July 5, 2024 • 42 mins
In today's episode of Covino & Rich, Jason Fitz and Kevin Figgers are filling in for the day! Jason and Kevin open the Hour 2 talking Dynasty or Parity, are you happy with a new team dominating every year or would you rather see a team dominating a century!? Next, the guys look at player marketing and debate if it's the team's job or the players job! Finally, the guys react to the first Holiday Ranking Committee!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, thanks for listening to the Covino and Rich Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Be sure to catch us live every weekday from five
to seven Eastern to the four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Find your local station for Coveno.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Rich at Foxsports Radio dot com, or stream us live
every day on the iHeartRadio app like searching FSR. So
much of the conversation that we have as sports fans
is about what we want. And we're in this society
right now that's looking at absolute domination, for example, in
the NFL, from a dynasty that's clearly happening in front
(00:32):
of our very eyes with the Kansas City Chiefs. But
then we're looking at an MBA where it feels like
a repeat champion is almost impossible to find now. And
the real question is is we look at what genuinely
grabs our interest and we try and figure out how
more sports can cut through in July to get everybody
to pay attention. Ultimately, at the end of the day,
are we craving a dynasty or do we really want parody?
(00:55):
Do we want different every year, or do we want
the easiest hero and villain. The easiest path of this
is the teams. You've got to knock off the perch
or do we want a season where every year it
feels like every team has a chance, Because if you
look at the numbers, I think you'll be surprised when
you realize that most people frankly want the same old,
(01:15):
same old. It's Cavino and Rich. I'm Jason fitz Kevin Figures.
We're filling in for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
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should be figuring. I keep thinking about the NBA, and
(01:36):
we said a minute ago that I don't think the
Lakers are gonna win a championship anytime soon because I
don't think they can keep up with the modern NBA.
But the modern NBA is truly being built much like
the NFL likes to be built with the mindset of man,
let's have parody. Let's create a salary system that is
going to force teams to do all of the little
things the right way to win. That seems to be
(01:58):
what they're trying to accomplish, which is part of the
reason you and I agreed the Lakers may not be
best suited right now in this NBA to compete. But
as you look at what we have seen the Nuggets,
we're supposed to be this team that could repeat before them,
the Bucks were about to go on a run. Now
everybody will tell you the Celtics will go on a run. Well,
what we've learned is that right now nobody can go
on a run. And if nobody can go on a run,
(02:20):
isn't that what we're supposed to want? Yes, But in
the NFL, what do we have got The Chiefs? The
Chiefs are everybody's angel or devil. Right, so you have
all this parody. You have all this parody sitting there
where any team could go nine to eight or eight nine,
But there's a king in the mountain. So with all
this parody, you're hoping somebody breaks through. I'm trying to
figure out what people really want, because I think there's
(02:42):
a blend. They want to feel like their team has
a shot, but they want to have an easy target
to root against every single year.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Yeah, Now, I think to those kind of two competing
emotions when it comes to that. But I think the
Chiefs are a great example because no sport has promoted
parody and wanted parody more over the last thirty years.
Then we mentioned earlier that you know, everybody's built to
be five hundred, and it's really the best of the
best that have enough juice, enough scouting, good talent to
get to eleven, twelve, thirteen wins. The Chiefs, in the
(03:11):
sport that has promoted parody for the longest, have found
a way to build a level of dominance into a
certain degree. The New England Patriots for twenty plus years
did the exact same thing, and I think what the
NBA is doing it doesn't mean that you can't have
a dynasty. It just makes it more difficult and it
puts more of the onus on the front office to.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Put in the work.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You know, going back to our Laker discussion, it was
so easy for the Lakers to say, we're LA, We're
a franchise of stars, come play for us. The weather's great, Yeah,
the taxes are high, but there's so many other things.
You're playing for a marquee franchise and we can pay,
we can afford to pay more money than anybody else can. Well,
that's no longer the case at this point in time.
It's more of a level playing field. It doesn't mean
(03:50):
the Lakers can't be successful, but they have to be
just as savvy as Oklahoma City, or just as savvy
as the Clippers across town. Even though the Clippers have
a lot of money, they didn't a lot willingly spend
it on anybody. Was very calculated in how they did it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with forcing franchises to
be measured and be intelligent with how they actually built
(04:11):
the infrastructure of their system to make sure they put
a winning product on the floor or on the field,
while also making sure they cultivate for the future at
the same time. It's difficult to do, but the best
franchises are the ones who are able to do that
and sustain success over a long period of time. And
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing for leagues
to encourage teams to operate that way.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
No, I think leagues have to at some level because
what do you end up with. Look at some of
the fails we have right now. I would say that
golf right now has been going through an identity crisis
for a minute. We all know that, and it's because
Tiger was so great and now in order to get
the next Tiger, which is the only thing when you've
had Tiger, the only way people are going to when
you have Tiger, the only way that you can sort
(04:55):
of replace Tiger is to have somebody come out and
exceed Tiger. Right, that's not happening. So that's part number
one you need. But even look at yesterday, I will
go back to this over the course of our time.
We've talked about this a lot over the course of
the last few hours, the hot dog eating contest. What
do we have yesterday? We have a new champion, But
Joey Chestnut wasn't there. And the first thing people say
(05:16):
isn't finally Joey goes down? It's well, can't even top Joey,
Like Joey did better than that. We even want domination
to a certain level in hot dog eating. We want
to look, if somebody can take down Joey Chestnut, that's fine,
but they better get a better number and then immediately
as well, Joey eight more than five minutes. Like it's
all of these comparisons, because there is some level of
(05:37):
we as a society love to have one easy mark,
whether it's a mark for greatness or a mark for
what we're going after, Like we all want to know
who's at the top of the leaderboard and how to
go after him. And so you're right, it takes this
measured approach for a team to get there. It's part
of what we have to acknowledge. But I'm not sure
we as a society or even ready for that. Like
if the NBA goes through a period of fifteen years,
(06:00):
they never have a back to back champion, I honestly
don't think that's going to be good for the sport.
It's having parody feels good, but not having somebody that's
easy to target isn't.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And well, you know what a healthy mix of that is.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And I don't know if they'll ever go through a
fifteen year stretch where there won't be your repeat champion.
But maybe you need a team like Boston to say, ah,
we won three championships in seven years or Golden State,
I won two championships in six years, and you're always
in the hunt. It's a difference between a team that
just wins every single solitary season four straight championships, five
straight championships, even if it's five out of seven years,
(06:32):
whatever it is, and just a team that's always just
kind of middling around, always find them. You know, the
Utah Jazz never won a championship in the Malone Stockton years,
but they were a shoe in for the second round
and or the conference finals for.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
About a six to seven year stretch.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Always be in the hunt, but you don't necessarily have
to hoist the trophy every single solitary time, because I
think that ends up wearing on people to a certain degree.
Look back at the Cavaliers in Golden State, when every
year for four straight years, you knew exactly going into
the season, there's a greater than ninety percent chance that's
exactly what we're going to have. And I think that,
as much as anything, there's other factors as well, is
a bigger reason why NBA Finals ratings kind of went down.
(07:09):
Everybody knew exactly what we're gonna see. It's gonna be Cleveland,
it's gonna be Golden State, and Golden State's probably gonna
end up winning in five or six games because the
deck was so stacked against everybody else. It just wasn't
even entertaining anymore. You can have great games, great talents
spread across the league. I can have Minnesota play Denver
in the conference finals this year, if they had one
of them, they play each other again in the first
(07:30):
round next year, and then another one again two years
from now, they play again in the conference finals. It
can be a cyclical situation where a handful of teams
are all competitive, but not one team is always at
the top of the mountain every single time. I do think, yes,
dominance from that standpoint is bad, but having a certain
number of teams that you could bank on, Hey, this
team has a legitimate shot over the next four years
to make into the conference finals.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
A couple of times.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
I think that's actually healthy for the sport because it
has enough of predictability to actually allow fans to be
able to be sucked in a little bit and still
have some inn.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I mean, take it a step farther. He's Kevin Vigers.
I'm Jason Fitzwerin for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
If you take it just a little step farther, you're
describing the New England Patriots. They were in every Super
Bowl or AFC Championship game. He always knew they were
the best team. They didn't always win it, you know,
eighteen and one certainly didn't. Doesn't hit the right way
(08:21):
for Patriots fans. But what did you have there? You
had a whole bunch of other teams that were really good,
and you had them be pushed, but you knew that
constantly they were going to be at or near the
top of the ladder. So you have this era of
Peyton Manning and the Colts trying to get through the
Patriots while the Patriots are there, and even if they
get to the Super Bowl, sometimes they're losing the Super Bowl.
These are all that's sort of the description that you're
(08:43):
giving there. Like the Celtics skull in this dominant run
where every year they're in the Eastern Conference finals or
they're in the Championship, but they lose a bunch of
those along the way, still gives people enough hope that
they feel like there's rooting for something like it's funny
just as a society, we want winners until they win
too much, like we want we want athletes to be
the greatest until they're so great that it gets boring,
(09:04):
Like we want world records until all they do is
set world records. It's just such a fine line on
what we want to gravitate towards more interest on it.
But I do think that maybe the model here is
to look at one team and say, man, I want
them to keep getting there and then not getting the
job done, which I mean, if we're being real, we
(09:25):
just lived with the Celtics for several years. Did their
championship right now? Feels kind of good in everybody's hearts
if you're not a Celtics sater, because you're like, yeah, look,
these guys put in so much time together, like all
of these different you know, it feels good that they
finally won one. If they could keep now getting into
that cycle where they lose, they win, they lose, they win,
that might be the best thing for general interest.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
But also part of the general interest part of it,
I think.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
And the Celtics are a great example because this was
what year seven of Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum and
how many people for the last two off seasons have
been talking about blow this thing up.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Clearly a doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
It was like, how do you say something doesn't work
with two guys who are under the age of twenty
five years old, have been together for six years. That's
just the microwave society that we live in. There's a
level of accomplishment if you're a Celtic fan today, you know,
coming off of that parade a few weeks ago and
then winning a championship, there's a part of you that
appreciates that they grew from those poor experiences losing to
Miami in the conference finals a couple of years.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You know, all the issues that they've had.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You feel like you accomplished something, you grew through, something
you went through all of the issues that they went
through at the same time. Just being able to wake up,
roll over and sign the heatles together and start winning
championships two years later, it just feels different. It feels
a lot different as opposed to a team that you actually,
you know, saw go through the growing pains and actually,
you know, win together, learn how to win together and
(10:39):
grow together. I think as a fan, just from an
individual team standpoint, it hits a little bit differently when
your team that you saw go through the battles and
actually grow into a champion, as opposed to a team
that was just ready made slap together through a bunch
of free agents and actually wins a championship. And I
think it's probably more subconscious if you're not a team
a fan of an individual team, but you sort of
feel that way too, the fact that Boston can stick
(11:01):
it out and actually build something, because it tells you
if you're Oklahoma City or if you're another smaller market
team that doesn't necessarily draw in free agents, if we
draft the right guys put the right guys around them.
You know, Boston didn't do anything special. They didn't sign
any major free agents, the Horfords and the Porzingises, and
they trade it for all those guys.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
They were sore. There's a method to be able to
do it.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
They showed that through patients and shrewd drafting and trades
they can get it done. And if they can do it,
why not us.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I do think I'm left to wonder constantly what would
have happened to the Bulls when they couldn't get past
the Pistons. If Twitter had existed in that era, if
twenty four to seven people yelling about wasted teams had
existed in that era, what would have happened to one
of the greatest teams in franchise and sports moments we've
ever seen in our lives, if we hadn't been, if
(11:55):
we've been in a society that's as impatient as this
one is. Now, that's the factor we have to remember
sometimes and want and I want people.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
To stop saying, like Michael Jordan got criticized. There was
this column in USA Today and he was called the
ball hog. Yes he was sure. All of that is
turned up by a trillion today. You know, you had
to wait a week for USA Today to come out.
At that point in time, living in Chicago, you didn't
get the whatever that was put in a column in
the La Times or something.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You probably didn't even see it, or the New York Post.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
It's so much different nowadays because all these guys are
on social media. They see all the criticism that they get,
and they get constantly reminded of it every single second
of every single day. And as much as you say, oh,
I just turn social media off and ignore it, it's
easy for you to say that, it's much more difficult
to do in practicality, and so you're right. I do wonder,
I do wonder how that would have hit if we
(12:45):
had the sort of media exposure. Now, if we hadn't been,
I should say, as we have.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Now, every single TV in America wasn't on USA today
in every airport, like right, I would just tell you
fly once and look at all of the TVs, and
as you walk through the airport, ask how everybody shuts
that noise off in the meantime. It raises speaking of
all of this TV exposure, it raises a real question.
The amount of exposure right now that we give all
of these athletes raises a question about marketing. Is it
(13:15):
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(14:19):
markets who? We'll figure it out. Next. It's Kevin Figures,
Jason Fitz We're in for Camino and Rich.
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(15:28):
You'll see the show posted right after we get off
the air. I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with Kevin Figures.
I don't know figure why I got so happy there.
It just feels like, you know that getting Figury with it?
Is that? Are we doing? That? Is that a thing now?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Getting figured with geez, I haven't heard that before. That's
a first.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
That was perfect. You know you're you're you're lying right,
like you've heard that your whole life.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
I had my entire life getting figured with it. Do
you love fig Newton's kell choking or you figured that
one out? Even though it's not figures, it's figures. I've
heard them all, Trust me.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I get a lot of if the shoe fits, Yeah,
that's clever. Yeah, that's goods. You know, like I get
that too, you know it's yeah, there's not much. You
know what He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason Fitzen. We're better
than that. We're petter than that. You know what we are,
we're stars, And as stars, I can't even.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Say that, at least at least in our own minds,
we are.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, I'm mom, I'm a star.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
How about that?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah? My dog thinks I'm a star. That counts for something, right?
As stars, I get this. You know, sometimes what happens
is there's a line in marketing. And I bring this
up because Joey Chestnut, you know, obviously was on everybody's
mind yesterday with the fourth of July, and you think
about stars We talked earlier about Tiger and golf, and
then we talked constantly about baseball. And the funny thing
(16:39):
is we sit here there's a common ism that we hear,
I'm fixing baseball of Well, they've got to do a
better job of marketing they're stars. I would argue VIGGI
that the w NBA for years has tried to market
their stars. They finally inherited stars that came with a
large audience in Caitlin Clark, Angel recent others that came
with just a bigger following that was paying attention to
(16:59):
all of it. And as a result, I don't think
the WNBA and Kathy Engelbert the commissioner suddenly got brilliant
at marketing. I think they hit a home run. Like
sometimes you get people that are so massive that they
bring with them whatever following you could possibly want, and
all you have to do is tenderly take care of
that following. That's where I think sometimes we look at
this and say, well, major League Baseball's got to market
(17:21):
their stars. Hockey's got to market their stars. Connor McDavid
is one of the best players in the world wise
and not being marketed better all of these things. Well,
there's a line here. Sometimes I don't know that in
today's world, you can even market people have to find them,
fall in love with them. Sure, you can put them
on some TV shows. But we've even talked about like
there's no one set answer to that, Like we say
(17:41):
market your stars, like there's a blueprint on that. That
makes sense when reality is you can run all the
commercials you want all day long. People got to gravitate
to someone, fall in love with someone, and it's like
lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Yeah, generally it's a perfect storm, a combination of things
as to why something takes off and someone ends up
becoming a face of a sport as someone who transcends
a sport. Now, I'll be honest fits most of the time,
it's less about what they say, campaigns and all that.
It's really about how excellent they play. Lebron James was
never the most charismatic, you know, talker. He wasn't out
there being brash and loud. When he came out as
(18:13):
his eighteen year old phenom, people were mesmerized by him
because you had never seen somebody that big, that physical,
that fast do the sort of things that he did.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Steph Curry the same situation.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Never really the most you know, crazy personality, saying a
bunch of weird sound bites, doing a bunch of things
to grab attention. He just balled, He just hit a
bunch of three pointers and took Davidson on a deep
run to the tournament, and all of a sudden started
hitting you know, fifty foot threes like it was a
layup and nobody had ever seen it before, and it became,
you know, a house of fires, similar to Caitlyn Clark.
Nobody had seen what someone do that in the women's
(18:44):
game before. You could have the most brash and crazy personality.
All you want, I really think, really is the standard
of performance from the individual player that allows them to
transcend the sport and become a superstar. And I think basically,
really the way that baseball's built doesn't really necessarily make
it for that to happen. You'd almost need to have
somebody that have like the Soulsa MacGuire situation happen again,
(19:05):
where somebody's coming out and hidding seventy five home runs.
That's just in today's baseball, even at what the emphasis
on home runs the way that it is that's just
not gonna happen. So it's going to be really difficult
for baseball specifically to find someone who's a transcendent talent.
And I used Shoel Tani as an example because he
would basically fit that mold, who's as spectacular hitting for power,
(19:26):
hitting for average. If he played in the outfield, he'd
probably be a great outfielder. He can pitch, obviously he's
not pitching this season, But there's a language barrier that
certainly doesn't help. But even if there wasn't one, I
still wonder, even if they marketed the hell out of them,
how much of a dent it would actually make.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
There is a such a truth to what you said,
because I just think about quarterbacks right like, right now,
we could argue that Travis Kelsey has become the face
of the NFL because of the Taylor Swift, but I
would argue that Patrick Mahomes is the current face of
the NFL, right And that doesn't come just because Patrick
Mahomes is likable. It doesn't even come because Patrick Mahomes
(20:03):
is likable and very good. It comes because Patrick Holmes
is likable. He's very good. He makes plays that are
easily digestible in highlight packages and frankly, he wins a
bunch of championships. If Patrick Mahomes was having the same
if he had the same career record as Josh Allen,
I don't know that we have the same reaction, right,
Like you gotta have some rings. So he gets the combination.
(20:24):
And look, your point on Steph is such a good one.
It's like it's this combination. And even when we look
at Caitlin Clark, it was this dominance with the way
that she played that was different than anybody had ever
seen at that point, with the way she shot and
the way that it came across, and it got people
fired up about it and they fall in love with it. Now.
I do think at some point for her to maintain
(20:46):
the level of superstar status she's on to continue to transcend,
she's gonna have to start winning a lot of games.
I do think that's an inevitability for her. But it
creates these easy to digest soap opera stories. We are
in a soap opera society. Like, if you can't sum
it up in a couple of lines in a way
that gets people super interested in it, it ain't gonna work. Right,
and that has to It takes some level of greatness.
(21:08):
It takes some level of you know, easy on the
eyes doesn't hurt for a lot of these stars. It
takes some level of right place, right time. It's all
of this stuff has to come together. And I think
you're kind of right. Like the way the baseball calendar works,
the way the sport works. The only thing that would
consistently get people to fall in love with the baseball
player now is amount of home runs that we thought
(21:30):
could never be accomplished before. And even at that, we
have to be honest. The first thing people will think is, well,
are they cheating? Are they knowing's something wrong? Because of
the past of the sport and earned skepticism. Skepticism would
make that difficult. It's so difficult for that sport.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
You know what you need in baseball, it might be
more difficult to manufacture this in baseball. Whether you have
to manufacture it or not, I guess if it happens naturally,
it's some sort of rivalry, some sort of good and
evil situation. You know what's saved the NBA back of
the day with this was bird versus magic, And to
a certain degree, I think to a small extent, as
well as big of a following with as Kaitlyn Clark
has and as great as she is, as spectacular as
(22:07):
she is to watch. Part of her narrative and part
of her legacy, at least early on right now, is
her rivalry if you want to consider it that with
Angel Reese, because Angel Reaes, rightfully or wrongly, is considered
to be some at least from a she's a villain,
or if you want to just say rival and just
say that whoever, there's no good or bad. They're just
rivals at this point in time, and everything that they do,
(22:28):
specifically when they play against each other, is magnified.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The WNBA, a sport like that, needs that.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
The NBA back in the day when they were tape
to land NBA Finals and nobody watched and no one cared,
and they were full of drug addicts, they needed magic
versus Bird. If the WNBA is going to take off,
more so than just Caitlyn Clark and her individual spectacular play,
she almost needs Angel Reese to sort of have that
exact same track and to build on some sort of
rivalry between the two of them, and that in and
of itself will end up, propping up the sport. I
(22:56):
really think that Major League Baseball could benefit from having
that sort of rival to a certain degree. In the
early two thousands, you had that with the Yankees and
the Red Sox, when both great franchises with great histories
were both excellent at the exact same time and played
each other in the playoffs every single year. Now, the
world is different now than it was in two thousand
and three. Even still, you wonder if that would make
much of a difference. But I do think a good
(23:18):
versus evil or a rivalry of sorts for a sport
that's trying to make end roles, you have built in
storylines already there that will draw in the casual fan
and that will ultimately hopefully turn into a diehard. So
I do think the WNBA has that going for them.
That helps Caitlyn Clark is the fact that she has
someone like an Angel Reese to play I guess the
good cop to the bad cop, or however you want
(23:38):
to call it.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, and look, I think it's clear that we're not
trying to say either person's a bad person at all.
This comes down to style makes fights in different to
different styles of play, But It's very reminiscent to me
at a time when they needed it. Of Magic versus Larry.
There were just very different styles and people fell in
love with one or the other, and that rivalry went
from college straight into the NBA, and it changed the
(24:01):
way the NBA was seen in the early eighties. And
it didn't mean that, you know that Doctor j wasn't
great before then, It just meant that it took all
of it to another level. And that's what we're seeing.
But that's not from the W doing anything smart with marketing.
It's just from the W being in the right place
at the right time. And that's I think the part
of this that we keep forgetting because it was not.
To be very clear, I remember distinctly the home run
(24:23):
summer between Sosa and McGuire and they were cutting into
national news like it'd be the middle of like we
only have the Tom Brocott news. They cut into it
because one of them was at bat and the two
of them. It wasn't Sosa or McGuire. It was Sosa
and McGuire that made that summer what it was, and
that's what they need. They don't need one like baseball
doesn't need one guy going after it. Baseball needs two
(24:45):
guys going after.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
It to recapture that right, and the problem is how
do you find that at this point? And really it
just really it's dueling franchises you need. It's almost as
if you need a great franchise like say the Dodgers
and the Yankees. You need this to go back to
like the fifties or something, or the forties whatever was,
and they just played each other all the time in
the World Series and there are star power on both sides,
left and right. That's almost like what you need if
(25:06):
you're trying to quote unquote save baseball from a marketing standpoint,
You need marquee players and marquee franchises to face each
other constantly and just have a constant battle back and
forth where one doesn't dominate the other. One gets one,
one gets another, one wins two in a row, one
wins another one, and you just sort of have that
sort of situation. We just haven't had that in baseball,
kind of like hockey to a certain degree, you know,
(25:27):
especially look with the expanded wildcard, we talk about parody
and dynasties. No sport really endingers the idea, the very
ideal of parody the Major League Baseball, because you can
have a dominant regular season, as the Dodgers have had
for a decade at this point in time, and have
it not matter whatsoever even as early as the first
round of the postseason. I mean, you want a sport
(25:49):
that's really built on randomness and who gets hot at
the right time. No other sport is like that the
Major League Baseball, and to a certain degree, the way
that it's built I think works to its detriment. We're
talking about cultivating rivalry, specif in the postseason.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Speaking of the rivalries in baseball, that everybody's gonna put
eyeballs on the home run Derby to be the savior
of all of this coming up, I'll tell you why
it absolutely can't be. But first, Figgy's got to get
us all cut up on the news and notes across
the world right.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Now, All right, Well, we had a couple of drama
field quarterfinal matchups in the year old twenty twenty four
tournament on Fox today about forty five minutes ago. You
have Portugal taking on France. They were scoreless in regulation
and an extra time the acts to goes to penalty kicks.
Ultimately it was Tao Hernandez of Franz who made the
game win. He kicked to give France the victory and
a semi final matchup against Spain, who defeated Germany two
(26:38):
to one in extras earlier in the day. Canada will
take on Venezuela tonight in the quarterfinals of the Copa
America tournament.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
You can watch that game on FS one at nine.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Eastern News out of the NBA, according to Sham Charania
of the Athletic forward Franz Wagner has agreed to a
five year contract with the Orlando Magic that could be
worth up to two hundred and seventy million dollars. In
the third round at Wimbledon, on the women's side, Cocoa
Golf of Madison Keys both won their third round matchups
in straight sets. On the men's side, top seed Atyanix
Center won his match in straight sets as well. In
(27:08):
a match that lasted nearly four hours. Callous Alkoraz defeated
Francis Tiafo in five sets, and Major League Baseball sales
A Zuki a home run for the Cubs. They defeated
the Angels five to one. Moments from now. The Mets
are in Pittsburgh taking on the Pirates. And speaking of
the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Yankees looking to
end a three game losing streak, they will take on
the Red Sox in Beantown. Batt'll tip off, kickoff, first pitch,
(27:29):
however you want to call it. At the top of
the hour. All right, back to the Cavino and Rich.
He's Kevin Figures.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I'm Jason fitzper In for the Guyscavino and Rich on
Fox Sports Radio, coming at you live from the tiraq
dot com studios. Everybody wants to make the home run
derby a constant savior, you know, like the slam dunk
contest is supposed to be the savior. Here's the thing.
I think we need to remember a couple of things.
What are All Star events really about? Who were they
actually for? Because I would argue twenty years ago the
(27:58):
All Star events were about the biggest stars coming in
a way that got casual fans involved. I don't think
that exists anymore. Maybe call me cold, call me callus,
call me cynical. I think at this point, if you're
a baseball fan, you're gonna watch a home run derby
probably no matter what if you're not a baseball fan,
it's not gonna resonate. Why, because we're desensitized to just
the normal process of hitting a batting practice Paul outside
(28:22):
of the stadium. I don't think you can hit it
in a way anymore that's gonna get people gravitating to
it if you really want it to happen. To what
Figgie was just talking about earlier, I don't think it's
even just team v team. I think it's two players
taking on the best of the best that are absolutely
chasing each other for some sort of a landmark we
never thought would be reached. Those are the things that
we flock to. Those are the things we gravitate towards
(28:44):
in every sport other than football. For whatever reason, the
NFL can just they can roll out Titans Jags and
both teams be terrible on a Thursday night. We'll eat
that up like it's going out of style. Major League
Baseball could give you the two best teams with the
two best players three straight nights in a row, and
most of y'all aren't gonna wat So how do you
get it to happen? I think whether we're talking about
hockey or whether we're talking about soccer or whether we're
(29:05):
talking about the w at some point it takes real
competition and real things that people don't think that they
can miss. How do you create the environment where somebody says,
I have to watch that. I can't just look at
the highlights. I have to see that. The home run
derby can no longer get that sort of love. In
my mind, it can no longer get that sort of spark.
It's going to take a summer of absolute magic from
(29:26):
a team or a player that is unprecedented for everybody
to drop what they're doing and pay attention. Figure.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Well, the difficult part about the home run Derby is
I mean it's standalone.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
There's literally nothing else on.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
I mean, this is like the dead is three or
four days in sports, is around the Major League Baseball
All Star Game. And if people aren't watching the home
run Derby, it's like, what does that say about your products?
Like and they're going the loan dude, They're going, I guess, so,
you know, I mean, you can only gimmick it up enough.
Like I've heard people throw out a bunch of like
weird like, oh, let's have starting pitchers competing the home
run Derby. It's like, yeah, I'm sure teams would sign
(29:56):
off on that, as fun as it sounds, and it's different.
You know, you want to actually have some actual spirit
of competition, of realism. I still believe if you actually
had stars who are willing to go out there, legitimate
stars from the teams. You know, whether it's I can't
say Mike Trout now he's injuredy, he's not the same player,
but certainly Showyo Tani who's already turned down the home
run Derby, or Aaron Judge who's already turned down the
(30:17):
home run Derby. If you have those sort of figures
and you promote the heck out of that. If I
know now, then I got a couple of weeks or
a week ten days to promote, Hey, come see the
biggest stars in Major League Baseball. You know, show off
who's the best, who has more power? Like there's a
you can get a campaign behind it. But if you
don't know the best players actually out there competing, and
it's some backup third basement from wherever, there's just no
(30:39):
cash aid to it. So why am I going to
go out of my way to watch a guy that
I've never heard of do something you know in a
competition that he's probably not even going to win that thing.
That's the difficult part that baseball has competing against, and
the NBA Dunk Contest is kind of fighting that same fight.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Well, I think the other part of the Dunk Contest
that is just very realist. What can you show somebody
at dunk how many how many people can you jump
over before it's like, yep, we've seen that. How many
spins can you do before? It's like yep, we've seen that.
Like it's so cachet, Like everything is just feels like
it's been done Blase I should say, it's been done
over and over and over again. So it's like, all right,
(31:15):
you want me to tune in and watch a guy
that's throwing a ball that's sort of lofted at him,
or that's hitting the ball that's sort of lofted at him,
just to see how hard he can hit it. Like,
there just has to be some other element to it
to get me interested. That's why I always at least
dug the Quarterback Challenge sort of stuff that they showed you,
because at least there was a moving target or it
feels like a video gamer, they're doing something you don't
(31:36):
usually see them do. Like, I respect the fact that
as much as the Pro Bowl game is trash, at
least like we got dodgeball with a bunch of fat guys,
like make it interesting at some point, you know, at
least there's some effort at that point to say, hey,
we're going to show you more from our guys in
ways that hopefully you gravitate towards. But I just don't know,
like if I'm just staying, if I'm watching a baseball
(31:56):
player hit them all far when they're just standing there
with the ball that's being lofted at them, what the
hell likes fact, it just feels like what we always see.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And look, there's an element of the certain fans who
will say, this is what the home run debby is,
this is what it always has been. It's okay with me.
I don't care if other people aren't watching. I'm watching.
And it's like, well, that's not really how business works either.
They want to do whatever it takes to get the
most eyeballs as they possibly can, and if this ends
up being a diminishing, you know, return on a product,
major League Baseball is going to recognize that that's an
issue and that they're gonna have to Look, they've already
(32:24):
saw of shaken things up by putting time limits and
certain amount of swings on all of this, because I mean,
there back in the day, rounds would just last forever,
you know, so even they have figured out that they
have to end up making tweaks to it. Now to
your point, you know, there's only so much that you
can do. When the goal is a pitch slowly thrown
up to the home plate and a guy hits it. U,
let's see how far I can hit it. I will
say there's at least an element of creativity. Now, granted
(32:47):
we're getting further and further away from it because there
is only so much that you can do. There are
elements of creativity that you can put in a slam
dunk contest to sort of make it somewhat interesting, but
when it comes to the home run derby, it's kind
of just a lot of the same. Which again, the
only thing that you can do to try to encourage
more viewership or more interest is have bigger names or
maybe do like an old timer's home run derby yourself,
(33:08):
and they're bringing that's enough. Look, take a gimmick and
try to gimmick it up even more. That's really the
only saving grace that you would have to try to
draw in more eyeballs. I don't know if it will work,
but it will work better than what you're doing right now.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Yeah, and look, I hear you. When so many fans
will say we don't care, we don't care. Again, I'll
go back to what John Taffer has said so many
times on Bar Rescue when he's coming in and changing
the menu and a manager will say, well, I don't
want to lose my regulars, and his without response, without hesitation,
his response is always, if your regulars were enough, I
wouldn't be here, right. And I do think that that's
(33:40):
what we sometimes forget, Like it's not about what baseball
is losing, or any sports losing in the month of
July particularly, it's about the opportunity lost to not growing.
There's nothing right now that is going to take everybody's
mind and just shift us all to focusing on this
one sport. And there should be. Whether as we've started
(34:01):
this conversation repeatedly, whether it's been about the Olympics, whether
it's been about the men's national team and their fails
so far this summer, whether we're talking about you know,
the fact that baseball can't gravitate like look, Summer League
in Bronni is going to get more attention than any
actual sports that are happening right now, and training camp
opening at the end, NFL practices with pads on are
(34:21):
going to get more focused than actual games with actual
results right now. To me, that's just it's not about
the fact that your sport, whatever anybody's favorite sport is,
it is dying. It's about the opportunity lost by not growing. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Well, and I will say when it comes to the
All Star aspect of this discussion, it affects every single league.
Even the Pro Bowl for the NFL gets buokoo numbers,
but compared to other NFL games, it gets nothing. So
all Star games in general, there's just not the fervor
for them like it used to be because all of
these sports are global because you can see every single
team every single night. Baseball has lost its magic because
(34:55):
American League versus National League is no longer a thing.
Everybody plays everybody every single season and now so the
element of magic is lost there. So people just it's
just the novelty's not there anymore so when it comes
to All Stars specifically. Now, baseball has other issues as
far as far as their regular season and viewership and
interest goes, and we can discuss that as well, But
from an all Star standpoint, it's affecting every league.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah, it is. It's an interesting debate and there's not
a real simple answer to it. That being said, there
are simple answers that we will figure out. But first,
you know, the simplest thing that we got to tell
you about is the one feeling that I know more
than anything. It's the electric buzz of game day all
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just go check out graduate hotels.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
A stay gradual hotels is like stepping onto the field
in those college towns.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
No doubt, Figgie, it absolutely is. In fact, I've been
to a bunch of them, and each one of them
mirrors the personality of the campus that they're near. It's incredible.
And Covino, I'm rich going to be at the brand
new Auburn location broadcasting live Friday, September twenty seventh for
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saw them in Nashville at the Graduate Hotel. Their absolutely
(36:03):
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So keep the game day spirit alive in book your
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Speaker 3 (36:25):
Graduate Hotels. Because a graduate, we are all students. He's
Kevin Figures, I'm Jason Fitz. We're gonna figure out some
holiday issues. Coming up next on Canbino and Rich.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Scabino, I'm Rich on Fox Sports Radio, Kevin Figures,
Jason Fitz coming at your live from the Tirak dot
(36:57):
com studios. Little funky, funky, funky figgy figgy funk. Like
with that if Kevin Figgers was in a funk band,
that's a pretty good name.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, I like it pretty fully. I was talented enough
to play an instrument that would work.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Well, you know what, you look good? You just stand
up there, look good.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Now music go on a violin? Can you do that?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit. You gotta get you
gotta get pass some things. I so get a violin player.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Probably it was like an electric violin I Farlament had
like nine thousand members.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
So look, everybody has an electric violin player now. But
I will say years ago, I was playing in between
periods of the Nashville Predators because he used to put
a band up in between periods. And I'm a big
hockey fan and went to the first ever Preds game.
So at the time, uh they were they were selling
the team, and my friend was running the entertainment. She
called and said, hey, I need a band in between periods.
Can't pay, like I just we got to have a band.
(37:49):
It's what we've always done. But we have no money.
It's just free tickets. And so I was like, okay.
So before every home game I would call my buddies
around Nashville at the time and I'd say, hey, who
wants to play the hockey game? Had some buddies that
are big hockey fans. We go and we would sit
there in between period. During the first period, for example,
we'd be like, all right, what songs do we want
to play? You only have to do like ten minutes
of music. And so I figured, like I always looked
at it. I didn't get stressed because I looked at
(38:09):
it like, you know, if the seventeen thousand people they
were either going to love you or hate you no
matter what, there was nothing we're gonna do. That changed
my mind. But we used to cover Superstition a lot.
Stevie Wilker and I like to play all the horn
parts from Superstition on a violin, Like that's one thing.
It's like a party trick, you know. I like taking
non violin things and playing them on a violand did
that with Hotel California, with the guitar solos live for years,
(38:30):
all that sort of stuff. So I'm playing, and I'm
playing like the let me tell you I was. I
was playing and singing it like so back then I
used to sing a lot too, and I was doing
a pretty dark good job of it, Like Superstition was
something I did pretty well, right, So I'm doing Superstition
I'm playing all the horn parts on the fiddle out
like I'm going for it, right, Vince Kill Country music legends,
sitting about ten rows ahead of where I'm playing. He
(38:52):
just turns around. Is I'm doing the boom, but I'm
doing that whole section right, I'm killing on the violin.
Vince Skill just turns around, rolls his eyes and shakes
his head with tremendous disapproval. So every time now I
think about the violin playing funk, I just think about,
you know, me playing Stevie Wonder and icon and influence
to me, and having Vince Gill, the legend, roll his
eyes at me. So I don't know, figure, maybe I
(39:13):
shouldn't have done it. Maybe I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
You know, I feel like Stevie would have loved your rendition,
and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
So I'll take it.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Although that's it's all blowing Vince Gill, a legend like
Vince Gill does shake his head in shame.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
That's a tough one to swamp.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Well, you know, he can't win them all.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
You can't. Not everybody's going to be a fan of everything.
So it's fine, you know that Vince. Vince is a legend.
That's all I'll say about that. He's kept figures. I'm
Jason Fitz. We've had a legendary several hours hanging out
with you. But if you missed the show earlier today,
we had a heated argument about the top four holidays.
We decided we were going to take it to the people.
We created our own committee, like the college football committee.
(39:49):
We came to a vote, and we ended up with
a grouping of four holidays that none of us like.
So we have Christmas is one we unanimously decided on that.
Halloween ended up two thanks to me in Iowa Sam.
The rest of the room did not like that. Thanksgiving
ended up three thanks to Shay and thanks to Figgy,
and then all of a sudden, Fourth of July ended
up four, and like that one wasn't even on my list. Boys,
(40:12):
We've had hours to decompress on this. I don't think
we nailed it. I just want to I really want
to take a moment here and just say, if I
had to speak on behalf of the committee, the first
thing I would say at the press conference to everybody
when they're like, how did you guys come through? This ranking,
figy would be I don't know what happened. Everything got wrong,
it got weird, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
See if Bill Hyncock set that in front of everybody
we respect him so much more, was like, look, man,
it was a giant cluster.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
All right, we still got to go back and meet
some more.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
I don't know what to tell you instead of throwing
out a bunch of bs that we all know is untrue.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
And by the way, now we understand exactly.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
What those committees are experiencing in those rooms and why
it takes so long.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
And they deliberate.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
They have to deliberate about the futures of these college
football programs, and we can't agree about Christmas versus the
fourth of July.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Well, and as I've said before, if you got thirteen diffriends,
thirteen people on the committee and you said, all right, guys,
all we have to do today is I think the
top pizza place is in town, you'll end up not
having thirteen friends at the end of the night. Right,
everybody will hate each other. That's just that's true. Now.
It does bring me though, to one thing that I
think the committee should do. I think after the rankings
are done, nobody should speak for the committee. I think
(41:14):
that they should open that room up. Every single committee
member should have a microphone, and the press should be
able to ask each of them the how and the why,
like because I would have no problem standing up and saying, hey,
I didn't I didn't want Thanksgiving on my list, but
other people had it at number two. I had it
around number five, number six for me, so you know
that that's where that's where it landed, and we as
a group couldn't come to a consensus, like, at least
(41:35):
then I would understand the process if every member actually
spoke in that moment.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
The problem is it's going to hit somebody's ego.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
If everybody runs over to Ward man you're like, oh man,
you guys made the playoff?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yet, what's going on? How did this?
Speaker 4 (41:45):
And then somebody's sitting in the corner like Chris All.
It's like when nobody wants to talk to me, like
I had to say in this too. I'm just it's
like when you open up the locker room and now,
not granted, some guys might just want to sneak out
of the back door and just like, oh, thank goodness,
I dodged that bullet go talk to Jim grob Let
him deal with it.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I don't want nothing to do with it. That will be.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
It opened up an interesting dynamic if they did it
that way. I'm actually interested they should do it that way.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
I'm with you, No, it's it's interesting because we put
the committee chair every year and I've had to interview
him multiple times. I've done that for the ranking show
that I did ESPN for years. We had him every
week and you could see the defeat in his face
when you knew that there were just questions he couldn't answer.
And it's not that he wouldn't answer them, it's just
how do you answer the simple well, why did you
(42:24):
guys come to that consensus? And he's going to come
in and give you the same Well, it's not about
any one thing, it's about all the things, because that's
all he can say at that point. So all I
can say to all of you is that you should
hang out with the Fellas tomorrow morning, five am to
nine am. Figgie and I are joined, of course by
Anthony Gargano to have a wild, wild weekend show for you.
(42:45):
So be sure to hang out with us tomorrow morning.
We've had a blasketing to hang out with you. He's
Kevin Figures on Jason Fitz. Thanks to Sam, Thanks to Shay.
Thanks for hanging out with Comino and Rich on Fox
Sports Radio.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Covino and Rich Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Be sure to catch us live every weekday from five
to seven Eastern to the four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Find your local station for Coveno.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Rich at Foxsports Radio dot com, or stream us live
every day on the iHeartRadio app like searching FSR. So
much of the conversation that we have as sports fans
is about what we want. And we're in this society
right now that's looking at absolute domination, for example, in
the NFL, from a dynasty that's clearly happening in front
(00:32):
of our very eyes with the Kansas City Chiefs. But
then we're looking at an MBA where it feels like
a repeat champion is almost impossible to find now. And
the real question is is we look at what genuinely
grabs our interest and we try and figure out how
more sports can cut through in July to get everybody
to pay attention. Ultimately, at the end of the day,
are we craving a dynasty or do we really want parody?
(00:55):
Do we want different every year, or do we want
the easiest hero and villain. The easiest path of this
is the teams. You've got to knock off the perch
or do we want a season where every year it
feels like every team has a chance, Because if you
look at the numbers, I think you'll be surprised when
you realize that most people frankly want the same old,
(01:15):
same old. It's Cavino and Rich. I'm Jason fitz Kevin Figures.
We're filling in for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
We're broadcasting live from the tyrack dot com studios. Tyrack
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should be figuring. I keep thinking about the NBA, and
(01:36):
we said a minute ago that I don't think the
Lakers are gonna win a championship anytime soon because I
don't think they can keep up with the modern NBA.
But the modern NBA is truly being built much like
the NFL likes to be built with the mindset of man,
let's have parody. Let's create a salary system that is
going to force teams to do all of the little
things the right way to win. That seems to be
(01:58):
what they're trying to accomplish, which is part of the
reason you and I agreed the Lakers may not be
best suited right now in this NBA to compete. But
as you look at what we have seen the Nuggets,
we're supposed to be this team that could repeat before them,
the Bucks were about to go on a run. Now
everybody will tell you the Celtics will go on a run. Well,
what we've learned is that right now nobody can go
on a run. And if nobody can go on a run,
(02:20):
isn't that what we're supposed to want? Yes, But in
the NFL, what do we have got The Chiefs? The
Chiefs are everybody's angel or devil. Right, so you have
all this parody. You have all this parody sitting there
where any team could go nine to eight or eight nine,
But there's a king in the mountain. So with all
this parody, you're hoping somebody breaks through. I'm trying to
figure out what people really want, because I think there's
(02:42):
a blend. They want to feel like their team has
a shot, but they want to have an easy target
to root against every single year.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Yeah, Now, I think to those kind of two competing
emotions when it comes to that. But I think the
Chiefs are a great example because no sport has promoted
parody and wanted parody more over the last thirty years.
Then we mentioned earlier that you know, everybody's built to
be five hundred, and it's really the best of the
best that have enough juice, enough scouting, good talent to
get to eleven, twelve, thirteen wins. The Chiefs, in the
(03:11):
sport that has promoted parody for the longest, have found
a way to build a level of dominance into a
certain degree. The New England Patriots for twenty plus years
did the exact same thing, and I think what the
NBA is doing it doesn't mean that you can't have
a dynasty. It just makes it more difficult and it
puts more of the onus on the front office to.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Put in the work.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
You know, going back to our Laker discussion, it was
so easy for the Lakers to say, we're LA, We're
a franchise of stars, come play for us. The weather's great, Yeah,
the taxes are high, but there's so many other things.
You're playing for a marquee franchise and we can pay,
we can afford to pay more money than anybody else can. Well,
that's no longer the case at this point in time.
It's more of a level playing field. It doesn't mean
(03:50):
the Lakers can't be successful, but they have to be
just as savvy as Oklahoma City, or just as savvy
as the Clippers across town. Even though the Clippers have
a lot of money, they didn't a lot willingly spend
it on anybody. Was very calculated in how they did it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with forcing franchises to
be measured and be intelligent with how they actually built
(04:11):
the infrastructure of their system to make sure they put
a winning product on the floor or on the field,
while also making sure they cultivate for the future at
the same time. It's difficult to do, but the best
franchises are the ones who are able to do that
and sustain success over a long period of time. And
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing for leagues
to encourage teams to operate that way.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
No, I think leagues have to at some level because
what do you end up with. Look at some of
the fails we have right now. I would say that
golf right now has been going through an identity crisis
for a minute. We all know that, and it's because
Tiger was so great and now in order to get
the next Tiger, which is the only thing when you've
had Tiger, the only way people are going to when
you have Tiger, the only way that you can sort
(04:55):
of replace Tiger is to have somebody come out and
exceed Tiger. Right, that's not happening. So that's part number
one you need. But even look at yesterday, I will
go back to this over the course of our time.
We've talked about this a lot over the course of
the last few hours, the hot dog eating contest. What
do we have yesterday? We have a new champion, But
Joey Chestnut wasn't there. And the first thing people say
(05:16):
isn't finally Joey goes down? It's well, can't even top Joey,
Like Joey did better than that. We even want domination
to a certain level in hot dog eating. We want
to look, if somebody can take down Joey Chestnut, that's fine,
but they better get a better number and then immediately
as well, Joey eight more than five minutes. Like it's
all of these comparisons, because there is some level of
(05:37):
we as a society love to have one easy mark,
whether it's a mark for greatness or a mark for
what we're going after, Like we all want to know
who's at the top of the leaderboard and how to
go after him. And so you're right, it takes this
measured approach for a team to get there. It's part
of what we have to acknowledge. But I'm not sure
we as a society or even ready for that. Like
if the NBA goes through a period of fifteen years,
(06:00):
they never have a back to back champion, I honestly
don't think that's going to be good for the sport.
It's having parody feels good, but not having somebody that's
easy to target isn't.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And well, you know what a healthy mix of that is.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And I don't know if they'll ever go through a
fifteen year stretch where there won't be your repeat champion.
But maybe you need a team like Boston to say, ah,
we won three championships in seven years or Golden State,
I won two championships in six years, and you're always
in the hunt. It's a difference between a team that
just wins every single solitary season four straight championships, five
straight championships, even if it's five out of seven years,
(06:32):
whatever it is, and just a team that's always just
kind of middling around, always find them. You know, the
Utah Jazz never won a championship in the Malone Stockton years,
but they were a shoe in for the second round
and or the conference finals for.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
About a six to seven year stretch.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Always be in the hunt, but you don't necessarily have
to hoist the trophy every single solitary time, because I
think that ends up wearing on people to a certain degree.
Look back at the Cavaliers in Golden State, when every
year for four straight years, you knew exactly going into
the season, there's a greater than ninety percent chance that's
exactly what we're going to have. And I think that,
as much as anything, there's other factors as well, is
a bigger reason why NBA Finals ratings kind of went down.
(07:09):
Everybody knew exactly what we're gonna see. It's gonna be Cleveland,
it's gonna be Golden State, and Golden State's probably gonna
end up winning in five or six games because the
deck was so stacked against everybody else. It just wasn't
even entertaining anymore. You can have great games, great talents
spread across the league. I can have Minnesota play Denver
in the conference finals this year, if they had one
of them, they play each other again in the first
(07:30):
round next year, and then another one again two years
from now, they play again in the conference finals. It
can be a cyclical situation where a handful of teams
are all competitive, but not one team is always at
the top of the mountain every single time. I do think, yes,
dominance from that standpoint is bad, but having a certain
number of teams that you could bank on, Hey, this
team has a legitimate shot over the next four years
to make into the conference finals.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
A couple of times.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
I think that's actually healthy for the sport because it
has enough of predictability to actually allow fans to be
able to be sucked in a little bit and still
have some inn.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I mean, take it a step farther. He's Kevin Vigers.
I'm Jason Fitzwerin for the guys on Fox Sports Radio.
If you take it just a little step farther, you're
describing the New England Patriots. They were in every Super
Bowl or AFC Championship game. He always knew they were
the best team. They didn't always win it, you know,
eighteen and one certainly didn't. Doesn't hit the right way
(08:21):
for Patriots fans. But what did you have there? You
had a whole bunch of other teams that were really good,
and you had them be pushed, but you knew that
constantly they were going to be at or near the
top of the ladder. So you have this era of
Peyton Manning and the Colts trying to get through the
Patriots while the Patriots are there, and even if they
get to the Super Bowl, sometimes they're losing the Super Bowl.
These are all that's sort of the description that you're
(08:43):
giving there. Like the Celtics skull in this dominant run
where every year they're in the Eastern Conference finals or
they're in the Championship, but they lose a bunch of
those along the way, still gives people enough hope that
they feel like there's rooting for something like it's funny
just as a society, we want winners until they win
too much, like we want we want athletes to be
the greatest until they're so great that it gets boring,
(09:04):
Like we want world records until all they do is
set world records. It's just such a fine line on
what we want to gravitate towards more interest on it.
But I do think that maybe the model here is
to look at one team and say, man, I want
them to keep getting there and then not getting the
job done, which I mean, if we're being real, we
(09:25):
just lived with the Celtics for several years. Did their
championship right now? Feels kind of good in everybody's hearts
if you're not a Celtics sater, because you're like, yeah, look,
these guys put in so much time together, like all
of these different you know, it feels good that they
finally won one. If they could keep now getting into
that cycle where they lose, they win, they lose, they win,
that might be the best thing for general interest.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
But also part of the general interest part of it,
I think.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
And the Celtics are a great example because this was
what year seven of Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum and
how many people for the last two off seasons have
been talking about blow this thing up.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Clearly a doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
It was like, how do you say something doesn't work
with two guys who are under the age of twenty
five years old, have been together for six years. That's
just the microwave society that we live in. There's a
level of accomplishment if you're a Celtic fan today, you know,
coming off of that parade a few weeks ago and
then winning a championship, there's a part of you that
appreciates that they grew from those poor experiences losing to
Miami in the conference finals a couple of years.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You know, all the issues that they've had.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You feel like you accomplished something, you grew through, something
you went through all of the issues that they went
through at the same time. Just being able to wake up,
roll over and sign the heatles together and start winning
championships two years later, it just feels different. It feels
a lot different as opposed to a team that you actually,
you know, saw go through the growing pains and actually,
you know, win together, learn how to win together and
(10:39):
grow together. I think as a fan, just from an
individual team standpoint, it hits a little bit differently when
your team that you saw go through the battles and
actually grow into a champion, as opposed to a team
that was just ready made slap together through a bunch
of free agents and actually wins a championship. And I
think it's probably more subconscious if you're not a team
a fan of an individual team, but you sort of
feel that way too, the fact that Boston can stick
(11:01):
it out and actually build something, because it tells you
if you're Oklahoma City or if you're another smaller market
team that doesn't necessarily draw in free agents, if we
draft the right guys put the right guys around them.
You know, Boston didn't do anything special. They didn't sign
any major free agents, the Horfords and the Porzingises, and
they trade it for all those guys.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
They were sore. There's a method to be able to
do it.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
They showed that through patients and shrewd drafting and trades
they can get it done. And if they can do it,
why not us.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I do think I'm left to wonder constantly what would
have happened to the Bulls when they couldn't get past
the Pistons. If Twitter had existed in that era, if
twenty four to seven people yelling about wasted teams had
existed in that era, what would have happened to one
of the greatest teams in franchise and sports moments we've
ever seen in our lives, if we hadn't been, if
(11:55):
we've been in a society that's as impatient as this
one is. Now, that's the factor we have to remember
sometimes and want and I want people.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
To stop saying, like Michael Jordan got criticized. There was
this column in USA Today and he was called the
ball hog. Yes he was sure. All of that is
turned up by a trillion today. You know, you had
to wait a week for USA Today to come out.
At that point in time, living in Chicago, you didn't
get the whatever that was put in a column in
the La Times or something.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You probably didn't even see it, or the New York Post.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
It's so much different nowadays because all these guys are
on social media. They see all the criticism that they get,
and they get constantly reminded of it every single second
of every single day. And as much as you say, oh,
I just turn social media off and ignore it, it's
easy for you to say that, it's much more difficult
to do in practicality, and so you're right. I do wonder,
I do wonder how that would have hit if we
(12:45):
had the sort of media exposure. Now, if we hadn't been,
I should say, as we have.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Now, every single TV in America wasn't on USA today
in every airport, like right, I would just tell you
fly once and look at all of the TVs, and
as you walk through the airport, ask how everybody shuts
that noise off in the meantime. It raises speaking of
all of this TV exposure, it raises a real question.
The amount of exposure right now that we give all
of these athletes raises a question about marketing. Is it
(13:15):
a league's responsibility to market their stars or a star's
responsibility to market their leagues. We'll answer that next, But
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tirerac dot com. The way tire buying should be. Who
(14:19):
markets who? We'll figure it out. Next. It's Kevin Figures,
Jason Fitz We're in for Camino and Rich.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
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Speaker 2 (14:36):
Hey, it's Ben, host of the Fifth Hour with Benmaller
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A world where we chat with captains of industry in media, sports,
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Speaker 1 (14:56):
Every week explore some.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Amazing facts about human nature and Lit's en to The
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Speaker 3 (15:06):
We're back on Covino and Rich coming at you live
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Just search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
(15:28):
You'll see the show posted right after we get off
the air. I'm Jason Fitz hanging out with Kevin Figures.
I don't know figure why I got so happy there.
It just feels like, you know that getting Figury with it?
Is that? Are we doing? That? Is that a thing now?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Getting figured with geez, I haven't heard that before. That's
a first.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
That was perfect. You know you're you're you're lying right,
like you've heard that your whole life.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
I had my entire life getting figured with it. Do
you love fig Newton's kell choking or you figured that
one out? Even though it's not figures, it's figures. I've
heard them all, Trust me.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I get a lot of if the shoe fits, Yeah,
that's clever. Yeah, that's goods. You know, like I get
that too, you know it's yeah, there's not much. You
know what He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason Fitzen. We're better
than that. We're petter than that. You know what we are,
we're stars, And as stars, I can't even.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Say that, at least at least in our own minds,
we are.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, I'm mom, I'm a star.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
How about that?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah? My dog thinks I'm a star. That counts for something, right?
As stars, I get this. You know, sometimes what happens
is there's a line in marketing. And I bring this
up because Joey Chestnut, you know, obviously was on everybody's
mind yesterday with the fourth of July, and you think
about stars We talked earlier about Tiger and golf, and
then we talked constantly about baseball. And the funny thing
(16:39):
is we sit here there's a common ism that we hear,
I'm fixing baseball of Well, they've got to do a
better job of marketing they're stars. I would argue VIGGI
that the w NBA for years has tried to market
their stars. They finally inherited stars that came with a
large audience in Caitlin Clark, Angel recent others that came
with just a bigger following that was paying attention to
(16:59):
all of it. And as a result, I don't think
the WNBA and Kathy Engelbert the commissioner suddenly got brilliant
at marketing. I think they hit a home run. Like
sometimes you get people that are so massive that they
bring with them whatever following you could possibly want, and
all you have to do is tenderly take care of
that following. That's where I think sometimes we look at
this and say, well, major League Baseball's got to market
(17:21):
their stars. Hockey's got to market their stars. Connor McDavid
is one of the best players in the world wise
and not being marketed better all of these things. Well,
there's a line here. Sometimes I don't know that in
today's world, you can even market people have to find them,
fall in love with them. Sure, you can put them
on some TV shows. But we've even talked about like
there's no one set answer to that, Like we say
(17:41):
market your stars, like there's a blueprint on that. That
makes sense when reality is you can run all the
commercials you want all day long. People got to gravitate
to someone, fall in love with someone, and it's like
lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Yeah, generally it's a perfect storm, a combination of things
as to why something takes off and someone ends up
becoming a face of a sport as someone who transcends
a sport. Now, I'll be honest fits most of the time,
it's less about what they say, campaigns and all that.
It's really about how excellent they play. Lebron James was
never the most charismatic, you know, talker. He wasn't out
there being brash and loud. When he came out as
(18:13):
his eighteen year old phenom, people were mesmerized by him
because you had never seen somebody that big, that physical,
that fast do the sort of things that he did.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Steph Curry the same situation.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Never really the most you know, crazy personality, saying a
bunch of weird sound bites, doing a bunch of things
to grab attention. He just balled, He just hit a
bunch of three pointers and took Davidson on a deep
run to the tournament, and all of a sudden started
hitting you know, fifty foot threes like it was a
layup and nobody had ever seen it before, and it became,
you know, a house of fires, similar to Caitlyn Clark.
Nobody had seen what someone do that in the women's
(18:44):
game before. You could have the most brash and crazy personality.
All you want, I really think, really is the standard
of performance from the individual player that allows them to
transcend the sport and become a superstar. And I think basically,
really the way that baseball's built doesn't really necessarily make
it for that to happen. You'd almost need to have
somebody that have like the Soulsa MacGuire situation happen again,
(19:05):
where somebody's coming out and hidding seventy five home runs.
That's just in today's baseball, even at what the emphasis
on home runs the way that it is that's just
not gonna happen. So it's going to be really difficult
for baseball specifically to find someone who's a transcendent talent.
And I used Shoel Tani as an example because he
would basically fit that mold, who's as spectacular hitting for power,
(19:26):
hitting for average. If he played in the outfield, he'd
probably be a great outfielder. He can pitch, obviously he's
not pitching this season, But there's a language barrier that
certainly doesn't help. But even if there wasn't one, I
still wonder, even if they marketed the hell out of them,
how much of a dent it would actually make.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
There is a such a truth to what you said,
because I just think about quarterbacks right like, right now,
we could argue that Travis Kelsey has become the face
of the NFL because of the Taylor Swift, but I
would argue that Patrick Mahomes is the current face of
the NFL, right And that doesn't come just because Patrick
Mahomes is likable. It doesn't even come because Patrick Mahomes
(20:03):
is likable and very good. It comes because Patrick Holmes
is likable. He's very good. He makes plays that are
easily digestible in highlight packages and frankly, he wins a
bunch of championships. If Patrick Mahomes was having the same
if he had the same career record as Josh Allen,
I don't know that we have the same reaction, right,
Like you gotta have some rings. So he gets the combination.
(20:24):
And look, your point on Steph is such a good one.
It's like it's this combination. And even when we look
at Caitlin Clark, it was this dominance with the way
that she played that was different than anybody had ever
seen at that point, with the way she shot and
the way that it came across, and it got people
fired up about it and they fall in love with it. Now.
I do think at some point for her to maintain
(20:46):
the level of superstar status she's on to continue to transcend,
she's gonna have to start winning a lot of games.
I do think that's an inevitability for her. But it
creates these easy to digest soap opera stories. We are
in a soap opera society. Like, if you can't sum
it up in a couple of lines in a way
that gets people super interested in it, it ain't gonna work. Right,
and that has to It takes some level of greatness.
(21:08):
It takes some level of you know, easy on the
eyes doesn't hurt for a lot of these stars. It
takes some level of right place, right time. It's all
of this stuff has to come together. And I think
you're kind of right. Like the way the baseball calendar works,
the way the sport works. The only thing that would
consistently get people to fall in love with the baseball
player now is amount of home runs that we thought
(21:30):
could never be accomplished before. And even at that, we
have to be honest. The first thing people will think is, well,
are they cheating? Are they knowing's something wrong? Because of
the past of the sport and earned skepticism. Skepticism would
make that difficult. It's so difficult for that sport.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
You know what you need in baseball, it might be
more difficult to manufacture this in baseball. Whether you have
to manufacture it or not, I guess if it happens naturally,
it's some sort of rivalry, some sort of good and
evil situation. You know what's saved the NBA back of
the day with this was bird versus magic, And to
a certain degree, I think to a small extent, as
well as big of a following with as Kaitlyn Clark
has and as great as she is, as spectacular as
(22:07):
she is to watch. Part of her narrative and part
of her legacy, at least early on right now, is
her rivalry if you want to consider it that with
Angel Reese, because Angel Reaes, rightfully or wrongly, is considered
to be some at least from a she's a villain,
or if you want to just say rival and just
say that whoever, there's no good or bad. They're just
rivals at this point in time, and everything that they do,
(22:28):
specifically when they play against each other, is magnified.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The WNBA, a sport like that, needs that.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
The NBA back in the day when they were tape
to land NBA Finals and nobody watched and no one cared,
and they were full of drug addicts, they needed magic
versus Bird. If the WNBA is going to take off,
more so than just Caitlyn Clark and her individual spectacular play,
she almost needs Angel Reese to sort of have that
exact same track and to build on some sort of
rivalry between the two of them, and that in and
of itself will end up, propping up the sport. I
(22:56):
really think that Major League Baseball could benefit from having
that sort of rival to a certain degree. In the
early two thousands, you had that with the Yankees and
the Red Sox, when both great franchises with great histories
were both excellent at the exact same time and played
each other in the playoffs every single year. Now, the
world is different now than it was in two thousand
and three. Even still, you wonder if that would make
much of a difference. But I do think a good
(23:18):
versus evil or a rivalry of sorts for a sport
that's trying to make end roles, you have built in
storylines already there that will draw in the casual fan
and that will ultimately hopefully turn into a diehard. So
I do think the WNBA has that going for them.
That helps Caitlyn Clark is the fact that she has
someone like an Angel Reese to play I guess the
good cop to the bad cop, or however you want
(23:38):
to call it.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, and look, I think it's clear that we're not
trying to say either person's a bad person at all.
This comes down to style makes fights in different to
different styles of play, But It's very reminiscent to me
at a time when they needed it. Of Magic versus Larry.
There were just very different styles and people fell in
love with one or the other, and that rivalry went
from college straight into the NBA, and it changed the
(24:01):
way the NBA was seen in the early eighties. And
it didn't mean that, you know that Doctor j wasn't
great before then, It just meant that it took all
of it to another level. And that's what we're seeing.
But that's not from the W doing anything smart with marketing.
It's just from the W being in the right place
at the right time. And that's I think the part
of this that we keep forgetting because it was not.
To be very clear, I remember distinctly the home run
(24:23):
summer between Sosa and McGuire and they were cutting into
national news like it'd be the middle of like we
only have the Tom Brocott news. They cut into it
because one of them was at bat and the two
of them. It wasn't Sosa or McGuire. It was Sosa
and McGuire that made that summer what it was, and
that's what they need. They don't need one like baseball
doesn't need one guy going after it. Baseball needs two
(24:45):
guys going after.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
It to recapture that right, and the problem is how
do you find that at this point? And really it
just really it's dueling franchises you need. It's almost as
if you need a great franchise like say the Dodgers
and the Yankees. You need this to go back to
like the fifties or something, or the forties whatever was,
and they just played each other all the time in
the World Series and there are star power on both sides,
left and right. That's almost like what you need if
(25:06):
you're trying to quote unquote save baseball from a marketing standpoint,
You need marquee players and marquee franchises to face each
other constantly and just have a constant battle back and
forth where one doesn't dominate the other. One gets one,
one gets another, one wins two in a row, one
wins another one, and you just sort of have that
sort of situation. We just haven't had that in baseball,
kind of like hockey to a certain degree, you know,
(25:27):
especially look with the expanded wildcard, we talk about parody
and dynasties. No sport really endingers the idea, the very
ideal of parody the Major League Baseball, because you can
have a dominant regular season, as the Dodgers have had
for a decade at this point in time, and have
it not matter whatsoever even as early as the first
round of the postseason. I mean, you want a sport
(25:49):
that's really built on randomness and who gets hot at
the right time. No other sport is like that the
Major League Baseball, and to a certain degree, the way
that it's built I think works to its detriment. We're
talking about cultivating rivalry, specif in the postseason.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Speaking of the rivalries in baseball, that everybody's gonna put
eyeballs on the home run Derby to be the savior
of all of this coming up, I'll tell you why
it absolutely can't be. But first, Figgy's got to get
us all cut up on the news and notes across
the world right.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Now, All right, Well, we had a couple of drama
field quarterfinal matchups in the year old twenty twenty four
tournament on Fox today about forty five minutes ago. You
have Portugal taking on France. They were scoreless in regulation
and an extra time the acts to goes to penalty kicks.
Ultimately it was Tao Hernandez of Franz who made the
game win. He kicked to give France the victory and
a semi final matchup against Spain, who defeated Germany two
(26:38):
to one in extras earlier in the day. Canada will
take on Venezuela tonight in the quarterfinals of the Copa
America tournament.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
You can watch that game on FS one at nine.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Eastern News out of the NBA, according to Sham Charania
of the Athletic forward Franz Wagner has agreed to a
five year contract with the Orlando Magic that could be
worth up to two hundred and seventy million dollars. In
the third round at Wimbledon, on the women's side, Cocoa
Golf of Madison Keys both won their third round matchups
in straight sets. On the men's side, top seed Atyanix
Center won his match in straight sets as well. In
(27:08):
a match that lasted nearly four hours. Callous Alkoraz defeated
Francis Tiafo in five sets, and Major League Baseball sales
A Zuki a home run for the Cubs. They defeated
the Angels five to one. Moments from now. The Mets
are in Pittsburgh taking on the Pirates. And speaking of
the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Yankees looking to
end a three game losing streak, they will take on
the Red Sox in Beantown. Batt'll tip off, kickoff, first pitch,
(27:29):
however you want to call it. At the top of
the hour. All right, back to the Cavino and Rich.
He's Kevin Figures.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I'm Jason fitzper In for the Guyscavino and Rich on
Fox Sports Radio, coming at you live from the tiraq
dot com studios. Everybody wants to make the home run
derby a constant savior, you know, like the slam dunk
contest is supposed to be the savior. Here's the thing.
I think we need to remember a couple of things.
What are All Star events really about? Who were they
actually for? Because I would argue twenty years ago the
(27:58):
All Star events were about the biggest stars coming in
a way that got casual fans involved. I don't think
that exists anymore. Maybe call me cold, call me callus,
call me cynical. I think at this point, if you're
a baseball fan, you're gonna watch a home run derby
probably no matter what if you're not a baseball fan,
it's not gonna resonate. Why, because we're desensitized to just
the normal process of hitting a batting practice Paul outside
(28:22):
of the stadium. I don't think you can hit it
in a way anymore that's gonna get people gravitating to
it if you really want it to happen. To what
Figgie was just talking about earlier, I don't think it's
even just team v team. I think it's two players
taking on the best of the best that are absolutely
chasing each other for some sort of a landmark we
never thought would be reached. Those are the things that
we flock to. Those are the things we gravitate towards
(28:44):
in every sport other than football. For whatever reason, the
NFL can just they can roll out Titans Jags and
both teams be terrible on a Thursday night. We'll eat
that up like it's going out of style. Major League
Baseball could give you the two best teams with the
two best players three straight nights in a row, and
most of y'all aren't gonna wat So how do you
get it to happen? I think whether we're talking about
hockey or whether we're talking about soccer or whether we're
(29:05):
talking about the w at some point it takes real
competition and real things that people don't think that they
can miss. How do you create the environment where somebody says,
I have to watch that. I can't just look at
the highlights. I have to see that. The home run
derby can no longer get that sort of love. In
my mind, it can no longer get that sort of spark.
It's going to take a summer of absolute magic from
(29:26):
a team or a player that is unprecedented for everybody
to drop what they're doing and pay attention. Figure.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Well, the difficult part about the home run Derby is
I mean it's standalone.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
There's literally nothing else on.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
I mean, this is like the dead is three or
four days in sports, is around the Major League Baseball
All Star Game. And if people aren't watching the home
run Derby, it's like, what does that say about your products?
Like and they're going the loan dude, They're going, I guess, so,
you know, I mean, you can only gimmick it up enough.
Like I've heard people throw out a bunch of like
weird like, oh, let's have starting pitchers competing the home
run Derby. It's like, yeah, I'm sure teams would sign
(29:56):
off on that, as fun as it sounds, and it's different.
You know, you want to actually have some actual spirit
of competition, of realism. I still believe if you actually
had stars who are willing to go out there, legitimate
stars from the teams. You know, whether it's I can't
say Mike Trout now he's injuredy, he's not the same player,
but certainly Showyo Tani who's already turned down the home
run Derby, or Aaron Judge who's already turned down the
(30:17):
home run Derby. If you have those sort of figures
and you promote the heck out of that. If I
know now, then I got a couple of weeks or
a week ten days to promote, Hey, come see the
biggest stars in Major League Baseball. You know, show off
who's the best, who has more power? Like there's a
you can get a campaign behind it. But if you
don't know the best players actually out there competing, and
it's some backup third basement from wherever, there's just no
(30:39):
cash aid to it. So why am I going to
go out of my way to watch a guy that
I've never heard of do something you know in a
competition that he's probably not even going to win that thing.
That's the difficult part that baseball has competing against, and
the NBA Dunk Contest is kind of fighting that same fight.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Well, I think the other part of the Dunk Contest
that is just very realist. What can you show somebody
at dunk how many how many people can you jump
over before it's like, yep, we've seen that. How many
spins can you do before? It's like yep, we've seen that.
Like it's so cachet, Like everything is just feels like
it's been done Blase I should say, it's been done
over and over and over again. So it's like, all right,
(31:15):
you want me to tune in and watch a guy
that's throwing a ball that's sort of lofted at him,
or that's hitting the ball that's sort of lofted at him,
just to see how hard he can hit it. Like,
there just has to be some other element to it
to get me interested. That's why I always at least
dug the Quarterback Challenge sort of stuff that they showed you,
because at least there was a moving target or it
feels like a video gamer, they're doing something you don't
(31:36):
usually see them do. Like, I respect the fact that
as much as the Pro Bowl game is trash, at
least like we got dodgeball with a bunch of fat guys,
like make it interesting at some point, you know, at
least there's some effort at that point to say, hey,
we're going to show you more from our guys in
ways that hopefully you gravitate towards. But I just don't know,
like if I'm just staying, if I'm watching a baseball
(31:56):
player hit them all far when they're just standing there
with the ball that's being lofted at them, what the
hell likes fact, it just feels like what we always see.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And look, there's an element of the certain fans who
will say, this is what the home run debby is,
this is what it always has been. It's okay with me.
I don't care if other people aren't watching. I'm watching.
And it's like, well, that's not really how business works either.
They want to do whatever it takes to get the
most eyeballs as they possibly can, and if this ends
up being a diminishing, you know, return on a product,
major League Baseball is going to recognize that that's an
issue and that they're gonna have to Look, they've already
(32:24):
saw of shaken things up by putting time limits and
certain amount of swings on all of this, because I mean,
there back in the day, rounds would just last forever,
you know, so even they have figured out that they
have to end up making tweaks to it. Now to
your point, you know, there's only so much that you
can do. When the goal is a pitch slowly thrown
up to the home plate and a guy hits it. U,
let's see how far I can hit it. I will
say there's at least an element of creativity. Now, granted
(32:47):
we're getting further and further away from it because there
is only so much that you can do. There are
elements of creativity that you can put in a slam
dunk contest to sort of make it somewhat interesting, but
when it comes to the home run derby, it's kind
of just a lot of the same. Which again, the
only thing that you can do to try to encourage
more viewership or more interest is have bigger names or
maybe do like an old timer's home run derby yourself,
(33:08):
and they're bringing that's enough. Look, take a gimmick and
try to gimmick it up even more. That's really the
only saving grace that you would have to try to
draw in more eyeballs. I don't know if it will work,
but it will work better than what you're doing right now.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Yeah, and look, I hear you. When so many fans
will say we don't care, we don't care. Again, I'll
go back to what John Taffer has said so many
times on Bar Rescue when he's coming in and changing
the menu and a manager will say, well, I don't
want to lose my regulars, and his without response, without hesitation,
his response is always, if your regulars were enough, I
wouldn't be here, right. And I do think that that's
(33:40):
what we sometimes forget, Like it's not about what baseball
is losing, or any sports losing in the month of
July particularly, it's about the opportunity lost to not growing.
There's nothing right now that is going to take everybody's
mind and just shift us all to focusing on this
one sport. And there should be. Whether as we've started
(34:01):
this conversation repeatedly, whether it's been about the Olympics, whether
it's been about the men's national team and their fails
so far this summer, whether we're talking about you know,
the fact that baseball can't gravitate like look, Summer League
in Bronni is going to get more attention than any
actual sports that are happening right now, and training camp
opening at the end, NFL practices with pads on are
(34:21):
going to get more focused than actual games with actual
results right now. To me, that's just it's not about
the fact that your sport, whatever anybody's favorite sport is,
it is dying. It's about the opportunity lost by not growing. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Well, and I will say when it comes to the
All Star aspect of this discussion, it affects every single league.
Even the Pro Bowl for the NFL gets buokoo numbers,
but compared to other NFL games, it gets nothing. So
all Star games in general, there's just not the fervor
for them like it used to be because all of
these sports are global because you can see every single
team every single night. Baseball has lost its magic because
(34:55):
American League versus National League is no longer a thing.
Everybody plays everybody every single season and now so the
element of magic is lost there. So people just it's
just the novelty's not there anymore so when it comes
to All Stars specifically. Now, baseball has other issues as
far as far as their regular season and viewership and
interest goes, and we can discuss that as well, But
from an all Star standpoint, it's affecting every league.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah, it is. It's an interesting debate and there's not
a real simple answer to it. That being said, there
are simple answers that we will figure out. But first,
you know, the simplest thing that we got to tell
you about is the one feeling that I know more
than anything. It's the electric buzz of game day all
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just go check out graduate hotels.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
A stay gradual hotels is like stepping onto the field
in those college towns.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
No doubt, Figgie, it absolutely is. In fact, I've been
to a bunch of them, and each one of them
mirrors the personality of the campus that they're near. It's incredible.
And Covino, I'm rich going to be at the brand
new Auburn location broadcasting live Friday, September twenty seventh for
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saw them in Nashville at the Graduate Hotel. Their absolutely
(36:03):
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So keep the game day spirit alive in book your
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Speaker 3 (36:25):
Graduate Hotels. Because a graduate, we are all students. He's
Kevin Figures, I'm Jason Fitz. We're gonna figure out some
holiday issues. Coming up next on Canbino and Rich.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Scabino, I'm Rich on Fox Sports Radio, Kevin Figures,
Jason Fitz coming at your live from the Tirak dot
(36:57):
com studios. Little funky, funky, funky figgy figgy funk. Like
with that if Kevin Figgers was in a funk band,
that's a pretty good name.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, I like it pretty fully. I was talented enough
to play an instrument that would work.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Well, you know what, you look good? You just stand
up there, look good.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Now music go on a violin? Can you do that?
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit. You gotta get you
gotta get pass some things. I so get a violin player.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Probably it was like an electric violin I Farlament had
like nine thousand members.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
So look, everybody has an electric violin player now. But
I will say years ago, I was playing in between
periods of the Nashville Predators because he used to put
a band up in between periods. And I'm a big
hockey fan and went to the first ever Preds game.
So at the time, uh they were they were selling
the team, and my friend was running the entertainment. She
called and said, hey, I need a band in between periods.
Can't pay, like I just we got to have a band.
(37:49):
It's what we've always done. But we have no money.
It's just free tickets. And so I was like, okay.
So before every home game I would call my buddies
around Nashville at the time and I'd say, hey, who
wants to play the hockey game? Had some buddies that
are big hockey fans. We go and we would sit
there in between period. During the first period, for example,
we'd be like, all right, what songs do we want
to play? You only have to do like ten minutes
of music. And so I figured, like I always looked
at it. I didn't get stressed because I looked at
(38:09):
it like, you know, if the seventeen thousand people they
were either going to love you or hate you no
matter what, there was nothing we're gonna do. That changed
my mind. But we used to cover Superstition a lot.
Stevie Wilker and I like to play all the horn
parts from Superstition on a violin, Like that's one thing.
It's like a party trick, you know. I like taking
non violin things and playing them on a violand did
that with Hotel California, with the guitar solos live for years,
(38:30):
all that sort of stuff. So I'm playing, and I'm
playing like the let me tell you I was. I
was playing and singing it like so back then I
used to sing a lot too, and I was doing
a pretty dark good job of it, Like Superstition was
something I did pretty well, right, So I'm doing Superstition
I'm playing all the horn parts on the fiddle out
like I'm going for it, right, Vince Kill Country music legends,
sitting about ten rows ahead of where I'm playing. He
(38:52):
just turns around. Is I'm doing the boom, but I'm
doing that whole section right, I'm killing on the violin.
Vince Skill just turns around, rolls his eyes and shakes
his head with tremendous disapproval. So every time now I
think about the violin playing funk, I just think about,
you know, me playing Stevie Wonder and icon and influence
to me, and having Vince Gill, the legend, roll his
eyes at me. So I don't know, figure, maybe I
(39:13):
shouldn't have done it. Maybe I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
You know, I feel like Stevie would have loved your rendition,
and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
So I'll take it.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Although that's it's all blowing Vince Gill, a legend like
Vince Gill does shake his head in shame.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
That's a tough one to swamp.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Well, you know, he can't win them all.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
You can't. Not everybody's going to be a fan of everything.
So it's fine, you know that Vince. Vince is a legend.
That's all I'll say about that. He's kept figures. I'm
Jason Fitz. We've had a legendary several hours hanging out
with you. But if you missed the show earlier today,
we had a heated argument about the top four holidays.
We decided we were going to take it to the people.
We created our own committee, like the college football committee.
(39:49):
We came to a vote, and we ended up with
a grouping of four holidays that none of us like.
So we have Christmas is one we unanimously decided on that.
Halloween ended up two thanks to me in Iowa Sam.
The rest of the room did not like that. Thanksgiving
ended up three thanks to Shay and thanks to Figgy,
and then all of a sudden, Fourth of July ended
up four, and like that one wasn't even on my list. Boys,
(40:12):
We've had hours to decompress on this. I don't think
we nailed it. I just want to I really want
to take a moment here and just say, if I
had to speak on behalf of the committee, the first
thing I would say at the press conference to everybody
when they're like, how did you guys come through? This ranking,
figy would be I don't know what happened. Everything got wrong,
it got weird, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
See if Bill Hyncock set that in front of everybody
we respect him so much more, was like, look, man,
it was a giant cluster.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
All right, we still got to go back and meet
some more.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
I don't know what to tell you instead of throwing
out a bunch of bs that we all know is untrue.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
And by the way, now we understand exactly.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
What those committees are experiencing in those rooms and why
it takes so long.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
And they deliberate.
Speaker 4 (40:46):
They have to deliberate about the futures of these college
football programs, and we can't agree about Christmas versus the
fourth of July.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Well, and as I've said before, if you got thirteen diffriends,
thirteen people on the committee and you said, all right, guys,
all we have to do today is I think the
top pizza place is in town, you'll end up not
having thirteen friends at the end of the night. Right,
everybody will hate each other. That's just that's true. Now.
It does bring me though, to one thing that I
think the committee should do. I think after the rankings
are done, nobody should speak for the committee. I think
(41:14):
that they should open that room up. Every single committee
member should have a microphone, and the press should be
able to ask each of them the how and the why,
like because I would have no problem standing up and saying, hey,
I didn't I didn't want Thanksgiving on my list, but
other people had it at number two. I had it
around number five, number six for me, so you know
that that's where that's where it landed, and we as
a group couldn't come to a consensus, like, at least
(41:35):
then I would understand the process if every member actually
spoke in that moment.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
The problem is it's going to hit somebody's ego.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
If everybody runs over to Ward man you're like, oh man,
you guys made the playoff?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yet, what's going on? How did this?
Speaker 4 (41:45):
And then somebody's sitting in the corner like Chris All.
It's like when nobody wants to talk to me, like
I had to say in this too. I'm just it's
like when you open up the locker room and now,
not granted, some guys might just want to sneak out
of the back door and just like, oh, thank goodness,
I dodged that bullet go talk to Jim grob Let
him deal with it.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I don't want nothing to do with it. That will be.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
It opened up an interesting dynamic if they did it
that way. I'm actually interested they should do it that way.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
I'm with you, No, it's it's interesting because we put
the committee chair every year and I've had to interview
him multiple times. I've done that for the ranking show
that I did ESPN for years. We had him every
week and you could see the defeat in his face
when you knew that there were just questions he couldn't answer.
And it's not that he wouldn't answer them, it's just
how do you answer the simple well, why did you
(42:24):
guys come to that consensus? And he's going to come
in and give you the same Well, it's not about
any one thing, it's about all the things, because that's
all he can say at that point. So all I
can say to all of you is that you should
hang out with the Fellas tomorrow morning, five am to
nine am. Figgie and I are joined, of course by
Anthony Gargano to have a wild, wild weekend show for you.
(42:45):
So be sure to hang out with us tomorrow morning.
We've had a blasketing to hang out with you. He's
Kevin Figures on Jason Fitz. Thanks to Sam, Thanks to Shay.
Thanks for hanging out with Comino and Rich on Fox
Sports Radio.
Hosts And Creators
Rich Davis
Steve Covino
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