July 2, 2024 • 47 mins
Adam and Josh discuss why Soccer is the worst sport, Josh makes his team pick for Nippon Professional Baseball,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh, yeah.
(00:01):
Here we are on Chirping from the Pine.
(00:28):
And I can tell you right now, Rage we are going to be doing.
It is time for the raging.
My name is Josh.
I'm here today live in the game Rage Studio.
And tonight, my co-host is Adam.
He will be joining us via the internet from afar from a long, long place a long time ago
(00:53):
in a galaxy far, far away.
Adam, what's going on?
Not much.
I felt compelled to do an episode of Chirping from the Pine.
And I hope in the words of Ice-T in the player haters ball segment, hate, hate, hate, hate,
(01:15):
hate, hate, hate, hate.
I am full of fucking hate.
I've actually been watching the Copa and the Euro cup and it has just further ingrained
my disdain, my odious nature towards fucking soccer slash football.
(01:36):
But I'm going to call it soccer.
It's just a piss people off because it doesn't deserve you called football at this point.
Indeed.
Indeed.
And before we get into that, though, if you want to hear our multitude of podcasts that
we have, you can go to gameragemagazine.com if you want to follow us on social media,
it's at gameragemagazine on Instagram slash TikTok at gameragemag on Twitter slash X.
And if you want to, you know, follow Adam, you can follow him at gamerage magazine or
(02:04):
I'm sorry, that's us.
He's at Algas, no trash official.
And you yell him there if you want for this opinion.
But I do also agree with him.
But anyways, all right.
Now that that's out of the way.
All right, let's get to it.
I guess I could start back even to when I was younger.
(02:24):
At one point, I did enjoy soccer in my younger days.
You know, it's just kind of a sport that keeps you active as a child, makes your parents.
It's something to put kids in to distract them for a minute so parents could have a
minute to themselves and then possibly get enraged that their kid is a fucking idiot
(02:49):
and can't actually play the sport.
And then it turns parent against parent at some point.
And you end up, it ends up turning into a long drive home where nobody's talking to
each other.
But I've really just grown to hate the sport of soccer.
(03:10):
If you can even call it that.
I will say, though, there is a lower tier than fucking soccer itself.
I think pickleball is straight up offensive to tennis.
I don't even think pickleball is a sport, but if it is considered a sport, I think it's
at the very bottom, it's fucking pickleball and then soccer is just above it, but not
(03:33):
by much.
I think the reason that I ended up hating soccer after watching these tournaments is
how soft the soccer players are.
I mean, it's, it's the bullshit tactics of slopping constantly that only to kill the
clock.
(03:54):
Like it's something, it's something like taking a knee, or at least that's what I was seeing
what was happening in terms of like Mexico who recently played, I think, I think it was
Sunday if I'm not mistaken.
They were playing another team in order to qualify for the elimination rounds.
(04:15):
Right.
So they were just trying to get out of group play.
So they were playing Ecuador and they ended up, they ended up losing.
And what Ecuador was doing was whenever they would make contact with somebody from Mexico,
like physical contact, how little or how much, however little or big the contact was, it
(04:40):
didn't really matter because those people would end up flopping.
The Ecuadorians would fall immediately to the ground.
So if they got hit in the head, they grabbed their leg, the opposite of it's like, they
couldn't get their story straight.
And it didn't really matter because the ref ended up like checking up on them and then
giving them the ball anyways.
I'm not even that big of a Mexico fan.
(05:02):
I just want to watch the game.
But yeah.
So these motherfuckers like getting carted off and I'm like, bro, like you didn't even
rub shoulders and you're, you're acting like you got hit like, like a fucking lineman sacks
a quarterback and they can't breathe or their shoulder breaks or their chest caves in or
(05:23):
some shit, some shit like that.
Like they're on the ground for like two or three minutes and they're wasting the fucking
clock.
And granted, yes, at the end of the 90 minutes, there is additional time added on for the
time that's lost, but it ultimately doesn't really matter because their strategy was just
to milk that, just to keep doing that shit.
(05:46):
And I just hate that the sport has evolved to that, to that type of shit where drawing
penalties is more important than fucking playing the game because if that's how the game is
supposed to be played, that is boring as all fuck.
It also like the soccer players are pussies, dude, because if they were two seconds in
(06:09):
the NHL where guys are getting fucking rocked and concussions, like every three seconds,
they wouldn't fucking last.
They'd be fucking dead.
I hate soccer at this point, dude.
I fucking hate watching the stupid Euro cup, this fucking Copa America.
I don't give a fuck who the winner is because soccer is not really that interesting.
(06:30):
And the fact that half the world or majority of the world is entertained by the sport is
absurdly fucking stupid.
So what do you have to say about that, Josh?
Yeah, I completely fucking agree.
Soccer is terrible.
I definitely don't think it needs, it should ever be referred to as football because football
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is what we do here in the NFL in America and it's way better.
I'll say this too.
People insult hockey by saying, and people have told me this when I say I hate soccer,
but you like hockey.
That's just soccer on ice.
All right.
First of all, that is an extreme oversimplification for what the fuck it is.
And second of all, the NHL is nothing like any professional hockey or professional soccer
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on the planet.
Because it seems as though most soccer leagues, the whole goal, like you had said, is to just
draw fucking penalties and essentially burn the clock, kill momentum by burning the clock.
In the NHL, they have a fucking penalty that's called embellishment.
And that penalty is if you try to draw a penalty and you fucked up and you did it too much
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or the ref just doesn't like the fact that you tried to draw a penalty on something that
was not, was clearly not a penalty, they can hit you with an embellishment penalty.
And yeah, you get two minutes in the fucking box for that, for literally trying to draw
a penalty and failing.
I think that if soccer wants to redeem itself in any way whatsoever, they need to institute
(08:09):
an embellishment penalty somehow.
And they also need to legalize fighting.
The crowd already does it.
Why not let the players do it?
That's my stance on the matter with that.
And I'll say, I do think that the, and I'm not going to say European soccer in general,
(08:32):
but I'm going to say, I think like English soccer specifically is less focused on the
penalty aspect, the penalty drawing aspects.
It's a little more-
Well, so I watched that show that welcome to Wrexham show, which is on, I don't know,
fucking Hulu or something.
(08:52):
And it's where, what's his name?
Ryan Reynolds and that Rob Mckellen.
Yeah.
Rob Mckellen or Mckellen, I think is how he says it.
Yeah.
You know, they, they bought a fucking soccer team in, in England, like a, like a low, a
low tier fucking soccer team.
And they basically have taken it from, you know, nothing and they're getting it up to
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like the top, they're, they're moving it up through the leagues and getting it into the
top leagues.
They're building a new stadium for them.
I haven't watched the complete series, but I mean, I saw all of season one and a little
bit into season two.
And from what I saw, and again, this could just be fancy editing, but from what I saw,
the game seemed more physical and it wasn't really, didn't seem to be based on drawing
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shitty penalties and burning the clock.
And it didn't seem like guys were just faking like, Oh my God, like in the central and South
American soccer leagues and the, I would say the European, like Europe central, not, not
including England, but the, the Europe league, those motherfuckers seem to be doing that quite
(09:59):
often.
And that seems to be the whole point.
So I don't know if I don't know enough about it, but from what I have seen, the minimal
aspects that I've seen, it doesn't seem to be that way in the lower tiered leagues.
It's just like, it seems to be whatever, like the upper premier leagues are, are just prima
Donna shit all about fucking getting penalties and faking shit.
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And it's, it's terrible.
I think that shit needs to go.
I don't, I don't get why people like that.
It just seems to, like I said, take away from the whole, you know, the whole aspect of the
game.
It's like, what are you going to, it'd be like if hockey was like, Oh yeah, guys, just
let's go out there and try to get as many penalties as possible so we can, you know,
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try and win the game by screwing the other enemy or the enemy and just taking away all
their fucking momentum.
Every single chance we get by causing some bullshit ass fucking penalty or stopping play.
Cause that's what they're doing.
They're just stopping play so that any momentum that the other team may be having just gets
completely halted.
And I think it's horseshit and I just hate soccer in general.
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I mean, I just kind of think it's boring.
It's slow.
It's it's just, it's not entertaining.
It's not, it does not sports entertain me in any way whatsoever.
That's like the turn.
The fucking turnovers are so goddamn frequent.
Like it's also hard to distinguish like who's fucking good.
Like sure, I know, I know Ronaldo and fucking messy, right?
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You can't, there's no disputing.
Those guys aren't great, right?
Yeah.
You could see it.
You can visually see it, but for like the other 10 or nine guys that are on the field,
man, it just looks like all random bullshit.
Like at least in other sports, I can kind of get an idea of who's fucking good, at least
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in like baseball.
I mean, you know, a shortstop is good when he's putting his fucking glove on everything
and he's able to turn double plays like that.
That's how you know he's fucking good.
And then on top of that, like when they can hit, yeah, it makes them stand out.
But with soccer, it's like, what are the metrics that make them to make them stand out?
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There's so few scoring opportunities or it's not like a soccer team is going to win 10
to zero.
And it's like, okay, there's a sis.
Yeah, sure.
There's a sis in soccer, right?
You helped somebody get a goal, but I mean, what other metrics are there to describe how
fucking good a player is?
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Like are they fast?
Sure.
Maybe that's something that helps or how good is their stamina?
But like in other sports, it feels, I don't know how to describe it, but it feels like
there's better ways or better aspects to the game itself and like the stats that indicate
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a player's good.
I don't really understand what I'm looking at when I see soccer.
There's just so much bullshit going on that you really, you really can't get a good grasp
of who's good.
And even the players that are good, like they're so far and few, so far and few in between
that it's like, well, the other 90% like who fucking gives a shit?
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Yeah, exactly.
And fuck man, I don't give any shit.
I've never watched the MLS, the US Major League Soccer.
I've never fucking watched that.
So I can't, I don't know if that's good or if it's not good because I just don't fucking
care.
I've never cared about soccer and who knows, maybe it's something that is fucking awesome
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and we just don't know about it, but hell, there's a stat for drawing penalties in fucking
soccer.
That's like a stat.
That's one of the stats that they keep track of is how many penalties you can draw.
So what the fuck does that tell you?
You know?
I mean, one of the observations they had about, they have about the tournament itself.
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I think, I think there's some type, this is just, I mean, this is me going off on a ramp,
but man, just, just the fact that like the major European teams like Germany, Spain,
fucking England.
I mean, there were multiple games where each of these respective teams were down.
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They were actually losing to small European countries like Georgia.
England was down one zero two.
I forgot who they were playing.
I want to say it was like Slovenia or Slovakia.
I can't remember, but they were playing against them and England was down until the 90th minute.
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And of course they add additional time for all the penalties and all the stoppage and
all that shit.
So fucking England scored two fucking goals to qualify for the round of 16 or whatever
next stage is within the last like fucking eight minutes of the game.
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Right.
And then Georgia, who was beating the Spaniards, the Spain itself, they were up one zero for
like 60 minutes of the game or whatever amount of time it was.
And then the Spaniards ended up winning like two, one, I think.
So they ended up going to the next round and there's group play.
So you play, it's a round robin thing.
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Everybody plays each other and whoever has the most points ends up, the top two teams
end up making it to the next round.
But dude, like just, you know, they're not going to let the small European teams win
because that's not what's going to make money.
Like everybody wants to see France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, make it to the next
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round.
There's going to be exceptions.
Like Italy didn't make it to the next round, but you know, the refs have it in for these
other teams because that's where the money is.
Like they can't have fucking Georgia go over Spain because it just, there's no money in
that and the country's too small for people to care.
So I feel like there's some type of collision to make these teams get as far as they can
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for like the larger European teams as opposed to like Georgia or even like the Czech Republic
or whatever.
I just, I find, I just hate the fucking sport, dude.
I, every time I'm not even excited for like the world cup anymore at this point.
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I used to be when I was younger and now not so much because Mexico and the U S they both
suck ass so it's like the little investment that I had don't really care because I already
know that the teams that are going to dominate as far as like this side of the world goes,
it's probably going to be Argentina.
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It's probably going to be Brazil and I don't know if the gap will ever be closed.
I'm like, why do I even fucking care at this point?
So I, I'm just, I hate soccer.
Ultimately, that's all I have to say is I hate soccer and what a waste of a fan base
for all these people that support their favorite teams.
I mean, dude, one thing I will credit soccer for is the rabid fans.
(17:37):
Like I respect the shit out of anybody that is a soccer fan because they do some really
cool shit.
Like they, I think LAFC like for the Los Angeles football club here in Los Angeles, they have
a giant banner that goes up and it's like, I don't, I think it's go tanks or something,
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but it's like their own colored version of that character, like their own modded version
of that character.
And the banner goes up and everybody powers up like, like Goku when he turned super sane
and like, Oh, that's cool.
Like they even have their own, you know, fight songs or their own anthems.
Like that's all great shit, but like they're wasting it on a stupid fucking sport, what
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it can be for baseball or it can be for hockey.
I mean, it's just a wasted opportunity to have a really cool fan base for a sport that
really isn't all that great.
So I, I, I cry for these people because they, they are so rabid.
They're so rabid fans for a sport that kind of sucks dick.
(18:47):
So yeah, true.
And you know, they also start riots.
So that's also, you know, pretty awesome as well.
Yeah.
You got anything else Ted about that?
Nah, soccer's garbage.
It's fucking bullshit.
If you have the fucking balls to try and prove us wrong, you can comment on any fucking thing
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we have.
He doesn't even have to be a post about soccer.
You can comment about it on anything or send us a fucking DM at game rage magazine or at
all gas, no trash official.
And please, please tell us how we're wrong because you're fucking never going to change
our mind, but go ahead.
You can try.
We'd love to see it.
We'd love to hear what bullshit excuses you can come up with as to why soccer's not complete
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and utter hot garbage.
I still have one more other thing to add.
Yeah, go ahead.
Why the fuck do they have the goddamn tournaments in our country when soccer is like the least
interesting thing?
It's like all these other countries have the opportunity to host, but they know they can't
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rake it like here in the U S. So of course they put it here because there's money to
make, but they'll put in fucking Mexico.
They don't put in Argentina because they know people won't travel to those countries.
Why the fuck did they put it here when it's the sport then?
And nobody really cares.
At least nobody really cares about, but judging by the fact that soccer fanatics are willing
(20:18):
to travel, but they won't go to other like central South American countries because who
the fuck knows that it's safe and do they have the system to support, you know, 30 different
teams to play a tournament?
I don't fucking know, but they always put it here, dude.
And it's like, keep that shit somewhere else, man.
Like go make money somewhere else.
(20:38):
Like we don't, I don't want that shit here.
As a whole, in terms of multi-sport, I think America or the United States market is probably
one of the largest on the planet.
I mean, obviously I think FIFA is the largest money-making sports organization worldwide,
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but that encompasses the entire world.
If you add up all the different leagues of professional sports that exists in the U S
I'm sure that they eclipse what the FIFA does worldwide.
So we're a huge market for sports.
So it makes sense as to why they'd want to do that here and why to try to want to, want
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to try to capitalize on that.
And I mean, shit FIFA for whatever reason, I don't know what the reason is as to why
they never wanted to try to come to America or what the fucking deal was to have FIFA
proper here.
But you know, we, we got the MLS, I guess with the major league soccer, which I don't
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know who the fuck even, I don't even know who the fuck founded that, but
value doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter.
It's fucking irrelevant because it's garbage.
It's hot fucking garbage.
And maybe that's why they founded this because FIFA was just like, yeah, nobody gives a shit
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about soccer in America.
So we're just going to fucking tell them, forget about it.
We're not even going to try.
And you know, I guess, I guess that's how, I guess that's how it works.
I don't know.
I don't know.
And soccer also fucking works super weird because of the fact that the year there's
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all these different levels to it.
It's like, it's the same fucking sport.
So it's not like, it's not like how our shit usually works where there's like quote unquote,
I guess college and then like minor league teams.
It's all considered professional level, but it's just different levels of professional,
which fucking doesn't make any sense.
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It's like nine or 10 different levels of professional soccer.
And it's like, Jesus Christ, at that point, who gives a shit if there's 18 different divisions
for this professional league and then you can work your way up and down.
It's like, fuck man, that's terrible.
So anyways, fuck soccer.
And you got anything else to say about soccer?
(23:13):
No, but I didn't want to ask you about something to transition to our next topic.
Yeah, let me hear it.
You did mention that you were looking into following a team for Nipah and professional
baseball since we had an interview with Yuri Karasawa.
(23:34):
That's right.
That's right.
Do you actually have a team that you're interested in or you're going to follow?
Oh yes, I have, I have, I have done the, I've done the work.
I've put in the research, the minutes to hours of ball busting and tedious fucking, I don't
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know, research, I guess, is as to who I am going to, you know, be looking at potentially
following.
And I have decided upon the Nipah ham fighters is being my number one new team that I'm going
(24:24):
to be following in the NPB or Nipah professional baseball.
Why is that?
Well, see, I didn't want to, and in my search, I didn't want to, I didn't want to incorporate
past championships, victories or anything.
I didn't, I didn't look at any of their records.
(24:44):
I didn't look at any of that shit because I didn't want to, I didn't want to jump, be
considered jumping on as a bandwagoner or whatever.
So the thing that I felt like I could come down to as being the most, you know, neutral
way, I guess, in terms of, I mean, I don't know about neutral, but the least bandwagony
way is I wanted to look at either controversies or basically just interesting things that
(25:11):
I found out about the teams themselves.
And so the one that I found the most interesting was the mascot for the Nipah ham pyres is
a Fox and his name's Frep, which sounds like a fucking sexually transmitted disease.
And I was already in, I'm like, Oh, that sounds fucking great.
Frep the Fox.
He basically captured my attention by the fact that when they played the Hanshin Tigers
(25:40):
in 2018, he basically Jushin Thunder Liger throughout the first ceremonial pitch, the
ceremonial first pitch.
And the, he then had a gimmick match, an actual wrestling match with Frep the Fox on the field.
And he job for him.
He jobbed for Jushin Thunder Liger in his own fucking stadium.
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And he, you know, he took, he took the fucking, he did the job.
He took the L for a Jushin Liger.
And I thought that was very respectable and that Frep the Fox is a mascot that I can get
behind.
And so then I decided to throw my name in the ring or my fandom, my fandom hat into
(26:25):
the ring of the Nipah ham fighters.
So now I also, I do think it's very, what's the word?
I don't know if it's disrespectful, but it's very, it's very arrogant to basically throw
like, cause they're in Hokkaido or whatever.
(26:46):
And they're, their full name, I guess, technically is the Hokkaido Nipah ham fighters.
Cause Nipah ham is the country, the name of the, like the company sponsor that runs them.
But I thought that it was still disrespectful to basically, or, or like a shot at everybody
to have the name of the country.
(27:06):
Like even though it's in the name of the sponsor, it's like, it's still fucking like a dick
move to be like, Oh yeah, we're the Hokkaido Japan ham fighters.
Basically go fuck yourselves.
So I thought that was the team.
You're the team to follow.
Yeah.
So that's, that's the, that's the team that I decided to, to go for.
(27:29):
So that's who I'm going to be following right now.
And that's who I've, I've kind of started following and I'm still, because it isn't,
it is still a chore to try to watch fucking baseball.
That's you know, Nippon or Nippon based professional baseball games here in America.
It's still a bitch to do that essentially.
Now, I mean, it's a bitch to do it in legal ways, but I will still be watching it nonetheless.
(27:56):
And I'm also still adjusting to the rules differences because there are quite a few
different rules that and how it's played essentially.
So that still does take some getting used to.
So I'm still, I'm also still learning the different differentiation in rules as well.
(28:22):
So that's, that's something that I am, you know, pursuing right now to, you know, to
occupy my time because, you know, the angels are still sucking balls.
And I will say I have benefited greatly from the, the, the shit season that they've been
having and shit, I got tickets for me and Katie to sit essentially row one right field
(28:50):
fucking there, there are excellent seats and I got them for like fucking next to nothing.
So and that's like front row aisle.
They're like pre there's prime real estate at angel at this angel game.
They're playing the Mets too, which I believe that's August 3rd.
So August 3rd, if you're going to be out in fucking right field and you see the ginger
(29:14):
fuck come say hi because you know, tell me, tell me you're a, you're a game rage giga
Chad and I'll fucking chat you up and we can fucking have a good combo.
But anyways, yeah.
Nipa, go, go Nipa ham fighters.
I don't think you need to, if you go on YouTube, there's actually, I mean, whether it's like
(29:38):
Yaki, you cause a politics summarizing the league itself at large in probably three to
four minutes.
There's a couple different YouTube channels.
I think one's called like Pacific league TV.
They kind of summarize what happens over the course of the weekend baseball for Nipa professional
(30:00):
baseball.
It's not that you necessarily need to watch the games, but I mean, somebody that we, somebody
that we were talking about for the Nipa and ham fighters, or at least I believe he's on
the team to say, Minami, the Congo East half Congolese, half Japanese player plays right
(30:20):
field.
Dude, you gotta go check out his clips.
Like motherfuckers throwing out people from right field to home in one fell swoop, like
unreal arm cannon for an arm.
Like just check out his highlight reels.
That dude is definitely like a legit, a legit baseball player.
(30:44):
And he just happens to be on the fucking Nipa and ham fighters.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, and, and I, I like to just watch full games proper.
Like that's the thing that if I'm going to go, if I'm going to get into it, I don't want,
I don't just want to watch fucking highlights.
I feel like that's not earning it.
All right.
You gotta feel like I need to sit there and watch fucking complete full games to fucking
(31:05):
really solidify my fandom of this team.
So that's what I'm looking for.
And that's harder to do because there are channels and there are ways that you can,
you can see those things on some YouTube channels in a legitimate capacity.
But the problem is they don't cover, it does, like, it doesn't cover every single team.
(31:28):
So, and I think the ham fighters were one of the teams that got left out on some of
those broadcast rights to, you know, either YouTube or some of the American counterparts
to networks that are here, I guess.
So I am trying to figure out how I can like get ahold of that.
And yes, watching any of those are excellent options for just catching up on the highlights
(31:52):
and getting the information necessary.
But I kind of want to watch just proper full games.
And again, I'm not going to understand the fucking commentary, but I don't need the commentary
because I know what the final how baseball works for the most part.
So I can, I can figure out what the fuck's going on.
You know, so anyway, what else?
(32:16):
What else you got?
So to move to move on, I do want to talk about it.
Maybe I'll talk about it broadly, but for this specific group, we put on pause.
Yeah, here, I'll pause it real quick.
Okay.
All right.
So yeah, like I was saying, talking about Caitlin Clark and the great wonders that she's
(32:43):
doing with the WNBA.
So I actually spent one of the Sundays, I think it was like two Sundays ago was the
Chicago sky versus the Indiana fever.
So we had Angel Reese, who's the shit talker.
(33:04):
And I guess you can call her the antagonist of Caitlin Clark.
So Angel Reese ended up bringing back the Chicago sky from like a 15 point lead in the
fourth quarter with probably like six minutes to go.
And man, I'll tell you what, Caitlin Clark is like straight up handicapped by her team.
(33:31):
It's like she's playing on a 4D level.
She's shooting like three pointers like Steph Curry from where the brand markers are for
like, I don't even know who the fuck sponsors NPA, but she's shooting three pointers from
like 10 or 15 feet away from like their three, the half circle for the three point mark.
(33:55):
I'm just like, holy shit.
And she's making amazing passes and the fucking team itself is like missing easy buckets.
Like this is what the NBA sucks dick dude, but I'm glad she's changing the perspective
of people that this is like a legitimate league and you know, there are potential stars to
(34:16):
be had in the future and she's definitely one of them, but like she's being straddled
by her own fucking team and she had a 15 point lead and Angel Reese ended up coming back
in winning the game by like two points.
And I'm just like, fuck dude.
I kind of wanted to see Caitlin Clark dominate, but I just found, I just found it amazing
(34:36):
that I had any interest in watching the WNBA.
Like I got invested in this fucking game.
So I'm like, things are fucking changing, dude.
It's really interesting.
Yeah, no, it is.
And I'll say this.
It's like, it's, it's the equivalent of Caitlin Clark is playing.
(34:59):
If you want to give an example, a, a video game analogy, right?
She's playing, let's say world of warcraft, which is a massively multiplayer online role
playing game, right?
And her teammates are playing fucking pong.
That's that's the level of discrepancy between her level and their level.
(35:27):
It is, it's almost like they're not even playing the same fucking game.
Like they're not even playing the same support at this point.
She's playing basketball and they're playing, I don't know, some other fucking horse shit.
It's so sad because there's clips of her getting like visibly frustrated on the core where
she's like, fuck, but this is just what I have to deal with.
(35:50):
Like, oh, this is, it's so sad, dude.
It's ridiculous.
There was one clip of her making this amazing pass to one of her teammates and it was, it
was right fucking tour and she just completely fucking missed it.
And it went out of fucking bounds.
And I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ.
(36:10):
That was terrible.
The other thing I wanted to know about the WNBA, that was really interesting.
So you mentioned that the WNBA is projected to lose 150 million dollars by the time the
season ends, right?
Yeah, it was, it was something like that.
I don't remember what the exact number was.
(36:30):
Okay.
So it's somewhere in that ballpark, right?
The funny thing is, as I was watching the game, the NBA jerseys, the WNBA jerseys themselves,
okay, so for the NBA itself, they only have one like official sponsor per team, right?
These motherfuckers I think have like three or four.
(36:51):
I'm like, how the fuck do these guys have three or four sponsors and they're still not
breaking even?
Like they literally, every team has three or four sponsors on it.
It's like a soccer jersey.
If you watch any of the professional leagues where there's just a bunch of shit everywhere
and you don't even know what, who's the player because like their names obscured all the
(37:14):
sponsors.
Yeah.
And even the number is kind of obscured by the number of sponsors.
So they nearly have that on their jerseys.
Like it's, it's, it's nearly getting to that point, but I just find it bonkers that even
with all the sponsors, they can't even break fucking even with the total revenue for the
year.
(37:35):
Like what is that?
Yeah.
Okay.
So just to be correct on the number.
So the WNBA had lost an average of more than $10 million every year since it was founded.
Okay.
And now they were reporting that in 2024 it's, it's the WNBA and its teams are expected to
(37:55):
lose around $50 million.
Oh, so it was not 150.
It was 50 million, but still that's, that's a fucking, that's a lot of money, man.
Considering that you have a, all these sponsors, all the, I don't know.
Oh fuck.
I don't know if the television deals are worth any amount of money, but that's just crazy
(38:15):
how much it costs to operate.
And that's the thing is the NBA subsidizes the WNBA.
So the NBA is kicking in that 50 mil that they're going to lose plus whatever extra
to make them whole.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So and that's despite, that's despite this new found popularity, they're losing money.
(38:40):
They're losing five times as much, even with this surging popularity or whatever the hell
you want to call it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't have anything additional to add for this episode, but just more of the ongoing
narrative for the WNBA.
(39:00):
Yeah.
I did want to say one last final little topic, I guess, is to just, just talk about the Stanley
cup finals real quick.
And I don't know if it'll be real quick or not, but at any rate, the fucking Florida
man went up three oh on the Canadian and somehow managed to lose three games in a row, one
(39:28):
of which they lost eight to fucking one.
And I will say that it seems very sus that this transpired the way it did to go all the
way to game seven for Florida man to end up just winning the cup anyways.
(39:53):
And I know we said in the last episode that we talked about the Stanley cup, that if Florida
man lost the fucking this, this three lead that they would be, we, we would be literally
forcing Florida to secede from the union and giving them to, you know, Mexico or Cuba or
whoever the fuck else we were going to give them to if they lost this.
(40:17):
But yes, I'll give them their credit.
They did, they did win, but I feel like this thing was all scripted anyways, that, that
there was this game, this, this Stanley cup final was set to need to go to seven games
so that they, the NHL could maximize the money because the Florida Panthers going up three
oh on the Edmonton oiler oilers was already unexpected and not that that wasn't, I didn't
(40:44):
foresee.
I don't think a lot of people foresaw that happening.
And so the height of what you already thought was the height of drama, the, the Florida
Panthers potentially sweeping the Edmonton oilers then turns into the Edmonton oilers
winning three games in a row to tie it up at three all and going into a game seven deciding
(41:10):
factor of who the fuck was going to win this.
That just seems like the NHL wanted to cash in for sure on seven games worth of, you know,
advertising revenue of contract deal with the networks and also likely receive performance
(41:30):
bonuses for having a huge audience for game seven because you've built the height of drama
now leading into this game seven.
So what are you, what are you, do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I think, I think the fact that they got to a game seven was so preposterous, but
(41:59):
it was absolutely necessary because there was so many, so much money to make off of
each game that if it ended up being a sweep, well, it's like, oh shit, we missed out on
three games that we could have made bank on.
And of course, like the ratings, I mean, hockey needs, hockey's like probably behind baseball,
(42:20):
football, the NBA.
I don't, I don't know where it falls, but I'm sure it's not.
I'm sure it's like in third or fourth place, but I think having a game seven like automatically
escalates it to being at the forefront of sports.
And even if the two teams are not something you're invested in, like everybody wants to
(42:42):
see who's going to win a game seven.
But the fact that it was the Edmonton Oilers or franchise that everybody knows for Wayne
Gretzky and they flopped on their faces and ate shit.
It was the funniest fucking thing.
I know, I know when I know when Edmonton or or fan and he was, he was telling me he was
going to call off work for a week because he would be devastated if they lost to Florida.
(43:08):
That's fucking hilarious.
So it is funny to see.
Cause okay, again, the each game averaged about 8 million viewers and this game seven
drew 16.
It doubled it.
It drew 16.3 million viewers and is the second most watched NHL game in history, essentially.
(43:37):
So they, they fucking, they did the mission accomplished if they wanted to create this,
this drama to maximize their viewership.
I mean, it definitely worked and I don't know what the performance bonuses were for the networks.
They drew certain numbers of viewers or whatever the case was, but man, they definitely fucking
(43:59):
likely blew all those out of the water and got paid a bunch of extra money.
So that's pretty much all I had for the episode.
You want to add anything else?
No, that's pretty much it.
I will, uh, I wanted to see if I could find out what the highest fucking rated or the
(44:26):
highest most watched fucking game was in NHL history, but cause there was, there was fucking
one, ah, they don't fucking, they don't fucking say, they don't say what it is, but there's
this stupid, this, this rating is dumb.
(44:46):
They don't have any fucking, they don't have the records on here, but anyways, that's pretty
much it.
I guess, uh, we'll go ahead and, uh, cap this off, I guess, unless you, uh, yeah, you said
you didn't have any more to add.
So anyways, all right.
Well, uh, thank you guys for listening to this episode.
We, uh, we know it's remote and it was a little, uh, fishy, but, uh, at the end of the day,
(45:08):
we still made the shit and you still listen to it.
So thanks and congratulations on getting to hear a wonderful episode of, you know, triple
from the pine.
Uh, anyways, if you want to go to a game, do me on soccer in the wet took a shit on
soccer.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
(45:28):
That was, that was basically the point of this episode is to shit on soccer.
And if you don't like that, then we don't care.
Uh, actually we do care and we want to hear your shitty opinion on why soccer is not garbage
at game rage magazine.com.
And if you want to tell us on Instagram or tick tock, it's at game rage magazine.
And if you want to tell us on the Twitter slash X, it's at game rage mag.
(45:48):
If you want to specifically tell Adam, and so that way we can double team you on the
internet, you can go to add all gas, no trash official and you can tell them shit there.
Uh, anyways, I guess that'll do it for us and, uh, fuck.
Thank you guys for listening.
We will catch you on the next one.
(46:19):
That was chirping from the pine.
The game rage sports podcast.
You can follow us on Instagram and tick tock at game rage magazine.
Follow us on X at game rage mag.
You can go to our website, www.gameragemagazine.com
Oh, yeah.
(00:01):
Here we are on Chirping from the Pine.
(00:28):
And I can tell you right now, Rage we are going to be doing.
It is time for the raging.
My name is Josh.
I'm here today live in the game Rage Studio.
And tonight, my co-host is Adam.
He will be joining us via the internet from afar from a long, long place a long time ago
(00:53):
in a galaxy far, far away.
Adam, what's going on?
Not much.
I felt compelled to do an episode of Chirping from the Pine.
And I hope in the words of Ice-T in the player haters ball segment, hate, hate, hate, hate,
(01:15):
hate, hate, hate, hate.
I am full of fucking hate.
I've actually been watching the Copa and the Euro cup and it has just further ingrained
my disdain, my odious nature towards fucking soccer slash football.
(01:36):
But I'm going to call it soccer.
It's just a piss people off because it doesn't deserve you called football at this point.
Indeed.
Indeed.
And before we get into that, though, if you want to hear our multitude of podcasts that
we have, you can go to gameragemagazine.com if you want to follow us on social media,
it's at gameragemagazine on Instagram slash TikTok at gameragemag on Twitter slash X.
And if you want to, you know, follow Adam, you can follow him at gamerage magazine or
(02:04):
I'm sorry, that's us.
He's at Algas, no trash official.
And you yell him there if you want for this opinion.
But I do also agree with him.
But anyways, all right.
Now that that's out of the way.
All right, let's get to it.
I guess I could start back even to when I was younger.
(02:24):
At one point, I did enjoy soccer in my younger days.
You know, it's just kind of a sport that keeps you active as a child, makes your parents.
It's something to put kids in to distract them for a minute so parents could have a
minute to themselves and then possibly get enraged that their kid is a fucking idiot
(02:49):
and can't actually play the sport.
And then it turns parent against parent at some point.
And you end up, it ends up turning into a long drive home where nobody's talking to
each other.
But I've really just grown to hate the sport of soccer.
(03:10):
If you can even call it that.
I will say, though, there is a lower tier than fucking soccer itself.
I think pickleball is straight up offensive to tennis.
I don't even think pickleball is a sport, but if it is considered a sport, I think it's
at the very bottom, it's fucking pickleball and then soccer is just above it, but not
(03:33):
by much.
I think the reason that I ended up hating soccer after watching these tournaments is
how soft the soccer players are.
I mean, it's, it's the bullshit tactics of slopping constantly that only to kill the
clock.
(03:54):
Like it's something, it's something like taking a knee, or at least that's what I was seeing
what was happening in terms of like Mexico who recently played, I think, I think it was
Sunday if I'm not mistaken.
They were playing another team in order to qualify for the elimination rounds.
(04:15):
Right.
So they were just trying to get out of group play.
So they were playing Ecuador and they ended up, they ended up losing.
And what Ecuador was doing was whenever they would make contact with somebody from Mexico,
like physical contact, how little or how much, however little or big the contact was, it
(04:40):
didn't really matter because those people would end up flopping.
The Ecuadorians would fall immediately to the ground.
So if they got hit in the head, they grabbed their leg, the opposite of it's like, they
couldn't get their story straight.
And it didn't really matter because the ref ended up like checking up on them and then
giving them the ball anyways.
I'm not even that big of a Mexico fan.
(05:02):
I just want to watch the game.
But yeah.
So these motherfuckers like getting carted off and I'm like, bro, like you didn't even
rub shoulders and you're, you're acting like you got hit like, like a fucking lineman sacks
a quarterback and they can't breathe or their shoulder breaks or their chest caves in or
(05:23):
some shit, some shit like that.
Like they're on the ground for like two or three minutes and they're wasting the fucking
clock.
And granted, yes, at the end of the 90 minutes, there is additional time added on for the
time that's lost, but it ultimately doesn't really matter because their strategy was just
to milk that, just to keep doing that shit.
(05:46):
And I just hate that the sport has evolved to that, to that type of shit where drawing
penalties is more important than fucking playing the game because if that's how the game is
supposed to be played, that is boring as all fuck.
It also like the soccer players are pussies, dude, because if they were two seconds in
(06:09):
the NHL where guys are getting fucking rocked and concussions, like every three seconds,
they wouldn't fucking last.
They'd be fucking dead.
I hate soccer at this point, dude.
I fucking hate watching the stupid Euro cup, this fucking Copa America.
I don't give a fuck who the winner is because soccer is not really that interesting.
(06:30):
And the fact that half the world or majority of the world is entertained by the sport is
absurdly fucking stupid.
So what do you have to say about that, Josh?
Yeah, I completely fucking agree.
Soccer is terrible.
I definitely don't think it needs, it should ever be referred to as football because football
(06:50):
is what we do here in the NFL in America and it's way better.
I'll say this too.
People insult hockey by saying, and people have told me this when I say I hate soccer,
but you like hockey.
That's just soccer on ice.
All right.
First of all, that is an extreme oversimplification for what the fuck it is.
And second of all, the NHL is nothing like any professional hockey or professional soccer
(07:17):
on the planet.
Because it seems as though most soccer leagues, the whole goal, like you had said, is to just
draw fucking penalties and essentially burn the clock, kill momentum by burning the clock.
In the NHL, they have a fucking penalty that's called embellishment.
And that penalty is if you try to draw a penalty and you fucked up and you did it too much
(07:43):
or the ref just doesn't like the fact that you tried to draw a penalty on something that
was not, was clearly not a penalty, they can hit you with an embellishment penalty.
And yeah, you get two minutes in the fucking box for that, for literally trying to draw
a penalty and failing.
I think that if soccer wants to redeem itself in any way whatsoever, they need to institute
(08:09):
an embellishment penalty somehow.
And they also need to legalize fighting.
The crowd already does it.
Why not let the players do it?
That's my stance on the matter with that.
And I'll say, I do think that the, and I'm not going to say European soccer in general,
(08:32):
but I'm going to say, I think like English soccer specifically is less focused on the
penalty aspect, the penalty drawing aspects.
It's a little more-
Well, so I watched that show that welcome to Wrexham show, which is on, I don't know,
fucking Hulu or something.
(08:52):
And it's where, what's his name?
Ryan Reynolds and that Rob Mckellen.
Yeah.
Rob Mckellen or Mckellen, I think is how he says it.
Yeah.
You know, they, they bought a fucking soccer team in, in England, like a, like a low, a
low tier fucking soccer team.
And they basically have taken it from, you know, nothing and they're getting it up to
(09:14):
like the top, they're, they're moving it up through the leagues and getting it into the
top leagues.
They're building a new stadium for them.
I haven't watched the complete series, but I mean, I saw all of season one and a little
bit into season two.
And from what I saw, and again, this could just be fancy editing, but from what I saw,
the game seemed more physical and it wasn't really, didn't seem to be based on drawing
(09:37):
shitty penalties and burning the clock.
And it didn't seem like guys were just faking like, Oh my God, like in the central and South
American soccer leagues and the, I would say the European, like Europe central, not, not
including England, but the, the Europe league, those motherfuckers seem to be doing that quite
(09:59):
often.
And that seems to be the whole point.
So I don't know if I don't know enough about it, but from what I have seen, the minimal
aspects that I've seen, it doesn't seem to be that way in the lower tiered leagues.
It's just like, it seems to be whatever, like the upper premier leagues are, are just prima
Donna shit all about fucking getting penalties and faking shit.
(10:24):
And it's, it's terrible.
I think that shit needs to go.
I don't, I don't get why people like that.
It just seems to, like I said, take away from the whole, you know, the whole aspect of the
game.
It's like, what are you going to, it'd be like if hockey was like, Oh yeah, guys, just
let's go out there and try to get as many penalties as possible so we can, you know,
(10:48):
try and win the game by screwing the other enemy or the enemy and just taking away all
their fucking momentum.
Every single chance we get by causing some bullshit ass fucking penalty or stopping play.
Cause that's what they're doing.
They're just stopping play so that any momentum that the other team may be having just gets
completely halted.
And I think it's horseshit and I just hate soccer in general.
(11:10):
I mean, I just kind of think it's boring.
It's slow.
It's it's just, it's not entertaining.
It's not, it does not sports entertain me in any way whatsoever.
That's like the turn.
The fucking turnovers are so goddamn frequent.
Like it's also hard to distinguish like who's fucking good.
Like sure, I know, I know Ronaldo and fucking messy, right?
(11:33):
You can't, there's no disputing.
Those guys aren't great, right?
Yeah.
You could see it.
You can visually see it, but for like the other 10 or nine guys that are on the field,
man, it just looks like all random bullshit.
Like at least in other sports, I can kind of get an idea of who's fucking good, at least
(11:55):
in like baseball.
I mean, you know, a shortstop is good when he's putting his fucking glove on everything
and he's able to turn double plays like that.
That's how you know he's fucking good.
And then on top of that, like when they can hit, yeah, it makes them stand out.
But with soccer, it's like, what are the metrics that make them to make them stand out?
(12:17):
There's so few scoring opportunities or it's not like a soccer team is going to win 10
to zero.
And it's like, okay, there's a sis.
Yeah, sure.
There's a sis in soccer, right?
You helped somebody get a goal, but I mean, what other metrics are there to describe how
fucking good a player is?
(12:37):
Like are they fast?
Sure.
Maybe that's something that helps or how good is their stamina?
But like in other sports, it feels, I don't know how to describe it, but it feels like
there's better ways or better aspects to the game itself and like the stats that indicate
(12:58):
a player's good.
I don't really understand what I'm looking at when I see soccer.
There's just so much bullshit going on that you really, you really can't get a good grasp
of who's good.
And even the players that are good, like they're so far and few, so far and few in between
that it's like, well, the other 90% like who fucking gives a shit?
(13:22):
Yeah, exactly.
And fuck man, I don't give any shit.
I've never watched the MLS, the US Major League Soccer.
I've never fucking watched that.
So I can't, I don't know if that's good or if it's not good because I just don't fucking
care.
I've never cared about soccer and who knows, maybe it's something that is fucking awesome
(13:44):
and we just don't know about it, but hell, there's a stat for drawing penalties in fucking
soccer.
That's like a stat.
That's one of the stats that they keep track of is how many penalties you can draw.
So what the fuck does that tell you?
You know?
I mean, one of the observations they had about, they have about the tournament itself.
(14:12):
I think, I think there's some type, this is just, I mean, this is me going off on a ramp,
but man, just, just the fact that like the major European teams like Germany, Spain,
fucking England.
I mean, there were multiple games where each of these respective teams were down.
(14:37):
They were actually losing to small European countries like Georgia.
England was down one zero two.
I forgot who they were playing.
I want to say it was like Slovenia or Slovakia.
I can't remember, but they were playing against them and England was down until the 90th minute.
(14:59):
And of course they add additional time for all the penalties and all the stoppage and
all that shit.
So fucking England scored two fucking goals to qualify for the round of 16 or whatever
next stage is within the last like fucking eight minutes of the game.
(15:19):
Right.
And then Georgia, who was beating the Spaniards, the Spain itself, they were up one zero for
like 60 minutes of the game or whatever amount of time it was.
And then the Spaniards ended up winning like two, one, I think.
So they ended up going to the next round and there's group play.
So you play, it's a round robin thing.
(15:40):
Everybody plays each other and whoever has the most points ends up, the top two teams
end up making it to the next round.
But dude, like just, you know, they're not going to let the small European teams win
because that's not what's going to make money.
Like everybody wants to see France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, make it to the next
(16:03):
round.
There's going to be exceptions.
Like Italy didn't make it to the next round, but you know, the refs have it in for these
other teams because that's where the money is.
Like they can't have fucking Georgia go over Spain because it just, there's no money in
that and the country's too small for people to care.
So I feel like there's some type of collision to make these teams get as far as they can
(16:29):
for like the larger European teams as opposed to like Georgia or even like the Czech Republic
or whatever.
I just, I find, I just hate the fucking sport, dude.
I, every time I'm not even excited for like the world cup anymore at this point.
(16:50):
I used to be when I was younger and now not so much because Mexico and the U S they both
suck ass so it's like the little investment that I had don't really care because I already
know that the teams that are going to dominate as far as like this side of the world goes,
it's probably going to be Argentina.
(17:11):
It's probably going to be Brazil and I don't know if the gap will ever be closed.
I'm like, why do I even fucking care at this point?
So I, I'm just, I hate soccer.
Ultimately, that's all I have to say is I hate soccer and what a waste of a fan base
for all these people that support their favorite teams.
I mean, dude, one thing I will credit soccer for is the rabid fans.
(17:37):
Like I respect the shit out of anybody that is a soccer fan because they do some really
cool shit.
Like they, I think LAFC like for the Los Angeles football club here in Los Angeles, they have
a giant banner that goes up and it's like, I don't, I think it's go tanks or something,
(18:00):
but it's like their own colored version of that character, like their own modded version
of that character.
And the banner goes up and everybody powers up like, like Goku when he turned super sane
and like, Oh, that's cool.
Like they even have their own, you know, fight songs or their own anthems.
Like that's all great shit, but like they're wasting it on a stupid fucking sport, what
(18:25):
it can be for baseball or it can be for hockey.
I mean, it's just a wasted opportunity to have a really cool fan base for a sport that
really isn't all that great.
So I, I, I cry for these people because they, they are so rabid.
They're so rabid fans for a sport that kind of sucks dick.
(18:47):
So yeah, true.
And you know, they also start riots.
So that's also, you know, pretty awesome as well.
Yeah.
You got anything else Ted about that?
Nah, soccer's garbage.
It's fucking bullshit.
If you have the fucking balls to try and prove us wrong, you can comment on any fucking thing
(19:11):
we have.
He doesn't even have to be a post about soccer.
You can comment about it on anything or send us a fucking DM at game rage magazine or at
all gas, no trash official.
And please, please tell us how we're wrong because you're fucking never going to change
our mind, but go ahead.
You can try.
We'd love to see it.
We'd love to hear what bullshit excuses you can come up with as to why soccer's not complete
(19:32):
and utter hot garbage.
I still have one more other thing to add.
Yeah, go ahead.
Why the fuck do they have the goddamn tournaments in our country when soccer is like the least
interesting thing?
It's like all these other countries have the opportunity to host, but they know they can't
(19:53):
rake it like here in the U S. So of course they put it here because there's money to
make, but they'll put in fucking Mexico.
They don't put in Argentina because they know people won't travel to those countries.
Why the fuck did they put it here when it's the sport then?
And nobody really cares.
At least nobody really cares about, but judging by the fact that soccer fanatics are willing
(20:18):
to travel, but they won't go to other like central South American countries because who
the fuck knows that it's safe and do they have the system to support, you know, 30 different
teams to play a tournament?
I don't fucking know, but they always put it here, dude.
And it's like, keep that shit somewhere else, man.
Like go make money somewhere else.
(20:38):
Like we don't, I don't want that shit here.
As a whole, in terms of multi-sport, I think America or the United States market is probably
one of the largest on the planet.
I mean, obviously I think FIFA is the largest money-making sports organization worldwide,
(20:59):
but that encompasses the entire world.
If you add up all the different leagues of professional sports that exists in the U S
I'm sure that they eclipse what the FIFA does worldwide.
So we're a huge market for sports.
So it makes sense as to why they'd want to do that here and why to try to want to, want
(21:20):
to try to capitalize on that.
And I mean, shit FIFA for whatever reason, I don't know what the reason is as to why
they never wanted to try to come to America or what the fucking deal was to have FIFA
proper here.
But you know, we, we got the MLS, I guess with the major league soccer, which I don't
(21:45):
know who the fuck even, I don't even know who the fuck founded that, but
value doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter.
It's fucking irrelevant because it's garbage.
It's hot fucking garbage.
And maybe that's why they founded this because FIFA was just like, yeah, nobody gives a shit
(22:08):
about soccer in America.
So we're just going to fucking tell them, forget about it.
We're not even going to try.
And you know, I guess, I guess that's how, I guess that's how it works.
I don't know.
I don't know.
And soccer also fucking works super weird because of the fact that the year there's
(22:30):
all these different levels to it.
It's like, it's the same fucking sport.
So it's not like, it's not like how our shit usually works where there's like quote unquote,
I guess college and then like minor league teams.
It's all considered professional level, but it's just different levels of professional,
which fucking doesn't make any sense.
(22:52):
It's like nine or 10 different levels of professional soccer.
And it's like, Jesus Christ, at that point, who gives a shit if there's 18 different divisions
for this professional league and then you can work your way up and down.
It's like, fuck man, that's terrible.
So anyways, fuck soccer.
And you got anything else to say about soccer?
(23:13):
No, but I didn't want to ask you about something to transition to our next topic.
Yeah, let me hear it.
You did mention that you were looking into following a team for Nipah and professional
baseball since we had an interview with Yuri Karasawa.
(23:34):
That's right.
That's right.
Do you actually have a team that you're interested in or you're going to follow?
Oh yes, I have, I have, I have done the, I've done the work.
I've put in the research, the minutes to hours of ball busting and tedious fucking, I don't
(23:59):
know, research, I guess, is as to who I am going to, you know, be looking at potentially
following.
And I have decided upon the Nipah ham fighters is being my number one new team that I'm going
(24:24):
to be following in the NPB or Nipah professional baseball.
Why is that?
Well, see, I didn't want to, and in my search, I didn't want to, I didn't want to incorporate
past championships, victories or anything.
I didn't, I didn't look at any of their records.
(24:44):
I didn't look at any of that shit because I didn't want to, I didn't want to jump, be
considered jumping on as a bandwagoner or whatever.
So the thing that I felt like I could come down to as being the most, you know, neutral
way, I guess, in terms of, I mean, I don't know about neutral, but the least bandwagony
way is I wanted to look at either controversies or basically just interesting things that
(25:11):
I found out about the teams themselves.
And so the one that I found the most interesting was the mascot for the Nipah ham pyres is
a Fox and his name's Frep, which sounds like a fucking sexually transmitted disease.
And I was already in, I'm like, Oh, that sounds fucking great.
Frep the Fox.
He basically captured my attention by the fact that when they played the Hanshin Tigers
(25:40):
in 2018, he basically Jushin Thunder Liger throughout the first ceremonial pitch, the
ceremonial first pitch.
And the, he then had a gimmick match, an actual wrestling match with Frep the Fox on the field.
And he job for him.
He jobbed for Jushin Thunder Liger in his own fucking stadium.
(26:04):
And he, you know, he took, he took the fucking, he did the job.
He took the L for a Jushin Liger.
And I thought that was very respectable and that Frep the Fox is a mascot that I can get
behind.
And so then I decided to throw my name in the ring or my fandom, my fandom hat into
(26:25):
the ring of the Nipah ham fighters.
So now I also, I do think it's very, what's the word?
I don't know if it's disrespectful, but it's very, it's very arrogant to basically throw
like, cause they're in Hokkaido or whatever.
(26:46):
And they're, their full name, I guess, technically is the Hokkaido Nipah ham fighters.
Cause Nipah ham is the country, the name of the, like the company sponsor that runs them.
But I thought that it was still disrespectful to basically, or, or like a shot at everybody
to have the name of the country.
(27:06):
Like even though it's in the name of the sponsor, it's like, it's still fucking like a dick
move to be like, Oh yeah, we're the Hokkaido Japan ham fighters.
Basically go fuck yourselves.
So I thought that was the team.
You're the team to follow.
Yeah.
So that's, that's the, that's the team that I decided to, to go for.
(27:29):
So that's who I'm going to be following right now.
And that's who I've, I've kind of started following and I'm still, because it isn't,
it is still a chore to try to watch fucking baseball.
That's you know, Nippon or Nippon based professional baseball games here in America.
It's still a bitch to do that essentially.
Now, I mean, it's a bitch to do it in legal ways, but I will still be watching it nonetheless.
(27:56):
And I'm also still adjusting to the rules differences because there are quite a few
different rules that and how it's played essentially.
So that still does take some getting used to.
So I'm still, I'm also still learning the different differentiation in rules as well.
(28:22):
So that's, that's something that I am, you know, pursuing right now to, you know, to
occupy my time because, you know, the angels are still sucking balls.
And I will say I have benefited greatly from the, the, the shit season that they've been
having and shit, I got tickets for me and Katie to sit essentially row one right field
(28:50):
fucking there, there are excellent seats and I got them for like fucking next to nothing.
So and that's like front row aisle.
They're like pre there's prime real estate at angel at this angel game.
They're playing the Mets too, which I believe that's August 3rd.
So August 3rd, if you're going to be out in fucking right field and you see the ginger
(29:14):
fuck come say hi because you know, tell me, tell me you're a, you're a game rage giga
Chad and I'll fucking chat you up and we can fucking have a good combo.
But anyways, yeah.
Nipa, go, go Nipa ham fighters.
I don't think you need to, if you go on YouTube, there's actually, I mean, whether it's like
(29:38):
Yaki, you cause a politics summarizing the league itself at large in probably three to
four minutes.
There's a couple different YouTube channels.
I think one's called like Pacific league TV.
They kind of summarize what happens over the course of the weekend baseball for Nipa professional
(30:00):
baseball.
It's not that you necessarily need to watch the games, but I mean, somebody that we, somebody
that we were talking about for the Nipa and ham fighters, or at least I believe he's on
the team to say, Minami, the Congo East half Congolese, half Japanese player plays right
(30:20):
field.
Dude, you gotta go check out his clips.
Like motherfuckers throwing out people from right field to home in one fell swoop, like
unreal arm cannon for an arm.
Like just check out his highlight reels.
That dude is definitely like a legit, a legit baseball player.
(30:44):
And he just happens to be on the fucking Nipa and ham fighters.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, and, and I, I like to just watch full games proper.
Like that's the thing that if I'm going to go, if I'm going to get into it, I don't want,
I don't just want to watch fucking highlights.
I feel like that's not earning it.
All right.
You gotta feel like I need to sit there and watch fucking complete full games to fucking
(31:05):
really solidify my fandom of this team.
So that's what I'm looking for.
And that's harder to do because there are channels and there are ways that you can,
you can see those things on some YouTube channels in a legitimate capacity.
But the problem is they don't cover, it does, like, it doesn't cover every single team.
(31:28):
So, and I think the ham fighters were one of the teams that got left out on some of
those broadcast rights to, you know, either YouTube or some of the American counterparts
to networks that are here, I guess.
So I am trying to figure out how I can like get ahold of that.
And yes, watching any of those are excellent options for just catching up on the highlights
(31:52):
and getting the information necessary.
But I kind of want to watch just proper full games.
And again, I'm not going to understand the fucking commentary, but I don't need the commentary
because I know what the final how baseball works for the most part.
So I can, I can figure out what the fuck's going on.
You know, so anyway, what else?
(32:16):
What else you got?
So to move to move on, I do want to talk about it.
Maybe I'll talk about it broadly, but for this specific group, we put on pause.
Yeah, here, I'll pause it real quick.
Okay.
All right.
So yeah, like I was saying, talking about Caitlin Clark and the great wonders that she's
(32:43):
doing with the WNBA.
So I actually spent one of the Sundays, I think it was like two Sundays ago was the
Chicago sky versus the Indiana fever.
So we had Angel Reese, who's the shit talker.
(33:04):
And I guess you can call her the antagonist of Caitlin Clark.
So Angel Reese ended up bringing back the Chicago sky from like a 15 point lead in the
fourth quarter with probably like six minutes to go.
And man, I'll tell you what, Caitlin Clark is like straight up handicapped by her team.
(33:31):
It's like she's playing on a 4D level.
She's shooting like three pointers like Steph Curry from where the brand markers are for
like, I don't even know who the fuck sponsors NPA, but she's shooting three pointers from
like 10 or 15 feet away from like their three, the half circle for the three point mark.
(33:55):
I'm just like, holy shit.
And she's making amazing passes and the fucking team itself is like missing easy buckets.
Like this is what the NBA sucks dick dude, but I'm glad she's changing the perspective
of people that this is like a legitimate league and you know, there are potential stars to
(34:16):
be had in the future and she's definitely one of them, but like she's being straddled
by her own fucking team and she had a 15 point lead and Angel Reese ended up coming back
in winning the game by like two points.
And I'm just like, fuck dude.
I kind of wanted to see Caitlin Clark dominate, but I just found, I just found it amazing
(34:36):
that I had any interest in watching the WNBA.
Like I got invested in this fucking game.
So I'm like, things are fucking changing, dude.
It's really interesting.
Yeah, no, it is.
And I'll say this.
It's like, it's, it's the equivalent of Caitlin Clark is playing.
(34:59):
If you want to give an example, a, a video game analogy, right?
She's playing, let's say world of warcraft, which is a massively multiplayer online role
playing game, right?
And her teammates are playing fucking pong.
That's that's the level of discrepancy between her level and their level.
(35:27):
It is, it's almost like they're not even playing the same fucking game.
Like they're not even playing the same support at this point.
She's playing basketball and they're playing, I don't know, some other fucking horse shit.
It's so sad because there's clips of her getting like visibly frustrated on the core where
she's like, fuck, but this is just what I have to deal with.
(35:50):
Like, oh, this is, it's so sad, dude.
It's ridiculous.
There was one clip of her making this amazing pass to one of her teammates and it was, it
was right fucking tour and she just completely fucking missed it.
And it went out of fucking bounds.
And I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ.
(36:10):
That was terrible.
The other thing I wanted to know about the WNBA, that was really interesting.
So you mentioned that the WNBA is projected to lose 150 million dollars by the time the
season ends, right?
Yeah, it was, it was something like that.
I don't remember what the exact number was.
(36:30):
Okay.
So it's somewhere in that ballpark, right?
The funny thing is, as I was watching the game, the NBA jerseys, the WNBA jerseys themselves,
okay, so for the NBA itself, they only have one like official sponsor per team, right?
These motherfuckers I think have like three or four.
(36:51):
I'm like, how the fuck do these guys have three or four sponsors and they're still not
breaking even?
Like they literally, every team has three or four sponsors on it.
It's like a soccer jersey.
If you watch any of the professional leagues where there's just a bunch of shit everywhere
and you don't even know what, who's the player because like their names obscured all the
(37:14):
sponsors.
Yeah.
And even the number is kind of obscured by the number of sponsors.
So they nearly have that on their jerseys.
Like it's, it's, it's nearly getting to that point, but I just find it bonkers that even
with all the sponsors, they can't even break fucking even with the total revenue for the
year.
(37:35):
Like what is that?
Yeah.
Okay.
So just to be correct on the number.
So the WNBA had lost an average of more than $10 million every year since it was founded.
Okay.
And now they were reporting that in 2024 it's, it's the WNBA and its teams are expected to
(37:55):
lose around $50 million.
Oh, so it was not 150.
It was 50 million, but still that's, that's a fucking, that's a lot of money, man.
Considering that you have a, all these sponsors, all the, I don't know.
Oh fuck.
I don't know if the television deals are worth any amount of money, but that's just crazy
(38:15):
how much it costs to operate.
And that's the thing is the NBA subsidizes the WNBA.
So the NBA is kicking in that 50 mil that they're going to lose plus whatever extra
to make them whole.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So and that's despite, that's despite this new found popularity, they're losing money.
(38:40):
They're losing five times as much, even with this surging popularity or whatever the hell
you want to call it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't have anything additional to add for this episode, but just more of the ongoing
narrative for the WNBA.
(39:00):
Yeah.
I did want to say one last final little topic, I guess, is to just, just talk about the Stanley
cup finals real quick.
And I don't know if it'll be real quick or not, but at any rate, the fucking Florida
man went up three oh on the Canadian and somehow managed to lose three games in a row, one
(39:28):
of which they lost eight to fucking one.
And I will say that it seems very sus that this transpired the way it did to go all the
way to game seven for Florida man to end up just winning the cup anyways.
(39:53):
And I know we said in the last episode that we talked about the Stanley cup, that if Florida
man lost the fucking this, this three lead that they would be, we, we would be literally
forcing Florida to secede from the union and giving them to, you know, Mexico or Cuba or
whoever the fuck else we were going to give them to if they lost this.
(40:17):
But yes, I'll give them their credit.
They did, they did win, but I feel like this thing was all scripted anyways, that, that
there was this game, this, this Stanley cup final was set to need to go to seven games
so that they, the NHL could maximize the money because the Florida Panthers going up three
oh on the Edmonton oiler oilers was already unexpected and not that that wasn't, I didn't
(40:44):
foresee.
I don't think a lot of people foresaw that happening.
And so the height of what you already thought was the height of drama, the, the Florida
Panthers potentially sweeping the Edmonton oilers then turns into the Edmonton oilers
winning three games in a row to tie it up at three all and going into a game seven deciding
(41:10):
factor of who the fuck was going to win this.
That just seems like the NHL wanted to cash in for sure on seven games worth of, you know,
advertising revenue of contract deal with the networks and also likely receive performance
(41:30):
bonuses for having a huge audience for game seven because you've built the height of drama
now leading into this game seven.
So what are you, what are you, do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I think, I think the fact that they got to a game seven was so preposterous, but
(41:59):
it was absolutely necessary because there was so many, so much money to make off of
each game that if it ended up being a sweep, well, it's like, oh shit, we missed out on
three games that we could have made bank on.
And of course, like the ratings, I mean, hockey needs, hockey's like probably behind baseball,
(42:20):
football, the NBA.
I don't, I don't know where it falls, but I'm sure it's not.
I'm sure it's like in third or fourth place, but I think having a game seven like automatically
escalates it to being at the forefront of sports.
And even if the two teams are not something you're invested in, like everybody wants to
(42:42):
see who's going to win a game seven.
But the fact that it was the Edmonton Oilers or franchise that everybody knows for Wayne
Gretzky and they flopped on their faces and ate shit.
It was the funniest fucking thing.
I know, I know when I know when Edmonton or or fan and he was, he was telling me he was
going to call off work for a week because he would be devastated if they lost to Florida.
(43:08):
That's fucking hilarious.
So it is funny to see.
Cause okay, again, the each game averaged about 8 million viewers and this game seven
drew 16.
It doubled it.
It drew 16.3 million viewers and is the second most watched NHL game in history, essentially.
(43:37):
So they, they fucking, they did the mission accomplished if they wanted to create this,
this drama to maximize their viewership.
I mean, it definitely worked and I don't know what the performance bonuses were for the networks.
They drew certain numbers of viewers or whatever the case was, but man, they definitely fucking
(43:59):
likely blew all those out of the water and got paid a bunch of extra money.
So that's pretty much all I had for the episode.
You want to add anything else?
No, that's pretty much it.
I will, uh, I wanted to see if I could find out what the highest fucking rated or the
(44:26):
highest most watched fucking game was in NHL history, but cause there was, there was fucking
one, ah, they don't fucking, they don't fucking say, they don't say what it is, but there's
this stupid, this, this rating is dumb.
(44:46):
They don't have any fucking, they don't have the records on here, but anyways, that's pretty
much it.
I guess, uh, we'll go ahead and, uh, cap this off, I guess, unless you, uh, yeah, you said
you didn't have any more to add.
So anyways, all right.
Well, uh, thank you guys for listening to this episode.
We, uh, we know it's remote and it was a little, uh, fishy, but, uh, at the end of the day,
(45:08):
we still made the shit and you still listen to it.
So thanks and congratulations on getting to hear a wonderful episode of, you know, triple
from the pine.
Uh, anyways, if you want to go to a game, do me on soccer in the wet took a shit on
soccer.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
(45:28):
That was, that was basically the point of this episode is to shit on soccer.
And if you don't like that, then we don't care.
Uh, actually we do care and we want to hear your shitty opinion on why soccer is not garbage
at game rage magazine.com.
And if you want to tell us on Instagram or tick tock, it's at game rage magazine.
And if you want to tell us on the Twitter slash X, it's at game rage mag.
(45:48):
If you want to specifically tell Adam, and so that way we can double team you on the
internet, you can go to add all gas, no trash official and you can tell them shit there.
Uh, anyways, I guess that'll do it for us and, uh, fuck.
Thank you guys for listening.
We will catch you on the next one.
(46:19):
That was chirping from the pine.
The game rage sports podcast.
You can follow us on Instagram and tick tock at game rage magazine.
Follow us on X at game rage mag.
You can go to our website, www.gameragemagazine.com
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