May 20, 2022 • 34 mins
Ryan Glasspiegel spends a few good minutes visiting us on the “Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, and Danny G Radio.” Ryan dominates the blogosphere writing about sports entertainment for the iconic New York Post. Over the years, he’s filed stories for Outkick, The Big Lead and Sports Illustrated. Big Ben picks the brain of Glasspiegel on his recent scoop regarding NBA insider Shams Charania’s insane daily screen time, Drew Brees demise at NBC, Tom Brady’s pitchman future at FOX and so many other fascinating sports media stories. Follow Ryan on Twitter @sportsrapport Follow Danny G Radio on Twitter @DannyGradio, Follow Big Ben on Twitter @BenMaller, and listen to the original "Ben Maller Show," Monday-Friday on 400+ terrestrial Fox Sports Radio affiliates, iHeart stream, and SiriusXM Radio channel 83, 2a-6a ET, 11p-3a PT!
...Subscribe, rate & review "The Fifth Hour!" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fifth-hour-with-ben-maller/id1478163837
#BenMaller
#FSRWeekends
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kaboom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
week was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. The Clearinghouse of Hot
takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with
(00:23):
Ben Maller starts right now, nine in the air everywhere,
and a very good Friday to you. You have found
a brand new pipe in a hot addition of the
Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and Danny g Radio because
(00:46):
four hours a night are not enough, eight days a
week and we're back in the podcast dojo somewhere far
far away in the north Woods. And the news that
caught my We did not talk enough about this on
the radio show this week, and I thought, what better
way to catch up on all the dirt in sports television,
(01:09):
all the money flying around, and you gotta have a
pen and a scorecard to keep track of all the
moving parts in sports television, specifically the NFL with the
Tom Brady's story, Drew brees out at NBC, and who
better to break it all down for us? Then? A
(01:32):
man that covers this on a regular basis from the
New York Post, my favorite newspaper, The New York Post.
We welcome in Ryan glass Pagel, he joins us. He
covers all kinds of entertainment business you name it for
the Post. Used to work at out Kick with Clay Travis,
and he's worked all over the blogger is fhere and
(01:56):
let's welcome in Ryany we'll talk about all the big
stories of the week in sports television and Ryan, why
don't we start out by talking about you? And? Uh,
I know you work at the Post. I've read your
stuff for a long time here, uh recently, But how
would you describe your beat? Ryan? How would you describe
what you cover for the Post? So my title as
(02:19):
sports and entertainment reporter, I write about the sports media.
I write about athletes dating celebrities, athletes marrying celebrities, athletes
divorcing celebrities, athletes having kids with celebrities. UM, basically anything
pertaining to the sports world that isn't you know, analysis
(02:40):
or a summary of what happens in the actual games
is what I do and kind of what I've been
doing for about ten years. I got you and so now,
but do you actually watch the games or oh? Absolutely, yeah,
you have to. You have to have a knowledge of
what's happening in the games. Uh, it's so stay to
talk about the announcers, but I mean just for framing everything. Yeah,
(03:04):
I watched the games UM and Tumbling every night basically,
I mean every time, especially in the NFL season, Like
there's hardly game window that goes by that I'm not watching.
I got you, I got you so. And it's kind
of like what we I do a sports radio show,
and we very rarely actually talk about the games, Like
(03:25):
during football season, we will, but it's in in the
NBA playoffs, will breakdown games, but the rest of the time,
it's pretty much the stuff that you're searching for in
the New York Post. And and how is it different there?
I know you worked at a couple of different places
of the last decade, but you know, I love the
New York Post. I'm a huge fan of the New
(03:45):
York Post. But how is it different? Is it much
different than different? I mean, I'm writing a higher volume
of stories now than I ever have before. I'm kind
of like a short order dinner cook for um web
content like just making you know, there's lots of different
types of writers or content producers. You know, people who
(04:06):
make extensive Last Dance, MJ documentary that's probably like a
five course you know, um thousand dollar meal, whereas I'm
just like constantly, you know, flipping the pancakes and the
bacon and the eggs and the cryllity. Been to a
diner where you can just see them like working, um
(04:28):
at like a ridiculous pace. That's kind of what I do.
But yeah, the Post is wild because they mix like
everything together on the home page. I really do. I'm
not just saying that as a company man. I think
the Post homepage is the best website on the Internet.
You're gonna get your real news, your sports, your celebrity gossip,
(04:50):
like just everything you can think of is all mixed
smashed together there. And it's like wild to be a
part of that. So when you're when you're putting this
stuff together, do they do act you a certain way?
Or are you it's like a wild goose chase every
day or you're scouring every nook and cranny trying to
find these stories. Yeah, I'd say it's half what you're
(05:11):
describing and then half editors doing that at a signing
need to write about something that they see, so I
find stuffing. I pitched the editors and they either approved
it or say no. And they find stuff and said
it to me, and I usually say yes. Of us,
I really don't want to. I got you, I got you. No.
I ran a website like a one man band thing
(05:33):
back in the stone age of the Internet, and I
did pretty well for a while. I stopped doing it
for a couple of reasons. But one of the reasons
was when social media kind of came on and took off,
people were not not reading the blogs as much. I mean,
it is a battle, and you're in a big newspaper,
(05:54):
you know, website, the New York Post. But how is
the game change? I guess you've been in it kind
of a whole time, this social media thing has been
going on. But how difficult is he ran? You know
your point? Like around kind of seventeen, when Twitter started
letting you in bed videos and all these other whistles
(06:15):
that needed so that people didn't need to read the story. Um,
that definitely was a low tide. But right now, for
what I do, I'm as well read as I've ever
been which is mainly a function of being at the post.
But even before that, I was noticing a little bit
of a c chain. Um then where all of these
(06:38):
websites have gone to subscription models and so being somebody
who's writing is available for free waiting out kind of
the cycle has been like very beneficial for the distribution
on my stories. Well yeah, with these paywalls, I you know,
you you have access to the stuff, so it makes
(07:00):
sense that people would would read you and they don't
end up clicking on the on the paywall. Will you
do entertainment in sports? Ryan and I. You had a
big story the other day about Shams Sharania which got
a lot of attention. You was in a profile piece
you wrote about his life and in the amount of time.
The thing that I remember about that, Ryan, is the
(07:22):
amount of hours that he spends on I guess his
phone or his computer, which is an insane amount of
how many hours it was, Um, He said that he
spent seventeen to eighteen hours a day on screen time
and that it goes up over twenty hours a day
during like the draft and free agency. It's an insane
(07:44):
amount of time. That's insane amount of time. And ye,
does he sleep at all? Is there sleep involved in this?
Does he sleep very little? He's it's um, you know,
I've I've met a decent amount of people with like
insatiable dribe in this part of work, and he is
certainly at or near the top of it. He doesn't
(08:07):
want anything in life other than to dominate this b
And part of it is that he's always wanted it,
and part of it is he wouldn't talk about it
with me directly, Ben, But he has his rivalry with
Adrian Locharras he would work together at Yahoo. It was
a mentor protege relationship and they cannot stand getting beaten
(08:31):
by the other. And so the idea that like Woad
could be working when he's not just drives him relentlessly
that he doesn't want to miss anything. Yeah, and it
it is because I actually worked a little bit with
woas back and then he did some stuff. I was
at NBC and he did some stuff there. And I
(08:53):
gotta tell you, every time I see Wos on ESPN,
I just chuckled because he was working at Yahoo at
the time and he spies the ESPN like it was
like he didn't he couldn't wait to destroy ESPN, and now,
of course he's been there for several years, he's done. Well, yeah,
that's that's how SARMs feels about Woach. He could say
the idea of like beating you, Yeah, it's crazy. And
(09:18):
the thing Ryan, I don't know if you've noticed this,
but when I did, and I ran kind of like
a gossipy type site, and the thing I noticed about
it's very odd in the writing world that especially baseball
writers cover baseball guys, would get so upset if they
didn't get all the credit for the story. But my
(09:38):
experience with the people that read this stuff, like Ryan,
you put a lot of stuff out there you you
might get from the Athletic or somewhere else, and you'll
repackage it in your own words, and that people people
don't really care who had it first. And I guess
that's the point I'm making. You agree with that, or
as far as the readers are, I know, the writers
get very You know, there's there's two different worlds. There's
(09:59):
a well all of the people who spend an insane
amount of time on Twitter, and then there's the rest
of the world. So the rest of the world is
what like probably per cent of the population, and they
don't care what iota. Like I think that a vast
majority of the people listening to this right now don't
(10:21):
care whether Adam schefter Ian Rappaport is first with a
free agent signing that they're going to learn about five
minutes later anyway. But inside this business um, the ability
to get things first kind of signifies that you're talking
to important people. And for whatever reason, Chams versus Woad
(10:44):
has captured the imagination of a big amount of people
who don't even work in sports media, and so we
work at it on kind of like when NBA free
agency is starting, like whoever is like doing better that
day is going to have like memes made of him
dunking on the other or whatever. And so for whatever reason,
(11:07):
this particular battle has captured the imagination of a bigger
set of the public than anything else I could think of. Well,
and then the Woad Shams thing, and you wrote about Shamps,
but like they worked together, right, that was the whole
thing is I think you mentioned they were Yahoo and
Sham's kind of learned from woes and it's like some
(11:28):
kind of some kind of plot from like a star
Wars thing or something right where. Yeah, we we don't know.
That's that's a mystery, right, We don't know. So we
know Words left Yahoo for ESPN. We know Shamps did
not go with him. We don't know what was the
trigger moment along the way where they split from being
partners to being adversaries. And hopefully one day one of
(11:52):
them will tell me that and I'll be the one
that kids to tell everybody else, or one of them
will save it for their books, but regard us like, yeah,
we don't know exactly what happened. And to your point, yeah,
it's kind of like a Star Wars archetype where you've
got the student and the teacher and all of a sudden,
I think you know it was um, it was like
(12:15):
an episode two where you could kind of see Vader
starting to be a little bit hasty. Maybe maybe Shams
like wanted things faster than who she was like willing
to give it to him or whatever. It's really difficult
to figure out exactly what happened, but it's definitely out
of a movie. Yeah, and you won who went to
the dark Side? Was it Whoads? Was it Chams? Like?
(12:37):
Who crossed them? You know? I don't know that. You
can't just say that there's shades of gray. Um. The
process of obtaining scoops requires um a lot of kind
of collaboration with sources and subjects and who. Like it's
really impossible when you're not in the reporter's shoes to
(13:00):
figure out what kind of trade offs are being made.
But I think, like, I don't know, I would I
wouldn't say either of them the dark side. Um. Sean's
like a lot of people reached out to me after
that said. He's a great teammate. I love working with him.
He's so driven, but he's like not hard to work with.
And so um, there's certainly who really like enjoy working
(13:24):
with road as well, Like I think, um, like Tim
Bontum says, somebody at SPAT has come up and like
the road tree And so I don't know that who
there's like a dark side and a good side in
this force. Just the fact that like the mentor and
the protege uh are now duking it out to the
(13:46):
entertainment and I don't know, maybe millions, but at least
under its thousands. Yeah, And I'm on just for the record,
not that anyone cares, right but I'm on team Woach.
I knew him a little bit, and I I but
I like. I like the fact that basically what has
been really nice to me in my career, you like,
I mean, he's complimented my work. H I've met him
(14:06):
once in person, who is very gracious. So I don't
really have like a job in the fight, but I
like that the fight exists because it's like interesting for
me to observe. No, And I also love the fact
that these guys, both of them are relentless and you know,
right being in the business a while, there's certain guys
that cut corners after a while, and they don't they
(14:26):
don't put the work in. When they reach a certain level.
It's like I don't have to do it anymore because
I've reached this level. And it's good to hear. Maybe
a little too much for Shams, but I'm sure Woud
is doing the same thing over there. But they're they're
both putting the work in, which I respect because I've
seen guys I've been around that reached a certain levels.
(14:48):
There's a lot of people in television I could name,
but uh, but yeah, it's a it's a best not
speaking of TV, alright, Drew Brees one of the big
stories over the last week year as we talked about
sports media stuff. You're the guy Ryan to talk to.
So Drew Brees and your newspaper had this story before
anybody that he's out at NBC, that he he was
(15:11):
the golden child when he got hired NBC and he's
already done. It was not a long time. What do
you think happened? What's your Do you think that anytime
I see a mutual decision, I think bull crap because
someone has to be the one that says, okay, I
(15:32):
want I want out. I I'm pointing at NBC Son
that they they overestimated to UH to quote a place
he used to work, they out kicked UH their coverage
with Drew Brees. They thought he would be really good
and he was just like a backup fullback that played
on the Lions. That could you know, some some generic
(15:53):
guy that could have gotten without all the money and
all the bells and whistles and all that. And it
might be unfair because it was only one year, but
that's my my take on it. I think NBC is
the one that said, hey, this guy is not as
good and Breeze saw all the other stories going around
with all these other broadcasters getting all this Money's like,
wait a minute, I should be on Sunday Night games
that in the booth. So I think that's more what happened?
(16:15):
What do you think happened? I want to give Andrew
Marsham my colleague credit because he breaks basically all of
these stories. Like I mean, there's no like seans to
his words in terms of like getting the scoops and
sports media. He's just like so far like John ore
End is great, but he he does kind of like
league level stuff in terms of like talent, moves Marsha
(16:38):
and gets almost everything. So for Breeze, what I think,
it's like a multifaceted story. First is uh um, when
NBC brought him in, they thought maybe he would be
the air character Chris collins Worth. I think that they
know because they have Tariko replacing Al Michaels this year
(16:58):
on Sunday Night Football with Al going to Amazon. So
I think they might have been like, Okay, well we'll
have Brees worked with Tariko on Notre Dame games and
then have him go to Sunday Night Football. But I
think that they kind of got cold feet on that idea,
came to the realization that they'd rather have collins Worth
(17:20):
with Tarko than Breeze, and so then all of a sudden,
Breeze is stuck on Notre Dame games with you don't
know who the play by play announcer is going to
be next year yet. And then the studio show, which,
like Dan Patrick talked about yesterday, basically said doing the
studio show is really boring. You have to go to
(17:41):
the studio in Connecticut, sit there like all day for
the football games, and then it's your turn to talk
for like thirty seconds at a time. And so I
think that's the case of all of these studio shows.
But someone like Breeze, who probably feels entitled to a
bigger platform based somebody accomplished as a player, doesn't really
(18:05):
want to sit through that drudgery, Like he doesn't want
to wait all day for Sunday night studio. You know. Yeah,
well they have good craft services though, Ryan, they have
good food at those things, So there is that. But
the brief reason isn't struggling to ease not It's not
like a member of the proletariat like yourself. For me,
(18:27):
where a free meal goes a long way and making
us feel better about whatever we're at, our responsibilities are.
But this is a gigantic boss move by Colinsworth if
if this played out the way part of it, I believe.
I bet we martially have reported that he signed a
new deal like kind of quietly, and so I might
(18:50):
have that wrong, Like I don't ever write in front
of me, but I think I remember reading that. So
like just the fact that you know it's going to
be at least several years of their name games in
studio until he can go that. And then the other
thing that marsh end Is reported is, uh, there's an
opening potentially for Breeze at Fox while they wait for
(19:11):
Tom Brady to come into the booth. It's possible that
he could go and work there as a color commentator,
if not on the top team. They they got a
elevate Greg Olsen there and that creates a different spot
for Breese. And so I think there might be an
opportunity for him to do NFL games at Fox that
(19:31):
he didn't have an NBC potentially. Now speaking of Tom
Brady here Ryan and there was a great quote from
Howard Cosell back in the day and I've I've used
this for many years, the jock ocracy of boadcast I
love that quote from cos l I I it's amazing,
and you know he's been dead for so many years
and it still goes on here. But this Tom Brady
(19:53):
thing is amazing to me. No, I have no animosity
towards Tom, but to get a tenure deal. What if
he is the next true Breeze where they're not smitten
and he's not allowing people like you think there's there's
gonna be off ramps for both of the sides in that,
you know, like, yeah, it's ten years, but it's not
(20:15):
like it's the Ten Commandments like brought down on stone
by Moses like that. The these two sides are not
appy with each other. They could have a quote mutual
spreeat like Breeze and NBC or in the process of
but um, you know the So the deal with Brady though,
(20:35):
it's important to know that this goes beyond the idea
of him as an announcer. He's going to be a
brand ambassador for Fox. So imagine like your person, I
don't even know what do you think, um, Fox charges
like Chevrolet or Ford or analyser Bush for their football
(20:55):
season worth of advertisements, and like they're even just getting
NFL games, like Cox is selling packages of NFL like
top tier, Big ten, Pack twelve and Big twelve football,
the World Series and this year the World Cup. Now
imagine like you're the CEO of um Chevy and like
(21:19):
Tom Brady comes into the meeting as a closer. That's
going to have immense benefit for Fox just having like
being able to bring their like v I P s
over by the bruth to come and meet him. Um.
So that's a portion of the deal that isn't being
(21:39):
discussed as much as just the idea of whether he's
going to be a good announcer or not. Yeah. Well,
And the thing about Brady too is I know from
his media he's he's been very open about I think
was it a few months ago, maybe was last year
where he said he pretty much lies the entire time
he's talking to the media. Is that so you you
(22:00):
under like how he's going to do in the booth
and is he gonna open up? And that's that's always
been a problem. Ryan, You know this, you cover this
this stuff. These former players, a lot of these guys
when they do end up getting in the booth. They
are protecting the fraternity, right, they don't want to be
the Only one that really doesn't do that consistently is
Charles Barkley. Other than that, most of these guys are
(22:20):
all in certain ways guarded with what they say. And
that's that's been the big complaint I have when it
comes to this stuff. And we'll find out Brady's got
so much money, does it really macause you can say
whatever he wants, right, But a lot of these other guys,
you know, I think that he's going to eventually be
an owner of an NFL team. So like, if you're
(22:43):
asking me to bet on whether he's good enother outing
or not, I would never bet against Tom Brady. But
if you're asking me to bet if he makes it
ten years, I would bet no. I would uh, within
ten years of retirement, him and Giselle own a team.
And maybe it's something like, you know, they may not
have the like five billion dollars or whatever you need
(23:05):
to own a team, but I could see it being
a situation like with like a Rod in the Timberwolves,
where he partners with a money guy and he's the
faith and the decision maker, and that's where I would
expect out of him and his post fighting career. But
it's still that takes a few years to figure out
(23:25):
the right partner and the franchise coming for sale and
is it in a place where you want to live
and so on, and so I think the Fox is
going to be a bridge for Brain to the ownership
Boots ownership thoughts is what my prediction. And as we
know from John Gruden, who's taboo to say though, but
(23:46):
the all the rich people, all the NFL people are
watching these these prime island games, and I know Brady
be doing the or bread to be doing the late
game on Fox, which is gonna be kind of an
island that late TV window the big game, and so
you have access like Brady has access to those people.
Uh anyway, but let me ask you this year, right, so,
(24:08):
I have been preaching from the bully pulpit in the
overnight on my show that I believe people tune into
like a radio show or a podcast to hear the
person who's the host. But it's that dynamic does not
exist in an NFL game. Like I have certain broadcasters
I like, but I've never turned on a game because
(24:31):
of a broadcaster other than Charles Barkley. I'll watch a
bad NBA game to hear what Barkley has to say,
but usually not about game. But but I think a
lot of people are like I think more people are
like that than not. So explain to me, right if
I if I'm right, maybe maybe you disagree, But explain
to me why the money is so outrageous when people
(24:51):
don't actually tune in. There not the reason people tune
in to watch a Cleveland Browns game on a Sunday afternoon. Well,
it's too of things. Then, the first is what I said,
where he's a brand ambassador and he's going to be
you know, involved as like a closer for ad and
sponsorship deals and I don't know how you quantify that,
(25:12):
but the people at Foxster do. And then the second
thing is there's a finite supply of great NFL games
before the season, and the NFL is more likely to
distribute the supply of like I don't know, Mahomes versus
Josh Allen or whatever like the equivalent of that. There's
(25:34):
what like maybe you can go through the NFL schedule
and find like fifteen games are so that are absolute
blockbuster and then like you know, a group of like
five that are crown jewels. The NFL is going to
distribute those based on who they think is going to
do the best job presenting it. You really can't put
(25:57):
a price on the idea of Okay, if you have
the best booth, now, all of a sudden, you're gonna
get that highly coveted UM Chief's Bills game. And so
there's not that many of them. And that's why we've
seen UM in specific, CBS play a ton to keep
(26:17):
Tony Romo ESKM. You have fortune to coach Joe Buck
and Troy Aikman away from Fox, and then Fox break
the bank for Brady. They're jockeying to get the biggest
supply possible of those top tier games. And it's almost
like a Dog and Tony show auditioning for the NFL
(26:39):
and begging them for like the best drugs. There you go,
that's a good, good enough. If Peyton Manning I wanted
to do this, Say Peyton Manning woke up today, you know,
just for s and giggles and said, you know what
I want to do? NFL. You say, all the chairs
are filled here, what kind of money you think Peyton Manning.
(27:02):
I know he's doing a few games for ESPN a lot,
but if he said and he could get out of
the contract in a hypothetical parallel dimension Ryan, would he
get similar money to Tom Brady? Or is he? Yeah?
I mean I think the only kind of rodeo partner
left is um NBC. I know that I just said
(27:23):
they extended Chris collins Worth, But if like they if
they if like if if they could get Peyton Manning,
I think they would just you know, eat it with
collins draft collatteral damage later, but like and then that's
there zooming. Peyton could get out of his es CAN,
(27:43):
that's I don't know. I think he could get most
of what Brady got. The problem is is there's nobody
left that's a competing bidder because ESPM, CBS and Fox
are totally locked in on who they have, and so
NBC would only be bidding against themselves. Yeah, it's interesting. Now,
(28:07):
what about I mentioned Charles Barkley at TNT. Barkley for years,
Ryan has been threatening to walk away, not do TV anymore.
I guess at some point he will actually follow through
on that. Right, He's not gonna do this forever. He's
done a lot longer than most people thought. I think
Barkley is almost I think he turned sixty next year,
(28:28):
so he had been talking about walking away at age sixty.
So maybe one more year of of Charles Barkley. Uh
do you think he does actually you know, only do
a couple more years, or you think he's in it
for the long haul because he's he's been talking about
retiring for I have a hard time to see him
(28:49):
walking away. I think he spends in gambles too much
and not have money coming in. That is a good
point when you gamble, and I love gambling, but you
don't normally win. You don't know. That's the problem with gambling.
You don't normally win. And that's the rub on that.
As far as you mentioned Troy wanna go back to football,
(29:10):
so Aikman and I think I read this in your
newspaper that Aikman was kind of the impetus for Fox
talking to Tom Brady because he had been flirting with
Amazon and all that talk him that he was making
his contract negotiations. Yeah. So do you think Aikman regrets
(29:34):
not not playing ball with Fox or you think he's
totally I know he says all the right things. I
saw the quotes this week. Do you think you think,
deep down if you gave him truth Serum, he wishes
he had just agreed to a deal to stay at
Fox rather than what ended up happening, because I mean
he FPN offered it much more money than Fox stead
(29:54):
So I don't think that he regrets um any of
this because I mean, like, what's the difference to him?
Like what might what like the microphone box says like
its working for ESPN versus Fox, versus CBS versus NBC
when you're like Troy Aikman, I I know Fox is
(30:17):
really really really good game producers. Like they haven't missed
on many announcers over the years, Like they haven't had
one of those scenarios where we're seeing the Brees in
NBC where they brought a guy in and he was
just terrible that I can think of, but not the
Breeze is terrible, but like, you know, disappointing. I think
it's fair to say. And so Um, maybe like he
(30:41):
wishes that he was saying there a little bit, because
I do think that they get a little bit better
games than ESPN. UM even with ESPN grabbing bucking Aickman.
But I don't think that he regrets any of this.
I do think there's part of him that's probably better
that Fox wanted to break the bank for Brady in
(31:03):
a way that they didn't want to for him. But
I don't think that that's the same as regret. I
got you and uh and Ron I did see the
other day at the time this podcast is going to
air you to you know, write up about a book
about Beano Cook right which you passed away a number
of years ago. There's some great stuff in that story
(31:24):
that you wrote from the book about Brent Musburger and
Jimmy the Greek and some great names. If it was
a good good right up on on that book. I
had not heard the name this is crazy. He died
about a decade ago. The co author who put together
the memoir reached out to me about a month ago.
(31:46):
It's like, hey, I wrote this book. Um, there's like
a bunch of interesting stuff that you want it very
plied with my address probably three minutes after he sent
the email. I guess, uh. So this book came out
of the all and nobody really covered it, like there
was like a story in the local Pittsburgh paper because
he came out through Pittsburgh. But there was not you know,
(32:10):
there were all sorts of these like golden stories in
this book that weren't um, I think, public knowledge. So
one of them was that, like Brent Musburger and Jimmy
the Greek got in a fight at a bar. And
there were like two possible reasons why I happened. One, Um,
Jimmy the Greek thought that Brent stole his scoop on
(32:33):
who the next Notre Dame football coach would be. Or
he suspected Brand of leaking like negative stuff to him
to the TV critic in the Washington Post. And so
they were like all sorts of stuff like that, like, um,
some are all also accused Brent of stealing one of
his scoops. And so you know, this era of TV
(32:56):
from like I don't know, nineteen seventy through nineteen nineties,
such a like a wild West, and anytime you can
find new stories about that, there's a voracious interests in that. Yeah,
it's like the sports version of Anchorman, right ran where
it's like the bigger than life personality and everyone you
look at the ratings and people watch football a lot
(33:17):
these days. Obviously when you compare that to what CBS
got back there was only three networks. You didn't have
anything on the man you like, you had to pick,
you had to choose what they gave you, basically, and
so but like the competition when it was just those
three was probably even fiercer than it is today because, um,
(33:39):
they were constantly comparing one another to each other. Um,
they hated losing to each other. Yeah, and there's a
great be No Cook quote. A buddy of mine in
Pittsburgh radio guy gave me that be No Once said.
He talked about the going against the federal government and
the quote and impair phrasing, but he said something like,
(34:01):
you never want to go against the federal government in
court because they they never have a road game and
they're always favorites in every matchup. It was a great
great Yeah. So anyway, I ron I kept you a
long time. I appreciate it. I love your stuff in
the post. How can people find you obviously New York Post.
You're on Twitter, though, how can they track you at
dot com? Flash sports rough or sports r A P
(34:25):
P R T. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you good luck and I'll keep reading your stuff.
Thanks Ryan, Thanks Don. Talk soon.
Kaboom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
week was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. The Clearinghouse of Hot
takes break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with
(00:23):
Ben Maller starts right now, nine in the air everywhere,
and a very good Friday to you. You have found
a brand new pipe in a hot addition of the
Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and Danny g Radio because
(00:46):
four hours a night are not enough, eight days a
week and we're back in the podcast dojo somewhere far
far away in the north Woods. And the news that
caught my We did not talk enough about this on
the radio show this week, and I thought, what better
way to catch up on all the dirt in sports television,
(01:09):
all the money flying around, and you gotta have a
pen and a scorecard to keep track of all the
moving parts in sports television, specifically the NFL with the
Tom Brady's story, Drew brees out at NBC, and who
better to break it all down for us? Then? A
(01:32):
man that covers this on a regular basis from the
New York Post, my favorite newspaper, The New York Post.
We welcome in Ryan glass Pagel, he joins us. He
covers all kinds of entertainment business you name it for
the Post. Used to work at out Kick with Clay Travis,
and he's worked all over the blogger is fhere and
(01:56):
let's welcome in Ryany we'll talk about all the big
stories of the week in sports television and Ryan, why
don't we start out by talking about you? And? Uh,
I know you work at the Post. I've read your
stuff for a long time here, uh recently, But how
would you describe your beat? Ryan? How would you describe
what you cover for the Post? So my title as
(02:19):
sports and entertainment reporter, I write about the sports media.
I write about athletes dating celebrities, athletes marrying celebrities, athletes
divorcing celebrities, athletes having kids with celebrities. UM, basically anything
pertaining to the sports world that isn't you know, analysis
(02:40):
or a summary of what happens in the actual games
is what I do and kind of what I've been
doing for about ten years. I got you and so now,
but do you actually watch the games or oh? Absolutely, yeah,
you have to. You have to have a knowledge of
what's happening in the games. Uh, it's so stay to
talk about the announcers, but I mean just for framing everything. Yeah,
(03:04):
I watched the games UM and Tumbling every night basically,
I mean every time, especially in the NFL season, Like
there's hardly game window that goes by that I'm not watching.
I got you, I got you so. And it's kind
of like what we I do a sports radio show,
and we very rarely actually talk about the games, Like
(03:25):
during football season, we will, but it's in in the
NBA playoffs, will breakdown games, but the rest of the time,
it's pretty much the stuff that you're searching for in
the New York Post. And and how is it different there?
I know you worked at a couple of different places
of the last decade, but you know, I love the
New York Post. I'm a huge fan of the New
(03:45):
York Post. But how is it different? Is it much
different than different? I mean, I'm writing a higher volume
of stories now than I ever have before. I'm kind
of like a short order dinner cook for um web
content like just making you know, there's lots of different
types of writers or content producers. You know, people who
(04:06):
make extensive Last Dance, MJ documentary that's probably like a
five course you know, um thousand dollar meal, whereas I'm
just like constantly, you know, flipping the pancakes and the
bacon and the eggs and the cryllity. Been to a
diner where you can just see them like working, um
(04:28):
at like a ridiculous pace. That's kind of what I do.
But yeah, the Post is wild because they mix like
everything together on the home page. I really do. I'm
not just saying that as a company man. I think
the Post homepage is the best website on the Internet.
You're gonna get your real news, your sports, your celebrity gossip,
(04:50):
like just everything you can think of is all mixed
smashed together there. And it's like wild to be a
part of that. So when you're when you're putting this
stuff together, do they do act you a certain way?
Or are you it's like a wild goose chase every
day or you're scouring every nook and cranny trying to
find these stories. Yeah, I'd say it's half what you're
(05:11):
describing and then half editors doing that at a signing
need to write about something that they see, so I
find stuffing. I pitched the editors and they either approved
it or say no. And they find stuff and said
it to me, and I usually say yes. Of us,
I really don't want to. I got you, I got you. No.
I ran a website like a one man band thing
(05:33):
back in the stone age of the Internet, and I
did pretty well for a while. I stopped doing it
for a couple of reasons. But one of the reasons
was when social media kind of came on and took off,
people were not not reading the blogs as much. I mean,
it is a battle, and you're in a big newspaper,
(05:54):
you know, website, the New York Post. But how is
the game change? I guess you've been in it kind
of a whole time, this social media thing has been
going on. But how difficult is he ran? You know
your point? Like around kind of seventeen, when Twitter started
letting you in bed videos and all these other whistles
(06:15):
that needed so that people didn't need to read the story. Um,
that definitely was a low tide. But right now, for
what I do, I'm as well read as I've ever
been which is mainly a function of being at the post.
But even before that, I was noticing a little bit
of a c chain. Um then where all of these
(06:38):
websites have gone to subscription models and so being somebody
who's writing is available for free waiting out kind of
the cycle has been like very beneficial for the distribution
on my stories. Well yeah, with these paywalls, I you know,
you you have access to the stuff, so it makes
(07:00):
sense that people would would read you and they don't
end up clicking on the on the paywall. Will you
do entertainment in sports? Ryan and I. You had a
big story the other day about Shams Sharania which got
a lot of attention. You was in a profile piece
you wrote about his life and in the amount of time.
The thing that I remember about that, Ryan, is the
(07:22):
amount of hours that he spends on I guess his
phone or his computer, which is an insane amount of
how many hours it was, Um, He said that he
spent seventeen to eighteen hours a day on screen time
and that it goes up over twenty hours a day
during like the draft and free agency. It's an insane
(07:44):
amount of time. That's insane amount of time. And ye,
does he sleep at all? Is there sleep involved in this?
Does he sleep very little? He's it's um, you know,
I've I've met a decent amount of people with like
insatiable dribe in this part of work, and he is
certainly at or near the top of it. He doesn't
(08:07):
want anything in life other than to dominate this b
And part of it is that he's always wanted it,
and part of it is he wouldn't talk about it
with me directly, Ben, But he has his rivalry with
Adrian Locharras he would work together at Yahoo. It was
a mentor protege relationship and they cannot stand getting beaten
(08:31):
by the other. And so the idea that like Woad
could be working when he's not just drives him relentlessly
that he doesn't want to miss anything. Yeah, and it
it is because I actually worked a little bit with
woas back and then he did some stuff. I was
at NBC and he did some stuff there. And I
(08:53):
gotta tell you, every time I see Wos on ESPN,
I just chuckled because he was working at Yahoo at
the time and he spies the ESPN like it was
like he didn't he couldn't wait to destroy ESPN, and now,
of course he's been there for several years, he's done. Well, yeah,
that's that's how SARMs feels about Woach. He could say
the idea of like beating you, Yeah, it's crazy. And
(09:18):
the thing Ryan, I don't know if you've noticed this,
but when I did, and I ran kind of like
a gossipy type site, and the thing I noticed about
it's very odd in the writing world that especially baseball
writers cover baseball guys, would get so upset if they
didn't get all the credit for the story. But my
(09:38):
experience with the people that read this stuff, like Ryan,
you put a lot of stuff out there you you
might get from the Athletic or somewhere else, and you'll
repackage it in your own words, and that people people
don't really care who had it first. And I guess
that's the point I'm making. You agree with that, or
as far as the readers are, I know, the writers
get very You know, there's there's two different worlds. There's
(09:59):
a well all of the people who spend an insane
amount of time on Twitter, and then there's the rest
of the world. So the rest of the world is
what like probably per cent of the population, and they
don't care what iota. Like I think that a vast
majority of the people listening to this right now don't
(10:21):
care whether Adam schefter Ian Rappaport is first with a
free agent signing that they're going to learn about five
minutes later anyway. But inside this business um, the ability
to get things first kind of signifies that you're talking
to important people. And for whatever reason, Chams versus Woad
(10:44):
has captured the imagination of a big amount of people
who don't even work in sports media, and so we
work at it on kind of like when NBA free
agency is starting, like whoever is like doing better that
day is going to have like memes made of him
dunking on the other or whatever. And so for whatever reason,
(11:07):
this particular battle has captured the imagination of a bigger
set of the public than anything else I could think of. Well,
and then the Woad Shams thing, and you wrote about Shamps,
but like they worked together, right, that was the whole
thing is I think you mentioned they were Yahoo and
Sham's kind of learned from woes and it's like some
(11:28):
kind of some kind of plot from like a star
Wars thing or something right where. Yeah, we we don't know.
That's that's a mystery, right, We don't know. So we
know Words left Yahoo for ESPN. We know Shamps did
not go with him. We don't know what was the
trigger moment along the way where they split from being
partners to being adversaries. And hopefully one day one of
(11:52):
them will tell me that and I'll be the one
that kids to tell everybody else, or one of them
will save it for their books, but regard us like, yeah,
we don't know exactly what happened. And to your point, yeah,
it's kind of like a Star Wars archetype where you've
got the student and the teacher and all of a sudden,
I think you know it was um, it was like
(12:15):
an episode two where you could kind of see Vader
starting to be a little bit hasty. Maybe maybe Shams
like wanted things faster than who she was like willing
to give it to him or whatever. It's really difficult
to figure out exactly what happened, but it's definitely out
of a movie. Yeah, and you won who went to
the dark Side? Was it Whoads? Was it Chams? Like?
(12:37):
Who crossed them? You know? I don't know that. You
can't just say that there's shades of gray. Um. The
process of obtaining scoops requires um a lot of kind
of collaboration with sources and subjects and who. Like it's
really impossible when you're not in the reporter's shoes to
(13:00):
figure out what kind of trade offs are being made.
But I think, like, I don't know, I would I
wouldn't say either of them the dark side. Um. Sean's
like a lot of people reached out to me after
that said. He's a great teammate. I love working with him.
He's so driven, but he's like not hard to work with.
And so um, there's certainly who really like enjoy working
(13:24):
with road as well, Like I think, um, like Tim
Bontum says, somebody at SPAT has come up and like
the road tree And so I don't know that who
there's like a dark side and a good side in
this force. Just the fact that like the mentor and
the protege uh are now duking it out to the
(13:46):
entertainment and I don't know, maybe millions, but at least
under its thousands. Yeah, And I'm on just for the record,
not that anyone cares, right but I'm on team Woach.
I knew him a little bit, and I I but
I like. I like the fact that basically what has
been really nice to me in my career, you like,
I mean, he's complimented my work. H I've met him
(14:06):
once in person, who is very gracious. So I don't
really have like a job in the fight, but I
like that the fight exists because it's like interesting for
me to observe. No, And I also love the fact
that these guys, both of them are relentless and you know,
right being in the business a while, there's certain guys
that cut corners after a while, and they don't they
(14:26):
don't put the work in. When they reach a certain level.
It's like I don't have to do it anymore because
I've reached this level. And it's good to hear. Maybe
a little too much for Shams, but I'm sure Woud
is doing the same thing over there. But they're they're
both putting the work in, which I respect because I've
seen guys I've been around that reached a certain levels.
(14:48):
There's a lot of people in television I could name,
but uh, but yeah, it's a it's a best not
speaking of TV, alright, Drew Brees one of the big
stories over the last week year as we talked about
sports media stuff. You're the guy Ryan to talk to.
So Drew Brees and your newspaper had this story before
anybody that he's out at NBC, that he he was
(15:11):
the golden child when he got hired NBC and he's
already done. It was not a long time. What do
you think happened? What's your Do you think that anytime
I see a mutual decision, I think bull crap because
someone has to be the one that says, okay, I
(15:32):
want I want out. I I'm pointing at NBC Son
that they they overestimated to UH to quote a place
he used to work, they out kicked UH their coverage
with Drew Brees. They thought he would be really good
and he was just like a backup fullback that played
on the Lions. That could you know, some some generic
(15:53):
guy that could have gotten without all the money and
all the bells and whistles and all that. And it
might be unfair because it was only one year, but
that's my my take on it. I think NBC is
the one that said, hey, this guy is not as
good and Breeze saw all the other stories going around
with all these other broadcasters getting all this Money's like,
wait a minute, I should be on Sunday Night games
that in the booth. So I think that's more what happened?
(16:15):
What do you think happened? I want to give Andrew
Marsham my colleague credit because he breaks basically all of
these stories. Like I mean, there's no like seans to
his words in terms of like getting the scoops and
sports media. He's just like so far like John ore
End is great, but he he does kind of like
league level stuff in terms of like talent, moves Marsha
(16:38):
and gets almost everything. So for Breeze, what I think,
it's like a multifaceted story. First is uh um, when
NBC brought him in, they thought maybe he would be
the air character Chris collins Worth. I think that they
know because they have Tariko replacing Al Michaels this year
(16:58):
on Sunday Night Football with Al going to Amazon. So
I think they might have been like, Okay, well we'll
have Brees worked with Tariko on Notre Dame games and
then have him go to Sunday Night Football. But I
think that they kind of got cold feet on that idea,
came to the realization that they'd rather have collins Worth
(17:20):
with Tarko than Breeze, and so then all of a sudden,
Breeze is stuck on Notre Dame games with you don't
know who the play by play announcer is going to
be next year yet. And then the studio show, which,
like Dan Patrick talked about yesterday, basically said doing the
studio show is really boring. You have to go to
(17:41):
the studio in Connecticut, sit there like all day for
the football games, and then it's your turn to talk
for like thirty seconds at a time. And so I
think that's the case of all of these studio shows.
But someone like Breeze, who probably feels entitled to a
bigger platform based somebody accomplished as a player, doesn't really
(18:05):
want to sit through that drudgery, Like he doesn't want
to wait all day for Sunday night studio. You know. Yeah,
well they have good craft services though, Ryan, they have
good food at those things, So there is that. But
the brief reason isn't struggling to ease not It's not
like a member of the proletariat like yourself. For me,
(18:27):
where a free meal goes a long way and making
us feel better about whatever we're at, our responsibilities are.
But this is a gigantic boss move by Colinsworth if
if this played out the way part of it, I believe.
I bet we martially have reported that he signed a
new deal like kind of quietly, and so I might
(18:50):
have that wrong, Like I don't ever write in front
of me, but I think I remember reading that. So
like just the fact that you know it's going to
be at least several years of their name games in
studio until he can go that. And then the other
thing that marsh end Is reported is, uh, there's an
opening potentially for Breeze at Fox while they wait for
(19:11):
Tom Brady to come into the booth. It's possible that
he could go and work there as a color commentator,
if not on the top team. They they got a
elevate Greg Olsen there and that creates a different spot
for Breese. And so I think there might be an
opportunity for him to do NFL games at Fox that
(19:31):
he didn't have an NBC potentially. Now speaking of Tom
Brady here Ryan and there was a great quote from
Howard Cosell back in the day and I've I've used
this for many years, the jock ocracy of boadcast I
love that quote from cos l I I it's amazing,
and you know he's been dead for so many years
and it still goes on here. But this Tom Brady
(19:53):
thing is amazing to me. No, I have no animosity
towards Tom, but to get a tenure deal. What if
he is the next true Breeze where they're not smitten
and he's not allowing people like you think there's there's
gonna be off ramps for both of the sides in that,
you know, like, yeah, it's ten years, but it's not
(20:15):
like it's the Ten Commandments like brought down on stone
by Moses like that. The these two sides are not
appy with each other. They could have a quote mutual
spreeat like Breeze and NBC or in the process of
but um, you know the So the deal with Brady though,
(20:35):
it's important to know that this goes beyond the idea
of him as an announcer. He's going to be a
brand ambassador for Fox. So imagine like your person, I
don't even know what do you think, um, Fox charges
like Chevrolet or Ford or analyser Bush for their football
(20:55):
season worth of advertisements, and like they're even just getting
NFL games, like Cox is selling packages of NFL like
top tier, Big ten, Pack twelve and Big twelve football,
the World Series and this year the World Cup. Now
imagine like you're the CEO of um Chevy and like
(21:19):
Tom Brady comes into the meeting as a closer. That's
going to have immense benefit for Fox just having like
being able to bring their like v I P s
over by the bruth to come and meet him. Um.
So that's a portion of the deal that isn't being
(21:39):
discussed as much as just the idea of whether he's
going to be a good announcer or not. Yeah. Well,
And the thing about Brady too is I know from
his media he's he's been very open about I think
was it a few months ago, maybe was last year
where he said he pretty much lies the entire time
he's talking to the media. Is that so you you
(22:00):
under like how he's going to do in the booth
and is he gonna open up? And that's that's always
been a problem. Ryan, You know this, you cover this
this stuff. These former players, a lot of these guys
when they do end up getting in the booth. They
are protecting the fraternity, right, they don't want to be
the Only one that really doesn't do that consistently is
Charles Barkley. Other than that, most of these guys are
(22:20):
all in certain ways guarded with what they say. And
that's that's been the big complaint I have when it
comes to this stuff. And we'll find out Brady's got
so much money, does it really macause you can say
whatever he wants, right, But a lot of these other guys,
you know, I think that he's going to eventually be
an owner of an NFL team. So like, if you're
(22:43):
asking me to bet on whether he's good enother outing
or not, I would never bet against Tom Brady. But
if you're asking me to bet if he makes it
ten years, I would bet no. I would uh, within
ten years of retirement, him and Giselle own a team.
And maybe it's something like, you know, they may not
have the like five billion dollars or whatever you need
(23:05):
to own a team, but I could see it being
a situation like with like a Rod in the Timberwolves,
where he partners with a money guy and he's the
faith and the decision maker, and that's where I would
expect out of him and his post fighting career. But
it's still that takes a few years to figure out
(23:25):
the right partner and the franchise coming for sale and
is it in a place where you want to live
and so on, and so I think the Fox is
going to be a bridge for Brain to the ownership
Boots ownership thoughts is what my prediction. And as we
know from John Gruden, who's taboo to say though, but
(23:46):
the all the rich people, all the NFL people are
watching these these prime island games, and I know Brady
be doing the or bread to be doing the late
game on Fox, which is gonna be kind of an
island that late TV window the big game, and so
you have access like Brady has access to those people.
Uh anyway, but let me ask you this year, right, so,
(24:08):
I have been preaching from the bully pulpit in the
overnight on my show that I believe people tune into
like a radio show or a podcast to hear the
person who's the host. But it's that dynamic does not
exist in an NFL game. Like I have certain broadcasters
I like, but I've never turned on a game because
(24:31):
of a broadcaster other than Charles Barkley. I'll watch a
bad NBA game to hear what Barkley has to say,
but usually not about game. But but I think a
lot of people are like I think more people are
like that than not. So explain to me, right if
I if I'm right, maybe maybe you disagree, But explain
to me why the money is so outrageous when people
(24:51):
don't actually tune in. There not the reason people tune
in to watch a Cleveland Browns game on a Sunday afternoon. Well,
it's too of things. Then, the first is what I said,
where he's a brand ambassador and he's going to be
you know, involved as like a closer for ad and
sponsorship deals and I don't know how you quantify that,
(25:12):
but the people at Foxster do. And then the second
thing is there's a finite supply of great NFL games
before the season, and the NFL is more likely to
distribute the supply of like I don't know, Mahomes versus
Josh Allen or whatever like the equivalent of that. There's
(25:34):
what like maybe you can go through the NFL schedule
and find like fifteen games are so that are absolute
blockbuster and then like you know, a group of like
five that are crown jewels. The NFL is going to
distribute those based on who they think is going to
do the best job presenting it. You really can't put
(25:57):
a price on the idea of Okay, if you have
the best booth, now, all of a sudden, you're gonna
get that highly coveted UM Chief's Bills game. And so
there's not that many of them. And that's why we've
seen UM in specific, CBS play a ton to keep
(26:17):
Tony Romo ESKM. You have fortune to coach Joe Buck
and Troy Aikman away from Fox, and then Fox break
the bank for Brady. They're jockeying to get the biggest
supply possible of those top tier games. And it's almost
like a Dog and Tony show auditioning for the NFL
(26:39):
and begging them for like the best drugs. There you go,
that's a good, good enough. If Peyton Manning I wanted
to do this, Say Peyton Manning woke up today, you know,
just for s and giggles and said, you know what
I want to do? NFL. You say, all the chairs
are filled here, what kind of money you think Peyton Manning.
(27:02):
I know he's doing a few games for ESPN a lot,
but if he said and he could get out of
the contract in a hypothetical parallel dimension Ryan, would he
get similar money to Tom Brady? Or is he? Yeah?
I mean I think the only kind of rodeo partner
left is um NBC. I know that I just said
(27:23):
they extended Chris collins Worth, But if like they if
they if like if if they could get Peyton Manning,
I think they would just you know, eat it with
collins draft collatteral damage later, but like and then that's
there zooming. Peyton could get out of his es CAN,
(27:43):
that's I don't know. I think he could get most
of what Brady got. The problem is is there's nobody
left that's a competing bidder because ESPM, CBS and Fox
are totally locked in on who they have, and so
NBC would only be bidding against themselves. Yeah, it's interesting. Now,
(28:07):
what about I mentioned Charles Barkley at TNT. Barkley for years,
Ryan has been threatening to walk away, not do TV anymore.
I guess at some point he will actually follow through
on that. Right, He's not gonna do this forever. He's
done a lot longer than most people thought. I think
Barkley is almost I think he turned sixty next year,
(28:28):
so he had been talking about walking away at age sixty.
So maybe one more year of of Charles Barkley. Uh
do you think he does actually you know, only do
a couple more years, or you think he's in it
for the long haul because he's he's been talking about
retiring for I have a hard time to see him
(28:49):
walking away. I think he spends in gambles too much
and not have money coming in. That is a good
point when you gamble, and I love gambling, but you
don't normally win. You don't know. That's the problem with gambling.
You don't normally win. And that's the rub on that.
As far as you mentioned Troy wanna go back to football,
(29:10):
so Aikman and I think I read this in your
newspaper that Aikman was kind of the impetus for Fox
talking to Tom Brady because he had been flirting with
Amazon and all that talk him that he was making
his contract negotiations. Yeah. So do you think Aikman regrets
(29:34):
not not playing ball with Fox or you think he's
totally I know he says all the right things. I
saw the quotes this week. Do you think you think,
deep down if you gave him truth Serum, he wishes
he had just agreed to a deal to stay at
Fox rather than what ended up happening, because I mean
he FPN offered it much more money than Fox stead
(29:54):
So I don't think that he regrets um any of
this because I mean, like, what's the difference to him?
Like what might what like the microphone box says like
its working for ESPN versus Fox, versus CBS versus NBC
when you're like Troy Aikman, I I know Fox is
(30:17):
really really really good game producers. Like they haven't missed
on many announcers over the years, Like they haven't had
one of those scenarios where we're seeing the Brees in
NBC where they brought a guy in and he was
just terrible that I can think of, but not the
Breeze is terrible, but like, you know, disappointing. I think
it's fair to say. And so Um, maybe like he
(30:41):
wishes that he was saying there a little bit, because
I do think that they get a little bit better
games than ESPN. UM even with ESPN grabbing bucking Aickman.
But I don't think that he regrets any of this.
I do think there's part of him that's probably better
that Fox wanted to break the bank for Brady in
(31:03):
a way that they didn't want to for him. But
I don't think that that's the same as regret. I
got you and uh and Ron I did see the
other day at the time this podcast is going to
air you to you know, write up about a book
about Beano Cook right which you passed away a number
of years ago. There's some great stuff in that story
(31:24):
that you wrote from the book about Brent Musburger and
Jimmy the Greek and some great names. If it was
a good good right up on on that book. I
had not heard the name this is crazy. He died
about a decade ago. The co author who put together
the memoir reached out to me about a month ago.
(31:46):
It's like, hey, I wrote this book. Um, there's like
a bunch of interesting stuff that you want it very
plied with my address probably three minutes after he sent
the email. I guess, uh. So this book came out
of the all and nobody really covered it, like there
was like a story in the local Pittsburgh paper because
he came out through Pittsburgh. But there was not you know,
(32:10):
there were all sorts of these like golden stories in
this book that weren't um, I think, public knowledge. So
one of them was that, like Brent Musburger and Jimmy
the Greek got in a fight at a bar. And
there were like two possible reasons why I happened. One, Um,
Jimmy the Greek thought that Brent stole his scoop on
(32:33):
who the next Notre Dame football coach would be. Or
he suspected Brand of leaking like negative stuff to him
to the TV critic in the Washington Post. And so
they were like all sorts of stuff like that, like, um,
some are all also accused Brent of stealing one of
his scoops. And so you know, this era of TV
(32:56):
from like I don't know, nineteen seventy through nineteen nineties,
such a like a wild West, and anytime you can
find new stories about that, there's a voracious interests in that. Yeah,
it's like the sports version of Anchorman, right ran where
it's like the bigger than life personality and everyone you
look at the ratings and people watch football a lot
(33:17):
these days. Obviously when you compare that to what CBS
got back there was only three networks. You didn't have
anything on the man you like, you had to pick,
you had to choose what they gave you, basically, and
so but like the competition when it was just those
three was probably even fiercer than it is today because, um,
(33:39):
they were constantly comparing one another to each other. Um,
they hated losing to each other. Yeah, and there's a
great be No Cook quote. A buddy of mine in
Pittsburgh radio guy gave me that be No Once said.
He talked about the going against the federal government and
the quote and impair phrasing, but he said something like,
(34:01):
you never want to go against the federal government in
court because they they never have a road game and
they're always favorites in every matchup. It was a great
great Yeah. So anyway, I ron I kept you a
long time. I appreciate it. I love your stuff in
the post. How can people find you obviously New York Post.
You're on Twitter, though, how can they track you at
dot com? Flash sports rough or sports r A P
(34:25):
P R T. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you good luck and I'll keep reading your stuff.
Thanks Ryan, Thanks Don. Talk soon.
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.