Professional Sports Has no Integrity

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a podcast from wor from Everywhere USA. It's
Fox Across America with Jimmy Fayala.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
There's our guy, fired up, ready to go on a
Friday episode of Fox Across America.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
A stack deck if ever there was one.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Justine Brooke Murray, a former Miss Central New Jersey Huba Hub,
she stop and buy to talk about the fake controversy
surrounding the White House renovation of course, the ongoing coverage
of the NBA gambling staying. Danny Polaschuk, superstar comedian, comedian
is going to be here as well, and my son

(00:35):
Lincoln Fhala.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
It is a football Friday.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
You'll get a little playground politics and he will tell
you more importantly who to bet in the big Clark
Rams football game tomorrow paying in cash. You know. This
is like a tongue in cheek segment that we do.
But with the government shutdown raging on as long as
it has, some people out there might actually need the
extra paycheck at this point. That's true.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
That is true one way or the other.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Stay tuned for the link man and let's do the
damn thing. Eight at eight seven, eight, eight nine nine
one zero. The rules are the same every day on
this radio show.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I don't care where you come from. I don't care
what color you are.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I don't care how smart y'all, I don't care how
dune y are.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
No, ma'am a true diamond in the rough over here
at Fox across America. We are not activists. We are inactivists.
We're just trying to have a three hour conversation. Like
I don't have the energy to fight with you over pop,
I don't care. I'll tell you a funny story about
show biz. It's such a great one.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay. It's like, you know, I host a TV show,
Fox News Saturday night, and.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
When when you come out of that wall on Saturday
night ten o'clock, Jimmy, what kind of gay figure skater
jacket does he have on?

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Look Connie there at Oh wow, rhymestones? All right, yeah, yeah, okay.
The guy watching it home on the couch has no
idea how exhausted you are, or just how far along
your wits end you might happen to be on a
particular day. You just gotta do the damn thing. And
I know that because I was once dropping off a
girl at flashdown Answers in my taxi who was telling me,

(02:02):
you know, she had an upset stomach, but you still
got to get up there that.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Night and shake it. You know.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
They think it's attraction, they think you're selling sexuality, but
at the end of the day, you're just a stripper
with the farts. I know it's a little classy for
this show, but that is shows in a nutshell for
all you do. Okay, your real obligation to your audience
is get up there and just have a good time.
Provide everybody with some escapism from whatever the is tormenting them.

(02:29):
So I'm not telling you my stomach is upset, but
the way the world's going, yours might be. So we're
going to try to opiate the masses for the next
three hours while all of you strippers out there deal
with the farts. What's going on with Jimmy, But you
know the rules, the whole beer Republican, be a Democrat,
don't be a I say it eighty five times a show.

(02:50):
I'm actually losing track of it at this point, and
I will tell you why.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's because the news man, Oh god, it's just flying.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
We're working on my TV show this morning, right, and
we're like, what is the actual lead story, like the
thing we covered all week on every freaking channel was
a White House renovation, which, by the way, nobody covering
it on any of the other networks is acknowledging the
fact that Obama just did a white house renovation that
costs twice as much as Trump's was paid for by

(03:19):
the taxpayers, and it's a CNN report. Yet there they
are on TV every night going, we've never seen anything
like this before.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
People aren't buying a CNN you'd dumb best suit, so
it's a fun thing to cover.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
But then yesterday they arrested the freaking NBA Trail Blazer's coach,
Chauncey Billups popped fix and poker games, allegedly, Terry Rozier
down on the heat apparently tanking games, and Damon Jones.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
A funny one. The Damon Jones.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Story is he was a coach on a player coach
whatever the hell on the Lakers, and he tipped off
some betters because he allegedly knew Lebron James wasn't playing
that night and said, hey, if I was you, I'd
put a big bet in on the Milwaukee Bucks because
a big star on the Lakers is in playing.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
So they went out there and you're damn right. They
were all over that game. Money money, money, money, money, money.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Money, And of course the Lakers went on to lose,
very controversial stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
It's also a foreign entity.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
As a guy who grew up watching New York basketball
in our town, we would tell the gamblers to bet
against the Knicks because the starters were playing. No, it's
in the bag. Don't worry about nothing. You're gonna be great.
But again we're like, what is the scandal and what
is the story? What is the angle? They stole the
crown jewels this week. It was the biggest heist in
the in history. Okay, they're saying it was worth over

(04:36):
one hundred and two million dollars, which would make that
the biggest heist in history, although according to Donald Trump,
it was the twenty twenty election, although according to the
Democrats it was the twenty sixteen election. So I don't
know who the hell you're supposed to believe. But the
point is it was really hard finding a lead. And
then before we went to bed last night, Trump declared
a trade war on Canada and was like, they're the problem.

(04:59):
They ran this run Reagan ad where Reagan is seemingly
bashing tariffs. The White House claims it was taken out
of context. So Trump announced that the Canadian trade deal
is off. It's not gonna work yet, somehow, defying all odds.
I get on the air this morning, the stock market
is up five one hundred and fifty points.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Oh girl, I'm saying right, holy hell.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Amazing. So yeah, good good news. If you're an investor
of bad news. If you were playing poker in the
Hamptons with a bunch of retired NBA players, you probably
need that cash.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
But it kind of defies the odds.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Okay, we got a good report of inflation, and it
sounds like they're gonna cut interest rates again next week.
The point is, it's just a mess out here, just
a big mess. So we get on the air on
a Friday trying to make heads and tails of it,
just the way you have. Okay, and we're gonna talk
to three great people.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Just Dean Brook. Murray's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
She's actually making her debut on Fox New Saturday Night
this weekend. She's never been on the show before, and
because she's a former pageant girl, she's going to be
talking about a former was a pageant contestant, Miss Panama
was competing in the Miss World competition, and she thought
the announcer had called her names and advanced her to

(06:18):
the finals. Unfortunately, she misheard it, walked out there only
to find out from the announcer that he meant Miss Paraguay.
Really embarrassing stuff, really awkward stuff.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Not as bad as the time that.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
One woman was so convinced she was going to win
the United States presidential election that she parked a fireworks
barge in New York Harbor.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
I'm Hillary Clinton and I approved this message. But still
heavy stuff. So she'll talk about that.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Danny and Lincoln'll give us a World Series preview, and yes,
I will be the port in the storm that tries
to make sense of this. But let's lead with the NBA,
because there's new sound. Adam Silver, he's the NBA commissioner.
It's funny worry about Adam Silver. I was at Rao's Ones,
fancy Italian restaurant uptown. I've never been there. I've driven
a lot of people there in my cab. About six
months ago, somebody invited me to go. Now, the reason

(07:10):
that's significant to me is because Rayo's is not a
place I could get in on my own. You have
to actually be like connected to the restaurant. It's considered
the most exclusive table.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
In probably the world. I'm not kidding.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
They only have ten tables in the restaurant, and the
people who dine at them kind of own them.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
They're like time shares.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
So you can literally give someone as a wedding gift
a night at dinner at Rayos, like they still have
to pay the bill. Just the fact that you got
them a table is considered a lavish gift in New
York City, like for real.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
And on a particular night, I was at Rails.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Adam Silver was there and I didn't know who I was,
but everybody at his table did.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
So I went over and met everybody there. I took
pictures with everybody there. There were super friendly.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Fox fans and that I told him who I was,
and he was like, yeah, anyway, yeah, nice to meet you.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Have a good dinner, enjoy your dinner, And that's what
he said. This guy's so serious ass.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Didn't want to know anymore, didn't want a fist bump,
didn't want a selfie. Yeah anyway, good yeah, jo oh yeah,
good to meet you. But again I bear the man
Noel Will. The point is here, he is on the
Pat McAfee show trying to make sense of something, and
before I play the clip, I'm going to take credit
for this. I told you yesterday at the top of
the show, long before this guy spoke, before anybody started
reporting the angle. Not that it hasn't been out there before,

(08:18):
but on this show we were a little bit ahead
of the curve. Prop bets are killing the integrity of
professional sports.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Prop bets.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
What a prop bet means is you're not betting who's
going to win the game and who's going.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
To lose the game. That's what I grew up doing.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
You could bet the winner, you could bet the loser,
you could bet the over amount of points, you could
bet the under amount of points.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
That was it. It's all you could bet.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
But now, because they want to entice young kids to gamble,
they've created all of these exotic propositions you can gamble on,
meaning you can bet less money and win more, which
is an enticement to get a young kid like my
son gambling. That's why I'm always talking to about gambling
and how rigged and stupid it's gotten. Okay, in my day,
there was a lot more integrity to gambling, and you

(08:59):
were never watching pro supporting event where the league was
encouraging you to bet on the fricking event.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
What the wide wide worldless sports isn't going on here?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
There's no integrity, none, like zero integrity when it comes to,
you know, professional sports and gambling now like players are
in gambling ands you think about that. I grew up
in an era where Pete Rose was banned for life
for betting on baseball, which you shouldn't be allowed to do.
Like to be clear, okay, if he did it and
lied about it, you should be in trouble. I'm not
telling you to let him off the hook, but it
does seem a little crazy to know he died at

(09:30):
a time when he was still banned from baseball as
the all time leading hit leader, yet we're watching his
funeral coverage sponsored by DraftKings. It sounds a little silly,
but the prop bets. Okay, the reason that corrupt sports
is Back in the day, if you wanted a team
to throw a game to make you money, you had

(09:53):
to get a couple of big people in on it,
and you literally had to determine the outcome of a game,
which is something a little bit easier to deduce if
you're the league and you're looking out for this sort
of thing.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
But because of those little prop bets.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Hey, if you bet five dollars, you can win ninety
seven dollars if all sixteen of these teams win at
the same time. A stampede of wild elephants is followed
by one baby zebra.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
As they said in the old Looney Tunes commercial.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know it was these wild, exotic propositions where you
could bet nothing and win a lot. That was the hook.
But what they introduced were other ways to bet the game. Hey,
instead of just betting who's gonna win and who's gonna lose,
you can now bet how many garbage cans are gonna
be in section two nineteen. You can bet whether the
national anthem is gonna be longer than ninety seconds. You
can bet anything. You can bet if the first pitch
is going to be a strike. You can bet who
the first player to score is gonna be. And these

(10:40):
bets are so difficult on young kids that you can
see in the advertising. The league literally gets on TV
and goes, if you bet who the first player of
the score is, and you get it wrong, we'll let
your bet a second time for free, Meaning they know
you're gonna get it wrong ninety nine percent of the time.
But more importantly, you're going to start gambling at a

(11:02):
very minimal level, which is more likely to make you
gamble at a big level down the road.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
He's a lousy dad, but he's right.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
And because you can now bet things as innocuous as
balls and strikes and how many extra points and stupid
stuff like that, Okay, you start to see players like
Terry Rozier. I'm not saying it's not his fault, because
of course it is. But you're creating new avenues for
your athletes, for your coaches, for your spot, for everybody

(11:31):
to gravitate towards corrupt means.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
But why, Jimmy, why do they do that?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
If Terry Rozier is one hundred million dollar contract, why
does he do that? And it's because it's all cash, Okay,
it's fast cash. What does fast cash represent to a
guy with a one hundred million dollar contract. It means
money his ex wife can't deduct in a divorce settlement.
It means money another girl can't deduct in a paternity suit.

(11:55):
I'm not even telling you any of this is going
on in the man's life. I have no idea, but
that's always and the appeal of cash to rich people
is the liquidity gives them a lot more maneuverability for
the bad things they.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Want to do.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Okay, I am a cab driver. I have driven the
rich and wealthy and illicit and insane around this city
at all hours of the night. The phrase cash is king.
You know they say no kings, no, no, no no.
If you're out in the red light district at all
hours of the night, you want plenty of kings.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Cash is king.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
You want as many kings as you can get. But
here is Adam Silver acknowledging what they all knew to
be true. They all knew to be true. Okay, this
is what's going on in pro sports right now. It
is Poultergeist for the league's integrity. Do you remember the
end of the movie Poltergeist when he starts yelling at
the real estate development. You built the houses on top

(12:46):
of the ceremony on the funeral. You didn't even get
rid of the coffins. You didn't even get rid of
the headstones because they open up this new boomtown, and
everybody's house is haunted. Carol An don't go towards the light,
Caroline that don all things. She get sucked into the
TV's professional sports and their integrity right now. They built
the community on top of the graveyard of gambling that

(13:09):
has destroyed so many people's lives.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
I mean, pretty much my own.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
But I just didn't know what was happening at the
time because I was having fun. I'd a good, you know,
good woman, and you know, kind of started my life
over as a cab driver, even though I was in
a lot of gambling debt. But it's so fascinating to
see them have to acknowledge this, Like what happens to
Adam Silver in this clip is the equivalent of when
you come home and you can tell your dog peede
somewhere because it won't look at you. Instead of getting

(13:36):
the dance, instead of running around in circles, instead of yelping,
it's just like looking away and you're just waiting, waiting
for a shredded pillow or a half a sneaker or
heaven forbid, Yes, some pee in the corner, okay, and
some people do the old thing where they stick the
animal's nose in it and shame.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
That was never my style. I was more of a
hit hien with a tire iron.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
I'm kidding, stop it right now, But the point is
here is Adam Silver getting his nose stuck in a
clip three.

Speaker 5 (14:00):
We've asked some of our partners to pull back some
of the prop bets, especially when they're on two way players,
guys who don't have the same stake in the competition,
where you know, it's too easy to manipulate something which
seems otherwise small and inconsequential to.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
The overall score.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Maybe we're trying to put in place and learning as
we go and working with the betting companies some additional
control to prevent sort of some of that manipulation.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Now, which is all a fancy way of saying he
knew this was a problem the whole frickin' time. Okay,
everybody when they saw sports go from no gambling gamblings bad.
You can't gamble, We'll never associate with gambling. Like the
old running joke in the NFL was sometimes late in
a game on Monday Night Football, someone would kick a
late field goal and Al Michaels wouldn't mention the spread.

(14:50):
He'd allude to it, and it was considered controversial, Like
if the over under was forty two points, and the
score was twenty one to twenty forty one points combined scored,
and the team leading just kicked an extra field goal.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
And now it's twenty four to twenty and it's an over.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Al Michaels would be like, well, I have a feeling
some people watching it home are very upset about that
field goal, and we'd be like, hilarious. He kind of
alluded to gambling, and it was like considered riskue and
taboo and out there. And now you turn on a
game and Al Michaels is reading you prop bets before kickoff.
So the point is, this is the NFL. Gambling is

(15:27):
their boom town, but they built it over a graveyard.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
There.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
It is Fox across America with Jimmy Fala reading this report.
There's an interstellar what they believed to be a comet
now hurtling towards a NASA spacecraft's path and what they're
calling a once in a lifetime encounter.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
I don't know, man, I.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Know, we introduced, we introduced, we interviewed you on Duffy
this week. He's the Transportation Secretary of the acting head
of NASA. But this to me, and I didn't get
a chance to ask Duffy this because it wasn't a
story at the time. This just sounds like NASA's trying
to get more money out of us for some type
of rese I mean, come on, guys, it's literally the
plot of Independence Day.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
We got a comet. It's really close to Earth.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
We might need to throw Bruce Willis in the space
Shuttle actually to borrow from Armageddon parlance. I think Ben
Afflack would be willing to go now just to get
rid of Jennifer. Jennifer Lopez. It's like, I do want
to miss a thing, Actually I want to miss everything.
I'll go blow myself up in the comet. But I
don't know what to believe. A lot of people are
kind of hysterical about this on social media, but I

(16:34):
really think this is NASA just passing around the collection hat.
You know, media's gonna hit us. It's really close to Earth.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
By the way, we runt Maua Nane.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I don't know the answer, but we're gonna find out
as the show progresses. Today, I got Justine Brooke Murray,
she knows everything in DC. Danny Pohlashach, Canadian comedian Lincoln
fail Is on Lincolns Fired ups, got football to morrow,
and we get the World Series tonight, Los Angeles against Toronto.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
And I'm going to tell you a story later about show.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Hey Otani, I'm a Yankee fan, but it actually made
me root for this guy. He did something really really cool.
Everybody likes a good pet story these days. I think
Otani has like the best pet story in the history
of Major League Baseball. And if everybody behaves, you're gonna
hear it in the third hour of the show. If
you can't make it that long, you can always download
the podcast at foxacross.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
America dot com.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
What's coming up in the next segment, I have no
idea we wing this whole show. Jimmy gets up, reads
the news, grabs a couple of sound clips, and we
do like a good old fashioned organic talk radio show.
Thrilled to be doing it with you. So don't go anywhere,
because we're gonna make it up as we go. And
another big, hard hitting segment on the high flying deathifying
Fox across America. Boom, there it is Fox across America.

(17:48):
It's your radio buddy, Jimmy Fahla doing a damn thing.
Eighty eight seven and eight nine nine one zero. It's Friday.
We're in a pretty loose mood on the show. Okay,
But the one thing I will tell you, with everything
that's going on in the world, I've had so many
laughs this week watching powerful people backpedal do that thing.

(18:11):
Do you know when you were watching like the road
Runner back in the day, and he'd run off the
cliff and then he'd break the fourth wall and look
at the camera with like his feet pedaling like meat meat,
and you know in the coyote would fall off a cliff.
There's been so much of that, whether it was coming
from the Democratic Party over the shutdown, the Chuck Schumers
of the world. The stuff going on with the White
House renovations are hilarious because every media member having a

(18:33):
meltdown said nothing.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
No, Trump's ballroom is two hundred million dollars. It's getting
paid for by donors.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Okay, Obama built a basketball court for three hundred and
seventy six million dollars paid for by the taxpayers.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
Just hold on to your pocket book.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
They just put a lien on your money, your savings
in your retirement.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Saying okay, and nobody in the media said anything.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
The media is a bunch of losers.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
That being said, I am selfishly enjoying the sports betting scandal.
I obviously spend a lot of time bet on sports
growing up. I, you know, find great love sports. My
son is texting me this whole show right now about
this scandal. It's fantastic, so I communicate with my kid.
But it's been such a good diversion because that you know,
politics are awful, but it's been a little bit worse
lately than even usual for me. And this Steph Curry

(19:29):
one right here just made me laugh. It's Steph Curry.
You know, guys made a bazillion dollars. He's an instant
Hall of Fame, a great player by all accounts. People
know him to be a good guy. But him having
to defend the integrity of the game, it's just funny
to me. Here it is Clip four.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
How concerned are you about what happened today and just
how it might impact the NBA's integrity.

Speaker 6 (19:48):
I think on a whole everybody is very mindful of,
you know, what to do, what not to do. And
I understand the landscape of you know, sports right now
in general, and that's not just an NBA thing, it's
you know, this is new territory for everybody. So I
think on the whole we all are very responsible. The
integrative game is is fine, and then obviously we let

(20:11):
the situation play out whatever whatever happens. But I wouldn't
worry about that too much now.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I play that though, because it's called a good faith take.
What he's trying to do is, you know, minimize the
damage to the brands. Guy makes, you know, tens of
millions of dollars in the NBA bi all accounts, has
nothing to do with it, and doesn't want this to
overshadow all the good things the NBA does, all the
good things they contribute to people's lives. I mean, for real,
straight up, Okay, that's a good faith take. What I'm

(20:39):
about to play it from Stephen A. Smith is embarrassing, embarrassing.
And if you're like a conservative person who works in
the media and you're on a radio station that carries
my show after yours, I mean, honestly, and you're just
listening to this on the way home or the way
in or whatever the hell time slot they run this
show in. Everybody on the right has to stop lionizing

(21:03):
any liberal who agrees with us for a half hour,
you know what I mean? You know, every time if
Bill marsays something nice about Fox, everybody runs out and
retweets it, but they omit. The last three minutes, the
comment starts with, like, yeed, it did a good thing
over Fox the other night. Cut and we're like, ah,
even Bill mar gets it. But the next three minutes
you're like those white supremacist election deniers like the trade out,

(21:25):
but we gret anybody on the right, anybody on the
right who agrees with us.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
We're like, I actually like this guy. Okay, Like Stephen A.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Smith's great friends with Sean Hannity, I'm obviously pretty good
friends with Sean Hannity myself. Sean has him on a
lot and they have a lot of good faith back
and forth. But Sean's show is not his ESPN show.
The ESPN show is a Disney show.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Okay. Disney just paid more.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Money than God for the NBA rights, and this is
a real big issue for the NBA right now, some
issues exactly. So Mickey's worked up and Stephen A. Smith
wants to get out there and protect the shield, meaning
he wants the bass, the people watching the NBA to
think this is not their problem, it's a problem caused

(22:08):
by Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
I mean, dude, that is.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
That is absolutely the most ridiculous excuse I have ever
heard in my entire career as a disciplinarian.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
But here he is.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
He's saying it okay on ESPN to the team of panelists.
He's the highest paid NBA analyst. He's the guy who
carries the most weight. And when he talks like that
is like the staff memo. You're not going to interrupt him.
You're going to sit there and nod your head like,
oh wow, this is you know, if I can just
be at the hem of his garment. The anointed Stephen A.
Smith is doing political commentary and I met him. He's

(22:42):
a nice guy. I don't know anything against him, but
this is embarrassing because he's trying to blame this on Trump.
And I want you to understand why is he doing that?
Because the base hates Trump over at Disney. The core
ESPN viewer, the BLM, George Floyd riot supporting defund the police.
People who still frequent ESPN at this late stage. Okay,
love the catnip of blame Trump. It's their SMM safe word.

(23:03):
If something goes wrong, well Trump and oh oh oh Trump.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Okay, well in that case, except there's only one small problem.
This investigation started four years ago. Four years ago. Guys,
Donald Trump is not fixing card games. Okay, if he could,
his casinos would still be in business. I mean, think
about that. It's bananas. But stick with me, because here
is Stephen A. Smith trying to do the kick save
and it's just like so laughable because everybody listening to

(23:30):
this is like, well yeah, no, exactly, yeah, no, okay, yeah,
no the way he said it here it is clipsticks.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Trump is coming.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Don't be surprised that the WNBA.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Is next on his list.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
We've seen athletes get in trouble with the law before.
You don't see the director of the FBI having a
press conference.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's not coincidental. It's not an accident. It's a statement.

Speaker 6 (23:54):
Talk to people in the NBA, talk to people in
the NFL, talk to people in the world of sports.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
They think this is like the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, come on, dude, this is Trump is coming.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
What you just said is one of the most insanely
idiotic things I.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Have ever heard.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
I mean, seriously, everyone in this room is now dumber
for having listened to it. And you know who agrees
with that. Clip from the Adam Sandler movie. Here's Cash
Battel on the Ingram Angle. Last night before I went
on waters World, I was watching Cash Betel in the
in the studio.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
This is pretty funny. Clip seven.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
I'm the FBI director. I decide which arrested conduct and
which not to conduct. That may be the single dumbest
thing I've ever heard out of anyone in modern history.
And I live most of my time in Washington, d C.
It's right up there with Adam Schiff. We arrest people
for crimes.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
So Stephen A. Smith, you gotta do better than that,
a lot better than that. It's just so embarrassing. Okay,
I understand why it's happened in the nightmare for the NBA.
They just bought the rights on ESPN to the NBA deal.
The NBA on TNT just kicked off this week on
ESPN for the first time in twenty plus years. It's
leaving TNT, so It's a nightmare for them because this

(25:06):
is big publicity. They had a great opening night, but
the only thing anyone in the world is talking about
is the scandal. Do I think it's gonna go away
pretty quick? I actually do for all the salacious things
that are coming out a lot of stuff on Twitter. Okay,
there's so much money involved, But if you want to
know the real truth, like, for real, why is this
money gonna go Why is the story gonna go away

(25:27):
real quick? It's because the leagues themselves. The leagues themselves
are worried about their own gambling money bingos. This isn't
about integrity, it's not about justice. If it was, they
wouldn't be pivoting to Trump right now. Donald Trump did
not organize a gambling ring that included four NBA teams

(25:49):
and for mafia crime families, Like that's embarrassing on its face.
Donald Trump did not tell Terry rozi Or on the
Miami Heat to instruct Gamba to bet the under on
his statistics because he was gonna leave the game early
with a made up injury. That's not Donald Trump, guys. Okay,
bringing Shauncey Billups is a honeypot to private card games

(26:12):
where they have X ray scanners and they can cheat
the Mark into raising his hands and losing big bets.
Donald Trum has nothing to do with that. Like, that's
so embarrassing, and you get it, you get the deflection.
We cover enough politics to see how it works, and
that is Stephen A. Smith going into political mode. I
don't think he can get away with that. If he's
on Hannity tonight, Sean can let him get away with that,

(26:32):
No chance. But ESPN would straight up. And that's why
it's so embarrassing. You know, sometimes you need a no man.
You need a no man. One of the worst things
that ever happens to super, super super successful people, Elvis Presley,
Michael Jackson is Guys like that that are so rich
and so profoundly famous are usually towing a pretty long

(26:53):
gravy train full of people who are making their living
off of your success, and they don't want to step
in and tell you, No, you shouldn't take more drugs. No,
you shouldn't take profinol or whatever the hell Michael Jackson
was sleeping with. No, you shouldn't have a sleepover with
other things besides profanol.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
I'm just saying, okay, they didn't have a no man
to step in and be like, hey dude, cut the
You don't have that, okay, because people don't want to
get thrown off the gravy train. And it's the same
thing over at ESPN. How many people do you know
of that have been fired because they've run a foul
of the you know, popular sovereignty if you will, of

(27:36):
the channel, think of all the sage steal stories, Think
of the things Will Kine has to say about ESPN
these days. You know, over here at Fox guy worked
there for quite a while, okay, because ESPN went super
duper woke number one, but number two again. Once you
are sponsored by gambling and you have fallen in love

(27:57):
with that money, your loyalty stops being to the integrity
of the game, where the integrity of the conversation. Your
loyalty is now to that almighty dollar. And that's what
Steven A. Smith was doing yesterday. That's why it's so embarrassing,
is because like you can see the sellout, you know
what I'm saying. Let me give you a little more though,
because I just find it to be so funny because

(28:18):
Shaquille O'Neil, Charles Barkley. Charles Barkley is an interesting case
study here because Charles Barkley is a really famous gambler,
as is Michael Jordan really really famous gamblers. Okay, it's
not to say they were involved in anything like this,
because by all accounts, they had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
I'm not even asserting that.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I'm just saying it's interesting to hear a gambler's take
on a network that covers the league.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
So let's start with Barkley.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
Clip nine sain't got nothing to do with damn gambler
and addiction. These dudes are stupid? Why are they stupid?
You under no circumstances? Can you fix basketball games? Under
no circumstances? I love to gamble. Rosea makes twenty six
million dollars him bend and giving people information or taking

(29:00):
a self out of games. How much is he gonna
benefit take hisself out the game to get unders. He's
making twenty six million dollars, but no send he gains?
How much of these guys he gave a hit up?
He took himself out of games on prop bets? How
much money is he gonna make?

Speaker 2 (29:19):
I mean, he raises a good point, But for a
lot of these guys, it's not about money, it's about action.
You know, a lot of big money people who bet
on sports have money, they're just tired of the way
they make it, or they're uninspired by the way they
make it, so they go out and try to make
it in other illicit ways. That's what gambling, you know,
does to a lot of people. But when you're a
big pro athlete, if you're involved with like underworld figures,

(29:40):
it's usually because they have something on you, you know,
whether you're involved in some type of relationship you shouldn't
be in, or you got some friends you grew up
with that are problematic and you're still loyal to them
and you kind of get dragged down this road.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
You know, that was a big story.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Do you remember Aaron Hernandez who is the Patriots tight
end NFL's all time leader and homicides. Aaron Hernandez famously,
when he played for uh Florida played under Urban Meyer
at Florida before he played for Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
Urban Meyer he famously once said that like he was,
you know, a hothead and a you know, a bit
of a lunatic, bit of a wild card, but he

(30:15):
could manage him when he was on campus focused on football.
But he said whenever he went home and hung out
around his old dirt bag friends, you know, he'd fall
back into a lot of his bad habits. That's the
thing that happens in the NBA. A lot happens in
the NFL.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
A lot. I mean, it happens to me. I'm not
even like, I'm not even kidding.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Do you many people I grew up with that I
app physically cannot hang out with because I have a
TV show and the biggest channel in the world, and
I'm not risking it because I have a dirt bag
friend that might punch a police horse after he walks
out of the Blarney Stone on Eighth Avenue. Hey, oh
my good, Jimmy Pailer for Fox, can we take a
selfie next thing? You know, my superfan is like he

(30:54):
should be behind bars defense wins championships. But nobody in
the NBA, at least these guys anyway, weren't playing any
on their personal lives. That's how you get involved in
stuff like that. And again, it's cash. I talked about
this with Jesse waters last night. Guys who make a
lot of money like cash the mafia. If you're doing
business with the mafia, they ain't send in venmos They

(31:14):
don't have the United States Treasury Department to look the
other way like the Bidens did with all that money
coming in from Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Really think about that.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
The United States Treasury Department under Obama flagged one hundred
and fifty seven different transactions the Bidens were involved in,
filed say as reports, Suspicious activity reports, Okay, sars. And
to be clear, it's because the money was coming in
in a lot of fugazy ways. Hey, it's getting wired
into this bank account, then it's going to that bank account.

(31:44):
What the heck, it's gone through thirteen bank accounts and
somehow it's now in their grandkid's bank account.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
What the hell do they have to do with a
billionaire oligarch in Moscow?

Speaker 2 (31:54):
What does Joe Biden's grandkid want with Barisma in Ukraine?

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Really weird stuff. Okay.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
The point is the Bidens are a pretty powerful political
family and they were able to get the Feds of
the look the other way. The NBA doesn't necessarily have that.
If you're Chauncy Billups or Terry Rozier or Damon Jones
or god forbid who else is involved. But what happens
is when you do in that type of business with
the mafia and it is all cash. You know, it's
kind of the type of situation that appeals to people

(32:21):
who don't want traceable sources of income because there are
so many hands in the pot of their actual income.
That's a big part of this, and it's hard to
explain to people if you haven't really been around it.
You go, well, what is the value there? As Charles
Barkley said, you make twenty six million a year, why
would you risk that for two hundred thousand dollars?

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Like I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
You wouldn't, But there's a reason that they would, you know,
And that's usually the reason. There's some type of stimulant
behind this that we don't understand. Okay, I mean, I
get the scourge of addiction and everything like that, so
it's a big gamble growing up. But I think the
other issue is there a personal stimulus, whether it's a relationship,
whether it's a drug problem, whether it's some type of

(33:06):
protection racket because of something you did wrong.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
You know. The point is, you know, the old saying
in fight club, everything that you own owns you.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Okay, Well, if you own a relationship with the mafia,
they actually hold the deed on your life. There were
you Fox Across America with Jimmy Phallop. What a first
hour of the show. I mean this pound for pound
probably as good an hour of radio as we've ever heard.
He is so this guy maybe, but we'll pick it

(33:36):
up at the next hour. We got just Deine Brook Murray,
Danny Polaschak opening acts for my son Lincoln Fahili.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
He is the Friday headliner. And we're just kind of
laughing at the world right now.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's been such a food fight of a week and
I've been like stuck in New York.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
We're about to go socialist mom.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Donnie's about to win the election. Problem, I know, because
we're gonna lose Andrew Como. We can't play any of
the handsy Andy drops that he Andy.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Come on, man, we're having such a nice time. It
was like a resurgence.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
The thing about comedy is when you do topical humor,
there are jokes you tell right in a specific news cycle,
and then they go away and you forget you ever
told them, you forget you ever had them. But then
one day that person or that thing is back in
the news and you get a new chunk of material back.
Like the first time I found out about this sort
of thing is when I was new to stand up.

(34:27):
It was during the Michael Jackson trials. Like Michael Jackson
had gone on trial, like in very very first few
weeks in my stand up career, and it was a comic.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
It's a funny story.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
I knew a comic who did twelve years in jail
for armed robbery, and when he had gone away to prison,
Michael Jackson was having like his first round of trials,
so he had really good material because it was in
the news every night. Well, lo and behold, he got
back out of prison and the Michael Jackson story broke
and I was watching him in the club that night,
and I'm like, God, this guy is such a good writer.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
I mean, guy's like a nine.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Minute chunk on a story that's like a few hours old.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
That is crazy.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
This guy is just hammer and Michael Jackson and I
had no idea that it was just like a rebirth
from the previous era of comedy. So it's a fascinating thing.
But with the Cuomo thing, I mean we were running
like ten Quomo bits a day back when we were
allowed to play song parodies before you know the law,
you know, legal stuff, and we loved it. And you know,

(35:25):
we're doing bits and the Cuomo Garden and now he's
back for a little bit, so we got to milk
it for all it's worth.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
This has been a podcast from wor