February 1, 2021 • 45 mins
On the premiere episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast, Colin explains why he's partnering with FanDuel to launch The Volume podcast network (0:00) and is joined by Springhill Company CEO Maverick Carter (4:00). They revisit the meeting in Colin's kitchen that led to launching The Volume, how Maverick's grandmother's hustle influenced his entrepreneur mentality (8:00), how he's evolved from the adversity of The Decision (20:00), a behind the scenes peek at how LeBron was able to thrive in The NBA Bubble (27:00), his take on the recent explosion of sports gaming (31:00), and the similarities between LeBron and Tom Brady (39:00). Subscribe Follow Colin and The Volume for the latest content and updates!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. The Colin Coward Podcast is brought to you
by Fan Duel. It's never been easier to play fantasy
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Fan Duel more ways to win. Hi everybody, it's Colin
(00:27):
Coward and welcome to the ball. This is our first
official podcast. So let me lay it out. Ten months ago,
we have a pandemic. I come home at noon, there's
no games, there's nothing to do. Couldn't go to restaurants
in California, couldn't do anything. And so I just thought
(00:48):
to myself. My radio show was sold out, and I thought,
I need a new project. I'm off at noon. I
don't know any one of these people that play tennis
all the time, and so I put this thing together.
It took nine and a half months, and it's been
the hardest thing I've ever done. It is the most
rewarding thing I've ever done. When Bloomberg came out, I'm
(01:13):
doing this on Sunday with that article, you know, I
got emotional. It was my wife said, it's like it's
like having a kid. Like nine months ago. It starts
with a zoom meeting, and you've gone the past nine
months not sleeping much, up every hour. But I think
what I love about it, and what I'm so fired
up about, is that we're going to do this our way.
(01:38):
I think sometimes in life there are these moments, and
there's these little bursts, and you've got to take advantage
of them. And the pandemic actually started all this. It
was a sense of Okay, is this gonna be my life?
I do three hours, it's easy. I'm home at noon.
I don't get a bit of a ten. There's got
(01:59):
to be another creative outlet where I can say what
I want to say, do what I want to do,
talk about what I want to talk about, without worrying
about Oh do I have this time restraint. Oh I've
got to get out at this time for this break.
(02:20):
Oh I've got to talk about this subject. I don't
want to do that in the second half of my day.
I want to take shots. I want to talk about
stuff I want to talk about. It will overwhelmingly be sports,
but it'll be interviews with interesting people on interesting subjects.
This has been the hardest nine months of my life.
A lot of anxiety, a lot of negotiating, But I
(02:43):
think I have an incredible salesforce, an amazing corporate sponsor
and fan duel, and the team we put together, I
pinch myself is just unbelievable. The quality of people we
have on this editors on down, everybody, The quality is shocking.
I've told that to the people that I talked to
(03:05):
on a daily basis and communicate with. Do we understand
how lucky I understand how lucky I am to be
working with the people I'm working with. And this is
day one and it's going to be an incredible ride,
and I hope you're part of it. So with that,
I'm excited to welcome in as the inaugural guest and
my new podcast network, The Volume. Maverick Carter, a guy
(03:27):
I've known for a while and a guy love CEO
of Springhill Company, one of the most successful businessmen in
sports and entertainment. His life story is amazing. He's crushed
in the digital space, with uninterrupted crushing in television, The Shop,
the Wall, Space, Jam Two's coming out. There are those
who speculate he will be running for political office. So
(03:49):
the only question, Maverick, is the Volume gonna make it.
I believe the volume is absolutely gonna make it. Thank
you for having me as your first guest. That's unbelieving.
I can't believe I'm the inaugural guest out of all
the big names. I watched your show every day, all
(04:10):
the big names who come on you talk to. I
don't know how the hell you picked me as your
first guests, but being that you picked me as your
first guest is clear that the volume is making very
smart decisions. So I believe it's gonna make it. So
let's go and talk about the meeting we had in
the kitchen. So you called me up. You said you
were going to be in the neighborhood. I said, okay,
(04:31):
come on over, I'll make you lunch. Now, was that
in June or July? About? Well, first of you said
come on over, I'll make you lunch. I didn't know
you'd really make me lunch for those the audience out
there calm those three hours a day on TV all
this other stuff. But he also can't cook very well.
You made me a nice salmon, spinach and mushrooms. It
was delicious. I was on a bike ride, ride my
(04:52):
bike to your neighborhood. That was in July. Yeah, and
so I had laid out my vision to you, and
I sat there and basically peppered you for about an
hour and a half with questions. And you know, one
of the things that I think is interesting for our
audience is after I talked to you, I talked to
(05:16):
several friends and I said, you know, he Maverick gave
me a lot of clarity on this. When you go back.
Obviously you play high school basketball with Lebron, you know
Lebron all that stuff. What was your kitchen moment? You
had been a corporate guy, you'd been at Nike, and
then you what was your kitchen moment when you decided, listen,
(05:36):
I'm successful. I never thought I'd worked at Nike. I'm
doing well. I want to run my own thing. That's
a great question. And it's funny you say that because yours.
We were in your kitchen and you were talking me
through it, and I, you know, listening to you. It
really got my juices flowing because I love to hear
(05:57):
entrepreneurs and people that are going to go for it
that I'm going to take a swing, and mine literally
was also in the kitchen. It happened in my mother's kitchen.
I was working at Nike, but I went back to
Cleveland for the summer because I lived in Oregon. So
I was back in Cleveland and Lebron came over. He says,
I want to call me. He says, you and town.
I said he. He says, I want to come meet you.
(06:17):
I said, I'm going to see my mom, gonna have lunch.
Come over there about three thirty we'll be done for lunch.
And we set in the kitchen and he started talking
to me about what he believed he could become as
a player, and he wanted what he did off the
floor to match that, and he thought the agent he
had at the time was not going to be able
to help him achieve that. And he thought that I
(06:40):
had groomed myself in the education I got at Nike,
I was the one to help him, and at that moment,
to your point backing up before that, working at Nike
was like a dream to me. I got to be
at what I considered the greatest brand in the world.
I was in your home part of the country, the
Great Northwest, where I had I learned to love. I
(07:03):
went to Nike every day for those and they who
have never been a Nike I called Nike Disney World
for athletes. When you go to Nike's campus, an indoor
track and outdoor track, there's football fields, baseball field there,
and there's people all playing sports. You go to lunch,
there's three basketball games going on. And I loved it.
And I got to make money doing that, working around athletes.
(07:25):
I felt like that's where I wanted to be the
rest of my life. But when Lebron said that to me,
I was like, I gotta go for this. I gotta
give this a shot. And when I look at the
risk versus the reward, I gotta take this chance because
I believe I'm skilled enough to always if I fucked
this up or screw this up, excuse me, I can
always go back and get another job. By the way,
(07:47):
you can drop f bombs. That's the great thing about this.
That's right. We're not on box. That's right. I started
this just so I could drop F bombs. That was
a whole week. But it's interesting because I grew up
dad an autometrist, mom in the school system. Tell people
where you grew up. You had a very important grandmaf
(08:08):
I recall who gave you great advice. Give people a
little your background. This was not your classic American Wharton
pen parents had done this. One of the reasons I
think I'm attracted to you is because you're curious. You
have that chip on your shoulder. But I think both
you and I we talked about this when we had lunch.
(08:28):
It's so much more satisfying when you've got to do
it on your own. It really is like, you know, Maverick,
if you were a trust fund kid, you wouldn't know
what you wouldn't know. But there's a sense of confidence
you have built because you keep succeeding on these projects.
It has to be fulfilling. But let's go back to
(08:49):
your family. Give me somebody that was a seminal importance,
your grandma, for instance. My upbringing, I was raised by
my mom my dad. They operated when I was about five,
and my dad's always been in my life today as
one of my best friends. My mom was a social worker,
worked twenty eight years for the county that we grew
up in. And my dad was born with a defect
(09:12):
in his hard to hold his heart and dropped out
of school in the eighth grade. Never worked a job
because physical labor no one would hire him because he
had open heart surgery twice before he was twenty years old,
the third time when he was fifty four, and he
wasn't educated. But my dad's an ambitious guy who figures
everything out, and he wasn't going to let that stop him.
(09:33):
So he resorted his street life and ended up in
the streets, ended up selling drugs. Went away at the
Federal pens entry when I was eight. But my mom
always and my dad were opposites. My mom is a
steady you know, went to work, took her seven years,
but graduated college. My dad is ambitious, not waiting around,
(09:55):
going to figure it out. If it means taking a
chance to go to jail, he will. And his mom
raised him and his brothers. There were seven of them.
She had seven kids in nine years, so therefore I
had a lot of first cousins at the same age,
and my mom and my aunt's and my uncle's they
would all drop their kids at my grandmother's. I was
the youngest because my dad's the youngest, and my grandmother's
(10:16):
house was what we call in our neighborhood and after hours,
so on Friday and Saturday night, when the bars closed,
you could still go to Miss Carter's and get a drink.
And she ran in her basement. It started about Friday
at six o'clock. She had a craps table, a poker table,
and a pity pat table, and she cut the game.
She was a house. She took a rake, and she
(10:38):
really taught me a She taught me curiosity. She taught
me all my communication skills, how to communicate. You go
down in her basement column on a Friday night, there'd
be the mailman, the milkman, a pimp drug that there was.
Everybody from the neighborhood came. Because gambling is one of
those things as it brings all walk of life together,
(11:01):
and she had to communicate with all of them. She
sold them liquor. She gave him food for free, as
she told me, if the players get hungry, you never
want them to have to leave to get food, because
you want to keep him there playing. And she took
a raak on the game, and she really taught me
how to communicate, and she taught me how to take
a chance. And her famous line was if you got
to haunt, you better bunch. And that's how I felt
(11:21):
about business. I obviously had a big hunch. I had
Lebron James standing there in front of me, going help
me figure this out. I knew he was committed to
being a great player. I knew how smart he was,
so I had a hunch. So my big bet was
lead Nike and take this chance. And I decided to
do it based on everything that my grandmother had taught
me growing up. And that was my first job was
(11:44):
sweeping up players would be done playing at about six
in the morning, sometimes five. She'd wake me up. I'd
always fall asleep, so give me the broom does planing.
I'd go around sweeping up the cigarette butts. And the
good news is every now and again five or ten
bucks laying on the floor. And that was the best
part of the That was the best part of the job.
And while I was down there, if I see someone
(12:05):
drop money, I said, don't worry about the sweeper. Real
good it later. It's so good. When I look at
your life, I've You're one of a half dozen people
I've asked about this project, and they all said, Colin,
you come from a non traditional family. That will be
(12:26):
an advantage. You'll be able to pivot very easily. You're
not a rigid personality. When I hear you, I think, oh,
that's your advantage too. You pivot quickly because your life
wasn't go to college, grandfather had done it. Take me
to one of your companies that you had to make
a major pivot, and maybe people around you struggle like Fellas.
(12:50):
Trust me on this, because, as you know business Amazon
started selling what books, Netflix was selling DVDs. You never
end up being the company that starts. Give me an
example for our audience and just for me on a
pimp that you've had to make in the last ten years. Yeah,
when I was as you know, I left Nike, I
(13:11):
went back to Cleveland, partner with Lebron, was going to
build this big sports management company. And then in two
thousan eleven sold half of that company the Fenway Sports Group,
who have been fantastic partners since then, and Tom Warner,
their chairman, sits on our board. The spring Hild company
now went to Lebron decided to go to Miami's a
(13:31):
big change went there. And then in two thousand and
twelve I said to Lebron, you know, I think we
have an opportunity to really take our life and what
we've been through and put it into a content a shove.
So we took this show out. We sold the show,
not the way the TV business works. We got very lucky.
(13:56):
Chris Albreckle was running Starts at the time at Breakfast, says,
I'm envent as we made this show from for seasons.
And then I was talking to a couple other people
really feeling my way around because I felt like in
twenty fourteen we should go hard at the content space
because there was no one like us, meaning like Lebron,
or that come from the place that we do, that
(14:16):
had that wanted to tell these authentic stories in a
way that truly empowered athletes, creators talent to tell their story.
And Lebron decides to go back to Cleveland, and I said,
I ain't going back to Cleveland this time. I'm going
to LA to build what is now the spring Hill Company.
And at first it was just going to be I
(14:36):
want to do script a TV and along the way
a big pivot was I said we should launch under
what became what is uninterrupted, which is everybody in Hollywood
is focused on writers, actors, directors, which we do a
lot of that too, but no one would have built
a place that was truly allowing athletes to tell their story.
(14:59):
No one had truly built that place, and not in
a way that any way got in front of journalism
or was journalism. We never wanted to be journalism or
anything of the story. We just wanted to build a
place where athletes like writers could walk in and go, hey,
I have this idea that and we go those three
aren't good, but that one. Let's develop them together. And
(15:20):
at first we got criticism and people thought we were
a little crazy, but I was like, this is the
future of empowerment, this is the future of storytelling. And
now as we sit here today, we have you know,
streamers out of the wazoo and podcasts we have become
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Maverick Carter joining us. You know it's interesting people of
young broadcasters time to time. You know, I'll speak to
(16:46):
a class or something and they always ask for advice,
and I always say, well, I don't want to give
advice because my life is different than yours, and I
could send you off the interstate to an off ramp
and get you lost. I'll give you an opinion, have
thick skin. Michael Jordan gets criticized, Lebron gets criticized. Brady
to this day it is a system quarterback and it's like,
(17:10):
how early in your life it affected me as a broadcaster.
Now I think it's funny. Maybe it's the success, the
money confidence. Now I think criticism is kind of funny,
like I'm here for it. But was there a time
early the decision when it didn't wreck you? But just
as you're building this empire and there's critics that every turn,
(17:32):
I mean, we're there. Have you evolved in a sense
of you're a little bit like an athlete? Now you
actually were a pretty good athlete, but in that hey man,
even if you hit home runs, there's naysayers and critics.
Did it bother you early? Yeah? It did? Call it
really it bothered me at first. It bothered me and
(17:52):
I you know, because it's a little bit. Criticism is
a bit like fear. We all have fear. I'm sure
launching the volume, you have the sense of fear. And
people don't always understand that because they go, well, you're Colin,
You've got to show you're richer. But but it isn't
about when you're ambitious like you are, like I am.
It's the fear of, not a failure of like no
(18:15):
matter how much money you have or what you succeed.
Every day you're going to wake up and prove yourself again.
As I always say, if you look at if you
look at life the way it works, and my career
has definitely been like this. At every success. All I
always tell my team, all success does is it gives
you an opportunity to succeed on a bigger platform. So
(18:37):
you succeed in high school, Well, now let's see what
you can do in the SEC. Oh you're great in
the SEC. Well can you do it in the NFL?
So at every level of success, Brady, you won six
Super Bowls, but nobody gives a shit. You're on TV tomorrow,
Kenny win set up, you know what I mean? Like,
that's just the way life is. It's just that Belichick's
(18:57):
won everything, but Kenny win without Brady. So in life,
it's not about how much money you have. This it's
this fear of like I have to accomplish something. And
what I realized is through that is that I'm actually
addicted to accomplishment. I'm not addicted to money, I'm not
addicted to anything. I'm addicted to accomplishing things, to seeing
(19:17):
things get checked off. Like I want to complete this. Oh,
I checked the box. I'm addicted to checking the box,
so you get so so the criticism starts to if
you let it get too heavy, it starts to feel
like something in the way of me checking my box.
And it used to it used to get me, like
I used to be a bit afraid of it, until
(19:39):
I learned how to put it behind me and instead
of it being a wall, it actually became rocket fuel
and really push me. And I think to your point,
the pinnacle, obviously most people know, for me was the decision,
and most it was like I mean, I thought I
was over. It wasn't even about how I felt personally.
I felt a that I really ruined something for my
(20:01):
best friend and my business partner. And be holy shit,
I'm not this is going to derail me from checking
a lot of boxes that I planned on checking in
my life of accomplishing things. So yeah, it used to
it used to be really stand in my way, And
now I've learned to put it behind me and kind
of let it be my fuel that pushes me. You know,
we always talk Maverick about you know, I'm a big
(20:26):
believer adapting is free. Most great things you'll pay for it.
It's free to adapt. And what adapting does. If you're
an old football coach like Andy Reid and you adapt,
it makes you younger. And if you're younger like my
son and you're into attack, he's fourteen, it makes him
(20:47):
feel older. So adapting in life lets you be the
age you really want to be. It's crazy, and we
talk about that all the time. But then I think
to myself, people thought the Wildcat was going to be
big in the NFL and in the end in the
and you just need a guy who can make throws
down the field to him day. Is there a danger
(21:10):
Maverick in always looking to evolve and adapt and then
moving away from core principles. Have you thought about that?
That always works timeless principles. You have to be open
to your point, You have to be open to evolution
and adapting, and you can't get stuck and rigid in
(21:32):
your ways or in your spot. But you do have to,
you know, to your point. Andy Reid, it seems like
he added, I mean, he Belichick is obviously, I think,
the greatest coach I've ever seen, but Andy Reid is
I mean, it almost seems like he adapts and evolves
week to week. I can remember watching I remember watching
(21:53):
the Eagles. I was at the other place about twelve
years ago, and I remember going on the air stand
and he reads the first coach I've ever seen, third
and three is a passing down, and I remember that.
I also remember watching Belichick and saying Belichick took the
middle of the field back. Nobody threw the tight ends
unless you had like Kellen Winslow. And then Belichick said, no,
(22:16):
no, no no, no, We're going to dominate the middle of
the field. We don't really care about the perimeter. And
it took about three years to the league to figure
it out. But my point on Andy Reid is like
I always go back to the one certainty is workout.
We can keep adapting and evolving. You don't put the
time in, none of it matters. If I don't do
(22:37):
two and a half hours of prep, it's a shitty show.
Like That's the thing I always stayed too, Like I
have a core belief. I get up early. I'm a
moderate drinker, I don't smoke, I exercise daily, but it's
always work. And when young people come up, what I'm like, dude,
just put the time in. Don't just mailed in what's
(22:57):
your average what's the work like in your average day?
My day is and your to your point, I'm always
adapting and evolving. But the thing I is in my
core I stay true to or two things is curiosity
and communication. So um, through all the ups and downs
of our company, we got very you know, lucky. Last
(23:19):
uh in March, I closed the deal to raise one
hundred and twenty million dollars in my company. Um, and
it was a lot of ups and downs, and I
went all over the world beating with investors. And the
main thing is that ability to communicate and to and
and in order to communicate, See what people It's funny
when people watch your show. You talk on the air
(23:41):
hours a day. You know, obviously you have guests enjoy
is in and out with you, But to sit there
for hours of the day and frankly talk to yourself.
I always say, Colin's got to be a little but anyway,
but anyway, But but what people don't know is you're
a very intent listener. Even your facial expression changes. So
I say that the key to communication is actually listening.
(24:03):
And I noticed what most people do. I say this
to CNNA my girlfriend all the time. I try and
help her be a better listener. I said, I see it.
I can see when people are talking to you, you're
not actually listening to them. You're actually contemplating your response,
so you're not even hearing what they're saying. So I
stick to truly communicating with people, my team, the people
(24:24):
I work with. And then I'm extremely curious. So my
day is always get up. I exercise daily. I do
something yesterday, I took a bike ride. Today, I did yoga,
play a little pickleball. I always do something to move
and get the blood flowing every morning. Then I get up,
I look at my I'm religious about looking at my
(24:46):
account or NonStop. Alexa, who works with me, knows, I
look at my calendar. I'm sessing my calendar because of
what you said. I want to be efficient. I want
to use my time wisely, and I have a family.
I want to be a I'm I'm a social guy,
and I get a lot out of being social, meaning
I learn a lot out of being social. I get
business ideas out of being social. I get television show
(25:08):
ideas out of being social. So I always try and
find a part of the day to be social with
Ciana and of friends or someone, and then I'm in
the bed pretty early and backed up and do it
all over again. But to your point, I stick my
core principles of communication. In curiosity, it's interesting, I thought,
I thought maybe Lebron. Well, I don't think maybe. I
(25:30):
thought Lebron's greatest moment was the bubble. The bubble was
very difficult for married NBA players with kids. If you
were young, hell, it was like the greatest a youth
tournament of all time. You went to great hotels, you
got it absolutely right, Absolutely Lebron wanted. He was on
the breaking point a couple of times. And so I
(25:51):
think what separates Lebron. I've said this before. There's a
lot of great players physically, Lebron is a rock emotionally.
And during the bubble I saw a lot of married
players and a lot of older players erode. They acknowledge,
they struggled with it. And yet the Lakers went into
(26:15):
the bubble, weren't right for about eight games at all,
and then something clicked and without I don't want to
get into lebron space or his privacy, but was there
a moment or an epiphany because from about game ten on.
They disposed of people. I mean, they beat people that
(26:35):
were red hot, like Denver five games, five games, five games.
I think we're forgetting they Denver was hot, Miami was hot,
Portland was hot, Houston was hot. These were five game series.
These weren't like the Warriors Dynasty was going six and seven.
These were five gamers. There had to be a moment
in the bubble where because well, I thought the Lakers
(26:59):
were starting to come apart a little bit. Could you
take me to that moment because it did something. I
don't know the exact moment. I know he had a
couple of different points where he was a little bit
like man because to your point, you know, Lebron's thirty five,
he's accomplished a lot, got three kids, he's missing growing up,
(27:19):
his wife, his normal life. He's got a great life,
and he's now he's stuck in Orlando, you know, in
a in a hotel, just and there were a couple
of moments that I talked to him, I know, I'm
sure his wife spoke to her many more times where
he was a little bit like I mean, how about
this column. He's still today, it's ninety one days. He
(27:39):
still says, you spend ninety one days in Orlando. He knows,
he knows the exact amount of nights he was there.
So I think I think the moment post the Milwaukee
and Orlando game when they set out post that moment,
I think it clicked to him, this is I just
I'm here. Everything else stopped the complaining A little it
(28:03):
post that game for him to me because that game,
the whole season was on the brink. A lot of that,
the whole thing. The Lakers were like, maybe we should
be done. The Clippers were a lot. There's a lot
of talk, and I think past that moment, he just
you know what, I'm here, I'm doing it, I'm playing.
It's over now. I didn't hear him complain one more
(28:23):
day after that. It looked like it. I think it
translated to great bat Yeah, yeah, and he has an ability.
Lebron has two things. I mean, amongst a lot of things,
but two things to me. I've all the great people
I've met in great minds. I've meant, I've met some
of this. I've been fortunate in my life for a
(28:44):
lot of things. But one of my favorite things that
the diverse and smart people I've met. I mean, the
list goes on and on and on, and Lebron two
things that he can do that are like other worldly.
He can learn and apply faster than anyone I've ever seen.
I always tell people I'm a fast learner. I can
(29:07):
learn toe to toe with Lebron. If you sat down,
callin with Lebron, I am taught of something about broadcasting.
It is I can learn and retain it as fast
as he can. I can't apply it. You could teach
him something about broadcasting on Monday night, and on Tuesday
he could sit in for you and he just do it.
It's just like I need reps, I need practice, I
(29:29):
need to rehearse it I need and then I got it.
But give me he can. He always tell people he
can watch a film himself, do something wrong in a
moment and then without ever practicing, Bill McCourt in that
same moment the next time and auto corrected. I'm like,
that makes no sense, zero sense. And then the second
thing is he is the greatest level of discipline I've
(29:51):
ever seen. I mean, he can just you know, one
summer he was like, I forgot what the hell the
paleo diet. He's like I'm going on paleo diet and
he lost twenty pounds. Remember that he came back and
he came back then. Whether it was good or not
is not my point. I thought he needed to be
have but whatever. But just one summer, he just like,
(30:12):
no more carbs, no more of this, no more of that.
Only drink this kind of tequila and that was it.
And I was like, yeah, I could say that, and
I maybe could make it about eight days. This guy
did it for like seventy five days. I mean we
were on a boat for a week where in Italy
eating amazing food. He's like, didn't he didn't touch the pasta,
didn't touch the bread. I'm like, are you crazy? But
(30:35):
his discipline and his ability to learn and apply, and
I think in the bubble that discipline of his showed
up at a very high level. Yeah, he is so
functional as a person. Um, you know, it's it's interesting.
I think about all the businesses my network. We were
(30:57):
able to get fan Duel as a partner. Congrats, Yeah,
and they've been Um, it's a great contract and we're
going to deliver for him. What do you make of
the sports gaming industry that is completely exploding? Um, there's
brick and mortars. There's your MGMs. You know, there's your Caesars. Uh,
(31:21):
there's your fan duels. What do you make of it?
Where does it go? It's rolling out state to state.
I just saw Michigan. Now, what do you make of it?
Do you worry about it? Does it concern you? Are
we are we getting ahead of ourselves? What do you
make of it? It does not worry me at all.
I think you know, you're never too late. But I
(31:42):
think we should have had this. It should have been
open in the country a long time ago. And I
can watch I watch EPL. It's been open to EPL forever. Yeah,
you can bet, you can bet that you can be
better in the stand. Yes, I think it drives fan interests, engagement.
I also think it's fun. You can gamify it even more,
(32:06):
I think and I do not think it's bad. I
don't even see where any harm of it can come.
The players, you know, in the sports that are the
most bet on, NFL basketball, the players make too much
money for you to like. And there's no bribing. This
isn't nineteen fifty five anymore. You know you're not bribing
(32:27):
a guy making fifty million dollars to play any So
and then when you look at you know, states are
regulating it. Still regulation is fine, they shouldn't overregulate it.
But when you look at the world now, you know,
you know twelve year old A friend of mine was
telling me just the other day, his twelve year old
son in law was telling him how one of his
(32:47):
friends made one hundred bucks trading stocks on robin Hood.
So what the hell are we talking about let people
bet sports? I mean, what do we I mean, you
know you can download e trade on your phone or
robin Hood and be trading stocks tonight. So what So
I think sports betting is great. I love the investments
going in it. I think for you and I were
in the sports and entertainment world, it drives more investment.
(33:10):
More people who couldn't invest in sports and entertainment are
coming in from brick and mortars like MGM, from FanDuel
sponsoring your thing. We do. We've done business with DraftKings.
So I think it's good for the sports and entertainment world. Yeah.
I mean, to me, it's another visceral connection. It makes
people love sports more, you stick around for games longer.
There's TV rating data which indicates people stick around a
(33:33):
bad game exactly exactly, you've got more people. You know,
My buddy I call him up sometimes, I'm like, did
you see that play? It would be like the LSU
Alabama game all. He's like, no, I'm watching Tulsa and
you know in Houston play. I'm like, oh, yeah, you
must get a lot of action. Yeah. No, I've had buddies.
(33:54):
I've had buddies say it's a Tuesday night and they're
watching the Memphis Grizzlies and I'm like, you want to
go out? And They're like, give me fifteen minutes. And
I'm like it's a twenty eight point blowout and they're like, dude,
I got blank blank blank on it. And I'm like, oh,
it's the new reality is there? Um? We know who
the stars are in sports, but it's Hey, you're a
guy that is always looking for talent. You're looking for
(34:16):
production talent, you're looking for executive talent. Is there an
athlete out there right now that you think he's undervalued?
He he's better. I thought that about Damien a little
bit about five years ago. Now the market's caught up.
It's corrected about five years ago because we both spent
so much time in Portland. I thought the people understand
(34:38):
nobody's watching these Blazer games at night. Does everybody get
he may be the best closure in the NBA for
a size in the history of the league. There are
arguments to be made he's better than Steph because he's
a better athlete. Is there an undervalued NBA player? An
undervalued athlete you look at and think he's going to
be worth one hundred fifty two hundred and fifty million
here soon. I think that's a great question. I think
(35:04):
I always look at it from two from two angles too,
is like undervalue as to your point as a player,
and are we not seeing what they can become after playing?
Or kind of do it like like like if you
we really did? We had no idea. You definitely didn't.
I definitely did. Nobody knew Romo would be this valuable
(35:26):
to sports broadcasting it was Was there any way to
know he'd be there? I think he's the best of
the business calling games. Was there any way to know
what he'd be said before? I think he'll be like
a broadcaster like he was as a quarterback. It'd be good,
it'd be good. He's a good quarterback. I always defended him.
He'll be a good broadcaster, but I think he brings
an energy. I think he's made Jim Nance have to
(35:49):
be you know, Jim It can do this in this sleep.
But he is added. He keeps Jim on his toes
because I mean, let's be honest about this. Romo will
say any thing at any time about anybody, and he
forces Jim Nance, who's older, to be on his toes.
And I think so Romo's made not just himself, but
(36:09):
the entire broadcast better. I think that's a great one.
You know, Tony Romo plays like six hours a day
of golf. He is a classic. Um. He is kind
of your classic. He's good at everything he does. He's
he's good at everything, and that tells me he's highly intelligent.
He's highly functional. Romos. Let me let me think of
another one. Romo's very good. I'll tell a guy, and
(36:31):
this is gonna sound ridiculous. I think Mookie Betts is
actually undervalued because we've given up on baseball players as
marketing eight ens the look, the sound. He literally plays
baseball Maverick like Joe Morgan. He's like playing in the
seventies and early eighties. He can feel, he can run,
(36:51):
he can hit, he's situational, he's good looking, everything. And
it's funny you say, oh, he makes two hundred and
fifty million. I think he is the athlete in America.
I think he is the greatest, most fascinating baseball player.
Mike Trout and him are the best players. I think
he's more fascinating than Mike Trout. Well, well, Truck's kind
(37:12):
of boring, right he is. I mean, I don't following
baseball's book. He's not boring. Mookie is juice. He's a
Waukee's walk Mookie. Mookie could be one. You're right, and
it kind of came out this year A bit right.
I did. My company. We had a meeting with Mookie
Bets last week. Are I think really this team I
unfortunately missed it, but they loved him. They were like,
oh my gosh. My guy Jimmy Spencer, who runs athlete relations,
(37:34):
came and he was like, Mookie Bets is the type
of guy we should be working with. We could do,
we could create shows with him. This. They loved him, So,
you may be right, but he could do on the
field and there's nothing he can't do. He's good looking,
he's got everything. Yeah, Maverick Carter is joining us. He's
had an undisclosed location south of where I'm currently at.
So I'm gonna wrap this up as our inaugural guest
(37:58):
on the volume. Um, how old you now? I'm thirty nine.
I just turned thirty nine. Like to god, that's so
discouraging for me. I'm in my I'm in my mid fifties.
Is there a finish line? You know, it's funny watching Lebron.
There's no finish line. I don't see it. He's Brady,
(38:21):
there's no finish line. Is I think him and Brady?
You know him and Brady are really close? Oh? They are? Yeah,
I asked him me. I'm like, you and Brady, are
you guys like seeing who quit first? You guys are
just gonna keep going to someone quits first. But yeah,
they're really I'm I'm I know Tom pretty well, but
Lebron and Tom are pretty to all right, So let
me let me make that the last question. Let's go football. Um,
(38:47):
I made this argument, Brady's an underrated athlete. So Peyton
Manning Aaron Rodgers didn't get drafted by a major league
baseball team Brady did. Aaron Rodgers did not get offered
at Michigan. Brady did. Aaron Rodgers went to a junior college.
Aaron Rodgers has been hurt multiple times. Brady's body is
(39:09):
more professional athlete body six four two thirty never gets hurt.
Is that it's funny about once every two years Brady
will get really sensitive if somebody makes fun of his
athletic ability, and he'll snap. He'll be like, I'm not
that bad of an athlete. Like when you when you
(39:29):
talk to Tom, not only what drives him, but are
you ever kind of surprised because I don't sense a
chip on Lebron's shoulder. I just think he sees the
world as opportunity. I've never sensed a chip on Lebron's shoulder,
although we all have it. Brady, I still sense it
when you're with Brady, do you sense it? Yeah, for sure.
(39:52):
I met Tom playing cards with a long time ago,
and it must have been fifteen years ago, a long time,
And yeah, you knew right away he has a chip
on his shoulder, and but he does it with a smile,
which is which is interesting because people who have chip
(40:13):
on the shoulder can sometimes come off a little prickly
and a little you know, a little mean and a
little like, which is good. We're playing sports. Brady always
does it with a smile, and he always does it
well being the best teammate. Even if he has to
get on his teammates, he's still a great teammate. And
that chip, I think comes from to your point, you know,
(40:36):
up until to your point. He got drafted by a
baseball team. He went to Michigan through high school. I mean, Tom,
that's one of those are two of the greatest accompliments
you can have. But then he got drafted six I
still did in the sixth round. I still think he
feels like, obviously, now that was total bs. He had
no business getting drafted back late. And when you watch
(40:57):
him play and this this how long he's playing is
definitely you can sense it's about proving his point over
and over and just it's almost like we get the
point and he's like, no, He's going to keep just
drilling it down that he is as good, that he's
a great athlete. And I definitely sense that chip for sure.
It is driving a numb you know. It's interesting. I
(41:19):
was thinking about Maverick before I let you go. My
sister and I have these conversations. I said, you know,
Marlene's her name. I said, you know, we come from
small towns. We didn't have much, I said, but I
in a weird way, I feel like our parents were
like uniquely normal. Right. I listened to your family story,
and for somebody like me, I listened to it, and
(41:41):
I think, Okay, you're really close with your mom, You're
really close with your dad, You're really close with your grandma.
And in a unique way, your background is ideal. Now
people will say, oh, your dad was in Cartridge, but
you have real relationship ships. Yeah, that's interesting. People like
(42:04):
deep real That's why you're so great at relationships. Everybody
likes Maverick. You're great at him. You think of the
think of the relationships you had, that's right. I never
thought about it, that about it. I had very close
with my mom, my dad, and both of my grandmothers actually,
and though it was like, you know, my dad was incarcerated,
(42:27):
my grandmother ran this, you know, after hours, basically illegal
business and rand numbers, and that's why I kind of
I never thought about that way. But it is uniquely normal.
And the fact that I had parents around two grandmothers.
I go to each grandmother's house. You are, You're right,
and I was in a small little city, but it
was uniquely You're right. I never thought about it. You're
(42:49):
a relationship guy. I always said. People asked me about
Bill Simmons that, and I always say, Bills an idea guy.
I think it's right. I think, Ohix a relationship guy. Well,
of course you are. You have an amazing relationships By
the way, that's I never thought about that. The whole
thing downstairs. Shit, people are doing that upstairs. Your grandma
(43:11):
just took it downstairs. I mean exactly, exactly exactly. It's
the same thing. It's she just took it downstairs. You're right, Maverick,
what a pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this.
Enjoy yourself, and thanks for being the first guest. Thank
you man, I appreciate it. What an honor. Once I see,
it'll always be a thing that's sixs of me. When
(43:32):
the volume is so big, I'll have to call to
get booked and they'll be like, you gotta, Maverick, it's
a six month waiting list. I'll be like, at least
I know I was the first guest. Good luck to
The Volume. I know you guys are gonna do great.
All right, everybody, hope you enjoyed our first podcast with
Maverick Carter, Sports Entertainment, Businessman, wisdom Seeker, Curious Mind Maverick Carter.
(44:01):
I'll be doing three podcasts a week over the course
of the next several weeks on Instagram and on this platform.
I'm gonna introduce you to a lot of really smart,
young energized people. Thanks for following us. You can go
to our Twitter account, The Volume Sports sign up and
we'll just keep updating you. We have what we think
(44:23):
is an amazing podcasters going to join us in the
next two weeks. We'll also have a major announcement on
March first, So stick around. It's gonna be fun. The
(44:56):
Volume
The volume. The Colin Coward Podcast is brought to you
by Fan Duel. It's never been easier to play fantasy
on Fan Duel. Whether you love basketball, golf, soccer, or
any other fantasy sport. There's a contest for every fan
Fan Duel more ways to win. Hi everybody, it's Colin
(00:27):
Coward and welcome to the ball. This is our first
official podcast. So let me lay it out. Ten months ago,
we have a pandemic. I come home at noon, there's
no games, there's nothing to do. Couldn't go to restaurants
in California, couldn't do anything. And so I just thought
(00:48):
to myself. My radio show was sold out, and I thought,
I need a new project. I'm off at noon. I
don't know any one of these people that play tennis
all the time, and so I put this thing together.
It took nine and a half months, and it's been
the hardest thing I've ever done. It is the most
rewarding thing I've ever done. When Bloomberg came out, I'm
(01:13):
doing this on Sunday with that article, you know, I
got emotional. It was my wife said, it's like it's
like having a kid. Like nine months ago. It starts
with a zoom meeting, and you've gone the past nine
months not sleeping much, up every hour. But I think
what I love about it, and what I'm so fired
up about, is that we're going to do this our way.
(01:38):
I think sometimes in life there are these moments, and
there's these little bursts, and you've got to take advantage
of them. And the pandemic actually started all this. It
was a sense of Okay, is this gonna be my life?
I do three hours, it's easy. I'm home at noon.
I don't get a bit of a ten. There's got
(01:59):
to be another creative outlet where I can say what
I want to say, do what I want to do,
talk about what I want to talk about, without worrying
about Oh do I have this time restraint. Oh I've
got to get out at this time for this break.
(02:20):
Oh I've got to talk about this subject. I don't
want to do that in the second half of my day.
I want to take shots. I want to talk about
stuff I want to talk about. It will overwhelmingly be sports,
but it'll be interviews with interesting people on interesting subjects.
This has been the hardest nine months of my life.
A lot of anxiety, a lot of negotiating, But I
(02:43):
think I have an incredible salesforce, an amazing corporate sponsor
and fan duel, and the team we put together, I
pinch myself is just unbelievable. The quality of people we
have on this editors on down, everybody, The quality is shocking.
I've told that to the people that I talked to
(03:05):
on a daily basis and communicate with. Do we understand
how lucky I understand how lucky I am to be
working with the people I'm working with. And this is
day one and it's going to be an incredible ride,
and I hope you're part of it. So with that,
I'm excited to welcome in as the inaugural guest and
my new podcast network, The Volume. Maverick Carter, a guy
(03:27):
I've known for a while and a guy love CEO
of Springhill Company, one of the most successful businessmen in
sports and entertainment. His life story is amazing. He's crushed
in the digital space, with uninterrupted crushing in television, The Shop,
the Wall, Space, Jam Two's coming out. There are those
who speculate he will be running for political office. So
(03:49):
the only question, Maverick, is the Volume gonna make it.
I believe the volume is absolutely gonna make it. Thank
you for having me as your first guest. That's unbelieving.
I can't believe I'm the inaugural guest out of all
the big names. I watched your show every day, all
(04:10):
the big names who come on you talk to. I
don't know how the hell you picked me as your
first guests, but being that you picked me as your
first guest is clear that the volume is making very
smart decisions. So I believe it's gonna make it. So
let's go and talk about the meeting we had in
the kitchen. So you called me up. You said you
were going to be in the neighborhood. I said, okay,
(04:31):
come on over, I'll make you lunch. Now, was that
in June or July? About? Well, first of you said
come on over, I'll make you lunch. I didn't know
you'd really make me lunch for those the audience out
there calm those three hours a day on TV all
this other stuff. But he also can't cook very well.
You made me a nice salmon, spinach and mushrooms. It
was delicious. I was on a bike ride, ride my
(04:52):
bike to your neighborhood. That was in July. Yeah, and
so I had laid out my vision to you, and
I sat there and basically peppered you for about an
hour and a half with questions. And you know, one
of the things that I think is interesting for our
audience is after I talked to you, I talked to
(05:16):
several friends and I said, you know, he Maverick gave
me a lot of clarity on this. When you go back.
Obviously you play high school basketball with Lebron, you know
Lebron all that stuff. What was your kitchen moment? You
had been a corporate guy, you'd been at Nike, and
then you what was your kitchen moment when you decided, listen,
(05:36):
I'm successful. I never thought I'd worked at Nike. I'm
doing well. I want to run my own thing. That's
a great question. And it's funny you say that because yours.
We were in your kitchen and you were talking me
through it, and I, you know, listening to you. It
really got my juices flowing because I love to hear
(05:57):
entrepreneurs and people that are going to go for it
that I'm going to take a swing, and mine literally
was also in the kitchen. It happened in my mother's kitchen.
I was working at Nike, but I went back to
Cleveland for the summer because I lived in Oregon. So
I was back in Cleveland and Lebron came over. He says,
I want to call me. He says, you and town.
I said he. He says, I want to come meet you.
(06:17):
I said, I'm going to see my mom, gonna have lunch.
Come over there about three thirty we'll be done for lunch.
And we set in the kitchen and he started talking
to me about what he believed he could become as
a player, and he wanted what he did off the
floor to match that, and he thought the agent he
had at the time was not going to be able
to help him achieve that. And he thought that I
(06:40):
had groomed myself in the education I got at Nike,
I was the one to help him, and at that moment,
to your point backing up before that, working at Nike
was like a dream to me. I got to be
at what I considered the greatest brand in the world.
I was in your home part of the country, the
Great Northwest, where I had I learned to love. I
(07:03):
went to Nike every day for those and they who
have never been a Nike I called Nike Disney World
for athletes. When you go to Nike's campus, an indoor
track and outdoor track, there's football fields, baseball field there,
and there's people all playing sports. You go to lunch,
there's three basketball games going on. And I loved it.
And I got to make money doing that, working around athletes.
(07:25):
I felt like that's where I wanted to be the
rest of my life. But when Lebron said that to me,
I was like, I gotta go for this. I gotta
give this a shot. And when I look at the
risk versus the reward, I gotta take this chance because
I believe I'm skilled enough to always if I fucked
this up or screw this up, excuse me, I can
always go back and get another job. By the way,
(07:47):
you can drop f bombs. That's the great thing about this.
That's right. We're not on box. That's right. I started
this just so I could drop F bombs. That was
a whole week. But it's interesting because I grew up
dad an autometrist, mom in the school system. Tell people
where you grew up. You had a very important grandmaf
(08:08):
I recall who gave you great advice. Give people a
little your background. This was not your classic American Wharton
pen parents had done this. One of the reasons I
think I'm attracted to you is because you're curious. You
have that chip on your shoulder. But I think both
you and I we talked about this when we had lunch.
(08:28):
It's so much more satisfying when you've got to do
it on your own. It really is like, you know, Maverick,
if you were a trust fund kid, you wouldn't know
what you wouldn't know. But there's a sense of confidence
you have built because you keep succeeding on these projects.
It has to be fulfilling. But let's go back to
(08:49):
your family. Give me somebody that was a seminal importance,
your grandma, for instance. My upbringing, I was raised by
my mom my dad. They operated when I was about five,
and my dad's always been in my life today as
one of my best friends. My mom was a social worker,
worked twenty eight years for the county that we grew
up in. And my dad was born with a defect
(09:12):
in his hard to hold his heart and dropped out
of school in the eighth grade. Never worked a job
because physical labor no one would hire him because he
had open heart surgery twice before he was twenty years old,
the third time when he was fifty four, and he
wasn't educated. But my dad's an ambitious guy who figures
everything out, and he wasn't going to let that stop him.
(09:33):
So he resorted his street life and ended up in
the streets, ended up selling drugs. Went away at the
Federal pens entry when I was eight. But my mom
always and my dad were opposites. My mom is a
steady you know, went to work, took her seven years,
but graduated college. My dad is ambitious, not waiting around,
(09:55):
going to figure it out. If it means taking a
chance to go to jail, he will. And his mom
raised him and his brothers. There were seven of them.
She had seven kids in nine years, so therefore I
had a lot of first cousins at the same age,
and my mom and my aunt's and my uncle's they
would all drop their kids at my grandmother's. I was
the youngest because my dad's the youngest, and my grandmother's
(10:16):
house was what we call in our neighborhood and after hours,
so on Friday and Saturday night, when the bars closed,
you could still go to Miss Carter's and get a drink.
And she ran in her basement. It started about Friday
at six o'clock. She had a craps table, a poker table,
and a pity pat table, and she cut the game.
She was a house. She took a rake, and she
(10:38):
really taught me a She taught me curiosity. She taught
me all my communication skills, how to communicate. You go
down in her basement column on a Friday night, there'd
be the mailman, the milkman, a pimp drug that there was.
Everybody from the neighborhood came. Because gambling is one of
those things as it brings all walk of life together,
(11:01):
and she had to communicate with all of them. She
sold them liquor. She gave him food for free, as
she told me, if the players get hungry, you never
want them to have to leave to get food, because
you want to keep him there playing. And she took
a raak on the game, and she really taught me
how to communicate, and she taught me how to take
a chance. And her famous line was if you got
to haunt, you better bunch. And that's how I felt
(11:21):
about business. I obviously had a big hunch. I had
Lebron James standing there in front of me, going help
me figure this out. I knew he was committed to
being a great player. I knew how smart he was,
so I had a hunch. So my big bet was
lead Nike and take this chance. And I decided to
do it based on everything that my grandmother had taught
me growing up. And that was my first job was
(11:44):
sweeping up players would be done playing at about six
in the morning, sometimes five. She'd wake me up. I'd
always fall asleep, so give me the broom does planing.
I'd go around sweeping up the cigarette butts. And the
good news is every now and again five or ten
bucks laying on the floor. And that was the best
part of the That was the best part of the job.
And while I was down there, if I see someone
(12:05):
drop money, I said, don't worry about the sweeper. Real
good it later. It's so good. When I look at
your life, I've You're one of a half dozen people
I've asked about this project, and they all said, Colin,
you come from a non traditional family. That will be
(12:26):
an advantage. You'll be able to pivot very easily. You're
not a rigid personality. When I hear you, I think, oh,
that's your advantage too. You pivot quickly because your life
wasn't go to college, grandfather had done it. Take me
to one of your companies that you had to make
a major pivot, and maybe people around you struggle like Fellas.
(12:50):
Trust me on this, because, as you know business Amazon
started selling what books, Netflix was selling DVDs. You never
end up being the company that starts. Give me an
example for our audience and just for me on a
pimp that you've had to make in the last ten years. Yeah,
when I was as you know, I left Nike, I
(13:11):
went back to Cleveland, partner with Lebron, was going to
build this big sports management company. And then in two
thousan eleven sold half of that company the Fenway Sports Group,
who have been fantastic partners since then, and Tom Warner,
their chairman, sits on our board. The spring Hild company
now went to Lebron decided to go to Miami's a
(13:31):
big change went there. And then in two thousand and
twelve I said to Lebron, you know, I think we
have an opportunity to really take our life and what
we've been through and put it into a content a shove.
So we took this show out. We sold the show,
not the way the TV business works. We got very lucky.
(13:56):
Chris Albreckle was running Starts at the time at Breakfast, says,
I'm envent as we made this show from for seasons.
And then I was talking to a couple other people
really feeling my way around because I felt like in
twenty fourteen we should go hard at the content space
because there was no one like us, meaning like Lebron,
or that come from the place that we do, that
(14:16):
had that wanted to tell these authentic stories in a
way that truly empowered athletes, creators talent to tell their story.
And Lebron decides to go back to Cleveland, and I said,
I ain't going back to Cleveland this time. I'm going
to LA to build what is now the spring Hill Company.
And at first it was just going to be I
(14:36):
want to do script a TV and along the way
a big pivot was I said we should launch under
what became what is uninterrupted, which is everybody in Hollywood
is focused on writers, actors, directors, which we do a
lot of that too, but no one would have built
a place that was truly allowing athletes to tell their story.
(14:59):
No one had truly built that place, and not in
a way that any way got in front of journalism
or was journalism. We never wanted to be journalism or
anything of the story. We just wanted to build a
place where athletes like writers could walk in and go, hey,
I have this idea that and we go those three
aren't good, but that one. Let's develop them together. And
(15:20):
at first we got criticism and people thought we were
a little crazy, but I was like, this is the
future of empowerment, this is the future of storytelling. And
now as we sit here today, we have you know,
streamers out of the wazoo and podcasts we have become
on Interrupt has become the place to truly tell the
more than an athlete story. The next time you're watching basketball,
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Maverick Carter joining us. You know it's interesting people of
young broadcasters time to time. You know, I'll speak to
(16:46):
a class or something and they always ask for advice,
and I always say, well, I don't want to give
advice because my life is different than yours, and I
could send you off the interstate to an off ramp
and get you lost. I'll give you an opinion, have
thick skin. Michael Jordan gets criticized, Lebron gets criticized. Brady
to this day it is a system quarterback and it's like,
(17:10):
how early in your life it affected me as a broadcaster.
Now I think it's funny. Maybe it's the success, the
money confidence. Now I think criticism is kind of funny,
like I'm here for it. But was there a time
early the decision when it didn't wreck you? But just
as you're building this empire and there's critics that every turn,
(17:32):
I mean, we're there. Have you evolved in a sense
of you're a little bit like an athlete? Now you
actually were a pretty good athlete, but in that hey man,
even if you hit home runs, there's naysayers and critics.
Did it bother you early? Yeah? It did? Call it
really it bothered me at first. It bothered me and
(17:52):
I you know, because it's a little bit. Criticism is
a bit like fear. We all have fear. I'm sure
launching the volume, you have the sense of fear. And
people don't always understand that because they go, well, you're Colin,
You've got to show you're richer. But but it isn't
about when you're ambitious like you are, like I am.
It's the fear of, not a failure of like no
(18:15):
matter how much money you have or what you succeed.
Every day you're going to wake up and prove yourself again.
As I always say, if you look at if you
look at life the way it works, and my career
has definitely been like this. At every success. All I
always tell my team, all success does is it gives
you an opportunity to succeed on a bigger platform. So
(18:37):
you succeed in high school, Well, now let's see what
you can do in the SEC. Oh you're great in
the SEC. Well can you do it in the NFL?
So at every level of success, Brady, you won six
Super Bowls, but nobody gives a shit. You're on TV tomorrow,
Kenny win set up, you know what I mean? Like,
that's just the way life is. It's just that Belichick's
(18:57):
won everything, but Kenny win without Brady. So in life,
it's not about how much money you have. This it's
this fear of like I have to accomplish something. And
what I realized is through that is that I'm actually
addicted to accomplishment. I'm not addicted to money, I'm not
addicted to anything. I'm addicted to accomplishing things, to seeing
(19:17):
things get checked off. Like I want to complete this. Oh,
I checked the box. I'm addicted to checking the box,
so you get so so the criticism starts to if
you let it get too heavy, it starts to feel
like something in the way of me checking my box.
And it used to it used to get me, like
I used to be a bit afraid of it, until
(19:39):
I learned how to put it behind me and instead
of it being a wall, it actually became rocket fuel
and really push me. And I think to your point,
the pinnacle, obviously most people know, for me was the decision,
and most it was like I mean, I thought I
was over. It wasn't even about how I felt personally.
I felt a that I really ruined something for my
(20:01):
best friend and my business partner. And be holy shit,
I'm not this is going to derail me from checking
a lot of boxes that I planned on checking in
my life of accomplishing things. So yeah, it used to
it used to be really stand in my way, And
now I've learned to put it behind me and kind
of let it be my fuel that pushes me. You know,
we always talk Maverick about you know, I'm a big
(20:26):
believer adapting is free. Most great things you'll pay for it.
It's free to adapt. And what adapting does. If you're
an old football coach like Andy Reid and you adapt,
it makes you younger. And if you're younger like my
son and you're into attack, he's fourteen, it makes him
(20:47):
feel older. So adapting in life lets you be the
age you really want to be. It's crazy, and we
talk about that all the time. But then I think
to myself, people thought the Wildcat was going to be
big in the NFL and in the end in the
and you just need a guy who can make throws
down the field to him day. Is there a danger
(21:10):
Maverick in always looking to evolve and adapt and then
moving away from core principles. Have you thought about that?
That always works timeless principles. You have to be open
to your point, You have to be open to evolution
and adapting, and you can't get stuck and rigid in
(21:32):
your ways or in your spot. But you do have to,
you know, to your point. Andy Reid, it seems like
he added, I mean, he Belichick is obviously, I think,
the greatest coach I've ever seen, but Andy Reid is
I mean, it almost seems like he adapts and evolves
week to week. I can remember watching I remember watching
(21:53):
the Eagles. I was at the other place about twelve
years ago, and I remember going on the air stand
and he reads the first coach I've ever seen, third
and three is a passing down, and I remember that.
I also remember watching Belichick and saying Belichick took the
middle of the field back. Nobody threw the tight ends
unless you had like Kellen Winslow. And then Belichick said, no,
(22:16):
no, no no, no, We're going to dominate the middle of
the field. We don't really care about the perimeter. And
it took about three years to the league to figure
it out. But my point on Andy Reid is like
I always go back to the one certainty is workout.
We can keep adapting and evolving. You don't put the
time in, none of it matters. If I don't do
(22:37):
two and a half hours of prep, it's a shitty show.
Like That's the thing I always stayed too, Like I
have a core belief. I get up early. I'm a
moderate drinker, I don't smoke, I exercise daily, but it's
always work. And when young people come up, what I'm like, dude,
just put the time in. Don't just mailed in what's
(22:57):
your average what's the work like in your average day?
My day is and your to your point, I'm always
adapting and evolving. But the thing I is in my
core I stay true to or two things is curiosity
and communication. So um, through all the ups and downs
of our company, we got very you know, lucky. Last
(23:19):
uh in March, I closed the deal to raise one
hundred and twenty million dollars in my company. Um, and
it was a lot of ups and downs, and I
went all over the world beating with investors. And the
main thing is that ability to communicate and to and
and in order to communicate, See what people It's funny
when people watch your show. You talk on the air
(23:41):
hours a day. You know, obviously you have guests enjoy
is in and out with you, But to sit there
for hours of the day and frankly talk to yourself.
I always say, Colin's got to be a little but anyway,
but anyway, But but what people don't know is you're
a very intent listener. Even your facial expression changes. So
I say that the key to communication is actually listening.
(24:03):
And I noticed what most people do. I say this
to CNNA my girlfriend all the time. I try and
help her be a better listener. I said, I see it.
I can see when people are talking to you, you're
not actually listening to them. You're actually contemplating your response,
so you're not even hearing what they're saying. So I
stick to truly communicating with people, my team, the people
(24:24):
I work with. And then I'm extremely curious. So my
day is always get up. I exercise daily. I do
something yesterday, I took a bike ride. Today, I did yoga,
play a little pickleball. I always do something to move
and get the blood flowing every morning. Then I get up,
I look at my I'm religious about looking at my
(24:46):
account or NonStop. Alexa, who works with me, knows, I
look at my calendar. I'm sessing my calendar because of
what you said. I want to be efficient. I want
to use my time wisely, and I have a family.
I want to be a I'm I'm a social guy,
and I get a lot out of being social, meaning
I learn a lot out of being social. I get
business ideas out of being social. I get television show
(25:08):
ideas out of being social. So I always try and
find a part of the day to be social with
Ciana and of friends or someone, and then I'm in
the bed pretty early and backed up and do it
all over again. But to your point, I stick my
core principles of communication. In curiosity, it's interesting, I thought,
I thought maybe Lebron. Well, I don't think maybe. I
(25:30):
thought Lebron's greatest moment was the bubble. The bubble was
very difficult for married NBA players with kids. If you
were young, hell, it was like the greatest a youth
tournament of all time. You went to great hotels, you
got it absolutely right, Absolutely Lebron wanted. He was on
the breaking point a couple of times. And so I
(25:51):
think what separates Lebron. I've said this before. There's a
lot of great players physically, Lebron is a rock emotionally.
And during the bubble I saw a lot of married
players and a lot of older players erode. They acknowledge,
they struggled with it. And yet the Lakers went into
(26:15):
the bubble, weren't right for about eight games at all,
and then something clicked and without I don't want to
get into lebron space or his privacy, but was there
a moment or an epiphany because from about game ten on.
They disposed of people. I mean, they beat people that
(26:35):
were red hot, like Denver five games, five games, five games.
I think we're forgetting they Denver was hot, Miami was hot,
Portland was hot, Houston was hot. These were five game series.
These weren't like the Warriors Dynasty was going six and seven.
These were five gamers. There had to be a moment
in the bubble where because well, I thought the Lakers
(26:59):
were starting to come apart a little bit. Could you
take me to that moment because it did something. I
don't know the exact moment. I know he had a
couple of different points where he was a little bit
like man because to your point, you know, Lebron's thirty five,
he's accomplished a lot, got three kids, he's missing growing up,
(27:19):
his wife, his normal life. He's got a great life,
and he's now he's stuck in Orlando, you know, in
a in a hotel, just and there were a couple
of moments that I talked to him, I know, I'm
sure his wife spoke to her many more times where
he was a little bit like I mean, how about
this column. He's still today, it's ninety one days. He
(27:39):
still says, you spend ninety one days in Orlando. He knows,
he knows the exact amount of nights he was there.
So I think I think the moment post the Milwaukee
and Orlando game when they set out post that moment,
I think it clicked to him, this is I just
I'm here. Everything else stopped the complaining A little it
(28:03):
post that game for him to me because that game,
the whole season was on the brink. A lot of that,
the whole thing. The Lakers were like, maybe we should
be done. The Clippers were a lot. There's a lot
of talk, and I think past that moment, he just
you know what, I'm here, I'm doing it, I'm playing.
It's over now. I didn't hear him complain one more
(28:23):
day after that. It looked like it. I think it
translated to great bat Yeah, yeah, and he has an ability.
Lebron has two things. I mean, amongst a lot of things,
but two things to me. I've all the great people
I've met in great minds. I've meant, I've met some
of this. I've been fortunate in my life for a
(28:44):
lot of things. But one of my favorite things that
the diverse and smart people I've met. I mean, the
list goes on and on and on, and Lebron two
things that he can do that are like other worldly.
He can learn and apply faster than anyone I've ever seen.
I always tell people I'm a fast learner. I can
(29:07):
learn toe to toe with Lebron. If you sat down,
callin with Lebron, I am taught of something about broadcasting.
It is I can learn and retain it as fast
as he can. I can't apply it. You could teach
him something about broadcasting on Monday night, and on Tuesday
he could sit in for you and he just do it.
It's just like I need reps, I need practice, I
(29:29):
need to rehearse it I need and then I got it.
But give me he can. He always tell people he
can watch a film himself, do something wrong in a
moment and then without ever practicing, Bill McCourt in that
same moment the next time and auto corrected. I'm like,
that makes no sense, zero sense. And then the second
thing is he is the greatest level of discipline I've
(29:51):
ever seen. I mean, he can just you know, one
summer he was like, I forgot what the hell the
paleo diet. He's like I'm going on paleo diet and
he lost twenty pounds. Remember that he came back and
he came back then. Whether it was good or not
is not my point. I thought he needed to be
have but whatever. But just one summer, he just like,
(30:12):
no more carbs, no more of this, no more of that.
Only drink this kind of tequila and that was it.
And I was like, yeah, I could say that, and
I maybe could make it about eight days. This guy
did it for like seventy five days. I mean we
were on a boat for a week where in Italy
eating amazing food. He's like, didn't he didn't touch the pasta,
didn't touch the bread. I'm like, are you crazy? But
(30:35):
his discipline and his ability to learn and apply, and
I think in the bubble that discipline of his showed
up at a very high level. Yeah, he is so
functional as a person. Um, you know, it's it's interesting.
I think about all the businesses my network. We were
(30:57):
able to get fan Duel as a partner. Congrats, Yeah,
and they've been Um, it's a great contract and we're
going to deliver for him. What do you make of
the sports gaming industry that is completely exploding? Um, there's
brick and mortars. There's your MGMs. You know, there's your Caesars. Uh,
(31:21):
there's your fan duels. What do you make of it?
Where does it go? It's rolling out state to state.
I just saw Michigan. Now, what do you make of it?
Do you worry about it? Does it concern you? Are
we are we getting ahead of ourselves? What do you
make of it? It does not worry me at all.
I think you know, you're never too late. But I
(31:42):
think we should have had this. It should have been
open in the country a long time ago. And I
can watch I watch EPL. It's been open to EPL forever. Yeah,
you can bet, you can bet that you can be
better in the stand. Yes, I think it drives fan interests, engagement.
I also think it's fun. You can gamify it even more,
(32:06):
I think and I do not think it's bad. I
don't even see where any harm of it can come.
The players, you know, in the sports that are the
most bet on, NFL basketball, the players make too much
money for you to like. And there's no bribing. This
isn't nineteen fifty five anymore. You know you're not bribing
(32:27):
a guy making fifty million dollars to play any So
and then when you look at you know, states are
regulating it. Still regulation is fine, they shouldn't overregulate it.
But when you look at the world now, you know,
you know twelve year old A friend of mine was
telling me just the other day, his twelve year old
son in law was telling him how one of his
(32:47):
friends made one hundred bucks trading stocks on robin Hood.
So what the hell are we talking about let people
bet sports? I mean, what do we I mean, you
know you can download e trade on your phone or
robin Hood and be trading stocks tonight. So what So
I think sports betting is great. I love the investments
going in it. I think for you and I were
in the sports and entertainment world, it drives more investment.
(33:10):
More people who couldn't invest in sports and entertainment are
coming in from brick and mortars like MGM, from FanDuel
sponsoring your thing. We do. We've done business with DraftKings.
So I think it's good for the sports and entertainment world. Yeah.
I mean, to me, it's another visceral connection. It makes
people love sports more, you stick around for games longer.
There's TV rating data which indicates people stick around a
(33:33):
bad game exactly exactly, you've got more people. You know,
My buddy I call him up sometimes, I'm like, did
you see that play? It would be like the LSU
Alabama game all. He's like, no, I'm watching Tulsa and
you know in Houston play. I'm like, oh, yeah, you
must get a lot of action. Yeah. No, I've had buddies.
(33:54):
I've had buddies say it's a Tuesday night and they're
watching the Memphis Grizzlies and I'm like, you want to
go out? And They're like, give me fifteen minutes. And
I'm like it's a twenty eight point blowout and they're like, dude,
I got blank blank blank on it. And I'm like, oh,
it's the new reality is there? Um? We know who
the stars are in sports, but it's Hey, you're a
guy that is always looking for talent. You're looking for
(34:16):
production talent, you're looking for executive talent. Is there an
athlete out there right now that you think he's undervalued?
He he's better. I thought that about Damien a little
bit about five years ago. Now the market's caught up.
It's corrected about five years ago because we both spent
so much time in Portland. I thought the people understand
(34:38):
nobody's watching these Blazer games at night. Does everybody get
he may be the best closure in the NBA for
a size in the history of the league. There are
arguments to be made he's better than Steph because he's
a better athlete. Is there an undervalued NBA player? An
undervalued athlete you look at and think he's going to
be worth one hundred fifty two hundred and fifty million
here soon. I think that's a great question. I think
(35:04):
I always look at it from two from two angles too,
is like undervalue as to your point as a player,
and are we not seeing what they can become after playing?
Or kind of do it like like like if you
we really did? We had no idea. You definitely didn't.
I definitely did. Nobody knew Romo would be this valuable
(35:26):
to sports broadcasting it was Was there any way to
know he'd be there? I think he's the best of
the business calling games. Was there any way to know
what he'd be said before? I think he'll be like
a broadcaster like he was as a quarterback. It'd be good,
it'd be good. He's a good quarterback. I always defended him.
He'll be a good broadcaster, but I think he brings
an energy. I think he's made Jim Nance have to
(35:49):
be you know, Jim It can do this in this sleep.
But he is added. He keeps Jim on his toes
because I mean, let's be honest about this. Romo will
say any thing at any time about anybody, and he
forces Jim Nance, who's older, to be on his toes.
And I think so Romo's made not just himself, but
(36:09):
the entire broadcast better. I think that's a great one.
You know, Tony Romo plays like six hours a day
of golf. He is a classic. Um. He is kind
of your classic. He's good at everything he does. He's
he's good at everything, and that tells me he's highly intelligent.
He's highly functional. Romos. Let me let me think of
another one. Romo's very good. I'll tell a guy, and
(36:31):
this is gonna sound ridiculous. I think Mookie Betts is
actually undervalued because we've given up on baseball players as
marketing eight ens the look, the sound. He literally plays
baseball Maverick like Joe Morgan. He's like playing in the
seventies and early eighties. He can feel, he can run,
(36:51):
he can hit, he's situational, he's good looking, everything. And
it's funny you say, oh, he makes two hundred and
fifty million. I think he is the athlete in America.
I think he is the greatest, most fascinating baseball player.
Mike Trout and him are the best players. I think
he's more fascinating than Mike Trout. Well, well, Truck's kind
(37:12):
of boring, right he is. I mean, I don't following
baseball's book. He's not boring. Mookie is juice. He's a
Waukee's walk Mookie. Mookie could be one. You're right, and
it kind of came out this year A bit right.
I did. My company. We had a meeting with Mookie
Bets last week. Are I think really this team I
unfortunately missed it, but they loved him. They were like,
oh my gosh. My guy Jimmy Spencer, who runs athlete relations,
(37:34):
came and he was like, Mookie Bets is the type
of guy we should be working with. We could do,
we could create shows with him. This. They loved him, So,
you may be right, but he could do on the
field and there's nothing he can't do. He's good looking,
he's got everything. Yeah, Maverick Carter is joining us. He's
had an undisclosed location south of where I'm currently at.
So I'm gonna wrap this up as our inaugural guest
(37:58):
on the volume. Um, how old you now? I'm thirty nine.
I just turned thirty nine. Like to god, that's so
discouraging for me. I'm in my I'm in my mid fifties.
Is there a finish line? You know, it's funny watching Lebron.
There's no finish line. I don't see it. He's Brady,
(38:21):
there's no finish line. Is I think him and Brady?
You know him and Brady are really close? Oh? They are? Yeah,
I asked him me. I'm like, you and Brady, are
you guys like seeing who quit first? You guys are
just gonna keep going to someone quits first. But yeah,
they're really I'm I'm I know Tom pretty well, but
Lebron and Tom are pretty to all right, So let
me let me make that the last question. Let's go football. Um,
(38:47):
I made this argument, Brady's an underrated athlete. So Peyton
Manning Aaron Rodgers didn't get drafted by a major league
baseball team Brady did. Aaron Rodgers did not get offered
at Michigan. Brady did. Aaron Rodgers went to a junior college.
Aaron Rodgers has been hurt multiple times. Brady's body is
(39:09):
more professional athlete body six four two thirty never gets hurt.
Is that it's funny about once every two years Brady
will get really sensitive if somebody makes fun of his
athletic ability, and he'll snap. He'll be like, I'm not
that bad of an athlete. Like when you when you
(39:29):
talk to Tom, not only what drives him, but are
you ever kind of surprised because I don't sense a
chip on Lebron's shoulder. I just think he sees the
world as opportunity. I've never sensed a chip on Lebron's shoulder,
although we all have it. Brady, I still sense it
when you're with Brady, do you sense it? Yeah, for sure.
(39:52):
I met Tom playing cards with a long time ago,
and it must have been fifteen years ago, a long time,
And yeah, you knew right away he has a chip
on his shoulder, and but he does it with a smile,
which is which is interesting because people who have chip
(40:13):
on the shoulder can sometimes come off a little prickly
and a little you know, a little mean and a
little like, which is good. We're playing sports. Brady always
does it with a smile, and he always does it
well being the best teammate. Even if he has to
get on his teammates, he's still a great teammate. And
that chip, I think comes from to your point, you know,
(40:36):
up until to your point. He got drafted by a
baseball team. He went to Michigan through high school. I mean, Tom,
that's one of those are two of the greatest accompliments
you can have. But then he got drafted six I
still did in the sixth round. I still think he
feels like, obviously, now that was total bs. He had
no business getting drafted back late. And when you watch
(40:57):
him play and this this how long he's playing is
definitely you can sense it's about proving his point over
and over and just it's almost like we get the
point and he's like, no, He's going to keep just
drilling it down that he is as good, that he's
a great athlete. And I definitely sense that chip for sure.
It is driving a numb you know. It's interesting. I
(41:19):
was thinking about Maverick before I let you go. My
sister and I have these conversations. I said, you know,
Marlene's her name. I said, you know, we come from
small towns. We didn't have much, I said, but I
in a weird way, I feel like our parents were
like uniquely normal. Right. I listened to your family story,
and for somebody like me, I listened to it, and
(41:41):
I think, Okay, you're really close with your mom, You're
really close with your dad, You're really close with your grandma.
And in a unique way, your background is ideal. Now
people will say, oh, your dad was in Cartridge, but
you have real relationship ships. Yeah, that's interesting. People like
(42:04):
deep real That's why you're so great at relationships. Everybody
likes Maverick. You're great at him. You think of the
think of the relationships you had, that's right. I never
thought about it, that about it. I had very close
with my mom, my dad, and both of my grandmothers actually,
and though it was like, you know, my dad was incarcerated,
(42:27):
my grandmother ran this, you know, after hours, basically illegal
business and rand numbers, and that's why I kind of
I never thought about that way. But it is uniquely normal.
And the fact that I had parents around two grandmothers.
I go to each grandmother's house. You are, You're right,
and I was in a small little city, but it
was uniquely You're right. I never thought about it. You're
(42:49):
a relationship guy. I always said. People asked me about
Bill Simmons that, and I always say, Bills an idea guy.
I think it's right. I think, Ohix a relationship guy. Well,
of course you are. You have an amazing relationships By
the way, that's I never thought about that. The whole
thing downstairs. Shit, people are doing that upstairs. Your grandma
(43:11):
just took it downstairs. I mean exactly, exactly exactly. It's
the same thing. It's she just took it downstairs. You're right, Maverick,
what a pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this.
Enjoy yourself, and thanks for being the first guest. Thank
you man, I appreciate it. What an honor. Once I see,
it'll always be a thing that's sixs of me. When
(43:32):
the volume is so big, I'll have to call to
get booked and they'll be like, you gotta, Maverick, it's
a six month waiting list. I'll be like, at least
I know I was the first guest. Good luck to
The Volume. I know you guys are gonna do great.
All right, everybody, hope you enjoyed our first podcast with
Maverick Carter, Sports Entertainment, Businessman, wisdom Seeker, Curious Mind Maverick Carter.
(44:01):
I'll be doing three podcasts a week over the course
of the next several weeks on Instagram and on this platform.
I'm gonna introduce you to a lot of really smart,
young energized people. Thanks for following us. You can go
to our Twitter account, The Volume Sports sign up and
we'll just keep updating you. We have what we think
(44:23):
is an amazing podcasters going to join us in the
next two weeks. We'll also have a major announcement on
March first, So stick around. It's gonna be fun. The
(44:56):
Volume
Host
Colin Cowherd
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