Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out The Sporting Class: The Chiefs' Dynastic Moment About this episode Is the NFL's total domination good for the business of other sports? Is it OK to watch games alone? Is every dynasty villainous? And how can Fox resolve Tom Brady's conflict of interest with the Raiders? Plus: The Lever of Power, The OnlyCast, the Galukes vs. the Monhonks vs. the Mohunks, rec-erectollections — and an executive leap into the abyss.
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1:47 Pablo 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.
2:28 Pablo Torre? My move, 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. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.
3:02 Speaker 02 LeBron James actually ran past me and then somebody else ran past me. I'm like, I know he's not here.
3:10 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
3:12 Speaker 03 You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.
3:28 Speaker 02 We are laughing about the relative heights of our chairs. But when I was at ESPN, I always made sure I had the highest chair.
3:40 Pablo Torre? Wait, in a, this is-
3:41 Speaker 02 In a meeting, to see you.
3:43 Pablo Torre? You wanted to look down upon everybody.
3:46 Speaker 02 No, I wanted them to have to look up to me.
3:50 Pablo Torre? I feel like this again is a big, a big illustration of how we think about topics. Power, stature.
4:01 Speaker 04 All of that matters. I was telling Levittard on a recent show that I would do conversations with players only standing on the top step of the dugout with them in the dugout. Because I didn't want to go in with the power dynamic of me, or I would do it sitting down on the bench in the dugout. But I wouldn't want to do any sort of serious conversation with the player or with anyone where there is a huge height difference.
4:25 Pablo Torre? It sounds like you were on the top step quite a bit then.
4:29 Speaker 04 There were, yes, I was. And there's some pictures online where I'm not on the top step. I'm walking or I'm talking to Stanton and there's such a big difference. And it's, uh, it's not where I want to be. So I'm with the chair here. I noticed you screwed me. You moved chairs.
4:43 Pablo Torre? I don't move any of the chairs.
4:45 Speaker 04 Well, there's no side table and this chair doesn't go up and down the way that chair does. And I always take that chair with the lever on the right. And now John has it and John is purposefully.
4:53 Pablo Torre? The lever of power.
4:55 Speaker 04 It's the lever of power and John is doing it. If that makes you happy, John.
4:59 Speaker 02 I came in and sat in the chair that was at the spot I always sit in.
5:04 Speaker 04 That's always been in the third spot.
5:05 Speaker 02 I did not ask anybody to move the chairs around.
5:08 Speaker 04 I don't believe you.
5:09 Speaker 02 There may be people who are looking for promotions and extra bonuses who, who just did it for me.
5:16 Pablo Torre? They just want to look up to you, John. That's all. They just want to look up to you.
5:19 Speaker 02 For anybody to do anything.
5:22 Speaker 04 Have you ever noticed when I sit, I'm, I'm never back. I sit back straight. I sit legs forward. I'm only using the top front part of a chair.
5:31 Pablo Torre? You're on the top step of the chair.
5:32 Speaker 04 That's exactly how I do it. But I don't have to worry about hitting my head on anything overhead. Like I don't walk through a door worrying about hitting my head the way Skipper does. I just have to think about other stuff.
5:44 Pablo Torre? You guys are so weird.
5:47 Pablo Torre? I mean, I say that lovingly, but sincerely.
5:51 Speaker 02 That's weird.
5:55 Pablo Torre? David has a beard today. Can we acknowledge that?
5:58 Speaker 04 It looks like you can't grow a beard. Like you just look messy.
6:02 Pablo Torre? Well.
6:03 Speaker 04 There's all these patches that make it look like you've lasered in a weird spot.
6:07 Pablo Torre? It's patchy. Um, I, you think this has a lasered manicured sort of.
6:13 Speaker 04 Well, it's smooth as a baby's tuchus right on the left and right of your chin.
6:18 Pablo Torre? I can't grow here. These are barren. Um, but why? What's going on?
6:24 Speaker 04 I just like mixing it up sometimes.
6:27 Speaker 02 It's good. Looks good.
6:29 Speaker 04 Just my target demographic, John Skipper. Yes, it is full. It's a little more gray, but thank you. Compliments from Skipper.
6:36 Speaker 02 Looks like a good sort of combination of shaggy and, and formatted.
6:43 Pablo Torre? Can I, can I, can I just say that I don't buy it when David says, "I just felt like it." You do nothing.
6:49 Speaker 04 All right, here's the story.
6:50 Pablo Torre? What's the story?
6:51 Speaker 04 I had, I had some precancer stuff on my face, so I had to have a procedure. And the procedure was causing a bit of dryness and also made my face look a little blotchy. So I shaved two days before the procedure, as I was supposed to, and I have not put a razor to my face since because everything is still healing.
7:11 Speaker 02 That's good investigative reporting.
7:13 Pablo Torre? I mean...
7:13 Speaker 02 You stuck to it, you didn't accept...
7:16 Pablo Torre? Bad content, good journalistic instinct.
7:21 Pablo Torre? Um, but you're, you're okay. Can we declare this?
7:24 Speaker 04 Yes.
7:25 Pablo Torre? Okay.
7:26 Speaker 04 I should have used sunscreen as a kid. I mean, that's the bottom line. And I tried to get my kids to do it, and no one wants to use sunscreen. I don't quite get that.
7:36 Speaker 02 Well, was it an option when you were a kid? It was not an option for me when I was a kid. Nobody...
7:42 Speaker 04 Sunscreen had not been invented?
7:43 Speaker 02 I have no idea, but no one ever mentioned the word sunscreen in the first 15 years of my life.
7:49 Speaker 04 Is that a money thing? Are you making this a socioeconomic issue?
7:53 Speaker 02 I have no idea. I am...
7:55 Speaker 04 Sunscreen's a thing. I hope you put sunscreen on your daughter.
7:58 Pablo Torre? Um, my mom is a dermatologist.
8:00 Speaker 04 Oh.
8:01 Pablo Torre? I am shamed regularly for not using sunscreen. And she's gonna shame me when she listens to this.
8:07 Speaker 02 Well, I don't think you need it in here.
8:08 Speaker 04 My dermatologist says I should wear it even when I'm not gonna be outdoors, that I should put it on.
8:12 Pablo Torre? Yeah, yeah, sounds like my mom.
8:14 Speaker 04 No, it's a thing, it's a thing. And do I regret it? I try not to have any regrets, but when I'm getting things sliced off me and mows is happening in various places on my body, uh, which is sort of a technical thing that your mom will love. They were mentioning what mows is. Do you know what mows is?
8:29 Pablo Torre? I don't know what mows is.
8:30 Speaker 04 Mows is when you have a can, you have cancer and they dig in and they keep digging...
8:34 Pablo Torre? Oh, M-O-H-S.
8:35 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:36 Speaker 04 What, as opposed to Doug Moe? Larry Moe and Curly?
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12:28 Pablo Torre? Now that we've touched on various traumas we all share, I would like to start with the NFL. Do you guys get sticker shock still when you get the news that, hey, guess what? The Bills Chiefs title game, AFC Championship, averaged 57.7 million viewers. Most-watched AFC Championship game dating back to at least 1988, up 4% from last year. But again, As we always say, fragmentation is what we are dealing with as a country, media consumption and otherwise. And the one thing drawing 60 million people are there about is this, John. And to you, what is registered?
13:09 Speaker 02 What is registered is that the NFL is the game of this country. It is the game in which our country mostly stops, where you notice it on the street, right? I live in a neighborhood not far from here, and I am shocked on a Sunday to see how many people living in New York City are wearing Buffalo Bills jerseys and Kansas City Chiefs jerseys. And I'm not shocked at Philadelphia Eagles jerseys because they're just sort of right down the turnpike. But Denver Broncos jerseys or Dallas Cowboys jerseys, it is America's sport. And most Americans stop for big games like this, and this is what their day is about.
13:54 Speaker 02 I see people out everywhere. My son, Clay, who doesn't, who pulls for the Jets. So he has no, should have no interest in the playoffs since they have not sniffed the playoffs. I think in something like 16 years. I could have that wrong. Fewer, it's fewer, nine, maybe. I can't remember.
14:14 Pablo Torre? Somewhere between a decade and forever.
14:15 Speaker 02 But it is the longest current streak, I think, of not making the playoffs. But he still cares. And he still goes and sits with his friends in a bar or has them over to the apartment, and they watch the game.
14:28 Pablo Torre? Does he gamble?
14:29 Speaker 02 He does not. I personally believe the suggestion that gambling has anything to do with these high numbers, I don't really believe it. I think it makes it more fun, but I don't think that that's why these numbers are high. I think it is an, it's an enthrallate sort of love of the game that, that is astonishing. And these guys have built strength upon strength upon strength.
15:00 Pablo Torre? 14 consecutive playoff list seasons for the Jets. David, when you get these numbers, are you still embittered?
15:10 Speaker 04 Yes, it's, it's, that's what I was focused on. The first thing I did on Nothing Personal was do the math with Coca. Then is it possible that one championship game drew more people than the entire World Series? And the answer is yes, and it is infuriating to me. And so I do a lot of explaining to myself. Like notes to myself of why it is to make it so I can get through the day. First one, there aren't a lot of games. So I start with that, that of course you're gonna have, there are more people, this was part of my PR. More people go to Marlins games than Dolphin games. More people in Florida go to Marlins games than Dolphin games. Of course, we play 10 times as many games, but don't quibble.
15:52 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
15:52 Speaker 02 Is that the official attendance or is that the actual attendance?
15:57 Speaker 04 It's actually both, but certainly what I made up is more than what the Dolphins draw. Two, when you look at the number of people who watch these football games. In theory, if we had in baseball, a winner take all game, always in the playoffs, which is what the NFL does. It would help our numbers, but owners didn't want to approve that.
16:15 Pablo Torre? Right, single elimination.
16:16 Speaker 04 It's the greatest, it's the, it's the March basketball, March Madness situation. People are watching because they have brackets and because they gamble, but also because there's so much at stake for every game, and football is that on steroids.
16:27 Pablo Torre? Well, you're talking about meaning, right? You're talking about how do you maximize stakes? How do you maximize what this means to people? And eventizing, you gotta watch it, or you're also, to John's point, not included. In an era where no one is included in anything broadly, feels like the thing that makes it unlikely for the NFL to succeed is the very reason why it has its own steroids when it comes to its success.
16:50 Speaker 04 But Sunday's also a family day, you know, baseball's every day of the week. Football, well, now football's every day of the week, but uh, Sunday historically, another thing I would say to myself is, oh, the family's just sitting around. They're hanging out, of course, they're just gonna turn on the game, or people go to a bar because it's a weekend and they're willing to get hammered early. Like a drinking brunch, so you watch football that way. So I could come up with a hundred reasons why football was better than baseball.
17:12 Speaker 02 But isn't it ultimately about?
17:15 Speaker 02 What the viewing experience is like on television. Cause we're not talking about 57.7 million people went to the game. We're talking about 57, that's the average minute. So it probably was 70 million people, which is one, you know, more than one out of every, that's close to one every five people in the country.
17:37 Pablo Torre? Right.
17:38 Speaker 02 It's a great game to watch on television. It's easy. You can see everything almost. You don't have to.
17:46 Pablo Torre? It's better on television.
17:48 Speaker 02 Yeah. And by the way, you don't miss anything because the way the game works, a play happens and then before the next play happens, you get to see three, about three more views of that play. So if you've missed something, if you turned around the wrong way, if you weren't looking at the right part of the field, you don't miss anything. Basketball, you're going back and forth. You can't watch all 10 players. You can't see what everybody's doing. Baseball is slow and it's subtle game. I mean, these are all great games. I get accused of liking one more than the other. I like basketball more, but that doesn't mean I think it's a better television viewing experience than football.
18:32 Speaker 02 And by the way, you can leave and you don't miss anything. Uh, I actually think the fact that there is less action in a football game makes it better. It's a more social event. You sit around laughing and talking. If you sit around laughing and talking during a basketball game, somebody scored 12 points, uh, and gone from being behind by five to ahead by seven. Uh, you sort of have to pay attention and it's more, but I just think television works perfectly for football.
19:02 Speaker 04 You know, it's funny, there's businesses that are being started and I'm going to get the name wrong. I don't know if it's pronounced Cosm.
19:07 Pablo Torre? Oh, it's the, the sphere like, uh, that arena.
19:11 Speaker 04 Because people don't want to be on their couch. They want to be in an environment like going to the game where you can celebrate with people and have that. It's why these stadiums, when the team is on the road, they open their home stadium and 40,000 people come to watch on the Jumbotron because of that feeling of being there.
19:29 Pablo Torre? Yes, yes. And by the way, we tested that feeling during the pandemic. What's it like when no one's there? And everybody agreed at home in person.
19:36 Speaker 04 And the players.
19:37 Pablo Torre? And even the players, especially the players, maybe. Everybody agreed that this collective. Human ecstatic experience was actually what makes sports special. My question, though, as also I laugh at the idea that the 44.2 million viewers for the Eagles blowing up the commanders was a relative disappointment. Right? I just wonder, when it comes to sports as a cultural and economic product,
20:02 Pablo Torre? is there trickle down economics from the NFL booming even if other sports aren't quite to that degree? Does that, does it get, put it this way, is it good for baseball if the NFL is booming like this?
20:19 Speaker 04 No, because everything's by comparison. So it makes us look worse as an industry, but then we'll do the math on the media deal and say, all right, if they're getting five times our rate, what's the reason? Is it based on viewers? Is it based on somehow what the networks need to program? Because it certainly can't be based on the hours that baseball could provide because they can obviously provide more. So we never saw a trickle down. We never got to go to sponsors and say, look, the NFL has these numbers. So we're going to up our rate card. We just never could do that.
20:50 Pablo Torre? It's interesting, John, like sports as a category. When we get into the respective incentives that are very different from baseball executive to football to basketball, it makes me wonder like, so what is sports actually then? We've created a category in which all these things are collected, but it feels like the company you were the president of ESPN is one of the main venues in which it actually might feel that way? You turn on the channel and it's all there, but otherwise it's all disparate.
21:18 Speaker 02 It is disparate, but yet it is sort of a common attraction, right? You, whether you are in the stadium with a bunch of people, or you're in your living room with a bunch of people, or you're in a bar with a bunch of people, it's a communal experience and it's more fun. I do sometimes watch games by myself. I don't find it not enjoyable, but it is a whole lot more fun to watch with other people. I don't know why. And there are not many of those activities. That we do anymore. We go to concerts a little bit. But for the most part, we do a lot of things solitary. I can go to the movies by myself. It's fine.
21:58 Speaker 04 I love a solo movie. Me too. I like watching games alone, actually, because I don't like being bothered. And that may, that comes from probably 18 years of watching games and being bothered all game, but I, I enjoy it. I watched the championship games and I was solo and I could do whatever I wanted. I could mute, mute it when I didn't want to listen to Brady. I could put it louder. I could stand up. I could pause it. If I wanted to go to the bathroom and not worry like I, I love the control of being alone.
22:27 Speaker 02 And is that for every sport? Cause I can understand for baseball where you understand more than most people do and you may not want to be.
22:35 Speaker 04 I don't enjoy watching sports or watching movies or watching award shows with other people. I'm shocked to hear that you like control. Well, I think it's important. I think that to control the viewing experience is something that we all talk about is how do we give the viewers more control with their bundle? More control with their camera views. And it turns out people don't actually like the level of control that they thought they would. I'm just a little different. I do like that level of control and I manifested, I find by being alone is the best way.
23:02 Speaker 02 Are you the one person that picked his own camera angles?
23:05 Speaker 04 No.
23:06 Speaker 02 Okay, so there actually is no person. The number of people who actually picked their own cam.
23:11 Speaker 04 Wait, wait, explain. Picking your own camera angles was something that was available. Remember when you could, there was a 3D time. You could get the glasses. There were different angles and you could decide how you wanted to watch the game. I don't want to be the director.
23:22 Speaker 02 Every sport and every network at some point has made the case that, oh, we're going to give you the opportunity to pick the camera you want. And to my knowledge, no one has yet picked a camera.
23:36 Speaker 04 It's so true. It's, it's funny in that, that, that is what they thought would be added value for the consumer. That's what all these increases in technology and improvements are is let's give the consumer what they want. Except consumers, at the end of the day, we all think they're so sophisticated in, in their desires.
23:55 Speaker 02 I'd say it a slightly more positive way. I think that the production of sports has become so spectacular.
24:04 Speaker 02 That I don't know why anybody would decide they could do better sitting at home toggling a couple of buttons. You don't miss anything in a game anymore. The, there's, you know, thirty cameras at a football game. The replays are spectacular, the slow motion, the effects. It's, it's a beautifully produced game. The games are beautifully produced. I always laugh when people thought, oh, 3D is gonna be great. It's like 3D, first of all, you ruin the, ruin the communal element. You put a goggles on. And second of all, it looks fake, even though it's supposed to look less fake.
24:46 Speaker 02 Nothing looks better than the two dimensional, high definition, well-produced game. That's all you need to see. You don't miss anything. I sat one time on Sixth Street, which is that street in Palo Alto where all the high-tech companies are, and they made me put on goggles and I sat in a seat and they, LeBron James actually ran past me. And then somebody else ran past me. I'm like, I, I know he's not here, so why, why is this going to excite me that you can make it look like he's here?
25:20 Pablo Torre? I do like the idea, though, of John being, again, John is, is, just like, they present the king with the new technologies. The court has presented, from, from an angle below him, the finest technology, and John is like, I know he's not here. At what point, they're just like, well, we're [BLEEP]. Like, this guy is not gonna play along with this very basic premise.
25:43 Speaker 02 I'll never forget being at the Walt Disney Company and they were trying to show us how great VR would be, virtual reality stuff would be, and they put us all on like this ledge. It looked very much like you were on the ledge, and then if you jumped off the ledge, you would go into an abyss.
26:05 Pablo Torre? Yep.
26:06 Speaker 02 And they were gonna invite us to jump off the ledge, and I didn't even wait. I just jumped. I'm like, first of all, there's no way they're gonna put an executive at risk here for disappearing into an abyss and dying. So why would you give in to the idea that you were actually on a ledge?
26:25 Pablo Torre? This is, this is a very revealing anecdote, I feel like.
26:30 Speaker 04 The question is, what percentage of people actually thought that they were sitting you on the abyss? Well, at one point, I think they wanted me to be on the abyss and jump.
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30:10 Pablo Torre? I want to go back to the idea of inaction being good for the product. The Wall Street Journal, pretty famously in 2010, had a report, a study. Football games have 11 minutes of action.
30:21 Speaker 04 But what about baseball? And baseball games as well, there's a number of minutes of action. We would study this. It's all so overblown and I'd like John to probably...
30:31 Speaker 02 I've seen it as anything from sort of 11 to 16 minutes. I do think it probably is the greatest disparity between the amount of time that's on a clock. Baseball, of course, there is no clock. And the actual amount of time they're playing. The greatest being...
30:50 Speaker 02 Possibly my, one of my two favorite sports, which is soccer, where you are actually playing.
30:57 Pablo Torre? Continuously.
30:57 Speaker 02 You're playing a hundred and five minutes in ninety minutes. And they actually, they actually care so much that you're playing, they're not really playing a hundred and five. But they, they theoretically.
31:09 Speaker 04 Counting extra time?
31:10 Speaker 02 What? That's extra time, extra time. So theoretically, in a forty-five minute half, if you don't play forty-five minutes, they add time to make sure you actually play forty-five minutes.
31:21 Speaker 04 Is there anything more random than the extra time called at the end of a half?
31:24 Speaker 02 It's become less random, you're right.
31:26 Speaker 04 Do they keep track of it?
31:27 Speaker 02 They, they have actually begun to keep more track of it. It still is somewhat inexact. And I still love the fact that they don't tell you, they say it's plus nine minutes, but then the clock does not reset. You have to put it on your watch and actually look at it. And then it's not nine minutes, it's seven minutes and fifty-five seconds, or it's not.
31:50 Speaker 04 Well, it goes forty-five to fifty-four. If it's nine in the first half, you just have to do the math.
31:54 Speaker 02 No.
31:55 Speaker 04 Is that not accurate?
31:56 Speaker 02 It would is accurate, except the forty-five is on the clock. And at forty-five, and they say, oh, we're gonna have six more minutes. The six more minutes does not appear anywhere publicly that anybody can see.
32:06 Speaker 04 Oh, I thought the forty-five winds up to fifty-one.
32:08 Speaker 02 No.
32:09 Speaker 04 So the forty-five stops at forty-five?
32:11 Speaker 02 Stops at forty-five.
32:11 Speaker 04 And no one's counting the extra time?
32:13 Speaker 02 Everybody's counting the extra time, but there is no public display of it.
32:19 Speaker 04 There is on TV?
32:21 Speaker 02 No, there's not.
32:22 Speaker 04 It's the scoreboard.
32:23 Pablo Torre? Well, look, they'll say plus whatever, but in terms of the, there's no countdown timer.
32:28 Speaker 04 It's a count up.
32:29 Pablo Torre? There's no count up timer, right? Like, it's not actually, a bell goes off, a human being has to declare time, which means that it's up to their interpretation of what.
32:39 Speaker 04 Which is crazy.
32:39 Speaker 02 I know, which is why you see the coach running down the sidelines, pointing at his watch going, you said six minutes, and we're now at six minutes and forty seconds.
32:47 Speaker 04 Well, I love that they let a play develop in soccer. Where in football, in other time sports, you don't can say, oh, wait, we're on a fast break. Like, yeah, the buzzer went off, but we're on a fast break.
32:57 Speaker 02 They'll play advantage, which is smart, smart concept.
33:01 Pablo Torre? But the, the question of precision, and whether people are frustrated to the point where they stop watching, brings us to the controversy in this game, just to touch on this some amount, right? Like. Yeah, there was a fourth down call that was very controversial.
33:17 Pablo Torre? That resulted in a turnover. Bill's giving the ball back to the Chiefs. Referees disagreeing on the field ultimately ruling in a way that was widely disputed, but you know, so it goes. The point being that this was a human judgment that was not technologically precise. And the question of can this controversy spark change? Like what happens in the aftermath of this, right? Everybody stops, people debate, and then behind the scenes, what happens?
33:47 Speaker 04 I want to quote Bud Selig here because anytime I can quote him, I love to do it in honor of Bud. And we would complain whenever we had a call go against us. And there's a head of baseball operations, on field operations. After Joe Torre was done with the Yankees, it was him for a while. Now it's Mike Hill. And you call in and sometimes you go all the way up to the commissioner when you get a call against you. An umpire's call against you, a block in the plate or a ball strike or an out. And Bud would say, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to keep track for you. And you'll find over 162 games, this was my first year or two in the league. He said, over 162 games, if we keep track of every call, it's going to be 50 50. 50% are going to go your way, 50% are not going to go your way. And you're only going to call me on the ones that don't go your way.
34:32 Speaker 04 But I receive a call on 100% of the calls. Because every call has one team that it doesn't go their way. So you have to understand that you calling me is not going to have any impact. So you can keep doing it. And this is when I was new to the game, keep doing it. But when a call goes for you, why aren't you calling me to thank me for that? And so we would keep track. We actually had someone who we would, I wanted to know the truth.
34:55 Pablo Torre? We being the Marlins.
34:56 Speaker 04 We, the Marlins. And I started this with the Expos, actually, but we kept track because I wanted to know whether it was in my head. When the owner would call and say, how can we never get a runner in from third base with under two outs? But every time the other team does, they score. Because it feels that way when you're a fan. And I wanted to get the facts. And the fact of the matter is that it is true that
35:16 Speaker 02 It's 50 50.
35:17 Speaker 04 It's basically 50 50.
35:19 Pablo Torre? So but that question of like, the reason people are furious at the Chiefs is because they are now in a dynastic moment, right? Maybe this is just, in fact, not a moment, but an era.
35:31 Pablo Torre? And there is, John, this
35:32 Speaker 02 I think it would be hard to actually have a dynastic moment. By definition, it would not be a dynasty.
35:38 Pablo Torre? It would be a long moment.
35:41 Pablo Torre? Just trying to-
35:42 Speaker 04 A dynamic moment.
35:43 Pablo Torre? Trying to-
35:44 Speaker 04 Maybe you had that. He's Harvard, so-
35:45 Pablo Torre? Trying to make sure that no one would pay attention to that part of what I said, but nonetheless. The dynasty of the Chiefs being villainous, right? In this moment, they are supervillains. And in terms of whether that is bothersome to anybody, right? People who own the rights to these games, what does villainy feel like to you?
36:07 Speaker 02 Well, villainy's not a bad thing. I wanted to first ask, why is their dynasty villainous? Aren't all dynasties villainous? Simply because you're keeping every other team and their fans from winning? There's- what's villainous about-
36:21 Speaker 04 Astros, Patriots, Chiefs-
36:23 Pablo Torre? Well, I think to segue from-
36:25 Speaker 02 Well, that's different.
36:26 Pablo Torre? The previous topic-
36:26 Speaker 02 Their dynasty wasn't villainous. They may have had some villainous actions.
36:30 Speaker 04 I think that's the same. You think the whole Chiefs dynasty is villainous?
36:33 Pablo Torre? Well, what's happening now is that people believe, again broadly speaking, there is a feeling that people think the Chiefs are getting calls that other teams do not. This is the psychology that we just discussed. And so there's this feeling that, as I see it, it feels like a billionaire is getting tax cuts. Why are they getting breaks? Why are we favoring them? Why do they get even more advantages that are unfair? And it raises this question of like, what are the consequences or repercussions to having a villainous team with these allegations of favoritism from the refs on the actual product?
37:13 Speaker 04 You know, if the NFL were scripting this, let me just say, there's so much confusion right now in the media and in the fans. The NFL would want the Cowboys in the NFC Championship every year. They'd like them to play the Giants every year if that would be possible. The NBA would like the Knicks to be in the NBA Finals. That would be terrific. And baseball would like the Dodgers and the Yankees to be in every single year and strictly not have the Yankees in it for the first time last year since '09. So all of this talk that everything's scripted and this is what the NFL plans, it's not exactly accurate. Are there calls that in theory have gone the Chiefs' way? Yeah, but there's plenty of calls. The Bills didn't lose because of the fourth down call. They didn't lose because of the incomplete pass that was ruled. Was it ruled an interception, Koka? When the ball was on the ground or was that a reception?
37:59 Speaker 04 And it was gonna be an interception with Bills-Chiefs?
38:01 Pablo Torre? That was a reception that was-
38:02 Speaker 04 A reception that should have been an interception? I just don't, I don't think that that level of conspiracy exists. And in terms of the hatred of Kansas City, I view hatred, A, as jealousy and I view it as great currency. I want people to hate me, I want people to love me, I just want people to care. And that's always been the view.
38:21 Speaker 02 What is villainous? Isn't Patrick Mahomes a pretty likeable guy? Isn't, um, the Kelseys appear to be pretty likeable? A lot of people listen to them on the radio.
38:32 Pablo Torre? Sure, on podcasts.
38:34 Speaker 02 Taylor Swift is a very popular entertainer. Uh, they, they.
38:38 Speaker 04 Number one ever.
38:39 Speaker 02 And you're in Kansas City, which is not particularly controversial. It's not like people dislike the dominance of New York or Los Angeles, or they don't happen to like, for whatever reason, some other city. What's the dislike?
38:55 Pablo Torre? But I believe the dislike is, they are winning everything. We are getting force fed them as a function of them being really good every year. And now it seems like they are getting preferential treatment. And so I, I bring this up in comparison, let's say, to the Golden State Warriors. The Golden State Warriors in the NBA, right? They were very likeable, arguably, but at the same time, um, they were so good that people began to resent them.
39:22 Speaker 04 Doesn't that happen with everyone? Everyone who's likeable or successful has enemies because they want to bring them down a notch.
39:28 Pablo Torre? It makes sense that David Samson is objecting to the premise of a villain and what that really means, because doesn't that just mean that you are good enough to be cared about? But I am asking about this in the premise, in the context of, you want villains.
39:40 Speaker 02 Villains are good. Good for ratings, good for business.
39:43 Speaker 04 Good for movies, good for stories, good for books, good for life. You have to have people playing different parts.
39:49 Speaker 02 Bad for neighbors.
39:50 Speaker 04 Unless, that's a funny way to think about it. But yeah, I, I'm always, when you're casting something, you, we always say, oh, that's central casting for a villain or central casting for a hero. There's always been that in every sort of story, both fiction and nonfiction, and sports is the same. I never objected to a team being a villain or to a player being a villain. I didn't want a dirty player. That's very different. Dirty versus villainous. And I, and in terms of the worth of the broadcast, in terms of interest.
40:21 Pablo Torre? Talk about Goliath, right? Like Goliath, people don't root unless you're.
40:25 Speaker 02 Well, Goliath's lost. In fact, I think he's 0-1.
40:30 Speaker 02 I'm pretty sure.
40:31 Speaker 04 For one decision?
40:31 Speaker 02 Oh, and one. As far as we know, there's only one fight and he lost.
40:34 Speaker 04 I don't think you can be Goliath without having won previous fights. I think the one we remember is David, but I would assume he was the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world at the time. That's how I always pictured it.
40:45 Pablo Torre? And I know he lost to that kid with fucking slingshots.
40:47 Speaker 04 Right, but that's, that's the one you remember because that's the, that's Buster Douglas. Is that a reference that no one knows?
40:53 Speaker 02 I'm pretty sure there is no record of any other fight. I would not disagree with you that might potentially, uh...
41:00 Speaker 04 Think he picked the one fight of his life happened to be the one that's remembered.
41:04 Pablo Torre? Wait, can we do a first take episode about David versus Goliath? Can we continue to do this?
41:10 Speaker 04 You can't certainly believe.
41:11 Pablo Torre? Goliath, overrated.
41:13 Speaker 02 Well, since what I actually believe is it's just a story that you made up. It's not any different than that scene in Troy where this big mohawk comes out and, uh, and Brad Pitt runs, runs up and smites him in three seconds. It's just a story.
41:34 Pablo Torre? I'm sorry, just mohawk though?
41:36 Speaker 04 And smite?
41:36 Pablo Torre? Gone moes to mohawk? Mohawk?
41:40 Speaker 04 I've never heard the word mohawk, but I just assumed it was a Carolina thing. I was gonna let it go.
41:44 Speaker 02 Uh.
41:45 Speaker 04 Normally you type when you don't understand a word. Like I noticed when I said moes, I believe you were typing to confirm, thinking that I got it wrong. But how come when Skipper says mohawk, you don't, your fingers aren't walking?
41:57 Pablo Torre? Because I...
41:59 Speaker 02 It's, it's just an honorable poetic word, sort of meaning a big hunk. He's a mohawk. I might have made it up even.
42:07 Speaker 04 That is not a word.
42:08 Speaker 02 No, no, it's, you can make up a word.
42:10 Speaker 04 No. I'm quite a guess.
42:12 Pablo Torre? I thought it was a galoot. It was like in the galoot coaching.
42:15 Speaker 02 He's in the galoot family, I think. I think the galoots and the mohawks were like the Hatfields and McCoys.
42:23 Speaker 04 I'm upset with all the Chiefs hate. I really am.
42:25 Pablo Torre? You resent the resentment?
42:27 Speaker 04 I do. I, I, I think that we all wanna be, we all wish it were our team. Uh, it's like Bulls fans. Bulls fans in the nineties recognized how fortunate they were. They had gone through the Pistons and now Jordan was winning six titles in eight years. And we all hated them. They were villains because they kept winning, but it's jealousy. Villainy. People are just jealous.
42:45 Speaker 02 I'm not sure it's any more complicated than if a team wins consistently, it means every other team is not winning. And I have to say, I'm mad every year when my team does not win at the team that does win.
43:17 Pablo Torre? I wanna pivot us to a noted villain in this way. Um, because Tom Brady happens to be a fascinating character in this milieu. So Tom Brady is calling the Super Bowl for Fox. He's getting paid thirty million dollars a year. We can talk about the scouting report on him as an, as a broadcaster versus as a player.
43:35 Speaker 04 I believe it's thirty seven point five.
43:37 Pablo Torre? Thirty seven point five.
43:38 Speaker 04 Is it not to be seventy five over ten?
43:40 Pablo Torre? He is also now officially a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. And every bit of reporting that we are seeing is indicating that he is not only a minority owner, he is the leading football voice. And Mark Davis himself, the owner of the team, the majority owner, has said that he has essentially replaced John Gruden as that, as that foremost influence in the building. Making decisions on hires, interviewing people and all of that. And I just don't know of a precedent for this.
44:11 Speaker 04 Well, if you're a Raiders fan, you gotta be upset to hear that. Because if you want someone running your team and your organization, that's a full-time job. And there's no question about it. To be good at running a football operation or a business operation, it can be your only job. And in order to be the number one analyst for a network in football, that's gotta be your full-time job during the season. It takes a week to prepare for a game. It, it requires an unbelievable amount of preparation. And I don't see how Tom Brady can do both. And that's been my position on Nothing Personal. It continues to be my position. Has there been a more awkward on-screen moment than the game that Burkhard and Brady did? Where before the game, Burkhart set up Brady to say, oh, I'm gonna be here.
44:56 Speaker 04 You're stuck with me, partner. I'm not leaving. It was so manufactured that it was obviously not believable to me. And if I'm Mark Davis, I will not allow Tom Brady to continue at Fox because I want his full attention. And if I'm the Fox, I will not allow Tom Brady to run the Raiders because I need his faux attention.
45:15 Pablo Torre? John, does it bother you as this hypothetical sports television executive that Tom Brady is not nearly as good as the guy he replaced, Greg Olson?
45:24 Speaker 02 Does it bother me? It bothers me that these salaries are that high for a position that makes no financial difference in the game. I don't believe that 53 million people would have watched instead of 57 million people if Tom Brady wasn't in the booth. I don't know if he was in the booth for that game, but...
45:47 Speaker 04 He was not. He was in the booth for the lower game in the NFC.
45:51 Pablo Torre? Embarrassing 44 million.
45:52 Speaker 04 Embarrassing, outrageous, which by the way, proves the point.
45:55 Pablo Torre? But 37.5 a year to confirm that.
45:58 Speaker 02 No, so, does it bother me? I do believe there's a conflict and the conflict should probably be resolved. I don't know why he's allowed to continue to have that conflict. And he probably brings more value, though I doubt Mark Davis is gonna pay him 37 and a half million dollars, though his stake in the team may be well worth more than that. He should make a decision about which one he wants to do.
46:26 Speaker 04 So, here's what I've been thinking about, all the alt-casts that are happening. And I was thinking about John and getting his budget shown to him as he's looking at his P and L. And he knows what he paid out in rights to, let's just take football. And he knows what he's paying the announcers, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, which is an unbelievable amount for each of them, and they're great. And then he gets presented with, you know what? We're gonna bring in the Mannings. We're gonna put that on a different channel for an alt-cast. And then we're gonna do another one where it's gonna be for kids. You will not have heard of anyone, but there's slime and various things involved. And you're gonna look and say, wait a minute. That's an extra 8 million dollars per product for production? What are we doing here? So is it progress? All the alt-casts?
47:09 Speaker 04 That's what I'm having a hard time understanding, that we're trying to attract different demographics. So we're doing it with all these alt-casts? But we're just increasing the expense? When it turns out that maybe people don't care.
47:20 Speaker 02 Somebody should do the real test. And that is to have the Manning cast be the only cast.
47:29 Speaker 02 I mean, what, do we think?
47:30 Pablo Torre? You mean, take the game off linear and see how they?
47:32 Speaker 02 No, no, no.
47:32 Speaker 04 No, just take the announcers away and have it just be them? That's all you can do?
47:36 Speaker 02 The Manning cast is all linear. What would happen if on a Monday night football broadcast? Your only choice was to cut on and watch the Mannings? Do we believe more or less people would tune in?
47:49 Pablo Torre? I believe that roughly the same amount of people would be watching.
47:52 Speaker 04 So then, why would you increase your expenses? If you're not getting incremental revenue benefit for it? Why are you increasing your expenses? To make it look like progress?
48:00 Pablo Torre? Well, what Fox seems to be doing with Tom Brady specifically is using him as this ambassador for their corporation. He is on stage. He is a, he is seemingly a marketing device. And 37.5 a year for 10 years for, again, a perhaps villainous, but certainly wildly famous and accomplished person. Like, that seems to be part of the math that they're doing too.
48:27 Speaker 04 To me, it was an ambassador deal that enables you to draw from different budgets. So I would, I would bet you that you would not want on your P and L 37 and a half million for Tom Brady as your play-by-play guy. I would imagine that you're happy to take money from the corporate side for him to go to investor events. And so that's worth an amount of money and so you split up his salary.
48:49 Speaker 02 I don't think that's a big factor. I'd like to go back to and, and put everybody on the spot. I watched several Monday night football broadcasts this year. Almost all of them with my son Clay. And we chose the Manning cast every time. And we did not miss the old school, hey, so-and-so turns around, he hands the ball off, he goes for three yards, second, seven.
49:16 Speaker 02 I don't miss it at all. I would prefer that people would get more experimental and get more interesting. All they're doing is continuing to do radio on television. They're calling a game as though I can't see what's going on. The Manning Cast is entertaining in itself. I don't find it. Have you watched the Manning Cast for a full game?
49:39 Speaker 04 I've sampled it, but I've not watched it for a full game.
49:41 Pablo Torre? I've watched a lot of it. And it does feel like more of a digital podcast product, where you're not relying on the announcers to tell you what's happening because you're just watching it. And also want to be entertained by your parasocial friend, Eli Invade Manning, who's going to entertain you by talking to their friends.
49:58 Speaker 04 Yeah, I view it as that, that you're not a fan of either of the teams and you just want to hear what these guys have to say. But what's very popular now are these watch parties, Metal Art does them, where you're watching somebody watch the game, or you're doing a touchscreen experience.
50:11 Pablo Torre? Which is fundamentally what a Manning Cast is, is that. By the way, John did put his money where his mouth was when you were running the company, famously putting Tony Kornheiser into the booth, trying, and I love, love, love, love Tony. But this was an experiment, of course.
50:28 Speaker 02 It was an experiment, and I have to say, in retrospect, my attempt to do so was undermined, not popular, not accepted. And the people who were in charge of the production and the other people in the booth made sure it didn't work.
50:44 Speaker 04 Do you have any recollection of your P and L? Excuse me. Do you have any recollection of your P and L? Did you have Kornheiser on with no concomitant expense? Or did you have to take part of his already existing salary and put it into yours?
50:57 Pablo Torre? What a highly specific curiosity.
50:59 Speaker 04 Well, I'm obsessed with this because I love the way big companies allocate talent.
51:05 Speaker 02 Well, we didn't really do it that way. We paid Tony Kornheiser to do PTI. And when we asked him to be on Monday Night Football, we negotiated an additional fee.
51:19 Speaker 02 To have him on, but all he was doing, and that fee was allocated to Monday Night Football, and the fee for PTI was PTI.
51:28 Speaker 04 So it was an extra fee. So that's the answer is that he didn't just, you didn't just put him on it.
51:32 Pablo Torre? Well, he was doing more. He was doing, he was doing more.
51:35 Speaker 02 We did have the concept that we can ask you to do other things and we're not going to pay you more. Uh, and we built in, we were notorious for building in, you're going to be a college football analyst, but you're also going to appear on College Football Weekly.
51:51 Pablo Torre? This is what Charles Barkley says. They're going to put me on Deportes. You know, they're going to have me calling games in Spanish next.
51:57 Speaker 02 It was true. We, uh, nobody worked harder than the people who worked at ESPN. I was always amused, and I am still kind of amused with your time about how hard it is to only have a week to prepare for a game. A game that you spent your whole life either playing or announcing. It doesn't seem that hard to me. And, and, uh...
52:22 Speaker 04 That's so sad that your view is that because you're in charge of hiring and sort of establishing value for the people who are doing this. That's like saying, you know, Dan doing four hours of content a day, five days a week is not hard. It's hard.
52:34 Speaker 02 I didn't say it wasn't hard.
52:35 Speaker 04 Pablo, three times a week, the guy can barely sleep.
52:37 Speaker 02 You were talking about how difficult it is that a person who is one of three people in a booth must spend, what, 14, 16 hours a day for the other six days? I do think anybody does that. My experience with the people who are doing that is they were very conscientious about preparing, but that they weren't getting up at the crack of dawn and working till midnight to make sure they understood what? What is the great complication? I was always...
53:12 Speaker 04 When you're watching the games with your son, do you, can you name every player on the team?
53:15 Pablo Torre? I want to bring this back to Tom Brady though.
53:17 Speaker 02 If I studied for six hours, I could name every player on the team, yes.
53:20 Pablo Torre? But one of the comic aspects of the Tom Brady story is that here is a guy who is faster and better at processing on the fly, in live fire situations, what was happening with all 22 players on a football field. And he is struggling... In the booth to articulate that. And so whatever is necessary to be great at this, he is not that, despite having all of that processing power. And I want to bring it back to what Mark Davis has said about Tom Brady, his minority owner with the Raiders. On December 22nd, which was, quote, "When Tom was hired, I promised to Fox that we would not get in the way of Tom's job." And he's going to be one of the best announcers in the game. Anything he does with the Raiders will be in the future, as far as that goes. This is again, December. "I talked to him all the time. His input is greatly valued. Always will be valued.
54:05 Pablo Torre? We'll see as time goes on how his role evolves in here, but he's very excited about it. We're respecting his obligations to Fox." That was Mark Davis. Which also speaks to me. It seems to indicate a level of treatment that also it's Tom leaping Brady. Like, we are treating him differently because of what he has historically achieved.
54:26 Speaker 04 Mark Davis was lying, obviously, because it was two weeks later that Tom Brady was doing the interviews for head coach. So I'm not, and right during the playoffs while Tom was calling playoff games. So I'm not sure, are you giving that quote because you believed Mark Davis? That that, he was showing that sort of respect and deference? I think he was just lying.
54:45 Pablo Torre? It seems like Tom Brady is getting to do everything that Tom Brady wants. And everybody is saying stuff to enable that. And he's getting to do two jobs that no one has done simultaneously before in sports. And he's not necessarily good at either of them.
55:00 Speaker 04 Well, we don't know about as running the Raiders yet. I mean, it's too early. Are you judging him on his running the Raiders football team yet?
55:07 Pablo Torre? I am skeptical of why he is the person running that team.
55:10 Speaker 04 And are you judging him as a broadcaster? I think, you know, we're giving him a lot of hate. He's been doing it a year.
55:15 Pablo Torre? I was wrong. I said, I said immediately that Brady's skills as a quarterback would transfer. You'd want that guy in the booth. And Boog Chambi criticized this take, and Boog was right.
55:25 Speaker 04 Boog was right on it's hard for good players.
55:27 Speaker 02 It is a separate set of skills. People do actually go to school and spend four years sort of learning how to do it and having actually seen it and I don't want to to let my previous remarks not make it sound like I respected what they understood how to do. They understood when to come in and when not to come in. They there's a big truck, right? Full of people and they're talking about putting graphics on and doing replays and the people have to understand how to work within that team. It has very, very little to do to what you do when you take the snap from center. You drop back three or four steps and see the field.
56:12 Speaker 02 That even if you did that better than anybody, you still don't know how to articulate that. You don't know how to when to do it, how to interact with the other people who are helping you do that.
56:23 Pablo Torre? But to bolster the point you were trying to make before, it is funny to speak of a baseball announcer like Boog who calls a zillion games a year.
56:33 Speaker 04 One sixty-two.
56:34 Pablo Torre? But ten times as many as a national weekly announcer to the point of like, how can you possibly do more than one job in the week? Well, in baseball, they they actually do that all the time.
56:46 Speaker 04 Is there anything harder than being a solo radio announcer? The way Vince Scully.
56:51 Speaker 02 I would argue.
56:52 Speaker 04 Doing baseball.
56:52 Speaker 02 Well, Vince Scully is a unique talent and I would make the argument that nobody before or since has called the game with the sort of level of eloquence, insight and not spending almost any of his time on the pedestrian things that happen. Oh, they popped the ball up high, so and so is sitting underneath it and has gathered it in. I don't think Vince spent a lot of time doing that. Vince would talk about.
57:24 Speaker 04 Fifteen minutes of it. So it's the same, the action. So of course you're describing the action as it happens, but we know, like you're saying that the football announcer shouldn't say second and seven handoff. They do do that, but that's only about sixteen minutes of a three and a half hour broadcast. So the skill, one thing that I don't know if the the result of this will be is John criticizing or thinking that broadcasters are not worth anything. The fact is, and I want to reiterate what he said. There's people in your ear all the time talking. You've got, it's like a concert that's happening and there's everyone playing a different instrument to make it sound good.
57:58 Pablo Torre? Yes. It is really hard to, uh, to do that job. Not everybody can just wake up, roll out of bed and eloquently wax poetic about Mohawks. That is a hard thing for anybody to aspire to.
58:13 Speaker 04 Mohunks?
58:13 Pablo Torre? Mohunks.
58:14 Speaker 04 Not Mohawks.
58:15 Pablo Torre? Mohawks, I'm, I'm sorry.
58:17 Speaker 04 He said Mohunk.
58:18 Pablo Torre? Did I?
58:18 Speaker 04 Maybe I'm wrong.
58:19 Pablo Torre? Did I misquote the fake word that John invented?
58:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, he said Mohunk.
58:23 Pablo Torre? Mohunk.
58:24 Speaker 04 Mohawk is the hairstyle.
58:26 Pablo Torre? I said Mohunk.
58:27 Speaker 04 Okay.
58:28 Speaker 02 Well, Mohawk is actually an Anglo-sized version of a native, uh, name of a native tribe.
58:39 Speaker 04 It's a punk hairstyle from the A's.
58:43 Pablo Torre? Agree to agree.
58:43 Speaker 02 It was that also.
58:45 Speaker 04 Thank you, Pablo.
58:46 Pablo Torre? Thank you, David.
58:47 Speaker 04 Thank you, John.
59:00 Pablo Torre? Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Rachel Miller Howard, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems, our sound design by NGW Post, our theme song as always is by John Bravo. We will talk to you next time.
59:41 Speaker 05 With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.
1:00:04 Speaker 06 State Fair food is getting smaller and pricier. We'll have room for fried cookies. Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?
1:00:12 Speaker 07 What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.
1:00:21 Speaker 06 Free phone? Oh, sign me up.
1:00:23 Speaker 07 Get that more for your money feeling, only on Metro by T-Mobile.
1:00:26 Speaker 08 Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 based on device discount waived activation fee. Not available with Metro T-Mobile in the past 180 days.
1:00:34 Speaker 09 Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a health care 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.
Previous Share & Halftime & Tell with Wyatt Cenac and Sarah Spain Next Pizzagate: We Investigate the (Real) Government Plot to Stuff You with Cheese Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated