2,739 Blows to the Head

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in podcast listeners. Appreciate all of you and the
fact that you have kept this podcast growing at an
insane rate. I want to encourage you to go give
us a five star review. Danny G if he reads
your five star review, will give you an autograph copy
of my book if you slide into his d M s.
A lot of you have been doing those reviews and
they have been incredibly entertaining, Danny G tells me. Also

(00:22):
edition of Dr Chow this week, encourage you to go
sign up for OutKick v I P and make sure
that you don't miss anything. Go to OutKick dot com
check out all of the content there loaded show for you.
We start off talking about the Redskins story finally dropping
from the Washington Post, and then we move on to
further discussion about college football and some of the new

(00:44):
n c Double A regulations and challenges there on into
why schools need to open back up from a high
school football perspective, talk with grind Glass Peg from OutKick
about all of the fallout from sports media stories of
late and then in the third hour of the show,
we're joined by Shannon Spake to discuss Bristol and twenty

(01:04):
thousand plus fans showing up and what that could mean
for the future of sports lots to get into. I
appreciate all of you for listening. Hope you're having a
fantastic Friday, and the podcast begins now. I'll Kick the
Coverage with Clay Travis live every weekday morning from six
to nine a m. E Stone three to six am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for

(01:27):
OutKick the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or
stream us live every morning on the I Heart Radio
app by searching fs Are you're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Well,
it's been rumored all week that the Washington Redskins were

(01:48):
going to be the subject of a major story, and
it's gonna take me a long time. By the way,
as I said in my opening sentence, the Washington Redskins
the Washington to be named a later team. Uh, the
NFL franchise in our nation's capital was hit with a
Washington Post story alleging sexual harassment by fifteen different women. Um,

(02:12):
and it involved a bunch of different men. Uh. Two
of the guys a former CEO and a former president
of business operations. They left in ten and eighteen and
then there are three executives who left the organization after
the Post started its reporting and began to ask questions

(02:34):
based on the allegations of these women. Uh. And that
was a senior vice president, a director of pro personnel,
and the assistant director of pro personnel. Uh. And one
of those guys, of course, was the voice of the
Washington Team. So UH, the big question here coming out
of this investigation is, UH, there there's a lot to

(02:56):
dive into. Frankly, um, and you may remember that in
my prior life as a lawyer, I used to investigate
sexual harassment on behalf of organizations and write up reports
after talking internally with the employees. So I'm pretty well
versed in the next step in this situation, which is

(03:19):
the Daniel Snyder's team, the team that used to be
known as the Redskins, has hired a a lawyer to
conduct an internal investigation and determine what actually has been
going on, what practices need to be altered, and what
the story is here and should be going forward. So

(03:40):
the biggest uh, I would say story, is what's going
to happen with Dan Snyder playing this forward? Because many
people have have hoped for a long time that Dan
Snyder would be forced to sell the team or would
be forced out. And my read, based on having read
this story is that there's not enough here to force

(04:03):
Dan Snyder out. Now. I could be wrong, and we
could be in an era where the NFL is trying
to make a statement, but I think you need to
go back and look at the precedents that are out
there right now. And the easiest precedent to point to,
I would say in the NFL is Jerry Richardson, the

(04:24):
former owner of the Carolina Panthers, who was effectively forced
to sell the team after allegations of sexual harassment. The
difference there is Richardson himself was named as one of
the perpetrators of the sexual harassment and the culture directly
based on his behavior, and so he was forced out

(04:47):
as a result of that story because his own personal
behavior was integral to the story. Here, it doesn't appear
at least to me that there is enough allegation of
impropriety on behalf of Dan Snyder where the NFL would
be able to force Snyder to sell the franchise. Now,

(05:08):
there are minority owners of the Washington Redskins of erstwhile
Washington Redskins who appeared to want out, But there's no
indication that Dan Snyder could be forced out so far.
Now things could change. The NFL could decide to take
an incredibly aggressive tack here, But I think the likelihood

(05:29):
is that Dan Snyder, if the NFL tried to force
him out, would file a lawsuit and that lawsuit would
go on for a substantial period of time. And I'm
not sure that the NFL would have the authority to
force Dan Snyder out based on the situation that exists
inside of his franchise, and Dan Snyder could point to

(05:52):
a lot of other improprieties that have gone on among
NFL owners as evidence for why he hasn't. His standard
behavior has not rien risen to that level, and that
could force the NFL to air a lot of dirty
laundry involving their team. So my read as it stands
this morning in the day after this story broke late

(06:15):
in the afternoon, is that Dan Snyder will survive and
they're likely will be some changes that are necessary to
be made to avoid any behavior like this from any
other executives at the team going forward, and hopefully to
allow everyone who works there to feel like they work
in a safe place and that they're not incredibly harassed

(06:39):
based on working at that particular location. The culture could
be forced to change. And there are other stories like
these that have come out. Certainly, the Dallas Mavericks have
had their issues with Mark Cuban, as I mentioned, and
in a different sport, UH, the Jerry Richardson situation and UH,
and likely this is a situation that really a stronger

(07:02):
HR department needs to exist, and I would imagine that
is one of the changes that Dan Snyder will implement
going forward as this scenario continues to play out. Now,
the other aspect of this story that I would say
is at least worth considering is there were way more
allegations of impropriety out there about the Redskins, about the

(07:25):
Washington football franchise than actually appeared in this article. So
a part of me wonders what in the world was
going on with the reporting here. Did the Washington team
decide to try to leak a lot of scandalous details
that were not actually involved in this story in a

(07:46):
way that when the story finally landed, many people who
had been paying attention to all the rumors would say, oh,
there wasn't as much here as I anticipated there might be. Now,
we didn't talk about this story on the radio show,
even though it was being hinted about in UH, in
Twitter and everything else, frankly because I didn't know anything

(08:06):
about it, and I try to avoid talking about things
that haven't happened yet if I'm not very aware personally
of the fact that they exist, and that was the
case here uh. And so I don't think it was
a real sterling look in general for Twitter to be
talking as many people on Twitter as were about this

(08:27):
story before it actually came out, because many of the
things that people were talking about, the Redskins were the
number one trending topic on Thursday even before this story
came out, because there were so many different allegations that
were floating out there, the vast majority of which were
not actually included in this story. Now, maybe there are

(08:49):
gonna be other future stories that are written, or maybe
this was a kind of disinformation campaign designed to get
out information that sounded a lot worse than it actually
was when it came out, and it was bad, make
no mistake about it. The Redskins are in a rough spot,
and I think this is one reason why the team's
name got changed, and I think this is one reason

(09:10):
why all the pressure got ratcheted up on Daniel Snyder,
and he thought to himself, well, I can't be fighting
about whether or not the team name should change while
simultaneously we're dealing with this big sexual harassment allegation that
has now come out. So that is a big story
that certainly is going to be much talked about this
morning across the entire country. But I think I basically

(09:35):
nailed all of the different aspects of it right there.
The other big story that I believe is going to
be talked about a lot, and I'm actually frankly more
interested in this story going forward because it seems to
me like it's a more more challenging story to figure out.
What's gonna happen. Is the n c double A came
out with some guidelines for how college football could be played,

(09:58):
and uh, there are a lot of details in that.
But what I would start with here is I still
believe that if all of these other leagues are going
to be playing, I want you to think about all
the different sports that are gonna be taking place by
late July or early August. Just listen to this list,

(10:19):
either training camp will be going on or the sports
will already be occurring. All right, Uh, this is a
pretty exhaustive list, so listen along. Major League Baseball starts
next week, the NHL starts August one, NBA starts at
the very end of July. NFL teams are theoretically gonna

(10:39):
start reporting by next week and the week after to arrive,
especially the rookies and everyone else, and by August one,
in theory, everybody would be in training camp. MLS is
already playing, the p g A is already underway, and
in August they will play. The first is the major

(11:01):
of the year. The w n b A is playing.
The UFC is underway and has been for a very
long time. The National Women's Soccer League, the p b A,
Professional Bowlers Association, the Lacrosse League, Professional Lacrosse League, Boxing, NASCAR,
the Kentucky Derby is going to happen in right now September,

(11:23):
and also the n D five hundred. Now, I'm sure
that I have left some sports out of the mix there,
but when I go through this list, that is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
different level events that are all going on. Now. When

(11:47):
I see all of these sports taking place and that
they will be taking place either in July or August,
I sit back and I say, how is it that
college football uniquely has become the one sport that it
appears may end up being canceled? And so this, to

(12:08):
me is a very intriguing story to follow, And in particular,
I'm gonna just pretend that I am sitting here and
we're having a discussion, and you can tweet me and
share your arguments. But it seems to me that there
are effectively three real arguments for why college football shouldn't

(12:29):
take place this fall, and frankly, I don't think any
of the three arguments are very good. And let me
lay them out for you. The first one, and this
is the one that you're gonna hear from the most people,
is that it's not safe. And when people say it's
not safe, they mean both the game is not safe
and it's not safe for the players the game itself.

(12:53):
If you heard Dr Chow yesterday, he argued that the
game of football itself, in his mind, was not likely
and he wrote this at out Kick. He's now an
employee of out Kick. Dr chow Is at Pro Football Doc.
He wrote on out Kick that, in his opinion, the
game itself was unlikely to lead to the spread of

(13:14):
the virus. In other words, even if running back gets
tackled by a linebacker, they're in close contact for a
relatively short amount of time. And he pointed out that,
for instance, the Rudy Gobert UH situation, Rudy Gobert tested positive,
but none of the guys who had played against Rudy
Gobert tested positive, despite the fact that they're all sweating

(13:37):
and running into each other and everything else associated with it.
So the game itself of football is not safe, right.
There's lots of violence involved, there's lots of conflict. Uh,
there's lots of hitting, but the coronavirus is not necessarily
adding to the level of lack of safety, all right.
So one, they're two prongs to the not safe argument.

(13:57):
One is you can't play the sport very safe. And
by the way, an hour two, I want to get
into Jason Whitlock's column that is going to be up
about his idea, at least as he told me it
was gonna be up. We talked about it yesterday about
his idea of why high school football needs to be played,
but that would also factor in here. The second one
is on the not safe prong. Well, the players aren't

(14:21):
safe on a college campus, And this, to me is
one that is very very easy to attack as an
invalid argument, because if the players aren't safe on a
college campus, why would they be safer at home wherever
they live. This argument doesn't make sense to me because

(14:42):
the data would suggest that the best place a player
could be is on a college campus with constant medical
attention offered to him and readily available testing virtually at
the drop of a hat. He's getting his temperature taken
every day, he's getting testing done on a regular basis

(15:03):
to ensure that there is not a coronavirus infection, and
if there is an infection, it's getting caught super early ideally,
and then that player is able to be treated well
and there's no concerns because they are on a campus
and they have a really good medical situation. So, for

(15:24):
everybody out there who's arguing college football isn't safe, I
don't think the game itself is unsafe based on what
Dr Chaw has said. And I also certainly don't think
the players themselves are unsafe. Okay, so that's the first argument,
and I don't think it's a good one for why
college football shouldn't exist. The next argument is the players

(15:44):
are not professionals, and that's what maybe some of you
are saying. Well, that the leagues that I all ran through,
the fifteen different leagues, those all involved adults making professional
decisions to be involved in play. The situation, however, is
anyone who doesn't want to play can decide not to play,

(16:08):
remain on college scholarship, and likely get a red shirt
year for medical reasons, and be able to come back
theoretically next year in the hopes that by then, hopefully
we will have a vaccine and it will be effective
and nobody will have to worry about the coronavirus anymore.
But so the players, while they're not professionals, I think

(16:30):
if you poled them based on coaches and administrators that
I am talking with, all the college athletes want to
play their sports this fall. It doesn't matter what the
sport is. They all want to take the field and
play because they are college kids. And the vast majority
of them, I should say, not all, but whenever I
talk they're like, oh, of our players want to take

(16:53):
the field. Well, if somebody's mom and dad or the
player himself or herself doesn't feel good about playing sports
in the fall, then they don't have to. So there's
no compulsion here. Nobody is saying, hey, you have to
play or else there's gonna be serious consequences. So that

(17:14):
not professionals argument to me is not a good one
because kids are voluntarily deciding, hey, I want to play.
I don't want to have to sit out potentially an
entire season. And then the third one is, well, what
about other people? Because now there's an acknowledgement of what
I've been telling you for a while, which is the

(17:36):
danger to college kids is limited. When it comes to
the coronavirus. College kids are more likely to be struck
by lightning, They're more likely to be murdered, they are
more likely to drown, they are more likely to die
of an alcohol related incident. They are more likely to
die driving to a college campus than they are from

(18:00):
the coronavirus. And so the question that is out there,
which I think is a good one, is, Okay, let's
not even talk about the college kids. What about older
people that they might come into contact with on a
college campus. Well, first of all, that argument applies similarly

(18:20):
if they're off campus, right, So if they're not on campus,
they still could come into contact with older people, and
arguably they may be more likely to come into contact
with older people because on a college campus, they're not
living with older people. They might be living with a
grandpa or grandma or an older aunt or uncle in

(18:42):
their home where they are living when they are off campus,
and that is actually where most of the coronavirus is spreading,
is inside of households in a lot of close contact.
So this idea that on a college campus there is
going to be more spread doesn't necessarily uh to me

(19:05):
fit the data, because the young person could just as
easily be spreading it off the campus as they do
on campus, and in fact, it's easier for older people. Coaches, teachers, janitors,
all of those people theoretically could be easier able to
stay away from the younger kids on a campus in

(19:29):
a way that might not be able to occur when
the players are back home. So I don't buy into
any of the three major arguments that you were probably
hearing from people who think college football shouldn't happen again.
To me, there are three primary arguments. It's not safe
for them, and the not safe is it's not safe

(19:51):
for the players to be on campus. It's not safe
for the game to be played. I don't think either
of those are true based on the data that out there.
They're not professionals, and they shouldn't be forced to play. Well,
that's not happening. They are choosing to play. If they
don't want to play, they can stay on scholarship, they
can take a medical red shirt season, and they can

(20:11):
theoretically come back next year in the hopes that a
vaccine will exist by then. And what about everybody else.
They're likely, in my opinion, to be in more close
contact with older people off of campus than they are
on campus. When you actually look at all of the
arguments out there, to me, everything ties in here and

(20:32):
college kids should be on campus, and there is a
lot of evidence of why college football should be able
to play, just like Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL,
the NBA, mL S, p G A, W n B,
a UFC, NWS, l p B A, boxing, NASCAR, Kentucky
Derby in D five hundred, and the professional cross league

(20:54):
are all taking place, all right. When we come back,
we're gonna talk about some of the challenges of the
bubble environment in general, in particular related to Zion who
just had to leave. This is outkicked the coverage with
Clay Travis a couple of different things I want to
get into. I'm gonna start with the uh, with the

(21:15):
challenges of the bubble environment right uh. Now that we
know Major League Baseball is going to be playing on Thursday,
basically six days from now, there's gonna be an interesting study.
And I've contrast, compare and contrast. I've talked about this,
and we've talked about it with Dr Chaw and I've
talked about it a lot with you guys, comparing and
contrasting the way Major League Baseball in the NBA have

(21:36):
decided to go about returning to play in Major League Baseball.
They're playing in their home cities, in their home stadiums,
they're going to be traveling, and it seems like there's
an acknowledgement that Major League Baseball is going to have
a decent number of players test positive, and as a result,
they've built in pretty substantial rosters. But they are really

(22:00):
asking players to have to give up that much of
their existing life. Now you're not supposed to go out,
you know, to big social events. You obviously shouldn't be
going to parties things like that, Like you're supposed to
be making smart decisions to protect yourself and your teammates.
But it isn't as if Major League Baseball actually created
a bubble environment. Now, major League Baseball thought about doing that,

(22:23):
if you remember, ironically enough, they were talking about playing
in just Florida, Texas and Arizona, which would have looked
like the most disastrous decision of all time based on
the way the outbreak has gone, with those states which
had very minimal outbreaks early on now having the places
with the most cases in the country. Now, for a

(22:44):
little bit of positivity here, it appears that things may
have peaked in Florida, Texas and Arizona and not be
getting worse in terms of hospitalization. It's hard to know.
It's hard to make predictions about the coronavirus in general,
as I well know and as all of you well know,
because every time you think something, it's like there's a

(23:05):
pivot and things end up being a little bit different
than you anticipated beforehand. But the overall storyline here is
they are big differences in the way Major League Baseball
in the NBA have decided to UH to begin their
their path, and we talked about on Thursday show. We
talked with Chris Mannix. All of the media members are

(23:27):
being quarantined in an aggressive way even at the NBA.
All Right, the challenge becomes, once you become a member
of the NBA's bubble, you aren't allowed to leave that
bubble without having to re introduce yourself via a quarantine fashion.
And so this is becoming an issue already for the

(23:49):
NBA for not very serious reasons, right, which include UH,
for instance, a player deciding to leave the bubble to
go get food and having to be put into a
hotel room to re quarantine, as we've already seen for
a Sacramento Kings player. But it also includes other interesting

(24:13):
aspects of of this this situation. UH. In particular, it
includes now Zion Williamson, and obviously the NBA was ecstatic
to get Zion Williamson back into the the the NBA
process in the first place. Some people out there conspiracy

(24:33):
theorist would even argue that the reason why the NBA
didn't go straight to the playoffs in the first place,
was because they wanted to be able to get Zion
Williamson into potentially the playoffs. In an ideal world, I
don't think there's any doubt the NBA would love to
have Lebron and the Lakers going up against Zion and

(24:58):
the Pelicans. Now, why would the NBA want that? The
answer is pretty straightforward. The NBA sees Zion as the
next Lebron. Right in an ideal world, Zion is a
luminescent talent and uh he has a huge fan base.
Seems like a very buoyant, effervescent person that many different

(25:21):
kids and adults NBA fans respond to in a very
positive fashion because his overall athleticism and ability is unlike
the vast majority of young players in the NBA. He
is a unicorn. He is an athletic freak, and the
NBA smartly wants him to be one of the young

(25:42):
franchise faces going forward because the NBA knows that replacing
Lebron James is gonna be very difficult because while Lebron
has never had the intense appeal of a Michael Jordan's
and I don't think he's had the overall cultural kind
of ativity that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson did as

(26:04):
a duo to put the NBA on the map. He certainly,
if you look at at his impact, Lebron being out
of the playoffs might well cut fifty of the interest
because Lebron is the straw that stirs the NBA drink.
People either agree or disagree with Lebron, they either root for,

(26:26):
and they love or hate him. He's polarizing, and polarizing
is good because polarizing cuts through the noise. Because some
of those people are like, oh, Clay Trav, you ever
seen me written about in media? You know what they say?
They're always like the controversial Clay Travis. I don't really
understand that. Like, I'm always labeled controversial. I think I'm
just honest and if it's controversial to be honest, that

(26:49):
says more about the country than it does about me.
But I've always labeled as controversial. That's not a bad
thing because controversial really just means people have strong opinions.
People either really like my show or they really hate
that my show. Now, I would argue that most of
the people who really hate my show never listen, right

(27:12):
that they they don't really listen very often. But I
also know that there are people out there listening to
me right now who hate me, who hate every word,
because there is a hater generation and there are some
people who get titillated based on being able to listen
to people they don't like, and so Lebron has got

(27:33):
that factor. But they need to find somebody to pass
the baton too, and Steph Curry is too well liked.
I don't really think there's another Lebron out there. But
being really, really well liked is fine if everybody loves you,
Like everybody who loves Patrick Mahomes right now in the
NFL is ecstatic that he's the face of the league

(27:53):
for a couple of years there. Everybody loves Steph Curry,
and the NBA was ecstatic that he was the new
face of the league all right now. Everybody loves Zion
the challenges. Zion had to leave the Bubble for a
health related reason, and we certainly hope everything is gonna
be okay there. But the bigger issue is when Zion
comes back, he doesn't just get to go back and

(28:15):
start playing again. He has to go back into his
hotel room, and he has to quarantine when he returns
to the NBA bubble. So if any players in the
n b A have an issue that they need to
take care of out of the NBA bubble, that means
they have to go back into their hotel room and

(28:35):
they can't leave for a week, and that means that
they can't practice with their teams for a week. That means,
in theory, they can't go to the gym for a week. Now,
maybe some of these rooms that the players are staying
in are super nice, and maybe there's somewhere they could
put a treadmill or a gym in or something like that,
but not being able to do anything of an athletic

(28:58):
degree for a week is a big deal. We don't
know how long Zion is gonna be gone, but in theory,
if you have to leave the bubble for some reason,
by the time you return, your team could be in
the middle of the playoffs and you might have to
miss an entire week of the playoffs. That might be

(29:18):
two or three games. Because you are otherwise sitting in
the you're sitting outside of the of of your of
your circulation. You have to get re acclimated, basically to
the bubble, and so this is gonna be why I
think one of the most interesting things to follow about
Major League Baseball. If Zion were playing in Major League

(29:39):
Baseball and there was an issue he had, he could
theoretically take care of it without having to bail on
being able to play a sport as well. And I'm
not sure whether any one or the other is going
to be ultimately better in terms of what's gonna happen.
It could be that before all is said and done,

(30:02):
the situation ends up being pretty good for the NBA
and not very many players have to end up leaving
the bubble and they have almost no infections, and everybody
ends up feeling fantastic about the way things went. But
it's also possible, maybe even probable, that Zion Williamson like
situations are gonna rise regularly and the Major League Baseball

(30:24):
plan is gonna look better. And by the way, we
don't really know. It's also possible Major League Baseball will
end up having a bunch of infections because their players
are not in a bubble and they're gonna have all
sorts of issues with UH, their UH, with their disabled list.
As it pertains to UH. This UH these details. So
in other words, this is a story that is really, really,

(30:46):
really worth paying attention to as we uh, as we continue,
because it could impact in a massive way whether whoever
wins the World Series or whoever wins the NBA title
is considered to be a legitimate champion. Because this bubble
could fall apart in either direction Major League Baseball or

(31:07):
the n b A and UH, there's no real guaranteed
solution for it. This is outkicked. The coverage with Clay Travis,
by the way, excited by the response that I saw yesterday.
UH from the addition of Dr David Chow at Pro

(31:28):
Football Doc on Twitter. He uh is gonna be I
think a tremendous addition for us at out kick, and
many of you reacted very very favorably to his addition,
and so I appreciate all that feedback we got, both
from for me and for him, uh for his addition.
But Ryan Glasbigo, one of the writer's Outkicking, to join
us an hour two, and then Shannon Spake is going

(31:50):
to join us in the third hour to talk about
everything going on in NASCAR and more. Uh. But UH,
in particular, I wanted to hit on one of the
chaw leenges that I think is out there right now. Uh.
In the world of athletics and activism. You saw and
we'll talk about this song with Ryan next hour, but
you saw how everything blew up on the n b

(32:13):
A basically in the last week over their decision to
allow some statements on the back of their jersey and
not all statements, and in particular how their willingness to
take money from a communist Chinese government billions of dollars
that is putting people into concentration camps. Uh, and it's
making the decision to not allow basic human rights. They

(32:36):
are pulling books, Uh, they are book banning. All of
these things are substantial and impactful in a big way.
And so as I kind of work through this process,
athletes have to understand that when you decide to get active,
whether you are Malcolm Jenkins or Lebron James or uh,

(32:59):
you're a coach like Steve Kerr in these hyperpartisan times,
people are gonna look around. Then they're gonna say, okay,
wait a minute, are you being consistent in what you
are saying? And if you aren't, you are gonna get
absolutely roasted. And that happened to Dwyane Wade this week.
I don't know how many of you saw it, and

(33:20):
we didn't spend a lot of time on it, but
there was a controversy involving Nick Cannon and anti submitted
comments that he made on a podcast and Viacom ended
up having to fire him because he initially refused to
apologize for the comments that he made. Um and Duane
Wade tweeted out that he supported Nick Cannon and this

(33:45):
was just a big mess in particular what Dwyane Wade tweeted,
and that to me was evidence of Dwyane Wade not
understanding that because all of the statements he he's making
now he's going to be treated like a politician. And
I don't think athletes have realized the standard that they

(34:08):
are being held to now. If you are going to
be incredibly politically active in your statements like Malcolm Jenkins
has been, like Dwyane Wade has been, then people are
going to look to you to maintain consistency when it
comes to that. So Dwyane Wade has since apologized, but

(34:28):
after Nick Cannon got fired for making an anti Semitic
comments yesterday, uh, Dwyane Wade, I think, well, maybe it's Wednesday.
I guess Wednesday. Dwyane Wade said, we are with you,
fist keep leading, and uh, it's it's like, do you

(34:48):
not realize what the standard is that you have stepped into?
And I think, frankly a lot of athletes don't realize that,
and so they want the positive attention on social media
that comes when they say things that are very favorably
received by people who agree with them, but they're not

(35:09):
prepared for the scrutiny that their political beliefs are then
going to come under. And I think about this with
Malcolm Jenkins, who is one of the leaders of the
NFL social justice community, and he said about Deshaun Jackson's
anti Semitic comments that they were a distraction and that

(35:31):
anti Semitism wasn't his problem. And I'm like, I'm sitting
around saying wait a minute. And credit to Kareem Abdul
Jabbar who wrote a great piece analyzing this and saying,
wait a minute. If we're going to argue that racism
is an incredible ill that needs to be rid from society,

(35:54):
which I think is a argument that should be made,
then we have to realize this is what Kareem ab
Do Jabbar said, crib Dul Jabar said, we have to
realize that we can't be selective in what racism we
decide is unacceptable. So Malcolm Jenkins can't say, hey, uh,
anti Semitism is not my problem. And it's a distraction

(36:19):
because when you actually say that you are undermining your
pursuit of racial justice and equality. You have to make
sure that your standard is not just focused on people
who look like you. You have to make sure that
you are in favor of eliminating all injustice in the country,

(36:43):
and you have to be able to willing to stand
up and call it out when you see it, even
if sometimes it is people that you would otherwise consider
to be an ally. And that's where these situations become challenging,
because it's easy to blame somebody that isn't around you
or you feel like isn't like you. What becomes a challenge,

(37:05):
and what we should all aspire to do is to
treat everyone equally, not just people that we happen to
focus on. In a social justice warrior movement, injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere, and racism or discriminatory
treatment against anybody should be equally condemned by athletes, coaches,

(37:30):
and owners. Not just racism against black people, but anti
Semitism is in fact the problem of all of us,
and it should be condemned equally by all of us
as well. And right now I'm not seeing that from
pro athletes, and it's a shame. Be sure to catch
live editions of Outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis week
days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. A lot

(37:53):
of people have been reaching out to me as out
kicks audience has exploded, a lot of you've been reaching
out to me, and hey, Clay, I agree with you
that college football needs to be back, but you are
overlooking something that is also wildly popular across most of
your listening audience, and that is high school football. And

(38:14):
that really got brought home to me yesterday when I
was talking about it with Jason Whitlock, obviously off the air,
as we were talking about topics and stories that we
were gonna be working on at out Kick, and in
particular Jason Whitlock, whose column I would encourage you guys
to go read at OutKick today. Uh. He said to me, hey, Clay,
and you need to go read this for yourself. But

(38:34):
he was like, Man, if this pandemic had hit back
in four when I was growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana,
living in a four square foot apartment with my dad,
I wouldn't have gotten a college scholarship if I hadn't
gotten to play my senior year of high school football.
That was what got me a scholarship to Ball State,

(38:55):
And again you need to read Jason Whitlock's column and
allowed me to go to colle edge and eventually end
up becoming a journalist and having all the success that
Jason Whitlock has had in his career. And we've talked
about this on the show before. Whitlock credits football with
being his pathway into uh success in life. He used

(39:18):
the football scholarship that he got to Ball State to
give him an opportunity to later have a great deal
of success in his professional life. And we focus a lot,
which is natural because all of us are sports fans.
We focus a lot on the guys who come out
of of college football and our stars in the NFL.

(39:38):
We give almost all of our attention to them, but
they are a tiny percentage of the overall people who
play college football. The vast, vast majority of college football.
And this is what the end one of the aspects
of the n C double a h advertisements that they
get correct, they go pro in something other than sports.

(39:59):
And so I think we need to be talking more
about all of the impacts of shutting down school as
it's associated with high school football, because let's be honest,
high school football is an extracurricular that gives kids all
over the country an amazing lesson in so many different

(40:23):
aspects of life, and but it's also emblematic of many
things that are going to be lost if our kids
aren't back in school. This fall physically right um and
whitlocks column dives into something that I don't think gets
talked about anywhere near enough, which is how many kids

(40:44):
are on free lunch and free breakfast that otherwise literally
aren't getting enough food to eat, and their families are
out there struggling. And I just keep looking at the
day a here, and the data is not complicated. The
data is in no way confusing about kids being back

(41:07):
in school. The data all suggest that kids need to
be back in school. And I put up a big
article about this on Wednesday at out Kick and Tons
of you read it, and Whitlock said that he was listening,
and so he was like, Hey, I want to write
about this, but I want to hit you with the
data again. Um. I think high school football needs to happen,

(41:28):
all right, And I think that high school football is
just one of many reasons why high school and K
through twelve education needs to be back this fall in person, right,
and we're a sports show, so we talk a lot
about the impact of sports. So I'm using high school
football as a prison to discuss why kids need to

(41:49):
be back in school. But I want to hit you
with these facts again because I think so few people
actually know them. All right. This is according to the
Centers for does Ease Control and Prevention, and I am
reading directly from the Wall Street Journal, thirty kids under
the age of fifteen have died from COVID nineteen. All right.

(42:12):
I wish that hadn't happened. I wish no kids out
there were dying at all. This is not like a
complex or difficult question. There's not a Democrat issue, it's
not a Republican issue. It's a It's an important factual
data point, all right. That is a really, really small
number of kids nationwide, fifteen and under who have died

(42:33):
all right. In a typical year, a hundred and ninety
kids die of the flu, so your kid is over
six times as likely to die of the flu as
they are to die of the coronavirus. Four hundred and

(42:53):
thirty six kids die from suicide, six hundred and twent
five kids are murdered, and four thousand, one and fourteen
die from unintentional deaths such as drowning, which is one
of the top reasons why young kids die in this country.

(43:14):
In other words, if you are a parent right now,
your son or daughter is under more danger going to
the swimming pool, then they are going to school. They
are under more danger going to the lake, then they
are going to school. They are under more danger at

(43:35):
the beach, then they are at school. The data is
all clear. Kids need to be back in school. They
need to be getting their food, their breakfast in their lunches,
they need to be having in person instruction, and they
need to be playing high school sports, football in particular,
which is the most popular by far of all high
school sports. Go read Jason Whitlock's column laying out why

(43:59):
all of this is so important at out Kick dot com.
But I just wanted to give you all of that
data because I think it's so eye opening, and so
many of you hearing this right now are like, wow, Really,
thirty kids under age fifteen in a typical year have
died from COVID nineteen. That's one six of the number

(44:20):
of kids that die from the flu in a typical year.
One of the benefits, and there aren't a lot of them,
but one of the benefits that we have of the
coronavirus is it does not typically impact children. This virus.
I mean, if you want to talk about scary, the
average person who dies of the coronavirus right now is

(44:43):
older than the average person who dies in America every day.
In other words, the average age of death of a
coronavirus patient is older than the average age of death
of people in general. Okay, that stinks again, any sort
of death is a negative. But we're all I hate

(45:04):
to start off your second hour here on the Friday
Morning Show, but we're all gonna die. So far, no
one has managed to figure out how to be immortal.
Imagine how much more terrifying the coronavirus would be if,
instead of having this impact on the elderly, which is
who it kills overwhelmingly. Imagine if it had this impact

(45:27):
on young people, then I would be one of the
people saying I've never leave in the house. If my twelve, nine,
and five year olds were under significant danger from the coronavirus,
I would have locked down my entire house. I wouldn't
be going outside, and I imagine a lot of you
other parents would feel the exact same way. But that's
not what we have, which is why I believe I'm

(45:49):
not saying something to you that's different than the way
that I would live my life. I believe my twelve,
my nine, and my five year old, my and the creator,
my fourth grader, and my kindergartener, they all matter more
to me than anything. I believe they all need to
be back in school. And by the way, my kids
are fortunate in that they have advantages that a lot

(46:13):
of other kids don't. And a lot of your kids
have advantages too, But if your kids don't have those
advantages in person, schooling is even more important for those kids.
Because the data reflects that in the city that I
live in Nashville, thirty percent of all public school kids
and I was once a public school kid in Nashville

(46:34):
K through twelve public school kid, went to a city school.
I was one of those kids that knew and had
to deal with the value of seeing in person education.
We didn't have a computer at home. Now it's a
different era, but I didn't have a computer at home.
I never had the internet at home. Different era they

(46:56):
had it. Some people did in my school, but I
never had the internet at home, and so now there's
still a huge percentage of kids who don't have that.
I never had a computer until I was a senior
in college. I use a computer lab otherwise, and so
there are a lot of kids out there that still
don't have access to a computer at home. There are

(47:18):
a lot of kids out there that still don't have
functional internet or WiFi at home. Thirty percent of kids
don't have computers at home, over don't have functional WiFi.
Those kids are all gonna fall behind for a very
very long time academically because they can't keep up because
they don't have the advantages, and it's like nobody is

(47:38):
talking about those kids. Jason Whitlock's column talks about being
one of those kids growing up and how much different
his life would be if he hadn't been able to
go to school, and I think it's a column that
everybody needs to read. And we don't need to just
be focusing on pro sports and on college sports, even
though that's what most people are watching. We need to
be thinking about high school sports and how they are

(48:00):
being impacted by this pandemic. This is Outkicked the coverage
with Clay Travis joined now by Ryan Glaspeagle, who's one
of the writers at OutKick. We announced yesterday that we
were going to be bringing in Dr David Chow at
Pro Football doc Jason Whitlock there. Now, Ryan, are you

(48:22):
feeling comfortable like we made a lot of moves that
OutKick a lot of different variety of content. Did you
pay a lot of attention to Dr Chow before? I
know you like to gamble. I think just from a
pure gambling perspective, his content is pretty invaluable because it
helps you figure out whether or not somebody's going to
be playing or not in a game. Yeah. I mean,
he'd spent a lot of years in the NFL as

(48:44):
a doctor, and so it's like there there aren't too
many kind of new football injuries that arise, so you've
got to feel like even somebody who did it in
the seventies or eighties, and he's done it recently, more
recently than that, but like with a kind of a
handle on like what happens with um like various injuries
and how long can expect players to be out with them? Yeah,

(49:07):
there's no doubt at all. Um. So one of the
storylines that's been going on for it's part of last
week and then moving into this week, and I wanted
to bring you on and talk about it. We're gonna
get into several different things, and I encourage you to
go follow Ryan on Twitter at Sports Report. You can
certainly go read him at Outkicks scroll through. He's been
doing a lot of great work. I'll start with this.

(49:28):
You broke uh, the story about Adrian Wojanowski being suspended
by ESPN for uh the f you uh a email
that he sent last Friday to Missouri Senator Josh Holly,
And that was obviously a huge and massive story and
everything that fell out from it. Uh. Did ESPN make

(49:50):
the right decision to suspend Adrian Wijarowski And were you
surprised as you reported on this and uncovered that suspension.
Were you surprise that it happened. No, I'm not surprised
that it happened. And I think even in woaj is
apology which came pretty fast. I mean what we're in

(50:11):
this business and we see people kind of slip up
all the time, and I kind of thought that that
apology was gonna come at like six or seven pm
Eastern on Friday, and it came substantially earlier than that.
You care, UM, if you're at ESPN on your corporate

(50:31):
email address, respond that way to us Senator UM, Democrat
or Republican, And especially the fact that it was a
Republican with everything that you've been talking and writing about
UM for years now. ESPN is very sensitive to the
notion that they are perceived by people as a far

(50:53):
left outlet, and so one of that this was almost
UM independent of China. Becare is road is somebody who
I don't even know is proach China. I mean, as
I wrote a couple of times, he liked that Darryl
Morey tweet about supporting Hong Kong protesters, and Woades lost
a lot of money in China about doing that, and

(51:15):
so this is more kind of UM doing this to
UH kind of Trump surrogate senator and ESPN is very
sensitive to that notion, as I said that all of
their talents are left wing. Yeah, it is an interesting
story in that respect. In terms of how people uh

(51:36):
responded to it. I think they probably had to do it. Uh,
What do you think the fallout is going to be
for the NBA? Like yesterday on the program, we had
Chris Mannox. He's one of the one of the writers
that is in the bunker, so to speak, in the bubble.
And one of the challenges I think that those guys
run into is um they're so close to the NBA

(51:59):
already and now they're literally inside the bubble with all
the NBA executives and players and everything else. That makes
it even harder to quiz and criticize. Will this story,
in your mind blow up even more or is it
starting to regress? How will it be handled? Do you

(52:20):
mean the China story or the yeah, like, do you
think do you think? Well, the Woad story. I feel
like it's a benefit to him, right, let's go there first.
WOJ benefits because it gives him like the rebel, the
rebel vibe. Players and coaches and executives probably agree with
him by and large, so I don't think it was
a calculated decision by him, but I think it actually

(52:41):
plays to his benefit. I think it plays certainly to
the disadvantage more than anybody else of ESPN. Do you
agree with that that WOS probably is a net benefit
even with this suspension, and that ESPN is certainly a
net loser because they get they get put into a
tough spot they don't really have any way to win.

(53:02):
I do agree with that, and that's kind of just
the situation they're in with a lot of their top
talent now Clay, because if you remember, probably like five
years ago, when Skip and Colin left ESPN for FS
one and both Simmons they got rid of him and
he went to go start his own thing. Before that point,

(53:23):
basically the only two people who ever really really, really
really succeeded away from ESPN on a relevant national level,
where Dan Patrick and Rich Eisen and now you saw
Skip and Colin. Look, they're not getting the same TV
ratings that they were necessarily getting when they were at ESPN,

(53:44):
but the way that their equips um get distributed digitally
on Twitter and YouTube and Facebook, I think probably at
least as many, if not more people are totally are
engaging with their content in total than before. And then
Simmons went and old his company for nine figures to Spotify.
And so the way that like digital media has democratized

(54:08):
the individual content distribution has put ESPN at a disadvantage
to their top talents in a way that was not
true for the first like twenty five years that ESPN existed.
And so Woach has a lot of leverage here because
I mean, Andrew, Marcia and Marsh mentioned this and a

(54:29):
few other people did. If he went and got, for example,
a sub stack and charged five dollars a month, got
thirty thousand subscribers, that would be one point eight million
dollars a year. That that's less fun he makes from
ESPN right now. He didn't have to give some of
that that, but there is like a market for him
to be viable and relevant away from ESPN. You saw

(54:51):
the power of breaking a story when I broke that
Woach thing. OutKick got cited by Washington Post, Wall Street
Colonel and the New York Times for that story. And
it's pretty highly unlikely, frankly, that that's going to happen
again anytime soon. And so ESPN as like the biggest
sports media entity. They want Woad, Schefter and Jeff Passon

(55:16):
breaking all of the biggest news in the NBA, the NFL,
and the MLB because they want to say on their
bottom line first reported by ESPN when they introduced it
as a talking point on First Taker Sports Center, and
on and on down the line they want to say,
as first reported by ESPN, Woad gets more of these

(55:36):
stories than anybody else and so it does um like
just the power dynamic has shifted just because of the
way digital media has evolved. And this only became more
true when he got seen as a martyr forgetting discipline
for his email. Yeah, it's interesting. You're not an old guy.

(55:57):
You're still in your young thirties. But even in the
time that you have been a fan, and I know,
if I kind of run through this, you'll follow me
along kind of down the primrose path here. But it
used to be everybody's goal to make the most money
was to get to ESPN, or was to get to
Fox or NBC or CBS. Now if you look at

(56:19):
the audiences and I kind of made this argument a
while back, like Twitter made the name on the back
of the jersey as important as the name on the
front of the jersey. And ESPN's perspective used to be,
we make the stars, so if you leave us, you
will disappear. We have the audience you need us. That's

(56:40):
the name on the front of the jersey, right like
you are ESPN, you are Fox, you are CBS, you
are NBC. Now it seems to me increasingly all that
matters is the name on the back of the jersey.
Now you can make the argument, I think it's a
good one that it's hard to get a name on
the back of the jersey that matters without having a
big media partner at some point in time. But once

(57:04):
you get there. You know, when Dan Patrick left, they
were like, oh, nobody will ever pay attention to you.
Dan Patricks doing really, really well and has for a
long time without ESPN, but they thought that he would disappear. Uh.
And I think if you talk to him, he'd be like, yeah,
that motivated me, you know, this idea that I would disappear.
I know, having talked to Colin, they told Colin, hey,
you'll disappear. Uh. They certainly tried to tell Skip that.

(57:27):
And now you look at Joe Rogan, or you look
at the bar stool Rise, or certainly you look at
Bill Simmons, and frankly you can use out kick as
an example a little bit. In this now the ability
to go out on your own is more than it
has ever been before, and so the idea of being
with a major media company for your whole life isn't

(57:50):
the same attraction that it might have been back and
let's say Chris Berman's day or back in the day
when Jim nance was building his brand with CBS. Does
that make sense? Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I
would say that ESPN ken still makes stars. I mean,
for example, you look at Molika Andrews, who is on
TV like forty five times a day now from the

(58:12):
NBA bubble. I don't think that she would have been
able to kind of build the same type of star
power in her early twenties as ESPN's platform gives her.
But to your point, Woach was already an internet star
when they went and got him, and they had to
pay a lot of money for him. What do you think? So?

(58:35):
I think it was like reported um a while back
that he was making like two million dollars a year
at Yahoo. So he's got to be making probably at
least like I mean, for them who have gotten him
to leave in the middle of a deal where he
had an opt out, he's got to be making at
least several million dollars a year, and so it would

(58:58):
be difficult for him to get some other institutional employer
to pay him that because there's only two NBA rights partners,
ESPN and Turner. Now, maybe Turner would want to make
a big splash with their Bleacher Report property, which has
been um struggling for reasons that we've documented of late.
But um, I don't know exactly what Woes would get

(59:20):
on an open market. But if he went direct to
consumer and charge for subscribers, then I don't I still
don't think that he can make as much as he
can make it ESPN. But then he could say whatever
he wants and send f you to any Senator as
he pleases. Yeah, it is Yeah, that that is really interesting.

(59:41):
The idea of somebody like Loos going independent, where I
would say a wodorin Adam Schefter have incredible value. And
I'm curious what you think about this, And we're talking
to Ryan Glaspego. You can read him does great work
at out Kick broke the news about Adrian Wodanowski suspension
on Saturday night. I think it was late Saturday night,
about six days ago. But if you look at their

(01:00:02):
value to me, it's gambling, right, Like, who are the
people that would pay the most money to get woj
is updates at the earliest possible moment or Adam Schefter's
updates at the earliest possible moment. Their value is not
to Twitter right where almost immediately when they break a

(01:00:24):
news story. The organizations may care, but it's immediately out
there into the larger public and able to to be discussed.
The value to me, and that literally their financial value is, oh,
this quarterback is signing with this team, or this player
is not going to be able to play because of
an injury. That can that can swing hundreds of millions

(01:00:47):
of dollars in value from a gambling perspective, And if
you have the ability to move on that before they
can take the line down, that's the real value, right,
Like I don't know how many people would pay to
sponsor WOAG because he's a news guy, not an opinion guy,
and most of the money has been an opinion not

(01:01:08):
in news. Now news matters in like Bloomberg. Right, Like
if you're reporting on a on a specific company and
there's dollars involved, and it matters if it's hyper hyper detailed. Right.
We've proven that people will pay a lot of money
to be able to follow their favorite college football team,
for instance, to find out like about the latest recruits

(01:01:30):
and everything else. That's a hyper hyper focused I don't
know that we've proven the business mantle or the business
viability of a woj or a Adam Schefter. Now maybe
there is, maybe there is a huge value there. I
question how much of a value there is. Does that
make sense? It does make sense, And there's two interesting

(01:01:53):
points you brought up there. The first is the gambling aspect,
and it's gonna be interesting creates as gambling becomes legalized
and normalized across our great Land. Is they're going to
be insider trading laws with sports gambling, similarly your stock market,
because as you said, Woag and Schefter no things that

(01:02:16):
could impact hundreds of millions of dollars of wagers, and
I frankly don't really see the difference between that and
somebody who knows something materially secret about a company that's
going to move the stock price. I really think it's
just essentially the same thing. But the other point you
made was about opinions, and I wanted to bring this up.
So Lebron was one of the many NBA players that

(01:02:39):
tweeted hashtag re Woad last week after we broke the
news that Woad was suspended, And you also mentioned that
Woad is a news guy, not an opinion guy. Now
for in problem, until about Woach was a very strong
opinion guy, and so maybe he could return to that
if he were independent and didn't need to like break

(01:03:01):
every story. Let me cut Let me cut you off there,
because I think it's a really interesting point. The challenge
there is being an opinion guy is difficult when you're
also a news guy for people out there who are listening,
and they may not think about it because when you
are super opinionated, it's hard to have the ability to
break every news story right because if insert executive here

(01:03:25):
makes a move, then if Woad goes out and writes
this is the dumbest trade that's ever existed, that executive
is unlikely to reach out to him and be like, hey,
I just want you to know about the move that
I'm making now right, so uh crutely, And I mean
we go through this tension between reporting an opinion out

(01:03:46):
kick with my content regularly to what the leader readers
in on a little secret. But um, like, I was
just gonna say, it's astonishing for anybody who is reading
Woade between two thousand five five and two thousand fifteen
that like he skewered Lebron. He painted him as a complete,

(01:04:08):
like immature narcissist who really just didn't care about anybody
but himself. And now all of a sudden, like they's
got a mutual enemy and Lebron is tweeting free woake.
I never thought I would see that. Yeah, And also
Lebron obviously follows a lot of trends and maybe they've
made up over the years. But let me that you

(01:04:31):
brought up the Wogan Lebron, and I do think WOJ
is an interesting story in Schefter would be an interesting
story if those guys ever decided to leave ESPN. How
much value would they have? Is there a gambling move
out there where a company just comes around and they say, hey,
we want our subscribers to have the absolute most up

(01:04:51):
to date information, and so instead of breaking news on Twitter,
we're gonna have Adrian Woganarowski and Adams after or people
like them breaking news direct to our subscribers. You'll get
a text message the minute that they break the news. Now,
I would obviously go on to Twitter and social media

(01:05:13):
shortly thereafter, but they wouldn't be breaking the news for Twitter.
They would be breaking the news for executives. And you
raise an interesting question about the idea of insider trading,
and uh, you know, I guess the answer could be
that Woj and Schefter wouldn't be allowed to trade on
their information. But similarly to when the Wall Street Journal

(01:05:35):
breaks the story everybody wants, the Wall Street Journal breaks
that story can react to it on the financial markets.
But it is a story that I've thought about for
a long time. Uh, is going to be interesting to
follow and and honestly probably also involves athletes, because that's
another reason why athletes shouldn't be able to to gamble,

(01:05:55):
and why employees of teams shouldn't be able to gamble,
because they all have better knowledge um and uh and
and not useful knowledge. Yeah, they're they're not allowed They're
not allowed to. But I'm saying, like, if it could
be as opposed to just a violation of their of
their employment contracts, which might stink, but you might just
not be able to have that job, Like it could

(01:06:17):
be criminal, is what I'm saying if you kind of
think about it expansively. But let's circle back around on
the NBA China issue. How long does this last? Is
this a it's a last question for you? Is this
a story that lingers as the NBA players come out with,
you know, statements on their jersey or is it something

(01:06:39):
that that basically is going to sort of disappear when
the games themselves resume. Well, I mean that's more of
a question that you could ask yourself, because I don't
think that you are going to stop talking about it.
I don't think that, well, I'm not, I'm going to
talk about it. I guess maybe that's a that's a
question of how powerful out Kick is on some level,

(01:07:01):
because we may have the ability to keep stories relevant
even when when either when when other people won't talk
about it. And that's one reason I think that that
people respond in a positive way to what we do
because they appreciate the angles that we take. Yeah, I
just so it's going to be a lingering story. Just
because it's unresolved. I mean, like you've talked about the

(01:07:26):
NBA bending the need to China, and I can understand
that to some level, But at the same time, like
because they didn't fire Darryl Morey as like companies like
Marriott or others have done for people who have spoken
against China, the NBA wasn't on TV in China this season,
and so they're still trying to work through that. And

(01:07:48):
at some point you have to think like that the
Chinese government is going to put them back on the air,
and then the story is going to come back because
they're going to be doing tour us there again and
things of that nature. And so I don't see this
story going away for a very long time because, frankly, Quay,
the franchise valuations are tied to the revenue growth overseas.

(01:08:13):
I mean, it's not just China, it's India and it's
other emerging markets for the NBA. But um, the NBA
has traveled better overseas than football has, better than baseball has,
and so people are buying teams for two three billion
dollars with the hopes that they're going to be able
to capitalize on that on future international rights deals and

(01:08:37):
so it's it's a very impossible situation that they're in
between um, not realizing that potential value of the franchises versus,
as you've said over and over, standing up for free
speech and freedom of expression. And I really don't envy
Adam Silver for having to be the person in the

(01:08:59):
shoes making decisions, No kidding, appreciate the time my man.
Keep up the good work. He's Ryan Glass. People go
follow him at sports Rapport on Twitter, read him at
OutKick Talked again. Sum Yeah, this is outkicked the coverage
with Clay Travis. One of the interesting things about the

(01:09:23):
NFL contracts that got done right before the right before
the deadline of the franchise tag were First of all,
it's kind of a little bit crazy that Dak and
the Cowboys wanted to potentially get a deal done and
then couldn't quite agree to get a deal done because
they took it right up to the last possible moment. Uh,

(01:09:44):
And that in and of itself is kind of crazy.
Like I understand the purpose of a deadline. The only
purpose of a deadline is to know when you have
to get something done. So if they got that close
to getting an extension done and it didn't actually happen.
How in the war old is that possible when you
have as many highly paid, paid people involved as you could.

(01:10:05):
And we talked some about the about the Derrick Henry
deal and why even though there have been a lot
of deals that didn't make a lot of sense. And
we talked about this some at the at the start
of the hour, uh, the Derrick Henry deal, looking at
the larger context of running back deals and how that

(01:10:25):
one works out and who's gonna be the winner or
the loser of that deal. It's kind of amazing to
think about Miles Garrett because this is a guy who
has gone through an incredible trajectory over the course of
what the last like I mean, we've all kind of
gone through, let's be honest, and an incredible trajectory since back.

(01:10:46):
And I believe it was November on that Thursday night
football game when Miles Garrett hit uh Mason Rudolph in
the head and lost the rest of his season. And
if you remember that play happening. What was I'd a
unique about it was it was so late in the game.
I had already turned off the television, like I turned
off the television and then I was rolled over. I

(01:11:09):
was gonna go to bed. I was down, and I
was taking that Friday off, which is rare, because I
was down in the Florida Keys, and I was gonna
be doing a wedding. So I was. I was marrying
two people, a friend of mine, Lorie, who used to
work with me atout Kick, and her and her now
husband Um and so Bryce and I was about to

(01:11:30):
do their wedding, and so I was like, I want
to be rested up. We gotta drive down the rest
of the way the Florida Keys tomorrow. Turnover, turn off
the television. I literally turned off the television with like
one minute left because there was no uncertainty as to
whether the over under was gonna hit. The betting line
was already in the in the books, and so I
was like, there's nothing else gonna happen. I literally remember thinking, uh,

(01:11:51):
there's only a minute left in this game. Nothing's gonna
happen and or whatever it was. And I turned it off.
And then immediately after I turned it off, I roll
over to go to sleep, and my phone blows up
and I'm like, oh my god, what happened? And I
put it back on in time to see all the
craziness that was ensuing, but I missed it live. Well,
if you've ever questioned the value of a player and

(01:12:14):
how all that matters is his actual talent, Myles Garrett
seems to be a pretty good dude overall. Smart guy,
has relatively obviously really performed at a high level when
he's been on the field for the Browns. Seemed to
be playing angry last year. Uh, basically if you look
at the trajectory of his entire season, I don't know

(01:12:35):
what exactly was going on, but w hit me with
what I thought was a pretty funny stat based on
the contract that he signed and the fine that he
had to pay to Mason Rudolph. You sent me, how
many times could he have hit Mason Rudolph in the head? Yeah,
So for that action that he took on that Thursday
night game, he got fined six hundred and twenty three dollars,

(01:12:55):
and his extension is new deal is worth a hundred million.
So that would mean if he so choose that they
do play twice a year, I don't know how many
more times he's gonna see Mason Rudolph back there, But
if he wanted to, he could hit Mason Rudolph in
the head with a helmet two thousand, seven thirty nine
more times and he would still have the money to
pay that fine. What's amazing about this is people were like, oh,

(01:13:17):
you know that, some of the most aggressive reactions where oh,
the Browns have to release him, there's no way they
can stand by him now. And the dude just got
the most I think it's the most guaranteed money in
the history of any player off on the defensive side
of the ball in all of the NFL. So you're
talking about a guy who went from a pariah. You know,

(01:13:38):
everybody's angry at him. Oh my god, how in the
world did you decide to hit somebody in the helmet.
Remember he made the allegation, oh well, he said something
racist to me, But he didn't make that allegation until
he was in the middle of getting his appeal filed.
All of that process played itself out, and it's amazing
the trajectory that he has covered in the space of

(01:13:59):
you know, since November mid November when he did that,
to now becoming the highest paid player in the history
of the NFL. Uh. That is a perfect sign of
how much talent matters. Fox Sports Radio has the best
sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our
shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the
I Heart Radio app. Search f s R to listen live.

(01:14:23):
We are joined now by Shannon Spake at Shannon Spake
on Twitter and uh there have been a lot of
interesting NASCAR stories. I've said before, I don't know that
we've ever talked more Nascar. In fact, I'm certain that
we haven't. Uh So at least that's a positive in
terms of all the attention that's been going on. But Shannon,
I thought this was actually an underplayed story. I watched

(01:14:44):
Wednesday night at Bristol because I was curious what it
was gonna look like in sound like to have fans back.
And I actually thought it was kind of underplayed, given
the fact that we haven't had big fans present, big
crowds like this. I know NASCAR had a small amount
in Florida and they had people in Talladega, but this

(01:15:05):
felt a lot more like a return to some semblance
of normalcy, and I thought there was a little bit
of a less attention paid to it than maybe I
would have anticipated. Yeah, I agree with you, Clay, Like
I thought it was really cool. I could definitely hear
the fans in the stands. You know, we have something
called the fan Vote. A driver gets voted into the
All Star Race who doesn't transfer via the open, and

(01:15:26):
that was Clint Bowyer, and to hear the fans cheering
for him. And even when we did the driver intros,
which usually at our All Star event there over the top, right,
I mean, the guys are coming on a stage or
fireworks going off everywhere, so obviously we had to do
it very different, but you still could really sense the fans.
And I think there was only like twenty to twenty
five thousand people there, and that's a hundred thousand, hundred

(01:15:47):
thousand UM fan venue, So I absolutely think it was
cool to hear the fans, and I think it made
a big difference. I don't necessarily know if it was underplate.
I heard your interview the other day with Greg Sanky,
and I mean he he said he was watching it, right,
So I think that there were a lot of eyes
on it and a lot of people watching to see
how it went down, and certainly there were a lot

(01:16:08):
of precautions taken. We spoke with um the GM at
Crystal Motor Speedway, and you know, there was social distancing,
there was no touch points, there was a lot of stuff,
but it was great to see fans And I think
from the very beginning we've been talking about this, right,
NASCAR was the first to get back on track. NASCAR
has dealt with one of its one of its players
slash athletes, having COVID nineteen and how they dealt with that.

(01:16:32):
So I think that that we've I'm proud that we've
kind of set the model I think moving forward, I
know that there's a lot of people watching how we've
done it. Yeah, there's no doubt. And would you like
so you're in a unique position because you're on Race ven.
You obviously cover NASCAR closely, so sometimes it can be
hard when you're like incredibly close to something that you're
involved in to analyze it. But it seems to me

(01:16:55):
like NASCAR in general, the they've had a lot of
storylines and uh, you know, from the Confederate flag to
the news to coming back to uh. I think it
was Jimmy Johnson testing positive and then almost immediately beating it,
beating that story and being back to racing. What would
you assess how how do you think NASCAR in general

(01:17:16):
would grade themselves if they were giving them themselves a
letter grade on the return to racing since it's come back,
I mean there's there was so many different twist and turns, right,
No kidding, Clay, I mean there's been so much. Even
when they were doing the eye racing, there were a
lot of eye racing stories. And you ask yourself, is

(01:17:39):
it because we're not talking? No, I don't think so.
I think our stories were very mainstream and very like
across the board, not just NASCAR Center, because I do
understand that NASCAR can be sort of a niche sport, right,
I mean like something that only the fans watch and
and maybe the people don't tune in. My I just
think I would give it a very high grade. I

(01:17:59):
don't neces curely known. I think as are tough to
give by but a beat plus because I do think
and I know that you know you we I've listened.
I obviously listened to you all the time, and I
know that there's been conversations about how banning the Confederate
flag would affect the core group. But I do believe
that we have so many new eyes on our sport
because of some of the stands that we've taken, and

(01:18:20):
UM and I just I think we've done a good
job managing some of those situations and kind of moving forward.
It is nice for Wednesday night. Was nice to talk
about racing, right, I mean, it's been nice to talk
about racing and to see those guys on the racetrack,
and that's the release. That's why we're all in sports, right,
I think is because the flag, the flag or the
whistle to whistle is what we love so much. And

(01:18:42):
to have that action on the track, no points, million
bucks on the line, drivers just going at it at
one of the best tracks in the country, and UM
and fans in the stands. I think it was a
really nice release. The NFL has obviously got to figure
out exactly what the training camp protocols be, but I
think it's fair to say for almost everybody out there

(01:19:03):
listening to us right now, it would be shocking. I
know the NFL has had its own scandal stories and
everything else in the off season as always happens, but
it would be shocking at this point if they were
not back on the field. Right. Uh, what do you
think those broadcast will look like because you now have
gotten to see NASCAR, You've gotten to see MLS. Next

(01:19:24):
week we'll get to see Major League Baseball. And there's
certainly have been a lot of soccer matches that have
been put on from overseas without fans present. I think
it's fair to say that there probably will not be
very many fans present, if at all, in most venues.
What do you think that will look like on television?
Have you set back and started because the reason why
I'm asking is Nascar, I feel like the fans kind

(01:19:45):
of matter, but it's so loud it's kind of hard
to really hear. I know, you could hear them cheering
at the end, which I thought was cool when or
on Wednesday night when Chase Elliott one, which I thought
was was pretty cool to be able to hear the
crowd then, But it's not why it gets basketball right,
like where a team makes a run and you can
hear the crowd going the whole time, or like football right.

(01:20:06):
So NASCAR it feels like the crowd. While it's massive
and cool, it's not necessarily integral to the overall viewer experience.
Have you thought much about what the viewer experience is
going to be like for football this fall, no question.
And I it's funny, I I when I did my
little interviews, my one up, one down interviews, I actually
interviewed Adam Feeling, and I mean, obviously, the Minnesota Vikings

(01:20:27):
have one of the most incredible pregame is festivities or yeah,
that's right. Display, There's there's nothing like it. I mean,
I I barely can catch my breath when I'm in
the middle of that, and I have to do my
report right after all of that goes down. Uh, the
school is just amazing. So I asked Adam Dealing about that,
and I asked him if he thought like what he

(01:20:48):
thought it was going to be like. I mean, this
is an environment that he plays in and we always
you know, does does the fan involvement does it get
these guys going, does it get them the extra yard?
Does it put a little, you know, a little more
spring in their steps? Catch that path? And he actually
said that he thinks that with football, because they practice
so much isolated with not a lot of people around,

(01:21:09):
he did not think it would be as big of
a deal as all of us are are making it right,
And he thought it would be kind of just an
easy transition for them to play without a ton of
people because of the fact that they've practiced isolated so much.
And I thought that was a really cool take because
I thought for sure he would say how weird it
would be right and uh, and so when he said
that that that kind of made me think. I think

(01:21:30):
for me down there, certainly. I listen when I'm in
a state, when I'm in a stadium and the fan
involvement is is nothing. It's eerie, right, Like, I'll keep
my mic and I'll tell my producer, like, I can't
believe how quiet it is out here. I've covered college
things like that where you're just like I could literally
scream across the field right now and you could hear me.
And then there are some environments where you were like,

(01:21:52):
this is awesome. So I definitely think for me and
maybe for for some people that are on the sidelines,
I think that we might feel it, But I don't
necessarily think the players are gonna feel it. I feel
like there's such in a zone when they're on that
field that they really they see ball, get ball, and
and maybe don't maybe block out some of the exterior stuff. Yeah,
you know, it's interesting, um to think about how that

(01:22:13):
will be played. And we'll see whether or not it
happens in college and I expect, I still think that
college football will find a way to play. But the
younger guys, Yeah, me too. But the younger guys have
such a momentum factor, you know, going on the road
in college football, and the college crowds and the fact
that everything can be going well and then somebody throws
an interception or somebody fumbles, and like things. The momentum

(01:22:36):
seems like it plays such a role in college football,
Like the psychology of the crowd factors in a big way.
And I'm curious what that would feel like in these
big cathedrals of gridiron excess, if there's hardly anybody there,
and what the sound engineers will decide to do. But
I had to tell you gave me a tip. I
believe you said I needed to watch Yellowstone. Uh did

(01:22:58):
I say? Yellows I and at least had the Last Kingdom.
But as you said Yellowstone, I have heard yellow Stones awesome.
I thought you were one of the people who told
me to watch Yellowstone. I don't think so, I said
the Last Empire because your wife would love you tred,
which she would, and you would like it because it's
like a it's like a smaller Game of Thrones, where

(01:23:19):
Game of Thrones you're like, all right, I cannot remember
how what is this person's name? Where like the Last
Kingdom is a little smaller. Uh. And then we're watching
Billions right now, which we love it well. And then
you and I have talked about obviously about Ozar, Well
it's funny. Oh yeah, I love those, So it's funny
like my wife and I watched have started watching, uh,
the Yellowstone Show, and there's also oh it's phenomenal, but

(01:23:43):
there's a really good looking character on there. And so
I told my wife. I was like, oh, Shannon said
this show is going to be really good, and she
was like, okay, that's cool. So I gave you all
the credit because but people have been telling me The
Yellowstone was good and it's kind of hard to track
down because on the Paramount and that. And when we
finished Ozark, we were like, okay, what show, what's the

(01:24:04):
next show we want to watch together? Because like a
lot of couples, I mean, she watches some shows and
I watched some shows and we don't necessarily always overlap.
And I was like, hey, I think you know for
people out there who don't know, Yellowstone is that Kevin
Costner is the start. He's like, he's got a Montana
ranch and it's about he's got four kids and it's
about trying to keep that ranch in the family. H
it's been there a hundred and twenty some odd years

(01:24:25):
since the eighteen eighties and he's trying to pass it
along to the next generation. Uh In anyway, it's fantastic.
Ozark is also great, and we overlap on billions, but
I was just I was like, oh, I gotta remember
to give Shannon credit, so you should have just taken
credit for it. But like, that's a great show. I'm
glad you listened to me. I did see your list,
and Succession was amazing on that show. Good. I do

(01:24:47):
want you. I was listening to your show yesterday and
when you were talking about Dak Prescott being like the
sixteenth best NFL quarterback, I would love for you to
sit down and do your list, because I know you've
done that in the past with like best to worst
NFL teams. I would love to hear your list of
who you think the fifteen guys in front of Dak
Prescott are Because I was thinking about it, and I
think that we overestimate how many really good quarterbacks there

(01:25:11):
are in the league right now. And the question for me,
Clay would be, would it be body of work or
would it be two thousand twenty? Do you know what
I'm saying? Like you can look at someone you know
and say, oh, my goodness, like to look at all
he's done. He led this team to the super Bowl,
blah blah blah. But where is he right now in
comparison to the other NFL quarterback? Well, you know what
you've done. That's a hell of a tease. And so

(01:25:33):
that will be that will be on the Monday Show.
I don't know what craziness might happen on Saturday or Sunday,
but assuming that no, it's who knows, Assuming that there
is no insanity, that's a really good idea way to
open the show on on Monday morning. I will come
in and I will break down my list of the
current best quarterbacks in the NFL. Shannon's bake always spectacular.

(01:25:56):
Appreciate the time this is outkicked. The coverage would play
Travis Montel Jordan's plays us back in as we conclude
the week, fifteen more hours of what I would like
to think is really good content and amazingly I like

(01:26:18):
we just talked about with Shannon, I'm actually surprised that
having over twenty fans for a sporting event on Wednesday
night as happened in Bristol didn't create a bigger story.
And what I mean by that is it's pretty incredible
to think about when everybody went into the games to
watch back in mid to early March, nobody really foresaw

(01:26:44):
that for basically all the rest of March, April, May
and June, there wouldn't be big crowds. Now, I know
there have been crowds, but they've been small, whether it
was with NASCAR at Homestead, tennis matches. Uh. There have
been some small crowd for a variety of different sporting
events around the country, but we haven't seen big event crowds.

(01:27:06):
And I know that Bristol seats a hundred and fifty
or a hundred and sixty thousand people or whatever the
heck it is. I was at the game there when
Tennessee played Virginia Tech, and so I know how monumentally
massive that place is. And I've been for night races before,
so I know how substantial, uh, the the environment is there.

(01:27:27):
But I still think it's a big deal that over
twenty thousand people showed up for that event in mid July.
And I started off talking a lot about all the
different sports coming back, but I want to kind of
hit you with that as we go into the weekend,
and obviously we'll be back on Monday to update you,
and crazily, when we come back on Monday, one of

(01:27:51):
the American Big four sports will be returning in the
form of Major League Baseball. And I actually think it's
kind of get up on people because if you go
out there and you paid attention to the news media
and sports media's coverage of Major League Baseball, almost all
of it has been focused on the negotiation between Rob Manfred, uh,

(01:28:14):
the commissioner, the owners, and the players over how many
games there would be. And I feel like a lot
of you, myself included, and I do this for a living,
a lot of you got tired alongside of me of
hearing every different day the latest twist and turn and negotiations,
and it all seemed like a process designed to get

(01:28:34):
us to sixty games, and so there was just a huge,
long ramp up that wasn't in any way necessary because
ultimately we were going to end up where we did
with sixty games. And regardless of what you might think,
there isn't really any uncertainty that Major League Baseball could

(01:28:54):
have been playing for a while now, right. They could
have been back on July four. The owners didn't want
to have to pay that much more money, and so
as a result, they're gonna be back on Thursday of
next week, in six days. But on Monday, guys, are
you realizing how quickly everything is going to come back?
I feel like we've talked about it for so long

(01:29:15):
that now that the reality is going to be here,
a lot of people aren't realizing it, and people, I
think are desperate for some positive information. So I just
want you to sit here with me for a minute
and think, as we finish off the week, think about
what August and September are going to look like. We
are going to have a cornucopia of sports excess. It's

(01:29:39):
gonna be like Thanksgiving every single day. I mean, you're
going to have something going on in August and September
that we have never seen before. September is gonna be
even crazier. Let's just focus on September. You theoretically in
September are going to have daily n b A, daily

(01:30:03):
n h L daily, Major League Baseball NFL on the weekends.
I still think we're going to have college football. You
will have the p g A taking place in September,
which ordinarily they're getting done with. But you're now going
to have a situation where we've got a November Masters

(01:30:24):
and you've got a September US Open. You've got the
mL S. If you're a soccer fan, you've got UFC,
which is going to continue in Dana White's done an
incredible job with Fight Island. You'll have the w n
B A in the nws L. If you are a
big women's sports fan, you will have boxing going on,

(01:30:45):
and you will have NASCAR. I mean, we will go
from a sports desert to a sports Thanksgiving oasis cornucopia
the likes of which we've never ever seen before. And
I feel like, if anything, it's surprising a lot of
people how quickly it's all coming back. But on Monday,

(01:31:08):
we're gonna be breaking that down and we're going to
have an incredible celebration. I think when baseball actually comes
back on Thursday and we actually get underway, and the
same thing is gonna happen the next week when the
NBA starts back up, and when we get back rolling
with the NHL, and I think for a lot of
you out there, that's gonna be a lot of blessed

(01:31:30):
relief because you're gonna be able to come home in
the evenings and you're gonna be able to crack open
a beer, kick your feet up and just watch your
favorite sport. That's how close we are to all of
that coming rushing back. Uh and we'll be right here
with you. Encourage you to go check out out kick
dot com over the weekends. Excited to announce like we

(01:31:51):
did yesterday. Dr David Chow is joining us. Jason Whitlock
and I will be talking on Monday, but we have
got an absolute bevy of great content for you at
OutKick dot com. Check it out. I'll be there all
weekend and I'll be back with you guys six am
on Monday morning. This has been outkicked the coverage. Hope
all of you have fantastic weekends. Rejoice sports is near

(01:32:13):
reason for optimism. This is OutKick on Fox Sports Radio.
Be sure to catch live editions of Outkicked the Coverage
with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern, three am
Pacific

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