10-08-25 - Having Bret Guess What The WNBA Finals Ratings Are And How Much Beef Is Consumed Worldwide Each Year

Summary

Podcast Summary: Holmberg's Morning Sickness - Arizona

Episode: 10-08-25 - Having Bret Guess What The WNBA Finals Ratings Are And How Much Beef Is Consumed Worldwide Each Year
Date: October 8, 2025
Hosts: John Holmberg, Brady Bogen, Bret Vesely, Dick Toledo, Byron

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Overview

This lively episode centers on the crew’s trademark banter about pop culture, sports, and society, with focus points on the WNBA Finals' television ratings and the staggering amount of beef consumed worldwide each year. Interwoven are their characteristic comedic observations about intelligence, beauty, gender, and environmental issues, all laced with irreverent wit and friendly jabs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Beauty vs. Intelligence: Listener Stories

• A listener, Devin, is congratulated on marrying a "smoke show" (exceptionally attractive woman), but the crew discusses how beauty sometimes overshadows a lack of knowledge ("Is The Martian based on a true story?").
  • John jokes, “I have proof... this is a moment where Brett is going to say broads when the story's over.” (02:07)
  • They riff on the idea that “the hotter you are, the dumber you can get away with being,” citing another anecdote about a woman asking who won the Civil War.
    • John: “You have to be so hot to have that explained to you.” (04:19)
    • Byron: “Like, if Margot Robbie said, I’d be like, oh, let me explain.” (04:33)

2. The WNBA Finals: Popularity and Public Perception

• The crew discusses the Phoenix Mercury’s WNBA Finals, poking fun at the league’s inability to draw significant attention compared to other sports.
  • John notes the best-ever WNBA Finals viewership was 1.9 million, but recent games dropped to under 400,000. (07:23–07:59)
    • Byron guessed, “Let’s go 200,000,” leading John to retort, “Brett, we have more than that.” (07:27)
  • They reflect on how WNBA Finals moved to a seven-game format and joke, “Now they’re trying to make them not care seven times.” (08:11)
• Byron brings humor to ticket prices: “$6,382 for courtside seats.” (11:54), with the crew incredulous at the cost.
  • John: “No one can believe someone’s trying to get six grand for tickets. Front row, you get hit by a dildo. I don’t want to sit in the front row.” (13:10)

3. Pride Parade Banter & Weather

• The idea is floated to combine the Mercury victory parade with the Pride Parade since both need attendees, and October’s better weather draws out participation.
  • John: “It’s only pride by convenience with weather concerns. You know how expensive those feather boas are?” (06:04)
  • Jokes ensue about rain impacting parades: “Nobody wants to parade in the dirt and mud.” (06:30)

4. Massive Global Beef Consumption & Environmental Impact

• John brings up a statistic claiming 350 million tons of meat consumed globally every year, sparking awe and confusion over the math.
  • John: “That’s billions of pounds of meat... If you were to take all the farms for meat, it would cover Alaska or Africa.” (09:38)
  • They calculate: 350 million tons x 2,000 lbs/ton = 700 billion pounds of meat. (10:37)
    • Brady: “Now take out Brady’s portion and then find out.” (11:19)
    • John jokes about Brady’s diet change impacting the beef industry: “Brady’s not allowed to eat what he used to eat because of this kidney problem. That was like, when my friend Kevin died... core’s stock dropped.” (11:23–11:49)
  • John satirically suggests to listeners:“Sit at a stoplight, put your car in park, and rev the engine a lot. Just gas it for no reason.” (10:26)

5. Ticket Price Ridiculousness

• They review jaw-dropping ticket prices for WNBA games, mocking the market and suggesting pooling $150 for a luxury suite.
  • Byron: “These tickets are in high demand and viewed by 198 people in the past hour. That's what it says. Act fast.” (12:48)
  • John: “They're looking at them because... Can you believe this? Come here, look at this... Front row, you get hit by a dildo.” (12:54–13:10)

6. WNBA Scheduling

• The group pokes at the league's scheduling, questioning why players need multiple days to recover between short games:
  • Brady: “It took them three days to travel and recover from Las Vegas to Phoenix?” (13:17)
  • John: “One travel day, one rest day, and now it’s game day. And they’re short 40-minute games.” (13:27)

7. Recurring Segments & Rock Wars Tease

• The episode wraps up with a tease for their usual "Rock Wars" competition—a recurring musical debate segment.
  • John: “Let’s be honest, it [Rock Wars] almost always is mano a mano.” (14:07)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On WNBA ratings:
  • John: “Let me ask you this... What do you think the highest rated WNBA game championship game has ever been?” (07:10)
  • Byron: “Let’s go 200,000.” (07:23)
  • John: “Oh my God. What? Brett, we have more than that... 1.9 million people tuned in. Those are skewed... That was an estimate.” (07:27–07:42)
• On meat consumption & earth’s future:
  • John: “That’s billions of pounds of meat. If you were to take all the farms for meat, it would cover Alaska or Africa... That’s why our planet’s in trouble, not your SUV.” (09:38–10:06)
  • John, satirizing environmental fatalism: “Sit at a stoplight, put your car in park, and rev the engine a lot. Just gas it for no reason.” (10:26)
• On Pride Parade logistics and attendee priorities:
  • John: “Again, gays only are prideful marching when the weather is convenient... You know how expensive those feather boas are?” (06:04–06:30)
• On the Mercury game and ticket prices:
  • Byron: “$6,382 for courtside seats.” (11:54)
  • John: “No one can believe someone’s trying to get six grand for tickets. Front row, you get hit by a dildo.” (13:10)
• Beauty vs. Intelligence:
  • John: “You have to be so hot to have that explained to you.” (04:19)
  • Byron: “Like, if Margot Robbie said...” (04:33)
• On WNBA scheduling:
  • Brady: “It took them three days to travel and recover...?” (13:17)

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Noteworthy Segments & Timestamps

• Listener Email/Beauty & Intelligence Banter: 02:07–04:33
• WNBA Finals Ratings & Public Perception: 07:10–08:11
• Global Meat Consumption Discussion: 09:19–11:23
• WNBA Ticket Price Satire: 11:54–13:10
• WNBA Finals Scheduling Jokes: 13:17–13:27
• "Rock Wars" Segment Tease: 14:07–14:28

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Summary

The episode is a raucous and quick-witted mix of sports commentary, offbeat social critique, and playful teasing between radio hosts. Whether skewering the WNBA's struggle for attention, marveling at human carnivory, or joking about beauty letting people off the intellectual hook, Holmberg and crew keep the pace brisk and the laughs rolling. Listeners come away amused, informed, and maybe, just maybe, a bit more skeptical of $6,000 basketball tickets and the “real price” of our filet mignon habits.

Transcript

[Byron]

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[John]

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[John]

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[John]

You've been deceived by an agent of Satan himself. He's evil. Sitting right here.

[Byron]

Come on.

[John]

No, no, he's not. He's not evil. He's just a bit rude. I guess the computer didn't want to hear the end of that song. All right then. What do we do next. Computer AI has taken over everything.

[Byron]

Computer's not a Metallica fan apparently.

[John]

That's enough. I've heard this song before. Next. What else you got, Homeberg? We're wrapping her up early today. Signed computer.

[Byron]

Computer turns Whatever it wants. Yeah, there you go.

[John]

Whatever it wants. The computer wants to play Nirvana. It's come as you are. I'm not going to fight it. This thing's scaring the hell out of me. It's 98 KUPD. God knows what's next. Morning sickness. 98 KUPD. Holmberg's morning sickness. Hopefully he's been appeased.

[Byron]

All right. Apparently likes Nirvana.

[John]

Yeah, so far he doesn't care for Metallica and he erased the rest of the day. So Toledo's got a long day ahead of him, and I'm not. I'm going to fall league baseball today. Screw this. I got an email from Devin and congratulate. Let's do a quick congratulations, Brett. For Devin, our listener who has clearly married a really hot woman. He married her Saturday, and evidently he married, like, an insanely pretty woman. And I have proof of that through this says, this is a moment where Brett is going to say broads when the story's over. I was watching the Martian starring Matt Damon with my wife. I married her Saturday in Vegas. Yes, a shotgun wedding. So she's hot now, but she's not going to be soon because it's. She's married or pregnant. Anyways, as we're watching the Martian, she turns to me and says, is this based on a true story? Oh, my God, I'm the most sarcastic asshole I know. And the fact that I bit my tongue and explained to her, no, it's just a movie, but the science is sound means I deserve an Oscar. And yes, John, you're right. She is incredibly hot. Congratulations, Devin. You married a hot one. Smoke show. But you did something by you put a baby in her. So hopefully she's an ambitious hot one.

[Brady]

Because.

[John]

Otherwise this is gonna be a struggle. It's gonna be everything you don't remember. The Martian is not based on a true story. Sorry. Sorry to break it to you ladies.

[Byron]

That's up there with. With Chuck's girl.

[John]

With who won. Who won? Who won the war? Watching Gone with the Wind before I keep going. Who wins this war? Which war is the Civil War? Who wins the West? He was gonna marry her. Oh. Till that. And then he said she was too dumb to marry. Like that just lived with him.

[Byron]

And was she a smoke show?

[John]

She was pretty good.

[Byron]

Okay.

[John]

But he was right. Another tick up on the scale of 1 to 10 from 8 to 9. Right? You'd have tolerated that. Oh, okay. All right. Just shy. You have to be a nut. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to be a 9.4 or a 10 to ask who won the Civil War? And not have anybody just leave the room. You know how hot you have to be to say who won the Civil War? And have people go, oh, I'll help you with that. Like, you have to be so hot to have that explained to you.

[Byron]

Like, if Margot Robbie said, I'd be like, oh, let me explain.

[John]

She's Australia.

[Byron]

Yeah.

[John]

So she's hot. You know what? I understand your own American history, but if American Margot Robbie said, who won the Civil War?

[Byron]

Still put up with. I still explain it to you.

[John]

It's so pretty that you probably shouldn't even need to know this. It's such an ugly story. The north one, it was close though. I don't know what side you're on, so I don't. I don't want to piss you off. And then somebody else text and said when's the next WNBA finals game? Nobody even knows. Merc Mania's it's here tonight. Merc Mania is back in town. And I had to be reminded yesterday that I almost gave away half a million dollars. We were dabbling with my game of you can't answer this simple question which was who's the coach of the Mercury? Random phone call out into the ether and thank Christ that woman who didn't know answered.

[Byron]

You going to pregame party?

[John]

Going to the pregame party. Bert, it's pregame party tonight. Probably a Title 9, I'm guessing is there whatever. And somebody else brought up a good idea since the gays weren't proud enough to march in June when it's gay pride month and they're going to muck our streets up here in October because it's only pride by convenience with weather concerns. So they're going to pride up our weekends if the mercury win or lose. You have a parade for the Mercury. You combo that up with a pride parade. The Mercury will be happy because it looks like people showed up for them. The gays will be happy that they got their pride parade in good weather. And it's all perfect. By the way gays weather reports not favorable for your your delayed. You know it's supposed to pour this supposed to rain this weekend. You can't. Again, gays only are prideful marching when the weather is convenient. You know how expensive those feather boas are? You know how many to have those dry cleaned. And I know they have them dry cleaned when they're done with them because they have to. But you can't have a bunch of downtrodden moistened by the weather. Gays having pride. That's nobody wants to parade in the dirt and mud. WNBA finals by the way. Highest ratings they've ever had since the very first one back in 1997, which was a one game finals in 1997. They went too many. Let me ask you this. What do you think? Let's keep in mind the super bowl is about, I don't know, runs in like 100 millions for viewership. Basketball last year had a terrible finals and they were running 10, 11 million per night. Baseball's the same. Not real great. Hockey had good numbers, but they're always lower. But their good numbers run at 7 or 8. Like really good for a final. Skip, what do you think the highest rated WNBA game championship game has ever been?

[Byron]

It was broken to prove I don't hate broads. Let's go 200,000.

[John]

Oh, my God. What? Brett, we have more than that. All right. I know 1.9 million people tuned in. Those are skewed. That's across. That's not just here locally fake news. That's the world fake news.

[Byron]

They'll be outside of the Americas watching wnb.

[John]

I agree with you. That was an estimate, so. And then it dropped off on Sunday to under 400,000 for the whole. Peaked at like 600 because it's on a Sunday afternoon. And I think we have something better to do. Yeah, I mean, just a regular season.

[Byron]

My shoes would be better than watching that.

[John]

Well, tonight it's in if you want to go. Tickets still available.

[Byron]

I'll meet you there. Oh, we should check those ticket prices again.

[John]

Oh, yeah. See what those are going for. And the tattoo on the top of my head still holds mercury. If you win a championship, I will tattoo the mercury logo on my head. And by the way, this is the very first year they're doing a seven game finals. Normally it's five. I learned. I learned that two games ago and it made me a little nervous that they had to go four out of five. The seventh. Yeah, I thought. Yeah, used to be five because nobody cared five times. Now they're trying to make them not care. Seven times. No way. It goes seven days. Anyway, what are you going to do? So Mercury tonight. Brett, I also want to make another guess. I saw a farmer, a scientist on TV talking about how everybody's focused on the wrong things with global warming and global climate change and all this. That how we're eating the earth up. He says like 45% of all of global issues, weather, forests, ozone, the whatever the. Is due to meat consumption because cows and farms and things like that, and they do corn ethanol. All bad. How many pounds of meat do you think the world eats in a year?

[Byron]

I can't even guess.

[John]

I mean, I'll say this. How many tons? This will knock you out. Just take a hundred. A hundred tons?

[Byron]

Yeah.

[John]

That's 100 tons is what it's 2000.

[Byron]

Yeah. I'm in. Brady, I'm not in math. This is one math class.

[John]

It's only £20,000. I think Brady eats that. 350 million tons. Of meat annually. I can't. I don't even know what the math is.

[Byron]

Yeah, I don't either.

[John]

It's like, that's billions of pounds of meat. They said that if you were to take all the farms for. For meat, okay, it would cover, alas or Africa. So when you consider that that's all the farming and the cows and the meat then and the poop and the gas used in the water for growing stuff and all that, they're like, well, that's why our planet's in trouble, not your suv. And our planet's not in that. But. So that's my message to all of you today. Sit at a stoplight, put your car in park, and rev the engine a lot. Just gas it for no reason and.

[Byron]

Run off that stupid thing that turns a car. Yeah.

[John]

Also just run it down to almost empty and just bury it.

[Brady]

Because that's the math, right? 700 billion pounds of meat.

[John]

350 million. Yeah, that's right. 700 million pounds.

[Brady]

Billion pounds.

[John]

700 job. That can't be right. Is that right?

[Brady]

Thousand pounds.

[John]

2,000 times billion pounds of. Times 350 million annually.

[Brady]

Yeah. Million tons.

[John]

That's insane. Yeah. I don't know if that's right or not because it's his numbers that my brain won't allow, but that's the numbers you gave.

[Brady]

So times 2000 is 700 billion ton or pounds.

[John]

Is that right? I'll take your word for it. How about that? So they said that all that takes up Africa and no one will talk about it because you know what would mean. We already aren't giving up our cars. We would have to stop eating meat the way we eat it, and we're not doing that. So we don't love the earth more than we love a nice filet.

[Brady]

I know you just talked about it, John, but now take out Brady's portion and then find out.

[John]

Okay, then it cuts down to £3 billion from 700. And Brady is good at. Look, the meat industry is about to take a punch. Brady's not allowed to eat what he used to eat because of this kidney problem. That was like, when my friend Kevin died. I noticed immediately that core's stock dropped, like, the next day. Like, there was a drop off in core sales that was massive when my friend Kevin died. Anyway, WNBA finals tonight.

[Byron]

There you go.

[John]

They don't eat meat there, so be more like the mercury. How much are the tickets?

[Byron]

$6,382 for courtside seats.

[John]

Those were nine grand before.

[Brady]

So they went up.

[John]

No, they Were down.

[Brett]

They went down.

[Brady]

I thought you said there were five grand on Monday.

[John]

Well, those. The five grand were the ones behind.

[Byron]

That includes fees, though.

[John]

Oh, that's nice. They've actually docked in the fees. So if you've got $12,700 to throw around, you can sit courtside at the worst basketball game of. I'm saying it now. Go aces. Because if it goes 2:1, I start getting nervous about that tattoo again.

[Byron]

We need to get your guy on the line and get a suite down there. We'll each kick in 10 bucks.

[John]

Yeah, if kick in 10 bucks are 15 guys and $150, that's pretty good. Yeah. If they got an open suite.

[Byron]

Yeah.

[John]

Why would they turn a blind eye to our 150 offer? They'll give you 150 for 150,000. No, it's girls basketball. $150American, most of it.

[Byron]

These tickets are in high demand and viewed by 198 people in the past hour. That's what it says. Act fast.

[John]

They're looking at them because they're. Can you believe this? Come here, look at this. Show it. And then that guy goes to his computer and shows, look at this. They're trying to give six grand. Yeah. That's why it's getting viewed so much. No one can believe someone's trying to get six grand for tickets. Front row, you get hit by a dildo. I don't want to sit in the front row. That's a dangerous place at a Mercury game.

[Brady]

John, wait a minute. Did you say those girls played Sunday? It took them three days to travel and recover from Las Vegas to Phoenix to play another game.

[John]

Yep. And I don't know if they're smart enough to say, well, we can't play Monday because that's Monday Night Football. But they didn't care about Sunday football because they played right in the middle of that. Nobody watched it. And then they took Tuesday off just because Tuesdays are for Postinos, I don't know. And then Wednesday they're playing again. So, yeah, it took them. It took them two days, in fairness. One travel day, one rest day, and now it's game day and they're playing tonight and they're short 40 minute games. So go aces. That's how I look at it. Anyway, that's tonight. Keep your eyes on it. I know you're not going to watch, but the score in the end means something to me. So I got to keep my eyes on that. We got a Rock wars coming up in just a little bit and it's mano a mano. Let's be honest, it almost always is.

[Byron]

Bringing Larry. Oh, no. He's on his adventure.

[John]

We don't need a third. Every time we have a third, it's the Fifth Dimension. So up, up and away. Wasn't going to win anyway today. Vegetable by the Beach Boys never had a chance. But we do like him for his fodder. But he's not here today, so we'll go man on man. Rock Horse coming up in just a little bit. It's 98.

[Brett]

It's not weird.

[Brady]

It's pretty cool, actually.

[John]

No membership fee. I have heard enough of.