
Hello! It's the podcast that has always claimed Hailee Steinfeld as one of its own. Today, the host of "Pablo Torre Finds Out", Pablo Torre joins Katie [5:08] to talk about the never-ending cycle/scandal of Belichick-Hudson news, the Thunder blowing out the Timberwolves on their way to the NBA Finals, the Knicks' premature celebration, the awkward state of both Jim Dolan stans and KAT impressions, the illogical beauty of New York firefighters, the unsupportable hot streak of the Florida Panthers, Isabella and Pablo's Mount Rushmore of Filipino Athletes, Tom Brady's Hall of Excellence and the definition of "museum", Michael Jordan's return to TV, the Caitlin Clark discourse, the small group of true "appointment viewing" athletes today, the end of Around the Horn, and the beginning of Pablo's OnlyFans career. Maybe. And REMEMBER! Casuals is on the road for a live episode THIS SATURDAY 5/31 at the WBUR Festival in Boston. For tickets, head to WBURFestival.org and use promo code "Casuals"
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Katie Nolan
Hey, Isabella, did you hear about the local news anchor in Albany who went ahead with a three hour morning newscast while she was actively in labor?
Pablo Torre
What?
Isabella
How many. How. What is it called?
Katie Nolan
How.
Isabella
Her contractions.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, this says that her labor contractions began and her water broke. She said, we do have some breaking news this morning. Or her co anchor, Julia. This woman's name who did this was Olivia Jaquith. Jaquith. And her co anchor, Julia Dunn, said, we do have some breaking news this morning. Literally, Olivia's water has broke. She is anchoring the news now in active labor.
Isabella
And did she look okay or was she kind of like, oh, like, I can handle for a little bit.
Katie Nolan
She said, I'm happy to be here and I'll stay on the desk for as long as I possibly can, but if I disappear, that's what's going on. She said she'd rather pass the time at her job than, quote, nervously waiting around at a hospital.
Isabella
Honestly, I could see that.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Isabella
Especially because I hear that, like, when you're in labor, especially the early stages, it's like. And you're just sitting there in the hospital bed for a really long time. Why not distract yourself anchoring the news?
Katie Nolan
Yeah. I mean, a real testament to who she is as a person.
Isabella
I hope she got paid, like, overtime.
Katie Nolan
I doubt it. You know what? I'm just gonna take a swing, a wild swing, and guess. No. They probably don't have any sort of policy in mind to keep a woman overly.
Isabella
She's like, I'm starting my maternity leave right now.
Katie Nolan
Right. That is. You won't catch me. I wouldn't do. I barely even want to do this show when I got a stuffy nose.
Isabella
I mean, shout out to her.
Katie Nolan
Shout out to her. Woman of the week.
Isabella
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
New thing we're doing. You invented a new segment. Woman of the Week.
Isabella
Katie Nolan.
Katie Nolan
What? Me?
Isabella
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
No, her.
Isabella
No, I'm saying you could be. I don't know. I'll take it next week.
Katie Nolan
Sorry.
Isabella
Woman of the year.
Katie Nolan
Sorry. Olivia. Mine now.
Isabella
Just get pregnant right now. No.
Katie Nolan
What? Hi. Hi. Welcome to Casuals. I heard I'd been yelling hello too much. People don't love it, so. Hi. Welcome to Casuals, the podcast that is nice and quiet. ASMR for the entire time. That's. And that bit is over. I'm Katie Nolan. I'm your host, joined today by the casualties, although they won't be saying much. Isabella, Chris Brady. They're all here. They're all here. And they're all excited because today we have a wonderful illustrious guest, my dear friend Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre finds out on Meadowlark Media. Just a wonderful guy who I've worked with a million times currently on his show a lot for free. So he's finally returning the favor. He's here. We're going to talk about a wide range of things which we will get to in a second. First, I have to tell you that if you want to email us, you can do so with at Casuals with Katie nolan gmail.com voicemail 646-801-0043 don't forget we yesterday or two days ago instituted this new if you see something crazy in sports, call us. Leave a voicemail that's like, did you guys just see that? Anything real, like a. A televised sporting event. A sporting event you were at in person. Your, your nephew's little league game. Did you guys see that and explain what happened? That's 646-810-0043 on IG and tick tock. We are at Casuals, the podcast. You can still probably get some tickets. I don't know. I haven't paid attention to the sales of tickets at all. I don't know if we have access to the information, Brady, but you can probably still get tickets to see our live podcast recording that we're doing on Saturday at Bucks. Where do they go, Brady? WBUR festival.org use promo code CASUALS. That's right. You can do that. Come see us. That episode will air as our Tuesday episode next week, but we are recording it on Saturday live with a guest. A guest will be there. It'll be a surprise to all of us. What else? Any other business before we get. We're skipping the yap today. I'll just reduce it to a sentence, I guess. If you're a sports fan who's familiar with NBA Sentel and the fake accounts that tweet out things that appear to be news, you have to reach out to your WNBA fans, anybody who's a newer sports fan or who's a new WNBA fan. And you have to let them know what Sentel is. Because a lot of them. I'm seeing a lot of newer sports fans getting caught up in fake news that they're reacting to. And then a bunch of people who are aware of the situation are being like, so come on you guys, tighten up. We got to protect our brethren, our new newer sports fan brethren. It's not a real account. The news they're saying is not real. And it's tailor made to make you engage with it. So that it can be profitable. So watch out. Head on a swivel out there on social media. Truly across the board. All right, let's waste no more time. Let's get into the conversation, a great conversation we had about all sports with my dear friend Pablo Torre. Hi, Pablo.
Pablo Torre
Hello.
Katie Nolan
Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre finds out. See this? Cute, huh?
Pablo Torre
Knf I. To say that it's a pleasure to be here is understating it.
Katie Nolan
Let's do it.
Pablo Torre
I owe you a debt. Financial, emotional, cosmic.
Katie Nolan
Not true.
Pablo Torre
As. As somebody that I demand without any explanation to. To join ptfo, to be here on knfo.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Is. Is just, it's only, it's. It's overdue, let alone justice.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, yeah. And I'm paying you to be. I'm just kidding. I'm not, I'm not going to do that.
Pablo Torre
Oh, well, that's.
Katie Nolan
I feel like. Up top. Let's just talk. Let's update everybody, because Pablo is probably the leading reporter on the for better and for worse, Bill Belichick Jordan Hudson saga. But I. I don't want to spend the whole podcast talking about this.
Pablo Torre
Should I not bring the box that I need you to open to this episode?
Katie Nolan
I miss my friend. The last few times we've talked, it's only been about these two. But because you are the leading, you know, reporter on this, I. It would. I'd be remiss to not ask. Where do we stand on that? What is the latest on it? You uncovered in our podcast, right. That he. The relationship dates back maybe further than people thought. You found her in the crowd at Gillette Stadium in what year? The.
Pablo Torre
November 2021.
Katie Nolan
Right. So. And then at that time she would have been how old?
Pablo Torre
She would have been a freshly turned 20.
Katie Nolan
Huh.
Pablo Torre
Cause she was, as the episode before that established was 19 when they met in April 2021 on that JetBlue flight to Palm Beach, Florida.
Katie Nolan
Do you know when she dated the guy before that? The 60 year old guy?
Pablo Torre
That guy? Joshua L. Zuckerman, who leaves some great Vivino wine reviews.
Katie Nolan
He sure does.
Pablo Torre
That guy should be a little concerned that people are asking this question.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, doing the math.
Pablo Torre
Not a lot of room left, just mathematically speaking. Yeah, it's a tight squeeze to fit all of this into a just legal framework, so to speak.
Katie Nolan
You are done reporting on this now or what?
Pablo Torre
I could not be less done.
Katie Nolan
Okay, cool. So no.
Pablo Torre
So what I'm trying to do is not spoil what is probably going to happen to you in the coming weeks again. Sorry, sorry, but I mean, when I say this. I say this not even with pride, but with just, like, almost a resignation.
Katie Nolan
Yes.
Pablo Torre
That every day I am talking to somebody who is telling me something that I didn't know before.
Katie Nolan
That's wild.
Pablo Torre
And it's just one of those stories. It's just. It keeps on going. And look, I. I'm not saying that to threaten anyone either. I just cannot stress enough how this is a tragic comic mess around which I am now this strange lighthouse for people to be like, I think he wants to know about this.
Katie Nolan
And you do.
Pablo Torre
And unfortunately, I absolutely do.
Katie Nolan
You're just a gossipy boy.
Pablo Torre
I love tea.
Katie Nolan
You do?
Pablo Torre
I love. I love to know what's going on that people don't want me to know.
Katie Nolan
That you love finding out.
Pablo Torre
I love Katie. I don't want to be here, though.
Katie Nolan
What?
Pablo Torre
Well, that was Clip that. I agree that I don't want to be here, comma, though, comma.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
To merely talk about the stuff that I will inevitably torture you with.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
You. You led with it. I. I miss unstructured hangs.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And I've been forcing you into structured, terrifying hangs.
Katie Nolan
Journalists actually confessed to our listeners the. Before I was leaving to come do the second installment.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Of the Jordan Hudson. And I said, he scares me when he does this because I go in blind. Michael and I both go in blind. And at any point, you could tell me something that's, like, crazy, and I have to, like, live react, and then have people who are reacting to it watch me react and react to my reaction. It's very stressful.
Pablo Torre
So good, though.
Katie Nolan
It's very.
Pablo Torre
So good at. At reacting authentically.
Katie Nolan
I'm trying. I also am trying to be charitable in the sense of I don't want to have to. I don't want to be part of, like, some witch hunt on a young woman. I try to give it a charitable reading, but I also am like, what's go. What is this?
Pablo Torre
Yes.
Katie Nolan
You love tea.
Pablo Torre
Yeah. I mean, you guys. You and Michael. It's just funny that, like, at some point in the. In the story of our friendship, you and mine, of course, predating Michael being in this tripod. But, like, as we've discussed also previously on. On my show, we went to dinner at his house, and there was this thing of, like, guys, we don't need podcasting to hang out, and I've only betrayed.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
That gesture.
Katie Nolan
We've hung up, but makes us see each other more.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
So I'm like, I love it and.
Pablo Torre
I love it, and I won't apologize for loving it.
Katie Nolan
That's right. So let's talk about anything else. Yes, other than that. Usually we run through the sports news. These are a little bit tailored to what I'm interested in talking to you about. But we have to obviously start because we're in the postseason of two of our major, you know, four sports. The Thunder defeated the Timberwolves 124 to 94 in last night's Game 5, and in doing so, booked the franchise's first trip to the NBA Finals since 2012. They became the second youngest team, their average age is 25.6 years old, to advance to the Finals, trailing only the Trailblazers 7677 championship team. I'm sure you remember.
Pablo Torre
I'm just still thinking about the Jordan Hudson joke. I'm not making. What about the average age of this team?
Katie Nolan
You just find a way to work her into every story.
Pablo Torre
Free me.
Katie Nolan
So that game, a little bit of a disappointment. I feel like if we can say it, it's not.
Pablo Torre
It's not fun when the game is. Look, I went. So the take I have, which is a real hot one, is it's okay to say when a game is horrible because there's nothing dramatic about how it's going to end.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
I went to game six, Nick. Celtics, which is a million years ago now, but at the Garden, in which there was in a counterpoint to this 40 point lead. Nick's about to win. People partying, dancing, all of that outside of the Garden.
Katie Nolan
You mean Madison Square Garden? So not the Capital T. Capital T Garden?
Pablo Torre
No, I mean continue in the Garden of Eden. Is that who you're.
Katie Nolan
You're riding for the Boston Garden?
Pablo Torre
Not familiar at the Garden at. At the world's most famous arena as. As it says on the sign outside.
Katie Nolan
Well, you can put anything on a sign outside.
Pablo Torre
It is. It was something where I'm like, despite the blowout, everyone's so glad to be here. This felt like, yes, okay, congratulations to the Thunder. You're going to the NBA Finals. Great. And that is something that is a testament to. And I will say this with some shade, like a team that most embodies the modern NBA in terms of. This is a team that has exploited every plausible rule and inefficiency, whether it's Shay, Gilchrist, Alexander knowing how to be a foul merchant and being like a tax attorney on the court, basically trying to draw points in exchange for like these violations of the spirit of the law of what fouls are supposed to be, to how they drafted a zillion players. And have a zillion more picks, which is again, like doing the process better than even. I dare say the Philadelphia 76ers did it. On and on and on. It is sort of a very modern NBA success story. And also, that game sucked.
Katie Nolan
So, you know when the next day. One of the main stories everyone's talking about is how it's the, I think, like, longest tenured front office. That's when you're like, it's a front office story. You're like, yeah, but this. The game itself was clearly boring or else we wouldn't be talking about the suits.
Pablo Torre
It's kind of like when there's a D lineman. When they're advertising, like, Monday night football. It's like, all right, so the quarterbacks are hurt.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it happened. The thunder will play the winner of Pacers, Knicks. That game five of that is what tonight they can wrap it up at that aforementioned Garden. They're up. The Pacers are up 3:1, meaning the Knicks are down.
Pablo Torre
My Knicks fandom is like my Catholicism, as I like to say. I'm a buffet style Catholic. I'm a buffet style ancestral Knicks fan. I have been traumatized by it. I wish guilt in the process of trying to celebrate it. And I don't think I'm allowed at the gatherings where it's like, this is for the. For the true.
Katie Nolan
Because you're a 76ers fan.
Pablo Torre
Because I, I. I'm a priest of the process.
Katie Nolan
When did that happen?
Pablo Torre
It happened. So the brief thing on me.
Katie Nolan
He's from New York City, born and raised. He's a Yankees fan.
Pablo Torre
Walking distance from Madison Square Garden, sure. Yankees fan. Till today. Till through this very day, I remain a Yankee fan and literally was an altar server for the Yankees team chaplain, huh? At the epiphany parish, Shout out to my youth and to Father McMahon.
Katie Nolan
One of the good ones.
Pablo Torre
Truly one of the good ones. The Knicks, though, it was the Jeremy Lin thing. When they didn't, they basically said, go test the market. And he joined the Rockets and they didn't match. And it was just like, you guys just threw away the most fun that I've had as. As a Knicks fan. And I just hate Jim Dolan as what he is and does.
Katie Nolan
You love him as a musician, though?
Pablo Torre
I love his. As a bluesman.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. You love his hat?
Pablo Torre
I love his harmonica.
Katie Nolan
Yes.
Pablo Torre
I love his pork pie hat.
Katie Nolan
You love the song I should have known.
Pablo Torre
Oh, my God.
Katie Nolan
That he wrote about his friend Harvey Weinstein.
Pablo Torre
It's unbelievable that we can just access that song on a computer and play whenever we want.
Katie Nolan
Whenever we want with those backup singers and everything.
Pablo Torre
I'm going to walk out of the studio today and cue that up, please. And, and. And feel what it's like to be in a city that is desperately worried. If Jim stolen. If Jim stolen.
Katie Nolan
Like, like Attorney General. We have multiple.
Pablo Torre
Jim's Dolan Sports is run by Jim's Dolan. Multiple Dolan esque characters. Yeah. But look, the glory of the Knicks and what they could do. We saw it after game six aforementioned, which they blew out the Celtics and there was a party in the streets on 7th Avenue that was whatever. Extraordinary. Extraordinary. There were multiple spider men. Firefighters on a fire truck standing outside just, like, taking photos with people.
Katie Nolan
New York firefighters. May I pull an aside. Are like, like, like casted hot. They're like the attractive that the stereotype is. Every time I run into a New York City firefighter, I go, whoa, it's crazy.
Pablo Torre
They have. I mean, I presume there is a calendar. There must be, in which you can.
Katie Nolan
It's just shocking. I feel like I'm in a. I'm like in Truman show where I'm like, well, the firefighters aren't actually supposed to be this hot. They're all, like, attractive in, like, remarkable ways. Don't tell Dan.
Pablo Torre
I was gonna say, I don't know if Sodor's listening to this, but, hey, there's no.
Katie Nolan
I have no actual interest. It's just I'm remarking on the facts of the case, which are that they're hot. They're hotties.
Pablo Torre
And they have presumably a very acute sense of smell when it comes to gas leaks.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. And Dan, you know, no sense of smell.
Pablo Torre
Not trying to make the case against.
Katie Nolan
Sounds like you are. It sounds like you immediately went to Dan's only weakness.
Pablo Torre
What are some pros and cons, which.
Katie Nolan
Is that he can't smell hot guys.
Pablo Torre
Who can smell gas leaks.
Katie Nolan
Right. Dan, Hot. Hilarious, sweetie pie.
Pablo Torre
Who is a wonderful hang.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Just like one of his superpowers is what a great hang.
Katie Nolan
The person I want to spend all.
Pablo Torre
Of my time with while also slowly dying from a gas leak that you did not detect.
Katie Nolan
And you know what? At least we went out together. You know, take us both at once. Don't make me live without him.
Pablo Torre
So anyway, I hope the Knicks win it. It is funny that the city blew its load on, you know, making the Eastern Conference.
Katie Nolan
That was a crazy celebration. Do you feel like that was. They always talk about angering the basketball gods. Do you feel as though the Knicks may have angered the basketball gods by over celebrating and got immediately humbled. Or do you see it as like, they might not have made it any further? Good to celebrate while you can.
Pablo Torre
I think basketball God is dead.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Okay.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, exactly. I don't subscribe to such things.
Katie Nolan
Karl Anthony Towns has a kneecha contusion.
Pablo Torre
That's what they say.
Katie Nolan
So it's questionable for tonight.
Pablo Torre
Is it good, by the way? Is it good? I agree. It was funny. It was funny. Carl Towns, speaking of. Just like the stuff that happened on 7th Avenue. There was that video in which everyone's basically asked, like, can you do an impression? Your zestiest Carl Towns. Everybody does the same thing.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
How do you think Carl Towns feels about that?
Katie Nolan
I don't know. I've wondered this about a lot of the quote unquote, zesty Carl Anthony Towns content, because I do feel there are a lot of people on the Internet, specifically, who are getting a little comfortable using that word to replace a different word.
Pablo Torre
Yes.
Katie Nolan
And are sort of not on the side of allyship in terms of.
Pablo Torre
I agree.
Katie Nolan
And so I feel like it's teetering on the line of, like, this is entertaining, this is interesting. And also, like, this is sort of hateful and hurtful, but I don't know. And I haven't had to put my flag in the ground, and I don't think I'm going to because I'm not. I'm not in it enough to know.
Pablo Torre
But we're. We're categorizing it, though, I think, in a familiar zone where, like, Taco Tuesday lives.
Katie Nolan
Yes.
Pablo Torre
Where it's like, we are, I think, fine with LeBron doing that. But also, if you were to poll certain people, sure. I don't think they would. And I have, in fact, heard from Ryan Cortez. Shout out to. Cortez has long been like, what. How is the. How are we letting LeBron do, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why is that? Okay. Anyhow, Carl Towns, from a. Even the language of it aside, it's. It's the, like, man, this city loves you, but is also just ready to make fun of you.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. And that's New York. I feel like they're like, we love you. That's the part of it that I think made me go. You can kind of tell when you're watching the super cuts of who's doing it lovingly and who's doing it to try to be. It's like when they do a bad impression of Cat.
Pablo Torre
Right.
Katie Nolan
You go, well, you're not actually doing an impression of cat. You're doing an impression of a stereotypical gay guy.
Pablo Torre
Yes.
Katie Nolan
You're not doing actual cat.
Pablo Torre
Yep.
Katie Nolan
So I don't know. It's. It's layered and complex. But I think the results of the election mean we're not allowed to be upset about anything like that anymore.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
So I think we legally, lest we get silenced, I. Legally, we have to move on.
Pablo Torre
I have to bully myself for crossing my legs like this.
Katie Nolan
Yes, exactly.
Pablo Torre
Legally, you dusty leg cross.
Katie Nolan
You have to use a slur before the podcast is over.
Pablo Torre
Legally, I will. And by the end of this, you'll find one. I will.
Katie Nolan
Let's. Well, here's a great place to use when the Panthers beat the Hurricanes. God, do I hate the Florida Panthers so much.
Pablo Torre
Where are they on your list of stuff in hockey which you love hockey you love? Where are they on the list of.
Katie Nolan
Stuff you hate in that it's just fresh. It's fresh hate. Like I. My oldest hate is for the. The Habs, the Canadians. That's like the Bruins oldest most storied rivalry. But the. The Panthers have just very recently in Bruins good seasons ended them unceremoniously. And they're a team from Florida and they're a team whose fans are relatively new and like their fan base is growing but then they win a cup and all of them come out of the woodwork. So they're like perfectly engineered to fucking piss me off. It is a test of my patience how good the Florida Panthers are. Now they have my favorite hockey player who I've watched and connected with and identified with and defended for years. And now they're all saying I thought he sucked. He actually rules. And I'm watching these idiots who I hate tell me that Brad Marchand actually fun guy, good at hockey.
Pablo Torre
You've walked out of our office after taping a pod muttering about Brad Marchand before. Which is why I knew to ask that question.
Katie Nolan
I just love him so much.
Pablo Torre
But also yeah, look, by the way, the foremost best in class like enforcer, troll.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
So unquestionably somebody who wants you to have a reaction. I am curious whether it being Florida, a warm weather city just feels wrong to you.
Katie Nolan
Yes, in general Florida, because cocky like.
Pablo Torre
Northeastern weather is character building. And those who do not earn that shouldn't feel entitled to having hockey hockey glory.
Katie Nolan
That's a little bit more than I would say. I look especially with this casuals. I'm like trying to be the person who helps bring people in. I'm trying to gatekeep.
Pablo Torre
I'm Trying to put signs outside.
Katie Nolan
I have to keep reminding myself like, okay, a new fan base means these are the people that you're ostensibly talking to. And so I have to like couch my anger at that. In fact, I bumped into some content on the Internet of this girl secretly filming her mom. And the caption of the video is basically like, my mom just discovered hockey and now it's her whole personality. And it's this older woman talking about the Panthers. She's a Panthers fan, they're in Florida. She loves Brad Marchand and it's just her in all these different social situations, approaching people and non stop just like yapping about the Panthers. And I'm like, I would love this woman if she were anywhere else.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
I just. This team, she has like a fully bedazzled Panthers jersey. It's like, this is sick and awful at the same time. I'm wondering if I should hold out hope. Has it ever been. You know, they always say when somebody gets traded at the, in the middle of a season and it's just for the end of that season and they're like, they could always come back. They're a free agent at the end of this. Has anyone ever gone back?
Pablo Torre
Just think about every bit of a relationship advice you've given to a friend.
Katie Nolan
I know. It's like, you can't go home.
Pablo Torre
The only never works you and you. You, I think, are so on the, on the front lines of. You gotta be blunt with your friend.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Like that is your advice whenever stuff like this comes up, when I talk to you about it.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And yeah. Cold turkey. Like he's, he's gone.
Katie Nolan
I just have to accept that he's gone. I do hear people continue to say he might be back, he could come back. And I just feel like if he comes back, is it weird? Do they look at it? Is the front office, is the relationship what happens? I just. If he comes back, I want her to come with him. That new lady in Florida, I want her coming. I want a bedazzle Bruins jersey for her and I want her at the games.
Pablo Torre
You can't unsee the weird there. Look. Sports is littered with these examples of just like, oh, God, Patrick Ewing was on the Sonics.
Katie Nolan
I know.
Pablo Torre
I was on the Magic. It's just cursed, cursed memory images of.
Katie Nolan
Them in their, in their jerseys and stuff.
Pablo Torre
I can see it.
Katie Nolan
It took me a while to like watch any Panthers anything because I just seeing Brad Marchand in the pants, seeing him celebrate with the people I hate. There is that team. There is Sam. I do like Matthew Kachuk.
Pablo Torre
I do like one thing about the Panthers. I And it's. It's a most New York thing about them is that they celebrate with those rats. One of the great rituals. They throw rats on the ice. Like fake rats. But I guess originally maybe there's a real rat. I forget the origin story at this moment, but I'm just like. I kind of love that. I love I hockey. Not the biggest hockey fan. I'm a hockey casual. True. Like truly through and through. But the number of just like things you throw on ice.
Katie Nolan
Great octopuses, catfish.
Pablo Torre
Catfish.
Katie Nolan
Rats. Hats.
Pablo Torre
Hats. Yeah, we gotta do more of that. I know no other Outside the time the dildo was thrown into the end zone.
Katie Nolan
Buffalo Bills. Buffalo fans threw a dildo into the end zone playing the Patriots.
Pablo Torre
Yep. Oh, that's right.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Again, resisting joke. Illusion.
Katie Nolan
Good. And good for you.
Pablo Torre
We did do an episode though about Doo Doo. 23,000-year-old dildo involving a person who was maybe even in the building around that time, depending on the timeline. Technically, I can't recall.
Katie Nolan
Yes. The Panthers will face the winner of the Oilers star series. Game 5 of that might wrap it all up tonight at home. The Oilers are against the Dallas stars. Edmonton is 6 and 1 at home this post season. They outscore their opponents 33 to 17. It seems like it could be over. Have you watched any playoff hockey? You can just tell the truth. No one's going to be mad.
Pablo Torre
I had to do one last episode around the horn and for that I watched some hockey to prepare.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
I don't want to step on other things that I might want to unilaterally demand that we talk about, but I watched the Dallas Stars because they got some Filipinos on that team.
Isabella
Oh, oh, Filipinos, you say?
Katie Nolan
Let's just skip to it because it was almost next. Pablo, you have famously kept a. Don't want to say directory, a dossier, but a dossier of active and also former all.
Pablo Torre
Anyone who's ever even vaguely qualified for sports.
Katie Nolan
Anyone who's ever been an athlete and is Filipino. Correct.
Pablo Torre
Yep.
Katie Nolan
Do you still keep this today?
Pablo Torre
So progress. I measure in the difficulty that I have keeping track because now there's a lot very easy.
Katie Nolan
Yes.
Pablo Torre
But now there are multiple Dallas Stars where I'm like Jason Robertson and Matt Dumba are both Filipino in some. And again, many, many, many ask me but like that's like a. How Filipino are they?
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
And I'm. I'm a big one drop rule guy.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Right. I mean, great endorsement.
Pablo Torre
Don't clip it. Don't.
Katie Nolan
Don't aggregate that Pablo Big one drop guy.
Pablo Torre
But you give me. You give me a single sliver of a percentage, and I'm claiming you. And so, yeah, it's not merely Jason Robertson and Matt Doomba. It is also, in case you're wondering, and I hope you know Hailee Steinfeld.
Isabella
Yeah, that's. That's at the Haley.
Katie Nolan
I knew. I knew that. Did you know that? I feel like this kn. Just effedo. I think this list in general could help Isabella. We're trying to give her.
Pablo Torre
Yes. By the way, great to be welcomed into your. Your building here.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, we're happy to have you.
Pablo Torre
Bye. Bye. Isabella, specifically.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, she's the best, and most of this podcast is trying to get her. I actually was thinking about this last night. I feel weird saying Isabella isn't a sports fan. It's kind of like a thing we've been saying. It doesn't feel true anymore because she loves the Knicks so much that I worry.
Pablo Torre
Were you that. Were you wearing the Spider man mask? Isabella, was that you?
Isabella
Yeah, that was actually me on that lamppost. Yeah, for sure.
Katie Nolan
She climbed up on the big screen. She has upper body strength like you read about, as you can see. And so I feel like maybe our. Let's go through some of these other current Filipino athletes to maybe get her into, you know, give her an entry point. So maybe she's a Dallas Stars fan, because we've got two Filipinos.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
On the stars.
Pablo Torre
Yeah. I mean, Jason Robertson has been mostly, I guess, hurt and not doing a lot.
Katie Nolan
That's okay.
Pablo Torre
But that's. That's neither here nor there. That's irrelevant to my personal interest.
Katie Nolan
Sure.
Pablo Torre
Isabella, who's your. Who do you got? Who's your favorite. Who's on your Mount Rushmore of just, like, Filipino athletes you're aware of? Because I want to. I want to just get a sense of how obvious to be here.
Katie Nolan
Be obvious.
Isabella
I'm trying to think. Honestly, I think the only two are the. The ones that are in tennis, so. Alex Ayala.
Pablo Torre
Oh, yeah.
Isabella
Because tennis is the other sport that I. I follow. What was her name? Layla Fernandez.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, Fernandez.
Isabella
So you got to give me.
Pablo Torre
We got some. We got. We got some. We got some. We got. So Jalen Green with the Rockets is a. I would not call him a beloved player, but he can dunk.
Isabella
Okay.
Pablo Torre
He's very exciting. He was a lottery pick. He is Filipino. Shout out to him.
Katie Nolan
How are you getting this? Are you. Are you on there? 23 and me. How Are you knowing.
Pablo Torre
Are you familiar with X Men?
Katie Nolan
The. The comic? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pablo Torre
Like Professor X puts on like the Cerebro helmet.
Katie Nolan
Yes.
Pablo Torre
And he just sort of like is connected to all the Filipinos.
Katie Nolan
Of course. You just pick up the karaoke microphone and immediately are conn connected to all.
Isabella
Of your brothers faces. And you can immediately tell it's like.
Pablo Torre
It's true. It's true. I like to think that there's a sixth or even seventh sense.
Katie Nolan
What would the sixth then be if this were the seventh?
Pablo Torre
The sixth. The sixth is the ability to detect whether something has pork in it, which is another Filipino trait.
Isabella
Yes.
Pablo Torre
Lechon. We love a suckling pig. We love a suckling pig.
Isabella
Yeah. That person definitely eats with their hands.
Katie Nolan
Like.
Pablo Torre
Uses a spoon instead of a knife. Is another big Filipino thing. I look, but, but to go back in time, like Manny Pacquiao was my way in. Like that's the first guy ever profile for Sports Illustrated. And so I was embedded. I was, I was an embedded Filipino in a very Filipino training camp in which I was like plausibly not a journalist, but got to like be in the entourage in which I ate a literal suckling pig with him.
Katie Nolan
What?
Pablo Torre
Really boxing rules. I mean, boxing is consensual concussions. But it also rules as a journalist.
Katie Nolan
I mean, obvious bad thing, but the rest good thing.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't look up. Don't. Going back to our zesty conversation. Don't look up his Manny Pacquiao's religious or political beliefs.
Katie Nolan
It's bad. Yeah, I heard we can gloss.
Pablo Torre
Not great. He lost. He just lost his Senate reelection or his Senate campaign. He was actually a senator. And then definitively is no longer. Which I am happy, quietly happy about. Yeah, but Manny's still like the gold standard. But gosh, I mean, look to go. I. But I will claim Javale McGee. And you might ask why. Why Javale McGee. Katie, the Philippines is so thirsty for national team basketball talent because something about. So there are two countries in the world where basketball is the most popular sport. Number one and number two, in some order are. Are Lithuania and the Philippines. Average Lithuanian is 6ft tall. Average Filipino is not. Absolutely not. And so the question for the national team is always like, how do we get talent? How do we get size? And so Congress passed legislation to naturalize Javale McGee as a. As a citizen only for him to get injured and not see what this play. You should.
Katie Nolan
You should look him up. Yeah.
Pablo Torre
But so what we then did as a country, we is. Is we made Andre BLATCH. A citizen. So the Washington Wizards front court. I consider them both Filipino fair.
Katie Nolan
That doesn't make sense.
Pablo Torre
I think I got an 8th or a 16th of Nate Robinson.
Katie Nolan
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Katie Nolan
That's fun.
Pablo Torre
I, I, by the way, I hope he, he was in need of a kidney transplant recently. I believe he's gotten that shout out to his sixth sense. Might have been too potent in some regard, now that I think about it, but he's okay. So we can, we can establish this.
Katie Nolan
Good.
Pablo Torre
The starting shortstop of the New York Yankees. Anthony Volpe. Filipino.
Katie Nolan
Filipino. I didn't know that.
Pablo Torre
Crazy.
Isabella
Should I be a Yankees fan?
Katie Nolan
No, Katie, should not.
Pablo Torre
Yes, you should.
Isabella
I don't have a baseball team yet.
Katie Nolan
Isabella. Isabella, you just went to a Mets game. You just went to a Mets game to see Shohei.
Isabella
I don't know. Does the Red Sox have a Filipino shortstop?
Pablo Torre
Nope.
Isabella
Or pitcher?
Katie Nolan
Single. Filipino?
Pablo Torre
I don't think so.
Katie Nolan
Are you sure?
Pablo Torre
I mean, less than I was five years ago, but pretty sure.
Katie Nolan
I'm not gonna throw out guesses because that feels offensive, but I do have a guess.
Pablo Torre
Let's just ask Siri that if my phone were here. You know who else we got? Josh Jacobs, running back, Filipino. He's. He's great. And was responsible for why my team name in my fantasy football league. One of them was Pablo's half Filipinos. I don't know if he was half, but I rounded up. Also, Cam Bynum, the guy who does all the celebrations now for the Colts, used to be with the Vikings safety who's amazing. I did an episode about him on my show. That guy is like. He wears the flag. I mean, literally. Yeah, so we got that. And he's. These guys are all obviously handsome because that's genetically what happens when you're Filipino. And any trace amount, of course, it just. Look, I can go on, but it's just, it's the, the. What was funny about the Philippine Women's World cup team that was assembled, their national team was that they, they. So this is classic just like Filipino American stuff. So they were like, who is out there who play soccer that is even vaguely one drop Filipino? And they went to message boards and they assembled a squad of like, part Filipino mercenaries who I believe are not so mercenary. They're like, actually like me in the ways that I've authentically described to you. And they built this team and they were surprisingly good, but then I think have been disbanded because they weren't a Filipino enough.
Katie Nolan
Oh, come on.
Pablo Torre
I know.
Katie Nolan
Come on.
Pablo Torre
And that's by the way, that's the difference between the Filipino American experience and the Philippines where they're like, wait a minute. So these are just like a bunch of vaguely multi ethnic people that you pulled off the Internet. And I'm like, that is exactly what it is.
Katie Nolan
Right?
Pablo Torre
And that is exactly what I love about it.
Katie Nolan
And why can't they do that? I mean, why isn't that allowed?
Pablo Torre
I believe that if there is ever going to be a Mighty Ducks Filipino remake. Yeah. Our Gordon Bombay should be riding around in a jeepney, a red, like, you know, Jeep taxi, and should be driving around America picking up vaguely Filipino kids off of the street. So.
Katie Nolan
Because. Why not?
Pablo Torre
Because I think that's what the American dream actually is.
Katie Nolan
Seven time super bowl champion Tom Brady is not Filipino. No.
Isabella
You sure?
Katie Nolan
We could check, but I'd say pretty.
Pablo Torre
I'm pretty sure that dude ain't eating pork. Yes. I'm pretty sure he's Anyone who uses the word nightshade.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And bans them.
Katie Nolan
Not allowed in. That's a negative drop.
Pablo Torre
That's on the side.
Katie Nolan
He's opening. Well, he's teaming up with longtime sportscaster Jim Gray to open a quote hall of Excellence. So it's like a kind of like a sports museum at. How do you say, fountain blue. Fontaineble. Do I have to say it like that? Fontainebleau. Yeah. In Las Vegas. The museum will mostly include sports memorabilia, but it will also include several other high profile items. So that's vague.
Pablo Torre
What does that mean?
Katie Nolan
So I saw a list. Here are some of the items that will be on display. A bat used by Jackie Robinson to break baseball's color barrier.
Pablo Torre
Well, hold on.
Katie Nolan
In 1947, it's very funny. It sounds like he used the bat to physically break a barrier, but I don't think that's what they is probably the bat he used.
Pablo Torre
So. So just to clear. Clear this up.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Tom owns the bat or Tom is the proprietor of a Hall of excellence. Is this like a Black Panther scenario where like the movie begins with somebody trying to free the artifacts in Tom Brady's hall of Excellence?
Katie Nolan
And also I'm like, yeah, who are these? Just like rented out, right? Maybe these are Jim Gray's.
Pablo Torre
Jim Cray, by the way. Anyway, go ahead.
Katie Nolan
No, air it out.
Pablo Torre
I just feel like I'm. I'm in awe of the longevity. I'm in awe of the ways in which he is just like popping up. So Mod Rashad used to be this. And Mad Rashad, for those not familiar, was like Michael Jordan's best friend. And he was like the host of Inside Stuff. And he was always like the guy with the most famous athlete parentheses s like going. And Jim Gray is just like Tom. He's like, he was hosting a thing with. Anyway, every famous athlete, it seems, is still like Jim Gray's guy. And I'm like, we are so far removed from Jim Gray's peak that I am just in awe of what that guy's like behind the scenes.
Katie Nolan
Maybe he's a really good friend. Yeah, maybe his friendship is just top notch.
Pablo Torre
He doesn't torture them.
Katie Nolan
He's loyal. He doesn't make them do their podcast for free. Michael Jordan's first pair of air Jordans from 1984 and his first NBA championship shoes from the 1991 NBA Finals. Brady's seven Super bowl rings will be there. And then, oh, the gloves Muhammad Ali wore in a boxing match in 1966. And then Clint Eastwood's Academy Award for unforgiven.
Pablo Torre
What?
Katie Nolan
From 1993.
Pablo Torre
I thought you're gonna say. And that chair, that. Remember that Clint Eastwood speech about the chair?
Katie Nolan
Yeah, wasn't it. It was Obama in the chair.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was. I believe it was an empty chair. It was. It was meant to symbolize subtle analogy to the absentee president.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, I don't.
Pablo Torre
What a. What a. What a weird. What a weird hall of Excellence.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, it's. They said the museum will also include a trophy room where Vince Lombardi trophy will be on display with several other iconic trophies like the Heisman, the MLB commissioner's trophy, the Larry o' Brien which was just right here yesterday or two days ago, and even a claret jug from the British Open. Not only will there be hundreds of historical sports items, the museum will include a self guided tour that will be narrated by Morgan Freeman. Do you think that's AI Morgan Freeman?
Pablo Torre
I mean, it's either Frank Caliendo doing Morgan Freeman. AI Frank Caliendo doing AI Morgan Freeman.
Katie Nolan
It opens June 20th. So if you want to book.
Pablo Torre
Where is it?
Katie Nolan
The Fontainebleau.
Pablo Torre
Oh, of course, of course.
Katie Nolan
How to get Fantoms in Las Vegas. The Fontainebleau.
Pablo Torre
Because when I think of history, I think of Fontainebleau. The Fontainebleau.
Katie Nolan
The hard to get to hotel in Vegas.
Pablo Torre
I think of a line of people waiting to get into a hall of excellence.
Katie Nolan
35 bucks. I believe that's from memory. It's not written here, but I believe it was $35.
Pablo Torre
What? What? What?
Katie Nolan
Why go walk through.
Pablo Torre
What's the business here? It's like, who needs this Money?
Katie Nolan
I don't know. I don't know. But I wondered that when I heard Michael Jordan's coming back to tv.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Who needs this money?
Pablo Torre
I like. So there are many theories. It was funny, that one. It was like, Michael Jordan coming back. And also, he's not at, like, the NBC upfronts, so it's sort of like, okay, so they're not exactly getting bang for what presumes to be the PR buck. And also, Dominique Wilkins just had a statement, I think today or yesterday, where his headline was like, they must have paid him a zillion dollars. Like, why else would he do this?
Katie Nolan
Well, I mean, because they paid him a zillion dollars. I get it. It's a headline. It's Michael Jordan. They're making moves for NBC because they're trying to come back. They're bringing back the old song.
Pablo Torre
I get it. I get the.
Katie Nolan
Using AI to recreate that guy's voice. The guy who does the intro. The old intro.
Pablo Torre
By the way, I'm nostalgic for all that Michael Jordan. I. I am going to at least watch to see what that's like on the front end. Yeah, the. The. I guess to close the loop on the museum and nostalgia and artifacts thing, though, I feel like there needs to be, like, a certification before you can call yourself a museum.
Katie Nolan
Okay, I'm with you. Talk to me.
Pablo Torre
I just feel like, what's that. What's. What's that show where it's like a bunch of people reveal what's inside of, like, the. The Storage Wars.
Katie Nolan
Oh, yeah.
Pablo Torre
So far, if you're not a museum, you're just doing Storage Wars.
Katie Nolan
Okay. You're just a pile of stuff in a room.
Pablo Torre
You're a pile of some guy's Stu stuff. It's like, let's. Let's. Let's roll it up and see what's in there.
Katie Nolan
Did Clint East. Does this suggest that Clint Eastwood sold his Academy Award? Because what's it doing there?
Pablo Torre
I would go to a museum. That's all stuff celebrities had to sell.
Katie Nolan
Right. I. Me too.
Pablo Torre
Out of just, like, financial desperation.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Of the. Like, this guy was important enough to get this thing and then had enough, encountered life enough that this thing is here now.
Pablo Torre
And I want to know what they bought with the proceeds of the sale. Yeah, I want that on the pla.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, it's a good idea, you guys. Some would say even better than this idea. Hall of Excellence. Do you think it's just going to be like the lobby of the fountain blue? Like, they're just Going to be like.
Pablo Torre
I strongly suspect that this is like a velvet rope and a lobby.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Like great artifacts. Some of these are really big, but then you're also like, it's not enough to fill an entire. This almost feels like you could open like a. A sports bar and put these on the wall.
Pablo Torre
Yeah. So going back to the whole, like, Tom Brady part of it, I'm like, is this. Is this sort of like how, you know, there's. There's. It's almost like at the Fountain Blue itself, where it's like this party is hosted by Kim Kardashian.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
You're not really hosting. They're just there.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. And getting paid.
Pablo Torre
And getting paid.
Katie Nolan
Getting paid to party. Not really even with you.
Pablo Torre
Exactly. In fact, they're being paid to be as securely insulated from the normal people as possible.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
It's like an nil deal. Tom Brady's nil Hall of Excellence, slash storage war, you know, container.
Katie Nolan
We won't be going. I don't think we won't be your first patrons. Unless Belichick takes Jordan Hudson there on a date. Unless then you'll be there with bells on.
Pablo Torre
There are some. There are some artifacts that I'd like to see myself in person.
Katie Nolan
Oh, yeah, I bet. Look, I even hesitate to bring this up. The Caitlin Clark discourse. Yeah, the WNBA discourse. The online situation. When it comes to talking about the wnba we've sort of watched over the last year or two that evolve into whatever it is. A lot of people, especially casual fans trying to get into the wnba, see it as overwhelming as off putting. What do you make of this moment for the wnba and how do you just. As a logical person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who absorbs and observes. Observes, observes and interacts with sports. Like how. What do you make of what's up with the WNBA right now?
Pablo Torre
So I think the casual perspective is something that I don't consider enough, but it probably is the most useful one for lots of reasons that are relevant to the WNBA as a concept, which is this is a league that is trying to grow and find new audience. And Caitlin Clark objectively is insanely fun to watch, and that is metrically undeniable. And I completely find her to be the most watchable, compelling. I mean, I have said. I think it was last year where I felt that she was the most compelling single basketball player, period, to watch. I'm like appointment viewing. Caitlin Clark's doing stuff. I would put her on the number one. Like, yes. I would program my remote to switch over to what she's Doing. I'm also somebody who had various things and. And you know, I was, I was hosting a thing at the Time 100 conference last year with A.J. wilson. And I'm like, I also recognize that A.J. wilson is the best player in the league. And I also recognize that this is a sport now for the casuals who are not familiar with it, in which there are interesting inversions in which like a minority out in the world, black women are a majority inside of this sport. And so Linsanity for me was an interesting experiment in along parallel lines where it's like, what' it like when there is a flip flopping of the power dynamic where people who have been waiting for something to come to them inside of a sport feel like they're being skipped over in favor of something that has marketing power. And I'm like, oh, that's an interesting and understandable frustration that we shouldn't deny. And like is quite real. And when you're the best player in the sport, like Asia Wilson is. And I don't think it's close on that level in terms of like resume and just statistics and, and winning at this point, like her record of like just. Just winning titles, I'm like, yeah. I would also feel like I am being, you know, under, under marketed in that regard. The Angel Reese thing, like, it's an interesting. Like again, now is another ingredient in which like people want to make this Bird and magic like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. To me, Angel Reese objectively is not nearly on the level of Caitlyn Clark as a player. She's a really good player. She is arguably an all star. Has been. But in terms of just like, I don't think it's burden magic. I think it's something different. And so there it's. But they were in the same rookie class and they were colleagues and they were peers in college and they were rivals. And so now we're getting to the whole thing of like, what does a rivalry mean? What does it mean to be marketable versus good. Who has the right to say, I feel like you guys are paying way more attention to something that is. Is less worthy of attention than this other thing I care about. So in that regard, all familiar conversations, all very hard to talk about on the Internet because the Internet, I mean, to me it's a story about like social media as much as anything.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Where it's like you need to sort of address every audience to make a point.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
About which is so a narrow thing.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And so I'm like, I don't Even so personally, I love talking about it, but I don't. I hate posting about it.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. I don't post.
Pablo Torre
I don't know. I'm not waiting into that.
Katie Nolan
It's just inviting too much of the. There's too much. You didn't say this. So what you're saying is this. And you're like, I, this is. Aren't you all tired? Aren't you tired?
Pablo Torre
The wnba, which I again, I love going to these games. I go to Liberty games and I find them more fun than Netscapes at this point. And they're really great characters and stories and I love, again, I love the stories. I love. I love tea. I love mess. I love, I love mess. As much as that is also true. I'm also like, man, this league is so online.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
That I do feel like it's probably intimidating for casuals who feel like, wait a minute. So for me to root for the person that I want to root for, I got to make sure that I'm not also like alienating people for whom this now reads as a political choice.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
I'm like, whoa, okay. That's a lot. And so, you know, Caitlin Clark, by the way, being a vector for political argument where it's like, you know, she's out kicked the coverage's favorite player, but also like any normie, also in the way that they love Steph Curry is their favorite player. That's where you just. Caitlyn. The conversation, I think hopefully is shifting away from Caitlyn. Please address the horrible people that co sign you because. Also unfair.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, it's up, you know, because like, you, the. You get into these conversations where people are like, you can't deny her talent. You're like, and I don't want to. You're the ones that are making it mean something else and represent something else in a way that's like, that makes me uncomfortable. I just want to say that she's really good without that other stuff that I don't know. I'm just sick of watching people talk about it because you want. That's what you want. It's like the be careful what you wish for of like, you want everybody talking about the W. And then they do and they talk about it in a way that you're like, well, not like that.
Pablo Torre
Well, and there's that and there's the whole idea of like, there have been people who have been like following the sport and studying it who now feel like rightfully they are being big footed by casual experts.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Who are like, actually here are my takes about this thing that I've cared about for like six months. So that sucks. And I feel for them. But also, as you, as you just said, that's kind of the goal. The goal is to have people unfortunately want in to your party and, and make it annoying because that means that, wow, this has been mainstreamed.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
So that sucks. But yeah, for me, I think the, the real headline for the WNBA is this has gone from a product, from a sport that was sort of like a cause when it got talked about before. Like, you should care about this. They are worthy of your attention to now being an actual business that people want in on for cynical profit, self interest reasons. And that is in the world we live in, that is a sign of health as much as it is a sign of our collective mental health crisis.
Katie Nolan
Yes. It's a certain. It's certainly a growing pain that hopefully they grow out of soon. I don't know, I'm just sick of it. But the reason I bring it up is because Caitlin Clark obviously injured.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Out for, they say two weeks. At least two weeks left quad strain. They announced it on Monday and the reaction has been absurd. But it got me thinking about, you know, one of the things people are saying is they're worried about the way this will affect attendance. You know, a lot of Fever games have been moved to different venues to accommodate the demand for tickets to see Caitlyn.
Pablo Torre
Yeah. They literally need a bigger room.
Katie Nolan
Right. To so. Because so many people want to see her. And it got me thinking again, as we pivot towards like the casual fan and Isabella or anybody that we're trying to get into sports, I think there's this concept of athletes you gotta see in person.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
And I think obviously Caitlin Clark being one of them.
Pablo Torre
Absolutely.
Katie Nolan
I'm curious to know right now for you who the other. Like, while you can, you gotta go see this guy or girl in person.
Pablo Torre
Yeah. I am going to LA this weekend and the Yankees are playing the Dodgers and I need to go see Ohtani.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And I was like, I look, I. I have not yet. But I'm the sort of person who like is. I love when all these people are like, it sounds different coming off his bat. Like. Yeah, I want to hear that. Yeah, I want to hear that. I love it when the best in class athletes nerd out about someone.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
Like, I do want.
Katie Nolan
They are like in awe.
Pablo Torre
Yes.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
When they're like, this guy is. Is. This guy is built different. I want to see that funny example.
Katie Nolan
Because Isabella did Go to a Mets game because they were playing the Dodgers because we had told her how great Shohei was. And I don't think he did anything. Isabella. Did he get a single hit?
Pablo Torre
No, no, that's.
Katie Nolan
See, that's.
Pablo Torre
That's where baseball is. A roulette wheel.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
It's like, sometimes you'll get. You'll have. You'll. You'll eat a hot dog. And that's the highlight. Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Sometimes the ice cream in the helmet sometimes is the highlight.
Pablo Torre
Sometimes. Bucket of fried chicken. Katie and I. Katie watched me eat at a Yankees.
Katie Nolan
Whole bucket.
Pablo Torre
And then I wore fingers. I wore Zubas, and he wore Zubas, I think. So that was that. I lost because the Yankees lost. And so I had to wear pants. Something like that. But lot. So my thing about live sports, in terms of, like, what do you got to see? Who do you got to make an appointment to see?
Katie Nolan
Steph Curry.
Pablo Torre
Steph Curry.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
You know, like, again, there's something to. There's something to wanting to feel not merely their individual sort of like talent, but just what they do to the building. And so the pandemic was my number one, like, reminder of this. Obviously, when we took. We took fans out of buildings and everyone agreed this sucks so much worse that there aren't people here to react to this. Again, like, not to bring it back, except. Yes.
Katie Nolan
Who was the pitcher that loved that there were no fans?
Pablo Torre
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Spencer.
Katie Nolan
Didn't he do an interview where he was like.
Pablo Torre
He was like, people can sit in the upper deck, but we don't want them near the lower bowl. And I'm like, guy, whatever.
Katie Nolan
I just want. There is one exception. And I wanted to. He proves the rule.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
That everybody wants.
Pablo Torre
Again, you might say that the quads alone. I'm like, is Spencer's writer Filipino?
Katie Nolan
Just further something to look into.
Pablo Torre
But. But. But. But also his butt. But the. The thing about fans, it is, gosh, we ran a psychology experiment in which we, like, took out this thing and said, because you're just watching it through a screen, clearly this won't have that much of a difference. Everybody could feel it very palpably. And that says so much about, like, the ineffable human condition. Like, and brings us back to, like, why I demand that you authentically react to my bullshit. It's like, because you can't fake this. You need to have humans reacting in a way that is spontaneous. And so anything that it's really. As much as it is about individual players, this is where it Is like, I made a point to go to Game 6 of the Knicks and the Celtics because the crowd was the story. It wasn't the individuals, it was the crowd wanting to be with the crowd is often, I think, the most electric. As much as, yes, there are appointment viewing people. It's really like, what's the setting and how. And how can we just make sure we are part of it?
Katie Nolan
So you say you don't need to see any athletes in person, you just need people. I mean, I'll say Simone Biles. I think if you can go to a gymnastics event, that'd be pretty cool to see. Just, I think in person you really get the scope of like, she's flipping how many times, how high in the air? That's generation, obviously.
Pablo Torre
The fact that like she basically walks into every meet and is like, based on my degree of difficulty, I am unbeatable.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And I have things named after me.
Katie Nolan
Right. I. I think about it as like, when you see somebody wearing your signature shoe and you're like, oh, they're doing the Biles. Like, that's right. You wouldn't have that if it weren't for me. Which is kind of crazy.
Pablo Torre
I also do think football. I mean, again, football Also consensual concussions. God, those again. What do you get if you're there in person, like on the level? If you could ever get to like field level. It's just so violent.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Just so many giant noises. Yes, it is the noises.
Katie Nolan
It's a lot.
Pablo Torre
It is the ASMR of like a guy shattering his solar plexus.
Katie Nolan
And that's this one.
Pablo Torre
I think that's that one.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Solar plexus. Smarty pants.
Pablo Torre
Love a plexus. Sports media, is there a lunar plexus?
Katie Nolan
Good question. All things we need to know.
Pablo Torre
Look that up. That's KNFO about that.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Later. I'll write it down. Lunar plexus. A punar Lexus. Is there anything there?
Pablo Torre
You mentioned earlier, Punar Lexus is definitely a car that I don't make the joke.
Katie Nolan
I don't know. I don't think we should. I put this off till the end because I know casuals maybe don't care as much about sports media revering itself and memorializing the hard work that it does. But I do think you, you know, as somebody who has been on around the Horn, you have been. And just to give a quick glimpse of what's going on in sports media right now, around the Horn has ended. Their run on ESPN after 23 years. They were launched in 2002. Tony Reali took over for Max Kellerman at host at 2 in 2004. And it's been on as part of Happy hour from 5 to 6pm on ESPN for years. Inside the NBA is done, but not. It's moving to ESPN.
Pablo Torre
They're being reopened in the Fontainebles lobby.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
As a hall of broadcasting.
Katie Nolan
But, like, that's a big thing that's been around for a long time. 21 Sports Emmy Awards, I think we've all lost at some point to Inside the NBA. That's go. Changing in some way. It just feels like sports media, a lot of like, legacy things are gone or going or moving or changing. And you have this podcast where part of what you do is you talk to David Sampson and John Skipper about the business of sports, Sporting class. Right. So I'm just curious to know, like. Like, for a cat keeping a casual fan in mind, I first would like to speak a little to what these shows specifically around the Horn, mean to sports media and what they've meant to sports fans throughout the years, but also what all of this change means for what's coming up for us in sports media.
Pablo Torre
Yeah. So around the Horn, just to use that as a keyhole into the macro picture, like, around the Horn. I did that for 13 years. It was the first.
Katie Nolan
That's crazy to me. I'm gonna throw up.
Pablo Torre
It's unbelievable. Like, I was like. In the sense of just like, the tonnage of it. I'm like, I did that show. 600 crazy.
Katie Nolan
What was your record? Do you know it?
Pablo Torre
I have. You're talking to the lowest points per show score in the history of the show.
Katie Nolan
Good. You got it. Somebody's got to wear the title.
Pablo Torre
I. A record that will never be broken. I dispute. I dispute my.
Katie Nolan
But anyway, you digress.
Pablo Torre
I've been. I've been denied an appeal. It is the first way that America, broadly speaking, ever encountered me and lots of people are friends of ours on the show. And I think that statement alone says so much about how things are changing. Because what America discovers anymore is so deeply. Again, to use the buzzword that I always use with you, fragmented. It is siloed. It is so atomized that there really isn't, like, this notion of America gathers around its living room and turns on sports. And you get these things. You get inside the NBA. You get around the horn, you get pti, you get other stuff. John Skipper on Sporting Class with me always reminds me that ESPN was not merely a very good business during the cable television era. It was the greatest business in the history of media. ESPN made more than the rest of Walt Disney combined. All the parks, movies, all that stuff.
Katie Nolan
All because of fees, Right? The fees that cable had to pay. Cable fees which none of us understood at the time. At all.
Pablo Torre
No. And, and, but by the way. So, like, I will. I will sort of do a bit of just the. My future theory of everything, as well as, like, what I mourn about the past. I mourn that there was a world in which certainly people didn't even care that they were giving money to sports. Because in general, the way it worked was your cable bill had all of these, like, sub fees baked into it. But you never really knew that.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
It was negotiated backstage. And people often, most often threatened to cancel cable if they didn't get their sports, because sports, even then, especially then, was monocultural. And the most important thing that you.
Katie Nolan
Got, television live, it's happening now. You need to watch it.
Pablo Torre
Yes, and that thesis persists today, except in the absence of cable television economics. Because everything now, because the a la cart streaming. And again, everybody listening who's a casual knows this. Like, it's the stuff you pay to subscribe to. It is Netflix and Disney plus and whatever, you know, fill in the black Max, or now it's HBO again. Or Peacock or whatever else. Yeah, or whatever app you pay for. That's premium. Right. It's just like the stuff you're paying on a monthly basis, which is to say that it's all individually chosen subscriptions, which is to say that we're living in a world in which the ways in which there used to be these familiar homes and characters and people, it's over. And it's now just like, what's our set of what. What are the tiles on our television or our phone? What is our algorithm? We are having very different experiences consuming the same things.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And we're not even consuming the same things so much anymore. And sports is like the last bastion of, like, us gathering again, metaphor made real thing under the same roof somewhere, watching sports together. And so my future theory of everything, of course, is we're all only fans.
Katie Nolan
Jesus Christ. I didn't think that's what you were gonna say at all. What do you mean by that, Pablo?
Pablo Torre
I mean, if I hike up my content, my content pant leg and show a little ankle.
Isabella
Put them away.
Pablo Torre
It's like, what do you guys. What do you guys. Can you guys do a slow zoom? Just a slow zoom? If you do that, what would you pay? And so it's like, it's not so much about a scale of like, we need all of America in front of their television. That's impossible.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
There is no making around the horn again, which is why it was so stupid that they canceled it.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Because you had a thing that just had resonance in a broad way, in a broad space way that you can't replicate because of the fragmentation of everything. So that's why, by the way, Hollywood is just rebooting everything. Stuff people already know about, like you, that's the hack. It's like what do they already know about? Because we can never get them together.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
To collectively know something new.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
In this world though, it's not about everybody in America get in front of your television. It's can we get a community that's big enough to sustain our personal standard of quality of life, our standard of living, our ambitions. So it's a lot of smaller and medium things, including, by the way, lots of women's sports. Right. You don't need to outrate the NFL to exist. Which is amazing. A lot of individual creators, I mean people who started on YouTube, this is why they're all creating their own self sustaining businesses. What we lose though is collective point of reference. And that's what when you're talking about these shows, those were from that era. And so now as those shows are changing, going away, being canceled, being sort of like turned into some other thing. The only fans of everything is can you get someone who loves you and your stuff to pay you money directly? Because that is basically the creator economy now. And that's going to be everything. In a world in which scale is, is not even possible in the ways that around the horn and inside the NBA and ESPN certainly enjoyed.
Katie Nolan
So opinion not reporting. You say ESPN getting rid of it is stupid. I agree. What would you guess is why they got rid of it?
Pablo Torre
I. My investigation continues.
Katie Nolan
Oh, okay. So you are reporting.
Pablo Torre
Well, no, I mean I, I, it's just I'm so conflicted as a journalist because it's a show full of journalists who are all wondering like why did this go away? And so my calling it stupid is of course deeply self interested. Of course, full transparency there. But in terms of like how do you replace it?
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
I don't discern there to be a plan that suggests that they should have gotten rid of it. I think that there was probably an underrating of what I just described, which is man, having something that is beloved by lots and lots and lots of people, even if it feels like it's increasingly outmoded. By the Internet economy. I think the solution there should have been how do we evolve it and keep the branding.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Because why would you just discard IP.
Katie Nolan
Hbo, The whole thing. When they got rid of HBO and then they months, years later were like, like, oh, you guys loved that HBO part. Okay. We put that back on. And then you're like, what do you mean it's too late now? Why, Why'd you get rid of it?
Pablo Torre
And I think that was so illustrative of just like the. Oh, we didn't appreciate what, like brand equity or. That's so clinical. Let's just talk about what something that people really respect or even love means.
Katie Nolan
Like Nico Harrison. Like, you just didn't even think of the fact that, like, oh, I, I underestimated how much this meant to you before I shipped it out.
Pablo Torre
You're telling me that people will be mad if you get rid of the thing that they have come to. Really? Like, yeah. This is, this is an important.
Katie Nolan
I don't think they teach that in revelation school. I really don't. I think they should start teaching that in business school. I don't. I know it's not one of those complex phrases and concepts, but I do think it needs to be reminded. It feels like people don't. Don't know that part anymore.
Pablo Torre
I, I think that as much as we are making fun of various things, I, I think there's. There's a real truth in that. People, really. Again, I, I think about taking fans out of buildings again, for reasons that I understand with the pandemic, but I think about just like, oh, it turns out the way things were. It was not merely a product of, like, inefficient bad decision making accumulating over time. Although certainly there are lots of things we should change about sports in life and business.
Katie Nolan
Sure.
Pablo Torre
But sometimes it was that way because it was revealed to be something like the best solution to a complicated problem. And I think about that when it comes to. Man, it would suck if we lost sold out arenas. I think about that when it comes to cable television. Do you? I don't know. Let me ask you, ask you guys this, Isabella as well, if I, if I may, Is anyone happier with the way things are now?
Katie Nolan
No, no, no, no. I've been waiting for somebody to come along, reinvent cable tv to go, like, look, what if we took all these people, we negotiate their price with them, and then what we present to you is one flat fee with access to all of it. I'd love that. That'd be nice to Me, It's. I still also. I still have cable.
Pablo Torre
So I have. I have YouTube TV now.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
Which is, again, my halfway measure, my half measure on it. But, yeah, like, the whole thing of, like. And this is the other. Learning about human nature, relearning things that were obvious from the beginning. People actually don't want unlimited choice.
Katie Nolan
Right. It's too much. It's paralyzing.
Pablo Torre
It's paralyzing.
Katie Nolan
I've wasted so much time trying to figure out what I'm going to watch that now I'm like, well, I have less time to watch it because I.
Pablo Torre
Scrolled through eight apps and it's more expensive. And the thing that one is, of course, like. Like tech, Silicon Valley, Netflix in particular. But it's. It's just there are problems with cable. I get it. Everyone made jokes about the cable guy and. And trying to cancel cable. But we are the pendulum. I guess my major theory, even more than we are all only fans and pay me for pictures of my calves, my calves, is everything is a pendulum, and it's just swinging and we forget where we swung from. Then we're like, oh, let's swing back.
Katie Nolan
And then we swing too far back.
Pablo Torre
And that is.
Katie Nolan
And it's just constantly going right by the answer, which would be something in the middle.
Pablo Torre
Yes.
Katie Nolan
That wouldn't be as exploitable by the powers that be, I guess.
Pablo Torre
But luckily, we can go to the Fontainebleau Hotel and see Jackie Robinson's back.
Katie Nolan
We can put on Muhammad Ali's gloves and punch ourselves in the dick. All right, Pablo, that's an hour, so I can't keep you much longer. Thank you for coming here and for chatting with me in my house.
Pablo Torre
House. It's real. It's. It's. It's. It's an honor to cross my legs and spin in this very athleisure.
Katie Nolan
This is Pablo's athleisure.
Pablo Torre
Look, you called them.
Katie Nolan
You.
Pablo Torre
You called them sensible. Sensible separates. And I just have to acknowledge if Uniqlo wants to sponsor me.
Katie Nolan
Is that what it is?
Pablo Torre
All I'm doing is buying.
Katie Nolan
And that's how you say that.
Pablo Torre
Uniclop. So if, for a fee, I will pronounce it I think how you probably intended it.
Katie Nolan
Which is what?
Pablo Torre
Uniqlo.
Katie Nolan
I think it's. I don't. Isabella, do you know anything about this?
Isabella
I just say. I say Uniqlo.
Katie Nolan
Okay. I don't say it out loud. I refuse. This was actually my first time.
Pablo Torre
Like mores.
Katie Nolan
I won't be saying that out loud. Tell the people where they can find you Pablo. OnlyFans.com.
Pablo Torre
There's a secret discord in which I leak pics of my legs.
Katie Nolan
Great.
Pablo Torre
Pablo Torre finds out. Katie Nolan is just. I cannot. I cannot over. What's the word I want to say? There are not enough nice things that I can say about what Katie does for Pablo Torre finds out. If you like Katie, just know that I am torturing her psychologically over on my channel.
Katie Nolan
And you can find that.
Pablo Torre
And you can find that for free at. Pablo Torre finds out. It's a podcast and a YouTube channel and also a substack because I am trying to get these ankles to all platforms.
Katie Nolan
You're sub stacking.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I got a substack Pablo show.
Katie Nolan
I read a newsletter.
Pablo Torre
I read a newsletter.
Katie Nolan
Go check it out. Pablo is, you know, my, one of my dearest friends. So it's. I, I, Anything I say, you obviously have to take with a grain of salt. But what you're doing with your podcast is so, it is so wide reaching, it's so broad and it's so many different things, which is what they always drill into our heads. You can't do. Exactly. And you're doing it. And I love that. Your ability to go from a story where you introduce us to. Because most people don't know and expose the cheating in the fencing world, and then you'll go to a story about a guy on death row and what fantasy football means to him, and then you'll go to something stupid with me. Your ability to do all of these things is, is, I would say, unmatched, man.
Pablo Torre
I. Look, it's, it's, it's something I'm proud of to the degree that I refer to it unironically often as like my second child.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. And so Violet, I call it your first.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, sorry, Violet.
Katie Nolan
Tough.
Pablo Torre
It is though, I think. And I, thinking about the casual perspective today with you has been a reminder that, like, what I actually enjoy as well, part of our kinship here is that, like, we're trying to, to communicate with people for whom sports, language, history, these arcane details, they might otherwise be a barrier for entry. Like, I firmly believe that the reason sports are good is because they get us to stuff that all of us care about.
Katie Nolan
Right.
Pablo Torre
And that's why all of even fencing. I'm like, I don't actually love fencing, but I love what this story is. And again, I won't belabor what it is, but, like, you don't need to care about sports to enjoy anything I do, I think is sort of what I'm proudest of as much as it is also a show in which you can conceivably learn about anything. It's just that it's for. It's for people that don't actually love sports to, to. To hang out and. And watch again. Katie Nolan being tortured by one of her closest friends.
Katie Nolan
I mean repeatedly, over and over. And from what I understand, a third time is in the way works. Yeah, yeah, Pablo, thanks for being here. What's your. What are you on? Are you on socials? Are you doing stuff?
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I'm on. I'm. I'm on Pablo Tor on Twitter and Pablo show on Blue sky because I am an ally.
Katie Nolan
Nice.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Fist in the air.
Pablo Torre
I'm not going to do that. That's going to be a bad clip.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, I was going to clip it. So, yeah, cut out me doing out Kat, put him. Attach my fist to him and put that out on the Internet.
Pablo Torre
Then blur my face.
Katie Nolan
All right, everybody, that's it. That's it for another week of Casuals in the books. Big thanks to Pablo Tori for being here. Be sure to check him out on all the places that he just told you to check him out. You can check us out email Wise Casuals with katien@gmail.com. our voicemail is 646-801-0043. On IG and tick tock, we are at Casuals, the podcast. Hopefully we'll see a bunch of you on Saturday at our live podcast taping. And if not, I'm sure we'll do those again in the future. This was just us trying it. This is the maiden voyage. We're just giving it a shot. So we'll see how it goes. Might be one of those events you can always say you were at when whatever the hell goes down goes down. We'll see you guys then. The rest of you, we will see you on Tuesday. We love you. We mean it. Bye.
Pablo Torre
Bye.
Katie Nolan
Bye.
Casuals with Katie Nolan: NBA/NHL Playoffs, Around the Horn, and the Filipino Mighty Ducks | Featuring Pablo Torre
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Host: Katie Nolan
Guest: Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre Finds Out
Platform: SiriusXM
The episode kicks off with Katie Nolan sharing a remarkable story about Olivia Jaquith, a local news anchor in Albany who continued her three-hour morning newscast while actively in labor.
[00:12] Pablo Torre: "What?"
[00:20] Katie Nolan: "Olivia's water has broke. She is anchoring the news now in active labor."
Isabella and Katie discuss Olivia's dedication, highlighting her willingness to remain on-air despite the circumstances.
[00:47] Katie Nolan: "She'd rather pass the time at her job than nervously waiting around at a hospital."
The segment concludes with a lighthearted introduction of a new segment, "Woman of the Week," celebrating Olivia's extraordinary commitment.
Katie Nolan introduces her esteemed guest, Pablo Torre, known for his investigative journalism on Pablo Torre Finds Out.
[05:08] Pablo Torre: "It's only overdue, let alone justice."
[05:27] Pablo Torre: "Every day I am talking to somebody who is telling me something that I didn't know before." [07:43]
Pablo expresses his ongoing commitment to uncovering the truth, particularly delving into the controversial relationship between Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson. The discussion hints at deeper investigations without revealing specifics.
Katie shifts the conversation to the current NBA playoffs, celebrating the Thunder's victory over the Timberwolves with a historic trip to the Finals.
[10:14] Dollaredly: "Shorthand frustration comes in full force." [10:50]
Pablo analyzes the Thunder's success as a modern NBA exemplar, praising their strategic exploitation of league rules and efficient drafting.
[12:50] Pablo Torre: "This is a team that has exploited every plausible rule and inefficiency." [12:50]
The discussion transitions to Pablo’s deep-rooted passion for the New York Knicks, juxtaposed with his criticism of Jim Dolan's management.
[13:35] Pablo Torre: "My Knicks fandom is like my Catholicism." [13:35]
Katie and Pablo reminisce about memorable Knicks moments, including the Jeremy Lin era and recent celebrations following Game 6 against the Celtics.
Katie vents her frustration with the Florida Panthers, emphasizing her disdain for their recent success and the bloated fan base.
[20:14] Pablo Torre: "The starting shortstop of the New York Yankees. Anthony Volpe. Filipino." [32:42]
The conversation humorously touches on the antics of Panthers fans and the team's recent performance, highlighting the blend of genuine talent and aggravating fandom.
Pablo takes a passionate dive into the representation of Filipino athletes across various sports, discussing his extensive dossier on Filipino and Filipino-American sports figures.
[26:37] Pablo Torre: "Jason Robertson has been mostly hurt and not doing a lot." [26:06]
The segment celebrates athletes like Jalen Green and Matthew Kachuk, while also critiquing the authenticity and representation within national teams.
[35:03] Katie Nolan: "Why isn't that allowed?" [35:30] Pablo Torre: "That's what the American dream actually is." [35:34]
Katie and Pablo dissect the current state of the WNBA, focusing on superstar Caitlin Clark's impact and the league's struggle to attract and maintain casual fans amidst intense online scrutiny and political undertones.
[43:28] Pablo Torre: "Caitlin Clark objectively is insanely fun to watch." [46:43]
They explore the balance between marketing power and genuine athletic prowess, expressing concerns over how online dynamics affect the league's perception and growth.
[48:14] Katie Nolan: "I just want to say that she's really good without that other stuff." [48:46] Pablo Torre: "The WNBA has gone from a cause to an actual business." [48:56]
A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the discussion about ESPN canceling Around the Horn after 23 years, with Pablo lamenting the fragmentation of sports media and the loss of collective viewing experiences.
[56:56] Pablo Torre: "We are the pendulum... swinging and we forget where we swung from." [61:30]
Katie and Pablo debate the implications of this shift, emphasizing the importance of shared references and communal engagement in sports fandom.
[63:44] Katie Nolan: "What would you guess is why they got rid of it?" [64:06] Pablo Torre: "There was probably an underrating of brand equity."
As the episode wraps up, Katie and Pablo reflect on the evolving landscape of sports media, the rise of the creator economy, and the enduring importance of authentic fan experiences.
[71:24] Pablo Torre: "We're trying to communicate with people for whom sports might otherwise be a barrier for entry." [71:56]
They encourage listeners to engage with live events and support diverse sports narratives, underscoring the podcast's mission to make sports accessible and enjoyable for all.
[69:50] Pablo Torre: "Katie Nolan being tortured by one of her closest friends." [73:15]
Katie concludes by inviting listeners to join upcoming live recordings and follow their social media channels for more engaging content.
Olivia Jaquith’s Determination: "I'm happy to be here and I'll stay on the desk for as long as I possibly can, but if I disappear, that's what's going on." [00:47]
Pablo on Journalism: "Every day I am talking to somebody who is telling me something that I didn't know before." [07:43]
Thunder’s Modern Strategy: "This is a team that has exploited every plausible rule and inefficiency." [12:50]
Pablo on Knicks Fandom: "My Knicks fandom is like my Catholicism." [13:35]
Filipino Representation: "The American dream actually is." [35:34]
WNBA Growth Challenges: "Caitlin Clark objectively is insanely fun to watch." [43:28]
Impact of Sports Media Fragmentation: "We are the pendulum... swinging and we forget where we swung from." [61:30]
This episode of Casuals with Katie Nolan offers a rich tapestry of discussions ranging from heroic news anchors and the intricacies of sports fandom to the representation of Filipino athletes and the shifting paradigms of sports media. With insightful contributions from Pablo Torre, listeners gain a nuanced perspective on both the joys and frustrations of being a modern sports fan. Whether you're deeply entrenched in the sports world or just dipping your toes in, this episode provides valuable insights and engaging conversations to enhance your fan experience.
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Note: All timestamps correspond to the moments within the provided transcript for reference.