Speaker 02

  to have a draft when the rest of global football didn't. So it benefits the health of the NWSL to operate in the same system as FIFA football and global football. The NFL would have different rules, the NBA would have different rules. So yes, it's very interesting to think about, for player rights purposes, how you might replace the draft and do something else. But also, it would be harder to get rid of it in the professional men's leagues in the US because of the fact that they aren't really operating in a global system the same way the NWSL wants to.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  With the NWSL and the things that they've put forward, is that also something that exists in the European League? Or are there things that the NWSL are doing that aren't just the same as what you're seeing in the European League, but maybe even a step further?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  No, this is a very, essentially, American thing, to take away an individual's rights and put them instead with a league or a team. In global football, with like, let's say Naomi Germa and transfer fees. Naomi Germa is headed to Chelsea because she wanted to go there and they wanted her. She was under contract with the San Diego Wave of the NWSL through the end of 2026. So first, San Diego and Chelsea have to agree on a transfer fee, which is the amount of money Chelsea is going to pay San Diego to have the rights to Naomi Germa. That's over a million dollars. And then, they also have to convince Naomi Germa to go there and sign there. Even if they agreed on the trade and the transfer fee, she would not have to go there unless she agreed to it. So at every turn, there is

• 47:17Speaker 02

  both a negotiation between clubs on a transfer fee and a negotiation between player and club. An interesting element that is potentially going to come up and is already being discussed in MLS is, should a player get a percentage of that transfer fee? Because ultimately, it's their value that's dictating how much is being paid and why. So soccer is basically operating now in terms of global rules because we're behind. America is the one catching up, whereas all the other leagues were sort of setting the precedent. And so I think it'd be harder to unravel. But if I were a men's professional athlete in the US, looking over at the NWSL, would I have a lot of thoughts about how much better it would be to be able to pick where I got to go

• 47:59Speaker 02

  instead of getting sent to fill in the blank where allegedly parity is what's driving things, but you know that it's a bad team that's poorly run with bad facilities, bad owners, everything else? And you have no choice. You're stuck there.

• 48:12Pablo Torre?

  It's an amazing thing, right? Like, the argument for the draft is inescapably socialist. And we have all of these capitalists who are saying, "We must have this because that is parity," right? Like, otherwise, small markets will lose out to big markets. The most marquee teams will always get the best players because why would they want to go to, fill in the blank, you know, Cincinnati slash whatever? Like, just also ran market.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  But it's corporate socialism, which capitalists have never had a problem with corporate socialism. It's not socialism for the individual, the player, the collective in that way. Capitalists love corporate socialism.

• 48:54Pablo Torre?

  And again, I am somebody who, like, my whole thing on tanking, right? Is that the problem with tanking is that it works. It makes sense to do it because you're following incentives. Like, it's an amazing thing to have the number one overall pick because you suck.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  Right?

• 49:07Pablo Torre?

  But in a world in which there is no draft, how have these decisions been made? Like, what's happening, I guess, is my question. Now that the experiment for the first time is finally being run in America.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  You just made me think of something that I want to add, which is another way that women's leagues are saying, "What we've always done doesn't have to be the way we keep doing it." The Professional Women's Hockey League, the PWHL, uses a draft order point system so that the team with the most points after they've been eliminated gets a better pick.

• 49:37Pablo Torre?

  Oh, right.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  So, once you know you're not making it, you have to try hard.

• 49:41Pablo Torre?

  You have to try and win.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Instead of getting worse. So, there's a lot of ways that I think women's professional sports are trying to look at what we've complained about for decades on the men's side. Unrivaled, for instance, uses an Elam ending for the fourth quarter of every single game. If people aren't familiar with that, it means you've got a

• 49:57Pablo Torre?

  Target score, yeah.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Target score, you've got a game winner every single game instead of let's have 8,000 free throws and drag out the finish. So women's sports are looking at the things that aren't working in men's and trying out new things because they're not beholden to nostalgia and tradition and people who will be mad about, you know, mixing things up. As far as the NWSL goes, we are right in the midst of seeing the first handful of college players getting signed to teams. It's missing a bit of the pageantry in terms of draft day night, but I had the executive director of the NWSLPA, Megan Burke, on and the Players Association President, Tori Huster, on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, plug there, to talk about this right after the CBA went through. And one of the things they talked about is that was an artificial pageantry. The real moment where you feel like a pro is when you sign your contract, not when you

• 50:43Speaker 02

  put the hat on. So can you make that my pro moment? Can you find a way to put some pageantry behind the contract signing and that decision? Or in high school, for instance, we've got the people who line up the hats on the table and then, you know, tell you where they're going on decision day. You could do that sort of thing the same way for players that are getting to decide their team as opposed to being drafted.

• 51:06Pablo Torre?

  Make it so that instead of the employer having all of these suitors, you flip, turn the tables.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  The dating game, the dating game. You've got the player and then behind the wall, you've got four teams.

• 51:18Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  Who are saying, here's our facilities, here's our record of winning, here's where you'll live if you live here, here's our tax situation.

• 51:25Pablo Torre?

  Exactly.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  The thing is, like, there are some legitimate questions about this in terms of how do you make sure teams are able to keep up, especially smaller markets? How do you ensure that there is a little bit of parity and it's not super lopsided? How do you keep fans interested in an also-ran team if they don't have the hope of a draft? The hope of that savior that's coming in?

• 51:44Pablo Torre?

  Sure.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  On the other hand, you force every team to have better resources and investment and good coaches and a plan to win because they can't get by on luck and the idea that if they fail, they're still going to get a shot at a star. There's loyalty and respect going both ways, where a player wants to be there and you want to have them, that might result in better relationships and conversations when you have to choose where you want to go and stay there if you want to stay there. I mean, I think there's a lot of doomsday scenarios to keep a system in place, the same way that we had doomsday scenarios about NIL and paying players in college, solely so that we could keep the billionaires rich and keep the player without any rights.

• 52:37Pablo Torre?

  At the end of every episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, we talk about what we found out today on a show about finding out stuff. And I found out just now that Sarah Spain has been holding a banana as not a prop, but actual food and has been restraining herself from using it as a metaphor made real, which I must applaud.

• 52:56Speaker 03

  Pablo, I found out that you need to do an episode where you take 130 vitamins a day and find out what happens to you. Will you get younger? Will you become more virile?

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:15Pablo Torre?

  At this rate, I don't think I want anybody to ever see the data that is inside of me. I don't think that's gonna go well.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  I found out that I really want to see a Wyatt Sinak documentary about In Living Color. So I want that to happen somehow, some way. I also found out that being a billionaire is not as fun as it looks. For the millionth time, I don't know how many stories we need to hear about miserable billionaire men before we finally stop in any way idolizing that lifestyle or them. But this is just like the latest in a long, long list of just deeply upsetting results of being too rich.

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like it's a health crisis. We need to perhaps look at it as a health crisis, that we need to save these men from themselves and tax them fairly.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metalark Media production, and we'll see you next time.

• 54:49Speaker 11

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.