The Sporting Class: Tracking LeBron's Fanatics Helicopter and the NCAA's Anti-Player Power Play

Domonique Foxworth and David Samson lay down the law in a rule-bending moment for sports business: Did the Sixers land King James because of a backroom helicopter upgrade from Fanatics? Why are colleges and conferences running an end-around to control student-athletes? And could all this lobbying backfire into an NCAA super-union? Plus: vanity tail numbers, dignity and/or pride... and Pablo Bingo. • Subscribe to "The Domonique Foxworth Show" https://pod.link/1642566714 • Subscribe to "Nothing Personal with David Samson" https://pod.link/1483011704 • Plus: Submit your confidential tips to Pablo https://www.pablo.show/tips (Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by Apple Card.) 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?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, brought to you by Apple Card. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  But trusting the process more than anything, I think you trust the process of actually being there.

• 0:16Pablo Torre?

  Right after this.

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• 1:21Pablo Torre?

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• 2:04Pablo Torre?

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• 2:28Speaker 04

  What's with the fatigues? What's this, the new look? What we got going here?

• 2:31Pablo Torre?

  This is my hunting with Dick Cheney look.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  I mean, I feel like you normally go like cardigan, like you give off more of a library vibe, less of like a streetwear vibe. This feels like, like, streetwear. And the orange, are you, yeah, I guess it's hunting?

• 2:50Pablo Torre?

  This is my Philippine Center, Minnesota shirt. Shout out to the Philippine Center, Minnesota. And library.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  No, I mean, I didn't mean that as an insult.

• 3:01Pablo Torre?

  What the hell? It looks like David is representing both of us in court, is what it looks like.

• 3:08Speaker 05

  I've just got a checklist of words that you say every single show, and I check it off at the timestamp. So we've got Philippine taken care of. That one's done. I've just got a few things that I know will come up each show, and I just, I like keeping track of just how long it takes you to say things, like Harvard or something.

• 3:24Speaker 04

  Oh, man, yeah, that one's coming.

• 3:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:27Pablo Torre?

  It's rare to get burned by David Samson at the top of his show, but touche.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  Touche is probably on the list, too.

• 3:34Pablo Torre?

  Oh, what is it? [bleep] you.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  [bleep] you.

• 3:38Speaker 05

  That's on the list, too. Man, we are rolling.

• 3:59Pablo Torre?

  I wanna get to the Protect College Sports Act and the lobbying they're in, and Dominique Foxworth and David Samson have particular vantage points that I've been looking forward to having collide in front of our audience. We'll get to that, but I do wanna do something like a bit of audience service here. We've been getting a lot of viewer mail, guys, about this.

• 4:27Speaker 05

  That is LeBron James getting into a helicopter for his very difficult commute from Philadelphia to New York, where he is residing, maybe for tax purposes only. And there's a big Fanatics logo on the tail of the helicopter.

• 4:46Pablo Torre?

  This is raising questions, Dominique, around Fanatics and the contract LeBron signed. He shocked the league, all of us will recall, by signing a two-year, $8 million contract with the Sixers. He announced that on July 24th. His salary this year is just $3.88 million, AKA the veteran minimum, after, you know, a month of just, will he or won't he? He was making $52.6 million with the Lakers last year. That's about a 93% pay cut. And Dominique, are you a helicopter guy? Are you a chopper dude? Do you have experience with such vehicles?

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I've been on a couple helicopters. Like, it's happened mostly recreationally, and I make fun of my wife because she would never get on a helicopter now, but we were dating. We got on a hot air balloon and a helicopter, and I thought I was being romantic, and she would really like it. And I guess she was tricking me into thinking she was like, not a ball of anxiety, and pretending like she enjoyed it, but she hated both of them, and she would never let me on a helicopter again.

• 5:48Pablo Torre?

  A hot air balloon's a funny method of cap circumvention, if we could allege that somehow. Just the oldest school, what, David? What, okay, David is, I hate you.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  4 minutes and 42 seconds, cap circumvention. It's a winner.

• 6:02Pablo Torre?

  David, get back on track. David, I hate you.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  It's a good bit.

• 6:09Pablo Torre?

  David, the helicopter as a means of transportation, the private means of transportation as part of sports, when you're running the Marlins, how exotic, how familiar is all of this to you?

• 6:22Speaker 05

  Very familiar, very normal. For example, there are executives who sign contracts that part of their compensation is 50 or 100 hours of private aviation use. When you are working for a company in the C-suite, it is very often part of the package that there is a corporate jet that you use, that you can use mostly for business, but also for personal. There are tax consequences for this, so LeBron James is paying taxes based on the value of each ride from Philly to New York and New York back. You don't just get the rides from Fanatics for free, but he'll have to declare that as income and then pay tax on it. But it is not uncommon both to get that as a perk or to spend your own money to do it

• 7:06Speaker 05

  in order to save time.

• 7:08Pablo Torre?

  I will admit, I've been on a helicopter a couple times. Scary, didn't seem worth it afterwards. I will also point out, on a very serious note, and this is, again, gonna get me dinged by David Samson's checklist, but of course, none other than Kawhi Leonard has previously talked about how he had used. No, he had used the same helicopter pilot to get from Staples and San Diego to get between those two places, where he lived and where he worked, that Kobe used. And this is, Dominique, part of like the haunting aspect of this, is this is perhaps the most infamous form of transportation for an NBA superstar, specifically this one, to be voluntarily taking.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  I don't think that LeBron shouldn't take a helicopter because Kobe died in a helicopter crash, nor frankly, do I think that LeBron chose the Sixers because Fanatics offered him a helicopter to use, because he could easily have just done an endorsement deal with a charter helicopter company to bring him back and forth from his house in New York to Philadelphia every day.

• 8:09Pablo Torre?

  But I do think it's interesting to try and answer the question of like, what's to deal with his helicopter? And if we can show just the photo of it again, David, what's painted on the side of this? Can you read the number there?

• 8:23Speaker 05

  The tail number, or the registration number, is N6FN. FN, obviously, as in Fanatics.

• 8:31Pablo Torre?

  So the vanity aspect of the FN, hold that thought here. Fanatics, for those who are not familiar, the multi-dimensional sports empire, they have merch, they got cards, they got collectibles, they got gambling, founded by former Sixers minority owner, Michael Rubin. And the tail number, N6FN, it has led Front Office Sports to report, just last week, that the flight records show this helicopter being used to make a dozen round trips between Philly and New York in just the past week, and a spokesperson for LeBron told Front Office Sports, quote, "The deal we signed with Fanatics almost three years ago includes access to their corporate aviation. It's a feature in many of their deals with their largest athletes, and we appreciate their partnership," end quote.

• 9:16Pablo Torre?

  And so, this is what we do, here at Pablo Torre Finds Out. We Ask the flight tracker community on Discord for a little bit of help in figuring out what to do with this chopper and where it's been. And we got the flight locks. And Dominique, if you go back and look at this registration data from the FAA, you will find that this same chopper, which happens to be a twin-engine Augusta AW139, that's the model number, with room for 15 passengers, flying at an estimated efficiency of roughly 1 mile to the gallon. What you'll see is that it's registered under a different tail number, as far back as a decade ago.

• 10:00Pablo Torre?

  And David, what does it say along the right side there?

• 10:03Speaker 05

  Fanatics Retail Group North, Inc.

• 10:06Pablo Torre?

  And if you zoom in a little bit closer, what seems different about this chopper from the one we showed before?

• 10:13Speaker 05

  It looks like it's repainted and it was registered with a different number. This one is N223KR.

• 10:21Pablo Torre?

  Well, it's a helicopter that may seem vaguely familiar. If you remember the thing that happened, Dominique, remember the thing that happened with Meek Mill in 2018?

• 10:31Speaker 04

  We're talking about Meek getting out of prison? Is that the thing that happened with Meek?

• 10:36Pablo Torre?

  We are talking about that very thing.

• 10:39Speaker 06

  And Meek Mill is out. There he is. He is out of prison. He is, there he is. He just got out of what looks like an Escalade and he's headed into a chopper. Now, our Sal pal Antonio just reported that he did get it confirmed from Sixers PR that Michael Rubin, co-owner of the Sixers, was headed there to pick him up. That's probably his chopper, I would assume.

• 10:59Speaker 07

  How do you organize this from the joint?

• 11:03Pablo Torre?

  One of Michael Rubin's things is, of course, his relationship with Meek Mill, the rapper, the recording artist. Michael Rubin had fought for his release from prison. They later joined together in a broader push to reform probation and parole. Meek Mill shows up at Sixers games before Michael Rubin divests from the team. He's there, ringing the bell before the 2018 playoff game against the Heat. Anyway, I bring this up just to say that this helicopter has a storied history. On February 10th, 2019, according to flight data we reviewed, for instance, this same chopper flew from Philly to New York, back to Philly, back to New York, and they caught Sixers Lakers, featuring LeBron, courtside with, who's that, Dominique?

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Robert Kraft, that's who it is.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  That is not Allen Iverson.

• 11:48Pablo Torre?

  It is Magic Johnson, standing next to Allen Iverson, standing next to Bob Kraft, standing next to Michael Rubin. Fast forward into 2022, Fanatics is getting into athlete contracts, they're doing collectibles, they're getting also into the gambling business. Michael Rubin then decides, I can't do this anymore for rules-based reasons. He divests his 10% ownership stake in Josh Harris's ownership group that controls the Sixers, because that is a conflict of interest. And I know this because Michael Rubin said as much at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference onstage.

• 12:24Speaker 07

  You know, we were, now that I'm not part of the ownership group, I think I can say this, I think we were violating every rule the NBA had, you know? You weren't allowed to take bets. You were, you were. Yeah. Not the other orders. No, no, I was actually, no, I'm just a "we" person, not a "me" person. But like, you're not allowed to take bets on your own team, but I was taking bets on the Sixers. You can't have individual contracts with, remember, I'm in the sports betting business. I know. You know, you're not allowed to have individual contracts with athletes. I have 3,000 individual deals with athletes. You're not allowed to have owners or players that are investors in your businesses. They're all, you know, LeBron's an investor in our business, Joel Embiid's an investor in our business, James Harden's an investor in our business, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant.

• 13:09Speaker 07

  So all these guys were investors in our business. So like, if you look through the rules of the leagues, it didn't work for me to own part of a team that was holding back Fanatics, and so...

• 13:19Pablo Torre?

  And in case you didn't know, five days after Rubin's divestment from the Sixers was completed, The Wall Street Journal reported this.

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Fanatics adds LeBron James, Kevin Durant as partners in sportswear company.

• 13:31Pablo Torre?

  That being Mitchell and Ness, the, you know, the throwback merch maker controlled by Fanatics. Rubin tells the Journal at the time that "a big trend happening today with celebrities and athletes is they're sick of just getting checks." And so, we move forward together, right? LeBron signs this deal with Fanatics in 2024. It's announced in January. Apparently, it includes access to their corporate aviation. But the bigger deal about all of this, of course, Fanatics' business, is trading cards. Fanatics also owns TOPS. And I point this out because when we get to the summer of 2026, right, just months ago now, what's interesting about this helicopter is that Michael Rubin's chopper had not been used a lot, according to our flight locks.

• 14:14Pablo Torre?

  Just a couple of trips around New York City, around Philly in June, it was sort of like semi-retired, according to the data. But in July, Dominique, you may recall that LeBron is choosing between a couple of teams.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  I know his agent at one point did the whiteboard with Max Kellerman. I don't remember all the teams that were on that board, but it felt like everyone in the league was interested and LeBron was entertaining it because he was willing to play for much less than he's worth.

• 14:42Pablo Torre?

  And the finalists, yes, Sixers, Warriors, Cavs, and Heat. And July 1st, Sixers trade for Jalen Brown. This is the thing that Rich Paul, LeBron's aforementioned agent, calls the tipping point. But on July 16th, 2026, we're at Fanatics Fest in New York. This is the convention, this is the Comic-Con that Michael Rubin throws for sports fans and fans of Fanatics and these athletes. And there onstage is LeBron James, promising that, quote...

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Won't hold you guys up too much longer, but...

• 15:16Pablo Torre?

  And on July 17th, the next day, LeBron does another appearance at Fanatics Fest, and he says this.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  I want to, you know, join a franchise that kind of shares the same, you know, model as myself, and that's like practicing championship habits every day, but trusting the process more than anything. I think you trust the process of actually being...

• 15:40Pablo Torre?

  And as much as I hesitate to say the words "the process," because David's going to cross it off his stupid list that I know he's keeping now, of course LeBron in public has said, "No, no, no, that was just a thing I always say. This is a thing I say in my life. It's just one of my phrases." And fair enough. But something else happens that same day, July 17th, 2026, during LeBron's second day at Michael Rubin's Fanatics Fest, and it's this. David, could you please read the highlighted parts?

• 16:13Speaker 05

  FAA Registry. Model AW139. Pending number change. Six FN. Date change authorized. 7/17/2026.

• 16:29Pablo Torre?

  So I'm just saying.

• 16:32Speaker 05

  So it is six for LeBron. That's fantastic.

• 16:36Pablo Torre?

  I am just saying that on the same day that LeBron did this thing at Fanatics Fest, Michael Rubin's chopper got its new plates and eventually its new paint job. And a week later, July 24th, the Sixers had their new superstar, which, Dominique, crucially, the news of it was not broken by Shams Charania or anybody else in our industry, but it was actually broken a half second earlier this way.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  It's a tweet by TOPS.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  That says, "Breaking: LeBron James is joining the Philadelphia 76ers for his historic 24th NBA season. LeBron makes it official by signing his first-ever 76ers trading card." Well, that doesn't quite make it official, but let's not, you know, worry about that. "One collector who purchases the base edition will receive this one-of-one autograph." God, they don't screw around, those Fanatics guys, do they?

• 17:34Pablo Torre?

  I have never seen a big announcement like this broken by a trading card company, but here it was. The trading card platform owned by Fanatics breaks the news of LeBron signing, and I just got to point out that league sources have been wondering, I am told, if former Sixers minority owner Michael Rubin flipped LeBron, convinced him to sign with the Sixers at Fanatics Fest. And to that, of course, when we asked Sixers PR for comment, they didn't reply. So this is not me alleging, this is cap circumvention. It is, though, me pointing out, this is pretty funny.

• 18:15Pablo Torre?

  It is a pretty funny series of apparent coincidences for a helicopter that lots of people have been asking questions about.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  It's funny because I know we're going to talk about the college football stuff soon. It feels like college is becoming what the pros should be, and the pros are becoming what college used to be, whereas this seems like a booster sneaking some benefits to a guy. And the underlying thing is, the guy is worth it. So like, when you give a car, or a bag of money, or access to an oil field to a high school football player because he is so talented, and then someone comes in afterwards and

• 19:06Speaker 04

  says, "But this is an NCAA violation," I look at the NCAA and say, "You're the one that's the problem." And I feel the same way, honestly, about any other ways that players get access to some sort of benefit. It's like, all right, they're super talented. Like, the idea that someone has something of value, be it a talent or anything that they want to sell, and there is another body that's like, "Nope, you can sell it, but you can only make this much." Like, that feels like, fundamentally, like something that all of us as Americans would say is not fair.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  So if the money finds its way, or the benefits find their way to a player, I am not going to be like, "Oh my gosh, clutch your pearls."

• 19:55Speaker 05

  There's two things, though, you have to think about, though. First, did Josh Harris call Michael Rubin and say, "Hey, as part of an offer to LeBron James, I need you to sign him to a bigger deal or a deal, and I need it to have the following perks." That would start thinking about salary cap circumvention if Josh Harris asked him to. Secondly, if there is a perk related to his contract that he just doesn't disclose, then that's the issue. But it's possible that he's disclosed all this and it's part of the calculation for the Sixers salary cap.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  And I get why you would care, and I guess maybe I would get why other people care. I don't care. Like, it's the same as like going back to college and saying, "This team is so much better than the other team because they have richer boosters who are sneaking bags of money to players." I'm going to say...

• 20:47Speaker 04

  The problem is that there is an organization standing between the person with the valuable thing and the people who want to pay for it. Like, I'm not bothered by people finding creative ways to compensate someone more fairly for their labor. That is not going to upset me. I look at the system and say, isn't this just evidence that the system's [BLEEP]?

• 21:14Speaker 05

  I understand that you'd want the rules to change, but the rules state that every team in the NBA operates under the same rules and they all have to have equal access to talent.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  I think you're taking me the wrong way. I'm saying I understand why it's a problem to you and it may be a problem to other people. But I'm not the right person if you want people to be up and on. I don't give a [BLEEP].

• 21:34Pablo Torre?

  No, this is why I wanted you here, in part. It's because this whole thing, everything we're going to talk about in this episode is about what are the rules? How did we arrive at those rules? And how are people trying to work around those rules? And part of the premise of this episode is I unfortunately am obsessed with trying to figure out, what's the story you're being told? And what's the story actually behind the scenes? David is, of course, a guy who worked in management for a zillion years. You, of course, Dominique led unions. And I think the question in front of us is, what is the set of rules that everyone's agreed to? And did they even agree to them?

• 22:10Pablo Torre?

  Which I guess gets us to Washington, DC.

• 22:13Speaker 05

  I've thought about what my tail number would be if I ever had a private plane or a copter. And I would go N26DPS.

• 22:24Speaker 05

  Have you ever thought about what your tail number would be? Or is that not something you think about?

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Never thought about it in my life.

• 22:39Pablo Torre?

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• 24:20Pablo Torre?

  The Protect College Sports Act, Dominique, for those who are not familiar, it's been all over ESPN. It's been all over various news outlets. It's now political news. It is passed in the Senate by a vote of 77 to 22 after like six hours of debate.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  The bill, as amended, is passed. A bipartisan victory scored in the US Senate. It is about making sports about sports again. After an overwhelming vote to pass the Protect College Sports Act.

• 24:47Speaker 07

  Yet the system we have today is unsustainable, plain and simple. Students are transferring three and four times. Pros are trying to play ball against college kids. The legislation would implement new national standards for college sports. That includes codifying the rights of student athletes to earn money from their name, image, and likeness, permitting up to five years of eligibility to play, but only allowing them to transfer schools once, and capping agent fees. The bill is backed by some of the biggest names in sports, from coaches like Nick Saban and John Calipari, to athletic conferences and professional sports leagues.

• 25:27Pablo Torre?

  And the whole premise of what this bill is trying to do is effectively get college sports in the NCAA under control. But I want to specify, David, what that means because when it comes to what they're asking for, which is a limited antitrust exemption, this is something familiar, of course, to someone from Major League Baseball. How would you explain what this bill is asking for?

• 25:50Speaker 05

  The three branches of government exist for a reason. And when you are not satisfied with what the judicial branch is doing, and there have been a bunch of cases involving the NCAA, and the result of those cases has not really been what the NCAA would want. So when you are in a position where one branch is not being helpful, you go to another branch. And if you go to the legislative branch, that's going to trump the judicial branch and the executive branch. If you can get a law passed by both, obviously by Congress, which is the House and the Senate, the exact same bill, and we're not even close to that yet. So there is no legislative bill anywhere that discusses these things.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  So it is very common in business to go to Capitol Hill with your lobbyists and try to get laws changed. And Donald Trump put together an entire committee to work on this, led by Randy Levine, the longest-tenured president in Major League Baseball. It was a huge square table with like 100 people at it, with Nick Saban and Randy Levine and so many other people. And they put the framework of a bill together that they then had to find someone to carry that bill. They found a bunch of senators, made it bipartisan. And it's gotten to the point now with amendments and all sorts of debate that it is through the Senate, which means it goes to the House where they have to vote on it, and they have to vote on the exact bill. And that has not happened yet.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  I'm working on being better as a person. And I think that I often am right about things and wrong about things. And sometimes the way that you present it takes away from your position. So like, I am determined not to like get emotional and angry or upset at all in this discussion. And far be it from me to get into a legal debate with a lawyer. But for you and other people who are proponents of this law, and I'm not saying you're a proponent, but there are a lot of words that kind of obscure the facts. And one of the things that you said, I'm going to grab onto this one thing, is you said that there are no laws on the books

• 28:02Speaker 04

  that regulate college sports. And I would say there are plenty of laws on the books that regulate businesses. And that's what this is about, right? Like, this is about them looking to avoid having to comply with antitrust law. That's it. They went to the Supreme Court about the educational compensation, and it was a nine to zero decision. Like, nine, all of them, appointed by everybody. All of them were like, what y'all doing is kind of not right.

• 28:38Speaker 06

  The schools are conspiring with competitors, agreeing with competitors, I'll say that, to pay no salaries to the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing. And that just seems entirely circular and even somewhat disturbing.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  Like, everybody, all of them. And then, rather than go about this in the way that your league has, my league has, all other American leagues have, and collectively bargain with the labor, they said, you know what? Let's use the influence and power that we have to reinstitute the power structure as the way it was before. And that, to me, is like... It's just wrong.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, Dominique, I didn't say no laws exist involving the NCAA. I said that as it relates to what the Protect College Sports Act deals with, when they got the bad decisions, that's when they put this bill together. Nor did I say I'm a proponent of the bill, actually. I was just saying the reason why you go to Capitol Hill when you've gotten bad decisions all the way up to the Supreme Court is just that, that the only way to change it after that, there's no appeals process. The Supreme Court is it. You've hit your limit. That when you go, you go from that building to the Capitol. That's it. That's the only thing they can do, and that's why they did it.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  I understand, and like throughout our history, there are lots of times where the Supreme Court came down on the right side of social issues, and there are times when the Supreme Court came down on the wrong side of social issues. And then you go about, like, I understand the process. And I understand why people are doing it. But I think the hangup is when you, for me at least, is when you try to obscure what the bill is actually designed to accomplish. And not you specifically. When people try to obscure what the bill is actually designed to accomplish. And that, to me, is what has been a little bit upsetting about this process.

• 30:48Pablo Torre?

  Well, I want to clarify what the bill is trying to do is regulate how much money schools can pay players. They want to regulate transfers. They want to do all this stuff that they cannot do without. Okay, Dominique's making a face. What's, how would you push back on that?

• 31:08Speaker 04

  I would just say that they are looking to reinstitute a power structure that allows one group to make and enforce all the rules. That's all that matters, because I think most of us who like American sports don't mind any of the things that you're saying that they want to put in. The problem is not that they want those things in. The problem is that they want the power to impose those things without the labor having any recourse.

• 31:39Pablo Torre?

  And so this is what I want to get to. It's like, why are we doing this now? It's not merely a debate around, like, should players be paid X or Y? Should there be some rules around the transfer portal? I want to focus on the antitrust exemption. Because when it comes, Dominique, to a union, and this speaks to the collectively bargained nature of the rules we discussed at the top of the show, right? Like them or not, those are the rules that the players agreed to in negotiations with the leagues. An antitrust exemption by nature. If you could explain why unions are willing to grant that. Catch us up on what that means.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  There are lots of antitrust laws. The exemptions allow these organizations to operate outside of the law. So like, the way that there's revenue sharing, the way that these teams come together to negotiate for TV rights. Like, there are lots of reasons why antitrust exemption would benefit everyone. But the ways that they don't is when it's like you have a draft or you have a maximum salary. You have these sorts of things that are illegal. Like, and are like core to American life is like these things that we say that we believe in. I see David getting upset, but like these-

• 32:56Speaker 05

  I'm not upset, I just don't want to mislead people. That's not what the antitrust exemption is, either in this case or in baseball's case at all. It is actually a limited antitrust exemption as it relates to being able to collect all of your rights that you have for TV and then sell them as a group. Antitrust, we don't have to use big words, it means anti-competitive. What the government is trying to protect with antitrust laws is, hey, we don't want the consumer to be screwed. And if there is a way that businesses can get together to screw a customer, we want to stop that. But we're going to allow some screwing sometimes. And the example of the screwing in baseball

• 33:38Speaker 05

  is that there's a group of men who can get together and say, you can't move your team. There's a group of men who can get together and say, we are going to combine New York and Milwaukee, and we are going to sell all of our TV rights together, and you're going to have no choice but to take all of ours. You can't cherry pick, the way John Skipper would like to, which teams you're going to take. So in this Protect College Sports Act, Dominique, the antitrust exemption that they are seeking is related to TV and the ability to negotiate conference TV deals.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Yes. And also, all the rules that are written in there are meant to circumvent the mobility and the leverage that the players have. So like, I, again, like, I don't want to get into a legal debate with a lawyer, but like, I've been in this stuff. And you also recognize that there are no other industries where these limitations on labor are allowed. Like, they aren't. They exist in sports because of these antitrust exemptions. When the NFL decertified in the early 90s in order to gain free agency, once they came to a settlement agreement with the league, the league required, as part of their settlement,

• 34:53Speaker 04

  that they must reform the union, because when the union was not there, they were not allowed to do all the things that they wanted to do. And that's how you end up in court over it. So I haven't read the Sherman Act from front to back. I haven't broken down all antitrust laws. But I know that because that exemption exists, it's why you're allowed to like have a draft, have a salary cap, and-

• 35:21Speaker 05

  No. Dominique, the reason why you needed a union in sports is that who would you negotiate with exactly? How would you be able to have a league that has games if half of the players are saying, oh, you signed a deal with the players' union? Hey, that doesn't apply to me. I'd like you to pay me $59 million. And you're putting your hand on your head as though that you're not understanding why recertification was required. You understand why there was decertification, and there wouldn't be a deal unless there were recertification.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  I get it. I understand, David. Do you think that there should be like an executives' union that, in order to negotiate on their behalf? Like, the union exists to benefit-

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Funny you should ask, Dominique, because yes, and I'll tell you why. Because all of the benefits that players get after 18 years in the big leagues, my pension is not even close to what a player's pension is with what I did in baseball. I'm part of the non-uniform pension plan, and I wanted to be part of the uniformed pension plan.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  Can we, I just want to get, we're getting too far away from the point.

• 36:26Pablo Torre?

  Why is a union in favor of an antitrust exemption at all? Like, because it exists in sports? And so I just want to explain that, yes.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  So I do think that the union, the players in the union benefit from being able to come together and have some power to negotiate the rules that they live under. And also, they benefit from increased revenue as a result of the teams being able to work together and negotiate major deals like the TV rights. We agree.

• 36:56Speaker 05

  That's it, we agree.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  All right, cool. Found some common ground.

• 37:00Pablo Torre?

  And the reason that common ground is so important is because you guys actually agree, I think, on the Protect College Sports Act, because they're trying to circumvent the negotiating table in the first place, which is what's [bleep] crazy to me.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  Can we start at this point is the athletes said this system is unfair, and they've been saying it for a long time. And the courts were like, nope, it's fine, nope, it's fine. Eventually, the court said, you're right, this is unfair. So then, my thought is, in the same way with the NFL players, is then you negotiate with the players on something that is fair. Rather than doing that, college has decided, all right, well, we won't even talk to them, and we'll try to use our power and influence to create legislation that forces them to operate under whatever rules we see fit. And that, to me, is like, do we agree on that?

• 37:58Speaker 05

  Well, no, because they're not forced to. I just would say that when we're talking about college level, there is a difference between college and professional. Now, the difference is definitely cloudier these days, because college players are paid in a way they didn't used to be. If they were still amateurs not being paid except by the bagman, then I think it's a different discussion. But what I'm saying is there's an alternative. I would say for you as a football player, the place you want to play is the NFL. There are alternatives, but they are not equal in any way to the NFL, in quality, in opportunity, none of it. But for college sports, I would argue for the major sports. Now, keep in mind, I'm talking about football, and I'm talking about basketball. I'm not talking about Olympic sports. But for the major sports, which is really what this act is about,

• 38:43Speaker 05

  there are alternatives for those athletes if they would choose not to. Where I thought you were going, Dominique, is that MLB is proposing to actually stop college players from becoming pro players. They are actually suggesting to the union that you go from high school to MLB, because they want to protect college and protect people from leaving college. So it's a very fascinating thing, is what would happen if the NFL would say, hey, we're not going to really draft college players at all. I'm just pointing out to you that there is a system that could be out there that would make college sports quite different than it is now.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  So we do agree that going to- To try to create laws without first trying to go through the players. I'm glad we agree that that's bullshit. But we moved on from that to saying that, and this is a great point that you made because it's important. The reason why the antitrust laws are there is because there is to protect the, you say it's not to protect the employees, but I think part of it is about protecting employees because there are other options, right? And so if McDonald's says, "We are paying minimum wage and you have to work this amount of hours and you have to wear a stupid hat all the time." Everyone would say it's fine for McDonald's to say that because I can go choose to work at any other fast food restaurant.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  This is the point on the labor side is that when there are not other options, which this is the case, it is not fine for you to decide whatever rules. So like if all NFL teams were individual teams or baseball teams were individual teams, then any team could say, "This is all I pay players. I'm not paying you anymore. You have to sign a contract for 18 years for $300,000 and that's it." And we were like, "Fine, that's their choice. I can go play for another team." The fact that these college players do not have other options, like in the two major sports, they don't have realistic other options, is all the more reason why what they're doing fucking sucks.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  You know, that's how the reserve system actually started in baseball is because when you were a part of a team, you were a part of team in perpetuity.

• 41:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:01Speaker 05

  There was no freedom of movement and the players were like, "Well, this sort of stinks. Like I'm subject to playing for Charlie Finley every year of my life. I don't really want to do that."

• 41:10Speaker 04

  You can agree with me, David. Like you, I hear it in your voice. You understand what I'm saying. You agree with me.

• 41:16Speaker 05

  I 100% agree with free agency. You know where I argue and what I've said at the table. I want free agency every year for everybody. It would be my pleasure for there to be complete free agency.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  And that's kind of what it is in college sports right now, but it's different because they choose not to be a business and they choose not to have you sign a contract with your employer. Like you can have free agency every year if you want. You can offer only players one-year deals and then you have free agency every year. But some players are too talented for that and too valuable for that. And you're like, "No, I'll tie this player up for as long as I possibly can for however much he wants." And that all seems like fine to me. The problem to me is these colleges and the conferences are looking to create a system where they get to decide how much the players make and for how long they play

• 42:11Speaker 04

  and how much mobility they have, can they transfer without the players being able to do anything?

• 42:17Speaker 05

  That's exactly what the CBA is.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  So David, what the fuck are we talking about?

• 42:25Speaker 05

  You know what would make me happy? What would make me happy is if the act doesn't pass and instead all, there's a huge union of everyone from Olympic swimming and ballet all the way up to football. And somehow you get hired because you're better than anyone else at this to run that union and figure out how to negotiate a CBA with all of the different conferences and all of the FBS, FCS, FDS and FU F schools that are out there. It is so unwieldy that I don't exactly understand how it would work, but I'm all in for someone with a labor slant to figure that out.

• 42:58Speaker 04

  It would absolutely suck. It sounds terrible and messy and awful.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Which is why you go to Capitol Hill.

• 43:07Pablo Torre?

  The reason I want to do this episode is because this is the one union management labor story that I think you guys would both agree on. But the strongest argument that people are trying to pass this bill in a bipartisan fashion are making, Dominique, is that if we don't do this, it's going to suck even worse. And that is an appeal not to principles, by the way, which you guys agree on. You should negotiate with unions to get to whatever regime of rules there is. Their argument is we are bypassing that because it's too important to not have this.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  It would be very hard, but it's not impossible. There are lots of legislation in the history of this country that were like, "Hey, it's going to be really hard to institute it, but this is the right way to do it. It's going to be really uncomfortable for people to change their lifestyle and to do different things. It's going to be really hard and really uncomfortable, but this is the right thing to do." I don't understand why we would ever say, "You know what? Because this is hard and uncomfortable, let's just give all the power to the people who are in charge and then whatever to the rest of the people." Like that part to me is insane because I agree. If you try to unionize all of college athletes, it's going to be hard.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Like it's hard enough when I was active in the NFL union and the basketball union. It was so fucking hard. It's very difficult. It's a very, very hard job and no one ever calls your office except for when they want to complain. And they don't call you to say, "Thanks for the bump in the salary cap." They don't call you for any of that. They don't call you and say, "Thank you for this health insurance." No one calls you and thanks you for that. They just called to complain. And I'm sure the complaints will be even more from every other sport and every other athlete. Like I get it. It's gonna suck. It'll be really hard. Integrating schools, really fucking hard. Like this is fucking hard, but just because it's hard, you don't be like, "You know what? Fuck it."

• 45:07Speaker 04

  And I guess schools are no longer integrated anymore, but just because it's hard, you don't say, "You know what? Who cares? Let's just let the team, the school presidents make all the decisions. Let all the mayors of these southern cities make all the decisions. Let's do it. Oh, it doesn't matter. It's too hard."

• 45:27Speaker 05

  I mean, that's good television, Dominique, but that's... Do you think that they were represented at all? Players were represented around that big square table?

• 45:35Speaker 04

  They weren't.

• 45:36Speaker 05

  When they were, so not at all? None of the people there had any thought of the players? Because the coaches on that are just feeling like, "Hey, we have to do something."

• 45:46Pablo Torre?

  Dominique's pointing. Dominique's pointing.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Okay, go ahead, Dominique.

• 45:50Speaker 04

  You said, "Were they represented or did the people at the table have any thought of them?" There's two different things.

• 45:57Pablo Torre?

  Oh, were my bozive that Tim Tebow was invited? How dare you?

• 46:01Speaker 04

  No, they weren't represented. And I, I've gotten a little softer or a lot softer, honestly, in my old age. And I would, I used to say that the NFL owners and team owners in the league don't care about players. I've come to think that I believe they do. I believe they genuinely do. Like I think Roger Goodell genuinely cares about the players and I believe that a lot of team owners genuinely care about the players. And I'm sure these presidents and ADs genuinely care about the players. But we all have like a priority stack. And the players are not one on the priority stack. They're not two. Maybe they're three or four.

• 46:39Speaker 05

  Employees that were never one on the priority stack.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  Agreed.

• 46:42Speaker 05

  It doesn't matter whether they're unionized or not.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  I'm not.

• 46:45Speaker 05

  They're not. And Roger Goodell loves doping though. He loves doping the players.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm not arguing.

• 46:51Speaker 05

  What is it? The thing that when you, when you pretend you're hugging?

• 46:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, dap.

• 46:56Speaker 05

  Oh, dap. God damn it.

• 46:57Pablo Torre?

  Well, I'm crossing that off on my David Samson mispronouncing urban slang on my checklist.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Dignity and pride is what.

• 47:04Speaker 05

  Oh, is that really what it stands for?

• 47:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was for, um, black, black GIs used to do a special handshake because the white soldiers would not protect them and shoot them. And it meant that they would stick together. That's the, the origin of dap. It's why it's a black thing that is now.

• 47:21Speaker 05

  So white people can't dap?

• 47:22Speaker 04

  No, they can. We've allowed them to dap and rap and do all types of things that they did not create.

• 47:30Pablo Torre?

  For David, Dominique, it's dop. You get to have dignity or pride. Choose one in the negotiation.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  I'm sorry.

• 47:35Speaker 05

  Much more of an or guy, not an and guy.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  I saw that you had something and I was like, "Nah, me embarrassing David is more fun." But no, dop, oh God, dignity or pride. That was incredible.

• 47:56Pablo Torre?

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• 48:40Pablo Torre?

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• 49:46Speaker 06

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• 50:26Pablo Torre?

  So what seems clear to me is that what management and labor typically, as embodied by you guys, can decide on and agree on is that we really should come to a negotiating table and have the labor on the other side of this so we can then muscle them into giving us what we want. In this case, they're saying, "We're not even gonna do that." And so the question is, who is in favor of this approach? Because when it comes to lobbying, when it comes to the money being spent on political advocacy, the people who are in favor of this, just to be very clear about it, seem to be the people who are the incumbent powers who like the way that business is done right now. And that means networks, that means conferences.

• 51:09Pablo Torre?

  Dominique, what is your point of clarification here?

• 51:12Speaker 04

  They don't like the way business is done right now. They like the way business used to be done. Like, right now, we're in a situation where this is like a true free market for the labor, where the labor is like, "No, this team will pay me a million more. I'll go there." "Oh, I don't like it here. I'll leave and go get a new job tomorrow." That's where we're at now. They don't like that. They wanna go back to when there was like, "No, if you transfer, you gotta sit out for this amount of time. No, you can't have any deals that are over this certain amount." And like, that's where they wanna go back to.

• 51:48Speaker 05

  It's the Wild West right now. And the reason why we always try to avoid the Wild West is management is if we don't understand what the rules are, A, we can't try to circumvent them, but more importantly, we don't know what we're up against. And so when we're trying to do projections out into the future, when we're trying to figure out our business, you have to understand the rules of engagement, or else you won't be able to operate.

• 52:08Pablo Torre?

  But this is why I say "right now." Because right now, there's a status quo when it comes to the contracts that these companies, these networks, have signed with conferences. And to David, to your point, just to clarify this, predictability is desirable because you can model out your balance sheet. You can figure out, is our business in a good place relative to the risk and uncertainty that may be lying in wait somewhere? And I just want to explain, the reason why ESPN, why Current Networks, why they like this is because they're the rights holders, and they wanna be able to ensure that their rights continue to be held in such a way that they've modeled out, right? Into years from now.

• 52:50Speaker 05

  That's one part, Pablo. But the other part is, the reason why you like it if you're a network is you're trying to make sure you understand who you need to talk to. You just wanna understand the framework of how deals get put together and know that you're competing against other streaming services or platforms, not competing against all sorts of... Imagine for a minute if there were no college football playoff that was universal, and that every conference, not a conference championship, but that everybody was out there saying, "No, I'm the champion. No, I'm the champion." The way there's a Korean baseball league, a Japanese professional baseball league, but there's an American baseball league, so it's not really a World Series, but we all understand the rules. Imagine if everyone were out there doing their own thing. It's chaos. And that just is not something a network wants to get involved in,

• 53:34Speaker 05

  because what if they're on the wrong side of the chaos?

• 53:37Speaker 04

  Honestly, I don't completely understand how this is so complicated. And maybe this is because I'm not inside the college business in this way. It's like, the schools can decide how much they spend or how much their salary cap is. From how I understand it, the money, like, the big money that's going to players is not coming from the school's budget. It's coming from people who raise money and have money, who care about their school. And so conferences can negotiate these contracts with TV rights holders. They could, like, none of that feels to me in jeopardy right now.

• 54:18Speaker 04

  The reason why this legislation is here is because the players are switching teams and putting pressure on the institutions to find these boosters to raise enough money to put in their pocket. And that, to me, feels like the reason why this is happening. Am I wrong?

• 54:40Speaker 05

  They're also not adhering to the deals. So you've got players who they sign with, they sign with somebody, and then they're like, "Oh, wait a minute. There's someone offering me more. See you later. I'm gonna go to that." And that is, you can't operate that way. Think about that if you were a football player and you got offered an extra million after signing your contract, and you had no rules. You could just say, "You know what? I'm on the Patriots, but at halftime, I'm going to the Steelers because I just got a call from Rooney." You just can't have that.

• 55:07Pablo Torre?

  But I wanna also just like, look at the high-level incentives, right? Because I understand, Dominique, your point, that the conferences, the schools, can all decide to do what they want regardless. But if they prefer that they would like a system in which the players don't have a seat at the table, and they get to create this regime of rules that are advantageous to them and to the incumbents, including coaches and administrators, then what they can do is lean on their business partners to say, "We want you guys to take this position because that is a leverage we have over you, as we are the seller and you are the buyer." And that is the current state of the union as well.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Of course they can, but the dirty little secret is, and you brought this up earlier, and David knows this, and I know this, is you have the power anyway. The administrations, like, they can still negotiate a CBA. They just don't wanna be considered businesses because what comes with that is like, workers' comp, a lot of other requirements and expectations. But what they're not gonna have a problem doing is negotiating an advantageous and favorable CBA.

• 56:19Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  Trust me. You're gonna be fine. Like, the most powerful people who are going to come into this organization, this like, potential athlete union, the most powerful people, like the stars, they are just waiting till the NFL or NBA will accept them. They're not looking to lead some sort of work stoppage, some sort of strike. Like, you're gonna be able to negotiate what you wanna negotiate. You gotta get a sweet deal. It's gonna be fine. And then I'm gonna argue about how that deal is unfair. Can we hurry up and get to that point? Like, can we get to that point? Because that deal's going to be unfair, and I wanna yell about that. I didn't know I had to yell about this. This was something that we never had to yell about before. Now I gotta yell about this.

• 57:02Speaker 05

  In the history of unions, I'm trying to think, has there ever been a union where there hasn't been a stoppage, a work stoppage, or a strike, or a lackout of some sort? There, of course, would be. There would be an interruption to college sports, the way there've been interruptions to professional sports throughout the decades, so...

• 57:16Speaker 04

  And whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Interruptions were, well, I guess it doesn't matter, the reason for the interruptions, right? The fact that you believe that there will be one, it doesn't matter, the reason for it.

• 57:24Speaker 05

  That's my point. Oh, listen, both sides are to blame in any interruption, in my opinion. But yes, I'm saying if there's unionization in college sports, you can bet there's gonna be interruption, where there'll be a threat, no CFP this year, much like no World Series, no Super Bowl, et cetera.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  I'm not arguing with you. That'll probably happen, and it'll suck. It'll be gross and painful and annoying for all of us. And then on the other side, we'll be able to sleep at night a little bit because we ended up with something a little bit closer to fair.

• 57:58Pablo Torre?

  It is funny what this whole episode has been. Because what this whole episode has been is the thing before the thing that everybody knows is going to be back to animosity and blood feuding between both of you guys.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  I found out the provenance of DAP, and I had no idea.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  Today, I found out that sometimes Pablo's got a good line, and I should trust him. Because I normally don't. I normally, like, when I see you got something to say, I only get out the way when I don't have something to say because like, whatever, I'm gonna say it's gonna be funnier and better. But right there, you crushed me. That was impressive.

• 58:40Speaker 05

  We can't stop because you haven't said "according to my reporting", and you haven't said Pulitzer. Other than that, I've got frickin' bingo.

• 58:56Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 59:02Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

• 59:24Pablo Torre?

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Saffron Volkswagen Richmond.

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• 1:00:23Speaker 06

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