July 3, 2025 • 40 mins
Jason Fitz and Buck Reising (in for Jonas and LaVar) open hour 2 of the show with a conversation on the importance of ownership in a team's success, lamenting the fact that there's no consequence for sustained incompetence. They also react to the news that the Browns are getting a new domed stadium... Why now?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for listening to the Two Pros and a
Cup of Joe Podcast with LaVar Arrington, Brady Quinn, and
myself Jonas Knox. Make sure you catch us live weekdays
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(00:22):
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Speaker 2 (00:30):
Give this you're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Fandom is so often about hope, right, It's about hoping
that your favorite team is going to do something unprecedented,
that you're gonna have memories for the rest of your life,
that you're gonna have a wall full of memorabilia for
a championship, right, Like, that's what we're all hoping for.
And some of that hope has to come from the
(00:58):
organizational structure. So the question really becomes, what do you
do when your favorite team simply has an owner that
isn't any good at owning a football, basketball, or baseball team?
Where do you find your hope when you realize that, frankly,
the entire system of how the business is built for
your team is failed. He's Buck rising on Jason Fitzen.
(01:20):
This all comes from the Knicks. We're hanging out with
you on two pros and a cup of Joe. The
Knicks sort of led us to a conversation about the NBA,
which led us to an overall thought press us on
team ownership and Buck what's interesting and Buck covers the
Titans down in Nashville. Obviously you see team ownership up
(01:40):
close and personal, but it just really gets interesting to
me because at some level, most professional sports teams are
owned by somebody that at their core is a fan.
And so you want that very rich fan to do
something wildly impossible. You want that very rich fan that's
made so much money and life that they can afford
(02:01):
hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars depending on
the sport, to buy a franchise. And then you want
them to invest that money smartly. You want them to
hire great people. And then this is the really tricky part.
After they've invested the money and after they've hired the people,
you want that owner to then just go away, right.
You want that owner to knock it in the way.
And I'll say James Dolen, the owner of the Knicks,
(02:22):
has been absolutely destroyed time and time again. I've looked
at it from the outside looking in and said, man,
what do you want the guy to do? Like when
everybody said that Dolan was meddling too much, we went
out and hired Phil Jackson because oh my god, like
Phil Jackson's biggest name, and that doesn't work. And all
of a sudden it said, well, Phil wasn't even really
that into the job. He just took the money. Well
that's not Dolan's fault, you know. And then well he
(02:44):
still gets in the way of all of it. I'm
a Raiders fan, as most people know, right, and Mark
Davis what is The Raiders have just absolutely been garbage
as a franchise for most of my adult life. But
I can also look at Mark Davis and say, Okay, yeah,
he brought in John Gruden, which I can understand why
he thought that was probably a good idea, turned out
not to be. That he brought in Josh McDaniels, which
(03:06):
at the time he's just getting the biggest name he bossible. Again,
now he brings in Pete Carroll. At some point, you're
just you're a guy with a ton of money that's
trying to figure out how to turn that money into wins.
And all of this just leads you back to that
same point, what do you do if the person that
runs your team just isn't really capable of running a
football team? Like now, you can't change the owner of
(03:28):
your team a football, basketball, any of those bucks. So, like,
it's just interesting to me because I think there's there
are more bad owners in sports than good and I
don't think that's a fixable problem.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
No, I wouldn't imagine that it is. And it's interesting
that you bring up that. I would know ownership up
close and personal. That's not the case. Here in Nashville,
Amy Adams Strunk is the controlling owner of the Tennessee Titans,
and she does not do public appearances. She does not
take questions and press conferences. She fired three straight heads
(04:02):
of state here in Nashville, where John Robbinson the general manager,
then Mike Rabel the head coach, then rancarth On the
general manager. Now she's on to Brian Callahan and Mike Borganzi.
Is a combination of people, and she has done all
of these things through statements released by the team or
she has done interviews with team employees, Mike Keith, the
(04:23):
former voice of the Tennessee Titans who's now doing games
in Knoxville, Tennessee. Not to get hyper local with it,
but my point is she doesn't put herself in a
position to be questioned on these things. She gets to
make these decisions from an ivory tower. She can put
out a statement and she can let other people be
the fall guy or gal for her, depending on the role.
(04:43):
And that is certainly a style of ownership, right. That's
kind of the thing that Fitzie you're alluding to a
little bit, where she'll make these decisions, she'll hire people
to do the job, and then she'll take a step
back until somebody gets in her ear and says, well, yeah,
that person you hired a couple of years ago, maybe
(05:04):
they're not doing as good a job.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
I'll do a better job.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Why don't you put me in this role, and then
I'll be to do and then I'll be able to
do it better. Then creates a Game of Thrones type
of environment within an organization that you just have to
have the ear of ownership to be able to influence
a multi billion dollar industry, which is crazy, crazy but
that's a very Sports is a microcosm for society and
(05:31):
life at large, right, so anything that you see happening
at a sports level could also be You know, there's
politics in every industry, whether you want to attribute those
behavior behavioral characteristics to politics or not.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
There are office politics, and.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
That exists in the NFL and the NBA and in
professional ownership professional sports. No matter what level you're looking at,
there are more bad owners than good. But to your point,
I just don't know what There is no perfect solution
here because you want somebody that cares, but you also
(06:08):
don't want somebody that cares enough to get involved or
get in past their depth, past their point of competency,
when they have probably hired people to do those jobs
and now all of a sudden they are lending their
or they're sitting in on.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The meetings and.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Doing one of these numbers where they're like, oh, you
won't notice me at all. I'm just sitting in the
middle of this while all of you who work for
me and your professional livelihoods depend on me, don't pay
any attention to me. While I sit here in field
Foald calls about likely your job viability.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I've had this awakening because a lot of what you're
describing here, by the way, is also Jerry Jones. Right,
Like Jerry Jones cares deeply about the Cowboys. I don't
think you no question. You're spent two seconds around Jerry
Jones can question that, but he's just not. I mean,
when you want to look at why they haven't won
a championship, at some point you have to continue to
look at Jerry Jones. But here's what has hit me
(07:02):
as you were talking. There's no recourse for these owners.
There is absolutely no recourse because in my blood, I
joked earlier about being a lifelong, diehard six month Dodgers fan.
I don't care about the Dodgers. If they suck, I'll
just go somewhere else and root for somebody. I don't
care well way they are that I didn't grow up
with a favorite baseball team, I don't care. I am
(07:23):
a lifelong die hard Raiders fan, and it doesn't matter.
I grew up an Oakland or an LA Raiders fan
that became an Oakland Raiders fan that is now a
Vegas Raiders fan. I don't care what city they play in, right,
I don't care. I grew up with it watching Al
Davis and now I got Mark Davis. I don't care. Like,
at the end of the day, I cannot change the
fact right or wrong. As much as I'm a grown
(07:44):
ass man admitting this into a microphone, I cannot change
the fact that the way the Raiders play moves my
heartbeat on Sundays like it makes me feel things, rage, joy,
all of these things that nothing else does. It is
ingrained in who I am. Thanks Dad. It is part
of my culture of how I will be described for
(08:05):
the rest of my life. In my sixth grade yearbook,
one of the teachers wrote, go Raiders, because all the
way back then, I was just wearing a Raiders hoodie
every day in my life. Nothing changes that. So at
the end of the day, there's really no recourse to
Mark Davis. If the Raiders suck, like I'm still gonna
buy the gear. I'm still gonna watch it like most people,
and and as often as somebody on Twitter wants to
(08:27):
be a Karen and be like, I'm never coming back
to this restaurant. Yeah, yeah, y are I mean if
you if you turn around and say you know this.
The Titans fan base might be small, but they are
mighty and they are loud, right like the are they
are a handful said kindly there is.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Mighty is not how I would describe that, but that's
very kind of you.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
They are they are they are passionate, let's say.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
But they're passionate.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
And the fact is, if this team wins three games,
they're still gonna be passionate. Like, if this team wins
three games, they're still gonna have a beautiful, swanky new
stadium that is going to make the team money. And
at the end of the day, Amy Adams Strunk is
still going to get her portion of all of the
profit sharing. That is part of being an NFL owner.
So when you know as an owner of whatever, whether
(09:09):
we're talking about the NBA, the NHL, major League Baseball,
it doesn't matter. When you know as an owner that
your stadium is going to be full enough that you're
making your money, you know that you're going to get
profit share out of the agreements that are already there
across the board. And you know that through all of
it fans because it's ingrained in them. The majority of
(09:33):
fans are never going to be able to quit being
fans of your favorite team. Like I got killed on
air at the time during the entire Colin Kaepernick controversy
that was going through saying, hey, if you don't like
the way your favorite team is handling it, just don't
be a fan of them anymore. If you're so passionate
about it, just put away the gear. And the answer
(09:54):
to that was, well, that's impossible. Owners know that, So
these stickul their job because who's ever going to stop
them from sticking at their job.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
It is one of the more frustrating parts of being
a fan because it's completely out of your control, even
though you think you have some level of control, and
by the way, you think you are entitled to have
an opinion. I am critical sometimes of a rational fan reaction.
God knows, Titans fans would probably snort and laugh hearing
(10:25):
me describe it that kindly. But I think that some
of it is a bit off the wall. But that
doesn't mean that you don't have a ride as a
fan to express your emotion. And I think that goes
both ways. That describes hate and that describes love. Like
I think that you should be able to operate on
the full fan spectrum. If you are somebody who has
put the amount of time investment, financially personally into your
(10:50):
favorite team. You should be able to have an opinion
about the way that that team is run. But the
idea that that opinion has actual impact is the thing
that I think fans forget at the end of the day,
or that that entitlement to that opinion gives you the
ability to impact change, when in reality, the only people
that have the ability to impact change with your your
(11:13):
favorite sports team are the people who own it, because
it's it's a plaything to them, it's a billionaire's playground.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
We could impact that change like you and me. No, no, no, fans,
this is where see I think fans, all play is.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Going to make us almighty. And you know because we
have the power of the microphone.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Baby, we got.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Them, no, no, no, but we have the power of
the dollar. Like you really want to impact change, stop
making it a profitable business.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
But even then, FITZI, I just think there are so
many different avenues of revenue. Because you bring up the
Titans new stadium, and the Browns have announced a stadium
plan and the Bills are getting a new stadium.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Right, there's there's.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Stadium for sure, for sure, But that Titans stadium is
not about the Tennessee Titans. The Tennessee Titans just happened
to exist in Nashville. That stadium is going to happen
because Nashville. The city in Nashville wants to host a
Super Bowl, the city in Nashville wants to host WWE.
They want the biggest international events. They are pissed that
(12:14):
they missed out on the World Cup and that Kansas
City is going to be a World Cup host site,
which is nonsense. The worst airport in America, even though
I know they're getting a new one, is.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Going to be at airport.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
That airport is trash.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's time that it's all separated. Like once you go
through the security in these four gates, you're going.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
It's so disorienting that airport. Anyway, we don't have to
religate that. My point is the Tennessee Titans are like
the least important thing in that stadium that's going to
be occupying that stadium's time because how many dates is it?
Speaker 5 (12:44):
In reality, it's ten.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
It's a couple of preseason games and depending on the year,
eight or nine regular season games, and god knows, they
don't host playoff games around here because they don't make
the playoffs, but there are so many other things three
hundred and sixty five days of the year that are
going to be occupying that stadium that are going to
make her way more money her Amy Adam Strunk, or
any ownership group than the actual team that plays in
(13:09):
there on Sunday. So even the ability for a fan
to impact how ownership responds to things with their dollar
has been mitigated because well, I'll just take somebody else's dollar,
or I'll.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Take the opposing fans dollar.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Because Nashville is a destination city, baby, and if the
Vikings fans want to come in here and take it
over where, their money spends just as well as yere does.
In fact, their dollar probably goes further because they spend
it on tickets, they spend it on concessions, they spend
it on Lower Broadway getting drunk before the game, and
after the game when their team beats the Titans, they
spend it on hotels. They stretched that visiting fan dollar
(13:49):
five times more than they would a local dollar. So
it's this really difficult spot that fans are caught in into.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
And I don't mean to you know, this.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Whole diatribe to say, well, it's hopeless and you can
control nothing about it. But at the end of the day,
thingtt what's the team that's most recently changed over ownership
in the NFL The Commanders Washington.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Yeah, how hard was it to do that?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
And that guy had you know, he was getting congressional
subpoenas while hiding out in the south of France on
a mega yacht. Like you had to track that guy
down and drag him through court over a period of
twenty years to get him out of there.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
And that's the extreme, right, These things just.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Don't they don't You struggle as a fan with it
because you, at the end of the day understand that
they are playing an entirely different game than you are.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitza. You mentioned all of this,
and it just takes me straight to Cleveland, where fans
are going to be upset because Cleveland, the Browns may
have destroyed what little home field advantage they actually have.
Will tell you about it. Next, Two pros and a
cup of Joe. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason fitz hanging
out with you on Fox Sports Radio.
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It's Two Pros and a Cup of Joe on Fox
Sports Radio. It's a Bucking Fits takeover. He's Buck Rising.
I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with you today tomorrow. Actually
we'll be with you for the next three days because
we've got you today on Two Pros and a Cup
of Joe. We've got you tomorrow on Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe and then we've got you Saturday morning.
Buck going to be filling in for Anthony on the
(16:00):
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(16:22):
July sale Sleep at Night. All right. We've been talking
a little bit about ownership and bad ownership and some
of the weird things across sports. But just had to
get your thoughts on this because you were just talking
about recourse and what fans have against them and the
fact that the fans that owners can make money from anywhere,
(16:43):
and it makes me think of Cleveland where the Browns
who look they stink. I get they stink, and if
you look at their winning percentage, who cares about home
field advantage? I've said this for years for the Raiders
Oakland fans always coming in and saying Vegas will never
be the atmosphere that Oakland was. Okay, well, has anyone
bothered to look at the win percentage in Oakland during
the second stint. I had stats at info at ESPN
(17:06):
pull up for me several years ago, and it was
the worst winning percentage at home of any team in
the NFL over that period. So I would just remind
everyone that's not fans fault. Of course, the team stinks.
But when your team stinks, your team stinks. There's nothing
you can do about that. But a little bit of
a just I think, staggering moment because the Browns are
building a multi billion dollars stadium, like everybody is with
(17:27):
by the way, six hundred million dollars. It looks like
coming from Cleveland and funding for that, which seems to
be part of the course. But where it gets a
little tricky, buck, it's domed. They are building a domed
stadium in Cleveland. And you mentioned earlier, and I think
this is an important part of this, Like the Nashville's
not building the Titans a stadium because they give a
damn about the Titans. They're building the Titans a stadium
(17:50):
because that's a good ten you know, ten opportunities a year,
but also concerts can go year round, the Final Four, WrestleMania,
all of these different things that can happen in stadiums
that are domed to give you opportunity. Buffalo, where they
built their stadium, decided to keep it open, so it is.
It is not a dome stadium, but there are heating
(18:11):
elements on the top to try and melt some of
the snow down. But it's still They wanted home field advantage,
Cleveland saying, f that noise with the home field advantage,
just give me the dome so we can make more money.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
But it does take away one of what is at least.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Perceived to be the few advantages that the Browns actually
have where they play at home.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Think about that snow game with Jamis. I mean, that's
one of the more entertaining games you watched all season long.
And you know whether Jamis would have thrown interceptions in
the snow or in clear conditions that you could debate,
but it was a game where there was a clear
and obvious impact by the weather. And I think that
(18:47):
there are I don't know if it's a majority, I
genuinely don't know. In twenty twenty five, how the average
sports fan, the average NFL fan, feels about attending a
game in the elements because to me, frankly, I'm not
I'm not down, Like I'm very happy to be in
(19:07):
a climate.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
News breaking news. I mean this is like, where's a
breaking news segment? Oh my god, Buck Rising isn't gonna
sit in the snow to watch anything.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
But I also understand that I'm not the audience here.
I'm not the target demo because I'm a professional NFL
media member. I get parking, I get a I get
a seat with a good view. Almost every state parking pass.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You get a parking pass.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Oh yeah, I got a parking pass. What do you
mean we have our own lot? Just what That's what
I'm saying. Free food. Like I'm not, i am not
the target demo here. So like me going to an
NFL game now as a fan, I wouldn't like the
experience because I get the experience of what it is
to work an NFL game. The average fan may, you know,
(19:53):
may get up for Hey, you know what, We're gonna
go out, We're gonna tailgate, We're gonna enjoy the elements.
It's a Christmas game. It's a game around Christmas. Especially
Browns fans. Man, I have such respect for that fan
base where their organization is cheeks just the worst constantly,
year in year out.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
We're just a couple of.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
A sprinkled in moment of hope with a Baker Mayfield
thing that even that they botch top to bottom, right,
the Browns fans support their team no matter what the
conditions are, and I do think that that place like
Buffalo genuinely relishes the opportunity to make you uncomfortable when
you have to come to Cleveland and play them. Right,
(20:38):
I know I'm going to Cleveland this year. The Titans
play Cleveland late in the year and they have a
game I think it's in early December where Cleveland's weather
is probably going to impact the results one.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
Way or the other. Now, maybe they affect a.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Home team more that day, maybe they affect a road
team more that day. But still it is a different
kind of atmosphere that is becoming more rare and rare
with each passing year and with each new stadium. Because
at the end of the day, Fitzie, this is one
of my favorite lines from Tony Kornheiser, who has a
great many great lines throughout the course of his illustrious
career in sports media, but one of my favorite Cornheiser
(21:14):
lines is the answer to all of your questions is money.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Money is the reason that they're going to dome this
thing up because.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
In Nashville, I attended a Garth brook concert Garth Brooks
concert a couple of years ago that got rained out
monsoon conditions, right huge stage, huge elaborate setup, Garth a
world renowned performer, and they had to nix it because
lightning and then monsoon conditions and everybody had to huddle
(21:41):
in the concourse. And then at the end of the day,
after two hours of waiting of trying to wait it out,
they just had to nix the whole thing and then
reschedule it for a later date. And they end up
making their money back on a Garth Brooks show. But
there's a lot of shows where they wouldn't be able
to get that many people to come back to the stadium.
They're trying to avoid situations like that, which I think
completely understandable, but there is an appreciable impact on the
(22:03):
football product.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
At the end of the.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Day, where I mean, our snow game is going to
go extinct everywhere but Buffalo and Lambeau.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Like I don't know. Minnesota is in a dome.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
By the way, It's a beautiful stadium, a beautiful stadium.
It might be my favorite stadium in the NFL of
ones that I've done, I haven't been in Vegas yet.
I'm checking that box this year. I haven't been a
San fran or newer San Franz stadium, and I still,
for some reason, haven't done a game in Cincinnati with
the way that the COVID schedule worked out a couple
of years ago and Joe Burrow's rookie year. But I
just think that that is going to become a thing
(22:35):
of the past because there is too much money to
be made on these dome stadiums.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
For reasons that are not football related.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I happen to personally love watching a snow game on TV,
so as a consumer that is for a product that
is largely TV based, I would miss the magic that
comes with it. But I do think to your point,
this is an inevitable So when you start talking about stadiums,
the conversation constantly is why are people helping billionaires build
(23:07):
free stadiums? And I hear that conversation all the time.
I laugh at it. I genuinely, I just I laugh
out loud at the conversation every time. Well, cities shouldn't
be supporting these billionaires, Okay, cool. If I was a
billionaire and I owned a team, I would just move
it to a city that will like because there only
takes one. It takes one random city and that city
getting an NFL team, There's always going to be somebody
(23:28):
that will build on it. And if your answer is
well there shouldn't be okay, well people in Hell one
ice water too, You're like, you're not going to change
the fact that if the Kansas City Chiefs decided tomorrow
that they want to move somewhere where they can get
a free stadium, there would be somebody somewhere in the
US it would say, let's build that stadium like that.
Speaker 7 (23:45):
That's real.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Do you think Saint Louis is a baseball town?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
But you don't think they have an ounce of regret
over letting the Rams go because and Kronkey may have
wanted to take them to Los Angeles anyway, and that
may have been ill fated from the jump, right, Lewis
is not nearly the amount of opportunity that opening Sofi
Stadium up. You couldn't build a thing like Sofi in
Saint Louis and expect to have the same amount of
(24:10):
revenue as an NFL ownership group that Sofi Stadium does
in Los Angeles, even though it's in Englewood.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
But the Rams, or.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Rather the city of Saint Louis, to some extent, there's
probably some bitterness. There's probably some hate towards Stan Kronkey,
and maybe that's enough to sustain them. And there are
Cardinals town top to bottom for sure. But I just
have to imagine that the benefit of having an NFL
franchise in your city and all the different things that
that brings, that there's not some ounce of regret in
(24:39):
Saint Louis about the way that that went down.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, I mean, you want to tell me that a
place like Hartford that tried at one point to get
Foxborough built here. You want to tell me the places
like that, if they had the opportunity, wouldn't look at
it and say, well, I know it's a lot of money, guys,
but what does it do for the overall view of
our city? Blah blah blah, what's it due for? The
opportunity to make money. What's it to for the opportunity
to host Super Bowls? All of these and economic impact.
(25:03):
People will tell you all the time that paying for
stadiums is a bad investment. I hear that again. I
lived all this from Raiders fans in Oakland. I hear
all that, and nobody cares, Like genuinely, O you care
if you live in Oakland and the team is taken
from you if the Raiders leave Vegas. People in Vegas
might care at some point, but realistically, like as long
as there's a city that wants to come out and
(25:24):
pay for a stadium, they will. So now you've got
to look at it and say, Okay, with that mindset,
if you're going to pay for a stadium, how do
you make the most money back out of it as possible?
Like you mentioned that Garth Brooks concert and the Minuti
nobody thinks about. But the insurance payouts are such a difficult.
Like when I was touring with the band, the thought
of canceling a show, like we weren't going to cancel
(25:46):
the show because if we canceled the show, then our
insurance had to handle it. If if the venue canceled
the show because of the weather, then it's act of
God and their insurance has to handle it well. Even
just that basic principle, if you go to a dome stadium,
your insurance go down on things like that because you
don't have to worry about that element of it. Like
all of it comes back to follow the money, right,
(26:06):
And so if you're going to build a two point
five billion dollars stadium, and we're going to reach the
spot before you know it where stadiums are four five
billion dollars, like this is just gonna happen. If you're
going to build a multi billion dollar stadium, you want
to get as much usage out of it as you
possibly can. So at some point it's about the cost
benefit analysis, and like, hey, if I got to lose
(26:27):
home field advantage, if I got to lose the opportunity,
you know, to host snow games, that's no different than
Vegas obviously looked around and said, you know what we
don't want. We don't want one hundred and ten degrees,
and we want to be able to use this thing
year out. We want to be able to put concerts
in it. Like the most profitable or stadium I should
say in the in the US last the last two
(26:49):
years was Allegiant in Vegas. That's not the Raiders, that's
everything else that happens in Allegiance. So if you're building
a stadium in Nashville, it would be stupid now to
put a dome on top of it because simply everybody
makes more money that way, and if that means you
lose the opportunity for cool rain games where people are
sliding around on the grass, that's just collateral damage. At
(27:11):
the end of the day, nobody's going to care fifteen
years from now, they want more events.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It's just it's We've talked about this in a couple
of different ways right throughout the course of the morning,
and I don't think either of us were planning on
going down this many different versions of what level of
impact can fans actually have on the way that their
franchises run or the decision that their franchise makes. But
that seems to be where we've gone based on the
(27:38):
Nicks hiring of a coach and the Lakers acquisition of
DeAndre Ayton, and all other manner of transactions personnel wise
or business wise that sometimes irritate us or bother us
or or confuse us.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
About why our team is doing what they're doing.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
At the end of the day, I just I hate
it for fans because I don't like telling fans that
their impact is minimized, because when fans are invested and
are you know, all in, it is such a such
a unique experience experience that they bring to live events
(28:19):
that gives it so much Mortrus I've done games at
so far FITSI with both the Rams and the Chargers,
as with the Titans as the visiting team, and it's
just it's it's lifeless in there. There's no atmosphere. I'm
scared that's what's going to happen to the Titans new
stadium because the Titans are a terrible franchise here in
the last couple of years. And maybe cam Ward with
(28:40):
the number one overall draft pick, makes a difference, but
maybe he.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Doesn't because half of.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
More than half of first first round picks at quarterback
don't even win a playoff game for the franchise that
drafted him, So it's not like a sure thing. It
may be a good marketing strategy right now to sell
your PSLs in advance of that new stadium opening in
twenty twenty seven, which again at the end of the day,
is about money, not about how well.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
The football team does. Can we capitalize on this momentum?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Dude? When I was on the season ticket waiting list
when they announced the Raiders were moving to Allegiance, being
from Vegas, I was like, I'm gonna do this. By
the time they got to me on the sheet, they'd
already gone through so many tickets that all they had
left were lower bowl seats that were really good, But
it was the PSLs for it were astronomical. We're talking
(29:29):
like it was almost I think twenty grand per seat
at that point. And I remember laughing at the girl
that called me and said, you know, from the sales office.
It was like, hey, we could do these PSLs. The
first thing she said to me was, Hey, if you're
worried about the cost of the PSL, just sell your
seats for the first few years, and if you sell
your seats, you'll make this PSL back plus. That was
part of the sales pitch, And I thought, Nah, there's
(29:50):
not a way and there's not a chance. Well, I've
got a buddy that bought in that same section. He
made his PSL money back in the first season alone.
And that's like you may to what Nashville is going
to be. I mean, and people sit here all the
time and talk about the lack of home field of
vanners for the Raiders. If you're the Raiders, genuinely, why
do you care? Like the games are sold out, so
whatever happens. And when they say, well there were only
(30:13):
thirty percent fans in there that were rooting for this team,
every ticket was sold. If every ticket is sold, even
if the place is half empty, you know, even if
the police is only filled a third of the way
at the end of the year, because the team sticks.
As long as the tickets were sold, the team still
makes their money. So like the Nashville is going to
(30:33):
become what Vegas is in my opinion, like it's going
to become a stadium because as I've said for years,
since I was a podcast, nobody cared about. It's super
easy to see what places are going to fill the
stadium by asking yourself the simple question. If you live
in Minnesota and you're looking at the road schedule for
the Vikings and you say, honey, let's go to a
game this year. What game do you want to go to? Well,
if you've got the chance of going to see the
(30:54):
Vikings play in Vegas, or going to see the Vikings
play in Nashville, or going to see the Vikings play
in Boston, what are you taking Like you're taking the
Nashville trip, you're taking the Vegas trip.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
So you wish it was in Boston. By the way,
Foxborough is the North Korea of the NFL. Terrible.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Oh my god, fix Aryl, Like my god, I just
like I that that stadium just needs to be Also,
there's nothing redeeming about that Stateum just Jillette is Everything
about Jillette is just in the modern NFL is just junk.
I'm sorry Patriots fans like that stadium is just not
that's not it in every way. But you get my point, like,
(31:30):
might as well go to these places where you can
go have a great party. And so, yeah, you're not
gonna have home field advantage, but if you're Mark Davis
or Amy Adams strumk, who cares.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
You're getting paid the way And that's that's that's the
sad part about it at the end of the day.
Because FITZI and you may have brought this up off
air as opposed to on air. But the idea of
private equity coming into professional sports in the NFL specifically, now,
that's not something that's going to be rectified by private
equity coming in here because they're trying to maximize the
margins there. That's not a about the game day experience
(32:02):
or the fan experience or any of that. Though they
will tell you that they are doing things with more
money that they're making to pacify people and.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
To make it a better experience.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
But at the end of the day, they're just trying
to max out how much money they can actually make
on this thing. They don't care who's coming in to
spend that money, whether it be you locally in whatever
market you live in Cleveland, But I just I hate
to see it done to a market like Cleveland, because,
respectfully Nashville where I am, you're in Connecticut, But as
a Raiders fan and having having been in many many
(32:32):
Raiders games over the course of your life in their
new stadium in Allegiant, and I'm looking forward to seeing
what Allegiant looks like for the first time when the
Titans travel out there in October.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
It's it's going to rage.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Oh are you going? You're there? I'm there.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
Yeah, Okay, hell yeah, we're gonna have a great Bosses.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Don't know that, but yeah, we're going to go rage
in Vegas. That's all.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
That's fine.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
We can we We are telling them now you have
been duly informed that that's Saturday Fitsie and I will
be unavailable.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
But I hate to see it done.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
To a market like Cleveland, because those fans don't get
dissuaded by much. Right, we're in Nashville. Uh, it's it's
not a die it's die hard for college football, but
not for the NFL. This is never going to be
a Titan centric town. So it's it. It It resonates
a little less to me when they're like, ah, but
the fan experience, Yeah, but the fans don't really care.
(33:20):
It's a fad city with fad sports, and we do
have pro sports here, but it's not super passionate. Cleveland, Man,
they don't care. They don't have anything else, but they're
sports teams. They don't have anything else to pour their
emotion into, and so to see a potential situation where
they're robbed of that, I just I hate. I hate
where actually great sports towns get denigrated by the money
(33:43):
that way.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, and it seems sometimes like the most passionate fan
bases that need it the most are the ones that
just get walked on the most. It's a it's a
very weird like it just.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Because they know you're going to be there.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
You brought that up early, they know you can You're
going You're going to be there no matter what.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
He's Buck Rising, I'm Jason Fitz. We're all going to
be there for the Steelers conversation this year. The question
is should we big week of news? But should it
have been? We'll break it down next on Two Pros
and a Cup of Joe on Fox Sports Radio. He's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I think the sad part is that I knew that
Big Time Rush was going out on a reunion tour
this year. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz. It's Bucking Fits.
Takeover of Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Sold
Jack what, I'm old? Big Time Rush? Yes, I don't
know how do you know. Okay, hold on, be sure
to check out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel. Just
search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube. You'll see a whole
(34:49):
bunch of video highlights from our shows. Be sure to subscribe.
She never missed our very best Fox Sports Radio videos
on YouTube. Dude, you're not old enough to know this yet,
but here's one thing that will rock your world as
you get older. Okay. I'm rarely the guy that sits
here and says, oh, well, you get older. Okay.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
This is literally every conversation I've had with my parents
prior to turning thirty, and I'm like, oh my god,
they're right about everything.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Why when you start seeing social media clips of bands
you used to like and they're trying to still do
the damn thing and they can't do the damn thing anymore.
That is like, so, I saw a video the other
day of Color Me Bad, which you know, was like,
oh sex you nineties nineties R and B, but I
(35:33):
mean R and B, nineties pop whatever you want to
call it. But there's only one original member and they've
put other members with them, and that one original member
is no longer. It looks like he's he's lived hard
and he's gone through some stuff, right, and he's out
on stage doing it, and it's like, oh it is
you know, I've seen plenty of In fairness, I know
I have to pay a fine for this, but like
(35:55):
I grew up within him. Still very good friends with
JC from in Sync, Like we're we're close. That's Chris
kirk Yeah, thank you. Chris Kirkpatrick, though lives in Nashville,
so I hesitate to say this because he might be listening.
But if you see any of the videos of him
out there doing these like tours where it's like boy
bands out there still trying to do the thing like
(36:17):
that can go really well. Like Backstreet has done a
great job of that, Like the new kids on the
block have done a great job of figuring out how
to Whether you love or hate their music doesn't matter.
They're putting it out there and they're doing these Vegas
residencies that look amazing and they're doing a great job.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
And then you start tap into that nostalgia, right.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
But then you see some of the guys that are
still hanging on that aren't necessarily still doing a great job,
and you're like, oh, this is this is watching like
watching the other guys from in Sync try and do
bye Bye Bye with without anybody around him, and you're like, like,
I saw a video of Joey Fatone doing bye Bye
Bye and he was obviously he was on what looked
like a booze cruise from the episode of the Office
(36:56):
doing it, like that's what it looked like. And I
was like, oh man, it's just so you'll know you're
old when your transformative acts that you grew up with
that you're like, oh man, this was these guys were
the best, and then you see them now and you're like, like,
it's just you're going to have that awakening at some point.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
I'm sure you're right, because I'm still of an age
where people are making their own music or at least
singing music that was written for them. FITZI, I don't
know how much you're paying attention to this, and I
imagine closer than most because of the industry that you
started your career in as opposed to what you're doing now.
But the amount of AI manufactured music and like bands.
(37:37):
There's an AI band I saw posted on Instagram by
a friend of mine that works for one of the
labels here in town. Here in Nashville. It's got five
hundred thousand followers on Instagram, and it's not real. It's
just not real people. It's an AI manufactured band with
AI manufactured songs that are fine, Like they're good enough,
(37:58):
that sounds like something you'd hear on top radio or
something like that.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
But they're not real people.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
So I don't know, is this something that's going to
go the way of the dinosaurs, like us being able
to be nostalgic about our favorite bands when our favorite bands,
at some point in our lives become not real people.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
I mean, I'm ever the realist dude, right like, so
you know for me, AI is I mean, it's inevitable.
It takes over music and people listening right now that
are music heads. You're gonna say, no, it will never happen.
There will always be room for great artists. We've talked
a lot about jelly roll, right like Chris Taple Tay
pick your favorite artists. There's always going to be room
(38:34):
for those sorts of things. There's also going to be
a ton of like if you are of the ilk
that you know in your generation loved Britney Spears, for example,
or Christina Aguilera like, okay, if you if you loved
in Sync or the boy bands in general, and you're
looking around, are like, okay, what is the difference at
this point if you're a kid that's grown up listening
(38:56):
to it, And here's the thing, man, Like I remember
one of the first sessions I played in Nashville in
the orchestra. There were like one hundred musicians on that,
and in that orchestra, you flash forward just a couple
of years later, like Coldplay with all their famous string
parts on their record, that's one guy that plays and
then he uses a keyboard to play the rest, like
he uses a mini program to play the rest, so
(39:17):
like he's programming strings and he's playing some strings on
top of it, like one guy. That's really common and
has been for a decade, where one person represents an
entire string section. Nobody ever listens to that and says, wow,
I wonder if these are real strings? Like you know,
I remember sitting in the studio and we would listen
to these these recordings we were doing. We'd have huge
arguments over like the snare drum do the snare drum
(39:39):
sound good enough? And I looked at everybody fifteen years ago.
I'm like, y'all, they're gonna listen to this on their phone,
so who cares? Why are we wasting hours on this?
I couldn't listen. And at the time people are like, no, no, no, no, no.
MP three's aren't the right sonic quality. It'll never take
over the business. Well, honey, you know, like I think
it's inevitable, like Timberlin's out here, you know, creating AI
artists with a music like there are going to be
(40:02):
smart music people that figure out how to use AR
to generate the songs and the artists and people are
going to listen to that, and in fifteen years, that'll
be fifteen In five years, that'll be the majority of
our pop stars.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
What were we supposed to talk about here?
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I don't know. Oh, the Steelers. We're going to talk
about the Steelers. You know what? That brings us to
a great point?
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Pop that's just chickens. That's a double checking to make
sure I didn't derail the thing.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
No, we'll get to it now in just a minute,
because we're going to spend the entire season talking about
the Pittsburgh Steelers. It is going to be an absolute
epic conversation. The question is should it be, and the
answer might surprise you. We'll break it down next Bucking Fits,
taking over two pros and a cup of Joe.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Two Pros and a
Cup of Joe Podcast with LaVar Arrington, Brady Quinn, and
myself Jonas Knox. Make sure you catch us live weekdays
six to nine am Eastern Time three to six am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. You can find your local
station for the Two Pros and a Cup of Joe
Show over at Foxsports Radio dot com, or stream us
(00:22):
live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Give this you're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Fandom is so often about hope, right, It's about hoping
that your favorite team is going to do something unprecedented,
that you're gonna have memories for the rest of your life,
that you're gonna have a wall full of memorabilia for
a championship, right, Like, that's what we're all hoping for.
And some of that hope has to come from the
(00:58):
organizational structure. So the question really becomes, what do you
do when your favorite team simply has an owner that
isn't any good at owning a football, basketball, or baseball team?
Where do you find your hope when you realize that, frankly,
the entire system of how the business is built for
your team is failed. He's Buck rising on Jason Fitzen.
(01:20):
This all comes from the Knicks. We're hanging out with
you on two pros and a cup of Joe. The
Knicks sort of led us to a conversation about the NBA,
which led us to an overall thought press us on
team ownership and Buck what's interesting and Buck covers the
Titans down in Nashville. Obviously you see team ownership up
(01:40):
close and personal, but it just really gets interesting to
me because at some level, most professional sports teams are
owned by somebody that at their core is a fan.
And so you want that very rich fan to do
something wildly impossible. You want that very rich fan that's
made so much money and life that they can afford
(02:01):
hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars depending on
the sport, to buy a franchise. And then you want
them to invest that money smartly. You want them to
hire great people. And then this is the really tricky part.
After they've invested the money and after they've hired the people,
you want that owner to then just go away, right.
You want that owner to knock it in the way.
And I'll say James Dolen, the owner of the Knicks,
(02:22):
has been absolutely destroyed time and time again. I've looked
at it from the outside looking in and said, man,
what do you want the guy to do? Like when
everybody said that Dolan was meddling too much, we went
out and hired Phil Jackson because oh my god, like
Phil Jackson's biggest name, and that doesn't work. And all
of a sudden it said, well, Phil wasn't even really
that into the job. He just took the money. Well
that's not Dolan's fault, you know. And then well he
(02:44):
still gets in the way of all of it. I'm
a Raiders fan, as most people know, right, and Mark
Davis what is The Raiders have just absolutely been garbage
as a franchise for most of my adult life. But
I can also look at Mark Davis and say, Okay, yeah,
he brought in John Gruden, which I can understand why
he thought that was probably a good idea, turned out
not to be. That he brought in Josh McDaniels, which
(03:06):
at the time he's just getting the biggest name he bossible. Again,
now he brings in Pete Carroll. At some point, you're
just you're a guy with a ton of money that's
trying to figure out how to turn that money into wins.
And all of this just leads you back to that
same point, what do you do if the person that
runs your team just isn't really capable of running a
football team? Like now, you can't change the owner of
(03:28):
your team a football, basketball, any of those bucks. So, like,
it's just interesting to me because I think there's there
are more bad owners in sports than good and I
don't think that's a fixable problem.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
No, I wouldn't imagine that it is. And it's interesting
that you bring up that. I would know ownership up
close and personal. That's not the case. Here in Nashville,
Amy Adams Strunk is the controlling owner of the Tennessee Titans,
and she does not do public appearances. She does not
take questions and press conferences. She fired three straight heads
(04:02):
of state here in Nashville, where John Robbinson the general manager,
then Mike Rabel the head coach, then rancarth On the
general manager. Now she's on to Brian Callahan and Mike Borganzi.
Is a combination of people, and she has done all
of these things through statements released by the team or
she has done interviews with team employees, Mike Keith, the
(04:23):
former voice of the Tennessee Titans who's now doing games
in Knoxville, Tennessee. Not to get hyper local with it,
but my point is she doesn't put herself in a
position to be questioned on these things. She gets to
make these decisions from an ivory tower. She can put
out a statement and she can let other people be
the fall guy or gal for her, depending on the role.
(04:43):
And that is certainly a style of ownership, right. That's
kind of the thing that Fitzie you're alluding to a
little bit, where she'll make these decisions, she'll hire people
to do the job, and then she'll take a step
back until somebody gets in her ear and says, well, yeah,
that person you hired a couple of years ago, maybe
(05:04):
they're not doing as good a job.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
I'll do a better job.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Why don't you put me in this role, and then
I'll be to do and then I'll be able to
do it better. Then creates a Game of Thrones type
of environment within an organization that you just have to
have the ear of ownership to be able to influence
a multi billion dollar industry, which is crazy, crazy but
that's a very Sports is a microcosm for society and
(05:31):
life at large, right, so anything that you see happening
at a sports level could also be You know, there's
politics in every industry, whether you want to attribute those
behavior behavioral characteristics to politics or not.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
There are office politics, and.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
That exists in the NFL and the NBA and in
professional ownership professional sports. No matter what level you're looking at,
there are more bad owners than good. But to your point,
I just don't know what There is no perfect solution
here because you want somebody that cares, but you also
(06:08):
don't want somebody that cares enough to get involved or
get in past their depth, past their point of competency,
when they have probably hired people to do those jobs
and now all of a sudden they are lending their
or they're sitting in on.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
The meetings and.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Doing one of these numbers where they're like, oh, you
won't notice me at all. I'm just sitting in the
middle of this while all of you who work for
me and your professional livelihoods depend on me, don't pay
any attention to me. While I sit here in field
Foald calls about likely your job viability.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I've had this awakening because a lot of what you're
describing here, by the way, is also Jerry Jones. Right,
Like Jerry Jones cares deeply about the Cowboys. I don't
think you no question. You're spent two seconds around Jerry
Jones can question that, but he's just not. I mean,
when you want to look at why they haven't won
a championship, at some point you have to continue to
look at Jerry Jones. But here's what has hit me
(07:02):
as you were talking. There's no recourse for these owners.
There is absolutely no recourse because in my blood, I
joked earlier about being a lifelong, diehard six month Dodgers fan.
I don't care about the Dodgers. If they suck, I'll
just go somewhere else and root for somebody. I don't
care well way they are that I didn't grow up
with a favorite baseball team, I don't care. I am
(07:23):
a lifelong die hard Raiders fan, and it doesn't matter.
I grew up an Oakland or an LA Raiders fan
that became an Oakland Raiders fan that is now a
Vegas Raiders fan. I don't care what city they play in, right,
I don't care. I grew up with it watching Al
Davis and now I got Mark Davis. I don't care. Like,
at the end of the day, I cannot change the
fact right or wrong. As much as I'm a grown
(07:44):
ass man admitting this into a microphone, I cannot change
the fact that the way the Raiders play moves my
heartbeat on Sundays like it makes me feel things, rage, joy,
all of these things that nothing else does. It is
ingrained in who I am. Thanks Dad. It is part
of my culture of how I will be described for
(08:05):
the rest of my life. In my sixth grade yearbook,
one of the teachers wrote, go Raiders, because all the
way back then, I was just wearing a Raiders hoodie
every day in my life. Nothing changes that. So at
the end of the day, there's really no recourse to
Mark Davis. If the Raiders suck, like I'm still gonna
buy the gear. I'm still gonna watch it like most people,
and and as often as somebody on Twitter wants to
(08:27):
be a Karen and be like, I'm never coming back
to this restaurant. Yeah, yeah, y are I mean if
you if you turn around and say you know this.
The Titans fan base might be small, but they are
mighty and they are loud, right like the are they
are a handful said kindly there is.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Mighty is not how I would describe that, but that's
very kind of you.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
They are they are they are passionate, let's say.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
But they're passionate.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
And the fact is, if this team wins three games,
they're still gonna be passionate. Like, if this team wins
three games, they're still gonna have a beautiful, swanky new
stadium that is going to make the team money. And
at the end of the day, Amy Adams Strunk is
still going to get her portion of all of the
profit sharing. That is part of being an NFL owner.
So when you know as an owner of whatever, whether
(09:09):
we're talking about the NBA, the NHL, major League Baseball,
it doesn't matter. When you know as an owner that
your stadium is going to be full enough that you're
making your money, you know that you're going to get
profit share out of the agreements that are already there
across the board. And you know that through all of
it fans because it's ingrained in them. The majority of
(09:33):
fans are never going to be able to quit being
fans of your favorite team. Like I got killed on
air at the time during the entire Colin Kaepernick controversy
that was going through saying, hey, if you don't like
the way your favorite team is handling it, just don't
be a fan of them anymore. If you're so passionate
about it, just put away the gear. And the answer
(09:54):
to that was, well, that's impossible. Owners know that, So
these stickul their job because who's ever going to stop
them from sticking at their job.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
It is one of the more frustrating parts of being
a fan because it's completely out of your control, even
though you think you have some level of control, and
by the way, you think you are entitled to have
an opinion. I am critical sometimes of a rational fan reaction.
God knows, Titans fans would probably snort and laugh hearing
(10:25):
me describe it that kindly. But I think that some
of it is a bit off the wall. But that
doesn't mean that you don't have a ride as a
fan to express your emotion. And I think that goes
both ways. That describes hate and that describes love. Like
I think that you should be able to operate on
the full fan spectrum. If you are somebody who has
put the amount of time investment, financially personally into your
(10:50):
favorite team. You should be able to have an opinion
about the way that that team is run. But the
idea that that opinion has actual impact is the thing
that I think fans forget at the end of the day,
or that that entitlement to that opinion gives you the
ability to impact change, when in reality, the only people
that have the ability to impact change with your your
(11:13):
favorite sports team are the people who own it, because
it's it's a plaything to them, it's a billionaire's playground.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
We could impact that change like you and me. No, no, no, fans,
this is where see I think fans, all play is.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Going to make us almighty. And you know because we
have the power of the microphone.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Baby, we got.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Them, no, no, no, but we have the power of
the dollar. Like you really want to impact change, stop
making it a profitable business.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
But even then, FITZI, I just think there are so
many different avenues of revenue. Because you bring up the
Titans new stadium, and the Browns have announced a stadium
plan and the Bills are getting a new stadium.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Right, there's there's.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Stadium for sure, for sure, But that Titans stadium is
not about the Tennessee Titans. The Tennessee Titans just happened
to exist in Nashville. That stadium is going to happen
because Nashville. The city in Nashville wants to host a
Super Bowl, the city in Nashville wants to host WWE.
They want the biggest international events. They are pissed that
(12:14):
they missed out on the World Cup and that Kansas
City is going to be a World Cup host site,
which is nonsense. The worst airport in America, even though
I know they're getting a new one, is.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Going to be at airport.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
That airport is trash.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's time that it's all separated. Like once you go
through the security in these four gates, you're going.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
It's so disorienting that airport. Anyway, we don't have to
religate that. My point is the Tennessee Titans are like
the least important thing in that stadium that's going to
be occupying that stadium's time because how many dates is it?
Speaker 5 (12:44):
In reality, it's ten.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
It's a couple of preseason games and depending on the year,
eight or nine regular season games, and god knows, they
don't host playoff games around here because they don't make
the playoffs, but there are so many other things three
hundred and sixty five days of the year that are
going to be occupying that stadium that are going to
make her way more money her Amy Adam Strunk, or
any ownership group than the actual team that plays in
(13:09):
there on Sunday. So even the ability for a fan
to impact how ownership responds to things with their dollar
has been mitigated because well, I'll just take somebody else's dollar,
or I'll.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Take the opposing fans dollar.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Because Nashville is a destination city, baby, and if the
Vikings fans want to come in here and take it
over where, their money spends just as well as yere does.
In fact, their dollar probably goes further because they spend
it on tickets, they spend it on concessions, they spend
it on Lower Broadway getting drunk before the game, and
after the game when their team beats the Titans, they
spend it on hotels. They stretched that visiting fan dollar
(13:49):
five times more than they would a local dollar. So
it's this really difficult spot that fans are caught in into.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
And I don't mean to you know, this.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Whole diatribe to say, well, it's hopeless and you can
control nothing about it. But at the end of the day,
thingtt what's the team that's most recently changed over ownership
in the NFL The Commanders Washington.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Yeah, how hard was it to do that?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
And that guy had you know, he was getting congressional
subpoenas while hiding out in the south of France on
a mega yacht. Like you had to track that guy
down and drag him through court over a period of
twenty years to get him out of there.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
And that's the extreme, right, These things just.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Don't they don't You struggle as a fan with it
because you, at the end of the day understand that
they are playing an entirely different game than you are.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitza. You mentioned all of this,
and it just takes me straight to Cleveland, where fans
are going to be upset because Cleveland, the Browns may
have destroyed what little home field advantage they actually have.
Will tell you about it. Next, Two pros and a
cup of Joe. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason fitz hanging
out with you on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
Hey, it's Ben, host of the Fifth Hour with Ben
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Speaker 7 (15:03):
You're asking, what in God's name is the Fifth Hour.
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I'll tell you it's a spin off of it Ben
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Why should you listen? Picture if you will a world will?
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We chat with captains of industry in media, sports, and
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Listen to the Fifth Hour with Ben Maler on the
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Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
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Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's Two Pros and a Cup of Joe on Fox
Sports Radio. It's a Bucking Fits takeover. He's Buck Rising.
I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with you today tomorrow. Actually
we'll be with you for the next three days because
we've got you today on Two Pros and a Cup
of Joe. We've got you tomorrow on Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe and then we've got you Saturday morning.
Buck going to be filling in for Anthony on the
(16:00):
Fellows where you can usually hear me five to nine
a m. Eastern on Saturday mornings. For everybody that's just
having a raging night out on the West Coast, love that.
I want to boost your performance with better rest. We're
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(16:22):
July sale Sleep at Night. All right. We've been talking
a little bit about ownership and bad ownership and some
of the weird things across sports. But just had to
get your thoughts on this because you were just talking
about recourse and what fans have against them and the
fact that the fans that owners can make money from anywhere,
(16:43):
and it makes me think of Cleveland where the Browns
who look they stink. I get they stink, and if
you look at their winning percentage, who cares about home
field advantage? I've said this for years for the Raiders
Oakland fans always coming in and saying Vegas will never
be the atmosphere that Oakland was. Okay, well, has anyone
bothered to look at the win percentage in Oakland during
the second stint. I had stats at info at ESPN
(17:06):
pull up for me several years ago, and it was
the worst winning percentage at home of any team in
the NFL over that period. So I would just remind
everyone that's not fans fault. Of course, the team stinks.
But when your team stinks, your team stinks. There's nothing
you can do about that. But a little bit of
a just I think, staggering moment because the Browns are
building a multi billion dollars stadium, like everybody is with
(17:27):
by the way, six hundred million dollars. It looks like
coming from Cleveland and funding for that, which seems to
be part of the course. But where it gets a
little tricky, buck, it's domed. They are building a domed
stadium in Cleveland. And you mentioned earlier, and I think
this is an important part of this, Like the Nashville's
not building the Titans a stadium because they give a
damn about the Titans. They're building the Titans a stadium
(17:50):
because that's a good ten you know, ten opportunities a year,
but also concerts can go year round, the Final Four, WrestleMania,
all of these different things that can happen in stadiums
that are domed to give you opportunity. Buffalo, where they
built their stadium, decided to keep it open, so it is.
It is not a dome stadium, but there are heating
(18:11):
elements on the top to try and melt some of
the snow down. But it's still They wanted home field advantage,
Cleveland saying, f that noise with the home field advantage,
just give me the dome so we can make more money.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
But it does take away one of what is at least.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Perceived to be the few advantages that the Browns actually
have where they play at home.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Think about that snow game with Jamis. I mean, that's
one of the more entertaining games you watched all season long.
And you know whether Jamis would have thrown interceptions in
the snow or in clear conditions that you could debate,
but it was a game where there was a clear
and obvious impact by the weather. And I think that
(18:47):
there are I don't know if it's a majority, I
genuinely don't know. In twenty twenty five, how the average
sports fan, the average NFL fan, feels about attending a
game in the elements because to me, frankly, I'm not
I'm not down, Like I'm very happy to be in
(19:07):
a climate.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
News breaking news. I mean this is like, where's a
breaking news segment? Oh my god, Buck Rising isn't gonna
sit in the snow to watch anything.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
But I also understand that I'm not the audience here.
I'm not the target demo because I'm a professional NFL
media member. I get parking, I get a I get
a seat with a good view. Almost every state parking pass.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You get a parking pass.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Oh yeah, I got a parking pass. What do you
mean we have our own lot? Just what That's what
I'm saying. Free food. Like I'm not, i am not
the target demo here. So like me going to an
NFL game now as a fan, I wouldn't like the
experience because I get the experience of what it is
to work an NFL game. The average fan may, you know,
(19:53):
may get up for Hey, you know what, We're gonna
go out, We're gonna tailgate, We're gonna enjoy the elements.
It's a Christmas game. It's a game around Christmas. Especially
Browns fans. Man, I have such respect for that fan
base where their organization is cheeks just the worst constantly,
year in year out.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
We're just a couple of.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
A sprinkled in moment of hope with a Baker Mayfield
thing that even that they botch top to bottom, right,
the Browns fans support their team no matter what the
conditions are, and I do think that that place like
Buffalo genuinely relishes the opportunity to make you uncomfortable when
you have to come to Cleveland and play them. Right,
(20:38):
I know I'm going to Cleveland this year. The Titans
play Cleveland late in the year and they have a
game I think it's in early December where Cleveland's weather
is probably going to impact the results one.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
Way or the other. Now, maybe they affect a.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Home team more that day, maybe they affect a road
team more that day. But still it is a different
kind of atmosphere that is becoming more rare and rare
with each passing year and with each new stadium. Because
at the end of the day, Fitzie, this is one
of my favorite lines from Tony Kornheiser, who has a
great many great lines throughout the course of his illustrious
career in sports media, but one of my favorite Cornheiser
(21:14):
lines is the answer to all of your questions is money.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Money is the reason that they're going to dome this
thing up because.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
In Nashville, I attended a Garth brook concert Garth Brooks
concert a couple of years ago that got rained out
monsoon conditions, right huge stage, huge elaborate setup, Garth a
world renowned performer, and they had to nix it because
lightning and then monsoon conditions and everybody had to huddle
(21:41):
in the concourse. And then at the end of the day,
after two hours of waiting of trying to wait it out,
they just had to nix the whole thing and then
reschedule it for a later date. And they end up
making their money back on a Garth Brooks show. But
there's a lot of shows where they wouldn't be able
to get that many people to come back to the stadium.
They're trying to avoid situations like that, which I think
completely understandable, but there is an appreciable impact on the
(22:03):
football product.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
At the end of the.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Day, where I mean, our snow game is going to
go extinct everywhere but Buffalo and Lambeau.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Like I don't know. Minnesota is in a dome.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
By the way, It's a beautiful stadium, a beautiful stadium.
It might be my favorite stadium in the NFL of
ones that I've done, I haven't been in Vegas yet.
I'm checking that box this year. I haven't been a
San fran or newer San Franz stadium, and I still,
for some reason, haven't done a game in Cincinnati with
the way that the COVID schedule worked out a couple
of years ago and Joe Burrow's rookie year. But I
just think that that is going to become a thing
(22:35):
of the past because there is too much money to
be made on these dome stadiums.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
For reasons that are not football related.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I happen to personally love watching a snow game on TV,
so as a consumer that is for a product that
is largely TV based, I would miss the magic that
comes with it. But I do think to your point,
this is an inevitable So when you start talking about stadiums,
the conversation constantly is why are people helping billionaires build
(23:07):
free stadiums? And I hear that conversation all the time.
I laugh at it. I genuinely, I just I laugh
out loud at the conversation every time. Well, cities shouldn't
be supporting these billionaires, Okay, cool. If I was a
billionaire and I owned a team, I would just move
it to a city that will like because there only
takes one. It takes one random city and that city
getting an NFL team, There's always going to be somebody
(23:28):
that will build on it. And if your answer is
well there shouldn't be okay, well people in Hell one
ice water too, You're like, you're not going to change
the fact that if the Kansas City Chiefs decided tomorrow
that they want to move somewhere where they can get
a free stadium, there would be somebody somewhere in the
US it would say, let's build that stadium like that.
Speaker 7 (23:45):
That's real.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Do you think Saint Louis is a baseball town?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
But you don't think they have an ounce of regret
over letting the Rams go because and Kronkey may have
wanted to take them to Los Angeles anyway, and that
may have been ill fated from the jump, right, Lewis
is not nearly the amount of opportunity that opening Sofi
Stadium up. You couldn't build a thing like Sofi in
Saint Louis and expect to have the same amount of
(24:10):
revenue as an NFL ownership group that Sofi Stadium does
in Los Angeles, even though it's in Englewood.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
But the Rams, or.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Rather the city of Saint Louis, to some extent, there's
probably some bitterness. There's probably some hate towards Stan Kronkey,
and maybe that's enough to sustain them. And there are
Cardinals town top to bottom for sure. But I just
have to imagine that the benefit of having an NFL
franchise in your city and all the different things that
that brings, that there's not some ounce of regret in
(24:39):
Saint Louis about the way that that went down.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, I mean, you want to tell me that a
place like Hartford that tried at one point to get
Foxborough built here. You want to tell me the places
like that, if they had the opportunity, wouldn't look at
it and say, well, I know it's a lot of money, guys,
but what does it do for the overall view of
our city? Blah blah blah, what's it due for? The
opportunity to make money. What's it to for the opportunity
to host Super Bowls? All of these and economic impact.
(25:03):
People will tell you all the time that paying for
stadiums is a bad investment. I hear that again. I
lived all this from Raiders fans in Oakland. I hear
all that, and nobody cares, Like genuinely, O you care
if you live in Oakland and the team is taken
from you if the Raiders leave Vegas. People in Vegas
might care at some point, but realistically, like as long
as there's a city that wants to come out and
(25:24):
pay for a stadium, they will. So now you've got
to look at it and say, Okay, with that mindset,
if you're going to pay for a stadium, how do
you make the most money back out of it as possible?
Like you mentioned that Garth Brooks concert and the Minuti
nobody thinks about. But the insurance payouts are such a difficult.
Like when I was touring with the band, the thought
of canceling a show, like we weren't going to cancel
(25:46):
the show because if we canceled the show, then our
insurance had to handle it. If if the venue canceled
the show because of the weather, then it's act of
God and their insurance has to handle it well. Even
just that basic principle, if you go to a dome stadium,
your insurance go down on things like that because you
don't have to worry about that element of it. Like
all of it comes back to follow the money, right,
(26:06):
And so if you're going to build a two point
five billion dollars stadium, and we're going to reach the
spot before you know it where stadiums are four five
billion dollars, like this is just gonna happen. If you're
going to build a multi billion dollar stadium, you want
to get as much usage out of it as you
possibly can. So at some point it's about the cost
benefit analysis, and like, hey, if I got to lose
(26:27):
home field advantage, if I got to lose the opportunity,
you know, to host snow games, that's no different than
Vegas obviously looked around and said, you know what we
don't want. We don't want one hundred and ten degrees,
and we want to be able to use this thing
year out. We want to be able to put concerts
in it. Like the most profitable or stadium I should
say in the in the US last the last two
(26:49):
years was Allegiant in Vegas. That's not the Raiders, that's
everything else that happens in Allegiance. So if you're building
a stadium in Nashville, it would be stupid now to
put a dome on top of it because simply everybody
makes more money that way, and if that means you
lose the opportunity for cool rain games where people are
sliding around on the grass, that's just collateral damage. At
(27:11):
the end of the day, nobody's going to care fifteen
years from now, they want more events.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It's just it's We've talked about this in a couple
of different ways right throughout the course of the morning,
and I don't think either of us were planning on
going down this many different versions of what level of
impact can fans actually have on the way that their
franchises run or the decision that their franchise makes. But
that seems to be where we've gone based on the
(27:38):
Nicks hiring of a coach and the Lakers acquisition of
DeAndre Ayton, and all other manner of transactions personnel wise
or business wise that sometimes irritate us or bother us
or or confuse us.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
About why our team is doing what they're doing.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
At the end of the day, I just I hate
it for fans because I don't like telling fans that
their impact is minimized, because when fans are invested and
are you know, all in, it is such a such
a unique experience experience that they bring to live events
(28:19):
that gives it so much Mortrus I've done games at
so far FITSI with both the Rams and the Chargers,
as with the Titans as the visiting team, and it's
just it's it's lifeless in there. There's no atmosphere. I'm
scared that's what's going to happen to the Titans new
stadium because the Titans are a terrible franchise here in
the last couple of years. And maybe cam Ward with
(28:40):
the number one overall draft pick, makes a difference, but
maybe he.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Doesn't because half of.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
More than half of first first round picks at quarterback
don't even win a playoff game for the franchise that
drafted him, So it's not like a sure thing. It
may be a good marketing strategy right now to sell
your PSLs in advance of that new stadium opening in
twenty twenty seven, which again at the end of the day,
is about money, not about how well.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
The football team does. Can we capitalize on this momentum?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Dude? When I was on the season ticket waiting list
when they announced the Raiders were moving to Allegiance, being
from Vegas, I was like, I'm gonna do this. By
the time they got to me on the sheet, they'd
already gone through so many tickets that all they had
left were lower bowl seats that were really good, But
it was the PSLs for it were astronomical. We're talking
(29:29):
like it was almost I think twenty grand per seat
at that point. And I remember laughing at the girl
that called me and said, you know, from the sales office.
It was like, hey, we could do these PSLs. The
first thing she said to me was, Hey, if you're
worried about the cost of the PSL, just sell your
seats for the first few years, and if you sell
your seats, you'll make this PSL back plus. That was
part of the sales pitch, And I thought, Nah, there's
(29:50):
not a way and there's not a chance. Well, I've
got a buddy that bought in that same section. He
made his PSL money back in the first season alone.
And that's like you may to what Nashville is going
to be. I mean, and people sit here all the
time and talk about the lack of home field of
vanners for the Raiders. If you're the Raiders, genuinely, why
do you care? Like the games are sold out, so
whatever happens. And when they say, well there were only
(30:13):
thirty percent fans in there that were rooting for this team,
every ticket was sold. If every ticket is sold, even
if the place is half empty, you know, even if
the police is only filled a third of the way
at the end of the year, because the team sticks.
As long as the tickets were sold, the team still
makes their money. So like the Nashville is going to
(30:33):
become what Vegas is in my opinion, like it's going
to become a stadium because as I've said for years,
since I was a podcast, nobody cared about. It's super
easy to see what places are going to fill the
stadium by asking yourself the simple question. If you live
in Minnesota and you're looking at the road schedule for
the Vikings and you say, honey, let's go to a
game this year. What game do you want to go to? Well,
if you've got the chance of going to see the
(30:54):
Vikings play in Vegas, or going to see the Vikings
play in Nashville, or going to see the Vikings play
in Boston, what are you taking Like you're taking the
Nashville trip, you're taking the Vegas trip.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
So you wish it was in Boston. By the way,
Foxborough is the North Korea of the NFL. Terrible.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Oh my god, fix Aryl, Like my god, I just
like I that that stadium just needs to be Also,
there's nothing redeeming about that Stateum just Jillette is Everything
about Jillette is just in the modern NFL is just junk.
I'm sorry Patriots fans like that stadium is just not
that's not it in every way. But you get my point, like,
(31:30):
might as well go to these places where you can
go have a great party. And so, yeah, you're not
gonna have home field advantage, but if you're Mark Davis
or Amy Adams strumk, who cares.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
You're getting paid the way And that's that's that's the
sad part about it at the end of the day.
Because FITZI and you may have brought this up off
air as opposed to on air. But the idea of
private equity coming into professional sports in the NFL specifically, now,
that's not something that's going to be rectified by private
equity coming in here because they're trying to maximize the
margins there. That's not a about the game day experience
(32:02):
or the fan experience or any of that. Though they
will tell you that they are doing things with more
money that they're making to pacify people and.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
To make it a better experience.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
But at the end of the day, they're just trying
to max out how much money they can actually make
on this thing. They don't care who's coming in to
spend that money, whether it be you locally in whatever
market you live in Cleveland, But I just I hate
to see it done to a market like Cleveland, because,
respectfully Nashville where I am, you're in Connecticut, But as
a Raiders fan and having having been in many many
(32:32):
Raiders games over the course of your life in their
new stadium in Allegiant, and I'm looking forward to seeing
what Allegiant looks like for the first time when the
Titans travel out there in October.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
It's it's going to rage.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Oh are you going? You're there? I'm there.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
Yeah, Okay, hell yeah, we're gonna have a great Bosses.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Don't know that, but yeah, we're going to go rage
in Vegas. That's all.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
That's fine.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
We can we We are telling them now you have
been duly informed that that's Saturday Fitsie and I will
be unavailable.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
But I hate to see it done.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
To a market like Cleveland, because those fans don't get
dissuaded by much. Right, we're in Nashville. Uh, it's it's
not a die it's die hard for college football, but
not for the NFL. This is never going to be
a Titan centric town. So it's it. It It resonates
a little less to me when they're like, ah, but
the fan experience, Yeah, but the fans don't really care.
(33:20):
It's a fad city with fad sports, and we do
have pro sports here, but it's not super passionate. Cleveland, Man,
they don't care. They don't have anything else, but they're
sports teams. They don't have anything else to pour their
emotion into, and so to see a potential situation where
they're robbed of that, I just I hate. I hate
where actually great sports towns get denigrated by the money
(33:43):
that way.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, and it seems sometimes like the most passionate fan
bases that need it the most are the ones that
just get walked on the most. It's a it's a
very weird like it just.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Because they know you're going to be there.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
You brought that up early, they know you can You're
going You're going to be there no matter what.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
He's Buck Rising, I'm Jason Fitz. We're all going to
be there for the Steelers conversation this year. The question
is should we big week of news? But should it
have been? We'll break it down next on Two Pros
and a Cup of Joe on Fox Sports Radio. He's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I think the sad part is that I knew that
Big Time Rush was going out on a reunion tour
this year. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz. It's Bucking Fits.
Takeover of Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Sold
Jack what, I'm old? Big Time Rush? Yes, I don't
know how do you know. Okay, hold on, be sure
to check out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel. Just
search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube. You'll see a whole
(34:49):
bunch of video highlights from our shows. Be sure to subscribe.
She never missed our very best Fox Sports Radio videos
on YouTube. Dude, you're not old enough to know this yet,
but here's one thing that will rock your world as
you get older. Okay. I'm rarely the guy that sits
here and says, oh, well, you get older. Okay.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
This is literally every conversation I've had with my parents
prior to turning thirty, and I'm like, oh my god,
they're right about everything.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Why when you start seeing social media clips of bands
you used to like and they're trying to still do
the damn thing and they can't do the damn thing anymore.
That is like, so, I saw a video the other
day of Color Me Bad, which you know, was like,
oh sex you nineties nineties R and B, but I
(35:33):
mean R and B, nineties pop whatever you want to
call it. But there's only one original member and they've
put other members with them, and that one original member
is no longer. It looks like he's he's lived hard
and he's gone through some stuff, right, and he's out
on stage doing it, and it's like, oh it is
you know, I've seen plenty of In fairness, I know
I have to pay a fine for this, but like
(35:55):
I grew up within him. Still very good friends with
JC from in Sync, Like we're we're close. That's Chris
kirk Yeah, thank you. Chris Kirkpatrick, though lives in Nashville,
so I hesitate to say this because he might be listening.
But if you see any of the videos of him
out there doing these like tours where it's like boy
bands out there still trying to do the thing like
(36:17):
that can go really well. Like Backstreet has done a
great job of that, Like the new kids on the
block have done a great job of figuring out how
to Whether you love or hate their music doesn't matter.
They're putting it out there and they're doing these Vegas
residencies that look amazing and they're doing a great job.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
And then you start tap into that nostalgia, right.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
But then you see some of the guys that are
still hanging on that aren't necessarily still doing a great job,
and you're like, oh, this is this is watching like
watching the other guys from in Sync try and do
bye Bye Bye with without anybody around him, and you're like, like,
I saw a video of Joey Fatone doing bye Bye
Bye and he was obviously he was on what looked
like a booze cruise from the episode of the Office
(36:56):
doing it, like that's what it looked like. And I
was like, oh man, it's just so you'll know you're
old when your transformative acts that you grew up with
that you're like, oh man, this was these guys were
the best, and then you see them now and you're like, like,
it's just you're going to have that awakening at some point.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
I'm sure you're right, because I'm still of an age
where people are making their own music or at least
singing music that was written for them. FITZI, I don't
know how much you're paying attention to this, and I
imagine closer than most because of the industry that you
started your career in as opposed to what you're doing now.
But the amount of AI manufactured music and like bands.
(37:37):
There's an AI band I saw posted on Instagram by
a friend of mine that works for one of the
labels here in town. Here in Nashville. It's got five
hundred thousand followers on Instagram, and it's not real. It's
just not real people. It's an AI manufactured band with
AI manufactured songs that are fine, Like they're good enough,
(37:58):
that sounds like something you'd hear on top radio or
something like that.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
But they're not real people.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
So I don't know, is this something that's going to
go the way of the dinosaurs, like us being able
to be nostalgic about our favorite bands when our favorite bands,
at some point in our lives become not real people.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
I mean, I'm ever the realist dude, right like, so
you know for me, AI is I mean, it's inevitable.
It takes over music and people listening right now that
are music heads. You're gonna say, no, it will never happen.
There will always be room for great artists. We've talked
a lot about jelly roll, right like Chris Taple Tay
pick your favorite artists. There's always going to be room
(38:34):
for those sorts of things. There's also going to be
a ton of like if you are of the ilk
that you know in your generation loved Britney Spears, for example,
or Christina Aguilera like, okay, if you if you loved
in Sync or the boy bands in general, and you're
looking around, are like, okay, what is the difference at
this point if you're a kid that's grown up listening
(38:56):
to it, And here's the thing, man, Like I remember
one of the first sessions I played in Nashville in
the orchestra. There were like one hundred musicians on that,
and in that orchestra, you flash forward just a couple
of years later, like Coldplay with all their famous string
parts on their record, that's one guy that plays and
then he uses a keyboard to play the rest, like
he uses a mini program to play the rest, so
(39:17):
like he's programming strings and he's playing some strings on
top of it, like one guy. That's really common and
has been for a decade, where one person represents an
entire string section. Nobody ever listens to that and says, wow,
I wonder if these are real strings? Like you know,
I remember sitting in the studio and we would listen
to these these recordings we were doing. We'd have huge
arguments over like the snare drum do the snare drum
(39:39):
sound good enough? And I looked at everybody fifteen years ago.
I'm like, y'all, they're gonna listen to this on their phone,
so who cares? Why are we wasting hours on this?
I couldn't listen. And at the time people are like, no, no, no, no, no.
MP three's aren't the right sonic quality. It'll never take
over the business. Well, honey, you know, like I think
it's inevitable, like Timberlin's out here, you know, creating AI
artists with a music like there are going to be
(40:02):
smart music people that figure out how to use AR
to generate the songs and the artists and people are
going to listen to that, and in fifteen years, that'll
be fifteen In five years, that'll be the majority of
our pop stars.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
What were we supposed to talk about here?
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I don't know. Oh, the Steelers. We're going to talk
about the Steelers. You know what? That brings us to
a great point?
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Pop that's just chickens. That's a double checking to make
sure I didn't derail the thing.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
No, we'll get to it now in just a minute,
because we're going to spend the entire season talking about
the Pittsburgh Steelers. It is going to be an absolute
epic conversation. The question is should it be, and the
answer might surprise you. We'll break it down next Bucking Fits,
taking over two pros and a cup of Joe.
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Brady Quinn
LaVar Arrington
Jonas Knox
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