The Fellas with Anthony Gargano & Jason Fitz Talk NBA Finals, Dan Hurley & More!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Where's the hype, where's the excitement, where's the draw? Where
is the absolute, oh my god energy for the NBA Finals.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I wanted it. I wanted it to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I wanted everyone to be in the moment where all
we could think about was what was gonna happen in
a series that should absolutely be electric. Yet here we
sit with Boston with the one nothing lead Game two
this weekend, and I feel like nobody cares. It's a
fellas Fox Sports Saturday. We're hanging out. We did broadcasting

(00:36):
live from the tyraq dot com studios.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Tyrack dot com. We'll help you get there, an.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection, and
over ten thousand recommended installers. Tyraq dot com the way
tire buying should be. I'm Jason Fitz. Anthony Gargana will
be with us in just a second. We got Kevin Figures,
we got the whole crew together, and it just hits
me as I sit there and watch Game one the
other night and I'm thinking this, this is fine to

(01:00):
get to get it.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
This is the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Everybody's gonna come in and we're all gonna be electric
because you have this landmark franchise in sports with the
Celtics that everybody wants to pay attention to.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
They'll be hyped for it.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
The MAVs are coming into this with superstars that we
care about, through a playoff run that has shown us
clutch performances.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
What else could you ask for.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
This was the moment after last weekend show where we
sat there and said, I don't know, doesn't feel like
the lead up has been what we're used to. This
would be the moment the captures everybody and I sat
there and watched Game two. I watched the Celtics go
in and do with the Celtic Game one, I should
say I watched the Celtics do what the Celtics have
been doing all year, go in kick butt Boston, being

(01:42):
a good, good basketball team, playing good defense, shooting well
from the corner right. We all saw the Celtics go
out show everything that they have, and I'm thinking, this
is gonna be the buss, this is gonna be the moment.
This is when we are all going to start to
just flock to this series, and instead, yesterday felt like

(02:04):
nobody cared as we lead into this weekend with Game
two being on Sunday, how many people are just sitting
there saying, you know what, the one thing I gotta
do this weekend is watch Game two of the NBA Finals.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
It just isn't hitting.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
And I don't know why, Figgy, tell me I'm wrong,
because I know you love the league, right, and I
know that this is the series that, even as a
Lakers guy, because of the Celtics, you're looking at it
and saying, well, at least I.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Got a rooting interest. I know who I'm rooting against.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
There are all the reasons here that this thing should
be electric, and I just feel like, still, even now
that the series has started, people are sitting there saying, I.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
Guess, yeah, you know why it's not electric because you
blinked in the third quarter and once hem was down
by thirty points.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
So now that's the last thing. Impression.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Look, I know Dallas made a bit of a run
late in the third and early in the fourth quarter,
but it was never really close. It wasn't really competitive.
So if that's your impression, by the way, consider the
fact that the m was off. You know, the Celtics
swept Dallas won relatively easily, and so we had what ten,
eleven days before the start of the finals. You had
all that anticipation, then all of a sudden, Dallas comes

(03:10):
and falls flat on their face. Not to take anything
away from Boston, they played a phenomenal game, but you
have all this time off and it leads up to that.

Speaker 5 (03:18):
That trash game that we saw the other night.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
And I think that's a big reason where people like,
is this what the NBA Finals is gonna look like?

Speaker 5 (03:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (03:25):
I mean, even as a diehard, I wouldn't care either.
Now I do, and I'm obviously going to end up
tuning in for Game two. But Dallas has to show
themselves a lot better, and the NBA has got to
be killing themselves saying, like, please, for the love of God,
we cannot have blowouts throughout this series. Even if it's
one of those Boston wins by twenty, Boston wins by fifteen.
Did you go back to Dallas and Dallas wins by

(03:47):
ten or wins by twelve. You gotta have a competitive,
competitive matchup. If game one I was asking, I'll ask
you this fits. If Game one was nip and tuck
the entire way, or say the margin was between seven
and eight, seven and five seven, eight, whatever, the entire game.
Do you think that you would feel differently than you
do now.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, that's a great question by you, because you're a
thousand percent right. If we get a last second shot
that falls in, then all of a sudden, everybody's going to.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Say, Oh, what a serious we're about to get.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
I think people are just so want for the Celtics
to fail that if they go in and they just kick,
but it's not even interesting to anybody. And I feel
like there was more buzz last night for Caitlin Clark
playing and scoring thirty points, tying her WNBA record. There
was more buzz for that just sitting around than there
is for the NBA finals. And what drives me crazy

(04:36):
is so often baseball fans, basketball fans, even college football fans,
they'll come in and say, don't try and fix our sport, right,
like everything's fine.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
If you don't like it, you don't get it. There's
so much of an answer to it to me.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
If you are a major sport and your final is
something that people are sort of having to try to
find a way to cover, you've got a problem. Like
you mentioned the ten day layoff for for the Celtics, particularly,
But man, if we have two weeks leading up to
the Super Bowl, made no problem. If we got two
weeks leading up to the college football National Championship Game,

(05:08):
ain't no problem.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
You got two weeks leading up to the NBA Finals,
and it's like, well, I don't know, lost a little
bit of momentum with this.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
You know, we have six days and oh, basketball kind
of lost a little momentum. Gotta get it back, Like,
I think that's the sign that there's a problem.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Well, that's also the inherent issue with a day to
day sport like basketball or baseball. You know, those are games.
You know, if you're playing baseball, you're doing it every
single day. If it's basketball, it's you know, four or five, three,
five days a week, whatever it is. Football is built
inherently built on once a week, having a long layoff,
building that anticipation for the next time that your team's
gonna be able to suit up. So it's unnatural for

(05:47):
a basketball series or a baseball series to have ten
eleven days off in between games.

Speaker 5 (05:51):
You're used to playing every single.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Day in the NFL or college football, you're used to
having a long layoff. You're used to having that anticipation.
So it's just a little bit different now. The big
issues now because look, there's been large build ups to
National title games or large builds ups to Super Bowls
who have been giant duds. Like I can remember now,
granted this was years ago, but do you will remember
this as well? This is before you at the off,
the bye week between the Super Bowl, after the conference

(06:13):
championship games. Remember when the Raiders played the Buccaneers in
San Diego. You know, there is a lot of hype
that week, and then all of a sudden, by the
time halfway through the first quarter, you knew John Gruden
and that defense had the Raiders number and knew exactly
what they were doing. And the game was a giant dud.
But you're able to put that behind you because it's
a one off. Now it's like, wow, we have the
NBA Finals Game one with such a dud. What do

(06:34):
I have to look forward to? Is this what the
entire series is going to look like? Once a bad
football game comes and goes, it's gone. You move on
to the next thing.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
You're right about every ounce of that.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
It just feels like the NBA is closer to becoming
Major League Baseball than it is the NFL. And to me,
a big part of this comes back to the Celtics.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
I don't know. And for my money, if we're.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Looking at one of the most dominant runs in the
playoffs in NBA history, and I know everybody's going to
talk about who they played and it's been trash.

Speaker 5 (07:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I play he was in front of you.
I don't play that game.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
If you're the Celtics and you are going you are
the Celtics, let me say that again. If you are.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
The Celtics, like one of the great brands in all
of sports, you are on a run of ass kickery
that we rarely see at this level of the NBA
playoffs and you go into Game one of the Finals
and you just crush it. I feel like usually, like
if we were watching the Dodgers in the World Series
after they threw up a historic season and they'd gone

(07:36):
through the entire year and they just hadn't even been
challenged in the playoffs and they won Game one of
the World Series eight to nothing, we'd be sitting there
all day talking about, Wow, the dominance of the Dodgers
is something we got to talk about, right, Like most
of the time. If this had been the Lakers, if
this had been Lebron and the Lakers going in absolutely
decimating their opponent in Game one, instead of saying, well, well,

(08:00):
you know, let's qualify the run that got here, we'd
be saying, my god, where does this run rank?

Speaker 3 (08:04):
And playoff history?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Like, for whatever reason, the Finals hasn't grabbed everybody, and
the Celtics.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Have it really grabbed.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Like it feels to me like there are more haters
than lovers to Boston and because of that, people just
aren't really behind it.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
They just don't care.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
And and maybe part of this is the MAVs, Like
maybe if the MAVs a won Game one and the
Celtics were down, then just because we're so drama obsessed.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
We would have gone to that. Like maybe that's the
key here.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
We just don't get enough drama from this Celtics team
for us to be able to fill hours of sitting
here saying, yeah, but what about this guy that's gonna choke?
It's just it his landed flat without.

Speaker 5 (08:39):
That, yeah, And there's an element of troops to that.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
And like Boston, just the Boston fans, Boston franchises in
general have their share of haters throughout the country for
for myriad reasons. I certainly understand that sentiment, and you're right,
because the Celtics have, for lack of a better term,
folded many times over the last four or five years
in the postseason. It's almost like people are waiting for
them to screw up. It's like, yeah, Boston look good,
but you know, call me in five games, you know,

(09:03):
when they're down in the series again.

Speaker 6 (09:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
So they have a lot of things working against them.
But ultimately, I really think the biggest issue with the
lack of hype or lack of excitement coming out of
the NBA Finals, at least at this very moment, is
that Boston was just so dominant and ran the Dallas
off of the floor, and it just wasn't a competitive game.
So it gives people a little bit less to look
forward to in Game two because they think, well, is
this more of the same that we're watching.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
I am struck. You're listening to the Fellas on Fox
Sports Radio. Kevin Figures, Jason Fitz, Anthony Gargano cousin will
be with us in just a minute. I'm struck as
we talk about this about just sort of knowing where
you are. And what I mean by that is, as
we've talked about on the show before, I really love hockey,
right and I understand as somebody that loves hockey that

(09:48):
you know, the Oilers being in the Stanley Cup Final.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
To me, there's so much history around it. It's a
beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm excited to watch the Oilers take on the Panthers
in the Stanley Cup Final. I also understand the majority
of the world, or at least our world, is not
excited about that. The majority of the sports radio audience
is not sitting here, you know, staying up all night
salivating over the Stanley Cup Final. I understand where a
sport that I really care about falls in the lexicon

(10:16):
of the world. I think one of the disconnects is
that there are NBA fans that feel like the NBA
is on the same level as the NFL, and it
just isn't. And this series has proven that. This series
is when you've got a dominant brand, when you've got
one of your biggest brands, and you've got a team
that's been associated with one of the biggest Q rating
celebrities in American culture with Mark Cuban, When you have

(10:38):
the MAVs taking him on. This should be a can't miss,
everyday water cooler conversation final. It really should be. And
if it was the NHL, I wouldn't have any issue
with the fact that it's sort of lost in between games.
If this was hockey, I look at it and say, yeah,
that comes with love and hockey, because I think hockey
fans are used to it.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
I feel like baseball fans, to a certain degree are
used to it.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I don't think NBA fans understand that that's the same
realm that they're living in. And I say that as
somebody that again, your die hard. I'm more of a
casual on the NBA watch it because it's part of
our job, and I enjoy it, but it's not something
that like every day I sit here and.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Obsess over right.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
But I feel like at some point the lack of
interest reminds me more of other sports and their final
and the way it's covered, And you just got to
start to accept that. Like, even if you want to
make the argument that the NBA is the number two sport,
it is in college football is at this point, and
the fact is the inability to carry conversation during the

(11:38):
biggest moment for your sport, day in and day out,
on a series that involves a massive brand. Just tells
me that interest in the NBA isn't where it was
at different peaks, it peaks and valleys, but FIGGI to me,
this is not one of those peaks.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
Well, and I think that any NBA fan that would
say that they're on par with the NFL or even
close to it, would be delusional. There's there's no any
sort of verifiable metric that you can say we're on
par with, whether it's television revenue for that matter, television ratings,
overall interests, all of that. The NBA is absolutely a
tier below. Look, I'm as passionate about the NBA as

(12:14):
anybody else is. I love the NFL as well, and
I certainly I am not going to sit here and
say that the NBA is on par But the NBA
certainly has its share of Rabbit fans who are excited
about this NBA final. I'm very much looking forward to
Game two and seeing how Dallas, you know, finds a
way to adjust. But yeah, under no way, shape or
form can I say that the NBA is competing with
the NFL. Now are they quite Is it quite the

(12:35):
level of the NHL when it comes to North American
interest at the very least.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
No, it's not that low on the wrong either. You
know there's levels to it.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
No, you're a thousand percent right. But remember the show,
because think about this. The NBA is about to sign
what is expected, according to reports, to be a historic
TV deal for seventy six billion dollars. Yep, seventy six
billion dollars. Now, that comes in part because, if we're
being honest, Live Sports were ninety eight of the top
one hundred ranked TV events from last year. Is one

(13:06):
of the few places in the world you can still
get commercials and people can't skip them.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
You gotta watch them.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
I understand all that, But as one NFL insider told
me a couple of days ago, that deal is the
reason the NFL is going to go back to the
table when they have an opt out on their TV
deals to renegotiate the money going into twenty twenty six, because, frankly,
if the NBA is worth seventy six billion.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
What is the NFL worth? And this final is the
living proof of that.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Because this isn't to me if this is Denver for
the last couple of years. We've excused some of it
because it's been Denver, and you know, maybe Miami is plucky,
but Denver's not at the same level as the Celtics.
I for my money, this is an abject disaster that
we're not more obsessed with where this NBA final is.
We'll get cousins thoughts on it as we will break

(13:51):
everything down over the course of the morning. We're just
getting rolling. Obviously, the fella's got a lot to say
about that. We'll break all of that down, plus some
of the football news coming to you from the week.
We are just getting started with a fellas on Fox
Sports Radio. Don't go anywhere, we'll be back in just
a minute.

Speaker 7 (14:08):
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Speaker 8 (14:20):
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Speaker 3 (14:34):
Got Fiemmi, and also those who can.

Speaker 8 (14:36):
Help us in between the ears. Anyone from a therapist
to someone like Ed Milett or John Gordon. We've all
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Speaker 3 (14:44):
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Speaker 8 (14:46):
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Speaker 6 (14:54):
You get podcasts.

Speaker 9 (14:57):
Fellas from the tire Raq dot com studios. Jason fitz
Kevin Figures. I'm Anthony Gargana. All right, boys, Uh thanks,
rolled down the fort I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (15:18):
A couple of things. Fitzie.

Speaker 9 (15:20):
That game one, Wow, I know you guys talked about it,
but man, oh my god.

Speaker 6 (15:25):
You uh you're right there with Boston. Let's see what happens.

Speaker 9 (15:30):
But man, if anything's about game one, it was like,
let Luca do what he has to do, but we'll
disjoint their offense will be disjointed.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (15:41):
My only question is, let me throw this at you guys.

Speaker 9 (15:44):
When Boston goes nuts from three, they're unbeatable, right, So
we know that is in a situation where they went
nuts from three and then you know they come out
so hot thirty seven first quarter. But do they have
the calm down because they always have a come down
to follow.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
I feel like the rest advantage is gonna be a
part of this whole series too, by the way, Like,
I don't think that goes away after one game. I
felt like they were more energized and shot their tails off.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
But I also think that that's how.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
They played successfully for the majority of the year, right, Like, yeah,
part of the way that Boston is done and we
just keep presuming, well that you can't and that's not
gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
They're gonna cool off.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
They've been pretty pretty consistent. I thought what we saw
in Game one was the best of the Celtics from
out them from throughout the course of the season.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
That's why they've won games.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
I don't worry about that in Game two either, especially
two days off. You know, it feels like the harder
part of the shooting portion of it, to me is
gonna come when we get to Dallas, right Like, different
arena shooting percentages go down on the road. Let's see
how it looks there. They got to stay hot in Dallas.
But I think for Game two tomorrow night, yeah, they'll
continue to shoot lights. I wouldn't be surprised if they

(16:57):
dominate game two. Also, it doesn't mean the series is over,
but I think, you know, I feel better and better
about Boston and six, maybe even Boston in five. It
just that is who the Celtics are and the Maps
are going to have to adjustifying an answer.

Speaker 6 (17:11):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead, fake.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
No, I'll just say yeah, I agree with everything that
fits said, and Boston can just go nuclear and they
have been for the most part this entire postseason. Now
the issue is the games that they lose, you know,
is when they really go ice cold from three and
they just don't have an answer.

Speaker 5 (17:26):
They can't really dominate the paint.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Now that being said, Chris Asporzingis made an immediate impact,
someone who I kind of downplayed last week saying that
he wasn't gonna make much of an impact, and he
made me look stupid at least in Game one. So
you have that ace in the hole that comes in
after not playing for who knows how long to make
that sort of impact, especially inside the three point line.
I mean, if they're going to make their threes, that's

(17:48):
gonna make them basically unbeatable. But yeah, to you guys's point,
when they're hitting from the outside knowing when they play
defense the way that they can play, There's nobody in
the NBA that's going to be able to beat them
when they're firing on all cylinders. Question is can they
do it for the entire series against Dallas, who has
been one of the best defensive teams in the NBA
post All Star Break? Was that just an aberration on

(18:10):
their part and even offensively look as good a defensively
as the Celtics are. Dallas was missing shots that they
normally would make two. So whether or not it's gonna
play it self fight in game two the way they
did in Game one, I don't believe.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
That it will. I think Dallas will show up.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
That does mean Dallas is gonna win Game two, but
I certainly I'm expecting a better showing. I don't expect
them to be down by thirty, you know, in game
two like they were in Game one.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (18:31):
I guess the big thing that shocked me the most
was just how disjointed the Mavericks offense was too.

Speaker 6 (18:39):
Yeah, I mean Luke have one assists?

Speaker 5 (18:42):
Yeah, well, the way their offense usually works.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
It's not either sitting here running a bunch of sets
and guys off ball screens. Everything that they do is
pretty much predicated off of what Kyrie and Luca do
in one on one matchups or what they do getting
screened the screen and roll game, and they just couldn't
get any of that going, you know, and so then
what ended up happening is you saw those guys start
to force it a little bit. And Luca is, as

(19:04):
you know, as one of the great you know, just
offensive players. I don't think it's I probably to say
he's one of the great offensive players in the history
of the sport already. He he's these he's been that
dominant throughout his young tenure. But when it's not going
for him and he's not getting a lot of help,
and it's just really tough sledding. And those guys, the PJ. Washington's,
you know, who had made such a big impact throughout
the postseason so far, they don't show up.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
Lucy can't do it all by himself.

Speaker 6 (19:27):
No, No, I mean Kyrie too, Like you know, taking
Kyrie out, you know, that was that's huge. That was
that was big.

Speaker 9 (19:36):
I you know, kudos to FITZI because FITZI thought por
Zingis would have a big, a big impact. You said it, FITZI,
that he would have the bigger impact. My Boston hate
was shining through. Man, I'm looking at my wounds. It's
hard to watch that. It really is boys, you know,

(19:57):
that's our blood rival. Like that's yes, And all Boston
does is win like they the whole city. It never
goes through like this long period where all four teams
are bad.

Speaker 6 (20:12):
They always got somebody in the finals.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
You're right about that, I think.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
So this is where maybe the way I compartmentalize certain
things as a fan, otherwise that'll drive me crazy.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
I have learned over the last few years to simply.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Step back and have so much respect for the Kansas
City Chiefs that it doesn't hurt my heart the same way.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
I look at it and say, hey, you.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Know what, I just got to accept the best quarterback
and the best coach in the entire NFL are playing
on a team that is argue, it is either one
of depending on which Raiders fan you ask one of,
or or close to the biggest rival that my team has. Right, Like, So,
the Chiefs are just absolutely the worst. We all know that.
But I've just learned to accept their greatness as a

(20:56):
way to sort of compartmentalize it.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
So maybe do that with Boston just think, hey, what
a run.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
I don't know how it works. I don't know, you know,
I'm in this. I have peace with Mahomes being so
great because I know it can't stop.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Him, so like it's just it's just it's great to me.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
Well, look, I had peace with the fact that John
Elway was a phenomenal quarterback and was going to kick
the Raiders ass twice a year for a decade. That
does mean that I liked it, or that I rooted
for him, or just you know, resigned on.

Speaker 5 (21:18):
Something to the fact that I don't root for it.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Yes, yes, so I mean that do I still want
them to lose every single week and every game that
they play one hundred percent?

Speaker 5 (21:27):
I just know that's probably unlikely to happen.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
I can respect them and still say I want this
guy to get destroyed every single solitary week. So that
is still my feeling with Kansas City, and that is
absolutely still my feeling with the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 5 (21:39):
But again, I can call a spade of spade.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
Like I said last week, I said, the only reason
I was ended up taking Dallas was because I thought
this series was basically even and I have a bias
because I don't like Boston, so that was it.

Speaker 5 (21:52):
I can respect the fact that.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
Look, if I thought Boston legitimately had the leg up
and was a better team all around, I would say
Boston is a better team and they're gonna win this series. Now,
based off of Game one, it certainly looks that way,
but there's still a long way to go.

Speaker 6 (22:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (22:06):
See, the Chiefs before this period, the Cheese were never
really like a thorn in your side.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
In some senses. They were at times.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
Uh they were super Bowl not super Bowl No, but
if from just from a division standpoint, Marty had good
years there, Uh, Priest Holmes would kill them every single
year in the you know, the two thousands with the
vermil So if it's from a from an AFC West standpoint,
they're always a thorn in the Raiders side or even Denver,
even when Denver was good for a lot of years.

Speaker 6 (22:37):
What's the division? Like? The division?

Speaker 9 (22:39):
Yeah, you know, you guys, you know, let's see, we
all hate our division foes, right like you know in
my division, Dallas and the Giants, right, Washington probably not
as much because Washington has been bad for you know
that long yeah, right, But Boston is just a city

(23:01):
rivalry so like Boston Philly, right, Like, so the hate
goes deep, it's deep, deep hate and jealousy.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
But you're right, like there is such a city rivalry
to all of that that that just hits different.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
That that is a.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Very fair point, you know, And certainly Boston fans have
had the glory of winning for so long in general
that this run for one city feels unprecedented.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
It is.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
It is wild to me to see, you know, kids
that have grown up and just never know what it's
like to not have one of your major teams winning
a championship almost every year. So yeah, I can feel
that until my court and from the city aspect of it.
That's that's something I don't think, you know, growing up
in Vegas as a kid, Vegas doesn't have a lot
of city rivals. Living in Nashville for twenty plus years,

(24:01):
Nashville doesn't have a lot of city rivals. You're right,
I think one thing that makes it different. That's also
like a proximity thing. In Connecticut, I learned that, like
so many of the major places in New England are
so close together that you really do have a like
what's Nashville is.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Going to be Memphis, right, Memphis isn't. They're so different
in cities.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
I don't really that's a rivalry, you know, but but
the proximity Philly to Boston just makes that hurt a
little bit more.

Speaker 9 (24:25):
Yeah, It's like there's you know, it's Boston in New York.
And because Boston is a you know, we're it's closer.

Speaker 6 (24:34):
Its size.

Speaker 9 (24:35):
Phillippi is bigger than Boston, but it's you know, New
York is so massive, right that, you know whatever.

Speaker 6 (24:42):
Now there's a rivalry.

Speaker 9 (24:44):
But the Philadelphia Boston thing because both both cities were
you know, the first cities of the country. You know,
you have the Quaker versus the Puritan That was always
a thing. Like they had that Puritanical attitude up there. Right,

(25:04):
We're Quaker, We're all, you know, all encompassing.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
I never heard it described that way, but I like it.
In the soil, Yeah, imagining Martin Luther leading the legions.

Speaker 5 (25:16):
Let's go, we got a holy war going on.

Speaker 9 (25:19):
Well, the Quakers were were exclusive, right, Like the Quakers
were about the sum of all parts, right, you know.
The Puritans with their fire and brimstone, you know, they
were they were just difficult people.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
Now you brought up an interesting or had an interesting
common A second ago you said the rivalry Boston Philadelphia
and the jealousy, So who's jealous of who?

Speaker 6 (25:45):
No, I'm certainly jealous of Boston.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, okay, that I mean because from a sports standpoint
and who's won more recently and all that, I think
Boston would have the leg up.

Speaker 5 (25:56):
But I just I wasn't sure what your perspective it was.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
It was city Bostonians are jealous of, right, Like, if
you're a Boston person, is there a city that you
look at and.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Say, oh God, I just wish.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Like, are they the are they the most sun kissed
sports city in America?

Speaker 5 (26:12):
Privileged? For sure?

Speaker 4 (26:13):
Over the last years, you'd say, since since the Red
Sox broke the curse n O four, I mean, no
cities won as much as they have.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, we always talk about cities have had the worst drought,
but like, sure, have we ever seen the King?

Speaker 6 (26:30):
They're the King?

Speaker 9 (26:32):
Ian Do me a favor, go back to the tournament
centric go back to two thousand and give me finals
appearances for Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox.

Speaker 4 (26:44):
And Patriots and started in one with the Patriots.

Speaker 6 (26:49):
Oh god, I.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Mean, you're right, nobody.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't think anybody's even gonna come close. Like every
time Atlanta loses a championship, we sit there and talk about,
you know, how decimating that is for that cursed sports city.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
You know, but it's it is interesting.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
I respect the hell out of the fact that you
have not gone down. There's one rabbit hole that I
hate in college football.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
There's one.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
There's one absolute thing that I cannot stand in college football,
and it's when SEC fans just adopt whatever SEC team
or Big Ten fans adopt whatever Big Ten team is
in the championship and they start chanting for their conference.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
I'm like, if you're a Georgia fan, how.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Do you root for Like there's never a part of
me in the Super Bowl that's rooting for the Chiefs.
How do you possible for Alabama if you're a Georgia fan,
or Michigan if you're an fan because you want your
conference to win the national championship. I don't want my
biggest rival to win a scratch off lottery ticket for
a dollar, nonetheless an actual championship. So I've never understood

(27:50):
that with college football fans do it way more than
any anybody else. College basketball fans to a certain degree,
but college football fans with the SCC chance, it's like,
not if your team didn't do that, shut up, don't chant.

Speaker 4 (28:03):
There's for whatever reason, and maybe because college sports has
just been so regional for so long, there's just an
element of tribalism that comes along with it. So, you know,
and and I would when Lincoln was on the show
Lincoln Kennedy, you know, the great you know, with the
play with the Raiders play at University of Washington, he
would always give SEC versus PAC twelve, and we were
always caping up for the Pac twelve somewhat tongue in cheek,
but somewhat seriously too, because there was always the the

(28:25):
East Coast bias and the West coast not getting a
lot of love, and it's like, well, you know what,
if Washington can't win, hopefully se wins it. If s
he doesn't win, maybe Standford, it will turn into like
one of those situations. So I think just for the
longstanding history in general of college sports, that's kind of
how up until with the last i'd say twenty years
or so, when we've had national championships and expanded playoffs,

(28:46):
and now it's becoming more of a national sport. You
kind of took up for your conference, your region versus
another conference versus another region. But I certainly understand the
rivalry aspect of it. Fits If Auburn loses the iron ball,
they're not gonna all of a sudden and say, oh,
but Alabama wins the national championship. But if you're South
Carolina and you don't have a stake in a game,
and you're five hundred and didn't have a you know,

(29:07):
a chance to win anyway, you probably want your conference
to win a championship just to say, like, you know what,
we were part of the number one conference in the country.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
So I certainly understand it.

Speaker 10 (29:16):
Okay, So so I have the numbers here, guys. Okay,
So for Boston since two thousand, they've won seven, so
there were This is actually just between basketball and football,
so this is not including baseball yet.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
But that's just wins. We're only talking championship wins, not appearances.

Speaker 5 (29:35):
Yeah, championship wins.

Speaker 9 (29:37):
You don't have finals appearances because the part of the
story is they're always in the finals.

Speaker 5 (29:42):
If you want appearances, I have that too.

Speaker 9 (29:44):
So yeah, give me the appearances and I need all
four sports.

Speaker 10 (29:47):
Okay, So for appearances, Celtics since two thousand have appeared
in the finals four times, the Lakers eight. So Boston
versus La LA has them pretty beat in terms of basketball.
And then you look at football. Obviously the Patriots were
the dynasty there, but the rams at La is a city.

(30:09):
Actually since two thousand they have two Super Bowls themselves.

Speaker 6 (30:15):
Okay, well give me the final. Give me how many super.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
Bowls or La? No, no, no, for Patriots. The Patriots, you're.

Speaker 6 (30:23):
Fumbling, signment man, have six?

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Right, So we're talking about the city.

Speaker 6 (30:29):
Now, that's ten, all right, So what about what about uh?
The hockey and uh and the Red Sox.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
I got I gotta check the hockey numbers.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Hang on, So like grad socks, I'm thinking off the
top of my head, I got four oh seven thirteen.

Speaker 5 (30:43):
I'm missing one. That's three big three three.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
So that's those are the three oh, four oh seven
and thirteen I believe are the ore the Red Sox
World Series.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
So we were at.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Ten before we even got to that. I mean, that's
that's wild, y'all.

Speaker 6 (31:00):
I mean that's city dominance.

Speaker 9 (31:03):
To be always relevant like that in one of your
four sports.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
Yeah, the amount of pressure that it takes, by the way,
as an organization. Concurrently in that same city, the Patriots
are winning that much. If you're the Celtics, you're like, well,
what the hell are we doing? Any of the Bruins
you're like, all right, well we got to step up
two or we're gonna get You're gonna be irrelevant if
you don't.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, because so I show the Bruins, by the way,
I one to three, three steps your final appearances in
the in the two.

Speaker 9 (31:30):
Thousands, right, oh my god, so Red Sox three, Bruins three,
Oh my god, sixteen, We're we're in twenty twenty four. Yeah,
we're not even done twenty twenty four and they've been
in sixteen finals.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
That's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
I mean that that's just a that's a level of
domin and that changes.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's something that is you say that really makes me
think about expectations, because I'm the one that said earlier.
You know, I think Celtics fans all need to relax
a little bit and enjoy this run. Like it feels
like Boston fans have been so worried about what's coming
throughout the course of this playoff run.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
That they haven't really had fun with it, which is
weird to me.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
And Celtics fans then responded and clap back pretty aggressively, saying,
I don't understand what it's like to watch your team
lose in the finals so often.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
But I would look at it and say, man, if.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
You are a sports fan, a city sports fan, and
you for everything that comes out of that city, and
you've seen sixteen finals appearances in twenty four years, it
changes what you think the regular expectations are. Like I'll
never forget being in Vegas for one of the last
regular season games for the Golden Knights the year they
did not make the playoffs. Place was empty, and somebody

(32:52):
that worked with the team commented, the city has no
idea what it's like to not make the playoffs. I
think everybody does every year, because that's what the Golden
Knights have done every years. If you're the Celtics or
if you're a Boston fan, your expectation has just got
to be constant, Like this is gonna for generations in
thirty years when Boston fans are just apoplectic if they

(33:13):
missed the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
You're gonna have to look at this era.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
And say, well, you went to sixteen finals as a
city in twenty four years. Of course that's the only standard.
Is winning it older or absolutely everything else is trash.
And that's not an experience that most cities have had.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
It's not reality. It's just it's not real. But I
mean the people are delusional. You deal with it in
Los Angeles too, Like you know, say what you want
about the Bubble Championship with the Lakers in twenty twenty,
but you know, a year and a half after that
they missed the playoffs. Ad gets hurt and they're like,
what the hell the Lakers need to blow this up.
This is ridiculous. We have standards here. It's like you
just won them. You just won a championship two years ago.

(33:50):
Like they don't care. It's like it's a new year.
Every single year. When you're a franchise or a city
that's used to winning. When you don't, everybody wants to
blow everything up. Everybody wants to do something different. Even
when it says like you can't win every single year.
Nobody wins every single solitary year. Even look, even New
England sixteen out of twenty four. They didn't win every

(34:11):
single year, but the standard is so high and so
unrealistic in some senses, it really, it really is difficult.
It's an unenviable position in some senses to be a coach, player,
front office person for one of those franchises, because you
can almost never live up to the expectation because as
soon as you win a championship at the victory of Parade,
they're like, all right, so here's what the off season

(34:31):
looks like, and how are we going to attack this
next year?

Speaker 5 (34:33):
Repeat, repeat, right.

Speaker 9 (34:35):
Four p you know, and then not only did they
have to deal with that piece of it with all four,
but the specter of Brady and Belichick for all those
years now, all those years of pure.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
Dominance and yeah, yeah, you have to be Mayo, you
have to be I think what helps him is that
the shine kind of came off of Bill Belichi at
the last couple of years because Brady left and they've
been kind of this a middling average, you know team.
You know, if Brady and Belichick both left at the
same time, there's no way and I don't, I don't,
I wouldn't want that job.

Speaker 5 (35:11):
I don't want to be the quarterback. I don't want
to be the head coach.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
I'll wait, give me another give me a couple three, four,
five years before everything gets cleared out, and I'll come
back in and see if I can make something happen.
Because that is a very thankless position to be in.
That is not a position I'd want to be in
to have for a place.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
Two legends like that.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
No, No, you're right home, all right, we gotta take
quick time out and be right back. Feltas hanging right
here Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
You're listening to Fox Sports.

Speaker 9 (35:40):
Radio Radio, fellas hanging on a Fox Sports Saturday. We're
talking about the champion cities and these these let's Boston.

(36:02):
You know it's funny too because you imagine if you're
like young sports fan like and you grow up, if
you are, let's just think about it, right, a thirty
year old Bostonian, and all you've known is this, Like
could you imagine you wonder why you think you're entitled?

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Well, and that's where in twenty thirty years, if teams
aren't as good and people are freaking out, you got
to look back to this as the why, right, Like,
I'm genuinely interested to see what happens to the Patriots
in the next five years, because I'm not I'm not
sure right now, Great Gerrodmeo could turn out to be

(36:43):
an absolute home run of a higher you know, great,
just like Jordan Love has turned out to probably be
the third straight quarterback for the Packers. You know, maybe
there can be this kiss of luck for the Patriots
where they have back to back incredible coaches that are
able to accomplish acredible, incredible things.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
That's not the norm.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
So if the Patriots simply become a normal football team
that makes the playoffs every thirty four years, you know,
maybe has a little run, but they're just not sustainably great.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
What happens to the era.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Of fans that grew up that were ten years old
when Brady started winning Super Bowls that their formative years
at football fans were championships every single year. How is
that fan going to embrace seven and ten versus ten
and seven in that range for a ten year period,
which is for most teams kind of real Like the

(37:33):
NFL is built for everybody to be eight and nine
or nine and eight. So once you come back into
that reality, what happens to those fans that are sitting
there that have no idea that that's what life is like.
Like how many Patriots fans just presumed mac Jones would
be as good as Tom Brady because all they'd ever
seen was Tom Brady, right, And so if Drake may
turns out to also not be the answer. If you're

(37:55):
the Patriots, are you gonna look around like a fan?
Are you gonna look around and not be able to
even figure out how to process it?

Speaker 6 (38:01):
Like?

Speaker 3 (38:01):
What what does fandom look like?

Speaker 6 (38:02):
For them?

Speaker 11 (38:04):
Well?

Speaker 9 (38:04):
The other thing too with them is they the town
itself is not the biggest, Like it's not a football town, right,
It's a more of a baseball.

Speaker 6 (38:17):
You know, you can argue.

Speaker 9 (38:18):
I mean forever leading up to the dynasty, the Patriots
were fourth among the think about they're probably one of
the only cities where the football team was fourth.

Speaker 6 (38:33):
I mean that said something too.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I went to a Patriots game as a kid in
at old Foxborough, and I'll never forget how empty that
stadium was. You know, before Robert Kraft took over. You
are a hundred percent right, Like that was a different
that was just a much different vibe, you know. And
if you're if you're a Boston fan. Now if you're
if you're a Patriots fan now you don't even remember

(38:56):
those years and and look glory for them, Good on them.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
I don't wish watching.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Your favorite teams suck on almost anybody, right, Like, that's
just that it's terrible when it happens year in and
year out. But it is interesting that you know, we
all understand what the mindset is of a fan that
grew up like I did watching the Raiders lose double
digit you know, games for whatever, thirteen straight years. You
understand what that fans mentality is, like what does the
other side live like? And that's there's a whole era

(39:25):
of Chiefs fans right now that are learning a difference.
You know, if you're if you're a kid right now,
you think it's always been this easy for Kansas City,
Like you have no idea that this is that special.

Speaker 9 (39:37):
And it's funny the city things interesting because you know,
you can have one team be very successful, but you
know the rest of the city, the rest of the teams,
Like I'm a big believer in the collective of the city. Like,
so for my reality, I saw I I lived through

(40:01):
a hundred.

Speaker 6 (40:01):
Seasons with no title.

Speaker 9 (40:05):
Between four between the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles. They
had gone one hundred seasons until the Phillies won it
in eight. The Sixers won in nineteen eighty three. And
I'm a kid, and they made the Phillies winning eight,
which is one hundred seasons of any chance, I mean,

(40:30):
and not even a ton of finals like appearances.

Speaker 6 (40:33):
I mean that that's.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
The normal, And that's the norm for the majority of
the country. That's the thing you think, So that's usual.
I mean, teams just I've.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
Got a breakdown I can give you. I got a
city breakdown.

Speaker 6 (40:44):
Right, look for it. Let's do it.

Speaker 9 (40:46):
Let's do that with a quick time out where the
fellas hanging right here.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Fox don't listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 12 (40:56):
Well, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning,
good morning, good morning, Abody.

Speaker 9 (41:05):
Well a happy, happy, happy sports Saturday, Fellas. June the eighth,
gotta love June the eighth, and much closer to football season.
If we say it every day, I mean, it's not
even oh, Fitzy.

Speaker 6 (41:23):
This is the time where I really like miss it.

Speaker 9 (41:26):
This is the time where I'm like, all right, you know,
I'm ready for some football. We're broadcasting live from the
tyrack dot com studios.

Speaker 6 (41:34):
Tyrack dot com will help you get there.

Speaker 9 (41:37):
An unmatt selection fans, free shipping, free road as a
protection over ten thousand recommended installers. Ti rack dot com
the way tire buying should be. And I just miss it,
like I missed the Uh. I love the other you know,
I love all the nuances of the other sports. I
know you guys are talking about the NHL, and you

(41:59):
know I'll talk about it.

Speaker 6 (42:01):
You know, a great matchup.

Speaker 9 (42:04):
Uh, it's shame like just the buzz other than the uh,
the woman that's the all the show. Other than that,
just like there's there's not a lot of buzz.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
You're right, But you know, as we started the show
we're talking about I think what's interesting is I'm used
to that for this time of the CAP Final, which,
by the way, I mean you're talking about a historic
franchise that has incredible roots in Canada, that that everybody
loves if you're a certain age, simply because you got
love form I should say, because of Gretzky and what

(42:40):
it meant for all of us growing up, and also
you know, the best player in the world altogether, and
it still has minimal buzz. I'm used to that because
it's hockey, right like, so I'm used to the NHL
just sort of falling by the wayside for most people
in this in this landscape, I'm used to that. I'm
not used to the lack of around the NBA Finals.

(43:01):
I think, to me, it's it's stunning. But I feel
like the NHL Final, by the way, is the Stanley
Cup Final is going to give us a beautiful, beautiful
series that is going to be absolutely electric. And like,
eight people work here, but I'm one of them, so
you know, no.

Speaker 6 (43:15):
But you know what, I'm one of them too. I like,
I'm a hockey fan.

Speaker 9 (43:20):
I mean, it's got one talking about drouts and you know,
the Flyers have been on an epic, epic drought, but
you know they were a huge part of you know,
my childhood growing up. And you mentioned that Edmonton team,
you know, the Dynasty team. I mean, you know, I'm
a kid. I mean that were they were the greatest ever.

(43:41):
I mean, you know, Gretzky and Curry and you go
through that team one after the other when they were
just outrageous and I'll never forget in eighty seven, the
Flyers taken him to UH to Game seven on a
Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 6 (43:57):
They lose the game too, nothing well, nothing like it
was like an.

Speaker 9 (44:02):
Incredible, incredible game that they pushed that dynasty to seven
to seven games led by Rick Tockett, who's now the
great coach, and it was you know, it was one
of these you know, incredible. They lost twice to Edmonton
in the finals eighty five and eighty seven. So like,
these are memories and that's a sport that I love.

(44:26):
But it's it's bizarre because it felt like it was bigger,
you know a few years ago, I mean when I
don't know, maybe it's just because of the Vegas thing.

Speaker 6 (44:39):
The Vegas.

Speaker 9 (44:41):
Vegas made it a monster, right like it tip It
kind of contributed to the tipping point.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
I've always had this mindset though that like part of
it is the way that things get covered, Like we
figured out a long time ago that people really just
want right so you know, imagine remember the world, I
should say where the spelling Bee was actually something people
paid attention to on ESPN right like it would they

(45:11):
would show hell until last year for fourth.

Speaker 6 (45:14):
I loved the spelling big I loved it.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Oh, really, you're a big spelling, big, big big phone.

Speaker 6 (45:19):
I do. I loved I used to, I loved it.

Speaker 9 (45:21):
I would do on the next day on the show,
I would do, uh, the sports spelling big and I
would get names.

Speaker 5 (45:29):
And you have to spell like you know Skrzewski.

Speaker 6 (45:32):
Yeah, exactly, k r z y z e w s
k I.

Speaker 5 (45:38):
Right, Frank.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
So there was a three three year period, four year
period until last year, last year, first Star. I didn't
do it in years where I was the sideline reporter
on the hot Dog Gating contest on the fourth of
July every year. Nice for ESPN, so like, but I
say that because that moment, because there's fourth of July,
everybody's watching this random weird thing. I would get more
recognition for that. I'd have more people I haven't seen

(46:03):
in thirty years texting me being like.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Oh my god, I just saw your DV over the
hot dog eating contest.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Because it has a captive audience, it used to be,
especially in the summer, there was truly an proportunity for
captive audience for non traditional sports.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
The Olympics are what is five weeks away? Six weeks away?

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, and who right now even knows the name of
most of the Olympians, And it used to be that
there was this long lead up.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
I remember when I was a kid, even.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
When I was practicing the violin in the summer, I
used to turn Wimbledon on in the background and mute it,
and then I would practice while.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Wimbledon was on.

Speaker 6 (46:36):
Like that.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Stuff just doesn't get covered anymore because you're right time
it go.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Like I used to.

Speaker 9 (46:41):
I loved I loved tennis, like growing up. I don't
know what it was like. I used to always watch Wembledon, No.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Dude, I mean being from Vegas as a kid and
having Andre Agassi be who he was, Like, yeah, there
was no way you weren't watching tennis as a kid,
right like and so, but it's interesting because it always
felt like there was that breath in the summer for
all of these sort of things. So the NHL got
more love for years because the Santa Cup Final in
the Santa Cup playoffs taking place in the summer gave

(47:10):
more opportunity for that. Now it's just a it's a
NonStop sports calendar specifically for the NFL, which we love
is NFL junkies, but it just it means that when
the majority of your coverage in general, when the majority
of the things that we're talking about, when all the
headlines on Yahoo Sports are not going to be about
the little things, like you're just going to turn around

(47:31):
at some point and say, Okay, we become a society
that's obsessed with three or four things and that's what
all of our focus is.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
So that means everything else that's true in the niche category.

Speaker 6 (47:40):
Is that true or.

Speaker 9 (47:42):
Is it just the media like there's they play the
hits like.

Speaker 6 (47:52):
This is interesting.

Speaker 9 (47:53):
This is a great conversation because growing up, I love
Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated. You know, it would always
have football as you're you know, you're beyond the the
cover was always the big deal, right, so you would
have obviously, you know, the NFL would and college football
would always be on the cover. But you had auto

(48:16):
racing for the Indianapolis five hundred, golf for the Mansters,
you had Olympics, you had Wimbledon. You know, it's funny
because a lot it has been talking about when it
comes to you know, women's sports, but women's tenants was huge,
Like I remember watching women's tennis and being captivated by

(48:41):
women's tennis like that was no there was no like gender,
there was no culture wars.

Speaker 6 (48:46):
When it came to women's tennis, it was like every
bit as big as the men's.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Well, and frankly the WNBA, which you know, is something
that especially when I was working for years with Sarah
Spain is passionate about women's sports.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
We covered it a lot, We talked a lot about.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
It, so like I can honestly say I've been talking
about that sport for several years. But that being said,
there's now become this great divide even when you try
and cover sports that maybe you don't usually cover as much.
It becomes a lot like in music, where suddenly somebody says, oh,
I love this band before they were popular, all of
a sudden, there's this line in the sand between I
knew about it then and I covered them when they

(49:26):
were an indie band, And that means that I'm a
real fan and you're not a real fan.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
Or I'm a real journalist and you're not.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
A real journalist, and all these like this pissing match
is going on and on and off.

Speaker 9 (49:35):
Yes about that's quite correctly off putting, but I'll be
honest with you, I'm so put off by all that stuff.

Speaker 6 (49:45):
At full disclosure, I don't have time to watch the
MBI NBA, Like I just I don't have time. It's
a sport that I mean, I you know, I have
nieces that played college basketball. You know.

Speaker 9 (49:59):
I think it's great eight but I'm not captivated by it.
So I don't watch it. I mean and I and
I'm tired of being made feel guilty because I don't
watch it.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Well, I say this all the time. I don't like golf.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
You literally, like, my job is to cover sports, and
you cannot pay me to sit down and watch golf
on TV. I'm not gonna do it, right, So I
don't like golf, and it's fine, like you don't. There
it's allowed for people to say, yeah, that's not really
my thing, Okay, move about the cabin you don't.

Speaker 9 (50:28):
Like We talk about the soccer thing, right, and then
people another thing. People get, oh, you shove soccer down
my throat. Well, there is I sense the there is
a lot of interest. Soccer has become closer to the mainstream,
you know, I mean, I know, but saying that since
the seventies that soccer is going to become a thing, well,

(50:50):
no one's ever said, it's going to overtake football, right
or basketball, But it's you know, it's it's it has
a niche now like people like to watch it.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Like I used to make fun of hockey fans all
the time on radio because they would they would just
blast me.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
They would blast me for not.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Talking enough about it and immediately then presume that that
means that I hate the sport. It's like no, actually,
by the way, like I'm a massive fan, but like
there is an element of to your point, the phrase
to appeel behind the curtain, y'all, Like you're coached a
lot of times on the concept of play the hits.
And this is no different than reason that my my

(51:32):
transition from sports to or from music to sports made
so much sense in my head, because what do you
think they do? You know, radio DJs most I don't
want to you know, ruin anybody's myth here, but like
most DJs don't actually even have control of the music
that they play anymore. It's a centrally programmed by clear
Channel or whoever. The owner of that station is from

(51:55):
a you know, middle of you know, like an office
in Cleveland. Hey, this national station's gonna play these songs.
So the guy or girl is just talking for twenty
seconds and pressing play on a predisposed playlist, right, like
there's no there is at some point and the reason
that songs become popular, Like was that really a great
song or was it just ingrained in our head because

(52:15):
it was played over and over and over again. That's
the cowboys, Like at this point, the Cowboys are what
Britney Spears was in the late nineties, Like it's just
on every time you turn it on. So that's just
the way life's gonna be. Like, that's just that's it.
That's the play that hits money.

Speaker 9 (52:29):
And you know, and this is where I wanted to
bring up to you guys, because I had when I
first got into radio, I left the Philadelphia Enquirer and
I worked for WIP and there was a legendary program
director by the name of Tom Bigbie.

Speaker 6 (52:49):
And Tom said, play the hits. Talk Eagles, Eagles, just
talk Eagles.

Speaker 9 (52:57):
This is like twenty four to seven, three, six sixty five,
talk Eagles. And I remember saying, man, well, you know,
listening to Phillies, nobody cares about baseball. Nobody in Philadelphia
cares about the Phillies. And I used to argue, used
to drive me nuts, but the Phillies weren't good, not

(53:17):
like they're now, or even when they were on the
you know, a big World Series run where they were
big in the ratings.

Speaker 6 (53:23):
This is when they were down. Nobody cares about baseball, No,
nobody cares about hockey. Like that's that was what the
guy said to me.

Speaker 9 (53:33):
And you would have he would you know, you would
get admonished if you spoke those other sports for any
prolonged period of time.

Speaker 6 (53:43):
It was. It was unbelievable. And I didn't know.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
Do I know?

Speaker 9 (53:46):
I was a journalist, right, So I covered every sport
and I covered the story and I'm all of a sudden,
I'm in this world. And it's like you got to
play the hits, just like you just said, and it
give me flashback.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
It's funny to me because the two things about it
that everybody sometimes forgets Number one TV ratings, for example,
are studying down to the second. So if they figure
out that when they start talking about something, people stay
with it, then they'll talk more about it. If they
figure out that the minute they talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars,
everybody tunes out the next day, they're not going to
talk about the jacks.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
That's that's just real.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
To the way that the day the dailies are done.
But the other side of it is, for all of
this conversation, I think that there could be a tonal
change from fans and from media that are covering. Whether
it's hockey, whether it's the NBA, whether it's the w NBA,
doesn't matter. The tonal change that all that needs to
change is a hey, welcome, I'm glad you're new, Welcome,
come in, welcome here, We're gonna we're gonna help you

(54:45):
cover this Like that's been back to the music analogy.
If you love the band when nobody else knew who
they were, and a new fan walks in, instead of
telling them how cool you are and why they shouldn't
be there because they haven't covered this band from day one,
maybe just be like.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Hey, let me tell you more more about this band.
Let me help you learn more of their music.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Let me help you make sure that you get the
full experience out of this band. Like, let me help
this band become as profitable as possible. Yes, I love
what they do and I want them to make a
ton of money doing it like that's it's just such
a mindset change and right now. Part of the reason
that some of the coverage falls flat on some of
these events is because it's a combination of people don't care,
in a combination of even if you try to care,

(55:24):
if you don't care the right way, or you don't
say the right thing, or you don't credit what somebody
wanted you to credit along the way, you want up
in more trouble, and then it's like, man, is it
even worth the effort?

Speaker 9 (55:33):
Like that, it's brilliant that you bring that up, because
when I saw this WNBA stuff and people going say,
you know, nobody talks about you, and they were killing
stephen A for it and the whole thing, it's like, seriously,
like you should be happy people.

Speaker 6 (55:52):
Are finding your sport.

Speaker 9 (55:54):
Who cares how it came by, whether it was Caitlyn
Clark or somebody else, who cares. The fact is that
you're getting attention, right, The fact is that people and
who knows.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
Once you get that attention, maybe people stay with it
and go, wow, man, this is captivating and look at
Angel Reese and look at this other player and look
at and I'm enjoying it, like well, that's that's how
you build.

Speaker 9 (56:18):
Something, not by you know, castigating you know why people
are coming, or that you haven't been there from the beginning,
you know, because all it is is a turnoff. Like
right off the bat, It's like when you see stuff
like that, you're immediately like going, I'm out all right,
Like I don't need guff, right The last thing I

(56:40):
need right now by life is guff from you know, entertainment.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Well, and then the other side is like, I'm tired
of these conversations about soap opera's like talk about the games?

Speaker 3 (56:51):
My god, what do you think these shows do every
day for every sport?

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Like when's the last time you turned on a debate
show and heard a really smart conversation about the about
the game safety?

Speaker 3 (57:00):
You don't like?

Speaker 2 (57:01):
That's just not like that is the biggest and best
coverage you can get is when they're no longer talking
about anything that happened during the game, They're only talking
about the drama around it. That is that is the
big time Love it or hate it?

Speaker 6 (57:14):
Yeah, yeah, I that piece of it.

Speaker 9 (57:17):
I mean I understand human nature, you know, and you
know that's one I'm I mourn a little bit.

Speaker 6 (57:26):
Oh God, yeah, you know.

Speaker 9 (57:28):
I mean it's just if you love sports, like you know,
I'm live like I love baseball, right, Figgie loves baseball.
So like we can get into a ten minute conversation
about you know, pitches and you know, hitting and dive
into nuance and there's you know, like three people would

(57:51):
enjoy it, and the audience would go all right, you know,
give it a rest. Boys. You know, I get it.
You know what, you're a seamad, you know. You know,
that's the only thing that I was disappointed. I have
a buddy of mine I talked to yesterday and he said,
to me, you're not talking about He said, tell me

(58:13):
about this new venture.

Speaker 6 (58:14):
You're doing, right, is it's sports.

Speaker 9 (58:16):
I'm like, yeah, it's sports, and journalism twists to it
and it's heavy sports. He's like, good because I can't
take the what's your favorite color and the favorite foods
and movies and you know, on this show we can
go down any road because we can just have a conversation.
But the people that like the pure sports, they're not

(58:39):
a lot of them.

Speaker 6 (58:41):
You know.

Speaker 9 (58:42):
Well that was the biggest misnomer for me, Like when
I or eye open it. For me, I'm sure when
you got into when you made the transition from music
to sports, you're probably thinking, oh, this is awesome. I
get to talk sports and not drama. And here it
is you're talking about drama.

Speaker 11 (59:00):
Well.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Look, the first day that I ever worked local in Nashville,
somebody walked up to me and he said, Hey, let
me give you a.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Piece of advice.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Your job isn't to talk about what you want to
talk about. It's to talk about what the broadest set
of your audience cares about. That's number one, so you
know it lives. Especially at the time being on Nashville radio,
that meant Titans, Titan, Titans, right like that.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
I understood the assignment. You know, that was a huge,
a huge part of it.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
And I mean, think about how often we all say like, well,
that's a good summer radio topic, because that's just become real.
And I used to cover watching the draft. I used
to yell at the TV every year about fifth, sixth,
seventh round picks. So I'm like, you know, give me
information on this guy. Don't sit here and tell me
what happened in the first round. Informed me. Then I
started hosting draft shows and you get to the sixth
round and you're like, all right, so the Bears took

(59:44):
this guy nobody's ever heard of. Let's go back and
talk about Caleb Williams and Roma Dunes again. Like that's
just that's the way the business works.

Speaker 9 (59:52):
Yeah, and sometimes I feel bit about that. Yeah, me too,
me too, fake hot about.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
You someone who I grew up well listening to sports
talk radio, and it's like infancy days.

Speaker 5 (01:00:03):
It was a lot of that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
It was a lot of x's and o's and strategic
talk and talking about specific games and players. But to
your point, it's gotten further and further away from that.
And look, I'm part of the machine as well. I
understand how it goes. I'm disappointed that it's gone so
far in this direction. And then now what you have,
it's for further splintering the market because if that's something

(01:00:24):
that you want, you can find it. I mean, guy,
there's trillions of podcasts. I might be exaggerating, but it
seems like there's podcasts left and right. Yeah with you know,
but certain niche content. There's probably a podcast that talk
specifically about the Baltimore Ravens defensive backs and nothing else.
Like you can find a podcast and talk about whatever
you want, and so the markets are kind of splintered

(01:00:45):
when talking about You can find a good conversation point
or a subject matter wherever you want, but you go
on too larger mediums like the one that we're on now.

Speaker 5 (01:00:56):
You know, people don't want to hear the brass tacks.

Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
To your point, Anthony, if we were to sit here
and talk about pitching stats for ten minutes, a lot
of people would tune out. They'd rather us talk about,
you know, whether or not showy old tiny was gambling
with his buddy.

Speaker 6 (01:01:09):
Yeah, that's what.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
That's what these This format has kind of lend itself
to uh him, I'd say, over the last decade or so.

Speaker 9 (01:01:16):
Yeah, yeah, all right, we gonna take quick TL. We'll
come right back. Fellas, hang it right here. Fox Sports
Radio Fellas from the tyraq.

Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
Dot com studios. Don't forget.

Speaker 9 (01:01:28):
Shortly after the show, the podcast goes up, So if
you missed any portion of the program, be sure to
check out the podcast to search Fox Sports Ready or
wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow, rate
and review the podcast again. Just search Fox Sports Ready
wherever you get your podcasts. You'll see this one posted
right after we get off the air, Jason fitz Kevin figures,

(01:01:50):
I'm Anthony Gargana. So we hang out fellas every week
and we give this discussion about you know, the NHL,
and we started to get into kind of where you know,
the ancillary. Like Fitzy, you nailed it about the summer period,

(01:02:11):
Like the summer period is when we got you know,
introduced to you know, the ND five hundred, right, and
then the Masters and US Open and Tennis and Wimbledon
and the Olympics, like they were always like that was

(01:02:32):
always the period of time where the other sports you know,
had it had a moment, right like you know, and
all you're kind of looking for from as a hockey fan,
it's just give me my moment. Just you know, we're
crowded a champion, you know, Can I get my Can
I get my love?

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
I think that's a big part of it is I
can I get my love? Because when you love any
particular sport, you feel like the whole world should love
it that much, right, they should love it the same.
And that's not necessarily the real of it. I think
there's a weird world where, especially because podcasts have become
such a huge part of society they really have, you know,

(01:03:13):
and your ability to just churn out content around whatever
you want. Like for me, as a Raiders fan, I
can now make a decision do I want to listen
to a Raiders specific podcast? Do I want to listen
to a national show that may or may not have
watched as much, you know, but may have a better
you know, I don't want to say it better, but
may have a more established brain that I like on it,

(01:03:36):
you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
So it becomes a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Of a trap, like because so many of the things
that are just sports specific, you got to kind of
hunt through.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
You gotta find what you like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
And unfortunately I've always said this, like going to streaming
services is a little like walking into a library and saying,
I want a book.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Okay, well there's thousands of books. What kind of book
do you want? Then you got to come through it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Then you got to find it. Like, there's so much
content out there. But the thing of it is, as
there gets to be more content that is specific to
you know, Hey, this is just for diehard hockey fans,
just for diehard you know, hoopers, This is just for
diehard fans of this one team. As more and more
of that exists than that means general media has to
be more general to try and continue to get the

(01:04:17):
rest of the audience drawn in.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
It's just unfortunate because how do you find and.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Again, I'll use the music analogy right now without regular
radio dominating, and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
It no longer does.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Right in a world where Spotify gives me, you know,
playlists and Apple Music gives me recommendations, Really, how do
I just find a new song?

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Like it used to be radio could make hits.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I believe that sports TV in general, ESPN and Fox
both used to be able to make fans because maybe
you wouldn't usually check out Wimbledon, but hell, there's nothing
else on and it's getting featured on all these channels.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
I'll watch it, like, come on, let's give it a shot.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
I don't know how you even find that anymore, because
now so much of the content is geared towards you
like this, I'll give you this.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Where do you discover new things? I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:05:01):
Well, it's a great point. Fake you got any thoughts
on that?

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
Yeah, you're right, and I still think there's a smaller
element of that, but even more so, you know, the
the highlight shows. You know, looking forward to the six
o'clock Sports Center. Back in the day was appointment viewing
for a lot of things and catch you up on
everything that's most important in the sports world. A lot
of that, there's still some of it, but a lot
of it's been replaced by the talking heads and the
debate shows, and the debate shows are going to talk

(01:05:26):
about to you, guys's point, there's been so much market
research and so many granular looks at the rating numbers
and seeing what do people watch and what do they
tune out for, and if they want to tune in
for Dallas Cowboys, Lebron James and NFL in general, and
anything else they don't want to talk about or they
don't want to hear you talk about. So if people

(01:05:47):
are wondering and we are really getting inside baseball and
this pulling back the curtain, but whatever, I don't care.
That's the reason why if you are a watcher, an
avid watcher of these said shows, and if it seems
like that's all they ever talk about, it is all
they ever talk about, because the numbers say this is
what people are watching, and this is what they care about.
So it's more or less about paying respect to the

(01:06:08):
individual sports, whether it's tennis or hockey or whatever, giving
them their due, you know, to the service time as
far as airtime and exposure and more about I want
to keep as many eyeballs on my product as I
possibly can.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
What is the best way to do that?

Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
And if it's playing, if it's talking about the same
thing five different ways, five days in a row, and
darn it, that's what we're gonna do.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
And that's what it's turned into. It's unfortunate.

Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
I'm not a fan of it, but I from a
business standpoint, I understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
I mean they always ask me when I do a
weekly hit with the with the radio station in Nashville
that I got my start on.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
I got asked a.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Couple of years ago, why does ESPN hate the Titans?
Was the conversation, and I said, they don't. They don't
hate them.

Speaker 5 (01:06:53):
They're in different no, so they don't care about the Titans.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
There isn't love or hate for most teams from the
bosses in Bristol isn't. What there is is love of money.
And so it's like, all right, well, people are watching,
people will listen to us.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
Talk about this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
So we're gonna talk about it, like find a way
to talk more, like what's the good Cowboys angle today?

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Like that's real because at the end of the day, not.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Enough people will gravitate towards listening to fifteen minutes of
talk about the Titans Jags game. So you do two
minutes on the Titans Jags and then you get back
to Dak's contract.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Like that's all. That's all studied and not for nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Look at the numbers that PR keeps putting out on
sports media in general, the numbers are up all the way.
Doing that is made numbers better. I believe that there
would be rooms someday for in a world. I believe
that there'd be room for somebody to start at ESPN five.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
I don't care a Fox Sports six.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
That gives us the opportunity to really say, hey, this
is your channel for all the deep dive stuff. I
believe there's room for that. But you know, in general,
the general market just doesn't crave it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
M do you know when all not to jump you there,
but you know, one of the lowest rated shows on
ESPN is NFL Matchup yep, and I love that show.

Speaker 5 (01:08:11):
It's phenomenal. They go deep into the tape.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
You know, Greg, you know Cosell does a phenomenal job
producing and hosting on that show as an analyst, and
it people don't watch. And that's a perfect example of
the stuff we've been talking about as far as like
getting granular looking at film, talking about actual matchups and
the actual game in and of itself, independent of any
of the drama and who said what in the quote

(01:08:33):
in the newspaper. None of that stuff matters on that show,
and yet it doesn't get the sort of viewership that
I think fans would assume.

Speaker 5 (01:08:40):
That it actually gets.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
And by the way, I think the fact that that
is seeped into all of culture is a big part
of why our news and political coverage has gotten.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
No longer.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Like y'all, it's no longer about the issues. It's about
the ratings, and they know what's going to get the ratings,
so they talk about what's going to get the ratings,
which is why both of the news networks have gotten
such rating bumps during certain campaigns. Because I'm not getting political,
I'm just saying, like the way that news is covered
now is no longer at all.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Even attempting to dude you just it's funny.

Speaker 6 (01:09:16):
I was about to say the same thing that it's trance.

Speaker 9 (01:09:22):
It's it's now into it begins in news, Like think
about a newscast when we were younger growing up, it
was like completely you know, it was completely different, and
now it's it's the same thing. It's it's Trump Biden, right,

(01:09:44):
and then it's whatever salacious story.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
The news and oh yeah, here's the story. Now here's
two people to argue about it. Yeah, every time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
I mean, it won't take a lot of math for
people to figure this out.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
I have a.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Friend I won't throw them, I won't throw this under
the bus. But I have a friend that worked for
a long time at ESPN that no works for a
major news network. And when he went over there, I
asked him, I'm like, how is it, and he said, man,
it's not really any different.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
It's the same.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
The subject matters a little different, but the approach is
the exact same. Like the approach to the way sports
are covered is the exact same to the way the
approach for the way politics are covered right now, right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Right or wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
That's just real And so for all of my friends,
because again I'm not a politically charged person. But as
I sat around and listened to everybody give their conspiracy
theories one night recently in Nashville, everybody who's given their
conspiracy theories on, well, this network's trying to do this
and make people do this, And I just told everybody,
I was like, man, y'all have gone down the rabbit
hole of over complicating it. Both networks are doing one thing,

(01:10:48):
which is attempting to keep viewers longer to make more money.
And they do that by talking about certain subjects from
a certain angle. And as long as they do that,
y'all will keep watching. And as long as you keep watching,
they're making money. And that's all they care about it.

Speaker 9 (01:11:01):
And the reason why they went and the reason why
they went with a particular slant is because the studies
show that, you know, like minded individuals are gonna want
to watch their slant, like you're gonna want to watch
the through the lens where you agree with right, Like
that's just the bottom line, you're you know, this is

(01:11:22):
how human beings are wired.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
All the way back to uh missing famous cases.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
I think it was the jump in a Ramsey case,
a famous obviously murder case from years ago. One of
the guests that was on a major news network at
the time talking about it wasn't giving the you know,
sort of the approach that everybody wanted to their parents
did whatever it was, and they noticed the network noticed
that the ratings were changing when that guest was on.

(01:11:49):
Nobody liked them, so that guest stopped being booked, and
that that's a very true, real story of well, here's
the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
That's a perspective, but that's not the perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
People want to hang out and watch longer, so we
want more of the perspective that will.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Get more rate Like, oh, it's about money. I'm not
even being physical, like it's about money.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
The reason when you're making a record, the reason that
if you're in the studio, there is a point in time,
or was a point in time where the record label
will come in after like three or four songs and
they would say, you know what this record is done,
And what they're telling you is you can put whatever
you want on the rest of the record because they've
found their three or four singles. They don't care about
the rest of the songs, and once you hit a
certain sales cap, they stop promoting that record and they

(01:12:28):
go to the next one. So they're literally so it's
not like some weird it's all about the money. So
if you listen to a record that has three good
songs and seven bad ones, it's because they figured out
they got the three ones that will make them the
money and then they move forward. Like society is just
about who gets paid and where they get paid. It's
not even a bad thing. It's just a thing.

Speaker 9 (01:12:45):
However, However, I gotta say that though, it's not good
if your news, if your journalism is all based off
of what can make the most, you know, generate the
most revenue, that's not good for society.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
That's not good for an educated society. You are right,
and you are right.

Speaker 6 (01:13:09):
That's a huge problem problem we're dealing with right now.

Speaker 5 (01:13:12):
That's where the term fake news comes from.

Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
Yeah, because I'm gonna say whatever needs to be said
or that take whatever this story is and framing how
I need to frame it to get the most people
to say you're an idiot or say yeah, that's right,
that's why the other people are And that's what it
gets away from the actual topic in and of itself.
And now we're talking about the perspective on the topic
and that in and of itself becomes the news.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Well, way way back in the day, there was a
car race between USA and Russia, and this is like,
this is back in the communist era. This is like
talking like back in the original right, And it was
just the two of them and the USA car from Ford.
I believe it was won the race. And the next
day in the American papers the headline said USA wins

(01:13:55):
beats Russia. The next day in the Russian papers it
said USA finished second to last, Russians finished and second.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
Same thing. You're saying the same thing, And.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
I tell that story all the time because like that
is a powerful reminder that you can tell the same story.
You just it's just the spin you want to put
on the same information. And you're right, we've become a
spin based society.

Speaker 9 (01:14:19):
And that, for an education standpoint, is the worst thing
in the world.

Speaker 6 (01:14:26):
But the worst thing in the world is.

Speaker 9 (01:14:27):
Like not like we should be exposed to other sports, right,
even though it may not get the ratings right, Like
we should be. It's good to expose people to different
opinions that are educated, just facts. Not everything needs to
be an argument. Not everything needs to be uh, you know,

(01:14:52):
I mean, you wonder why politically forget about the politics,
but let's just call the way it is if you
have just take George W Right and where he is,
and when it comes to left right, you got George
w and Obama are closer than you know to what

(01:15:14):
their prospective parties were today their opposite parties right like
in there in the beliefs, because we have moved a
society to pull the rot to the to the polls.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
Extremely radicalize on both sides for sure.

Speaker 9 (01:15:29):
Which close, which is horrible, And and then and then
it just depicts this picture of everybody at each other's
throats when in reality it's just distorted nonsense.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
Yeah, think about this.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
If I say, if I say, man, Alabama is good,
how many people are gonna call in or text or
tweet this show and be like why do you hate Alburn?
Like that's just the way. That's the way society takes.
Everything has to be about an argument. Now there's no nuance.

Speaker 6 (01:15:58):
None none, and and the and the are and and
every you know like and and everything needs to be
you know, super charged opinion when you know sometimes you
know there's a gray area and you can't speak in
grays or else you're labeled, you know, you're a non
believer or someone that's sitting on the fence.

Speaker 4 (01:16:21):
Or sometimes there's this actual facts and there's not someone
saying like, well, they're telling you these are the facts,
but they twisted it.

Speaker 5 (01:16:26):
And here's why.

Speaker 6 (01:16:28):
Sometimes it is what it is that becomes the tower
of Babbel. And that's our biggest issue.

Speaker 9 (01:16:34):
Where the fellas will come right back right here in
Fox Sports Radio. Fellas hanging from the Tiraq dot com studios.
Jason fitz Kevin figures. I'm Anthony Gargana, big discussion. It
all started with hockey and h we somehow stumbled onto

(01:16:58):
uh death of journalism all do the hockey.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
Let me ask you this though, not that you've even
had time to set it up, but let me ask
you this. Do you think people really want journalism anymore?
I'm not asking what they need, because this is something
to deal with it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:16):
Do I think they want it? No? I don't think
they want it.

Speaker 9 (01:17:19):
Journalists have always been unpopular, right because they've ever either exposed,
you know, stuff that goes on or you know, the
journalist has always been the messenger, right, and the messenger
never is popular.

Speaker 6 (01:17:39):
So no, do I think they want it? No, But
do I think they need it desperately? I?

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
Well, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
The funny thing for me in the sports world, I
wear my Raiders phantom on my sleeve, as you guys
have known since day one, and every week I do
interviews with the Raider Nation radio station and their podcast.
I do a lot of work with my favorite team,
which is such a to me, such an honor to
get to do. I've always considered myself a fairly reasonable fan,
and most years I've been pretty close on where I

(01:18:08):
think the team's gonna be. The funny thing to me
is inevitably this year when, because this is what happens
every year in the summer, I'll go on the station
and'll ask me what I think the real ceiling for
this team is. I feel like the Raiders this year
are probably a seven win football team. If everything kind
of breaks right, that just kind of feels seven, maybe
eight if if you're having a luxury year, kind of
feels like where they land.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
To me, I will.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
Get destroyed when I say that by Raiders fans. They
will then tell me that I'm you know what that
is not that I have no idea what I'm talking about,
and that I'm not positive enough, then inevitably, as the
season goes on, because they haven't actually underperformed to my expectation,
has been kind of what I expected. I'm not going
to be freaking out if the team turns out to
be a seven or eight win team, which will then

(01:18:50):
cause the same group of fans to come back and
yell at me for not being critical enough of the team. Like,
what we really want is sports fans now, and this
is different. Like I grew open an era where I
was watching and I wanted people to tell me the
why and the how from my favorite team. Now, all
people want is reinforcement. So if somebody listening right now
is a huge MAVs fan, all they want is reinforcement

(01:19:12):
of what they think is going to happen in this
MAVs Celtics series.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
They don't want any blowback on this.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
They don't want any thought process on this, they don't
want any expansion on it. If we're talking to NFL previews,
when we do that over the course of the summer,
fans don't want to really hear what we think. Fans
or even educated opinions, whether they think we're educated or
not many fans out there. The majority of fans listening
now just want their opinions reinforced, which means they want
to be positive when they feel positive, and they want

(01:19:40):
you to be apoplectic when they feel negative. It's a
very weird spot to be and that people don't really
want insight to Hey, it's not that bad, or maybe
it's not that good.

Speaker 9 (01:19:50):
You're spot on. And the other thing that's wordsome is
there is two angles to go when you get into journalism, right.
You are either full about.

Speaker 6 (01:20:02):
News and you know, covering the news.

Speaker 9 (01:20:05):
And I like the other aspect of it, which is storytelling.

Speaker 6 (01:20:09):
But I don't even know that people want storytelling anymore.

Speaker 9 (01:20:13):
I love storytelling and that's what I go why I
got into this business.

Speaker 6 (01:20:17):
But I don't even know if they want that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
Not unless you can do it in thirty seconds or less. Brother, Like, yeah, nobody.

Speaker 6 (01:20:23):
Wants a long form no, And I would start with fine,
That's what I did. I wrote five thousand word pieces
on Sunday on Sundays, you know, and I loved it
like I would craft. You know.

Speaker 9 (01:20:36):
It would take me three days to write a piece
anyway where the fellas right here? Fox Sports Radio back
in a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
Don't go anywhere, don't listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 6 (01:20:51):
All right, that's us. Good morning, good morning, Good morning,
Jason fitz Kevin Figures. I'm Anthony Gargana much and Ian
our producers as we hang out from the ti Rac dot.

Speaker 9 (01:21:07):
Com studiosdirect dot com, hop you get there, and I'm
Matt selection fast free shipping, free road. That's a protection
over ten thousand recommended starllars Tirac dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:21:16):
That wa tire by should be.

Speaker 9 (01:21:19):
As we hang out June eighth, I was just talking
to h Adam Schefter from the ESPN and buddy of mine.
So yesterday we were just kind of putting a bow
on it. Mini camps over and this is it the
summer vacation in the NFL world, And then it becomes right,

(01:21:45):
and then we just got it's the basically training camp
and it's on. So this is it, this is it.
This is the low period where there's no football. We
talked a lot about the NBA and Boston Celtics, uh,
NHL kind of all over the place. We're kind of

(01:22:06):
getting involved little baseball as we hang out on this
Saturday morning. But guys, let me let me bring this
up to you, just curious when it comes to football
and this this period. It is interesting because I know
about you, but I now I have a million questions.

(01:22:28):
This is when I miss it probably the most right
about now, because it's it's still we're still a good
six weeks from training.

Speaker 6 (01:22:38):
Camp, you know, and then uh and then.

Speaker 9 (01:22:41):
A couple you know, and then really once training camp
hits here, like I really got to.

Speaker 6 (01:22:45):
Get to this season. When do you miss it the most?

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
For me, it's always the very beginning of July, because
like I feel like the NBA Finals always provides a distraction,
so you know, you get through the end, Like I
want this this final series to go seven games because
it just extends everything while I'm waiting, you know. It's
like that's all I feel until we get to around
the fourth of July and then those three weeks or

(01:23:09):
so getting into mini camps that month July is the worst,
right for all of that because you're just sitting there waiting.

Speaker 9 (01:23:17):
That's why the hot dog thing was so big, know,
all of those real sports and so.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
You know, and look, I want baseball to take over
July and it to be this captivating thing. But it
just doesn't right. So Baseball's there, it's nice, it's fine.
It's like elevator music. You're fine with it in the background,
but people aren't flocking to it for the month of July.
I feel like July is the month that everybody just
sort of tries to refresh their brains. I definitely at
the beginning of July, it's like every day is watching

(01:23:44):
paint dry. It just takes forever to get through that
month to get to football.

Speaker 4 (01:23:50):
How about you, fig So, And I believe I brought
this up with Anty in the past. I actually take
it upon myself to sort of detach. Not that I'm
a player. I would never compare myself to the players
in the NFL, but I mean I allow myself to
miss it by not thinking about it, to be honest.
So I try to wrap myself into Major League Baseball

(01:24:10):
or if there are other things going on, if the
Olympics pop up in late July going into August or
something like that. So I try to have that bs
out of sight, out of mind, like the mini camps.
Guys running around in helmets and shells and not making
any contact, to be honest, does nothing for me right now.
Not a darn thing, so not really wrapped up in it.
I keep up with what's going on. I understand the stories,

(01:24:31):
can out contract talks.

Speaker 6 (01:24:33):
Yeah yeah, I was going to say, like a news.

Speaker 4 (01:24:35):
Stamp shore, No, you gotta stay on top of that
sort of stuff. Absolutely, But from the pure football aspect
of it, as far as me missing football, yeah, I
don't really miss it. I honestly probably miss it probably
week two of the preseason because at that point in time,
guys are actually, you know, somewhat playing, and it's like,
all right, can we actually get the real thing started now?

(01:24:56):
Because even the start of training camp is you're in pads.
We're not in pads, were in a round, we're hitting
the We read the training camp reports that this fourth
stream corner got burned by this number one receiver. Well
that was gonna happen anyway. So the monotony of that
stuff doesn't do much for me.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Does it change though, this year because you're also a
Raiders fan and there's a there's a quarterback competition that's
very real. Does that does that influence any Because for me,
I'm interested in mini camp. I want to see who's
getting the reps. I want to see how the quarterbacks look.
You don't have a quarterback, you can't win in this league.

Speaker 4 (01:25:26):
Yeah, I'm I'm less interested in the mini camp aspect
of it. I'm more concerned when it comes to full
team drills, when it comes to training camp. From that standpoint, fits,
So you're right if, knowing that I have some mistake
in the game, that my team actually has an open
competition at the most important position, Yeah, I'm absolutely intrigued
and maybe want to watch preseason games a little more
closely than I normally would if I knew that I

(01:25:48):
had a more established starter. So from that standpoint, then yeah,
I'd be a lot more interested in it. But generally speaking,
just missing football, I really don't.

Speaker 3 (01:25:57):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:25:57):
I allow myself to be able to detach, so by
the time August September rolls around, I can actually say, Wow, Okay,
football is back.

Speaker 5 (01:26:05):
Now let's get let's get into it. But I'm not.

Speaker 4 (01:26:07):
I don't sit around and stress about it not being here.
I just accept the fact that it's not here, and
I find something else to do with my time.

Speaker 9 (01:26:13):
You know, that's a very healthy way of looking at things. Yeah,
I wish I could have had the same way.

Speaker 6 (01:26:18):
I understand it.

Speaker 5 (01:26:18):
And I get it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:19):
Football is it's it's it's a pretty it's a very
big important part of all of our lives.

Speaker 5 (01:26:24):
Trust me, I understand. I get it.

Speaker 9 (01:26:26):
Yeah, and then you realize and I guess fits he
said this, and again I love the other sports, right,
so you know what the what the issue is, and
the issue is it's I don't know if it's a
competition thing, but once you have the here's what football does.

Speaker 6 (01:26:48):
It heightens your senses.

Speaker 9 (01:26:50):
Right, So every night there is a every day, like
every week, there is a game that matters, like it
just matters, and it's that adrenaline. And I don't know
if that's the that's the reason why whereas you know
these like I love baseball, but you know it becomes

(01:27:13):
monoton this in.

Speaker 5 (01:27:14):
July, yeah, the doll days of summer. I'll come in.

Speaker 6 (01:27:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:27:18):
Sure, But there's also.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
A national because of the amount of love to the NFL.
It feels like you're just wrapped up in this blanket
of fandom with everybody else.

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
When the NFL season hits.

Speaker 2 (01:27:31):
Like Thursday night, football's trash games and we still talk
about it all day because everybody's just excited to have
a football game on, and every sports bar you go into,
it's gonna have one thing on and everybody's gonna be
watching that one thing. It's not like walking in during
July where there might be six baseball games going on
and then four replays of something. They don't even know
what's live and what's not live, Like what's the energy,
what's the vibe? You know that if you walk into

(01:27:53):
a Buffalo Wild Wings in the middle of July, you
know it's gonna be kind of quiet. You walk in
on a Thursday night in September, you know what's going
to be on those screens that. It's just such a
different society plays in all of that too.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
Well, even the league and the interest around it is
different now than even you know, twenty years ago, because
every single solitary offseason event surrounding the league has turned
into this massive media storm. I mean the combine, the draft,
we're just talking about mini camps, I mean, at the
schedule release. So you have all that, you have just
a deluge of things that happened from the Super Bowls

(01:28:27):
played in February. You transitioned out of that to the
Senior Bowl, and out of the Senior Bowl to it
just rolls on and then by the time you get
to June July, there's nothing else left in the off
season but for gods to just disappear for a month.
And I think that's why a lot of people feel
like a bit of withdrawals. It's like there's gotta be
something in the NFL going on right, right somewhere, right somewhere. Yeah, no, nothing.

Speaker 9 (01:28:50):
Yeah, it's a good point because and maybe that's kind
of what you know, like I'm feeling right now.

Speaker 4 (01:28:56):
Right, that's what it is, because you know, there's really
nothing you know of substance, at least not positively that's
gonna happen basically between now and you know, July twenty
eighth or whenever camp's open.

Speaker 6 (01:29:08):
Hmm. Yeah, No, it's a it's a great point.

Speaker 9 (01:29:12):
And the other the other piece of it, too, is
the national element. Like Fitzi's right, Like we could talk
like it's a bad football game. It could be you know,
I don't know, just true middling teams, and we'll talk
about it on Friday like like like this water it's

(01:29:32):
water cooler talk on Friday when and I guess it's
because every it's the only thing we have that's communal
that's happening, and we don't watch all the sports. And
you know, truthfully, Boston, you know, Celtics, Mavericks. You know,
despite the you know, multi billion dollar TV deal the

(01:29:53):
NBA got, it doesn't really it doesn't resonate with everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
That's you mentioned that multi billion dollar TV deal. I
said this earlier, but seventy six billion dollars according to reports.

Speaker 3 (01:30:07):
Charles Robinson on Yahoo.

Speaker 2 (01:30:09):
This Week said that, you know, that's going to be
reason enough for the NFL to go back to the
drawing board. They have an opt out in their CBA
or I should say, in their TV deals. They have
an opt out in twenty twenty six that lets them
renegotiate the TV deals.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
That money's going to be landmark.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
You want to talk about landmark change coming to the NFL.
The estimations from some league insiders is that the salary
cap is going to be roughly three hundred and fifty
million dollars in that range in twenty twenty six. Three
hundred and fifty for point of reference, In twenty sixteen,
the salary cap was one hundred and fifty five million dollars.

(01:30:45):
So your three players taking up forty percent of your
cap will be eating what an entire cap.

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
Was less than six years.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
Like, it's crazy to think about in a ten year difference,
how much more money's coming out because the NBA is
making all this money. The NBA TV deal is going
to change the NFL and roster construction as wild.

Speaker 9 (01:31:03):
Yeah, it's completely it's at at it's crazy, right, like whatever,
it's what demands. The interesting thing is, And I was
having this conversation with someone like, how do you quantify
whether you're it's worth it for a streamer that's not
ad based, Like looks you're a network. You're going to

(01:31:27):
sell the time and it is what it is, right,
like the advertising piece of.

Speaker 6 (01:31:30):
It, But how do you like, is it really worth it?
Like I is the question?

Speaker 3 (01:31:36):
I mean, I have this.

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
This is a real struggle for me every single year
and especially this year. Like, look, it's a glorious part
of my job that I have to watch every NFL game.
That is a glorious part of my job. Well, one
of the things that one of the most important responsibilities
for me. Yeah, who is a Sunday night show that
I tape that reacts with Frank Schwabam and we react
to literally every game, and it's we tape it as

(01:31:59):
soon as the Sunday night game ends and it goes
up as a pod on Monday, so we have to
watch every game. And this becomes a great debate for
me because I always buy Sunday ticket, of course, but man,
like the vibe sitting at home alone all day watching
football is not as fun as the vibe being out.
And it's gotten to the point where I'm not sure
it's even cost effective anymore to turn around, because Yahoo

(01:32:21):
did the breakdown and if you wanted to watch every
single game only by these services you need for the
time that you need, it's eight.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
Hundred and fifty bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
Well, for less than eight hundred and fifty bucks, I
can go sit in a bar every Sunday, like I
have to take my laptop with me, but at least
I'll be sitting in a bar where there's like a
vibe and energy and people cheered around me. And sometimes
that's actually you hear a bunch of people cheer. You
look over you like, oh man, something happened to the
Browns game. You gotta check that out, you know, like
I wonder you know, Frank watches every week from a
sports bar, and I'm sitting there saying that's actually more

(01:32:51):
economically feasible. At this point, I think we're at the
point of no return with the cost of Sunday ticket
and then Peacock for those games that you need and
ESPN plus for those games.

Speaker 6 (01:33:00):
Well, how about the reversal, Right, And that's a fascinating
point that you bring up. And how about the.

Speaker 9 (01:33:05):
Reversal, which is is the are they going to get
Are these streamers and these networks going to get a
positive return on that investment With the NBA.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
No, I can't imagine they did well. I mean the
networks will because they sell the ad time. Like, the
hardest part about all this is because ninety seven of
the top hundred events were sports. Ad sponsors are paying
Coke is going to be more than ever to get
a thirty second ad in a sporting event. I don't
care if it's cricket, I don't care if it's soccer,
I don't care if it's basketball, I don't care if
it's baseball. They pay more than ever because it's the

(01:33:39):
one thing that you just can't skip over. You can't
skip the commercials. You are a captive audience for that moment.
So the networks will make the money back.

Speaker 9 (01:33:46):
But wait no, but wait a second. Ninety seven of
the top one hundred. You know, we're sporting events, and
ninety seven percent of the ninety seven were football games.

Speaker 3 (01:33:58):
Yeah, the NFL and college football dominated that, I think.
I mean, I think eighty of those were those two sports.

Speaker 9 (01:34:05):
I mean, you know the story about Fox overpaying for
the NFL to build a network, you.

Speaker 6 (01:34:13):
Know, and I remember reading stories.

Speaker 9 (01:34:16):
I mean it was legendary, right like that they actually
lost money advertising on the deal, but they built a network,
right so and hence it was worth it, you know, exponentially.
But the NBA, like, I mean, the ratings aren't great, right,
Like I'm thinking of myself.

Speaker 4 (01:34:37):
The ratings have there. Look, they're not even close to
the NFL. They have gone up the last couple of
years relative to where they were, which were not spectacular
compared to where they were fifteen years ago, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:34:48):
So it's one of those to fits this point.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
Yeah, it's it's not football, but in compared to anything
else that's available, it is live sports, and it is
rating decently enough to where I think they might think, hey,
we might get a few more sign ups. I forget
exactly what the and it's the NFL, so I know
it's a hard comparison, but the Chiefs Miami game for
Peacock this past postseason, Uh, there's a certain number of subscribers.

(01:35:12):
I forget exactly what it was, but there's a certain
percentage of people that signed up in the one week
leading up to the game. Of those people, something like
fifty five percent of the people that signed up who
weren't initially there stayed and continue to pay for about.

Speaker 5 (01:35:27):
Three months after that.

Speaker 4 (01:35:28):
So Peacock already won from that standpoint that they got people,
because there's a lot of people with seventy okay, thanks again. Yeah,
So it's that's a that's a pretty significant number of
people who are now paying for ninety nine a month
who probably just paid for it and forgot about it.
You get a couple one hundred thousand people to pay
for ninety nine a month, you're making pretty good bank

(01:35:49):
there if you're Peacock. And that might be what Amazon
is sort of banking on, considering the fact that they're
going to get the Conference finals in that mix, and
who knows, next time the TV contract is up, Amazon
might be in play for the NBA Finals.

Speaker 5 (01:36:02):
So that's like the building network thing you were just
the example you were using.

Speaker 2 (01:36:05):
Here's the interesting thing because you mentioned the ratings Game
one of the NBA Finals a couple of nights ago,
just under eleven million viewers, which is the third lowest
of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
Right. But here's the other interesting part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
It's the third lowest viewership of all time for an
NBA Final, down five percent from last year. But their
percentage audience share. Game one had a higher share of
the overall audience twenty percent and adults eighteen to thirty
four to fifty percent than any other Finals opener ever
on ABC. So less people are watching TV, they're getting

(01:36:40):
a higher share, the numbers are down.

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
Is just all like the math is so weird. I
don't know where it breaks and look all the way back.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
I think it was in twenty fifteen, Clay Travis did
a really smart at the time breakdown of if only
the people that watched The Walking Dead were paying for
the Walking Dead, how much would it cost? And the
numbers were stupid when you look at how much cost
and he used it is at the time supportive why
streaming and separating content will simply never be long lasting.
And the more we get into it, the more I

(01:37:08):
think he is right.

Speaker 3 (01:37:09):
He was right, then he's right now.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Like, as we continue to parse everything out, eventually it's
just going to become so expensive.

Speaker 3 (01:37:15):
Everybody's going to bring it all back together.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
Like I had a kid at radio last year at
ESPN at the time, there was like I wish there
was one site that would take all of my streaming
places together and give me a guide so I knew
it to watch. And I'm like, you're describing cable. You
are describing cable, the very thing that we all unpul
up from your describing.

Speaker 5 (01:37:32):
Fits this is happening.

Speaker 4 (01:37:33):
I mean, do you see this story about like ESPN, Turner,
a couple of others off sports together and starting as sports.
Basically they're pulling all their sports channels together. And I
don't know how much it's gonna end up costing, but
it is cable. You're one hundred percent right, It's cable.
That's exactly what everything. What's all this is new again?

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
Here?

Speaker 5 (01:37:50):
It is?

Speaker 3 (01:37:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:37:52):
Well think about it, boys, right, Like we talk about
streaming and it's a joke, right, because all it is
is the same package in or the same product in
a different package.

Speaker 6 (01:38:07):
So you know, well, now we got the internet.

Speaker 9 (01:38:11):
Well, now it's about I was having this conversation because
of my network right where I left my I left
radio to join this network called All City, and it's
basically digital television, right, local digital television. We're in Denver, Phoenix, Chicago,
and Philadelphia. We're about to go into Dallas and maybe

(01:38:34):
Indianapolis and you know we're about to and you cover
local teams, and it's a way where you can watch
it on demand, you can listen to it through podcasts
and you could and we have written content right. So
but in reality, it's just like the sports nets right,
like around the country, right, you had Comcast Sports net.

Speaker 5 (01:38:56):
The sports networks, right, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:39:01):
It's thank you, it's the RSN. It's exactly what it is.

Speaker 9 (01:39:04):
But instead of on television, it's on digital, which digital
is the new TV anyway. So really it's an RSN
that's just cheaper to produce.

Speaker 2 (01:39:17):
You know, with all the lime to see where all
that goes in the next in the next five years.

Speaker 9 (01:39:23):
Now, well, the business, the business is antiquated, right, so
you can't have TV networks now the cost is too
much like the radios. The reason why radio is in
trouble is not because people don't like audio content. People
love audio content, right, But the issue of radio stations
that were once worth fifty million dollars that are now

(01:39:43):
worth five Well, you still have to make the debt
payment to the bank, right. Well, that's why the radio
companies are in trouble.

Speaker 6 (01:39:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
Well, and it's you're right in a YouTube society. Before
I left the music business that we did a study
and it showed at the time the we were on
data study and it showed at the time and this
is back in what twenty sixteen, that YouTube was getting
more music views per day than every single streaming service combined.
And that was in twenty sixteen, and it occurred to

(01:40:14):
everybody at the time. It's like, hey, the music industry
is going away from a radio model and even the
mtvs of the world, and it's being created by kids
now that can create their own playlist. They're watching it,
they're listening to music, they're watching concerts. Music is being
consumed on YouTube. What I think is interesting is that
nobody seemed to understand that that was also going to
hit TV. And now you know, there are so many

(01:40:36):
people out there that make a really nice living with
their YouTube channels that you know, sit around and talk
about sports.

Speaker 3 (01:40:41):
Like you can get this content, yeah anywhere it is interesting.

Speaker 6 (01:40:45):
Yep. No, and the same thing with you know, and
then you look at TV shows, right, so then you
have streaming, so you have streaming entities that come in
and all you need is a hit show and you
can build a network, right like you know, I mean
you could build you know, because now all of a
sudden you have reasons for subscriptions. Everything subscription based. What

(01:41:06):
are people going to pay for?

Speaker 9 (01:41:07):
Give me something that's interesting, all right, and then surround
it with some stuff, and you got it.

Speaker 6 (01:41:13):
You got a network, right, you got the other streaming.

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):
Why do you think you know, Pat mcavage got fifteen
million bucks from ESPN.

Speaker 3 (01:41:20):
They want to build their YouTube platforms so exactly pad.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
On, and then they build other news shows around them
like it's it's that's the business model.

Speaker 6 (01:41:27):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 9 (01:41:28):
Uh fellas, hey, coming up, I want to get into
the international waters with you guys.

Speaker 6 (01:41:37):
Curious if you think it's good.

Speaker 9 (01:41:39):
This uh expanding the globe, let's discuss it. Where the
fella is hanging out right here Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back,
fellas from the tire rack dot Com studios. Jason fitz
Kevin Figures. I'm Anthony Gargatto. So let me ask you

(01:42:01):
guys the question. Because the great expansion, right, the great
the world shrinking is in my town, Phillies mets London,
and uh it's pretty wild because a lot of people,
i mean traveling is on the uptick, right, especially European

(01:42:23):
travel and sports and travel is a perfect marriage.

Speaker 6 (01:42:28):
It's great to see the world with sports.

Speaker 9 (01:42:31):
And uh so in my city there there was a
lot of people made the trek to London and it's
been pretty cool. There's been you know, all kinds of
videos and social media and everybody's there. And I did
a whole show yesterday about London and baseball in England
and the Great British Baseball Show. I was doing a

(01:42:52):
whole playoff of it. It is now I like it, right,
but and we're going to see Brazil this year besides
London and Germany. In the NFL, right, all the sports
are doing it and obviously the Premier League's coming here.

(01:43:15):
So you know, this exchange in sports culture is it's
change program is well on their way do you guys
like it? Does it matter? Does it move the needle? FITZI,
I'll start with you.

Speaker 2 (01:43:30):
Well, I hate losing home games for international games, and
I hate what it feels like in the NFL. It
feels like, now this weird obligation if you want to
see all of your team's games to go travel. That
being said, the rare, occasional, Oh we're going to go
play a game like if it was something that happened
once every five years, I look at and be like, Wow,

(01:43:50):
that's awesome, and my team got selective for that.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
I'd love to go over there and see a game
like the Seeing the Raiders play in Brazil sounds like fun.

Speaker 2 (01:43:58):
Trying to every year track down with it because I
believe eventually there's going to be when they expand the
season to eighteen games. I think they're also going to
give every single team an international.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
Game every year. That just feels like a lot of lyft.
Feels like a heavy lift to me.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
So you know, I like it is if it's a sparse, rare,
Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening. I
just don't like it every single day to happen that way.

Speaker 9 (01:44:22):
So, but I love that they were, like, you imagine
it's going to be once. I agree with you, Once
it goes to eighteen games, there'll be a double buy.
It'll be a lot, a lot easier to schedule bye
weeks and the whole thing to have that kind of travel.

(01:44:44):
So I think you're right. I think you're You know,
there's going to be games everywhere. Every team will play one,
but it's only one out of eighteen. Right, you're adding
the game, so you're only you're not really losing anything
because it's really an ad on to the schedule.

Speaker 3 (01:45:01):
Now, I mean you could you could talk me into
that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:45:04):
I think what I love about the baseball side of
it is that just feels more special, you know. I
feel on that side, it feels like, Okay, this is
like the opportunity for a special game in another country,
the same with when the EPL soccer matches type come
over here. It feels like a really cool opportunity for
fans that are passionate to see their favorite team. I

(01:45:24):
don't know how many passionate let's say, Ravens fans there
are in Germany, but I think you know, when you
start talking about if if Manchester United wants to come
over to the States, I think there are a lot
of fans in the States, Like, will everybody in the
States travel to a city to see that?

Speaker 3 (01:45:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:45:41):
I think so. So I see the value in it
as a you know, partnership at some level. I just
as a baseline. For years, I've been against the NFL
International Series. So I feel like a bit of a
hypocrite saying that I like it in other sports, but.

Speaker 3 (01:45:55):
I do well.

Speaker 4 (01:45:56):
I kind of follow on the same side that you
alluded to earlier in Anthony talking about if it's an
added eighteenth game. When we've discussed this in the past,
I don't necessarily mind it. It's a game that you're
not necessarily accounting for. Now, if you're saying you're taking
away a preseason game, who gives a rip. It doesn't
matter anyway, people don't go, no one cares, nobody plays.

Speaker 5 (01:46:13):
So from that standpoint, it doesn't bother me as much.

Speaker 4 (01:46:15):
If you want to do an international series where it's
not taking away a home game that would otherwise already
be owed to a per particular fan base, I'm not
bothered by it. And then when it comes to Major
League Baseball. I'm more in favor of it because this year,
volume of games is so much higher. So if you
miss you know, two games, you know, pu's two games
out of eighty two, you know what I mean, It's

(01:46:36):
not that big of a deal. If there's hometown fans
that want the opportunity to be able to go to
a game, they're gonna have plenty of opportunities to still
do that, whereas NFL games are just so scarce. You know,
one people you know, formulate their entire schedule, you know,
months in advance to try to figure out a game
that they can get to. And so I don't think
it was fair to the home fan base when it
comes to doing this for football games, but for Major

(01:46:57):
League Baseball, even if you wanted to do it in
the NBA, which they've dabbled with a little bit the
last couple of seasons with a couple of regular season games,
it doesn't bother me as much.

Speaker 6 (01:47:06):
Do you do you like it?

Speaker 9 (01:47:10):
Maybe not just being bothered, but is there a party
that likes it, Like it's a great excuse, like I'm
doing it here. It's it's Phillies and Mets, and of
course the Phillies are a big deal. And you know
the MLB, UH from everybody I talked to, UH is
doing an amazing job. Like it's a whole big baseball movement.

(01:47:33):
Yeah yeah, Like like they had batting practice open and
you know, there's a there's a pub. There's a couple
of them called patsyonk Avenue, which is a famous street
in Philadelphia, and they opened up a bar and so
they had Rob Thompson as the manager of the Phillies

(01:47:54):
was you know, doing shots at the bar right like,
and it was cool that all the Phillies were there.
And I'm looking on social media and there's Alec Bohm
posing for pictures with fans and it's like it's like
this big celebration of baseball in London and you start
to think about it and you go, well, it does

(01:48:17):
break the monotony of baseball, right breaks that up. And
if you can do it in London, why couldn't you
do it in Spain, in Italy and you know, Greece
or whatever, like you know, you could you could make
these things special and interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
And it is your right a launching pad to get
into And look, I think Taylor Swift's tour this summer
for a lot of people. Like the reason a lot
of people are flying over to Europe to go to
Taylor Swift is because you can go see the biggest
tour in the world. It's cheaper than it would be
in America. And while you're over there, you can also
check out a country that you might never visit otherwise, right, Like,
so using fandom as a launching band to get into

(01:48:55):
international travel is a cool idea. And certainly, I mean,
I think you know you can appreciate this cousin is
as a father, right, Like, imagine taking the kids over
to London to see a Phillies game, Like that's the
sort of thing that you, you know, you tell your
great grand kids about. Like, that's a very cool moment.

Speaker 4 (01:49:13):
Yeah, I'm all for expanding, you know, the sport and
you know, educating fan bases who otherwise wouldn't be exposed
to it, at least from an in person standpoint, so
long as it doesn't sacrifice the home fans domestically. So
that was always my big drawback when it came to
NFL games and taking away home games to do that.
If you're adding an additional game, fine, because the volume

(01:49:34):
of games is so much higher in other sports like
basketball and baseball especially.

Speaker 5 (01:49:39):
I'm fine with it. I'm okay with it.

Speaker 4 (01:49:41):
I think I think it is good for the sport
to expose other cultures to you know, our great sport,
you know, the American sport of baseball. I think I
think it's phenomenal to have a game in London. And
if it's only a couple of games out of the schedule,
then then we should do it.

Speaker 6 (01:49:56):
I'm all for it.

Speaker 9 (01:49:58):
Where do you think the market How deep do you
think the market goes?

Speaker 6 (01:50:03):
You know, does.

Speaker 9 (01:50:04):
The the idea of American sports? We know basketball is big,
and especially Europe they love basketball. I still don't know.
I know in Germany there's been football. They like football
in England a little bit. I don't know how deep
it penetrates anywhere else. At basketball by far as the

(01:50:29):
favorite the baseball things making a little bit of an inroad.
Chase Utley is the ambassador of baseball to England.

Speaker 6 (01:50:39):
He lives in England, lives in London. There's like vibrant
youth leagues going on there.

Speaker 9 (01:50:45):
When I was in Italy, I saw I was stunned.
I was in Tuscany and I was on my way
from Siena to Rome and I saw a baseball field
and I was like, like, you never like you see
soccer fields, right, you never see I saw a baseball

(01:51:05):
diamond in Italy. Phillies actually have a kid who's a
pitcher who's from Genoa, and it was just interesting to
me that here I was in Europe and I'm seeing
a baseball diamond. I don't know, And this is a
question do they have Does American sports have legs?

Speaker 3 (01:51:28):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:51:29):
I think American sports have legs for a couple of reasons. One,
American culture seems to go global all the time too.
We've already seen legs for baseball internationally. And three with
the Olympics that I mentioned earlier, I mean the fact
that you know there's going to be seven on seven
flag football, like it just shows you there's going to

(01:51:50):
be more and more. I mean, you want to talk
about American culture seeping into the Olympics. How many people
even realize break dancing is going to be an Olympic
sport this year?

Speaker 6 (01:51:58):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:51:58):
Like you want to talk about the ultimate American culture
moment going global? Breakdancing is going to be judged and
scored for a gold medal at the Olympics this year, right,
So like that's just shows you or culture permeates into
the rest of the world.

Speaker 6 (01:52:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:52:13):
I interviewed somebody that's a prominent judge on it to
try and get my head wrapped around how the hell
you judge breakdancing for an Olympic sport.

Speaker 3 (01:52:21):
But it's happening, y'all, Like it will be.

Speaker 9 (01:52:23):
You go watch you go watch the movie Breaking first.

Speaker 4 (01:52:27):
It's also like, I mean, these are judges from like
different countries too, so it's like, is there a different
art or skill that you're used to watching if you're
judging someone who's breakdancing from Finland versus someone who break
dances and you know, Saskatchewan.

Speaker 5 (01:52:42):
I don't know, Yetta. It's just an interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:52:46):
Interesting had to be an expert in triple soucows and
figure skating in the Winter Olympics. Now I'm gonna have
to know how to judge the stick break dancing, like
that's when they actually like.

Speaker 3 (01:52:56):
Freeze their body got gotta judge the stick. It might
be the freeze. I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:53:00):
Yeah, that's hysterical.

Speaker 5 (01:53:03):
I think baseball.

Speaker 4 (01:53:03):
I think someone even asked Bryce Harper about if baseball
comes back in twenty eight for the Olympics. If it's
something he'd be interested in doing, he said he would,
and that will certainly help raise the profile of Major
League baseball. From an international standpoint too. Baseball just can
never stick in the Olympics. For whatever reason. It comes
and goes every you know, every.

Speaker 6 (01:53:22):
Two or three styles. Weird, isn't it. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:53:24):
I'm sure there's a reason behind it. I don't know
what it is.

Speaker 4 (01:53:27):
Professionals historically have not played obviously for obvious reasons.

Speaker 5 (01:53:30):
It's right in the middle of the season.

Speaker 6 (01:53:31):
Uh so, which is why they should take a Like,
if you're going to do it the right way, you.

Speaker 5 (01:53:36):
Take an Olympic break. You got to take the Olympic breaks.

Speaker 4 (01:53:40):
It's a couple of weeks not going to kill you, right, Yeah,
find a way to figure it out.

Speaker 6 (01:53:45):
I mean, I think it's paramount.

Speaker 9 (01:53:47):
Like if if you were now have the international bug,
then you have to you've got to be the dream
team and send and send the send every break to
sport and send everybody off to the Olympics.

Speaker 5 (01:53:59):
Yeah, you have to embrace it fully.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
Yeah, I mean it's a huge part of Internet. It
makes sense to embrace it fully because the more the
more you embrace it, the more chance you have of
growing a global audience. And that's one of those things too.
By the way that I know I said earlier, everything
is about money. At some point you will tap the
audience out here, like at some point you'll get all
the money you can get out of this audience. So
the more that you continue to just grow outside of

(01:54:23):
just America, yes, the more pockets you can start to
dip into it. Just from that standpoint, it makes a
ton of sense from a business standpoint.

Speaker 6 (01:54:31):
Yeah, because you're going to reach saturation levels. So what
do you need.

Speaker 9 (01:54:34):
You need new customers, you need new base I'm completely
with you.

Speaker 5 (01:54:39):
You need that super Bowl in London.

Speaker 6 (01:54:41):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's coming.

Speaker 4 (01:54:45):
There's going to be a super Bowl in London on
Peacock within the next twenty five years.

Speaker 6 (01:54:49):
Watch. Yeah, I can see that.

Speaker 5 (01:54:51):
That's where it's adding.

Speaker 6 (01:54:53):
Yeah, I could totally see that. Where the fella is
hanging out coming up the speaking the Olympics, the Seven Olds,
the the flag football thing.

Speaker 9 (01:55:04):
I want to dive into flag football with you guys
for a moment. Okay, I'm curious of what you guys think.
Fellas hanging out right here, Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back, fellas.

Speaker 6 (01:55:20):
Hanging out. There's got to be wiggling as our men.

Speaker 9 (01:55:28):
Mark, Yes, the wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle.

Speaker 6 (01:55:37):
Uh Fellas from the tiraq dot com stitios.

Speaker 9 (01:55:40):
Hey, let me ask you a question because the flag
football revolution is here, all right, and you mentioned it
being part of the Olympics. There are these leagues, right
and I'm I'm with it, and personally I don't like it.

(01:56:02):
I mean, nothing wrong with flag football. It's fun, it's
the whole thing. But the way they do these leagues,
like there is both My kids played it, they both.

Speaker 6 (01:56:14):
I mean Anthony, like Anthony plays real plays regular football.

Speaker 9 (01:56:18):
He loves regular football because I think he's physicality's alignment,
you know, and he plays linebacker.

Speaker 6 (01:56:24):
He's not a skill guy. Like you got to be
a skill position player to really love flag football, because
it's all about the skill piece of it.

Speaker 9 (01:56:32):
These leagues are like, it's bizarre. It's there's a thousand
kids and there's like seventeen games going on at once
and it's cool. They're fast, quick games, and it's just
a bizarre It feels like the cliff Notes of sports.

(01:56:56):
And for that reason I don't like it, and not
to mention that you have these coaches that act like
they're Bill Wall So I'm like, dude, it's flag It's
not even real football.

Speaker 2 (01:57:10):
So it's interesting because is there a spot as they
continue to take more and more contact out of the
game where at some point flag football becomes what people
gravitate towards. I don't think so, but man, I don't know,
like the fastest in the world juking each other out
is going to have a home. I would think it's
somewhere like it's hard for me to imagine the NFL

(01:57:32):
ever just getting rid of tackling, right, But it's also
at some point you just got to wonder where the
game evolves to, like what is the future of flag
football look like? As certainly other football leagues have tried,
and I know people will tell me that the UFL
got good ratings this year. Nobody cares arena football, you know,
you guys know my fandom.

Speaker 3 (01:57:53):
Nobody cares.

Speaker 2 (01:57:54):
Right, So you look across the board and people are
not flocking to these other football leagues. They flock to football,
and they flock to the NFL. Will they at some
point start to fall in love with flag football at
that same level. I don't know, man, Like I want
to say no, but I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:58:12):
I think from a TV viewership standpoint, in popularity as
far as revenue generating, no, But I think from a
popularity as far as people from a participation standpoint, especially
with a lot of people having fears about concussions and
whether or not children should be wearing helmets before the
age of like sixteen seventeen years old. Yeah, I think
you might see a proliferation of participation when it comes

(01:58:33):
to see it.

Speaker 6 (01:58:35):
I mean, you know, I mean I see it already.

Speaker 5 (01:58:37):
Yeah, you have kids who are off that age.

Speaker 6 (01:58:39):
Yeah, I mean you should see the amount.

Speaker 9 (01:58:41):
First of all, numbers, I think numbers are on the
uptick a little bit with football the flag piece. Certainly
they just love the flag. But these kids, there's a
million of them, and these and it's it's poor lot
of ridiculous because the coaches only let's run, you know,

(01:59:02):
they come in with these playbooks.

Speaker 4 (01:59:04):
And chase it's seven on seven if even that glorified
seven on seven is what it is exactly. And I'm
not saying that doesn't have a place from a developmental standpoint,
to a certain degree. Now, look, you can do full
on team. You can have linemen who don't wear flags.
I mean they have leagues like that where you have
kids who play offensive line and defensive line and your
job is to either go get the quarterback or protect
the quarterback, and you pull up the quarterbacks flag an

(01:59:25):
he sacked. So it's not all just you know, drop
back pass and there's the DBS versus receivers. They you know,
there's actual football to a certain degree, just without the tackling.
So from a participation standpoint, I think the numbers are
only going to go up. I think girls are going
to get more involved and have been getting more involved
as well because of the the lack of tackling. So
I think from a popularity standpoint, more people are going

(01:59:46):
to play and participate. But I do not foresee it
becoming some sort of great mainstream money maker from a
television standpoint, no, Man, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:59:56):
Some people that play in some rec league flag football
leagues and it's it's wild there.

Speaker 2 (02:00:00):
It's hard to find the open door to get into
that as you get older, because as you play rec
league basketball or whatever, it sort of falls apart or
falls off. But man, rec League flag football. They're all
guys that played like D two D one football.

Speaker 3 (02:00:13):
It's wild.

Speaker 4 (02:00:14):
Yeah, former players, even with former retired NFL players apparently
are really into it, and a lot of them are
looking to try to compete the Olympics, if not this
year moving forward.

Speaker 6 (02:00:21):
Well, it's because it's the skill thing, like correct and
you're right, you have the you know, the glorified line,
but the skill thing. People like the skill piece something.

Speaker 9 (02:00:33):
All right, we gotta take quick to you know where
the fellas right there at Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (02:00:38):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 12 (02:00:41):
Well, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning,
good morning.

Speaker 9 (02:00:45):
A buddy and a happy June the eighth, Saturday. It's
a finals weekend. NHL tonight, NBA tomorrow night. Jason Fits,
Kevin Figures, I'm Anthony Gargano. Our producers Mighty Mark and

(02:01:06):
Ian doing a great job. We're live from the ty
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Speaker 6 (02:01:26):
As always, we get together and we like to try
to cure the world's ills. We've been all over the place,
from breakdancing to international events, flag football, television.

Speaker 9 (02:01:42):
I mean, you name it. If you missed any of it,
you can just follow up on the podcast. All right,
Just search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcast.
Be sure also the rate follow review the podcast.

Speaker 6 (02:01:54):
Again.

Speaker 9 (02:01:54):
Just search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
You'll see this show posted right after we get off
the air. All right, boys, let's start this kind of
reset where we're at NBA tomorrow night. FITZI was the
lone voice on the Celtics among us figuring and I

(02:02:15):
colored by our Boston hate.

Speaker 6 (02:02:19):
We're on Dallas certainly. Game one, first quarter, they jump
out all over Boston, all over Dallas. They score thirty seven.
All right, they're on fire for three. Now, we've seen
the Celtics before where they'll just go crazy from three
and then all of a sudden the next game they

(02:02:40):
come back down the earth, and that's that's going to
be something to watch for now.

Speaker 9 (02:02:47):
I still think this is going to be a series.
You know, we'll see if I'm stubborn or if I'm correct,
But I still think this is a series, FITZI.

Speaker 2 (02:02:57):
Look, I don't think it's not a series. I wasn't
surprized by anything I saw in Game one, that's all. Like,
I thought the Celtics were the best of who they
can be and they were arrested. The hard part about
all of this is the presumption as well, that's gonna
catch up.

Speaker 3 (02:03:09):
I don't know that it does.

Speaker 2 (02:03:10):
I think the Celtics are gonna thump them again on
Sunday tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (02:03:14):
This series goes to two.

Speaker 6 (02:03:15):
Nothing.

Speaker 3 (02:03:15):
In my mind, then the question is how do the
Celtics shoot when they.

Speaker 2 (02:03:18):
Get to Dallas. In my mind, coming into it, I
felt like Celtics and six felt right. I still feel
like Celtics in six feels right. But it should be
a more competitive six. It needs to be more competitive
six than what we just saw because what we just
saw was frankly gross. I mean, as much as we
talk about the lack of conversation at times, we need
some just epic incredible moments. You need Kyrie not to shrink,

(02:03:41):
you need Luca to be absolutely superhuman. It's gonna take
that sort of a thing for the matters to stay
in this series. I still feel good about Boston and six,
but I don't know, man, Like I hope the games
get more competitive. I just I feel like we saw
the mismatch, and we saw why I felt the.

Speaker 3 (02:03:57):
Way I felt in the game one.

Speaker 4 (02:03:59):
We can't so you sit through that again. The twenty
thirty point deficited uphill climb off jump for Dallas as
well as Boston played, and I don't know if they
can play any better than the way they played on
both ends of the floor. There is another level that
Dallas can get to, too, and especially defensively, so they're not,
by by any means out of this series. Even if
they end up losing on Sunday night, I still see

(02:04:22):
a possibility where they can, at the ad worst, you know,
force this thing back to Boston, you know, win both
games at home, and maybe it's one of those series
where every team holds serve at home.

Speaker 5 (02:04:30):
I can certainly see it playing itself out that way.

Speaker 4 (02:04:33):
But I by no means I'm ready to bury Dallas
because I still think that they the defensive effort just
wasn't there for them that night, and they also outside
of Luka Doncik. No one else offensively, including Kyrie Irving,
really did much of anything, and that has not been
the norm throughout this postseason run. So Game two will
go a long way in determining whether or not that
was something that Celtics did or was some sort of
just an anomaly.

Speaker 9 (02:04:55):
Yeah, you know, it's the resing its factor. I did
not take into account fully. I didn't think he would
have that as big an impact.

Speaker 5 (02:05:07):
Neither of us did. Who was the best player on
the floor for the easily and.

Speaker 4 (02:05:14):
On the paint for them, which they typically are not
a team that does a lot of scoring in the paint,
but he certainly changed that dynamic.

Speaker 6 (02:05:20):
Get three blocks too. Kidding me, Yeah, when you see that.

Speaker 2 (02:05:24):
The thought that we had where it was like, hey,
even if he comes in, he's gonna have to knock
rust off, it's gonna take him minute.

Speaker 3 (02:05:29):
Nope, none of that was true.

Speaker 2 (02:05:31):
I mean, that is pretty amazing just to come in
and play that well that quickly.

Speaker 9 (02:05:35):
And then and then what happens is he makes Horford
so much more effective, right, and then it's just I
mean they already have terrific car play. Yeah, I mean,
Drew Holliday, it's amazing. He's still he's by far the
biggest sung hero on that squad. What a great defender,

(02:05:58):
plays a great floor game, could just does everything on
the on the floor. He's he's one of the most
underrated players in it's league that is filled with the overrated,
Like we overrat everybody in that league just about. He's
one of the most underrated players ever to come through
that line.

Speaker 4 (02:06:19):
Isn't because his numbers aren't like, you know, inflated or gaudy.
He just he goes out there and plays a smart
basketball game. Is a great athlete, like you mentioned, a
great individual player.

Speaker 6 (02:06:27):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (02:06:28):
You guys had him out there in Philly for at
least a year or two, I believe.

Speaker 6 (02:06:32):
Just his trade marked the start of the process.

Speaker 5 (02:06:37):
That's what it was, Okay, and he was part of
the big cell off then.

Speaker 6 (02:06:42):
Yes, And interestingly, you know we went through it, you know,
and it's a it's a warning to other franchises all
of a sudden, you know, the recipe in the NBA
is two stars in depth. Right, I mean, geez.

Speaker 5 (02:06:58):
Goes speaking of oh what's old is new again?

Speaker 6 (02:07:01):
There you go Kobe and Shack, right, I mean, it's
unbelievable how we've gone back to that thing. Now it's
two stars and effective role players. And then you know,
I here the Sixers are beginning an off season as
soon as the Foals are over where they have two players,

(02:07:23):
the two best players are the only ones on their contract,
Empiide and Maxi, and it's like, let's fill a whole
team around them. And we went through all the role
players that were in that through the process that they
traded off true Holiday, TJ McConnell, Isaiah Joe, I mean,

(02:07:45):
one after another, right.

Speaker 5 (02:07:48):
Who I know is back but still.

Speaker 6 (02:07:50):
Right he won't be back after this? Well yeah he
was back last year. And you know, but there's been
a legion of guys that were on this that mckel
bridges for a minute where they traded them draft nightly.

Speaker 5 (02:08:04):
Yeah, that's the killer, that's the one right there.

Speaker 6 (02:08:08):
You know.

Speaker 9 (02:08:08):
But it is interesting how we've gone back to the
two star like this is how you win. Well, you
look at dapsis and you know this is what they are.

Speaker 4 (02:08:18):
Well, a big reason for that is because of the
new CBA and how you know, penalized teams are going
to be for being over the second luxury tax threshold.
So you're just not gonna have the ability to pay
three guys forty plus million dollars. I mean, you can
do it, but you're gonna be penalized so heavily. It's
gonna be just stupid for you to do it. It makes
no financial sense for you to be able to do

(02:08:40):
it that way. So the NBA, this is just the
NBA once again trying to level the playing field a
little bit and trying to make sure that, yeah, to
make sure teams that print money, like the Clippers or
you know whomever else. I guess the Sixers to a
certain degree, you know, can't just go out there and
just pay whoever they want, however much they want. You know,
taxes be damned. You'll lose draft picks if you're over
a certain threshold at this point too. So it's all

(02:09:02):
about in the spirit of competitive balance. So teams are
realizing they this and this is part of the reason
the motivation behind, at least according to woj's reporting, why
the Lakers want to hire Hurly, someone who can cultivate talent,
because it's like, we can't just go out and just
buy a bunch of talent and spend a bunch of
money we're gonna have to get role players that can
actually be young and to be developed well into a
system because the way the NBA is going now, you're

(02:09:24):
just not gonna be able to pay multiple guys gobs
of money to be able to compete anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:09:29):
And that's working guys Like that's I think that's the
part of this to me, is that that's a good thing.

Speaker 6 (02:09:33):
Yes, I agree, agree.

Speaker 2 (02:09:34):
When you look at the how difficult it is right
now to get back to back in the NBA, when
you look at how different it feels every year, like
that's one of the things we say we love about
the NFL is that every year's unpredictable. Well, the NBA
is giving us that with these with these metrics they
put in place, So I think it's it's absolutely working
for them. And by the way, as we see here
with Boston, you know, you mentioned the process, and you

(02:09:56):
mentioned sort of the Big two and everything. There's been
enough yelling around the Celtics for years about well you
got to blow this up. You're gonna have to get
a different solution, and all they did was not listen. Like,
for what it's worth, the Celtics didn't take any of
the bait on all of it. They stayed the course
on it and they are where they are, so there
is something to just you know, this process, this system,
the way it's working right now, and also having an

(02:10:18):
organization that's willing to be patient enough and stars that
are willing to be patient enough to let it all
come together.

Speaker 6 (02:10:25):
I'm glad you're right on, Fitzy.

Speaker 9 (02:10:28):
And then Figgi, I'm glad you brought up Danny Hurley
because I've been wanting to bring it up all morning.

Speaker 6 (02:10:35):
It's an incredible decision that he has, right like, he
is a great coach.

Speaker 9 (02:10:45):
We talked about this during the during the run. Fitzy,
you saw firsthand you were at the final four. He's
an amazing dude.

Speaker 6 (02:10:52):
It's just the ridiculous The movement on his offense is ridiculous. Right.

Speaker 9 (02:10:57):
The Hurles are the Mannings of football. Right, They're the
first The Hurlies are the first family of basketball in
that sense.

Speaker 6 (02:11:09):
If you're Hurley and do you go take the bag
or do you just build a kingdom in stores? Now?

Speaker 9 (02:11:21):
If you if you think about how college is going,
we should see the return of college basketball. With the
way the portal, with the way the nil, the e fact,
you're going to get paid. You're gonna be able to
pay players, the Power five conferences, all that stuff.

Speaker 6 (02:11:40):
You should.

Speaker 9 (02:11:41):
I think the college basketball gets is improved because I
think you'll have guys that now are since you're getting paid,
you'll be willing to stay. And I think the game
should become should become better. But do you leave and
take the big, big money or do you become just
the code of college basketball? Because nobody is close to him?

(02:12:03):
If you if you think about his age, he could
own the sport. He could be he could be John
Wooden modern day.

Speaker 2 (02:12:11):
Part of the problem to what you said about the
fact that guys are getting paid to stay in longer.
I agree with that, But the dynamic of college sports
is changing so quickly that I just wonder if Connecticut
even knows if they can compete long term in that dynamic,
Like how where's the split going to end? Is there
eventually going to be super conferences of some level where

(02:12:32):
everybody's only paying attention to football, And because Connecticus football
program is just not it's nothing. Having said that, is
there some level of Hurley where you got to look
at it and say, man, this is the time I'm
a back to back national champion. I can get out now,
I can become the coach of one of the biggest
brands in all of sports. If I ever covered a

(02:12:53):
job in the NBA, I would be taking a job
with a huge franchise that everybody knows, it's legendary. I'd
get to coach one of the greatest players of all
time for a minute, and then I would get the
autonomy to be able to build this thing for the
future the right way long term. While I do that,
I mean, ever, if you're ever thinking of going to
the NBA, why would you not go to this version

(02:13:14):
of the Lakers? Like, it's just why would you not
Whatever that full money is going to be, it's gonna
be gross, it's going to be for a long term contract.
Why would you not jump at this if you don't
just know what?

Speaker 9 (02:13:23):
Okay, there's only one retort, and the only retort to
that is what you said. If you want to go
to the NBA, if you're a coach, and you are
a teacher coach.

Speaker 6 (02:13:37):
This is what you do.

Speaker 9 (02:13:39):
The NBA is not exactly the best place to be right,
Like we've seen coaches get usurped regularly on the rag gear.

Speaker 6 (02:13:48):
Right when it comes to the NBA, It's why Jay
Wright wanted nothing to do with it. I remember having
a conversation. At the conversation, the Sixers would have paid
him whatever you want to name this price. The Knicks
would have said, name his price whatever he wanted, and
he could have coached the Knicks, right Madison Square Garden.

(02:14:09):
Maybe not the Lakers in Lebron, but it's close and
all the money in the world. And he never wanted
to do it because he wanted to.

Speaker 9 (02:14:19):
Have his teaching and he wanted to be a coach,
and he thought he would never be able to do
that in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (02:14:26):
Well, and I think back to what Woad said when
he started breaking it that he has NBA aspirations. You're right,
If he doesn't have NBA aspirations, why go anywhere?

Speaker 3 (02:14:36):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:14:36):
Because I do believe he has the chance to be
this generation's coach K. And I think college basketball needs
this generation's coach K, Like they need more coaches that
are going to stay and be the face of the sport.
Like we need to know who the person is that
we could all sort of gravitate towards or against heroes
and villains we love all that soap opera stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:14:57):
We need that.

Speaker 2 (02:14:57):
I think college basketball needs Hurley, there's no doubt about that.
But if Hurley wants to go somewhere, if he wants
to be in the NBA, then this, this is a
brilliant moment. And Yukon is going to be up a
creek because you know, look, he's done great things. And
I know Yukon's gonna say, hey, we have a storied
history here. Fine, yeah you do. But this is a

(02:15:18):
spend world and so Yukon's gonna have to raise enough
money to continue to recruit at this level. Man, I
don't know. I think this would be damaging for college basketball.
It would be damaging for Connecticut. It's damaging for a
sport I love. And it's great for Hurley if he
wants to be in the NBA. So I think he's gone.
I think he's as good as going big.

Speaker 6 (02:15:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:15:39):
Look, I mean, ultimately, if that's what he wants to do.
If I were advising him, and why would he listen
to me, I don't know if this is the Craig
job to take. The Lakers are in a semi transition
phase right now, where you have an older Lebron James,
who's gonna be hanging off for the last couple of years.
You're gonna have Anthony Davis and who knows what the
rest of the roster is going to look like at
that point. So are you in a semi rebuild? Are
you compete? And you're going from winning national championship the

(02:16:03):
last couple of years, as you guys mentioned, being a teacher, uh,
going into the NBA where it's really less about x's
and I was coaching him more about managing egos. And
Hurley is And I say this with all the greatest
endearment in the world, it's kind of a head case.
He's real fiery, get to the guys faces, does all
that stuff?

Speaker 6 (02:16:23):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (02:16:24):
Oh, he's a jerk.

Speaker 2 (02:16:25):
He is a let's just call it, like, Okay, I
was trying to be nice about Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (02:16:29):
So I love you guys, but like, Hurley's a jerk,
Like be honest.

Speaker 4 (02:16:32):
So I have more dealings with his brother Bobby in
Arizona State, and he's probably the next level, even more
so than Danny is. So I can speak to him
more than I can speak to Danny. But I'll i'll
but I'll take that so dealing knowing he has that
sort of combustible personality inside of an NBA locker room,
especially with a veteran team, with a guy like Lebron
James in that locker room as well, I just wonder

(02:16:54):
how that whole dynamic is gonna go. It's almost like
he'd be a better fit for a younger, rebuilding sort
of team, a team that's that's building from the ground up,
that has a little bit of young talent, a Houston maybe,
even if it was like an OKC that doesn't have
an established like super superstar yet, right, you know, But.

Speaker 2 (02:17:10):
Isn't that who the Lakers are about to be? Like
at some point this Lebron experiment ends. So if they
give him a long term deal, and not by long term,
I mean like six, eight, ten years, like whatever he's
going to get offered, if they give him an ob
scene long deal, I think that's why it makes sense,
because I believe the Lakers are kind of telling you
with this, Hey, we know the Lebron things not gonna
last that long. We need somebody that can be the

(02:17:33):
program once he's gone. You're gonna be the face of
the Lakers.

Speaker 4 (02:17:36):
Yeah, And so that goes to my next point, which
and that's great and it makes total sense, fits and
I'm with you a thousand percent, except they've had what
six coaches in the last like nine or ten years,
whatever it's been, there's been no stability at the head
coaching position. Regardless of a long of a contract they've
given anybody, there's been instability in that front office situation.
I don't know if it's the most stable front office

(02:17:56):
you know, from an organization or at the top of
the organization standpoint to necessarily work for at this point
in time. My thing is, if you're a Hurley, even
if you don't win the championship next year, which just
most statistically speaking, you're probably not going to win three
in a row, you make the tournament, you probably make
it to the sweet sixteen at minimum. Are you telling
me that he's not gonna have his pickup NBA jobs
next year?

Speaker 6 (02:18:16):
Two?

Speaker 4 (02:18:17):
And I realized the further and further you get away
from winning national championships, the further and further you get
away from getting the job that you want. But then
not necessarily Billy Donovan was but ten years between winning
his national chance. He's back to back titles before you left.

Speaker 6 (02:18:31):
I don't think it matters.

Speaker 5 (02:18:32):
I think he's still going to be highly coveted.

Speaker 6 (02:18:34):
And here's the other problem with the Lakers.

Speaker 9 (02:18:36):
And you've touched on this fig and you can tell
you want would I give him a long term deal
and we're going to turn the whole franchise over to
Danny Hurley.

Speaker 6 (02:18:47):
There's two things that's a problem. One, it's not a
straight rebuilt.

Speaker 9 (02:18:52):
You have to get through Lebron in the next two
years before you get to the rebuilt. So now once
you're in year four this thing and you're just beginning
your rebuild and it's slow on the trajectory, then people
lose patience. I thought Danny Hurley was the savior, right,

(02:19:15):
and then you go, well, I had to go through
Lebron and then get to a rebuild before I can
even think about winning.

Speaker 4 (02:19:22):
And you know what the perfect example of that this happened.
I saw this movie play itself out with Byron Scott.
Byron Scott was hired in Kobe Bryant's last three seasons,
and they'd explicitly told him, we want you to see
through the end of Kobe and then have a young
team and rebuild for that just know we're going to
take our lumps early. And Byron said, cool, I'm fine
with that. Two years into what they fired him and
win a different direction.

Speaker 6 (02:19:43):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (02:19:44):
I've seen the movie play out before, and that's what
makes this timing situation so difficult. If I knew Lebron
James was retiring this offseason, even if I knew that
for a guaranteed fact he was going to play maybe
one more year and then leave, I feel like I
would have more confidence in telling her, yeah, you know what,
take the job. It's probably more more secure. But knowing
that you have the specter of Lebron for at least

(02:20:06):
the next I think two to three years is probably
the sort of extension he's gonna sign. Even if they
give him an eight year contract, it's still a very
tenuous situation.

Speaker 2 (02:20:15):
Eight years, fifteen million ish, fully guaranteed, one hundred million dollars,
fully guaranteed.

Speaker 3 (02:20:21):
I'd take that risk.

Speaker 5 (02:20:21):
I'm just saying, no, hey, if it's you, and a
good point.

Speaker 4 (02:20:24):
If he does get fired and it all blows up
in his face, he can always go back to college.

Speaker 6 (02:20:28):
Listen.

Speaker 4 (02:20:28):
He can be Cattle, he can be Patino, he can
be any of those guys that flamed out in the
NBA and get whatever pick of a college job that
he wants.

Speaker 6 (02:20:35):
Listen, the money, the money is the money, right, Like
the money's going to be there for Danny Harley, that's it.
You went to national championships. The money's going to be
there no matter why. But it's about like what you're
going to do career wise, Like you're going to throw
it away and go and just to go to the
Lakers and say, I coach the Lakers. Well, Darvin hand
coach the Lakers, Like what are you doing.

Speaker 5 (02:20:54):
Now, Luke Walton coach the Lakers?

Speaker 6 (02:20:56):
Exactly?

Speaker 9 (02:20:57):
Like all of a suddenly, you know, you're not talking
about as much as we talk about the Cowboys. You're
not talking about Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson, you know.

Speaker 6 (02:21:05):
I mean, at some point you say, well, what's best
for my career and the other thing is temperament. You
guys touched on it. Figure you brought it up, Fitzi.
He's not an NBA coach those dudes.

Speaker 9 (02:21:20):
He needs to coach young players and he needs the
mold young players, you know. I mean, that's why that's
what sour Jay Wright on that thing. I mean it's hard.
You really got to check yourself and and check what
you're doing. And if you're Dearly Hurley, you want.

Speaker 6 (02:21:42):
To do that.

Speaker 4 (02:21:42):
I was a Jay would have a better temperament. Dan
Hurley would and j wanted nothing to do with it.

Speaker 9 (02:21:50):
Exactly. I'll never forget having this conversation. He goes, I
want to tell you one time. This is when, uh,
this is I don't know. This is during the Sixers thing,
and Ben Simmons was still here, and it was like
JJJJJ give Jay all the money, and they were they

(02:22:11):
would have they would have given him anything he wanted.
And he said, I'm going to tell you one I
was real close with Jay's I don't tell you one
thing one time.

Speaker 6 (02:22:20):
I'm only going to tell you this one time. I'm
not interested. I told you this before. I want nothing
to do with the NBA.

Speaker 9 (02:22:28):
And and you know, he didn't say disparagingly about Ben Simmons,
but it was like, do I want to coach Ben
Simmons and watching you know a guy who has a
cell phone in his sweatpants during practice like that?

Speaker 6 (02:22:41):
Nobody these coaches don't want to deal with that.

Speaker 5 (02:22:43):
Right, I understand it.

Speaker 4 (02:22:46):
I totally understand it to a certain degree, I wouldn't,
especially if you are a coach. You have someone who
manages egos and all that, and you don't mind that
part of it. By all means there's nothing wrong with that,
because look, you can be the the sort of you know,
overseer that manages egos in the and hires assistant coaches
who do the x's and o's for you, right, And
that's probably the model, to be honest with you, in

(02:23:07):
the NF In the NFL, I guess the NFL to
a certain agree too. But in the NBA these days,
but that if you want, if you're Danny Hurley, who
to your point, Anthony seems to be more of just
like an actual hands on coach. I just don't know
if it's a good fit, and especially I don't know
if it's a good fit considering this current iteration of
the Lakers.

Speaker 6 (02:23:24):
Yep, all right, fellas, get to quick TL We'll come
right back right here every week Fox Sports Radio. Fellas
Jason fitz Kevin figures of Anthony Gargana, Uh, time to
look at sports from a betting standpoint. Johnny Goss the brain,

(02:23:49):
Brad Fineberg the brain of course, uh, one of the
bests out there. You can check them out Brad's bets
bets dot Com or at Brad's Best Bets on Twitter.
Good morning, Brain, How are you, buddy?

Speaker 11 (02:24:03):
Good to be back, Anthony? How are you?

Speaker 6 (02:24:05):
Tell the Tell the boys where you've been.

Speaker 11 (02:24:08):
I know, I've had a couple of good trips. I
was in uh Hawaii for like almost a week, was
in La was in uh Lake Tahoe. And I'm going
on Sunday, Anthony, I will be going to Saint Barts. So, uh,
I got u you know some good stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:24:28):
Life is good. I mean, let's go maybe like yacht life.

Speaker 2 (02:24:34):
Like at this point, the big grains live in the
yacht life. That's the only conclusion from this.

Speaker 11 (02:24:37):
Like yeats, hey, you gotta do something with the winning's right?

Speaker 9 (02:24:43):
Yeah, God bless you, man, God bless you.

Speaker 4 (02:24:49):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (02:24:50):
Let's start off with the NBA and you know kind
of your read on Game one? I guess Game two
tomorrow night is uh Boston is seven. It's a healthy number, man,
it's a fat number.

Speaker 11 (02:25:06):
Yeah. Look, Anthony, I like to Dallas in Game one.
I was wrong. I don't think I'm being stubborn here.
I really don't. I do like Dallas even more. In
Game two, it was, look, it was interesting strategy about
how Boston played Luca and they just, you know, look,
only it won't assist, which I'm sure you know is
his career low. They just really didn't double team them

(02:25:29):
and basically said, listen, you know we were going to
make it where you know, and if I know, you
always talk about it, you know, like let the one
guy have his great game and like kind of like
try to stop everyone else. And that strategy seems to
work more than it doesn't in these NBA games where

(02:25:49):
if one guy goes off but no one else does,
it doesn't seem like the rest of the team does
so great. You look to give credit to Boston in
game one, Porzingis was terrific off the bench and they
played a great game. But I don't think Dallas was
a fluke. I really don't. The first game in the
play against the Clippers, they did its exact same thing.

(02:26:10):
They lost by thirty or thirty five points or whatnot,
and they've come back and had a great playoffs. They
smoke with the Clippers and then obviously beat Minnesota, and Okay, see,
I think this can be a good I think Dallas
is going to win game too, and I certainly think
the game will be within seven. And I like Dallas
getting seven here. I think they're very live to not
only cover the game, but to win out right. I

(02:26:32):
think we'll see a much stronger better performance over them.
And there's still I'm going to make this Boston team
do it one more time before I really trust this
team fully in what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:26:44):
So with that being said, does that pull back your
expectations for Brown and Tatum in this game?

Speaker 11 (02:26:49):
Well, I mean, I mean, listen, it's it's I actually
do have. I do like. One of the props I
did like was Jalen Brown over two and a half assists,
and I bet it's one about almost you know, two thirds.

Speaker 6 (02:27:02):
The year this time.

Speaker 11 (02:27:03):
That is actually a prop I like. But you know,
not necessarily their they're scoring props. They look Boston as
a team that what you were saying that they have
so many guys that can score, between Brown and Holiday
and White and Tatum porzingis it. They's a kind of
team that doesn't necessarily rely on one guy. They have

(02:27:24):
that's slow of good players. So no, it's not necessarily
that I think that those guys aren't going to do well.
I just think more Dallas will perform better than they
did last game, more than Boston not being good. I
just thought we saw Dallas' worst game of the playoffs
in game one.

Speaker 9 (02:27:41):
So how do you see gamescript? How do you see
Kyrie bounce back? Because to me, the whole Thames Yeah,
like it goes back to to him and he there's
no they have no prayer unless he's does he comes
to play no Athony, Well.

Speaker 11 (02:28:02):
Look, we talked to him. It will be interesting, somewhat
of a referendum. I mean, let's be fair about on
kid and his adjustments, what he's going to do in
game two, seeing what happened in game one. And that
was the thing I was going to say, is I
really think that if I'm that staff, I'm like, okay, listen,
we know Luca's going to get his regardless of anything. Okay,

(02:28:26):
he's you know, but someone like Kyrie, who's obviously an
incredibly gifted player and all praying great, he needs to
score twenty five plus to me in this game, I mean,
I think that they really need that kind of Kyrie irving.
They can't win with him scoring twelve points. You know,
an a game against this Boston team.

Speaker 6 (02:28:44):
No way.

Speaker 11 (02:28:45):
So I think that I would think that he would
come out theoretically more aggressively and be a much bigger
part of the offense than he was in Game one.
His old Roger I think was twenty three and a
half or twenty two and a half. I lean to
the old. I didn't give it up to my clients,
but only because I just think it's so it's so
important in paramount for this team to have Kyrie have

(02:29:06):
a much better game than what he give in Game one.

Speaker 2 (02:29:09):
So when you look at that, at what point do
you feel like you can make a larger statement on
the whole series? How many games in before you say okay,
this is the way I'm comfortable moving forward.

Speaker 11 (02:29:19):
Well, I mean, listen, obviously, you have to be willing
to adjust to all these things. Each game. There's only
best to sevens. Every game is so precious, so to speak. Look,
before the series, I thought Dallas would win, like you know,
in a long series. Look obviously, look like they held
Boston's four and a half to one favorite to win. You know,
I'm not again, I'm not giving up here on Dallas

(02:29:41):
at all. I think Dallas is still going to make
this a very, very very competitive series.

Speaker 10 (02:29:47):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (02:29:47):
And again I told I like Dallas in game two,
and again now Dallas gets there, you know what's kick
their teeth kicked in game two. I mean, obviously I
certainly were evaluate. I'm sure probably changed my opinion at
that point the probably not going to beat Boston four
to five games. But I've watched this, you know, all
these games in these playoffs extremely closely, just like I'm

(02:30:08):
sure you guys have, and that was probably a Boston
not probably. I think that was Boston's best performance. And
again maybe it was just as simple, guys as having
Chris Steps pushing us back, and that just changed everything
where now this team can't be beaten because they now
have their entire full complement of stars. But again, I'm
going to make them keep showing me at least one

(02:30:30):
more time that they really are eight points better than
the Dallas and ever extend to me. They beat Oklahoma City,
beat Minnesota, beat the Clippers, beat the three best teams
in the West besides them, I guess Denver. But my
point being is all with much better competition, I still
just think Dallas is going to keep this make this
a close series.

Speaker 6 (02:30:49):
NH.

Speaker 9 (02:30:49):
Shelton, I game one, Stanley Copp, how do you play that?

Speaker 11 (02:30:55):
You know, it's interesting to me. I was really surprised
I had a future on the Oilers to win the
Cup at twelve to one, and I was going to
hedge this thing fully and I really thought Edmonton would
be a slight favorite in the series. That obviously is
not the case. I mean, all the money's coming on Florida.
I've been a little bit surprised by that. I really have.

(02:31:16):
I think this series is a fifty to fifty series.
I think it's a very close series. Edmonton has actually
gotten tremendous cold tending play, which has been really one
of the keys. And obviously we know about Tricydle and
McDavid and their great star power. But I look, I
know Florida's really good and it's their second finals in
a row, and I guess I see the moving in

(02:31:39):
hick them, but I'm just surprised that they're this big
of a favorite. I only can lean ed mckinn. I
think it's a very close series, but I think it's
at least fifty to fifty, and I'll lean to the
dog getting a nice price.

Speaker 2 (02:31:51):
Do you just do travel in that series factor into
anything that you're.

Speaker 11 (02:31:55):
Looking at, You know, look, obviously it's interesting because I
was looking even like I was curious because my my
son is like, well, I wanted to go so much
to a game in Edmonton. I'll do the coolest thing out.
I'm like, yeah, would be, but it's like, yeah, the
travel time they get to Edmonton, I was like, oh
my god, it is. It's it's it's a real thing.

(02:32:16):
It is. How will it affect it? I don't know
if I'm know exactly in what way it's going to
affect it in terms of whether it'll be a higher
score game, lower scoring game, Will one team need more
tired than the next? Not really short, But again I
do understand that that is a tough travel to go
to Edmonton for that game and for the series. So

(02:32:39):
but again, because this Stanley Cup guys, and these guys
awaited all year to get to this moment, I'm sure
the adrenaline or whatnot will get them up for the
game for sure, even if they're a little bit tired.

Speaker 6 (02:32:51):
Yeah, I like I do.

Speaker 11 (02:32:55):
Yeah, I mean again, I think it's at least fifty
to fifty as they said, yeah, it takes the price, and.

Speaker 6 (02:33:00):
I know all the money's coming on Florida. I was
surprised at it too.

Speaker 11 (02:33:03):
So I thought you did, And I got to be honest,
I really was surprised, Anthony, what you said. I was
surprised the money, even like the recreational money. Like again,
like the people who don't know they're all betting Florida
and then me, it's like, yeah, exactly, Like when I

(02:33:25):
make these bets, these future bets, I'm always thinking, this
is what I'm'm always thinking, Okay, what's going to happen.
If the team gets I could take Team to win
the West or take Gave to win the title, then
what's stay up? And I'm like, okay, if everything gets
the finals, will be a public team. Because they have
the two most dynamic offensive players in the sport, people
are gonna just want to say, you know, they're they're
going to take Edmonton. I didn't, so I was like, okay,

(02:33:45):
if they get the semic the finals, I'm gona a
team at the favorite. I was very surprised, especially a
team like Florida that's more of the they call them
like a no name kind of team. They don't have
a true superstar, like like a McDavid or something like that.
I've been look, I was very surprised that the money
he's been pouring in on Florida. But look, it's they're
obviously a good team. They out played the Rangers. Shasturkin

(02:34:06):
was phenomenal in that series, but he was really the
only one for the Rangers who really showed up. I mean,
they got definitely out played. So look, we'll say it
should be an entertaining series. I'm actually looking forward to
watching it. I actually they go to the game the one,
so it should be fun.

Speaker 6 (02:34:22):
That's awesome. Real quick, we're up against it, but let
me ask you the London series in baseball, Phillies and Mets.

Speaker 9 (02:34:32):
The stadium is kind of funky. It's got a really
short right field porch. Do you look at stuff like that?

Speaker 6 (02:34:43):
You know, like are you looking at and how the
bull carries? And is there a play to be made
on the over there?

Speaker 11 (02:34:51):
Well? I looked at that. It's funny, Anthony, but it's funny.
I did give out, and again just how good he's been.
I did give out Rangers as far as to get
over fifteen and a half outs. I basically done at
every game except the game he just got injured with
the line drive off his hands. I still think Range
as far as finds a way to go past five innings,

(02:35:12):
we will see, but yeah, it certainly can't does have
a chance. I was very very close to giving out
Minea over two and a half and runs because I
think the Phillies lineup should score three plus runs off
them today, and yeah it does. I'm definitely leaning towards
the over in that because of the stadium configuration and whatnot.

(02:35:33):
And I definitely do think he was probably a decent
debt and I like Minea to probably give up over
two and a half runs as well, because I think
the Phillies lineup should be able to score against in general,
and if you add a little bit to the ballpark configuration,
you know, it makes sense to me.

Speaker 6 (02:35:47):
Yeah, well, definitely tomorrow because you have Walker pitching for
the Phillies.

Speaker 11 (02:35:50):
Oh yeah, acquited with that.

Speaker 6 (02:35:54):
Yeah, listen, great stuff as always, Brain, enjoy your travels
and you're all right, you.

Speaker 9 (02:36:01):
Know the man taking eaven Fellas will come back and
wrapping up right here on Fox Sports Radio, Fellas Live
from thetai Raq dot Com Studios Final thoughts.

Speaker 6 (02:36:17):
What struck you boys this morning? For the week ahead?
What are you looking forward to?

Speaker 9 (02:36:24):
I will say this, I don't know if you guys
have watched Clipped yet, but there is there's no way
in my mind that Lawrence Fishburn is Doc rivers large.
Fishburn way too cool to be Doc. Doc's not as

(02:36:46):
cool as Laurence Fishburn.

Speaker 6 (02:36:49):
That's my initial buss.

Speaker 3 (02:36:50):
Who is is good? Like that's a weird casting. I
haven't seen it yet, but Laurence Fishburn is Doc.

Speaker 2 (02:36:56):
Is a little weird because Laurence Fishburn is just wildly
like Lawrence Fishburn is one of those guys that is
so signature styles.

Speaker 6 (02:37:03):
Man, you know, I just I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:37:04):
I don't think you. I don't think that's good casting.
I would have gone in a different direction personally.

Speaker 6 (02:37:09):
Yeah, Doc's not that cool. Your thoughts.

Speaker 4 (02:37:15):
I do love Docs and ized guy. I love Doc,
obviously covered him for years. But Laurence Fishburn was an
interesting choice.

Speaker 5 (02:37:21):
I'll say that.

Speaker 4 (02:37:22):
Yeah, yeah, all right, I do think Ed O'Neil's Donald
Starling was pretty good though.

Speaker 9 (02:37:26):
Yes, that was very good. Yeah, he's he's really good
at it. He's really good at it. All right, boys,
let's start with a little were looking forward to the
week ahead? Uh, I'll start with you, Fitzie, what are
you looking forward to the week ahead?

Speaker 3 (02:37:43):
Look?

Speaker 2 (02:37:43):
I want this NBA series to turn into something delightful
that I haven't saying it all day. I mean, the
opportunity to see the Oilers and the best player in
the world in the in the Stanley Cup Final, to
me is really incredible for me, just the moment and
what it means and knowing what it means for Canada
as a whole that's been on such a Stanley Cup

(02:38:04):
Final drought. I mean, for me, there's so many things
that have aligned that are special. It feels like a
Disney movie seeing the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals.
So that's sort of my most exciting thing of the week.
That that being said, I would love it if the
MAVs could turn this thing into a series quickly.

Speaker 9 (02:38:19):
Yeah, well, US Celtic haters would would appreciate that as well. Well,
you got what's going on, fag What you're looking forward
to this week?

Speaker 6 (02:38:32):
Ho's the baby.

Speaker 4 (02:38:33):
Baby's doing great, Baby's doing phenomenal. So we can't complain.
Life is life is good. As far as the week
o the week, I'll say the week end. Also looking
forward to Game two, hoping the Mavericks can make a
series of this, and looking forward to the rest of
this Dodger Yankee series if it's anything like a Game
one on Friday night.

Speaker 6 (02:38:49):
That was tremendous last night. How incredible was God? It was?

Speaker 9 (02:38:53):
I mean it was baseball it's best zero zero deep
into extras even with the ghosts runner, I mean, it was.

Speaker 6 (02:39:02):
It was fabulous.

Speaker 4 (02:39:03):
So I'm definitely looking forward to the last two games
of that series, along with the NBA Finals. Hopefully we
get ourselves a series here with Dallas getting Game two,
so we'll see what happens and.

Speaker 9 (02:39:12):
So much through the so much for the Hey, third
time through the order, they're going to get to him.

Speaker 6 (02:39:18):
Yeah, yeah, he he was terrific. He was. He's right,
he got great stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:39:26):
He really does.

Speaker 4 (02:39:26):
He's got after a disastrous start, he's really come into
his own.

Speaker 9 (02:39:30):
Yeah yeah, real quick, I know, we got a minute.
I did have one quick thing for you, Uh, Jalen
Hurts did not have Nick Sirianni's back. Twice he was
giving softball questions to do that FITZI, what's that mean?

Speaker 2 (02:39:45):
That means that man I just think Hurts is a
little wired and a little different when it comes to
that stuff, Like he just doesn't I don't know that
he cares about that as much, you know what I mean,
Like that just doesn't seem all the way back to
when I covered him into Alabama, just seeing the way
he approached everything, I think he lives in a bubble
of one. A lot of times he's worried about doing
his job and nothing else. So he's not worried about
the fluff questions.

Speaker 6 (02:40:06):
Yeah, and I don't know, maybe he cares about his
coach or anybody else really to be honest with them.

Speaker 5 (02:40:11):
Well that's a good trait if you're a quarterback.

Speaker 9 (02:40:13):
Yeah, yeah, live in the bubble. I guess right, that's
where you're supposed to be. It's it's interesting anyway. Thanks
for that insight. Thanks to Mighty Mark and Ian for
producing everybody, Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful week, fellows,
Love you, be careful, and we'll see you next Saturday.

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