Episode 6: March Madness, Democracy in Action

John Heilemann and Will Leitch discuss the NCAA Basketball Tournament, when even President Barack Obama gets into the spirit and fills out a bracket, and talk with Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins about amateurism and whether or not college athletes should (or even can) be paid.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Oppenheimer Funds The Right Way to Invest.
Explore long term opportunities at Oppenheimer Funds dot com. Welcome
everybody to another edition of Culture Caucus, the Bloomberg Politics

(00:21):
podcast on the intersection of politics and culture. I'm John
Hilman and I am still Will Leach, Hey, Will, how
are you? I'm mirthful. I I have the madness of March.
It's if you don't stop scratching, it will never heal.
Oh my god. In the termment has been very exciting
this year. I'm and I'm I know about you. My
bracket is destroyed, as usually is, within five to ten

(00:43):
minutes of the first game starting. All right, we'll get
to that in a minute. I just want to tell
you that the great thing about our podcast today, the
last time we did Culture Caucus, we tried an experiment.
The experiment was that I was in New York in
the studio and Will was at his home in Athens, Georgia,
in his um robe bathrobe, in his underwear um eating
Cheetos or derritos or whatever it is. He did whatever

(01:06):
it was that he does down there, and we tried
at that experiment like a remote podcast today, it's a
whole different thing. Will, where are you? I'm actually in
New York City and where you were sitting last time
that the seat is still warm. You you cast quite
an impression. Yes, And I am not where you were, Will,
because first of all, I'm pretty sure your wife would
never let me in your house. But second of all, Um,
I'm I'm somewhere else. I'm in Florida, Palm Beach, in fact,

(01:29):
in a ridiculous place, about to engage in some interesting
jiggery pokery with Donald J. Trump. So that's my day today.
But in the meantime, I think we can turn to
our topic of the day, which is not Donald J. Trump,
um sportsman and billionaire, but sports itself. And as you
mentioned before, March Madness, the final four, the n C

(01:52):
Double A Tournament. It's pretty much the most um in
some ways, I think for a lot of people, the
most exciting sports event of the year. When you say, yeah,
I think it's very universal. You know, you really don't.
One of the problems is actually college basketball itself has
had is the tournament has almost gotten too popular, Like
nobody pays any any attention to college basketball. It starts
that they're on Thanksgiving, but nobody looks at it at

(02:13):
all until the tournament. And but the tournament has become
this huge universal thing. The ratings have been out of
control in a lot of ways. You know that the
and part of that is a little bit because of
the success of Life Sports. But the tournament self. One
of the things I personally love about the tournament is
this idea that it is. I find it the most
universal American experience tournament in the idea that if you

(02:35):
watch professional sports, you're gonna see a team from New York,
and you're gonna see team for Chicago, and maybe you'll
see a team from a place as small as Oklahoma City.
But that's it. But for the college basketball tournament, for
one brief afternoon, Middle Tennessee State can become the biggest
story in all of sports. You know, some sleepy you know,
sleepy Louisiana town where Northwestern State is can hit the
last second shot and everyone's talking about that. I think

(02:58):
that's one of the main reasons it is. People love
college basketball in New York, people love college basketball in California,
they love calib college basketball Louisiana, they love it in Utah.
You know. To me, that is one of it's the
most universally American sport in a way that the and
the bracket is simplicity personified the idea that there's your
old joke being that, hey, you know, whoever the receptionist

(03:19):
that never pays the attention to college basketball is the
one that always wins. The bracket is often true because
it is simple, it is easy. I there was a
book that came out a few years ago that I
contribute to called The Enlightened Bracketologists, and it made the
argument that you could put every single life debate into
a sixteen or sixty fourteen bracket and at the end
of it you could resolve at all, like who is

(03:40):
the true God? Put the sixty four most popular gods
altogether in a battle. At the end you find out
who wins. And so I think that is one of
the reasons people love the tournament so much. It is
a thing that everyone can understand. And if you win,
you keep going, and if you lose, you're you're done,
your college career is over. And I think the most
involved in that is I think pretty powerful for people,
even if they don't really watch college basketball. The rest

(04:02):
of the year. Right, It's like it's like a thing
that everyone can It's I think it's demo, it's it's
it's small d democratic in a variety of ways, right
that you're suggesting, one of which is that like everyone
can understand it. Another thing is that everyone can play. Right.
You don't actually need to know anything about college sports
or college basketball to sit down with the bracket in
front of you and just pick a bunch of teams.
You can do that at random if you want. And

(04:22):
for a lot of people that is in fact how
they played there, or they just pick all the the
lowest seeds or all the highest seeds or whatever it
is they want to do, but they can feel kind
of invested in the game. Um, in that in the
tournament in that way. Um And as you say, the
bracket kind of tells all I. I seem to remember.
You did a piece once about this, right for Bloomberg
Politics dot com, about the about the about the the
the how the bracket, How you could pretty much bracket

(04:45):
ie anything, didn't you. Yeah. We also did a piece
where we looked at which candidate was stood for which team,
and I made I think I'm the big mistake I
made in that was I did not have Ted Cruz
as Duke because Grayson Allen, who is the best player
for Duke. Quite famously, if you ever go on Twitter
during a Duke basketball game, he looks almost eerily like

(05:06):
a young Ted Cruise, to the point that that actually
it's has become like a bit of a meme how
much they look they look like one another. But yeah,
I think another fun part about the bracket too is
not only can everyone fill it out, but now that
you know the tournament has become a big such a
big thing every year, and the act of filling out
a bracket that there's certain conventions that everyone knows to do,
you know, like everyone feels like they have to have

(05:27):
a fourteen team beat a three seed, even though no
one knows who any of these teams are. No one's
watched it, Like you hear a lot of people fill
out of bracket. You saw Obama actually say this when
he's filling out his bracket with any Katz every year,
which is he's like, oh, I I'm feeling this upset,
like he couldn't name a player on either nor nor
any of us can. But there is this sense that
you give feeling feel a bracket. You look at Hawaii

(05:49):
play California like I don't know, I'm feeling Hawaii here,
and then it turns out you White wins, and then
all of a sudden you're petting yourself on the back
for getting Hawaii right, even though you have never watched
the game with either Hawaii or California all year. And
I think that's satisfying for a lot of people. Yeah,
I mean, I think yes, right. And one thing I
think we should say at this point, just because you
have written so many brilliant things in this vein that

(06:11):
it's useful to say, you can find those things, the
stories that we just mentioned at Bloomberg Politics dot com,
where you can also find this podcast when it appears
every week or two weeks or whenever we have a
chance to do it. Um that's where you can find it.
You can also find it where else will. You can
find it on soundcloun and you also find it on iTunes.
We always recommend for people to to get through iTunes
and make sure to give us a nice review. If

(06:32):
you give us a nice review, it makes it a
lot easier for the Apple. All sorts of Apple quant
things will let will push out the podcast for people,
so it makes it easier for people to find the show.
So if you review the show on iTunes, it's a
great way for people to find it. So please subscribe
in review if you like it, and if you don't,
don't say a word. Right, I was gonna say, it's

(06:52):
hard not to like this podcast when it involves Will Leach,
I mean, and plus, if you don't like it, just
say something nice anyway, because you know, if we'll you know,
if you say mean things that hurts Will's feelings, and
then you know we have problems. Um. The thing about
the bracket, it seems to me when you think about politics,
is that the power of the bracket has become such
that we now talk about presidential politics in the context

(07:12):
of the brackets. Right, this is like now a convention.
It wasn't this way when I started covering politics, that
we talked about. You know, there's an any establishment bracket,
there's ah an establishment bracket, there's a populist bracket, there's
an evangelical bracket, all of the you know, the notion
that there are lanes, right, that's another version of the bracket,
is essentially that there are lanes that you're trying to win.
You know, you're trying to win your your your You're

(07:34):
clustered with a bunch of competitors that are not the
same and you ultimately, you don't have to win against
the field at the outset. What you have to do
is you have to beat whoever it is that's in
your bracket, and that eventually you'll eventually somehow get yourself
to the semifinals or the quarterfinals are and emunctionately end
of the finals, but that it's one of the interesting
things about it this year is that there are those
who argue that one of the biggest fallacies of presidential

(07:58):
politics is this notion, the notion of the get because
you had a lot of Republican candidates who seemed to
think that it wasn't their job to take on Donald Trump,
it was their job to take on whoever was in
their lane or in their bracket, and that what that
meant was that instead of attacking the front runner, everybody
ended up attacking each other, which basically allowed to Trump
to go on to basically dominate the race and now
put himself on the precipice of winning the Republican domination.

(08:18):
Because people had this kind of misconceived notion that the
nomination fight was in fact like the n C Double
A Final four, like the the n C Double A
hoops tournament. Yeah, you know, you heard people refer to
the kiddie table debate, but you also referred to it
as the play in game, which is another bracket convention.
Now there's the playing game that they play in Dayton
just to actually get in the tournament. And you did

(08:40):
see that. You saw this idea that the lanes, the pockets,
the segments, all of it. I actually did a piece
for us starting out where I actually did when we
were trying to figure out who was going to make
the debate stage and who was going you know, when
they were figuring out the polls, who was even good
where they were going to be standing. We actually did
a bracket as they were sixteen there at if you
didn't count Jim Gilmore, you had sixteen. You had a
perfect brack get in a lot of ways, and in

(09:01):
no offense of Jim Gilmore, but we felt comfortable leaving
him out of that. So I feel like, uh, yeah,
there is and I think part of it too. This
has happened a lot more in the last eight years.
I would argue in part because of President Obama, because
President Obama not only is famously a sports fan, he
famously gives every year he lets Andy Kat's reporter for ESPN,
who who worked on this for a very long time.

(09:22):
The minute Obama before Obama was elected, he did an
interview with him saying, listen, if you win, I would
like to have you do a bracket on Sports Center
every year. And Obama, who famously loves hanging out with
athletes a lot more than likes hanging out with politicians,
he agreed to do it. So every year he's done,
he's filled out his bracket live, and I think it
has become it's a tradition now for eight years, the

(09:44):
leader of the free world has gone on national television
and said, here's who I'm picking in this game. So
I think it's helped. The term has always been big,
but I think that has definitely helped really mainstream it,
uh in in kind of even the popular lexicon and discourse. Yeah,
I think that's true. One of the things that's kind
of funny about Obama, right as you made and totally
accurate observation just now, which is that Obama cares a

(10:05):
lot more about sports, or enjoy sports and and and
particularly hoops a lot more than he does UH any
of the other many of many of the other UH
activities that are required of him as president United States.
And there's no doubt I mean that you talk to
people who know Obama and he would be most nights.
You know, he doesn't go back up to his study
and turn on UH CNN or turn on MSNBC or

(10:28):
let alone obviously turn on Fox News. He turns on ESPN.
You know, he wants to watch Mike and Tony. He
wants to watch UH Sports Center. He is obsessively focused
on sports, and especially so in basketball season. And you know,
people often in Washington and in the political class criticize
Obama for that. You know, you've heard it's one of
the most common refrains of his presidency, which is, you know,

(10:49):
why doesn't Barack Obama go up to Capitol Hill and
schmooze the congressman more, Why doesn't Barack Obama have people
over for dinner? More? Why doesn't he take people to
Camp David? He doesn't understand the social aspects of the job.
And I have often you know, he famously in the
White House Correspondents, Diner made this point about you know
where he made a joke where he said, you know,
people say you should have a drink with Mitch McConnell.
And he paused, and then he said, why don't you
have a drink with Mitch McConnell. And I always feel like,

(11:11):
even though the political class criticized Obama for being like that,
that they totally misunderstand part of the nature of his appeal,
which is in fact, that he would rather watch Sports
Center that hang out with a bunch of krusty, old
white guys on Capitol Hill. That's like what most normal
people are like, you know, we what would you ask me?
Would I rather go to u n C double a

(11:32):
basketball tournament game? Would I rather watch Sports Center? Would
I rather watch Chris Berman or go hang around with
you know, Jeff Sessions on Capitol Hill? Give me the
sports any day. And I feel like for a lot
of normal Americans, they look at Obama and it's kind
of part of his relatability that he is a sports
nut and that he is more interested in stuff that
normal Americans are interested in than he is in doing

(11:54):
in some aspects his job. Yeah, and you know, he
has a natural understanding of the game and understanding what
it means to be a fan in a lot of ways.
You know, I think you know, of course, the tradition
of presidents hosting teams at the at the Oval Office,
when at the White House when they win. You know,
he's a Bulls fan, He's a White Sox fan. He
always gets he always gets in this. Like so if

(12:15):
you if you I were the president and I had
to congratulate a baseball team who was not the St.
Louis Cardinals for winning a World Series, I would do
so through gridded teeth. And I think you see that
from Obama, like the natural kind of fandom that he
hasn't You saw him when he felt out the bracket
It's got the first year I became, I write a
piece every year after he does his bracket. The first year,

(12:35):
it was stunning. He seemed to know like the backup
point guards for Wichita States. It was really kind of
amazing how much information and that went beyond just hey,
Mr President, you have ten minutes with and Katts, here's
a couple of index cards what to know, Like, it
was clear there was a depth of knowledge to that
I've always found that very amusing that when David Cameron
was uh came they went to not only a basketball

(12:58):
game together, they went to the playing game in Dayton
between Western Kentucky and Mississippi Valley State, which it's like
just the nerdiest nerd game, Like nobody's watching that game
except for really hardcore hoop fans, and they led to
this what I think is one of my favorite Obama
sports moments. It was actually turned out to be a
very close game. You know, these are two very tiny

(13:19):
schools where you know that never get any national attention,
and it came and there was this great comeback by
Western Kentucky and the point guard for Western Kentucky hit
a three pointer and started trash talking Obama because he
had picked Mississippi Valley States, and it was just this
great moment. And then you cut to David Cameron looking
so confused and so bewildered as to what's going on.
To me, that was there's a natural affinity and understanding

(13:42):
that he has in the sport that is I think
very relatable, and I think people people understand, they might
not understand, They certainly don't understand smoothing in Washington. They
certainly don't understand a lot of things that goes on.
But you know, the for a guy that's often considered
somewhat cold and maybe not that social person, he feels
like a guy you actually could go watch a game
with in a lot of ways, and and that whole

(14:03):
proverbial will have a beer with I think that's his thing, right, Yeah,
it's instead of like having a beer with Obama because
he doesn't really drink beer. You know, he has the occasional,
occasional martini, but not very often, doesn't drink that much.
You know that that kind of like you're not he's
not the guy who you're gonna have a beer with,
but he is the guy who you might go to
see a basketball game with, right if you were, if
you're the average American. And I think you know, that's
one of the keys to his relatability. And when you know,

(14:25):
when you think about this Republican field that now currently exists,
you've got Donald Trump, who is sitting about ten minutes
up the road for me at Maral lago Um, who
you know, pretends to be maybe is he is, Like,
let's be honest, he is. He's a golfer, Um, his
claims to have one a bunch of tournament championships. Uh,
you know, I'm not sure or what is he called?

(14:46):
What are they called club championships? Right, Trump's Trump's clubs.
Trump's claims to have one a bunch of clubs championships
often challenged by the Duffers among us. People wonder how
many of those club championships he has actually won. But
you know, he's a golfer, right, but he seems to
vince no real interest in in the more populist sports. Um,
you got, uh, John Kasik, you know, who was a
little bit of an Ohio State fan. There's no doubt

(15:06):
about that. That kind of comes through and makes him
feel somewhat relatable. Ted Cruz completely incomprehensible. The idea of
Ted Cruise in the basketball game or a baseball game, right,
which I think is one of the problems that Cruise has.
You know, you made the point to me before we
did this podcast that we were like waiting to see,
you know, what the what the brackets of all the
the presidential candidates would be, and that in the end,
like really none of them filled out their brackets, which

(15:28):
is you know, kind of a kind of a little
bit surprising and unexpected, And I wonder if it points
to a deeper problem that some of them might have
in relating to the American people. Because four years ago
they did Romney did uh, eight years ago, McCain did,
Like this was a fairly common thing, I think, and
and and you know, to be fair, there's a lot
going on right now and Trump. You know, the problem

(15:48):
is Trump almost can't fill out a ballot because it
won't be perfect, and that would say that would that
would hurt the way he would speak, like would be
the most beautiful bracket. Every game is gonna be right.
So you know, there's something about the shin that eventually
he's going to predict some of these games wrong. That
is almost off message for Trump, and a little bit
he can't actually predict games because he might get them wrong.
So um, I think there's part of that. And but

(16:10):
you know, it's it's fine, Trump's you know Trump. People
in sports have been dealing with Trump for years just
because through boxing to the USFL. There's a very famous
thirty for thirty documentary that makes a I think pretty
convincing argument that Donald Trump is one of the primary
reasons that there is not another secondary sports league football
league in the country that loves football so much the USFL.

(16:32):
He probably is the reason that that league ultimately failed, so,
you know, and to the point where the guy that
made that movie still gets angry letters from Trump all
the time. So certainly, but you know, he for among
like boxing fans, and boxing has lost a little bit influence,
But among boxing fans, Trump is considered like a character
the way that Mike tysoner vander Holefield is. So I
think he has a natural thing with that. But yeah,

(16:54):
you're right. I think that the the the small d
democratic notion of the tournament is not something that, uh
that that people really associate with Trump, and I don't
think he really would associate himself a lot with right.
I'm sort of imagining when Obama's bracket, when the tournament
is over, uh and Obama's bracket, like so many people's brackets,
you know, will end up being you know, rendered kind

(17:15):
of shredded by by the realities of the tournament. You're
kind of imagining Trump sending a tweet that says, you know,
pathetic poser. Obama's bracket, you know, totally misses the final four.
Sad exclamation point. Um. You know that even though Trump
of course didn't fill out a bracket of his own.
You know, I'm i'm I'm interested in what you think
will about this, which is, you know, I think part

(17:35):
of the democratic, small d nature of the tournament is
that it is uh, not only a tournament in which
unexpected uh things occur, you know, and there are upsets
and tiny teams you've never heard of from places you
couldn't find on a map that suddenly rise up and
sees the nation's attention for for one game or potentially
for for more than one game if they go on

(17:57):
a little bit of a run. That's a big part
of it. But the other and of it, it seems
to me, is that it is, you know, people perceive
this to be amateur sports, and that like the the
the kids that are out there playing or college students,
they're not getting paid, they're playing for the love of
the game, and that in that at least in terms
of how a lot of people see the n C
Double A Tournament, they see it as being a purer

(18:18):
kind of form of sports competition than they see the
NFL and the Super Bowl, and then they see the
World Series than they see uh, the nd the NBA Finals,
the NBA Playoffs that go on forever and and play
all these kind of games in order to just suck
more commercial ad revenue out of the out of the
world of consumer marketers. Um. But of course it's it's

(18:38):
ridiculous on some level to think about the n C
Double A Tournament as being a purer form of sports,
because it is just as big a business and any
of the previous things that I mentioned. I'm curious, you
know what, do you think there's a point where, given
how big the tournament has gotten now and how commercial
and how media how much media saturation there is around
covering it, is there do you think that the tournament
risks some kind of a backlash at some point where

(18:59):
people will look and say, you know what, this is
just another huge, corporate, uh hype hype fueled, hype saturated event,
just like everything else. There's no real distinction between this
and professional sports. I'm done with it. I think that
the tournament has edged close to that line more and
more as the years have gone on. Remember, you're not
a sponsor of the simply tournament. You are one of

(19:22):
the n C Double A's corporate champions, which is actually
what they call him. They they Infinity. I think buy
is like a certain ad to them be called a
corporate champion, you know. And it was funny the but
I don't think it's hit a critical mass because frankly,
it then suddenly Gurman has the same advantage the NFL
has is when it comes to their concussion issue. Yeah,
we really are upset, and it's really upsetting that how

(19:44):
corrupt the sport is. But wow, what a shot. That
What an amazing shot. That was what a terrific game,
and you just forget it when you're watching the game.
You know, I was at I was the Final four.
I'll be going to the Final four in Houston again
this year. And it was the final four two years
ago when it was in Arlington, you know at Jerry
Jones Diamond and Crusted Um, you know, white collar strip
club of a of a football stadium, and you know,

(20:07):
the billion dollar stadium and the places they're selling seats
that you can't even see the court for two hundred dollars.
And it's just an insane, insane spectacle in a place
that does not even have any college basketball, and it's
just this massive thing and Connecticut won the championship that year,
and after the game, Sabaz Napier, who had just been
interviewed in The New York Times saying that he was

(20:29):
unable to afford dinner because he did not get enough
money from the university, like we went to bed hungry
because they only gave him such a stipend to be
able to eat. Is just is on the court being
interviewed about leading Connecticut to the championship, and he actually says,
he says, this is this is an unfair system. He
does the thing that people have been trying to get
athletes to do, to kind of rise up and stand

(20:51):
up and try to submit make a difference. Is the
biggest stage She'll ever have. His big moment with Mike.
This is what he wants to say. And everyone went
and then moved on and forgot about it because the
games are so fun. And I think that that is
the ultimate thing I've yet to see in any actual sport.
You know, I've been coming sports a long time. I
cover all sports. You hear constantly what it's getting to

(21:12):
corporate and fans are getting upset about and they do
not like to hear. And the tickets are too expensive,
and in the pros, athletes are being paid too much,
or it's greedy owners, or the game's unsafe for all
of these terrible, terrible things, and then the games start
and just everybody forgets about it. And and I think
the inn sub A tournament is UH benefits from that
in a very similar way that the NFL does. Right.

(21:33):
I'm just curious. I know, we're gonna talk in a
minute to your friend, UM and one of the writers,
one of the sports writers I admire the most, Sally
Jakins from the Washington Post. We're gonna have a little
chat with her about the economics of of the of
the college of college sports broadly and more specifically related
to the n C Double A tournament. But I'm curious
as to whether you think, at this point, Um, the

(21:55):
the the movement, the argument, the sentiment for UH that
relates to the thing you were just talking about, which is,
you know, these college kids are basically exploited in AH
in a really gratuitous, um open kind of way by
the n C Double A, which is a gigantic corporate
money making behemoth. Um, these kids don't get paid, as

(22:19):
you said with Napier, you know, can often find themselves
a situation where they can't afford it by dinner. Um,
it seems like one of the great to me obvious
injustices in our in the world of sports, that these
that this takes place. Do you have a sense, uh
that that movement, that sentiment, the arguments that are increasingly
being made for paying college athletes, do you think that
movement has a chance of of actually breaking through and

(22:41):
succeeding and changing the world at some point soon or
are we still like a long, long long way off
from that actually it's seeing any kind of change in
that way. I think that there's much more public discussion
of it than there's ever been. Joe No Sarah from
The New York Times wrote a book called just covid
of eookxcuse me called called and uh see Me Indentjured,
which I actually reviewed for The New York Times and ute,

(23:01):
but I think it's helped kind of talked about how
much of a major movement this has become. J Billis,
who is the probably the lead college basketball personality on ESPN,
has been a loud and very vocal proponent of of
doing something to pay athletes and actually pointing out of
love of the hypocricy of the nsuble A. That said,
the one thing that generally all of these movements tend
to have lacked are a practical plan. And I think

(23:24):
I think more and more people are agreeing, yep, this
seems wrong, this seems unfair, but they're not. Actually, it's
hard to get people to agree on what they should do,
you know, and on because you know, if you open
the door, you know, if you open the door to
athletes being paid, didn't you pay the men's do you play?
Do you play the women's lacrosse team that's not a

(23:45):
at school that does not bring in money, but still
that there's a Title nine issue that comes with that?
And how do you play football? Has more players? How
do you pay more of them? There's it's because there's
the nuble A has been so standoffish to any idea
of this at all. It's hard. There's no like central
authority to put to cobble together a plan. So I
think that sentiment is getting more aware of kind of

(24:06):
the fundamental hypocrisies. But I don't know if we're actually
any closer to coming up with a way to actually
pay them, because I think, uh, and which is strange,
and it becomes more and more of a stark thing
every year because you're twenty years ago. Players weren't getting
paid then either, and they may have been unfundamentally unfair.
But now the money has just exploded to such a

(24:28):
dramatic amount that I think people just can't help but notice.
But the question is how how do you build that
money out? And there's there's really not only is there
no consensus, there's really no one to appeal to to
make such a move even happen. Right, I'm just curious, Well,
I haven't seen your bracket. Um, who do you have
winning at all? I like the President have Kansas. I

(24:48):
have Kansas way at all? Um. I had Michigan State
in the national championship game against Kansas, but let's not
talk about that because they lost in the first undamental
state Tennessee State. My bracket is not doing well. I
like most people that worked professionally in sports, my bracket
is terrible. At this point. I'm losing to my son
who is four, so so that that, uh, that happens

(25:08):
pretty right. Well. I was just like William, do you
like Providence or usc usc And then he just by
doing that by saying random letters and words. He does
not recognize he is ahead of me. So that is
that's how my bracket is going. The press Obama is
funny things. Actually, you know, he's done this bracket every year.
He got the first champion correct his first season he
picked up believe it was Connecticut the first season, and

(25:31):
he's not gotten one right since. So this year Kansas.
He actually joked when he did his telecast with any
Kats this year that he told Kansas coach Bill self,
don't disappoint me. A lot of pressure on you. And
it was funny. He had a brief moment realized, oh wait,
I'm the president and like turned around and said, I
went back to the camera and said, no, Bill, I'm
just kidding. I don't mean to put any pressure on you.
Like it was funny that like he had a moment
where he was so into being a sports fan they had.

(25:52):
He's like, oh wait, I'm the president and I just
told a coach not to disappoint me. I need to
like roll that back a little bit. It was a
very kind of amusing moment. That's Hlarias. So you and
you and the president, your team Kansas are atist you're
the team that you have picking winning it all are
still alive as of the time of this recording. I
believe Kansas is playing on the night before Culture Caucus
will actually hit the streets, and so by the time someone,

(26:13):
uh anybody listens to this, it's possible that Kansas could
have been knocked out of the tournament by Maryland. Um My,
just for the record, I always picked Wisconsin to win
it all in honor of my father, who's University of
Wisconsin graduate, And by the time anybody listens to this podcast,
Wisconsin will still be alive playing Notre Dame on Friday, hopefully,
uh Wisconsin. You know, I picked him every year ago,

(26:34):
all the way and they never do so maybe this
year I'll be luckier and then the process all I
get to beat both you and President Obama, and that
would be pretty much like the best thing that's ever
happened to me in my entire life that I don't
think that would be very Wisconsin one in the most
exciting way, fashionable possible in the second round. So as
a big tin guy, as the University Illinois guy did
when Illinois used to make tournaments, but now I have

(26:57):
to vote for other Big ten teams, So I am
four Buckey Dger as well. All right, go Badgers, is
all I have to say right now. So will you
and are gonna take a little break right now, and
then we're gonna come back with Sally Jenkins to the
Washington Post. How do you feel about that? Sally is
the best. I can't wait to talk to her. All right,
off to break down. Brought to you by Oppenheimer Funds

(27:17):
The Right Way to Invest Explore long term opportunities at
Oppenheimer Funds dot com. Welcome back to the Culture Caucus Podcast.
This is John Hyleman. I'm here with the Will Leach
Perpetually Um the Great will each Um here and we're

(27:40):
talking politics and college basketball, the politics of bracketology. Uh.
Will and I, having exhausted ourselves in the first half
of the show, figure we'd bring in reinforcement someone way smarter,
way more knowledgeable, and just way more enjoyable and convivial
than we are. That Sally Jenkins from the Washington Post. Sally,
how are you? I'm dangerous? What do you mean consivial? Okay,

(28:02):
She's gonna throw a dagger to the heart of Willie
chfully and this um, this might be the end of
the Culture Caucus podcast. Um, Sally, I have a question
for you just to start things off, which is so
um Will has this argument which we've been kind of
teasing with in the first half of the show, which
is the notion that part of the reason that the
n c Double A Tournament is so popular is that
it's the most small d democratic of all big sports events.

(28:24):
What do you think about that? Well? Absolutely, I mean
I think that my college football uh you know, there's
not this um, you know, sort of conspiracy to keep
the habit not you know, away from the Bowl of cash. Uh,
you know, mother than I was in Stephen F. Boston. Uh,
you know, being as popular of the Middle Tennessee's being

(28:45):
as as gripping and as popular at tournament time as
as the major conference schools, which you don't get in posts,
but I mean you really, the small schools and college
football have to fight for their lives, you know, annually,
and I don't do you watch the n c A
Basketball tournament every year and you wonder why the college
football people don't wise up? Yeah? Yeah, And you know

(29:07):
one thing I've noticed a lot in the tournament too.
I think we saw this a little bit with kind
of the fiasco of the Selection show this year. The
fact that the selection show, which is really just the
listing of sixties sixty eight teams names, took two hours
and there was a bubble watch and it became this
like big, massive corporate event that took so long that
eventually it just leaked and everyone cheered and it was
very happy to see CBS lose money from this. Um

(29:29):
what I'm curious. You know, I've I've reviewed Joan O.
Sarah's new book Indentured for The New York Times, and
I think we were discussing this kind of ongo this
movement that's been building, the idea, when there's so much
money in the game, to pay the players, to give
them a larger stipend. Do you think that's happened more

(29:49):
than One of the reasons that's been more of a
push in the last ten years or so is because
money has exploded so much in the sport. And do
you think there's a feasible way to actually pay these players. Yes,
I think it's exploded because of the you know, the
the sheer UH numbers. I mean, if you look at
UH the we get a great series in the Washington

(30:10):
Post on the finances behind college athletics. So in the
last decade, uh, you know, money has just flown, you know,
just flowed into the coffers of these conferences and universities. Uh,
to the tune of, you know, like forty nine million
dollars in increased salary increases for non coaching employees at

(30:30):
the major conference schools. Um, we'll talk in you know,
deputy athletic directors, administrators, ticket managers are all making six figures.
And you look at the gap between that and the
n c A as you know, grudging refusal for so
many years to even fully cover the cost of the scholarship.
So it's the unseemly gap between what people are earning,

(30:53):
what the adults are earning off the backs of the athletes,
and what the athletes themselves are getting. Now, the athletic
scholarship is hugely valuable. I mean, it's worth a quarter
of a million dollars in a lot of cases. The
problem is if the athletes aren't getting the full worth
of that scholarship. Um, you know, is it's feasible to
actually pay them. I don't think it's feasible to do

(31:15):
that without wrecking all the non revenue sports. UM, you know,
I don't know how you decide who to pay? You know,
do you pay freshmen as much as seniors? Do you
pay starters more than bench players? If you're gonna pay
uh college basketball players? Do you pay women's basketball players
that happen to play for the handful of programs and

(31:37):
actually produce revenue? And if so, how much? UM? You know?
I just I don't find I think that the class
of players we're talking about is so huge. I don't
know how you create an equitable payment system. So I
think what you really ought to be doing is enhancing
the value of the athletic scholarship, enhancing the value of

(31:57):
their their experience on campus, UM, enhancing the value of
their health benefits, Extending you know, the length of the scholarship,
extending the length of their health care after they leave
the school if they leave with injuries, that sort of thing. So, Sally,
let me ask you. Let me let me just step
back and ask you this question about So will mention
the Jonas Sarah book. If for anybody who doesn't know,

(32:18):
there's Jono Sarah's columnist at the New York Times. He's
been a business writer most of his life. Um, and
he's really taken up this cause. The book is called
Indentured and the subtitle is the Epic Scandal at the
n C Double A. UM. So just let me ask
you this question as a kind of a precursor to
some of the things you just said, which is, do
you agree with the premise the notion that essentially what

(32:39):
the n C Double A does here is turn athletes
and indentured servants? And is it a scandal? Uh? No,
I don't agree with the premise of indentured servitude. Yes,
it's a scan, it's a scandal, but not on those terms.
You know. Again, the pay increases for athletic directors and
deputy athletic directors, the pay increases over the decade. That's

(33:00):
a scandal. The you know, the spiraling of coaches salaries,
particular particularly for guys who are proven cheaters or who
are proven to um, you know, support academic fraud. Uh,
that's a scandal. Jim Behan, you know, um it is
a great guy, a great coach, but he's also on
his watch. You know, there's been some serious academic fraud

(33:23):
issues at Syracuse. Okay, so, uh, you know, as I
say the the athletic scholarship is one of the most
valuable commodities in this country. It is, ah, it's the
greatest thing since the g I built the athletic scholarship
in terms of extending opportunities for college educations debt free.
I might add, um, you know, to people who otherwise

(33:45):
wouldn't have them. So you know, the trick is not
to compromise that the trick is too, as I say,
enhance it and make sure that those athletes are getting
the full value of that incredible opportunity. Is there a
Is there a fear though? Because I agree I the
the amount of money that's going to athletic directors and

(34:06):
UH and university presidents and coaches, specifically coaches, it does
seem scandalous to me. But the reason all that money
is going there, the reason they have all that money
is because the finance and the support has exploded and
the players aren't getting it, so it has to go somewhere.
Like you know, Alan schwartz In in Indentured, one of
the people profiled in the book, talks about how he

(34:26):
he makes an argument that yes, when when you think
of of of other quote non revenue sports at at school.
Do you pay them? Do not pay them? His argument
is a almost it's strange. Uh. You've seen Jonathan Chaton
your in New York Magazine kind of fight back against
this idea in a similar way, saying, you know, he
he uh, Schwartze's almost as a free market system. He

(34:48):
thinks these athletes should be able to sell their jerseys
and get endorsement money and and almost be independent operators,
but not get paid from the universities. And therefore, you know,
you see this with the video games, like why like
they're not using video games anymore? Do you do you
would you support that? Do you think that's a way?
Completely support that? And I think I think it's the answer,

(35:08):
in addition to some some you know n c A reform,
uh and some cost control, you know, forcing athletic directors
to answer to the same budgetary constraints that say the
English department. Does you know, why should an athletic department
at a public university be allowed to run up huge deficits?
Why should they be allowed to operate in the red

(35:29):
and yet college presidents let them do it all the time. Okay,
they don't let their engineering department or their law school
do that. So that's one thing. But I have the
flood pricket system. Absolutely, if you're Johnny Manziel or if
you're you know, Malcolm Brogden in Virginia, you should absolutely
be able to profit off fu Jersey the same way
that you know, Natalie Portman could profit off of her

(35:51):
actress career while she was a student at a university.
You know. Um, nobody told Jodie Foster you can't make
money here at Yale. Um. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that
we tell these people, because of the nature of your
talent and the nature of the demand for that talent,
even profit off it for four years while you're in

(36:13):
school or two years or whatever it is. We don't
do that with any other class of students. Now, Sally,
I just want to I want to point out that
just now you attributed Johnny for you note that Jodie
Foster went to Yale, but for some reason didn't note
that Natalie Portman went to Harvard. I detect some kind
of anti some kind of anti Cambridge bias in that. Uh,
And that's I knew she'd gone to an ivy. I
could remember which one it was. Yeah, I'm always I'm

(36:35):
always for for for discriminate against Harvard and any uh
capacity that is possible. UM. But the school that I'm
always even more interested in praising is as well, who
knows well my alma modern Northwestern University. Where As you
will well recall the Northwestern football team brought a lawsuit
and tried to ugionize UM just a couple of years ago.

(36:57):
The n l RB ruled on that. It seemed like
a pretty much like a landmark ruling at the time.
I just I'm it's still a little confusing to me
exactly what the NLR n l RBS ruling meant for
the future of this movement. So maybe you can just
talk about that a little bit UM and break down
why that suit was important and how it fits into
the argument we're discussing, and what the future is relevant

(37:19):
to that, because it seems like the unionization thing would
also be part of the way in which you would
resolve some of the economic issues that you're raising. Well,
I think that I hadn't read the an l RB
decision in a wild so I'm gonna I'm going to
forget that specifies that it but essentially what they ruled
is that college athletes aren't employees. Um, you know, and
I having to agree with that ruling. I think that

(37:42):
if you define college athletes as labor, it actually doesn't
serve them well because you get into a huge you know,
all of a sudden, is the college athletic scholarship taxable? Uh?
You know, how do you define the class of employees?
How do you define you want to get into collective
bargaining um as college athletes? Are you really do you

(38:05):
really believe collective bargaining is the best way to protect
all college athletes? I mean, you could make a strong
argument collective bargaining has done nothing but hurt NFL players
over and over and over again. Just look at what
Tom Brady is going through with Roger Goodell, simply because
collective bargaining gives the NFL this sort of magic cloak.

(38:25):
So I just am not convinced that defining themselves as
labor or employees is really the way to go. I
think it would destroy the athletic scholarship and destroy opportunities
UM and scholarships rather than than create them. So that's
that's my main thing, I you know, And and the
n l r B happens to have agreed with that

(38:47):
for their own you know, labor law reasons. But again, okay,
so ask yourself, if college athletes want to unionize, what
is the class like if they are a class action,
what is the class? How do you define that class?
How many athletes does it include? Um? You know, what
do you do about athletes at small schools? What do

(39:09):
you do about swimmers and divers? What do you do
about lacrosse players? You know, they don't really belong they
don't share the same interests. A lot of times, UM,
as college football players or college basketball players, college football
and basketball players, UH at major schools, a lot of
times tend to ask books, why should we be supporting
women's swimming. I feel as though implicitly you're saying something

(39:33):
that I couldn't disagree with more, which is that Northwestern
students have done something wrong. So under normal circumstances, I
would end this interview, UH in a in a crisp
and perfunctory way. But but instead I'll let will continue. Well,
if you didn't hire love Smith's so that's the problem
that Northwestern did not do unlike Illinois. I would like
one last question for you, Sally. Um, there's an argument

(39:55):
to be made that the kind of underground economy of
worts is actually the most efficient way to do this.
And the idea, remember Sports Illustrate had its big Oklahoma
City assuming Oklahoma State expose a a couple of years ago,
where it showed that athletes were were be given We're
given a ton of money, and we're encouraged, and there
were women that were encouraged to be with them, and

(40:18):
and they're all of these kind of things that they
were trying to sell these players using actual monetary value.
And you know, you see it a lot of sec schools,
boosters giving money uh athletes and money under the table.
Now that is of course against instabile A rules. In fact,
I could argue one of the primary reason the INA
was invented in the first place was to stop stuff
like that. But there's also a school of thought. You

(40:38):
saw this with Todd Gurley and Georgia, the idea that
as long as the instabile A makes these things illegal,
players are going to get paid in that money. There
is money that's gonna go to these players anyway. There's
a free market happening. We're just not allowed to see it.
Do you like there and there is a school of
thought that people I think are afraid to say too
loud publicly because it seems against the idea of clusion athletics,

(40:59):
that that's actually the most fair system is the idea that, yeah,
you can't, because they're so hard to implement a system
that pays everyone, you almost have to do it underground.
Do you think do you think that the game has
gotten large enough to where if it's certainly an an
elegant solution, it's one that at least gets them, the

(41:20):
players something absolutely? I mean I happen to agree. I
think I think throwing open at all of college athletics
open to a free market system. Uh, in terms of um,
still outside of the school making these payments. Um, if
you let if you have boosters pay players, what really
is wrong with that? I mean, what is the harm?

(41:43):
What is the huge harm to college athletics. It's some
rich guy uh in a college town, um, you know,
wants to slap a hundred dollar bill in the palm
of the college football player. I've never understood what the
what's the danger? There is the danger that, oh no,
we'll create a class of haves and have not. Well,
I mean that's already there. Um, so I'm with you.

(42:05):
I think that the free market it's inelegant and if
it scares people, but I really think it actually might
give school some leverage because uh, you know, once you
do that, uh, you know, staying eligible becomes uh not
just some sort of process of fraud, but it's it's

(42:26):
in the interest of the student athlete. It's in the
interest of the player to maintain his eligibility, uh, because
you can tie it to his income. I mean, if
he doesn't stay eligible, he moved his income. So all
of a sudden, he's got a much better motivation than
this you know, starrayed to me. I I um, I

(42:46):
happen to like, you know, I spent years opposing this
idea of paying players in free market system and seven
and and Jay Billis was one of the guys. His
arguments are sub brilliant. He's one of the guys that
basically convinced me, when is the harm what be really damaged?
You know, by basically just taking this underground economy above grounds. Uh,

(43:07):
it makes everything more honest everything, and all of a
sudden the real impostors, um you know, are revealed. Uh
you know, I happen to think we should go even further.
I happen to think that basically, you should force all
coaches to teach classes to the general of student body.

(43:27):
If you can't come up with a syllabus and and
teach a class, we're teaching to the general student body. Uh,
you shouldn't be teaching. You know, you shouldn't be at
a university. You know. I just I really think that
a culture of honesty is the best solution for college athletics.
And it's the one thing they haven't tried. Well, that

(43:48):
is one of the things that we haven't tried here
either at the Culture Caucus, where we have a where
we have a culture of deception, fraud, um and and
constant stream of bullshit from both me and Willum. I'll
I'll ask you just to close out real quick here, Sally,
how's your bracket? Oh my god, well, you know my bracket.
I don't even bother to do a bracket, to tell
you the truth, because what's the point because he gets

(44:08):
brusted so quickly every year, you know, I mean Middle Tennessee.
The funniest thing is my dad did a bracket and
uh was really um. He was in this pool where
he drew you draw teams. He drew Middle Tennessee, and
of course was serious right up until the deep Michigan State,
you know, when he then sat there in the whole

(44:29):
afternoon sat God, wouldn't I be mad right now if
I've drawn Michigan State instead? Right? Dan Jenkins always wins.
That's the wrong. Dan Jenkins always wish there's a dollop
of sanity. Just boycott the bracket. That's possibly the most,
possibly the most Unamerican thing I've ever heard anybody say. Um.
But but there's a wisdom to it. I'm Buddhist about it.

(44:52):
I'm into minimizing suffering, all right. Tell to tell that
to President Obama. Sally Jakins in the Washington Post. Uh,
sal Jenks the Washington Post. You are awesome and fantastic,
and thank you for doing this. Um, will Leach, you
are well. You are, Will Leach And Uh, there are
certain uh positives so that and also certain negatives. But

(45:12):
I love you desperately. Uh. And this comes to a
conclusion of another episode of the Culture Caucus podcast. Will Um.
Where can you find this podcast? If you want to
listen to it, you can of course find it on
Bloomboo Bloomberg Politics. You can also find it on iTunes.
This type Culture Caucus into iTunes and also find it
on SoundCloud. If you get a chance, please give us
a review in iTunes, a positive review. If you give
a negative review, I don't want to look at your face.

(45:33):
But if you give us a positive review, it helps
people find the podcast and promotes it on iTunes. But
you can find it there and all over the place.
It's a great place. It's it's a good podcast. That
the podcast is everywhere you look. It is. It is
like air, it is like gravity, is like water. Well,
I'm hoping desperately that the next time we have one
of these episodes of Culture Caucus that you and I
would be back in the same place, face to face,
because you know, as much as I sometimes give you

(45:53):
a hard time, I miss you and it'd be great
to see you again a little further down the road,
but exactly prefer probefully a Mari Lago where you are
right now. I think that would be very fun. We'll do.
Let's move, let's let's move Culture Caucus to Morrow Lago.
That would be awesome. All right, until next time, A Ribaderchi. Bye,
and Sayonara, brought to you by Oppenheimer Funds The Right

(46:24):
Way to Invest. Explore long term opportunities at Oppenheimer Funds.
Dot Com