How to Make Journalism Fun, with Maury Povich

Just because Steve Ballmer, Mark Walter and Vivek Ramaswamy are rich... doesn't mean they're always that smart. And just because investigating them is hard... doesn't mean the truth can't still prevail. Onstage at the University of Maryland, Pablo and the daytime TV legend (turned podcaster himself) Maury Povich discuss the Clippers saga, the Lakers sale, the reporting chops of Tim Tebow, the making of a modern independent newsroom... and that $15,000 mechanical bird. • Subscribe to "On Par with Maury Povich" https://pod.link/1803175670 • Submit your confidential tips https://www.pablo.show/tips to Pablo (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.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Can you talk about how much of a loser Vivek Ramaswamy it actually is?

• 0:13Pablo Torre?

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• 0:55Pablo Torre?

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• 1:22Pablo Torre?

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• 2:04Pablo Torre?

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• 2:45Pablo Torre?

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• 3:30Pablo Torre?

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• 3:55Speaker 02

  My name is Mark Hyman. I'm the Director of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Merrill College of Journalism.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  We're so glad that you're here with us today as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism.

• 4:23Pablo Torre?

  So if you're wondering where we are, and what we're doing, and who all these people are, I should probably explain that the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the University of Maryland is a very special place in the PTFO Extended Universe. It is named after the legendary Washington Post columnist who wrote more than 15,000 articles over seven decades. Meaning that Shirley Povich covered everyone from Babe Ruth to Mark McGuire, and also happened to work with PTI's Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon in a sports section that was run by the next voice you're about to hear. Belonging to former Washington Post sports editor George Solomon. The guy who edited Shirley Povich until the day he died at age 92 in 1998.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  With the first panel, I'd like to introduce first Pablo Torre, who's the originator of a podcast called Pablo Torre Finds Out, which I've never seen or heard.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  I don't know, I know Shirley would agree with me. I never did podcasts, and neither did Shirley.

• 5:34Pablo Torre?

  Of course, when I agreed to speak at this very special place in front of these hundreds of people, I did not quite realize that my job, perhaps, was to personally embody the devolution of print to podcasting. What had happened, actually, is that I got an invitation from Shirley Povich's son, my pal Maury Povich, who remains the truly iconic Connie Chung's lesser half, and also the public steward of his father's legacy.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  To build on that legacy, to make sure that the center is going in perpetuity for generations to come,

• 6:14Speaker 02

  the Povich family is now pledging $1.5 million to the Povich Center Endowment Fund.

• 6:22Pablo Torre?

  Maury Povich, by the way, is 87 years old. And Maury is still working, just like his father did. So much so that the longest-running daytime television host in American history is also now a podcaster himself. His interview show, On Par with Maury Povich-- Maury is a fantastic golfer, incidentally-- It makes me smile pretty much every time I see it. Even though Maury and I may appear to be something of an odd couple ourselves.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  This is one of my new BFFs.

• 6:59Pablo Torre?

  I was promised Connie Chung would be here.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Pablo has been on my podcast, On Par with Maury Povich, which, by the way, will also be taped tonight and shown. And of course, maybe three years ago, not many of you might have heard of Pablo Torre.

• 7:18Pablo Torre?

  Why am I getting roasted all night?

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Well, now he is so popular that his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, is now an acronym, PTFO. And if it continues to gain a little more strength, maybe in the future, it might be just called Pablo. I know about things like that.

• 7:46Pablo Torre?

  Can I point out that Maury and I met earlier today? And just in case, you know, if you had some question about it, we did not coordinate dressing almost identically.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  We did.

• 8:01Pablo Torre?

  Wow.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  This navy on a black polo with gray slacks--

• 8:05Speaker 02

  I got a jacket.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  --sensible shoes.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. This is the first time I have ever worn sneakers at a public event.

• 8:12Pablo Torre?

  You disgrace me.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  I know, it's terrible.

• 8:14Pablo Torre?

  How dare you?

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, white man's sneakers, can I tell you?

• 8:20Pablo Torre?

  You can say that.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  One of the reasons why I'm so happy that Pablo is here is because he really does follow in my dad's footsteps in a lot of ways. The most important was that my father always believed that sports opened the door into race, into money, into power, into ethics. And this man is a great demonstration of that, trust me.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  So let's talk about that. Dad always used to say, "If you want a really good story in sports, do what Woodward and Bernstein did. Follow the money." And that's what you did.

• 9:10Pablo Torre?

  Can I just point out that people say to me these days, because of such reporting, that they are very scared when I show up to answer and ask questions?

• 9:21Speaker 02

  I mean, Tony Kornheiser the other day called him the sheriff.

• 9:26Pablo Torre?

  I'm just here to remind everybody in this audience and on the internet that nothing is quite so terrifying as Maury Povich asking you questions on stage.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, right. I wish I had an envelope.

• 9:44Pablo Torre?

  I am happily married and have, to my knowledge, one child.

• 10:05Pablo Torre?

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• 10:50Pablo Torre?

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• 11:31Speaker 02

  What was it that got you started into the Clipper investigation? Was it the money?

• 11:39Pablo Torre?

  It was a tip. And it was a tip that I didn't fully understand when I first heard it. This was more than a year and a half ago. The tip was, you should look into this weird company called Aspiration. They're a sponsor of the Clippers. End transmission. And I didn't really know what to do with that. But once Aspiration went bankrupt, and there was a bankruptcy filing, a document, and inside of that document, you got to see that there was an LLC near the top of the list of creditors called KL2 Aspire LLC. And I happen to be a basketball fan. And so I recognized, well, okay, KL, that might be the initials of a certain player whose jersey number is 2.

• 12:23Pablo Torre?

  KL2 Aspire? Aspire might be the name of this company. LLC? It raised the question of why in the hell is Kawhi Leonard's LLC getting paid? Or rather, why were they owed outstanding $7 million?

• 12:40Speaker 02

  It could have been legitimate.

• 12:41Pablo Torre?

  Absolutely. Except that when you then, and this is a journalistic technique I've learned over the years, when you Google,

• 12:52Pablo Torre?

  Kawhi Leonard plus Aspiration, no hits came back. And so the question became, why was he owed money? What was the original deal? And why is there no trace of a relationship? And now, the wheels are turning as to, maybe I should reorient my schedule to look into this.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  We all know that, as this is the big investigation that ended up with the Pulitzer. And also ended up with maybe the harshest fine the NBA has ever dished out. But did you ever expect it to end that way?

• 13:29Pablo Torre?

  No, no. Look, on the merits, I had a sense of what this warranted in terms of a penalty, or a punishment, or interest from the federal government. But, no, I'm, I'm, look, I, I...

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Well, I remember you and I talking about it. And you asked me what's going to happen. And I said, the first thing you better do is protect your sources. And the next thing you better do is maybe have to get a lawyer, because the NBA certainly is going to want your information.

• 14:01Pablo Torre?

  So one of the things that became clear to me over time, and I investigated this story for seven months before I published part one, and this became a, at last check, a 16-part series, which is absurd, but a joy. One of the things I would hear is that Steve Ballmer, who is, at last check, the seventh richest man in the world, depending on Microsoft stock, he's the largest individual shareholder in Microsoft, which means he has $170 or so billion. One of the things I had been told was that he was telling via his various representatives that he was going to sue me. For a year, this was being communicated all around the NBA.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  And not only that, there was a particular NBA owner who jumped on you. Mark Cuban basically said, you're wrong.

• 14:54Pablo Torre?

  Mark Cuban, uh, yeah. We got to Frost Nixon, Mark Cuban, on my show. You shit on somebody's reputation without having any real fact. Not sharing our reputation. That was a deeply sourced, documented... The fact that it's deeply sourced is irrelevant. Investigative report. He was immediately the most vocal defender of Steve Ballmer. And then he showed up in studio to set a cross for me to reiterate his defense. And I'm so glad he did that. One of the core tenets of what my show has found out is that intense wealth does not equate to intense competence.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 15:38Pablo Torre?

  And I don't say that as somebody who, like, is the smartest guy about money. I am not at all. I simply mean that there is a confusion between how rich someone is and how good they are at telling the truth, or even pulling off a scheme in which the truth is meant to be obscured. And I find that encountering and asking and getting to know billionaires, which has happened to a degree that is shocking to me personally, since the penalty was levied upon Steve Ballmer, I have found that there is a, there's an underrated comedy in the lives of the richest people in the world that...

• 16:23Speaker 02

  What's the comedy?

• 16:25Pablo Torre?

  Sometimes they can be idiots. And we have built a mythology around wealth that follows them around like a, like a shield. And all I want to express is that there are reasons to be impressed by someone's success and by someone's money. But they should show and prove that before we just grant it.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  So, everybody probably knows about the punishment. They lost five number-one-round draft choices. Ballmer is suspended for a year. Can't be around the team. A couple of other people are suspended. One, the agent can't do any business anymore. Kawhi Leonard gets fined $700,000. That was a good enough punishment for you?

• 17:18Pablo Torre?

  Their scope was quite narrow, the investigation's scope. And within that scope, they found a rabbit hole that was as endless as I became familiar with it. And so I think there is a lot more they could have done, but...

• 17:34Speaker 02

  You told me that you were, you were satisfied with the punishment.

• 17:38Pablo Torre?

  It's, it's hard for me to complain. It was extraordinarily validating in a way that I need to be honest.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, why do you dance around that? You, you keep saying, I don't want to be validated. I don't want to be confirmed.

• 17:52Pablo Torre?

  Because I'm playing hard to get, Maury.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Oh, jeez.

• 17:55Pablo Torre?

  No, look, one of the things about journalism is that we should not need the institution or the person we are investigating to raise their hand and say, you know what, this journalist was right, before we trust them.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  So you end up winning the Pulitzer Prize on that one. And I'm just wondering whether your parents have forgiven you yet for not going to law school?

• 18:19Pablo Torre?

  I'm hoping this symposium counts as credit at the University of Maryland.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Boy, they wanted you to go to law school.

• 18:25Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, man. I'm the first one in my family born in the United States. Went to a fancy college. Was supposed to follow a career trajectory that's far less stressful for everybody who funded me and loves me. And I chose, in some ways, one of the scarier paths. If you're a risk averse Filipino-American immigrant who's like, wait a minute, you're a fact checker at Sports Illustrated and making under $30,000 a year? And, oh, by the way, the industry you chose is imploding, and also now you love investigating guys who have billions of dollars? Not, not super reassuring. But I think they get it now. I think they have come around on that.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, but the Clipper investigation. I mean, now, I mean, rumors and tips must be just dropping through the transom for you now. You must be the most sought-after investigative reporter in the country.

• 19:26Pablo Torre?

  I am proud of how many people apparently want me to know things.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  I mean, to the point where you, uh, you took on Tim Tebow and the Life Surge investigation, to the point where, has he distanced himself from that thing?

• 19:48Pablo Torre?

  He has cut ties. My favorite part is this. Tim Tebow has not just paused his relationship with Life Surge, de facto, cutting ties. He has launched his own investigation. For us, we're, you know, having our team do an investigation, but also pausing our relationship till we can learn more about the facts. Perhaps the greatest legacy of my show, Maury, is that we also made Tim Tebow a journalist.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you also brought tears, tears, to Kelly Clarkson. I can't believe it. And mechanical birds. I mean, really, well, I, talk about...

• 20:24Pablo Torre?

  It's an automaton.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Talk about bird automaton. Talk about comedies. Poor Kelly Clarkson goes into a store in Brooklyn, and the next thing you know, he's showing videotape.

• 20:36Pablo Torre?

  I like how Maury Povich is blaming me for showing videotape.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Touche.

• 20:47Pablo Torre?

  One of my theories, though, Maury, about journalism that I am proud of, and I think explains why people are reaching out and the incoming and the transom, all of that is as described, is because we do tend to take stupid things seriously. And in that process, what I want to remind people is that journalism, especially investigative reporting, can be fun. You know, I think it's well established that it's important, and I will argue, of course, for its importance for as long as people want to, you know, watch my DVD of All the President's Men.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  So.

• 21:23Pablo Torre?

  But it's also a good time. And sometimes you just, I think, need to show people the security footage of Kelly Clarkson, America's sweetheart, trying to buy a bird automaton, but being denied even though she wants to spend $15,000.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:37Pablo Torre?

  Sometimes that also, I think, reminds people.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  And she thought she was denied.

• 21:42Pablo Torre?

  But the videotape may suggest an alternate story.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. She thought that they were being, what would you call it?

• 21:50Pablo Torre?

  Look, I can't.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  That she's not, the way she walked in, that she's not worthy of buying something like that.

• 21:57Pablo Torre?

  And what I cannot report or deny is how she felt. That is an interiority I do not have access to. The video, by the way, had no audio. But if you watch this thing, and I love that I'm here at this symposium to talk about Kelly Clarkson and this bird.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Hey, anything's a go with me, baby.

• 22:16Pablo Torre?

  What I found is that there is a deeper story there about perhaps a more innocent misunderstanding between a shopkeeper and a customer that resulted in a fascinating phenomenon that is actually, I think, a through line in our politics and our culture, which is what happens when a person with an audience, an audience of fans, even fanatics, you know, stans, as they're called, you know, a stan culture.

• 22:47Pablo Torre?

  What happens when a celebrity, perhaps not explicitly directs them to do something, but kind of encourages them to? And this is something that, again, I'm not comparing Kelly Clarkson to Donald Trump, or Taylor Swift, or BTS, or Beyonce. But the question of what responsibility does someone with an audience have when that audience is eager to do whatever that person tells them to?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  I ought to mention about Mark Cuban. Subsequently, he gave you proof that you were right. He told you, you were right, I was wrong.

• 23:27Pablo Torre?

  He may have given me a tweet that I have framed now in my house. Yeah, look, going toe to toe with the guy from Shark Tank, who I just got to reiterate, is always welcome on Pablo Torre Finds Out.

• 23:42Pablo Torre?

  Him coming around after that level of multi-part argument. Yeah, man, it's, it's, it's. My thing about billionaires, by the way, I'm not here to be a.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Well, we're going to get into that again.

• 23:57Pablo Torre?

  Very good.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Because, I mean, you're under, you've got an investigation going on now, but I'll just hold that. Dad always used to love to have fun with what he called his meal ticket. People like the racist owner of the Redskins, George Preston Marshall, he could have great fun with, you know, writing that the Redskins came onto the field in their colors, burgundy, golden, Caucasian.

• 24:26Pablo Torre?

  Such a good line.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  He loved to be able to tweak Marshall all the time. He loved to be able, and had fun with it. And yet it was a serious subject. He loved to have fun trying to get Negro League baseball players into the major leagues. And he would just rip on Major League Baseball and the owners. And you like to have fun. You find out that the Golden State Warriors coach, Steve Kerr, has somebody in the stands looking exactly like Steve Kerr. And all of a sudden, it's a big story, to the point of last night Pablo gets a big shout out

• 25:09Speaker 02

  from Steve Kerr on the Inside the NBA show.

• 25:13Pablo Torre?

  We look exactly the same, don't we? I mean, it's incredible.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  No, it's scary.

• 25:19Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah. We actually connected. So Pablo Torre connected the two of us for his podcast last week.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  What the hell did you do? Why did you do this?

• 25:32Pablo Torre?

  Listen, when my nose is smelling a story, a Steve Kerr look-alike story? The tipping point was when I learned that the look-alike was also named Steve.

• 25:45Pablo Torre?

  And I'm always pressure testing whether we live in a simulation.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  And you showed a picture where Kerr is looking at this guy.

• 25:52Pablo Torre?

  So there's a viral video in which they encounter each other, so to speak, at a Lakers-Warriors game in Vegas. And Steve Kerr seems to recognize Bizarro Steve, the other Steve.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  I mean, this is a twin.

• 26:07Pablo Torre?

  What I did not know was whether either Steve actually felt that way. And so I called up the other Steve. His name is Steve Gillis. He is an English teacher at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas. Got him on Zoom. He's in his classroom. And he's explaining how all of these kids keep on stopping by the classroom to try and take selfies with him now. Thanks for joining us, noted Steve Kerr doppelganger, Steve Gillis. This is the best part of my day, talking to someone cool that knows sports, because I could talk any sport, any time, any day, or Hemingway, or Shakespeare. As he's explaining that he's actually here to teach Shakespeare and coach volleyball and all this stuff,

• 26:50Pablo Torre?

  it occurs to me that this guy may enjoy being put on a group chat with Steve Kerr. And what I didn't know was whether Steve Kerr would enjoy that.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:01Pablo Torre?

  And.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  He tries to get in touch with Coach Steve Kerr, and Steve Kerr thinks that Pablo is going to investigate him for some serious act that he's done.

• 27:13Pablo Torre?

  According to Steve Kerr, he was worried that he was somehow a part of the aspiration scandal. When Pablo called, I thought I was in trouble for the aspiration scandal. So I was relieved to know that he just wanted to connect me with my doppelganger. Which is an issue with me in terms of making friends now. People are worried that I'm salary cap investigating them.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  To wrap up the Clippers story, a lot of us think it's over. But you say it's not.

• 27:44Pablo Torre?

  Somehow it is not.

• 27:47Pablo Torre?

  The federal government is investigating the Clippers, Steve Ballmer's Clippers, for this scheme run with four separate sponsors for effectively no-show jobs for Kawhi Leonard. And the question therein, according to my reporting, is whether there was violations of securities law. The SEC is investigating aspiration. The SEC is investigating on the back of our investigation into the scoreboard company, Daktronics, which Kawhi also had a no-show job with.

• 28:16Pablo Torre?

  They're investigating Daktronics, a public company. And there is more.

• 28:28Pablo Torre?

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• 29:12Pablo Torre?

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• 29:55Pablo Torre?

  so you can give luxury quality without the luxury price tag. So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was PTFO. It's the best way to support the show. Life in 2026 is tough. We all have our struggles, and we could all use some help. But trying to figure out how to get the right mental health treatment for you can feel overwhelming. Talkiatory helps you move from, I know I need help, to actually having a psychiatrist who listens

• 30:39Pablo Torre?

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• 31:24Pablo Torre?

  That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com/ptfo to get matched in minutes. Talkiatory.com/ptfo.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  So Pablo, I've been to your office. I've seen how many people around you. You don't have enough people to do these investigations. Where are they?

• 31:54Pablo Torre?

  I started drinking coffee like two years ago. It's not a joke.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  I'm doing it. I see a couple of guys in the office.

• 32:03Pablo Torre?

  We have a staff of a couple of guys and gals. We have a staff of about 10.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Oh, you do?

• 32:08Pablo Torre?

  The names are in the credits.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Oh, you have 10? Well, how come I've only seen 2?

• 32:11Pablo Torre?

  Well, part of the issue is that we've launched our podcast as a television show and an audio-first podcast, which means that George Solomon can consume it eventually in whatever platform he likes.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  George is an octogenitarian. He doesn't know what the hell's...

• 32:29Pablo Torre?

  I'm gonna have Aaron Solomon read him transcripts of my podcast.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:35Pablo Torre?

  And the reality is, we launched this thing that exists as our own weirdo television show and an audio product. And so we have a lot of people on the production-assembly line who are fantastic. And we have a bunch of overworked people, none of whom are exclusively reporters, all helping me report. And it's... We're all very tired, Maury.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  I bet.

• 32:56Pablo Torre?

  We're all very tired.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I know you. You get outside help. Because you have people who collaborate with you from other organizations.

• 33:05Pablo Torre?

  We believe that journalism is a group project.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  For instance, on the Tim Tebow investigation, you had Mother Jones.

• 33:12Pablo Torre?

  Yep. And they are fantastic to work with. Look, my belief in this era of journalism is that everything is fractured when it comes to audiences and platforms, right? There are no... I mean, Maury Povich, for those not familiar, is the type of guy so obsessed with his ratings that he is still checking if his reruns beat Jerry Springer's today. And Jerry Springer, last I checked, Maury...

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, is dead.

• 33:43Pablo Torre?

  So I'm just saying that the question of large audiences is harder now more than ever. And so we believe, as that fragmentation has occurred, because everyone's on their phone, so too can we divvy up the responsibilities around independent journalism. And that's my hope, is that we're easy to work with. I think we're a good time. My hope is that people also realize we're obsessive about our rigor and our standards. And that's part of what the Clippers investigation helped advertise.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  Let me go into that phrase, independent journalism. A lot of people use it, and a lot of people aren't. Draw me the line.

• 34:22Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I mean, look, we are partners. We are licensing partners, for instance, with the New York Times Company and The Athletic. What does that mean? It means that they distribute the show. They are quite supportive. But we are editorially independent. Likewise, the New York Times will say that they are independent themselves. So what does this really mean? It's not a description of size. I believe it's a description of what business relationships may plausibly compromise the editorial product that they are working on.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  So when you're doing an investigation, and you want to put it on air in your podcast, do you have Times lawyers hanging over your head?

• 35:11Pablo Torre?

  No.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Well, you have to have lawyers.

• 35:13Pablo Torre?

  We have lawyer. Shout out to Christopher Poe, Metalark Media's attorney.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Oh, so in other words, I see. You're a co-owner.

• 35:23Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, so for those not familiar with the very strange branch of the coaching tree that I belong to...

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, Metalark Media, that's involved with Dan Lebatard and other things.

• 35:35Pablo Torre?

  "Other things" is a great description of Dan Lebatard.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:39Pablo Torre?

  He's my financial backer and my boss and my friend. And he's the person who came to me and said, "We want to give you a show." And I came back with something that has legally jeopardized his entire company depending on my level of rigor. And we have one lawyer, and he's the best. I love him. He vets every episode.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  How many times has he told you to stand down?

• 36:03Pablo Torre?

  So what I love about a good media lawyer is that their position is not, "This scares me, stand down." It's, "How can we find a way for you to report this that also protects us in the event of litigation?" And I don't take that for granted. Because the calculus, of course, is editorial ambition versus literally the existence of the company. When a guy like Steve Ballmer may be on the other side of this. But what I believe and what we have invested in is the idea that in America, the country that I, my parents, fell in love with, if you are telling the truth, you can wear that as a suit of armor against a guy with billions upon billions of dollars.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Shirley Povich was sued one time.

• 36:50Pablo Torre?

  How'd that go?

• 36:51Speaker 02

  He always... It went to a jury. And he was found innocent when George Preston Marshall tried to sue him for libel. And he basically said, "Truth wins."

• 37:06Pablo Torre?

  We are living in a fragile time. And that is a premise that is the key to, I think, this room.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:18Pablo Torre?

  The idea that you can be risk-seeking if you are being responsible and if you are telling the truth.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Let's get to the... You have a current investigation into a fellow named Mark Walter. Mark Walter happens to own the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles basketball team.

• 37:42Pablo Torre?

  I just want to get the Lakers and the Clippers both, man. I just want to make sure I...

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, why?

• 37:47Pablo Torre?

  Give them both my attention.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Now you're into the Lakers. Because he is potentially selling the Lakers to a group made up of Jonathan Kushner. Is that his name?

• 38:00Pablo Torre?

  Josh.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Josh Kushner.

• 38:02Pablo Torre?

  He's the good Kushner, Maury.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:04Pablo Torre?

  Josh Kushner is the good Kushner.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay. And the longtime president of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger. And now you're into this whole thing about how this sale is going about? And how did Walter get all his money? And where did that money come from? You know, bring me up to date.

• 38:30Pablo Torre?

  There's an active federal investigation into Mark Walter, who happens to be also a man whose empire is built on insurance companies. And look, I am somebody who, it turns out, hears something that sounds like straight-up vegetables to a sports fan. You want to talk to me about insurance, life insurance and annuities now? And what I tell them is that, what if it explained how a guy like Mark Walter came out of nowhere to afford the Los Angeles Dodgers? Who paid the most money in the history of sports for a team at that time on the back of an arranged deal that we reported on my show in which he started a local sports television channel and bought the team

• 39:15Pablo Torre?

  and figured out a way to borrow, according to our reporting, from a series of companies that he controlled that were premised on, according to the reporting, the premiums paid by America's parents and grandparents.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  So what are you trying to prove?

• 39:36Pablo Torre?

  Well, I'm not trying to prove anything. What I'm trying to do, I think, is understand what is the federal government interested in? Where is Mark Walter's money really coming from? And how can he possibly continue to afford the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is the team he says he will not sell, even as he sells the Lakers after about a year and change for 12 and 1/2? And it's an ongoing story.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Well, he had to have had some kind of money to buy. I mean, the owners of the NBA and Major League Baseball, they're not gonna let somebody in without putting up the money.

• 40:12Pablo Torre?

  One of the things I've learned about these leagues... And I'm a hu... I should just say, in case it's not obvious, I'm an enormous sports fan. I grew up like writing the stats of these players on the back of like little note cards, making my own version of like trading cards and stuff. I'm a sports nerd. I don't come at this from a position of, "I want to destroy and burn down this world." I do not. But one of the things I've learned about leagues is that the question of due diligence is something we presume that they do. They do it, but the question of how thorough is their investigation? Repeatedly, I think there are real questions that are worth asking, including,

• 40:55Pablo Torre?

  how did Mark Walter go from relatively anonymous life insurance guy to the guy owning and setting records for the Dodgers and the Lakers and Chelsea?

• 41:07Speaker 02

  So if I had to paint this investigation of yours, you're into the sketching part. You're not even putting color into it yet, are you?

• 41:20Pablo Torre?

  I think that is in the eye of the beholder. I think there is a sketch. I think there is some color. I think that, right now, as he is putting the L.A. Sparks, his other team, up for sale and the... F1 team that he controls up for sale. There is a narrowing window in which it seems increasingly implausible that he will continue to hold on to the Dodgers. And at that point, yes, there will be a burst of Dodger blue onto the canvas. But right now, yeah, we're making calls. Unnecessarily specific questions thrive on Reddit.

• 42:05Pablo Torre?

  Like, why the umpback whales migrate exactly when they do? Which stadium entrance gets you out fastest after the game? Which side of the plane is gonna have the best views? On most subreddits, one person recognizes it, another adds the context, and a third explains the part everybody else missed. And suddenly, my strange question has a real world answer. And I then have three more questions. Whether it's r/sports, r/television, r/askReddit, or any of the thousands of other subreddits, there's always a topic that feels catered to my interests. One useful answer attracts more context as fans compare notes, challenge assumptions, and add the missing piece. It's a great place to start, and important claims still deserve verification.

• 42:50Pablo Torre?

  I haven't found another place that is better for niche interests and finding community around a hobby or interest. That's why I turned to my favorite subreddit, r/whales. It is filled with informative articles, discussion, appreciation for Earth's most magnificent creatures, complete with thousands of pictures and videos, which I truly can't get enough of. When your question goes beyond the game, Reddit is where the people who have been there have the answers. Download the Reddit app today and do not forget to follow r/pablo torre finds out.

• 43:23Speaker 03

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• 44:07Speaker 03

  Some exclusions apply.

• 44:11Pablo Torre?

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• 44:50Speaker 02

  You have a lot of students here who probably look up to you and what you're doing. Because investigative journalism, I don't want to say it's a dying art, but it's a rare, rare art. And so I thank you very much for what you've put into it. Appreciate it. So now, we're gonna open it up to questions from students. If we have any mics. Nobody has a question? This is great. Well, they don't have to be from students, they can be from anybody. I would love somebody--

• 45:29Pablo Torre?

  As long as you don't show a video of a child behind us, I am good.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  I mean, anybody who wants to take issue with Pablo.

• 45:37Pablo Torre?

  Can I point something out about Maury as we wait for the students to get microphones? Maury Povich is the kind of person who, and this is not an exaggeration, who met Walter Johnson.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, okay. That just talks about age. That's it.

• 45:55Pablo Torre?

  How many people have met Big Train?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Seven. How about Kornheiser and Wilbon used to go to the post-sports department with George, and my father would be there. And they would walk into his office, and he would be talking, and all of a sudden, he would say, "Well, I was talking to Train." And they would go nuts. Wilbon has the greatest story, that the first boxing match he ever covered, he was in the car with my father, and they were driving to the match, and my father looks at Michael, and he says, "Michael, you look a little nervous." And Michael says, "I hate to tell you this, Shirley, but this is my first fight I've ever covered." And my father said, "Don't worry about it, Mike.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  I was really scared my first fight." "Oh, yeah? What was that? Dempsey Tunney." Okay, here we go.

• 46:52Pablo Torre?

  I want, hello, okay, well, that's loud. I wanted to ask you about Mark Walter and his kind of creation and funding of the Professional Women's Hockey League and kind of like what you see with that in relation to your whole ongoing investigation. Sure. Mark Walter is one of the big benefactors of women's sports. The Billie Jean King Cup, Billie Jean King is somebody who he has a business relationship with, and in women's hockey, he is the guy whose name is on the trophy. And so one of the questions that I think is of interest is, is this a genuine interest and a passion? Or is this a performance of interest?

• 47:37Pablo Torre?

  Because if you're gonna get all of the sports, maybe you want to be a really good guy funding those sports that perhaps struggle to find funding otherwise. So I'm not gonna render a judgment on that question. Again, the reporting continues. But his portfolio is vast. And when I say, by the way, that sports teams are increasing in value all of the time, if you're gonna pick one individual person who is responsible for the boom in valuations, I would pick Mark Walter. He has personally funded record-breaking prices for a number of franchises in a number of sports, and--

• 48:13Speaker 02

  The Laker franchise total was, what, 12?

• 48:17Pablo Torre?

  12 and a half, after about nine months of functional ownership. You know? And--

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Meanwhile, I read a story where Iger and Kushner haven't come up with the money yet.

• 48:29Pablo Torre?

  Well, that's part of what we're also interested in, as everyone is now jockeying in public, by the way, to say, "No, we're totally good for it." Right? The purchase has yet, it has yet to officially close. One more note just on where sports valuations are going, though, is that 12 and a half billion to the question you raised of like, do they have the money, is incredibly difficult to generate. 12 and a half billion dollars. And so who can afford such things? Private equity companies, sovereign wealth funds? I'm very interested in the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, frankly.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Three years ago, the commanders went for 6.1, and everybody went nuts.

• 49:10Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. Yeah. And so, look, there is a curve that you can trace in which sports valuations are increasing at a rate that is only really seen in like artificial intelligence companies. And I would ask the young people how secure they feel in artificial intelligence companies as an economic proposition.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Here you go. Yes.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Hello, my name is Joshua Bullinger. I just applied to University of Maryland. So I'm wondering, because that is an intense journalism field, and it can be nerve-wracking. So what advice would you give to someone who wants to get into that field?

• 49:56Pablo Torre?

  That's a really cool question to get. My advice is that I hope you really love it. You know? Something I realize about myself is that my kink is kind of investigative journalism. I didn't necessarily know that about myself, Maury, when I was at Sports Illustrated and ESPN.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  How would you rate your batting average?

• 50:17Pablo Torre?

  On stories?

• 50:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. On subjects that you start?

• 50:23Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. There are a couple of episodes--

• 50:26Speaker 02

  I mean, is it better than a 300 hitter?

• 50:29Pablo Torre?

  The equivalent, I'd like to think so, but baseball itself is a game of failure.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  So three of 10?

• 50:34Pablo Torre?

  Well, I would say that we're very proud that we've only never run a couple of episodes we've taped. Like, you can count them on less than a handful. There are episodes that we start that have been sitting in our fridge for over a year, and I intend to get back to them. My staff gets mad at me because I always say, "There's a story that I love that's in there, we're gonna get to it eventually." And yet, we haven't done that yet. So I think we're pretty good, but if you don't love the making of it, so much of this, and look, this is where like, not to be corny about it, but All the President's Men, or The Insider, these great movies about journalism, they're reminders that making a phone call,

• 51:19Pablo Torre?

  young people out there, can be really fun. Talking to human beings can be really fun. And those are the ones that no one ever hears or knows about, they're just for you and that person, and your goal there is to demonstrate to that person that you care about what they know, such that they want to tell you. And if you can convince them of that, and enjoy that, and have no assurance that it'll ever be published, then I think you're on the right track. But it's, you know, it's less glamorous, and so therefore, you need to enjoy the actual process of it.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Yes. Good evening. My name is Leslie Olabisi with the Owl Newspaper at Prince George.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  This community college. Thank you for being here. My question, I understand the brave and difficult position and investigative integrity that guided you along this journey. And I'm sure you've gotten a lot of praise and positive feedback and appreciation for you uncovering the veil, so to speak. My question is, how has it been on the other side? Have you received remarks or responses where people feel like, why? Did you feel the need to uncover this? And is this important?

• 52:35Pablo Torre?

  Absolutely. Yeah, it's so nice to be in a room where people seem to be generally appreciative of the work. Typically, I think my expectation is more along the lines of having to explain, like, why do you care so much about this? And one of the things that I often think about is that the show is, for better and for worse, premised on my curiosity. And that's a luxury. It's a real luxury. And the question of like, what are you doing and why do you put so much work into it? It makes me also want to remind everybody, I am not a war reporter.

• 53:18Pablo Torre?

  I am not a photojournalist in Gaza. I am not somebody who is doing any of the things that I could not bring myself to do and I admire from afar. Right? I get to do sports and I get to perhaps occasionally irritate people with disposable income that can make my life really bad if they want to. But that's a calculation that I'm comfortable with. And so inside of sports, Maury, I think that, look, the fact that it's the toy department that's always been, you know, the dismissal of it, I think it's a point of leverage.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I say again, it's the relevance of opening the door to power and money and ethics.

• 54:07Pablo Torre?

  And it might just be the thing that someone really likes to hear about otherwise, you know? When I'm always trying to convince people, hey, this could be a good time. Sports makes it easy. It's about the thing that they love the most. It's about the thing they inherited from their dad. It's about the TV show they love to watch before they go to bed. You know? What I get to do is take, and I say this all the time, but I take that cheese, the cheese of sports, and I melt it on the broccoli of the important stuff. And so why do I care? It's because I hate broccoli.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Very good. We have any more? Yes.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Two quick questions. Do you envision yourself hosting PTI more now that Wilbon is taking a leave to the IR? And then the other one is just to make me feel good. Can you talk about how much of a loser Vivek Ramaswamy actually is?

• 55:03Speaker 02

  Everybody, you have to understand that Vivek and Pablo went to school together.

• 55:14Pablo Torre?

  He is, in ways, I can't fully summarize.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Did you know early on?

• 55:21Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  You mean, he conducted himself at Harvard in this way?

• 55:29Pablo Torre?

  He was that guy. Students of the University of Maryland and the surrounding colleges, you all know this guy. The guy who won't stop talking in class, who raises his hand and wants to argue with everybody because he thinks he is, in fact, worthy of all of our attention as long as he has something to say. And there is a version of me that is evil, that resembles that, I think, a lot more.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Really?

• 55:57Pablo Torre?

  But.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  You were not, you were not cowering in the back of the lecture room?

• 56:02Pablo Torre?

  There are levels to this, to this description. And Vivek Ramaswamy and I were in Intro to Philosophy together, Moral Reasoning 22, Justice, which means that I got first experience what it's like when one of your classmates becomes a libertarian rapper called Davic.

• 56:21Pablo Torre?

  Which is a true fact.

• 56:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, but are you surprised that he ended up a billionaire?

• 56:28Pablo Torre?

  I'm less surprised that he has not been able to win elected office at any level.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 56:37Pablo Torre?

  But the Wilbon thing, just to be clear about that.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, we ought to talk about, first of all, our hearts are with Michael. He's a dear friend of many of us. We're all hoping that this is a short absence and that he'll return because if he doesn't, Tony will throw a fit. He will just, he will be incorrigible, which he already is.

• 57:02Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. Mike is irreplaceable. Mike will be back. And if the Bears are as good as they seem to be, he'll be back next week. It's an honor to warm his chair and, you know, me and Isola and the group they have to fill in for Mike. We are honored to do it and increasingly terrified of what Tony will do to us.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Ladies and gentlemen, Pablo Torre. Thank you very much.

• 57:33Pablo Torre?

  Maury Povich, everybody.

• 57:50Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

• 58:17Pablo Torre?

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• 58:49Pablo Torre?

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