July 4, 2025 • 40 mins
Jason Fitz & Buck Reising fill in on this 4th of July on 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe! The guys dive into the ongoing drama in the WNBA as there has been so much hate and pushback after Caitlin Clark was selected 9th in WNBA All Star Voting + a new report out after ACC’s legal settlement with Clemson and FSU!
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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 Brady Quinn, Jonas Knox, and
myself LeVar Arrington. Make sure you catch us live weekdays
six to nine am Eastern or three am to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. You can find your
local station for the Two Pros and a Cup of
(00:20):
Joe Show over at Foxsports Radio dot com, or stream
us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching
fs R.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Get this putties, you're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
In today's world, you have more options than you've ever had.
Whether we're talking about at the table, whether we're talking
about what to do with your free time, whether we're
talking about what sports you want to watch, hell, whether
we're talking about what radio shows you want to listen to.
You have more options and control than you've ever had before.
What I don't understand is why once people decide that
(01:00):
they're out on something, they then have to take the
megaphone and scream it as loud as possible to the
entire world to try and convince everyone that they're right.
Love what you love, hate what you hate, but don't
let that influence the actual information on real stories. It's
Stuproson and cupa Joe. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitzforth
of a Jeli edition.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
We had a little fun, but I gotta.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Be honest, Buck, Like, I just I get some of this.
I understand human nature is what it is. But the
fact is a lot of people have just dug in
on where they are on the WNBA, and they've dug
in on where they are the players. They've dug in
where they are on Angel Reese, They've dug in where
they are on Caitlin Clark. Everything has to be particularly
in this, and I mean in all ways. It has
(01:41):
to be black or white, right, Like the players didn't
vote for Caitlin because they're racist, you know, or people
only like Angel Reese because they're racist or whatever. You know,
you only watch the WNBA if you're some woke whatever.
Like everybody has to make this some big, overarching, sweeping
Like I got into a debate, an argument with somebody
(02:03):
at a bar a couple of weeks ago, and I
got into an argument.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Because I flat out told him I don't care about politics.
I don't like all the way to my court.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
And we were sitting there like well, no, you must
care about this, this, this, And I was like, nope,
ain't gonna change my Friday. Like I immediately I was
nihilist and an idiot all these other things. But like
for me, I fool, yeah, I know you fool Like
I don't just genuinely as a person, you know me
well enough to know this, I don't care. If we
didn't land on the moon, not gonna change my day.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I don't care how any Like I don't care about
this grandiose conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I don't care. I just I don't care.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
So for me, I just step back and I'm watching
the WNBA and I'm.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Saying, hey, if you love it, you love it.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
If you don't, you don't, And you got so many
options that it can be that like, if you want
to hunt down last night's absolute thrashing of the Las
Vegas asas by the Indiana Fever, you can watch that
and if you don't care about it, cool, don't care.
But what's happened is it's had We've reached this spot
where it's like politics, you have to have an opinion,
and if you don't have an opinion, nobody can understand
(03:06):
that so now Caitlin Clark finishing ninth in the voting
for guards, which I just explained why that happened, and
there's nuance in understanding to that.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Also, I should point out, having talked to a.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Couple of people that our voters, that some voters didn't
put her at one or two knowing that she was
already going to be a captain. Some voters didn't put
her at one or two because she has missed several
games this year. Some voters didn't put her at one
or two because there are a couple of players that
they believe right now this year alone are playing hotter.
I didn't talk to a single person that sat there
and said, well, I hate her because she's white. She's
(03:38):
taking all the attention from the WNBA. But like it
has to be that, Oh man, no, it's impossible for
so like I cannot imagine, as somebody that has a
Grammy vote, I cannot imagine coming in and saying, well,
you know what, when I vote, I'm going to be
told I only voted for somebody or against somebody because
I happen to be white and they happen to be black.
Like that's we've turned the WNBA into this massive racial oh.
(04:02):
And this is where people will say, no, the players
did it, did they? Like I just I think the
way people consume all of this information on the w
is so misguided by feelings that have come from feelings
that have come from feelings, and very little fact involved
in any of it. And that's the thing that drives
me crazy.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
If the amount of people that had strong WNBA opinions
were actually watching the WNBA, the ratings would be markedly
different across the board, and not just the Kaitlin Clark games.
You know what I'm saying, like the loudest people. And
I find this specifically with Angel Reese because Angel Reese
is polarizing, and frankly, I think that's good.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
Kaitlin Clark is polarizing. I think that's great.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Like that you want to be able to I was
listening to I can't remember what it was. I want
to say it was Lebatart's podcast the other day where
they were talking about the WNBA and one of the
people on the show was having the discussion about why
can't you just let me I rationally hate a player
(05:03):
in the WNBA the same way that I would as
a sports fan. In any other sport, Like why do
I need a reason to hate Angel Reese or Caitlin
Clark when I don't need a reason to hate Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Well, maybe that's a bad example Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Like who's who's the most congenial superstar in the NFL
right now?
Speaker 6 (05:25):
Like maybe I just want to irrationally hate Miles.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Garrett because I'm a Ravens fan or something like that,
And there's no reason. He's an excellent player, He's by
all accounts, a good teammate, a good person. But you
just hate the Browns that much that you want to
hate Miles Garrett. And be damned if anybody wants to
tell you why you should or should not hate Miles Garrett.
That's the freedom to be a fan. As we celebrate
(05:49):
Independence Day today and the things that independence can bring you,
you should be able to independently feel however you want
to about whatever your sports fandom is. But the place
where I think most people catch themselves up is that
they're not actually watching the product, and that FITZI I
think is a bigger problem sports wide, politics wide, whatever
the case may be. You have such strong loud opinions
(06:12):
on these subjects when in reality, you're not following the minutia,
you're not into the day to day, you don't have
the details of the facts to back up your argument
in those situations, and you just want to get into
a fight with somebody on Twitter because that's what you
chose to do with an hour on your Saturday afternoon
or something like that, which sounds absolutely terrible.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
By the way.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
I don't know why people subject themselves to that kind
of thing.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
But I do.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
I do think that in the WNBA this has been
this has been felt the most where there are so
many people who have opinions without actually watching the sport
that it kind of hijacks the dialogue around the league.
But it also I mean, you know, we have people
doing that in a bunch of different sports.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
People do that.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
That's that's as big a problem in the the NBA
as it is in the WNBA, right, Like, there are
so many people who have strong, loud opinions about professional
basketball who aren't watching, but they'll tell you why they're
not watching and this, that and the other, and in reality,
like what are you wasting so much your energy on
this for either care about the sport or don't and
if you don't, that's fine. You're not making a difference
(07:20):
in my life one way or the other. I still
want to watch basketball.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
I got.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I got like some blowback on social media here in
the last couple of years because Nashville has been talked
about regularly where I'm broadcasting fifties in Connecticut and the
rest of the crew making it happen from LA today,
Nashville has been talked about on a couple of different fronts.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
As far as sports.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Expansion, they were in They submitted a bid for WNBA expansion.
Ultimately they didn't get it on this initial wave. They
have been talked about as a potential landing spot for
an MLB franchise, whether that be expansion or whether you know,
a team like the White Sox of the Tampa Bay
Rays ends up relocating.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Long down the line.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
And I, you know, I was pretty comfortable getting in
front of a microphone on the local show and be like, yeah,
I'd rather have a WNBA team than a baseball team.
And people thought it was the most outrageous thing that
I've ever said, and I had to explain to them, no,
I'm not some kind of like diehard WNBA fan. Though
there's nothing wrong with that if you are simply what
(08:20):
am I more likely to attend and enjoy and enjoy
discussing basketball over baseball? For me, that's that's as cut
and dry as it has to be. It's got nothing
to do with the politics of the league or oh,
you're trying to be so wokeer, or the thing that
a lot of people will lob at you when you
talk about women's basketball is oh, she's not gonna hook
(08:41):
up with you, bro, or something like that.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
What are you caping up for this? That and the other?
This like overcompensation of.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Alpha male, you know, a toxic masculinity type of stuff
that they try and lob in your direction when in reality,
like I'm just talking sports preference. I like basketball more
than I like baseball. I enjoy going to live baseball games.
We've got a Triple A affiliate here in town, the
Nashville Sounds. They do a great job making the product
about just about everything but baseball. There is baseball going
(09:07):
on in the background, but like that's appealing to me.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
I just want to go and for the vibes. I'm
there to hang out.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
With some people, have a couple of cocktails, on a
summer afternoon taking some baseball, and if the baseball ends
up being exciting in the background, then that's great. I'll
gravitate towards that eventually. But like on a daily basis,
I'd rather talk about, watch about, watch discuss and analyze basketball.
And if it so happens to be a women's team
instead of a men's team, so be it. And I
(09:34):
was stunned by the amount of people just shaking a
fist at me when in reality those people aren't watching
one hundred and sixty two baseball games a year either.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
The amount of times I hear how terrible the NBA
is from somebody that hasn't watched the NBA in years,
and that's her answer, I don't watched it in years.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It sucks. Well, how do you know.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I mean, it's literally better than it's ever been. It's
to me, and you're right. I love going to minor
league games up here.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I do it a lot. He's buck Rising.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
I'm Jason Fitz by the way, and for two pros
and a cup of Joe. I just looked it up
and according to AI, the WNBA average viewership for a
regular season game is around one point three million people.
The men's college basketball average viewership for a regular.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Game is around one point four million people.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So what's stunning to me, because you're right, the NBA
and the w NBA are the two that when people
don't like it, oh, they got to yell about it.
They got to yell about it so much. And I
tell you what, Look, well, what we do, people.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Are gonna decide that they don't they don't like what
I do on radio.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I don't care the number of times I'll get some
tweet that's like you're the worst thing that's ever happened.
Like the first time I ever did ESPN nationally, I
got so many tweets of like, you're what's wrong with
the ESPN and.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
This whole like, and I love the fact that, you know,
coming from a.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Country's often said that, by the way, you're the problem
was for people like you, you specifically fits.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
I've often said this.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
He cracks me up, that people are like yet another woke.
Like when I first got to ESPN, I was a
right wing, Oh my god, conservative because the ESPN audience thought,
you know, my background coming from country music. And then
you work at ESPN for a couple of years and
they're like, oh, you know, another woke PC you know
what coming out, And it's like, man, I would challenge
(11:17):
anybody to listen to it.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
I don't care about politics. I just it's not wired
in me. I don't give it damn. So I look
at the W and I'm just like, hey, if you
love it, love it.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Like hockey guy is annoying because hockey guy comes up
and says, why don't you talk more hockey?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Hockey's great. Hockey's great, hockey, he's great. But here's the thing.
I love hockey. I do. But here's the thing. There's
nobody coming up the other.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Side saying hockey sucks. But the minute you come in.
If somebody walked into a party today at the fourth
of July and said, man, I really love the W
somebody in that room that's never watched the second of it,
it's gonna be like, oh no, that did they suck.
They're all a bunch of racists trying to hold down Caitlin,
like all of these stupid narratives, like you really think
that the players. By the way, if you talk to
(11:59):
any of the actually talk to the players, they'll tell
you they're enamored with Kitlin because they're about to go
into a collective bargaining agreement, like they're negotiating new rights.
The better the ratings are, the more money they're gonna make.
They all want to make more money. Do they say
stupid things sometimes yes? Do they say the wrong thing
sometimes yes? Do the games get physical at times?
Speaker 6 (12:19):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:19):
All of these things are true.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Does it mean at their core they're all racist and
are trying to hold down Kaitlyn Clark?
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Like, my god, it's just like, at what point?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
What point do we stop all of the stupid narratives
and just talk about what's actually in front of us?
Speaker 6 (12:32):
Oh? We don't. I mean, that's just not how this is.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
There's no putting there's no putting Pandora back in the box, buddy, Like,
that's that's that's what the dialogue is gonna be, you
know what I'm saying. And we we as they shake
our fists at people like us and be like, no,
you don't know what the hell you're talking about. We're
going to do the same thing with asking people to
just please God please have some degree of nuance and
and just intellectual discussion around this stuff, as opposed to
(12:58):
being so quick to dismiss or by the way, get like.
You can go to an extreme on the other side too.
You can be the most pro like over the top.
Why don't you watch the WNBA person in the world,
the most strident, the most obnoxious. And also those people
are probably not watching as much women's basketball as they
(13:20):
say they're watching, like, those people are part of the
problem too.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
So just as you know, I know you say that
you don't that you.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Are not interested in politics, and that's fine, there's nothing
wrong with that. You're probably a better person for it,
or at least more at peace with the day to day.
But just as there are extremes in both political parties,
there are extremes in terms of people who react and
have opinions on all of these things that make the
other side that you're not reacting to the people who
(13:49):
are trying to have a discussion with you and are
okay with you having whatever opinion that you hold. You're
reacting to the people on the other side who are
holding the extreme opinions, even if it's only that one
person going to generalize and make it about a broader
set of the audience and then project those feelings onto
the rest of the people who may, you know, may
I'll probably watch. To be completely honest, I may watch
(14:11):
three w NBA games a year as a basketball fan.
And that's just you know, if some if I'm scrolling
and I don't have something specifically that I have.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
To watch or that I need to watch, and.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
I'm looking for something to put on, ya, I'll put
on a WNBA game and I'll see what's going on
and I'll catch up as I need to, and i
won't be the most informed or anything like that, but
it's just something something entertainment.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
I'm just looking to be entertained. That's all. That's all
that this stuff is. At the end of the day.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
There's also the viral nature of everything that Caitlin Clark does,
which has been made a problem by the fact by
the way that the media uh and not to make
it an indictment of us as well, speaking on behalf
of media, but we do so hyper fixate on Caitlin
Clark in that league. So when a hard foul is
committed in a New York Liberty game or you know,
(15:00):
a Las Vegas Aces game, a game that does not
involve Caitlin Clark, well those things are less easy to
talk about or less popular to talk about than when
Caitlin Clark gets poked in the eye and shoved down.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, it doesn't make great radio to say this, but like,
if you love it, you love it. If you hate it,
you hate it, and it's all okay.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
And guess what.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
There's some really bad WNBA teams. There's some really bad
WNBA players.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
There's also some really.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Good WNBA teams and some really good WNBA players. Some
games are great, some games stink. And by the way,
expansion is amazing because it's more opportunity. But also there's
some really bad teams, and I'm concerned about what that
means for the overall level of really bad teams. That's
called the middle of the road on all things WNBA,
and that's something I don't think anybody's even tried to
do on radio for the last week for the hot
(15:44):
takes all right, for all of the conversation about the WNBA,
one sport that Buck and I both love and get
to cover lucky enough in our lives is college football.
And there was a pretty staggering announcement with college football
yesterday that could be a hint to the future landscape
of the sport. We'll break it down next these Buck
Rising Jason Fitz We're in on Fox Sports Radio for
Two Pros and a Cup of Joe.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
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
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7 (16:17):
Hey, it's Ben, host of The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller.
Would mean a lot to have you join us on
our weekly auditory journey.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
You're asking, what in God's name is the Fifth Hour.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
I'll tell you it's a spin off of the Ben
Maler Show, a cult hit overnights on FSR.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
Why should you listen?
Speaker 7 (16:33):
Picture if you will a world will We chat with
captains of industry in media, sports and more every week
explore some amazing facts about human nature and more. Listen
to The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
There's no faster way to grab somebody's attention then to
mention the words super in sports, whether you're talking about
super teams, whether you're talking about super lee leagues. It
does seem to bring a little extra gravitas to any conversation.
Good morning, Happy fourth of July. It's two pros and
(17:09):
a cup of Joe. He's Jason Fitz. I'm Buck Rising,
filling in for the guys here this morning on Fox
Sports Radio. And there is a story about potentially a
college football power for conference trying to join a super
league that we're going to get into and break down
with you here in just a few moments. But as
(17:30):
we have been sitting here for about an hour and
a half at this point this morning, FITSI the Twitter
reaction has started to roll in, and I wonder.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
What the feedback are you.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Are you worried that the WNBA hater and detractor that
doesn't actually watch the WNBA has infiltrated your mentions and
is telling you how stupid we are.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
No, No, see, the problem is, and this is how
you know you had a good take on something when
you don't get anybody yelling at you one way or
the other, because it can't.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Really yell like it's like going that's a really good point.
So you know, we'll see what the WNBA haters say.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
But RB did ask me to confirm that you're thirty one,
he said, he's thirty three three, And he said, Buddy,
sounds forty. So I would just point out that, you know,
Buck is an old soul in a young body. I mean,
it is a little alarming when people like, if you
see Buck too, he doesn't really look like his voice.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I mean it is.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
There's a whole thing going on here, Buck, So just
confirm for the world that you are thirty one.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
I am thirty one. I will be thirty two in
sixteen days from now. Oh, sixteen day, sixteen days.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Are we having a part, Hey.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
I'm having several.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
I like to spread the birthday out across a couple
of different dates because it is what my birthday represents
to me, because that's of course what people want to
hear about on July fourth as we broadcast here on
Fox Sports Radio. And what my birthday represents to me
is my last weekend of freedom before NFL training camp.
Against It's always the last or the last week or
(18:56):
weekend before. In my case, as I'm here in now,
I feel Fitzy in Connecticut and the rest of the
crew megan it happened out of Los Angeles, I cover
the Tennessee Titans for a living. Tennessee Titans coverage involves
day to day training camp coverage, and so once that happens,
my nights, my weekends evaporate until basically the NFL combine
(19:17):
and the rest of the you know, which is enjoyable
because it means football is back. It's back in our lives.
It's the most important thing and it will. It makes
life a lot easier, especially in jobs like this when
you have actual football to talk about as opposed to
the most interesting storylines in training camp and things like that.
But yeah, so my days as a thirty one year
old are soon coming to an end. That person is correct,
(19:38):
but I will simply be thirty two.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Bri producer extraordinaire.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Did you just catch the Buck Rising Cities having multiple parties?
Did you catch that multiple parties?
Speaker 6 (19:48):
It?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I also have thirty one, So that really stresses me
out because I feel like I sound like I'm twelve
compared to Buck.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Okay, yeah, that is that.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
Is yeah, but that's years of smoking and drinking no Breeze.
Brie and I haven't met in person officially, but just
based on our conversations here working together these last couple
of weeks, I would take away bri being a bit
(20:15):
more wholesome than somebody like me who lives a lifestyle
of a degenerate here in Nashville, Tennessee, which is as
close to Vegas as anybody's comfortable getting without having to
actually go to Vegas.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Follow up question here, Mighty Mark also part of the team,
and we always hang out on the fellows. You can
check Buck and I also tomorrow morning for the Fellaws.
Mighty Mark, did you catch Buck Rising saying something about
multiple parties? I just want to make sure that we
all heard the same thing. Mighty Mark, did you hear
the same thing multiple parties?
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I think I was cue and up music. I didn't
hear the words, so.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Let me reiterate.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
I am having multiple birthday parties for myself because I.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Like to have.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Okay, now, just follow up question, Mighty Mark, have you
and Breed both if you could chime in on this,
have either of you gotten in to a single one
of these multiple parties that are.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
Happening from Buck?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah? No, no, well, of course not. He barely just
knows us.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Why would he invite us?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, I just I'm just confirming because I also haven't
had an invite to a single birthday.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
I've known him ten years and he doesn't have an
invite to one of these things either.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I mean, you're like here, we are just sitting here,
working together, and it's like, I'm gonna have a dozen.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Parties all over the North America.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
In multiple different cities. One in Nashville. I'm going to say,
diego for a week. We're gonna have a couple of
nights there throughout the course of the week. And none
of this is happening on my actual birthday, which will
be a celebration unto itself. I think my birthday falls
on a Sunday this year, which is not terribly convenient, but.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
You know, we'll make it work.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Here's the thing, though, I don't know you are all
over the place. This is not a justification, simply fact.
If you want to bring fact to an argument in
the way that we were shouting down WNBA detractors in
the last segment, you're in Connecticut, mud. If you happen
to end up in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday this coming Saturday,
July the twelfth, when we are going to dinner and
(22:03):
then taking in the UFC fight at Bridgestone Arena. You
are more than welcome to attend. If you happen to
be in San Diego for the four days that I'm
spending out in San Diego with a group of friends,
with multiple nights of celebration, then you are more than
welcome to attend. I will invite you to any of
these things. You are in a different part of the world.
I'm not coming to Connecticut, even though I love you, dearly.
There's not really much you could do to get me
(22:25):
to the state of Connecticut, not to not to, you know,
detract from one of our great states in this mighty
Union on this Independence Day.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
But Connecticut, I'm good. I'm also wow.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
If I said the word speedo, does that change any
of those opinions.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
For who you were?
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Me?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
You tell me now that we've made the.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Entire both matching banana hammocks.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
We're doing matching that's Can we make that, Bree, Can
we make that the name of the show tomorrow? Matching
banana hammocks? I don't, I don't think. Yeah, I'm gonna
try not to get us fired.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Don't make you look up what a banana hammick is.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Now, Hey, you know what this is, Hey, we're just
said it's all fine. That's probably the best.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
That's probably the nicest thing anybody would ever say if
Buck and I walked into a room in speedo, is
it's it's all fine.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
Well, you know what, that's just fine?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
College football? You mentioned? Is college football going to be fine? Buck?
Look at that segue. Look at that sure, I mean
that is a transition of the.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
So tickled with himself for being able to do that.
I mean, is college football going to be fine?
Speaker 6 (23:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
You you work with a lot of college football people
in your responsibilities for Yahoo. Obviously FITSI and SEC Country.
We talk a great deal of college football here. It is,
I would argue, it is the most important thing to
the local audience. Here is the tribal nature of college football.
Even though we do have a professional football team, we
have a professional hockey hockey team. We have an MLS
(23:54):
team that's won or has thirteen unbeaten results in a
row and getting ready to play the Philadelphia Union tomorrow, which.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Is going to be crazy. It's crazy what National sc
is doing.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
And yeah, and you've you've played that stadium, you have
had the or at least you have been a part
of the opening ceremonies for that stadium.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
In fact, was that like the first.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, I opened that stadium, played the national anthem for
the first ever game in that stadium.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
I have videos. It was like a proud stage.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Mama was taking videos of him Brion Mark on my
phone from the from the stands as he broadcasts the
violin rendition of the national anthem and the opening salvo
of Gioda's Park here in Nashville.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
But anyway, if you talk to college.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Football people and you ask them that specific question, is
it going to be fine? It depends on what your
your entryway into that conversation is. I guess is so,
what I'm trying to say is like the health of
the sport. Is college football on the field as healthy
as it's ever been? One could argue yes. I think
(24:57):
that the name, image and likeness situation. I think that
the transfer portal situation has allowed there to be has
allowed there to be more competitiveness top to bottom where
it's not just the top four teams that we're talking
about in any given year, and even in a twelve
team playoff format, right, you're still getting the cream rising
(25:18):
to the top. The best teams will ultimately end up
having the best results and will weed out the SMUs
and the Indianas of the world, respectfully to my alma
mater and all these different things.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
So like the health of the.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Sport, I think it's in a good spot where it's
not just one program, not just Nick Saban dominating things.
Even though Kirby Smart is recruiting at Georgia is at
as high of a level as Nick Saban was during
the height of his powers. Right Clemson getting back into
the mixed Ohio state winning the most recent recent national championship.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
I'm a Notre Dame fan.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
If you'd have told me that Notre Dame would be
playing for a national championship last year prior.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
To the season beginning, I want to spit.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
I want to laugh in your face and spit out
whatever my eighteen dollars coffee beverage was that morning. Like
that's just to see all the different things about the
on field product that still have that meaning. But the
business component of this can wear people down. It wears
down the diehards, and they'll still show up on Saturdays
and we'll all still make college football the second most
(26:22):
popular sport in America with the way that we consume it,
but to get there and all the different shifted, the
way that the ground constantly shifts under your feet is
being discussed in this sixty eight page agreement that was
obtained by the Athletic where the ACC, which has been
embattled or at least some of its member programs have
been embattled in seventeenth month litigation with Florida State and
(26:46):
cleansing at this point where the idea of a super
league being potentially floated, not necessarily likely to happen, but
just the opportunity for a super league to be created
if these member institutions were to be We're to be
able to trigger this clause in the agreement to leave
the ACC for a seventy five million dollars sum from
(27:08):
twenty thirty to twenty thirty one through twenty thirty six,
which is the final year of the contract.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
Those things do, I.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Think give college football fans and college football diehards just
a little bit of angst and anxiety, and you know,
just a little additional stress like why can't you just leave.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
The thing that we know works alone?
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Why can't you just continue to let us have our
college football traditions, our traditional conferences, rather than just strip
this thing down to the studs and trying to maximize
the profits on it the way that they've clearly done
similar to an NFL model.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Well, similar to an NFL model is an important part
of this. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz. We're in
for two pros of and a cup of Joe on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
And I think part of the reason that the NFL
model needs to be part of the conversation is that's
where I believe we're headed.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Like again, this is where I don't emotionally get invested
in much of it anything, right, So I'm just sort
of a person that steps back and says, Okay, this
seems fairly inevitable. I love college football. It is my
favorite sport to care and to cover. I am honored
to say that I have a Bulittannikov Award vote. I
get to vote for the best wide receiver in college
football every year. My media accomplishments in college football are
(28:18):
the proudest things that I've done. I absolutely love the sport,
and if it changes, I'm okay with that. I think
we just have to look around at this ACC deal
and remind ourselves because to Buck's point, the way the
clause is written, essentially, if six teams choose to leave
the ACC to go join a super conference, those six
teams would have to pay seventy five million dollars each,
(28:39):
and they would be capable of doing that. Seventy five
million dollars is less than a buyout for Jimbo Fisher, like.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Dropping a bucket. It's like less.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
So you know, I'm looking around and I'm saying, that's
not an out clause, that's an out invitation, right, And
it leads me more and more to this inevitability of
a super conference. And I hear it when people say,
well that stinks. Here's the thing. If you like, I'm
right down the road from University Connecticut, if you're a
Yukon football fan, you're a Yukon football fan.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
But you know that Yukon football ain't playing for a.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
National championship, right, So at some point I think we're
gonna end up with a system where the Yukons of
the world can play whatever insert other team that maybe
the Indianas of the world that may or may not
even be part of this. You know, I think we're
going to have a situation where football separates itself from
everybody else, and then school is going to have the
opportunity to decide do they want to handle football like
(29:34):
like like the big boys in the Super Conference? Do
they want to be in a middle tier like Look,
University of Wisconsin. Whitewater has a very successful Division III program,
all right, so they want a lot of national championships
and people go to those games and they care about
those games. Do we nationally sit there and flock to
a UWW game, No we don't, right, But at some
(29:55):
point every school is going to have to decide do
they want to be whatever this second tieries or do
they want to be in the super Conference?
Speaker 4 (30:02):
And if you want to be in the.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Super Conference, it's going to require a huge investment in
salary caps and a collective bargaining agreement and all of
these different things.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
And that's complicated. But through it.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
All, if you are wired your entire life to be
a Georgia football fan, as long as you can still
be a Georgia football fan, you're going to be a
Georgia football fan. And I just that's the part of
this that everybody gets worked up and I hear college
football people tell me, oh, it's the death of the sport.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
No, it isn't. It's just the evolution of the sport.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
It's a change to the sport, and you know, frankly,
jarring change hurts everybody in every sport.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I remember growing up as a kid with.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
The Seattle Seahawks's arrival because the Seattle Seahawks were in
the AFC West, Like I rooted.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Against the Seattle Seahawks.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
They're now in the NFC West, and nobody sits there
and remembers that anymore, Like we don't remember how different
these conferences look like when it was a Big eight, right, right,
So I just think, as much as everybody's running around
like Kermit the Frog with their arms in their every
one of these changes in five years, as long as
you can watch your favorite football team play for some
(31:04):
version of a championship, you're going to keep watching it.
And the small audiences for the small schools will have
small audiences with small schools, and the big ones will
have big ones.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
College football is unique this way, though, because I mentioned
the tribal nature of SEC fandom and stuff like that,
and the way that traditions have have held stood the
test of time, essentially in this sport versus a lot
of other sports, where You're right that evolution has come
for a lot of different sports, be they the NFL,
(31:33):
the WNBA. Like we were talking about earlier, baseball has
had to go through changes, and that's some of the
most some of the most crimudgety, you know, reticent to
change fans that you can have who are probably happier
with the idea that they can go to a baseball
game and get out of there in under three hours at.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
This point in their life based on the right.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
It's just like these things, they will become more ingrained
as more time passes, to your point, but college football fandom,
they feel differently about it. And maybe it's just because
I'm in the southeast part of the country and I
feel this more viscerally from the audience that I work
with on a local basis as opposed to what we
do here nationally on Fox Sports Radio. But that is
(32:18):
something that that's the most common refrain that I get
that we have been able to hold up. We've been
able to continue to do this and do it our
way and still be America's second most popular sport after
the NFL. Why are these changes having to come?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Now?
Speaker 5 (32:33):
This is not the college football that I know. It's
not the college football that I love, And that's fine,
and those people, there are some people who will go
to their grave with that, and some people will eventually
adapt to those changes and just be able to watch
the best games, because that's I'm more like you, FITZI
than I am the diehard college football fan in this
particular arena, because I just want to watch the best
(32:55):
teams playing as many games as humanly possible, and if
a super league accomplishes that to where I can watch
Texas and Michigan on a regular basis, or Alabama and
Clemson on a regular basis, or whatever power for program
versus another power for program that you might not otherwise
get unless you went to a super team power conference
(33:16):
model or a super conference model.
Speaker 6 (33:19):
In this particular case, I just.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Don't see what the issue is because that's going to
be the best, the best entertainment value for my dollar,
whether I'm paying for YouTube TV, a cable subscription, any
one of these streaming services that now carry college football.
Speaker 6 (33:34):
I think Peacock now.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Has Notre Dame games on a regular basis, and things
like that. It's just that you're going to have You're
going to have a harder time with college football, die
hard in this particular thing. Evolution not lost on me
that you would have trouble with an evolution theory in
the South.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
But you know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Rising by the way, listen.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
They got me locally, They know what this is. That's
it's I love you all very very much, but you
understand my point. They're just going it's gonna take them
more time and you're gonna have to drag them kicking
and screaming, but.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
Eventually we're all going to move in the same direction.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, And everybody that's sitting here resisting it at this
point is spitting in the wind. That's the thing to me.
It's wasted energy. Every single legal challenge that has tried
to thwart the player's ability at college football to get
paid and to have name, image likeness, to have transfer capability,
every single legal challenge that has.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Been made has been lost.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
So if you're sitting here saying, oh my god, I
want the college football that I had of old, I
will remind you that it has been challenged in court,
not the court of public opinion. It has been challenged
by actual judges and it has been ripped apart. So
if your answer is it was great the way it
was and scholarships work and blah blah blah blah blah,
(34:55):
guess what the courts, the US judicial system decided you
all are wrong. So you just got to hear it,
acknowledge it, and move on from it. And that's the
hardest thing for people to do. So what's it mean
for the future. What's it gonna look like? We'll keep
breaking it down. He's Buck Rising, I'm Jason Fitz. We
are hanging out with you on a glorious fourth of
July edition of Two Pros.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
And a Cup of Joe on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
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 (35:27):
With the Athletic getting their hands on documents at show.
It's much easier than most of us anticipated for several
of their main schools to be able to move out
of the ACC and get to a super conference. In
college football, the question is what's it look like? He's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with you on
two Pros and a Cup of Joe on a fourth
(35:48):
of July edition, and Buck, we were just talking about this.
Here's the hard part. I genuinely do feel for tradition,
and I feel for fandom, and I I get to
do what I do every day because of my fandom
for the Raiders, right, and that is like, that's ingrained
in my entire life. So I understand what it's like
(36:09):
to be a massive super fan like I am. I'm
a grown ass man whose entire week changes based on
how the Raiders play. And I know how stupid that is,
and I can't change it. I wish I could, Like
it's I understand the adrenaline, the rush. I understand that,
you know, Sundays are like a roller coaster, usually with
a really bad ending for me. I get the passion,
and I get that there are people out there that
(36:29):
are passionate about Arizona State, and there's people that are
passionate about you know, BYU, and passionate about random schools
that occasionally get everybody's attention, but year in and year
out may not be in the same boat as the
Georgia's and the Michigan's and the Ohio States and the
Alabamas and I but I'm also just this incredible logic
(36:51):
based realist and everything I do. So I think there's
this inevitable split coming in college football where a super
conference is going to represent most of the teams and
then everybody else. You're just gonna have to make a decision,
like you're just gonna decide do you want to play
for essentially the nit of college football. Like there is
a Division III in college football. You know there are
other divisions in college football that still play. I think
(37:14):
we're gonna end up with Division I college football having
a split. You're just gonna have everybody else and you're
gonna have a super conference.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
And I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
People are gonna watch everybody else, but super fans will.
And then schools are gonna have to find out if
there's enough super fans to actually support it, and if
there isn't, it will go away. And that's just what happens.
Like in the world, that's just what happens. If not
enough people want.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
To watch it, it goes away.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
And that's the kind of thing that member institutions of
whatever power conference they're currently aligned with, or the have
nots who are kind of tangentially. I don't want to
say grifting. It sounds a bit a bit harsh, but
I'll use a local example.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
Okay, Vanderbilt and the SECNDY always Mandy, Vandy and Vandy.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
You know, got a little momentum Diego Pavia out here
throwing shade at other SEC programs. He's the quarterback, he's
a transfer. Last year's transfer. He upset Alabama, one of
the most ridiculous college football results I've ever seen. And
you do lose some of that specialness when one of
these have nots finally, finally, finally gets one over on
the halves. But in reality, for the history of Vanderbilt football,
(38:23):
it has been grifting off the SEC.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
It has just been along for the ride.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
It benefits hugely from the amount of revenue sharing that
that conference distributes. They don't spend the money, or at
least they haven't reinvested the money historically back into those
athletic programs because there's not that level of investment from
alumni or fans.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
That would require you to do just that.
Speaker 5 (38:45):
They can continue to just produce a product, win national
championships in baseball, for example, and the basketball program will
have a moment. The football program may have a moment
or two. Seven wins at Vanderbilt last season is a
celebrat it's huge success, but in reality, Van he's been
getting away with it for a long time in the
(39:07):
SEC as a member of the SEC. So if Vanderbilt
was eventually to get relegated and super conferences were to
form and they started playing in a more reasonable level
of competition for a more appropriate audience based on who
actually seeks out Vanderbilt football games, then to your point,
(39:27):
I think that's just a natural evolution of the sport
where the economics are simply catching up to these universities
in these programs who have been attached to larger conferences
than they probably should be.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I mean, there's also a part of me, and this
is where everybody will comments on it, always say yeah,
but think about all the other athletes that are you
gonna lose opportunity because that school lost football And there's
something that no people don't care, like.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Look, I am not the people care, but that there
is something that that there will be a.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Result, there will be I actually spoke directly to the
athletic directors and the Board of Directors at Michigan State
several years ago because they were eliminating swimming and diving
and the way they went about it, I think was
shady and what it meant for Title nine was shady.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
I think that they did a lot of things, but
nobody cared. I tried.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
I even went to ESPN reporters and tried to get
people to care about the elimination of swimming and diving,
and it was laughed at because.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
At the end of the day, nobody really cares.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
There are a handful of families that are impacted, but
this is that virtue signaling that you talk about all
the time.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Oh, looks like we might have lost FITZI there for
a second with his thoughts on the situation, So we
will recoup here on Fox Sports Radio, It's two pros
and a Cup of Joe on this July fourth weekend,
Hey, thanks for listening to the Two Pros and a
Cup of Joe Podcast with Brady Quinn, Jonas Knox, and
myself LeVar Arrington. Make sure you catch us live weekdays
six to nine am Eastern or three am to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. You can find your
local station for the Two Pros and a Cup of
(00:20):
Joe Show over at Foxsports Radio dot com, or stream
us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching
fs R.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Get this putties, you're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
In today's world, you have more options than you've ever had.
Whether we're talking about at the table, whether we're talking
about what to do with your free time, whether we're
talking about what sports you want to watch, hell, whether
we're talking about what radio shows you want to listen to.
You have more options and control than you've ever had before.
What I don't understand is why once people decide that
(01:00):
they're out on something, they then have to take the
megaphone and scream it as loud as possible to the
entire world to try and convince everyone that they're right.
Love what you love, hate what you hate, but don't
let that influence the actual information on real stories. It's
Stuproson and cupa Joe. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitzforth
of a Jeli edition.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
We had a little fun, but I gotta.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Be honest, Buck, Like, I just I get some of this.
I understand human nature is what it is. But the
fact is a lot of people have just dug in
on where they are on the WNBA, and they've dug
in on where they are the players. They've dug in
where they are on Angel Reese, They've dug in where
they are on Caitlin Clark. Everything has to be particularly
in this, and I mean in all ways. It has
(01:41):
to be black or white, right, Like the players didn't
vote for Caitlin because they're racist, you know, or people
only like Angel Reese because they're racist or whatever. You know,
you only watch the WNBA if you're some woke whatever.
Like everybody has to make this some big, overarching, sweeping
Like I got into a debate, an argument with somebody
(02:03):
at a bar a couple of weeks ago, and I
got into an argument.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Because I flat out told him I don't care about politics.
I don't like all the way to my court.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
And we were sitting there like well, no, you must
care about this, this, this, And I was like, nope,
ain't gonna change my Friday. Like I immediately I was
nihilist and an idiot all these other things. But like
for me, I fool, yeah, I know you fool Like
I don't just genuinely as a person, you know me
well enough to know this, I don't care. If we
didn't land on the moon, not gonna change my day.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I don't care how any Like I don't care about
this grandiose conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I don't care. I just I don't care.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
So for me, I just step back and I'm watching
the WNBA and I'm.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Saying, hey, if you love it, you love it.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
If you don't, you don't, And you got so many
options that it can be that like, if you want
to hunt down last night's absolute thrashing of the Las
Vegas asas by the Indiana Fever, you can watch that
and if you don't care about it, cool, don't care.
But what's happened is it's had We've reached this spot
where it's like politics, you have to have an opinion,
and if you don't have an opinion, nobody can understand
(03:06):
that so now Caitlin Clark finishing ninth in the voting
for guards, which I just explained why that happened, and
there's nuance in understanding to that.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Also, I should point out, having talked to a.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Couple of people that our voters, that some voters didn't
put her at one or two knowing that she was
already going to be a captain. Some voters didn't put
her at one or two because she has missed several
games this year. Some voters didn't put her at one
or two because there are a couple of players that
they believe right now this year alone are playing hotter.
I didn't talk to a single person that sat there
and said, well, I hate her because she's white. She's
(03:38):
taking all the attention from the WNBA. But like it
has to be that, Oh man, no, it's impossible for
so like I cannot imagine, as somebody that has a
Grammy vote, I cannot imagine coming in and saying, well,
you know what, when I vote, I'm going to be
told I only voted for somebody or against somebody because
I happen to be white and they happen to be black.
Like that's we've turned the WNBA into this massive racial oh.
(04:02):
And this is where people will say, no, the players
did it, did they? Like I just I think the
way people consume all of this information on the w
is so misguided by feelings that have come from feelings
that have come from feelings, and very little fact involved
in any of it. And that's the thing that drives
me crazy.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
If the amount of people that had strong WNBA opinions
were actually watching the WNBA, the ratings would be markedly
different across the board, and not just the Kaitlin Clark games.
You know what I'm saying, like the loudest people. And
I find this specifically with Angel Reese because Angel Reese
is polarizing, and frankly, I think that's good.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
Kaitlin Clark is polarizing. I think that's great.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Like that you want to be able to I was
listening to I can't remember what it was. I want
to say it was Lebatart's podcast the other day where
they were talking about the WNBA and one of the
people on the show was having the discussion about why
can't you just let me I rationally hate a player
(05:03):
in the WNBA the same way that I would as
a sports fan. In any other sport, Like why do
I need a reason to hate Angel Reese or Caitlin
Clark when I don't need a reason to hate Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Well, maybe that's a bad example Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Like who's who's the most congenial superstar in the NFL
right now?
Speaker 6 (05:25):
Like maybe I just want to irrationally hate Miles.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Garrett because I'm a Ravens fan or something like that,
And there's no reason. He's an excellent player, He's by
all accounts, a good teammate, a good person. But you
just hate the Browns that much that you want to
hate Miles Garrett. And be damned if anybody wants to
tell you why you should or should not hate Miles Garrett.
That's the freedom to be a fan. As we celebrate
(05:49):
Independence Day today and the things that independence can bring you,
you should be able to independently feel however you want
to about whatever your sports fandom is. But the place
where I think most people catch themselves up is that
they're not actually watching the product, and that FITZI I
think is a bigger problem sports wide, politics wide, whatever
the case may be. You have such strong loud opinions
(06:12):
on these subjects when in reality, you're not following the minutia,
you're not into the day to day, you don't have
the details of the facts to back up your argument
in those situations, and you just want to get into
a fight with somebody on Twitter because that's what you
chose to do with an hour on your Saturday afternoon
or something like that, which sounds absolutely terrible.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
By the way.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
I don't know why people subject themselves to that kind
of thing.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
But I do.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
I do think that in the WNBA this has been
this has been felt the most where there are so
many people who have opinions without actually watching the sport
that it kind of hijacks the dialogue around the league.
But it also I mean, you know, we have people
doing that in a bunch of different sports.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
People do that.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
That's that's as big a problem in the the NBA
as it is in the WNBA, right, Like, there are
so many people who have strong, loud opinions about professional
basketball who aren't watching, but they'll tell you why they're
not watching and this, that and the other, and in reality,
like what are you wasting so much your energy on
this for either care about the sport or don't and
if you don't, that's fine. You're not making a difference
(07:20):
in my life one way or the other. I still
want to watch basketball.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
I got.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I got like some blowback on social media here in
the last couple of years because Nashville has been talked
about regularly where I'm broadcasting fifties in Connecticut and the
rest of the crew making it happen from LA today,
Nashville has been talked about on a couple of different fronts.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
As far as sports.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Expansion, they were in They submitted a bid for WNBA expansion.
Ultimately they didn't get it on this initial wave. They
have been talked about as a potential landing spot for
an MLB franchise, whether that be expansion or whether you know,
a team like the White Sox of the Tampa Bay
Rays ends up relocating.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Long down the line.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
And I, you know, I was pretty comfortable getting in
front of a microphone on the local show and be like, yeah,
I'd rather have a WNBA team than a baseball team.
And people thought it was the most outrageous thing that
I've ever said, and I had to explain to them, no,
I'm not some kind of like diehard WNBA fan. Though
there's nothing wrong with that if you are simply what
(08:20):
am I more likely to attend and enjoy and enjoy
discussing basketball over baseball? For me, that's that's as cut
and dry as it has to be. It's got nothing
to do with the politics of the league or oh,
you're trying to be so wokeer, or the thing that
a lot of people will lob at you when you
talk about women's basketball is oh, she's not gonna hook
(08:41):
up with you, bro, or something like that.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
What are you caping up for this? That and the other?
This like overcompensation of.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Alpha male, you know, a toxic masculinity type of stuff
that they try and lob in your direction when in reality,
like I'm just talking sports preference. I like basketball more
than I like baseball. I enjoy going to live baseball games.
We've got a Triple A affiliate here in town, the
Nashville Sounds. They do a great job making the product
about just about everything but baseball. There is baseball going
(09:07):
on in the background, but like that's appealing to me.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
I just want to go and for the vibes. I'm
there to hang out.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
With some people, have a couple of cocktails, on a
summer afternoon taking some baseball, and if the baseball ends
up being exciting in the background, then that's great. I'll
gravitate towards that eventually. But like on a daily basis,
I'd rather talk about, watch about, watch discuss and analyze basketball.
And if it so happens to be a women's team
instead of a men's team, so be it. And I
(09:34):
was stunned by the amount of people just shaking a
fist at me when in reality those people aren't watching
one hundred and sixty two baseball games a year either.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
The amount of times I hear how terrible the NBA
is from somebody that hasn't watched the NBA in years,
and that's her answer, I don't watched it in years.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It sucks. Well, how do you know.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I mean, it's literally better than it's ever been. It's
to me, and you're right. I love going to minor
league games up here.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I do it a lot. He's buck Rising.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
I'm Jason Fitz by the way, and for two pros
and a cup of Joe. I just looked it up
and according to AI, the WNBA average viewership for a
regular season game is around one point three million people.
The men's college basketball average viewership for a regular.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Game is around one point four million people.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So what's stunning to me, because you're right, the NBA
and the w NBA are the two that when people
don't like it, oh, they got to yell about it.
They got to yell about it so much. And I
tell you what, Look, well, what we do, people.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Are gonna decide that they don't they don't like what
I do on radio.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I don't care the number of times I'll get some
tweet that's like you're the worst thing that's ever happened.
Like the first time I ever did ESPN nationally, I
got so many tweets of like, you're what's wrong with
the ESPN and.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
This whole like, and I love the fact that, you know,
coming from a.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Country's often said that, by the way, you're the problem
was for people like you, you specifically fits.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
I've often said this.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
He cracks me up, that people are like yet another woke.
Like when I first got to ESPN, I was a
right wing, Oh my god, conservative because the ESPN audience thought,
you know, my background coming from country music. And then
you work at ESPN for a couple of years and
they're like, oh, you know, another woke PC you know
what coming out, And it's like, man, I would challenge
(11:17):
anybody to listen to it.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
I don't care about politics. I just it's not wired
in me. I don't give it damn. So I look
at the W and I'm just like, hey, if you
love it, love it.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Like hockey guy is annoying because hockey guy comes up
and says, why don't you talk more hockey?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Hockey's great. Hockey's great, hockey, he's great. But here's the thing.
I love hockey. I do. But here's the thing. There's
nobody coming up the other.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Side saying hockey sucks. But the minute you come in.
If somebody walked into a party today at the fourth
of July and said, man, I really love the W
somebody in that room that's never watched the second of it,
it's gonna be like, oh no, that did they suck.
They're all a bunch of racists trying to hold down Caitlin,
like all of these stupid narratives, like you really think
that the players. By the way, if you talk to
(11:59):
any of the actually talk to the players, they'll tell
you they're enamored with Kitlin because they're about to go
into a collective bargaining agreement, like they're negotiating new rights.
The better the ratings are, the more money they're gonna make.
They all want to make more money. Do they say
stupid things sometimes yes? Do they say the wrong thing
sometimes yes? Do the games get physical at times?
Speaker 6 (12:19):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:19):
All of these things are true.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Does it mean at their core they're all racist and
are trying to hold down Kaitlyn Clark?
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Like, my god, it's just like, at what point?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
What point do we stop all of the stupid narratives
and just talk about what's actually in front of us?
Speaker 6 (12:32):
Oh? We don't. I mean, that's just not how this is.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
There's no putting there's no putting Pandora back in the box, buddy, Like,
that's that's that's what the dialogue is gonna be, you
know what I'm saying. And we we as they shake
our fists at people like us and be like, no,
you don't know what the hell you're talking about. We're
going to do the same thing with asking people to
just please God please have some degree of nuance and
and just intellectual discussion around this stuff, as opposed to
(12:58):
being so quick to dismiss or by the way, get like.
You can go to an extreme on the other side too.
You can be the most pro like over the top.
Why don't you watch the WNBA person in the world,
the most strident, the most obnoxious. And also those people
are probably not watching as much women's basketball as they
(13:20):
say they're watching, like, those people are part of the
problem too.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
So just as you know, I know you say that
you don't that you.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Are not interested in politics, and that's fine, there's nothing
wrong with that. You're probably a better person for it,
or at least more at peace with the day to day.
But just as there are extremes in both political parties,
there are extremes in terms of people who react and
have opinions on all of these things that make the
other side that you're not reacting to the people who
(13:49):
are trying to have a discussion with you and are
okay with you having whatever opinion that you hold. You're
reacting to the people on the other side who are
holding the extreme opinions, even if it's only that one
person going to generalize and make it about a broader
set of the audience and then project those feelings onto
the rest of the people who may, you know, may
I'll probably watch. To be completely honest, I may watch
(14:11):
three w NBA games a year as a basketball fan.
And that's just you know, if some if I'm scrolling
and I don't have something specifically that I have.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
To watch or that I need to watch, and.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
I'm looking for something to put on, ya, I'll put
on a WNBA game and I'll see what's going on
and I'll catch up as I need to, and i
won't be the most informed or anything like that, but
it's just something something entertainment.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
I'm just looking to be entertained. That's all. That's all
that this stuff is. At the end of the day.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
There's also the viral nature of everything that Caitlin Clark does,
which has been made a problem by the fact by
the way that the media uh and not to make
it an indictment of us as well, speaking on behalf
of media, but we do so hyper fixate on Caitlin
Clark in that league. So when a hard foul is
committed in a New York Liberty game or you know,
(15:00):
a Las Vegas Aces game, a game that does not
involve Caitlin Clark, well those things are less easy to
talk about or less popular to talk about than when
Caitlin Clark gets poked in the eye and shoved down.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, it doesn't make great radio to say this, but like,
if you love it, you love it. If you hate it,
you hate it, and it's all okay.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
And guess what.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
There's some really bad WNBA teams. There's some really bad
WNBA players.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
There's also some really.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Good WNBA teams and some really good WNBA players. Some
games are great, some games stink. And by the way,
expansion is amazing because it's more opportunity. But also there's
some really bad teams, and I'm concerned about what that
means for the overall level of really bad teams. That's
called the middle of the road on all things WNBA,
and that's something I don't think anybody's even tried to
do on radio for the last week for the hot
(15:44):
takes all right, for all of the conversation about the WNBA,
one sport that Buck and I both love and get
to cover lucky enough in our lives is college football.
And there was a pretty staggering announcement with college football
yesterday that could be a hint to the future landscape
of the sport. We'll break it down next these Buck
Rising Jason Fitz We're in on Fox Sports Radio for
Two Pros and a Cup of Joe.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
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
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 7 (16:17):
Hey, it's Ben, host of The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller.
Would mean a lot to have you join us on
our weekly auditory journey.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
You're asking, what in God's name is the Fifth Hour.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
I'll tell you it's a spin off of the Ben
Maler Show, a cult hit overnights on FSR.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
Why should you listen?
Speaker 7 (16:33):
Picture if you will a world will We chat with
captains of industry in media, sports and more every week
explore some amazing facts about human nature and more. Listen
to The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
There's no faster way to grab somebody's attention then to
mention the words super in sports, whether you're talking about
super teams, whether you're talking about super lee leagues. It
does seem to bring a little extra gravitas to any conversation.
Good morning, Happy fourth of July. It's two pros and
(17:09):
a cup of Joe. He's Jason Fitz. I'm Buck Rising,
filling in for the guys here this morning on Fox
Sports Radio. And there is a story about potentially a
college football power for conference trying to join a super
league that we're going to get into and break down
with you here in just a few moments. But as
(17:30):
we have been sitting here for about an hour and
a half at this point this morning, FITSI the Twitter
reaction has started to roll in, and I wonder.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
What the feedback are you.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Are you worried that the WNBA hater and detractor that
doesn't actually watch the WNBA has infiltrated your mentions and
is telling you how stupid we are.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
No, No, see, the problem is, and this is how
you know you had a good take on something when
you don't get anybody yelling at you one way or
the other, because it can't.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Really yell like it's like going that's a really good point.
So you know, we'll see what the WNBA haters say.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
But RB did ask me to confirm that you're thirty one,
he said, he's thirty three three, And he said, Buddy,
sounds forty. So I would just point out that, you know,
Buck is an old soul in a young body. I mean,
it is a little alarming when people like, if you
see Buck too, he doesn't really look like his voice.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I mean it is.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
There's a whole thing going on here, Buck, So just
confirm for the world that you are thirty one.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
I am thirty one. I will be thirty two in
sixteen days from now. Oh, sixteen day, sixteen days.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Are we having a part, Hey.
Speaker 6 (18:33):
I'm having several.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
I like to spread the birthday out across a couple
of different dates because it is what my birthday represents
to me, because that's of course what people want to
hear about on July fourth as we broadcast here on
Fox Sports Radio. And what my birthday represents to me
is my last weekend of freedom before NFL training camp.
Against It's always the last or the last week or
(18:56):
weekend before. In my case, as I'm here in now,
I feel Fitzy in Connecticut and the rest of the
crew megan it happened out of Los Angeles, I cover
the Tennessee Titans for a living. Tennessee Titans coverage involves
day to day training camp coverage, and so once that happens,
my nights, my weekends evaporate until basically the NFL combine
(19:17):
and the rest of the you know, which is enjoyable
because it means football is back. It's back in our lives.
It's the most important thing and it will. It makes
life a lot easier, especially in jobs like this when
you have actual football to talk about as opposed to
the most interesting storylines in training camp and things like that.
But yeah, so my days as a thirty one year
old are soon coming to an end. That person is correct,
(19:38):
but I will simply be thirty two.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Bri producer extraordinaire.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Did you just catch the Buck Rising Cities having multiple parties?
Did you catch that multiple parties?
Speaker 6 (19:48):
It?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I also have thirty one, So that really stresses me
out because I feel like I sound like I'm twelve
compared to Buck.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Okay, yeah, that is that.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
Is yeah, but that's years of smoking and drinking no Breeze.
Brie and I haven't met in person officially, but just
based on our conversations here working together these last couple
of weeks, I would take away bri being a bit
(20:15):
more wholesome than somebody like me who lives a lifestyle
of a degenerate here in Nashville, Tennessee, which is as
close to Vegas as anybody's comfortable getting without having to
actually go to Vegas.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Follow up question here, Mighty Mark also part of the team,
and we always hang out on the fellows. You can
check Buck and I also tomorrow morning for the Fellaws.
Mighty Mark, did you catch Buck Rising saying something about
multiple parties? I just want to make sure that we
all heard the same thing. Mighty Mark, did you hear
the same thing multiple parties?
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I think I was cue and up music. I didn't
hear the words, so.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Let me reiterate.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
I am having multiple birthday parties for myself because I.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Like to have.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Okay, now, just follow up question, Mighty Mark, have you
and Breed both if you could chime in on this,
have either of you gotten in to a single one
of these multiple parties that are.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
Happening from Buck?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah? No, no, well, of course not. He barely just
knows us.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Why would he invite us?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, I just I'm just confirming because I also haven't
had an invite to a single birthday.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
I've known him ten years and he doesn't have an
invite to one of these things either.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I mean, you're like here, we are just sitting here,
working together, and it's like, I'm gonna have a dozen.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Parties all over the North America.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
In multiple different cities. One in Nashville. I'm going to say,
diego for a week. We're gonna have a couple of
nights there throughout the course of the week. And none
of this is happening on my actual birthday, which will
be a celebration unto itself. I think my birthday falls
on a Sunday this year, which is not terribly convenient, but.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
You know, we'll make it work.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Here's the thing, though, I don't know you are all
over the place. This is not a justification, simply fact.
If you want to bring fact to an argument in
the way that we were shouting down WNBA detractors in
the last segment, you're in Connecticut, mud. If you happen
to end up in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday this coming Saturday,
July the twelfth, when we are going to dinner and
(22:03):
then taking in the UFC fight at Bridgestone Arena. You
are more than welcome to attend. If you happen to
be in San Diego for the four days that I'm
spending out in San Diego with a group of friends,
with multiple nights of celebration, then you are more than
welcome to attend. I will invite you to any of
these things. You are in a different part of the world.
I'm not coming to Connecticut, even though I love you, dearly.
There's not really much you could do to get me
(22:25):
to the state of Connecticut, not to not to, you know,
detract from one of our great states in this mighty
Union on this Independence Day.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
But Connecticut, I'm good. I'm also wow.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
If I said the word speedo, does that change any
of those opinions.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
For who you were?
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Me?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
You tell me now that we've made the.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Entire both matching banana hammocks.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
We're doing matching that's Can we make that, Bree, Can
we make that the name of the show tomorrow? Matching
banana hammocks? I don't, I don't think. Yeah, I'm gonna
try not to get us fired.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Don't make you look up what a banana hammick is.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Now, Hey, you know what this is, Hey, we're just
said it's all fine. That's probably the best.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
That's probably the nicest thing anybody would ever say if
Buck and I walked into a room in speedo, is
it's it's all fine.
Speaker 6 (23:18):
Well, you know what, that's just fine?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
College football? You mentioned? Is college football going to be fine? Buck?
Look at that segue. Look at that sure, I mean
that is a transition of the.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
So tickled with himself for being able to do that.
I mean, is college football going to be fine?
Speaker 6 (23:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
You you work with a lot of college football people
in your responsibilities for Yahoo. Obviously FITSI and SEC Country.
We talk a great deal of college football here. It is,
I would argue, it is the most important thing to
the local audience. Here is the tribal nature of college football.
Even though we do have a professional football team, we
have a professional hockey hockey team. We have an MLS
(23:54):
team that's won or has thirteen unbeaten results in a
row and getting ready to play the Philadelphia Union tomorrow, which.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Is going to be crazy. It's crazy what National sc
is doing.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
And yeah, and you've you've played that stadium, you have
had the or at least you have been a part
of the opening ceremonies for that stadium.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
In fact, was that like the first.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, I opened that stadium, played the national anthem for
the first ever game in that stadium.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
I have videos. It was like a proud stage.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Mama was taking videos of him Brion Mark on my
phone from the from the stands as he broadcasts the
violin rendition of the national anthem and the opening salvo
of Gioda's Park here in Nashville.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
But anyway, if you talk to college.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Football people and you ask them that specific question, is
it going to be fine? It depends on what your
your entryway into that conversation is. I guess is so,
what I'm trying to say is like the health of
the sport. Is college football on the field as healthy
as it's ever been? One could argue yes. I think
(24:57):
that the name, image and likeness situation. I think that
the transfer portal situation has allowed there to be has
allowed there to be more competitiveness top to bottom where
it's not just the top four teams that we're talking
about in any given year, and even in a twelve
team playoff format, right, you're still getting the cream rising
(25:18):
to the top. The best teams will ultimately end up
having the best results and will weed out the SMUs
and the Indianas of the world, respectfully to my alma
mater and all these different things.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
So like the health of the.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Sport, I think it's in a good spot where it's
not just one program, not just Nick Saban dominating things.
Even though Kirby Smart is recruiting at Georgia is at
as high of a level as Nick Saban was during
the height of his powers. Right Clemson getting back into
the mixed Ohio state winning the most recent recent national championship.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
I'm a Notre Dame fan.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
If you'd have told me that Notre Dame would be
playing for a national championship last year prior.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
To the season beginning, I want to spit.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
I want to laugh in your face and spit out
whatever my eighteen dollars coffee beverage was that morning. Like
that's just to see all the different things about the
on field product that still have that meaning. But the
business component of this can wear people down. It wears
down the diehards, and they'll still show up on Saturdays
and we'll all still make college football the second most
(26:22):
popular sport in America with the way that we consume it,
but to get there and all the different shifted, the
way that the ground constantly shifts under your feet is
being discussed in this sixty eight page agreement that was
obtained by the Athletic where the ACC, which has been
embattled or at least some of its member programs have
been embattled in seventeenth month litigation with Florida State and
(26:46):
cleansing at this point where the idea of a super
league being potentially floated, not necessarily likely to happen, but
just the opportunity for a super league to be created
if these member institutions were to be We're to be
able to trigger this clause in the agreement to leave
the ACC for a seventy five million dollars sum from
(27:08):
twenty thirty to twenty thirty one through twenty thirty six,
which is the final year of the contract.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
Those things do, I.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Think give college football fans and college football diehards just
a little bit of angst and anxiety, and you know,
just a little additional stress like why can't you just leave.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
The thing that we know works alone?
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Why can't you just continue to let us have our
college football traditions, our traditional conferences, rather than just strip
this thing down to the studs and trying to maximize
the profits on it the way that they've clearly done
similar to an NFL model.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Well, similar to an NFL model is an important part
of this. He's Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz. We're in
for two pros of and a cup of Joe on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
And I think part of the reason that the NFL
model needs to be part of the conversation is that's
where I believe we're headed.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Like again, this is where I don't emotionally get invested
in much of it anything, right, So I'm just sort
of a person that steps back and says, Okay, this
seems fairly inevitable. I love college football. It is my
favorite sport to care and to cover. I am honored
to say that I have a Bulittannikov Award vote. I
get to vote for the best wide receiver in college
football every year. My media accomplishments in college football are
(28:18):
the proudest things that I've done. I absolutely love the sport,
and if it changes, I'm okay with that. I think
we just have to look around at this ACC deal
and remind ourselves because to Buck's point, the way the
clause is written, essentially, if six teams choose to leave
the ACC to go join a super conference, those six
teams would have to pay seventy five million dollars each,
(28:39):
and they would be capable of doing that. Seventy five
million dollars is less than a buyout for Jimbo Fisher, like.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Dropping a bucket. It's like less.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
So you know, I'm looking around and I'm saying, that's
not an out clause, that's an out invitation, right, And
it leads me more and more to this inevitability of
a super conference. And I hear it when people say,
well that stinks. Here's the thing. If you like, I'm
right down the road from University Connecticut, if you're a
Yukon football fan, you're a Yukon football fan.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
But you know that Yukon football ain't playing for a.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
National championship, right, So at some point I think we're
gonna end up with a system where the Yukons of
the world can play whatever insert other team that maybe
the Indianas of the world that may or may not
even be part of this. You know, I think we're
going to have a situation where football separates itself from
everybody else, and then school is going to have the
opportunity to decide do they want to handle football like
(29:34):
like like the big boys in the Super Conference? Do
they want to be in a middle tier like Look,
University of Wisconsin. Whitewater has a very successful Division III program,
all right, so they want a lot of national championships
and people go to those games and they care about
those games. Do we nationally sit there and flock to
a UWW game, No we don't, right, But at some
(29:55):
point every school is going to have to decide do
they want to be whatever this second tieries or do
they want to be in the super Conference?
Speaker 4 (30:02):
And if you want to be in the.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Super Conference, it's going to require a huge investment in
salary caps and a collective bargaining agreement and all of
these different things.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
And that's complicated. But through it.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
All, if you are wired your entire life to be
a Georgia football fan, as long as you can still
be a Georgia football fan, you're going to be a
Georgia football fan. And I just that's the part of
this that everybody gets worked up and I hear college
football people tell me, oh, it's the death of the sport.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
No, it isn't. It's just the evolution of the sport.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
It's a change to the sport, and you know, frankly,
jarring change hurts everybody in every sport.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I remember growing up as a kid with.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
The Seattle Seahawks's arrival because the Seattle Seahawks were in
the AFC West, Like I rooted.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Against the Seattle Seahawks.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
They're now in the NFC West, and nobody sits there
and remembers that anymore, Like we don't remember how different
these conferences look like when it was a Big eight, right, right,
So I just think, as much as everybody's running around
like Kermit the Frog with their arms in their every
one of these changes in five years, as long as
you can watch your favorite football team play for some
(31:04):
version of a championship, you're going to keep watching it.
And the small audiences for the small schools will have
small audiences with small schools, and the big ones will
have big ones.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
College football is unique this way, though, because I mentioned
the tribal nature of SEC fandom and stuff like that,
and the way that traditions have have held stood the
test of time, essentially in this sport versus a lot
of other sports, where You're right that evolution has come
for a lot of different sports, be they the NFL,
(31:33):
the WNBA. Like we were talking about earlier, baseball has
had to go through changes, and that's some of the
most some of the most crimudgety, you know, reticent to
change fans that you can have who are probably happier
with the idea that they can go to a baseball
game and get out of there in under three hours at.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
This point in their life based on the right.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
It's just like these things, they will become more ingrained
as more time passes, to your point, but college football fandom,
they feel differently about it. And maybe it's just because
I'm in the southeast part of the country and I
feel this more viscerally from the audience that I work
with on a local basis as opposed to what we
do here nationally on Fox Sports Radio. But that is
(32:18):
something that that's the most common refrain that I get
that we have been able to hold up. We've been
able to continue to do this and do it our
way and still be America's second most popular sport after
the NFL. Why are these changes having to come?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Now?
Speaker 5 (32:33):
This is not the college football that I know. It's
not the college football that I love, And that's fine,
and those people, there are some people who will go
to their grave with that, and some people will eventually
adapt to those changes and just be able to watch
the best games, because that's I'm more like you, FITZI
than I am the diehard college football fan in this
particular arena, because I just want to watch the best
(32:55):
teams playing as many games as humanly possible, and if
a super league accomplishes that to where I can watch
Texas and Michigan on a regular basis, or Alabama and
Clemson on a regular basis, or whatever power for program
versus another power for program that you might not otherwise
get unless you went to a super team power conference
(33:16):
model or a super conference model.
Speaker 6 (33:19):
In this particular case, I just.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Don't see what the issue is because that's going to
be the best, the best entertainment value for my dollar,
whether I'm paying for YouTube TV, a cable subscription, any
one of these streaming services that now carry college football.
Speaker 6 (33:34):
I think Peacock now.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Has Notre Dame games on a regular basis, and things
like that. It's just that you're going to have You're
going to have a harder time with college football, die
hard in this particular thing. Evolution not lost on me
that you would have trouble with an evolution theory in
the South.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
But you know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Rising by the way, listen.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
They got me locally, They know what this is. That's
it's I love you all very very much, but you
understand my point. They're just going it's gonna take them
more time and you're gonna have to drag them kicking
and screaming, but.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
Eventually we're all going to move in the same direction.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, And everybody that's sitting here resisting it at this
point is spitting in the wind. That's the thing to me.
It's wasted energy. Every single legal challenge that has tried
to thwart the player's ability at college football to get
paid and to have name, image likeness, to have transfer capability,
every single legal challenge that has.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Been made has been lost.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
So if you're sitting here saying, oh my god, I
want the college football that I had of old, I
will remind you that it has been challenged in court,
not the court of public opinion. It has been challenged
by actual judges and it has been ripped apart. So
if your answer is it was great the way it
was and scholarships work and blah blah blah blah blah,
(34:55):
guess what the courts, the US judicial system decided you
all are wrong. So you just got to hear it,
acknowledge it, and move on from it. And that's the
hardest thing for people to do. So what's it mean
for the future. What's it gonna look like? We'll keep
breaking it down. He's Buck Rising, I'm Jason Fitz. We
are hanging out with you on a glorious fourth of
July edition of Two Pros.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
And a Cup of Joe on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
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 (35:27):
With the Athletic getting their hands on documents at show.
It's much easier than most of us anticipated for several
of their main schools to be able to move out
of the ACC and get to a super conference. In
college football, the question is what's it look like? He's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with you on
two Pros and a Cup of Joe on a fourth
(35:48):
of July edition, and Buck, we were just talking about this.
Here's the hard part. I genuinely do feel for tradition,
and I feel for fandom, and I I get to
do what I do every day because of my fandom
for the Raiders, right, and that is like, that's ingrained
in my entire life. So I understand what it's like
(36:09):
to be a massive super fan like I am. I'm
a grown ass man whose entire week changes based on
how the Raiders play. And I know how stupid that is,
and I can't change it. I wish I could, Like
it's I understand the adrenaline, the rush. I understand that,
you know, Sundays are like a roller coaster, usually with
a really bad ending for me. I get the passion,
and I get that there are people out there that
(36:29):
are passionate about Arizona State, and there's people that are
passionate about you know, BYU, and passionate about random schools
that occasionally get everybody's attention, but year in and year
out may not be in the same boat as the
Georgia's and the Michigan's and the Ohio States and the
Alabamas and I but I'm also just this incredible logic
(36:51):
based realist and everything I do. So I think there's
this inevitable split coming in college football where a super
conference is going to represent most of the teams and
then everybody else. You're just gonna have to make a decision,
like you're just gonna decide do you want to play
for essentially the nit of college football. Like there is
a Division III in college football. You know there are
other divisions in college football that still play. I think
(37:14):
we're gonna end up with Division I college football having
a split. You're just gonna have everybody else and you're
gonna have a super conference.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
And I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
People are gonna watch everybody else, but super fans will.
And then schools are gonna have to find out if
there's enough super fans to actually support it, and if
there isn't, it will go away. And that's just what happens.
Like in the world, that's just what happens. If not
enough people want.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
To watch it, it goes away.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
And that's the kind of thing that member institutions of
whatever power conference they're currently aligned with, or the have
nots who are kind of tangentially. I don't want to
say grifting. It sounds a bit a bit harsh, but
I'll use a local example.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
Okay, Vanderbilt and the SECNDY always Mandy, Vandy and Vandy.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
You know, got a little momentum Diego Pavia out here
throwing shade at other SEC programs. He's the quarterback, he's
a transfer. Last year's transfer. He upset Alabama, one of
the most ridiculous college football results I've ever seen. And
you do lose some of that specialness when one of
these have nots finally, finally, finally gets one over on
the halves. But in reality, for the history of Vanderbilt football,
(38:23):
it has been grifting off the SEC.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
It has just been along for the ride.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
It benefits hugely from the amount of revenue sharing that
that conference distributes. They don't spend the money, or at
least they haven't reinvested the money historically back into those
athletic programs because there's not that level of investment from
alumni or fans.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
That would require you to do just that.
Speaker 5 (38:45):
They can continue to just produce a product, win national
championships in baseball, for example, and the basketball program will
have a moment. The football program may have a moment
or two. Seven wins at Vanderbilt last season is a
celebrat it's huge success, but in reality, Van he's been
getting away with it for a long time in the
(39:07):
SEC as a member of the SEC. So if Vanderbilt
was eventually to get relegated and super conferences were to
form and they started playing in a more reasonable level
of competition for a more appropriate audience based on who
actually seeks out Vanderbilt football games, then to your point,
(39:27):
I think that's just a natural evolution of the sport
where the economics are simply catching up to these universities
in these programs who have been attached to larger conferences
than they probably should be.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I mean, there's also a part of me, and this
is where everybody will comments on it, always say yeah,
but think about all the other athletes that are you
gonna lose opportunity because that school lost football And there's
something that no people don't care, like.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Look, I am not the people care, but that there
is something that that there will be a.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Result, there will be I actually spoke directly to the
athletic directors and the Board of Directors at Michigan State
several years ago because they were eliminating swimming and diving
and the way they went about it, I think was
shady and what it meant for Title nine was shady.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
I think that they did a lot of things, but
nobody cared. I tried.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
I even went to ESPN reporters and tried to get
people to care about the elimination of swimming and diving,
and it was laughed at because.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
At the end of the day, nobody really cares.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
There are a handful of families that are impacted, but
this is that virtue signaling that you talk about all
the time.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Oh, looks like we might have lost FITZI there for
a second with his thoughts on the situation, So we
will recoup here on Fox Sports Radio, It's two pros
and a Cup of Joe on this July fourth weekend,
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Brady Quinn
LaVar Arrington
Jonas Knox
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